>The Earth could have been here for trillions of
>years, millions of years, or a few thousand years -- the truth is...nobody
>knows.

I hope you don't believe what you are saying.

BTW, Carbon 14 dating technique is adequate for remains up to about 20000 years
old (since the half life of C14 is about 5500 years). As you said, the
production rate of C14 is not constant (possibly due to variations of the
Earth's magnetic field), which led to errors of about 20%. But comparisons with
tree ring counting techniques (there are trees which are several milleniums old)
allowed to make a "calibrated C14 dating", which is more accurate (5% or better,
I think). Dating potteries by thermoluminescence (again, with objects no more
than 20000 years old) is pretty reliable too.

I lack knowledge to answer to remarks about dating of older fossils, but I don't
think I want to spend any time on this.

JL