In goes another nail: Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

[David F.]

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand David's point - I could see where he was at with ice core dating, after all, that's not really something that many of us could easily pick up without a lot of extensive training and understanding.

But David doesn't believe in tree ring dating? It's like, some scientific discovery has just come along showing that rings are put on in pairs per year so that the number of rings is in fact twice as many as the age of the tree. But surely, people have counted the rings of trees of which the age was already known, surely? I mean, wasn't that how tree ring dating was discovered?

It seems to me that the arborealists who count the rings on trees do so from a position of knowing a lot about trees, and fully understanding (through study which has taken place over what must be at least 200 years or more) the processes which a tree undergoes in its life cycle, and precisely what is involved with putting a ring on. So if David has just found out that you count a year's age by counting a light ring and then a dark ring, I think the arborealists know that, and take it into account when measuring the enormous age of Bristlecone Pines, for instance. It seems to me that a light-dark pair would be considered as "a ring" for counting purposes.

As I already responded, the original idea that a tree-ring pair represented a year, has not been validated. When those in the know, started counting rings of trees with known ages (just as you suggested), they found that rings actually represented wet/dry seasons. In some parts of the world, there is only one wet season, while in others (much of N America and Europe) there are two wet seasons per year. Thus, tree-rings are highly environmentally sensitive.

Don't take my word for it. Here is a link (which I gave in an earlier post) from the University of Texas. Go read for yourself.

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wd/courses/373F/notes/lec20den.html

 

[David F.]

David F.: I have no problem with species variation at all, although the variation is not necessarily caused by DNA modification/mutation I have a huge problem with common ancestory and with abiogenesis. Nether of these ideas has any foundation at all.
*************
M*W: David, I have a couple of questions I'd like for you to answer. If the Earth is dated to be only a little more than 6,000 years old, how does that explain some of the unearthed peoples right here in the US who existed some 35,000 years ago? First, I visited a little Native American site deep in Appalachia a few years ago. The artifacts found in the dig dated these peoples to have lived in that area some 35,000 years ago. Secondly, can you explain why archeologists found Catal Huyuk in Anatolia (Turkey) to have many relics from a female dominated society where archeologists have dated these cultures and those following the Neolithic Period to be anywhere from 15,000 - 8,000BC. Can you explain that? At 6,500BC Anatolia had an advanced civilization. So, how could these societies have been dated to before the earth was made? Certainly, all the archeologists and scientists can't be wrong.

MW, I never said the Earth is only 6000 years old, nor do biblical sources say such a thing. The bible does not in fact give an age for the Earth. The event you mention some 6000 years ago, was the story of the creation of life on Earth. Earth was here prior to the events described in Genesis (one place where creationists seem to get things wrong). How long before? I don't know.

As for the ages or dating you describe... I have been arguing in most of this thread that the dating methods used in Archeology (C14, magnetic orientation, etc) are not to be trusted, so while I have no doubt that the civilizations you cite did exist, I doubt there is any reliable dating method to use to determine their age.

Yes, certainly all the scientists and archeologists can be wrong - they don't, as a group, understand the science anyway. So, the archeologists are not to blame, but rather the radiocarbon scientists. I can't even really blame them. They have to make a best guess estimate with little or no evidence to make that guess. So, as a group they have decided on an initial value - which I argue is wrong. The actual number of those making this "wrong decision" is probably quite small. As I have often said, majority rule makes for poor science.

 

[Repo Man]

I don't have any proof as to how the world came to be, how old it is, or how life came to be on this planet. As a scientist myself, I find all the scientific explainations unsatisfactory (in some cases, requiring more belief than religion). Some, such as the rise of life from non-life, are simply impossible - not credible by any stretch. There seems to be no explaination thus far which even remotely avoids the laugh test. Does that mean science won't come up with some theory which holds water? I don't know.

I can't prove Creation. I do, however, believe there is a God. Could God have created life the way the bible protrays? Possibly. There is no test for the supernatural.

You seem to think you are being intellegent to belive in Evolution since you don't believe in God. What you don't seem to realize is that Evolution is just about as good an explaination as "The Tooth Fairy Did It". If you don't believe in God because there is no proof, they you should not believe in Evolution. I think the saying is "You choke on a gnat but swallow a camel". Biological Evolution of Life (Abiogenesis) is patently false, while God is at least a possibility. You trust in peer review, which actually prevents truth in favor of status quo (peer review perpetuates mistakes rather than, as you put it, self-corrects). The Scientific Method does not, in any way, relate to unprovable theories, like the initial conditions of pre-historic Earth.

What you are really doing in your post, is professing your fundemental belief in your religion - Evolution - and your fundemental non-belief in another religion - Judeo-Christianity.

No scientific explanation of anything requires faith. Either it is tested and fails, or it succeeds. But of course, any scientific explanation of anything can be discarded if an explanation that fits the observed phenomena more closely is discovered, or new facts come to light. Not so religion, where ancient texts of earlier, more ignorant ages are still held up as unquestionable truth.

Life is just biochemical processes. You say that the rise of life from non life is impossible. But why should we believe you? As Sherlock Holmes would say, once you've eliminated the impossible (in this case, invisible creator) what you're left with, no matter how unlikely, is the explanation.

I've seen fossils with my own eyes, and read many books on biology. Fossil records, plate techtonics, geology, astronomy, all put together a fairly comprehensive and compelling explanation for where we are, and how we got here. It is far from complete, and of course cannot begin to answer the question of why.

