laughin wrote:

all known data should be shown
justification for any dating shown be shown,
such as radionuclides, rather than "billions and billions" of years ago

Just as the minimum unit of allocation for Congress seems to be a million dollars, so the minimum timeframe in astronomy seems to be a million years. The Caltech study I cited concluded that, millions of years ago Mars was impacted by a planet-sized body. Wanting to learn the justification for the "millions of years" dating, I tracked down one of the members of the team who had conducted the project. She replied, "Everyone knows that there were no planet-sized bodies roaming the solar system since that time."

Statements like that, which rest solely on predisposition of outlook but are presented as if supported by fact, end up being taken as fact by anyone who may not be inclined to question them.

- Laird