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A pop media out let provides a story, then people jump in with black-white arguments to support their overall prejudices, then backtrack to grey-grey logic when contradicted. If tree rings were the only way to date-line events then this info about multiplicity rings by certain types of trees is a great way to cloud a simpletons idea of time. I mean that's pretty cool how the tree in the above posters link can provide itself with multiple tree rings during drought to conserve water. However, tree rings are only one of very many overlapping ways to determine age. Some aging methods lend themselves better to certain assumptions, others lend themselves to other. But the overall picture of how long life has been around or has adapted is not at question. There is a vast array of evidence to support life being older than the bible says. For crying out loud, what's special about science is that anyone can use someone else's tests or study to reproduce the results, or not. It's the process that needs taught and understood. Individual findings are ok, but individual findings can be freaks, outliers. However, if very many people conduct the same experiments and they produce startlingly similar conclusions then over time a consensus is built up to support the original testers theory. If the same experiment is conducted over many many years then eventually the theory is taken as general (laymans) fact. Is the tree 9,550 years old? Wrong question, and too simple. Better, does a Spruce produce discontinuous off shoots that have continued the same genetic (tree) sequence for 9,550 years and if so how? That's a better question. And that would be cool to know. Design a test, test it, then post the answer and how you did the test to let others try it. Do your own work. The straw-man of a Shrine rebuilt over time is a bogus, misleading non-sequitur. The two questions aren't the same. It's like: if I replace all your parts over time (assuming it could be done) then would you be the same or different? To you, you'd be the same, to us you'd be a collection of other parts. But you can't test it, can't reproduce the test, or can catalog the results, no one else could either. So it only a staw-man argument, subject to anyones whims of fantasy.

Religious people, go back to school to learn what the scientific process is, just keep religion and science separate cause they relate to different things. You can't test religion, you either belive it or not.

quack, I'm a duck...