I have seen far too much evidence for the evolution of life to have any reasonable doubts that it happened. I don't suppose I could prove it, anymore than I can prove that stars in the night sky are actually distant suns.

Once you say that we could have been created by some sort of wave of an appendage (or thought) of some sort of energy being, all facts and evidence go out the window. Maybe god did create the Earth as is, including the fossils to make it appear to be far older than it really is. Maybe we were all created just a millisecond ago, with brains full of false memories. Why not, with a creator not bound by physical laws, anything is possible.

Evolution, science and atheism being referred to as religions is pure projection on the part of theists. Scientists who propose alternate expalnations are not prosecuted for heresy. They will be challenged, btu eventually if they have evidence, they will win the day. This simply isn't true in religion.

What you are proposing is some sort of conspiracy theory on the part of scientists worldwide. And that is truly laughable.

 

[guthrie]

No counting two rings per year does not change the date of the boat. The boat has an approximate "known age" and the tree rings in the boat timber are matched to tree ring samples in the master sequence for approximately the same time. The tree ring sample in the timber might also match sequences in the master for other time periods but no one looks at those since they are "known" to be incorrect. There might be many matches (I believe one of the links I gave you showed a timber matching 8 different master sequences) and the job is to pick which sequence match is the best. I am questioning the master sequence itself

Well, in that case are we not showing that C14 dating is a very useful tool, enabing the closer dating of items to when they were actually produced? And of course, its all moot since somehow you are unable to produce any evidence that the tree ring traces do actually match other dates. One internet link doesnt provide proof. It is obviously something that needs to be looked at and taken itno consideration, but isnt a total calamity.

(since it is a known fact that tree rings are laid down in many places at the rate of two pairs per year).

Sp youve said, yet exactly where that happens and when is something that should either be taken into account, or else might not matter. Just because something may or may not be taken into acocount, and We have no information about it just now, doesnt mean it is or isnt being taken into account.

You boat timber might match a sequence dated on the master as 1440BC and it might match another sequence at 5000BC. But, since it is obvious there were no boats in 5000BC, nobody bothered to believe that match. However, if the tree rings are measured at two pair per year then the 5000BC match would really be 1500BC.

Therefore, your best action as a responsible citizen, is to drop them a line asking if they have checked against 1500BC results. And also to try and fit that in with the C14 data.

I am not calling scientists liars, just biased toward their own beliefs about truth. They tend to downplay the problems in their theories and play up the positives (as would anyone on any subject).
No this is really really wrong. A thousand proofs of a theory still do not prove the theory. A single unexplained exception totally disproves a theory (until it is explained). This is fundemental to science. If you don't understand this, then you really need to go back and study.

Now now, which theory of science are you following? Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a "true" "proof". Thus even realativity is potentially open to revision. Like C14 is open to revision, and was revised when they found out the results were getting distorted by different levels of C14 in the atmosphere. A single unexplained exception has ot also be credible, demonstrated by different people, and ultimately expalined. It seems so far that all you are doing is saying there are things wrong with C14 dating, without actually taking into account that ways around them are being and have been found.


Atmospheric testing increasing C14, fair enough. I'll buy that. It helps your using my own links against me.

But it IS the same form of energy (nuclear radiation). Energy is Energy, only the frequency changes, and in this case, the frequency is similar (the Sun is after all just a big nuclear - fusion - reaction).

Indeed. Except that I believe that since your doign physic didnt you say? you'll also know about quantum energy levels and the simple point that despite for example, infra red and visible light being very near to each other on the spectrum, you can stop the infra rays with a coating of whatever molecules or gold or suchlike, I forget what, and yet let the visible wavelenghts in. Also go look up "black body radiation", thats something fun as well, though not exaclty connected to this discussion.

 

[alibim]

Leaving religion completely out of the discussion… Can no one make Biological Evolution stand up to more than cursory questioning? All I hear is the Party Line and it seems like I’m supposed to just believe as if some all-knowing science-guru had spoken. It doesn’t seem to mean anything that no one can give even a hint of why anyone should believe the garbage they spew.

Come on now, can’t anyone back up even the basic tenants of the religion, opps err I mean science, of Biological Evolution?

You might want to start by reading David Quammen's excellent article in the December "National Geographic". But I'd have to say that describing the huge body of evidence - yes, rigorous, science-based evidence - tied together by the theory of evolution as 'garbage that [evolutionary biologists] spew strongly suggests that you aren't prepared to even consider alternative viewpoints to your own.

 

[Silas]

No this is really really wrong. A thousand proofs of a theory still do not prove the theory. A single unexplained exception totally disproves a theory (until it is explained). This is fundemental to science. If you don't understand this, then you really need to go back and study.

A ha! All is finally explained - particularly why David disbelieves all the accepted science and yet claims to be going for a Ph.D. in Physics.

What you say is actually pretty much not the case. It's not true that a single exception "totally disproves" current theory. No theory is utterly complete, after all. When we went to the Moon, Newtonian equations of motion were used, despite having been superceded by Einsteinian Relativity - but Newton's equations easier to program and good enough for the task.

In the case of C14, ice core and tree ring dating, I don't know of any specific example which totally rules out the principle theory. That there are many sources of error is not denied by the practitioners of any of those theories.

