As Dan mentioned, the dating metods are based on erroneous assumptions and are, at best, guesswork. On top of that, though, even if you're willing to pretend that the gigantic gaps in the fossil record don't exist, basing a fossil's age on it's location in the geologic strata is loaded with problems. It completely ignores known scientific processes like liquefaction, which far better explains the sorting of fossils into different strata. Most geologic dating techniques are based on circular reasoning. They start with the assumption that the earth is billions of years old, base their dates on that, and then use it to "prove" that the earth is billions of years old. The theory of evolution is so full of holes that it really doesn't have a leg to stand on. Take your strata, for example. If the earth formed by gravitational accretion, as most evolutionists believe, then simple mathematics shows that the energy dissipation in such a process would have meant that the entire earth would have been molten for millions of years. If that were the case then all the heavier metals, like gold, should have sunk beyond our reach to much deeper strata - yet we find gold on the earth's surface. The theory of evolution falls apart all the way from protiens and DNA to the mountains on Venus.