Fire and Knowledge

Very seldom have I (or most biologists) obtained data on biological systems that even begins to approach the consistency and precision of this [dating] method. The rubidium-strontium method gives self-calibrating and self-checking results. If geological processes have removed or added either rubidium or strontium, the method will show it at once, because the points will fail to lie on a straight line. If a rock has been homogenized by melting and recrystallization, the isochron line will be rest to zero, and the measured age will be an underestimate reflecting the time of melting. However, no natural process exists that could produce over-estimates of age that would pass the rigorous test of isochron analysis.

–Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (orig. 1999; Harper Perennial, 2002), p. 76