As I already responded, the original idea that a tree-ring pair represented a year, has not been validated. When those in the know, started counting rings of trees with known ages (just as you suggested), they found that rings actually represented wet/dry seasons. In some parts of the world, there is only one wet season, while in others (much of N America and Europe) there are two wet seasons per year. Thus, tree-rings are highly environmentally sensitive.

Don't take my word for it. Here is a link (which I gave in an earlier post) from the University of Texas. Go read for yourself.

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wd/course...s/lec20den.html

My point was not to deny that ring-counting was not as easy as it may have seemed when one was told about it in primary school. But your criticism of ring-counting for the very old Bristlecone pines implies that the people who have made that dating, (and of the C14 verification) did not themselves know of all the problems involved in ring-dating, when it seems to me evident that they did. If the original way of doing it has been shown to be invalid for certain circumstances, that discovery was made by arborealists and understood by arborealists.

When I pointed you in the direction of that talk-origins.org link about dating the Earth, it was on the basis that you did not know of any scientifically valid method for dating the Earth. The methods for dating the Earth are a great deal more reliable than those dating the oldest organic materials. Somewhere on this page you expressed doubt over 25,000 year C14 dating. Well, no shit, I've never heard that C14 dating was reliable for anything over about 5,000 years - since C14 has a half life of only 5,700 years or so, and most items dated in this way are small and fragile to begin with, so you couldn't go over 10,000 years before getting well into the margin of error. This does not apply to Uranium/Lead clocks of Earth and meteoric rock, for which the isotope proportions for a lump of rock of set composition is very well known, and for which the isochronic methods of dating which I also gave a link for do a good job of eliminating sources of contamination. Earth rock has been reliably dated back to more than 3 billion years, but Earth rock has been more subject to environmental factors (such as the cooling and hardening of the Earth for its first billion years of existance) which has left the oldest rocks still younger than the Earth as a whole. But meteoric rock has been dated to 4.55 billion years, showing that to be the age of the solar system as a whole. It is not reasonable to suggest that the Earth is substantially younger than the rest of the solar system.

 

[Silas]

I can't prove Creation. I do, however, believe there is a God. Could God have created life the way the bible protrays? Possibly. There is no test for the supernatural.

You seem to think you are being intellegent to belive in Evolution since you don't believe in God.

Personally I believed in Evolution long before I lost my faith in God, I think that's true of a lot of people.

What you don't seem to realize is that Evolution is just about as good an explaination as "The Tooth Fairy Did It". If you don't believe in God because there is no proof, they you should not believe in Evolution. I think the saying is "You choke on a gnat but swallow a camel".

You seem to believe that Evolution was merely devised as a method of accounting for how millions of different life forms appeared on Earth in the absence of a supernatural Creator. This is not the case. Just sticking to bone-fossilised creatures of the last 600 million years, the progress of life forms from less complex forms to more complex forms tallies with what would be expected if evolution is the case. Take a piece of rock which at the bottom (oldest) part contains a fossil of some kind of basic trilobite. As you move up the rock you will see different fossils - evidently related to the original, but subtly different in their development. This is consistent with the theory of evolution. Sometimes an extinction event might leave only one or two of these daughter species left, and then they'll proliferate again. This is consistent with the theory of evolution. There is no known fossil which directly contradicts the theory of evolution by means of how it appeared in rocks. If a fossil is known to have appeared in rocks of a certain age, it would be surprising for it to appear in rocks known to be 50 million years older. That this has never happened is a good confirmation of the gradual and steady evolution of life.

Now we have mathematical genetics and molecular genetics. Now if either of these came up with significant evidence which showed evolution to be false, evolution would be as dead as the Dodo (sadly selected for extinction). But everything being discovered at the level of chromosomes, genes and DNA itself confirms and re-confirms the validity of both the theory of Evolution, and Darwin's natural selection. Mutation rates are real, verifiable facts. Mutation hotspots are real verifiable facts.

Evolution does not in any respect come under the same heading as belief in God as a "mindless faith".

Biological Evolution of Life (Abiogenesis) is patently false, while God is at least a possibility. You trust in peer review, which actually prevents truth in favor of status quo (peer review perpetuates mistakes rather than, as you put it, self-corrects). The Scientific Method does not, in any way, relate to unprovable theories, like the initial conditions of pre-historic Earth.

Science does indeed maintain certain mistakes - scientists are human beings, after all, not robots, and existing paradigms do not shift easily. But every scientist can at least recognise that the true scientific method is the correct way to investigate the world, and to guard against complacency and prejudice in order to maintain integrity.

Despite what you may believe, the fact that science is the cumulative consensus of reasonable people actually gets the best results. If we want to know about the past, we have to start somewhere, so we set up theories which can stand or fall by the evidence we find: either evidence in the rocks and plants of what the past was like, or evidence of current experiments (like Stanley Lloyd Miller's 1952 primordial atmosphere experiment) to show what certain processes probably did in the past. All of this is subject to correction when evidence shows the contrary. Until evidence does show the contrary, there is no real reason to avoid using the theories that we currently have.

 

[David F.]

Personally I believed in Evolution long before I lost my faith in God, I think that's true of a lot of people.

You seem to believe that Evolution was merely devised as a method of accounting for how millions of different life forms appeared on Earth in the absence of a supernatural Creator. This is not the case. Just sticking to bone-fossilised creatures of the last 600 million years, the progress of life forms from less complex forms to more complex forms tallies with what would be expected if evolution is the case. Take a piece of rock which at the bottom (oldest) part contains a fossil of some kind of basic trilobite. As you move up the rock you will see different fossils - evidently related to the original, but subtly different in their development. This is consistent with the theory of evolution. Sometimes an extinction event might leave only one or two of these daughter species left, and then they'll proliferate again. This is consistent with the theory of evolution. There is no known fossil which directly contradicts the theory of evolution by means of how it appeared in rocks. If a fossil is known to have appeared in rocks of a certain age, it would be surprising for it to appear in rocks known to be 50 million years older. That this has never happened is a good confirmation of the gradual and steady evolution of life.

You are quite mistaken as to the facts of evolution. The truth is (whether you choose to believe or not) that the fossil record does not at all support evolution. You seem to think there is a steady progression in the fossil record from less complex life to more complex life – not at all the case. The fossil record show almost nothing at all for the bulk of the history of the world and then there is something called the Cambrian Explosion in which dozens of fully formed fossils (animal phylum) suddenly appear with no developmental fossils at all – not one phylum but many (and many species, classes, orders under that phylum). Let me quote you something from an eminent Physicists/Biologist, Jonathan Wells (with degrees in Geology, Physics and dual PhDs in Religious Studies and Molecular and Cell Biology from Berkeley, where he focused primarily on vertebrate embryology and evolution):

The Cambrian explosion has been called the Biological Big Bang because it gave rise to the sudden appearance of most of the major animal phyla that are still alive today, as well as some that are now extinct. Here’s what the record shows: There were some jellyfish, sponges and worms prior to the Cambrian, although there’s no evidence to support Darwin’s theory of long history of gradual divergence.

Then at the beginning of the Cambrian – boom!- all of a sudden, we see representatives of the arthropods, modern representatives of which are insects, crabs and the like; echinoderms, which include modern starfish and sea urchins; chordates, which include modern vertebrates; and so forth. Mammals came later, but the chordates – the major group to which they belong – were right there at the beginning of the Cambrian.

This is absolutely contrary to Darwin’s Tree of Life. These animals, which are so fundamentally different in their body plans, appear fully developed, all of a sudden, in what paleontologists have called the single most spectacular phenomenon of the fossil record.

[To illustrate] imagine yourself on one goal line of a football field. That line represents the first fossil, a microscopic, single-celled organism. Now start marching down the field. You pass the twenty-yard line, the forty-yard line, you pass midfield, and you’re approaching the other goal line. All you’ve seen this entire time are these microscopic, single-celled organisms.

You come to the sixteen-yard line on the far end of the field, and now you see these sponges and maybe some jellyfish and worms, then – boom!- in the space of a single stride, all these other forms of animals suddenly appear. As one evolutionary scientist said, the major animal groups ‘appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus – full blown and raring to go.

Now, nobody can call that a branching tree! Some paleontologists, even though they may think Darwin’s overall theory is correct, call it a lawn rather than a tree, because you have these separate blades of grass sprouting up. One paleontologist in China says it actually stands Darwin’s tree on its head, because the major groups of animals – instead of coming last at the top of the tree – come first, when animals make their first appearance.

Either way, the result is the same: the Cambrian explosion has uprooted Darwin’s tree. - ref, p44​

You are also quite wrong about fossils contradicting the theory of evolution by means of how it appeared in rocks. There are whole regions where supposedly older fossils are found on top of younger fossils. This is not a matter of just a few fossils but hundreds of square miles where the older strata lies on top of the younger strata. The standard evolution answer for this situation is called “overthrusts” where it is supposed that some undefined geological method pulled the older rocks out from under the younger rocks and thrust them out to rest on top (kind of like shuffling cards) and somehow this momentous geological event left no traces. How can billions of tons of rock be moved a hundred miles and set on top of another rock strata without leaving any traces – no scraping, no rubble in front of the overthrust, nothing? Not only that, but the interface between the older strat on top and the younger strat on the bottom is seamless with no evidence it has ever been disturbed? How can this be?

Now we have mathematical genetics and molecular genetics. Now if either of these came up with significant evidence which showed evolution to be false, evolution would be as dead as the Dodo (sadly selected for extinction). But everything being discovered at the level of chromosomes, genes and DNA itself confirms and re-confirms the validity of both the theory of Evolution, and Darwin's natural selection. Mutation rates are real, verifiable facts. Mutation hotspots are real verifiable facts.

There is more than sufficient evidence but evolution devotees don’t want to see it. Nevertheless, it is coming out.

Evolution does not in any respect come under the same heading as belief in God as a "mindless faith".

When you believe a theory despite obvious errors and loads of scientific evidence to the contrary – despite numerous, blatant forgeries to try to keep the theory alive – that is called Faith.

Science does indeed maintain certain mistakes - scientists are human beings, after all, not robots, and existing paradigms do not shift easily. But every scientist can at least recognise that the true scientific method is the correct way to investigate the world, and to guard against complacency and prejudice in order to maintain integrity.

Yes, I will agree that the scientific method is a good, positive way to investigate the world. However, peer review is not the scientific method. Peer review has the effect of promoting research which agrees with the status quo and censoring research which disagrees. Peer review has been a huge historical failure and has stifled new truths throughout the past few centuries (who knows how much truth was lost which didn’t somehow find a way around the censors).

