Christine O’Donnell is a literal six day creationist:
Whoops. Technically, evolution is a theory in the scientific-nomenclature sense, but it’s so widely accepted by every legitimate scientist in the world that it is considered fact. Not enough evidence? Tests with inconsistent results? It sounds like she’s talking about rumors that Lady Gaga has a penis, not a basic foundation of biology. What’s with all the dubiousness?
CHRISTINE O’DONNELL: Now, he said that it’s based on fact. I just want to point out a couple things. First of all, they use carbon dating, as an example, to prove that something was millions of years old. Well, we have the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens and the carbon dating test that they used then would have to then prove that these were hundreds of millions of years younger, when what happened was they had the exact same results on the fossils and canyons that they did the tests on that were supposedly 100 millions of years old. And it’s the kind of inconsistent tests like this that they’re basing their ‘facts’ on.
We Googled this and apparently it refers to some tests run by a guy at the Institute for Creation Research. Definitely the kind of stuff on which you want to pin your refutation of evolution. Well, at least O’Donnell didn’t claim that there is just as much or more evidence for creationism as there is for evolution, right?
CHRISTINE O’DONNELL: Well, creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the Earth in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that.
Spit take! Ladies and gentlemen of Delaware, your Republican Senate nominee.
Except carbon dating is limited to about 50,000 years at the upper limit though I understand there are some new ways to use it longer. The dating she is referring to isn’t done by carbon dating, but other radiometric dating. ICR above, uses bad samples to try and disprove radiometric dating, but they violate geological standards in doing so. For those really geeky, read the ASA’s paper on radiometric dating.
You should get out the saddles for the dinosaurs men used to ride and read Charlie Pierce’s book that describes people lik e O’Donnell perfectly: