ID and YEC in Switzerland and "Thousands not Billions"

Dear ASA friends

Last Thursday, there was a discussion about ID on radio ERF
(Evangeliumsrundfunk) hosted by a VBG (Swiss InterVarsity) initiative. There
were three participants: one pastor (YEC), one philosopher of religion
(advocating something like a Christian version of Gould's non-overlapping
magisteria), and I was asked to substitute for ID (they couldn't find any ID
advocate here; the host presented me as an OEC). I think I gave a fair
presentation of ID's concerns, but I was also asked to give a critical evaluation.

Today I received an angry email from an active YEC, who was upset by my very
uncompromising support of an old Earth. He attached a German 3-page summary of
the results of the RATE project of the American YECs, presented in:
- Don DeYoung, Thousands… not Billions, Challenging an Icon of Evolution, Master
Books, 2005, 190 pp., Green Forest, AR 72638, USA
- L. Vardiman et.al. Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth, 2005, 876 pp.,
Volume 2, ICR, El Cayon, CA 92021-0667, USA

Now my question to you: Have any of you read one or both of these books? And if
so, can you give me a short summary of the most egregious errors in their
reasoning? As far as I see from the summary the YEC man sent me, there must be
plenty wrong with these books. Frankly, I am not much motivated to read or even
buy any of them.

For the time being, I just responded with some short remarks about the
independence of dating from the theory of evolution, about the distribution of
radioactive isotopes on Earth (which ones are absent?), about the controls
integrated into all radioactive dating methods (or external controls with C-14),
and about the full corroboration of the geological time sequence by the
radioactive dating methods developed later.

I'm sure some of you specialists with dating methods and/or critical YEC
evaluation can give me some helpful tips, without going out of your way. I would
be very thankful!

Blessings,
Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"... the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)
"... my sons... and my daughters..., everyone..., whom I
created... formed... evolved." (Isaiah 43:6-7)