Despite what you may believe, the fact that science is the cumulative consensus of reasonable people actually gets the best results. If we want to know about the past, we have to start somewhere, so we set up theories which can stand or fall by the evidence we find: either evidence in the rocks and plants of what the past was like, or evidence of current experiments (like Stanley Lloyd Miller's 1952 primordial atmosphere experiment) to show what certain processes probably did in the past. All of this is subject to correction when evidence shows the contrary. Until evidence does show the contrary, there is no real reason to avoid using the theories that we currently have.

I guess I have to laugh. Miller’s experiment has been a huge failure yet there are some, like you, who still cite rejected research. Miller used totally unrealistic conditions to create his little experiment. Miller’s research has been rejected by all, AND I MEAN ALL, serious scientists in the field and is nothing more than a curiosity. Miller did not create any of the amino acids necessary for life and his atmosphere has been totally discredited as not realistic in any theory of early Earth history.

Evolution is a theory in crisis. Much scientific evidence has come about in the past few decades to refute the theory and the Evolution community is starting to panic. The situation is so bad, that reputable science magazines are literally publishing fraud to try to bolster their position. There are so many fake fossils emerging to try to show some/any transitional links between phylum that no one knows which fossils are real and which are man-made. The situation is desparate for the Darwinists, and it is kind of fun to watch from my side. No doubt, this will still take several decades to really sort out but you never know, sometimes this kind of thing happens quickly.

 

[Silas]

It is past 1am, so I will be back with a fuller refutation tomorrow. For the present, I will just say that I googled Jonathan Wells and at the top of the list were sites ready to demonstrate that he is a well-practiced mis-representer of science and scientific fact in order to create spurious arguments against evolution - and that specifically he sends out pamphlets designed to appeal to students and encourage them to believe that teachers of evolution are deliberately falsifying their facts, all to the purpose of stopping the teaching of evolution in public schools. For myself, I can very quickly describe how I feel about actively interfering in the teaching of science and rationality to the nation's youth: it is the work of the Devil.

http://www.nmsr.org/jonwells.htm
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/7719_responses_to_jonathan_wells3_11_28_2001.asp

 

[David F.]

It is past 1am, so I will be back with a fuller refutation tomorrow. For the present, I will just say that I googled Jonathan Wells and at the top of the list were sites ready to demonstrate that he is a well-practiced mis-representer of science and scientific fact in order to create spurious arguments against evolution - and that specifically he sends out pamphlets designed to appeal to students and encourage them to believe that teachers of evolution are deliberately falsifying their facts, all to the purpose of stopping the teaching of evolution in public schools. For myself, I can very quickly describe how I feel about actively interfering in the teaching of science and rationality to the nation's youth: it is the work of the Devil.

http://www.nmsr.org/jonwells.htm
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/7719_responses_to_jonathan_wells3_11_28_2001.asp

It is important to spread the truth. This is someone who has all the scientific credentials you look for, yet you still won't believe him. I suppose that is because he does not share your FAITH.

Did you even read your own posts? The main argument seems to be that even if Dr. Wells is right, there are still other possiblities? Even if Dr. Wells is right... They don't even dispute that HE IS RIGHT and the primary "Icons" of Evolution are all false. They only complain because he does not consider extraterrestrial origins (aliens did it) or thermal vents (which have never been shown to produce the necessary amino-acids for life). Their own figures preclude their own doctrine! Look at the figures and try to find any of the amino-acids for life in their chart (BTW, in case you don't know what the amino-acids in DNA are, they are Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine - RNA includes Uracil instead of Thymine). Just any old amino acids will not do. The acids found in these experiments are only very simple like Glycine or Glutamic (and Formaldahyde - although that fact is conveniently left out of the table - they are producing embalming fluid, not the chemicals for life).

Why would an atheist refer to the Devil? I suppose you would refer to me in the same way, yet, I am fighting against the Devil and his false pseudo-science. Perhaps it is you who has listened to the Devil?

The key question is not about the man, but about the truth of his assertions. Is he right or wrong? Stop attacking character and answer the given facts. If Dr. Wells is right, then he is doing a good work and a service.

 

[David F.]

A ha! All is finally explained - particularly why David disbelieves all the accepted science and yet claims to be going for a Ph.D. in Physics.

What you say is actually pretty much not the case. It's not true that a single exception "totally disproves" current theory. No theory is utterly complete, after all. When we went to the Moon, Newtonian equations of motion were used, despite having been superceded by Einsteinian Relativity - but Newton's equations easier to program and good enough for the task.

You don't have a scientific background, do you? Yes, one unexplained "exception" does indeed destroy a theory - but only as long as it is unexplained. One set of human bones underneath a set of dinosaur bones, completely destroys the whole superposition argument, no matter how many human remains are found above dinosaur remains. One exception destroys a theory, unless it can somehow be explained (something like the natives dug down under the dinosaur remains and buried the human - of course you have to see evidence of the dig).

Einstein did not disprove Newton's theories, he only fine-tuned them. Newton was not "superceded" by Einstein and Relativity.

In the case of C14, ice core and tree ring dating, I don't know of any specific example which totally rules out the principle theory. That there are many sources of error is not denied by the practitioners of any of those theories.

