Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! – Isaiah 5:21, KJV

As demonstrated in Hath God Said?, scientific methods used to determine the ages of fossils, rock strata, and other ancient archaeological and geological finds are based on assumptions that time and time again prove to be erroneous. If the assumptions were correct, then dating methods would consistently agree on the ages of various finds. However, we would expect erroneous assumptions to produce conflicting results, which is exactly what we find in the following example. As Answers in Genesis reports:

When miners were sinking a ventilation shaft for the new Crinum Coal Mine in Central Queensland in 1993, they unearthed a rare find. After digging through the thin surface sands and clays, followed by basalt, 21 metres (almost 69 feet) down they found pieces of wood entombed in the bottom basalt flow.

AIG obtained samples of both the fossilized wood and the basalt (a type of rock formed by volcanic lava), sending them to three highly respected independent laboratories for analysis. AIG, in order to avoid tempting the laboratories to skew their results, did not tell the laboratories where the samples came from. Two of the laboratories considered the wood sample. Using the Carbon-14 dating method, the laboratories established the age of the wood to be approximately 45,000 years old. Two of the laboratories considered the basalt samples. Using Potaaium-Argon dating, the laboratories established the age of the basalt to be approximately 45,000,000 years old.

So here’s the question: How did 45,000 year-old wood become surrounded by and buried in 45 million year-old rock? The answer is, it didn’t. Both dating methods are based on erroneous assumptions that make their conclusions suspect, and this example from the Crinum Coal Mine makes that clear. The wood didn’t one day look at the rock and say, “Hey, man, even though you were here first, would you mind opening up so I can jump in?” Rather, as AIG states:

To young-earth creationists the geological context of these fossil wood fragments in the basalt lava flow clearly indicates that these represent post-Flood trees overwhelmed by a post-Flood volcanic eruption nearby, and thus both the fossil wood and the basalt are less than 4,500 years old.

Worshipping at the altar of false science, people around the world are setting themselves up for the woe – mentioned in Isaiah 5:21 – that is reserved for those who are wise in their own eyes. You can “prove” anything you want by making the assumptions you need to generate the answers you want. In the quest for truth, however, the proper approach to research is to seek out what is true – not what you assume to be true – and to have enough guts to accept the truth, no matter where it leads.