Thanks SoSick for your careful reading and erudite response.

Try looking before the "ps" (you do know what that is don't you?).

And yet I have only begun to set out the information, while you are busy digging foxholes and hiding from reality. Let's review where we are - let me know when we come to a point you made that is valid or one that you can refute:

• the "Methuselah Tree" with an estimated germination date of 2,832BCE,
• scientists count tree rings using both cut down specimens and living trees that have several cores taken,
• scientists have also learned how to determine when different kinds of errors can occur and how to correct for them in the data,
• Don Batten was demonstrated to be a liar, because he doesn't tell you the truth, the truth that he is able to identify every false ring in a remotely related tree growing in a totally different ecology and that is bred by the timber industry to grow fast,
• Don Batten's information actually demonstrates that dendrochronologies are valid because the sources of error can be identified (as he did) and the chronology corrected,
• the "Prometheus Tree" (aka WPN-114) has an estimated germination date of 2,880 BCE,
• Bristlecone pines have an average 42 day growing season and have years so harsh that no rings are formed (thus resulting in an age that is too young if not corrected), rather than the kind of environment that produces false rings,
• the weather is cold and dry and the temperatures range from about 36°F (2°C) to -26° (-32°C) in the alpine zone where the Bristlecone pines grow,
• the tree rings correlate with a known (historical) volcanic eruption in 1,627 BCE, thus demonstrating that there are no significant errors to this point in the use of these tree rings,
• there are several living trees over 4,000 years old in addition to the two above,
• there are a few downed trees in the White Mountains that lived over 5,000 years before they fell,
• any dead wood would have floated away during any mountain topping flood event, even it the living trees survived that event, and thus
• all the dead trees can also be used to make a (pre flood) dendrochronology based on the correlations of years and climates in overlapping sections of trees of different ages,
• the dendrochronology for the Bristlecone pines extends to 7,000 BCE with these samples,
• a similar dendrochronology for Irish oaks and German oaks extends back to 7,197 BCE with cross dating (checks for errors),
• there was a total 37 year error between the Bristlecone pine and oak chronologies after 7,600 years, an error rate of only 0.5%, and finally,
• the chronology extends to 8,480 BCE with just these oaks.

Seeing as there has been no cogent argument against any of this evidence or any explanation that can cover all aspects and correlations between the data from different sites we can move on to the next piece of information:

From the "12,460-Year Hohenheim Oak and...d Paleoenvironment Reconstructions":
This means that the minimum age of the earth from this data is 12,468 years in 2008 (back to 10,461 BCE), well over any YEC model.

This is as far as tree rings can take us for now, and the next piece of evidence has to do with Carbon-14 production and decay.

Take off the blindfold and you'll see them.

Enjoy.

[color:"green"]Note: my time is limited, so I only choose threads of particular interest to me and I cannot guarantee a reply to all responses (particularly if they do not discuss the issue/s), and I expect other people to do the same. Thank you for your consideration.[/color]