My point was not to deny that ring-counting was not as easy as it may have seemed when one was told about it in primary school. But your criticism of ring-counting for the very old Bristlecone pines implies that the people who have made that dating, (and of the C14 verification) did not themselves know of all the problems involved in ring-dating, when it seems to me evident that they did. If the original way of doing it has been shown to be invalid for certain circumstances, that discovery was made by arborealists and understood by arborealists.

When I pointed you in the direction of that talk-origins.org link about dating the Earth, it was on the basis that you did not know of any scientifically valid method for dating the Earth. The methods for dating the Earth are a great deal more reliable than those dating the oldest organic materials. Somewhere on this page you expressed doubt over 25,000 year C14 dating. Well, no shit, I've never heard that C14 dating was reliable for anything over about 5,000 years - since C14 has a half life of only 5,700 years or so, and most items dated in this way are small and fragile to begin with, so you couldn't go over 10,000 years before getting well into the margin of error. This does not apply to Uranium/Lead clocks of Earth and meteoric rock, for which the isotope proportions for a lump of rock of set composition is very well known, and for which the isochronic methods of dating which I also gave a link for do a good job of eliminating sources of contamination. Earth rock has been reliably dated back to more than 3 billion years, but Earth rock has been more subject to environmental factors (such as the cooling and hardening of the Earth for its first billion years of existance) which has left the oldest rocks still younger than the Earth as a whole. But meteoric rock has been dated to 4.55 billion years, showing that to be the age of the solar system as a whole. It is not reasonable to suggest that the Earth is substantially younger than the rest of the solar system.

You missed a zero didn't you? Half-life means "half" the sample has decayed. If you have 8mg of C14 and you wait 5700 years, you will now have 4mg of C14. If you wait another 5700 years, you will have 2mg and another 5700 years gives you 1mg. C14 works to 50,000 years, not 5000 years. You really don't have any idea what this is all about do you? The challenge with C14 (and for that matter all other dating methods) is to determine how much there was to start with. If I know we started with 8mg and we now have 2mg then I know it has been 11,400 (2 x 5700) years. But, if I have to guess how much we started with (and this is always the case) then I don't know what the measurement of 2mg means. 2mg might mean we started with 4mg and it has only been 5700 years or it might mean we started with 16mg and it has been 17,100 (3 x 5700) years (16=>8=>4=>2, or three half-lifes). The problem is not with the science, but with the determination of the initial conditions. This problem is not limited to C14 but is substantially the same for all dating methods. We don't know the initial conditions, so the scientist can (and often does) taint his findings by fudging the initial conditions to what he thinks is appropriate. This is why all the dating methods "hang together" because the scientists find what they expect to find (a common experimental phenomenon).

Once again, I do not claim the Earth is 6000 years old. The Genesis story occured around this time, but the Earth already existed before this 6 day event. How long? No one knows. Probably longer than 6000 years but certainly much less than 4.5 billion.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

David F.: Once again, I do not claim the Earth is 6000 years old. The Genesis story occured around this time, but the Earth already existed before this 6 day event. How long? No one knows. Probably longer than 6000 years but certainly much less than 4.5 billion.
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M*W: Hello, David, I have a couple of questions for you. If the Earth was more or less than 6,000 years old, and the Genesis story (not an original story, of course) is about 6,000 years old, how can it deny that ancient intelligent and civilized human beings lived on Earth from 30,000 to 50,000 years ago? I'm speaking of the matrilineal societies of Crete, Turkey, Greece and the Greek Islands, where artifacts have been recovered dating to these times.

Secondly, in the USA, evidence of the Mound Builders has been discovered along the Mississippi River, and ancient civilized tribal villages have been unearthed in Appalachia (West Virginia) dating to some 35,000 years ago. What is your opinion of these finds? Certainly, the Northern states such as Minnesota and the Dakotas show ancient relics of the Viking's conquest (I'm not sure of the dates).

Dinosaur bones have been found in the Texas Hill Country. During that time, the Gulf of Mexico probably extended to the Hill Country and beyond. I have no idea when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. I've never studied it, but I'm sure it was much earlier than some 6,000 years. Can you explain it?

 

[David F.]

MW, yes I can explain. First, the Earth is older than 6000 years. Second, the civilizations you cite did exist but the ages you cite are incorrect. They are not as old as you have been lead to believe. Can you tell me why I should think civilizations in Crete, Turkey, Greece and the Greek Islands are from 30,000-50,000 years old? Why should I believe these numbers? You don't know, nor does anyone else know, how old these civilizations are.

BTW, how are we to know which is the original story? There must have been an original story somewhere, don't you agree? My opinion is that the Genesis story is more true to the original than say Gilgamesh (which doesn't really tell the flood story but only mentions it in passing). If I have to pick an original, I prefer Genesis - and other stories, like Gilgamesh, are copied from Genesis. Can you prove me wrong?

Edit: I have been to Glenrose and I have seen the dinosaur tracks - and what appear to be very large human prints mixed with the dinosaurs. When I put my foot in the human-like prints, they did appear to be a foot print but they were HUGE - as if our ancestors were much much bigger.

 

[Ophiolite]

You are quite mistaken as to the facts of evolution. The truth is (whether you choose to believe or not) that the fossil record does not at all support evolution. You seem to think there is a steady progression in the fossil record from less complex life to more complex life – not at all the case.

