It's the teacher that needs to be dismissed. Scientists don't date rocks by the fossils they contain.

<Together with <stratigraphic principles>, radiometric dating methods are used in geochronology to establish the geological time scale.>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strati...

<The first practical large-scale application of stratigraphy was by William Smith in the 1790s and early 19th century. Smith, known as the "father of English geology," created the first geologic map of England and first recognized the significance of strata or rock layering and the importance of <fossil markers> for correlating strata. >

Yes, 200 years ago they didn't know about radioactive decay, so they made do with what they could. Now they use radiometrics. Looking at rock strata is useful, because it's cheap and you can do it in the field, but if there's any conflict between reading the strata and radiometric dating they go with the latter.

Want to learn more about the process? The "Together with...." sentence from wiki you quoted is footnoted to this page which has all sorts of great information: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dat...

For instance:
<The example used here contrasts sharply with the way conventional scientific dating methods are characterized by some critics (for example, refer to discussion in "Common Creationist Criticisms of Mainstream Dating Methods" in the Age of the Earth FAQ and Isochron Dating FAQ).

A common form of criticism is to cite geologically complicated situations where the application of radiometric dating is very challenging. These are often characterised as the norm, rather than the exception. I thought it would be useful to present an example where the geology is simple, and unsurprisingly, the method does work well, to show the quality of data that would have to be invalidated before a major revision of the geologic time scale could be accepted by conventional scientists. <<<Geochronologists do not claim that radiometric dating is foolproof (no scientific method is)>>>, but it does work reliably for most samples. <<<It is these highly consistent and reliable samples, rather than the tricky ones, that have to be falsified for "young Earth" theories to have any scientific plausibility>>>, not to mention the need to falsify huge amounts of evidence from other techniques.> (Emphasis mine)

<Thanks, <Shams> for the enlightenment.>

Always was, always will be.

If you had a clue directing towards a <well-tempered fifth> --- now THAT would be a good clue.

In some cases round here, then yeah. I'll give you that one because I can be very sarcastic and it does often get mistaken for being "nasty" (or so I was told last week via email from someone here). Fair point.

But not in the case you mean! Over the last year I've made several (oh god, I'm turning into AJ, haha) attempts to get on with Tony Palmer only to be met with what can *only* be described as ignorance! Anyways, I'm not too bothered and I'm even boring myself on this subject now.

Best Always, Morf