Well said, sir, well said.
Some general points.
You write:
I think you will find on both sides of the argument many rates are asumed and estimted and unprovable if they've taken place in the past.
An estimate is not a mere assumption. For example, I might estimate the number of bricks involved in building the (Ming dynasty) Great Wall of China by counting the bricks in an intact section and then multiplying up by the length. The result would not be a baseless assumption; and the fact that I couldn't check my figure by travelling back in time and counting all the bricks one by one would not be regarded as an epistemological problem.
Radiometric dating is base on three unprovable assumptions.
Sorry, got go. in any origins science there is a degree of faith involved.
It was handsome of you to retract this particular claim. In general, scientists base nothing on unprovable assumptions, nor do they require anything to be taken on faith. This is because, dammit, they're scientists. If a scientist says "such-and-such a thing is true", he is obliged to explain to all the other scientists why he thinks this. If he says: "Oh, it's an unprovable assumption, take it on faith", then all the other scientists would point at him and laugh. They'd probably call him hurtful names like "Mr Assumey-Pants". Well, possibly. I don't know. 'Cos this has in fact never happened. 'Cos scientists never behave like that. 'Cos they're not idiots.
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