In a later post you suggest, in what has the appearance of a decidely patronising tone, that Silas does not have a scientific background. That seems a singularily arrogant position to adopt for someone who demonstrates the lack of such a background in their own list of credentials.
Evolution is about change, not necessarily about increases in complexity. That life has evolved from very simple forms to more complex forms is not disputed by any to whom one might apply the label 'evolutionist' or 'Darwinist'. There is no requirement that this passage from the simple to the complex be a steady progression . Personally, I would find it surprising were it so. And, as you correctly point out, the fossil record does not reveal a steady progression. Partly this is because of the known incompleteness of the fossil record, but it is also due to genuine reversals in the general trend.
Your quoted comments demonstrate that you do not understand this basic aspect of evolution (or deliberately choose to ignore it).

 

[David F.]

Yes, I suppose you are describing, as evolutionists say, "punctuated evolution" which means there is a rapid period of evolution for a time and then steady state for a time - not steady progress - but there still has to be progress even if it is not steady progress. You still have to have simple life changing into complex life, no matter what the rate, or you do not have Evolution.

This is not what the fossil record shows. The fossil record show whole series of phylum (and orders, and classes, and species, etc) popping into being with NO PROGRESSION. There are NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS. There is NO PROGRESS, either stead or otherwise, prior to the Cambrian Explosion. There is NO EVOLUTION - no change from simple to complex. The fully formed animals just suddenly appear in the fossil record, out of nowhere.

Animals suddenly popping into existance is not Evolution - it is Creation. Suddenly popping into existance argues for Intellegent Design.

What basic aspect of evolution do you think I don't understand (or choose to ignore)? Please enlighten me.

 

[SnakeLord]

BTW, how are we to know which is the original story? There must have been an original story somewhere, don't you agree? My opinion is that the Genesis story is more true to the original than say Gilgamesh (which doesn't really tell the flood story but only mentions it in passing). If I have to pick an original, I prefer Genesis - and other stories, like Gilgamesh, are copied from Genesis. Can you prove me wrong?

Ok. The Epic of Gilgamesh has been dated at over 1,500 years older than genesis. Where you're from time travel might be possible, but here on earth people do not write an original story and then travel back in time one and a half millennia just to write a copy of it.

Further to that, it doesn't mention the flood "in passing", the story is actually quite detailed. Depending on where you have read the epic of gilgamesh, it might have 'chopped out' the flood part. I know some places do that, including the internet sacred archive.

You very well might 'prefer' genesis, but it is a baby in comparison to the Gilgamesh epic. It must therefore be seen as slightly more suspect than the original.

That's the way it goes regardless to what you personally prefer.

 

[Red Devil]

Why would an atheist refer to the Devil? I suppose you would refer to me in the same way, yet, I am fighting against the Devil and his false pseudo-science. Perhaps it is you who has listened to the Devil?

The devil did not exist until the christian church invented him. They modelled the devil on the Greek god Pan.

 

[Clockwood]

They took pan and later put am ethnically jewish head and torso on the goat half. They needed some reason to keep the hate flowing...

 

[Silas]

It is important to spread the truth. This is someone who has all the scientific credentials you look for, yet you still won't believe him. I suppose that is because he does not share your FAITH.

Possession of Ph.Ds in scientific subjects does not automatically give him the credentials you seem to think. Wells does not appear to me to contribute to scientific learning, neither is he engaging in normal scientific discovery and promoting his ideas as coming from a member of the scientific community. On the contrary he is clearly coming from the religious community, and his pronouncements on science are thus much less credible to me. As is usual among the Creationist fraternity he engages in wilful distortion of fact and the deliberate misrepresentation of the truth in order to sow doubt and uncertainty about subjects which have been well-established for a century.

Did you even read your own posts? The main argument seems to be that even if Dr. Wells is right, there are still other possiblities? Even if Dr. Wells is right... They don't even dispute that HE IS RIGHT and the primary "Icons" of Evolution are all false.

From my first link:

Regardless of what Wells claims, this is not a case of fairness or patriotic rights. In fact, this is not an issue of whether or not a school district should allow students to see "both points of view." It is an issue of certain people trying to make a back-door run around laws and constitutional intent which prohibit specific, religious advocacy in the public schools. Each and every book that Wells wants put on library shelves is motivated by the belief in a very specific religious viewpoint - not by the efficacy of the books to dispute one of the best standing theories in science. The modern theory of evolution is on the same level of scientific acceptance as the theory of gravity, despite what lay critics might say. And since these books provide twisted "refutations" of almost every facet of biological evolution, they embody a subtle, yet sinister form of censorship and mind control.

From the second:

Wells is wrong to think that his questions pose any challenge to evolution. In the interest of responding to Wells's erroneous claims and setting the record straight, NCSE has prepared answers to his ten questions. Please feel free to copy and distribute this document to teachers, students, parents, and any interested parties.

I'm sorry I find those as quite conclusive indications that both of those sites consider Wells to be in error. They are, however, quite careful in how they express themselves in this litigious day and age.

Their own figures preclude their own doctrine! Look at the figures and try to find any of the amino-acids for life in their chart (BTW, in case you don't know what the amino-acids in DNA are, they are Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine - RNA includes Uracil instead of Thymine). Just any old amino acids will not do. The acids found in these experiments are only very simple like Glycine or Glutamic (and Formaldahyde - although that fact is conveniently left out of the table - they are producing embalming fluid, not the chemicals for life).

Totally irrelevant. The principle of the spontaneous generation of amino acids from processes that do not involve life has been established. Since they do not have the precise composition, mass, pressure, temperature of the primordial atmosphere, nor the actual energy of the Sun, nor a billion years, the fact that they haven't exactly reproduced all the components necessary to life is hardly surprising. Neither does this supposed failure of something they weren't trying to do in the first place do anything to disprove evolution. If all experiments in attempting to synthesise organic molecules using naturalistic-derived processes had actually failed, not one scientist would then conclude, "Hey, evolution is false, it must have been God after all."

Why would an atheist refer to the Devil? I suppose you would refer to me in the same way, yet, I am fighting against the Devil and his false pseudo-science. Perhaps it is you who has listened to the Devil?

The key question is not about the man, but about the truth of his assertions. Is he right or wrong? Stop attacking character and answer the given facts. If Dr. Wells is right, then he is doing a good work and a service.

I didn't attack his character, I attacked what he does. He attempts to subvert the teaching of good science (upon which, ultimately, the wealth and prosperity of the nation rests) to promote an inappropriate religious agenda and stifle the natural human instinct to explore and discover one's origins without relying entirely upon an unsourced book.

You missed a zero didn't you? Half-life means "half" the sample has decayed.

Quite right, I'm afraid I confused the inability to provide same-century accuracy for historical items with 50,000 millenium-ballpark ages.

Now to go back to the original post I wanted to respond to.

You are also quite wrong about fossils contradicting the theory of evolution by means of how it appeared in rocks. There are whole regions where supposedly older fossils are found on top of younger fossils. This is not a matter of just a few fossils but hundreds of square miles where the older strata lies on top of the younger strata. The standard evolution answer for this situation is called “overthrusts” where it is supposed that some undefined geological method pulled the older rocks out from under the younger rocks and thrust them out to rest on top (kind of like shuffling cards) and somehow this momentous geological event left no traces. How can billions of tons of rock be moved a hundred miles and set on top of another rock strata without leaving any traces – no scraping, no rubble in front of the overthrust, nothing? Not only that, but the interface between the older strat on top and the younger strat on the bottom is seamless with no evidence it has ever been disturbed? How can this be?

Thank you for highlighting another piece of evidence in favour of evolution. Older fossils are less developed and have fewer different species, and younger fossils are developed from the ancestral species. You implicitly acknowledge that relationship in your post. But if evolution were not so, then you wouldn't merely expect to find older fossils on top of younger fossils, you'd expect to find older fossils mixed in with younger fossils in any old order. The fact that the order is reversed (rather than higgledy-piggledly) shows that the stratum has somehow been turned upside down, but the fact that there is a clear order is what confirms the fact of evolution. As to how the stratum was turned upside down, well, it may have been a process so slow that the kind of evidence you expect to find would either not appear or would have been eradicated through erosion. But the point is, of course, that such a process would of itself prove an old-Earth theory.

Either way, the result is the same: the Cambrian explosion has uprooted Darwin’s tree. - ref, p44

Are you kidding me with that link reference? That's a page pointing to a religious tract with a recommendation page to a whole bookshelf of other religious tracts. I have not once argued religion with you, David - your religious beliefs are your business - I have argued science. Please provide scientific sources, not apologetics.

There is more than sufficient evidence but evolution devotees don’t want to see it. Nevertheless, it is coming out.

When you believe a theory despite obvious errors and loads of scientific evidence to the contrary – despite numerous, blatant forgeries to try to keep the theory alive – that is called Faith.

I cited examples of where the evidence is being found - in general terms. But you don't cite anything at all - you merely state that "Evidence is coming out all the time". Please cite a reliable non-religious source for actual evidence in the latest developments in genetics which disprove evolution.

Evolution is a theory in crisis. Much scientific evidence has come about in the past few decades to refute the theory and the Evolution community is starting to panic. The situation is so bad, that reputable science magazines are literally publishing fraud to try to bolster their position. There are so many fake fossils emerging to try to show some/any transitional links between phylum that no one knows which fossils are real and which are man-made. The situation is desparate for the Darwinists, and it is kind of fun to watch from my side. No doubt, this will still take several decades to really sort out but you never know, sometimes this kind of thing happens quickly.

Please provide some citation, preferably not by Behe or anyone else who follows the "argument from personal incredulity". Behe can't imagine how certain processes evolved below a certain level - his inability proves nothing, just as your inability to imagine how rock strata may have ended up upside down proves nothing.

The problem is not with the science, but with the determination of the initial conditions. This problem is not limited to C14 but is substantially the same for all dating methods. We don't know the initial conditions, so the scientist can (and often does) taint his findings by fudging the initial conditions to what he thinks is appropriate. This is why all the dating methods "hang together" because the scientists find what they expect to find (a common experimental phenomenon).

The initial amount of C14 is inferred from the amounts of the other isotopes. There is nothing any less scientific about the determination of the initial conditions than there is about the rate of decay. If there were no way of determining how much C14 existed in order to determine how much has decayed, then there would be no C14 dating at all.

Once again, I do not claim the Earth is 6000 years old. The Genesis story occured around this time, but the Earth already existed before this 6 day event. How long? No one knows. Probably longer than 6000 years but certainly much less than 4.5 billion.

Why are you so certain that the creation of the Earth is less than 4.5 billion years? Just because you don't believe the strong evidence for that age for the Earth from the existing methods does not mean that the Earth is certainly younger than that. For all you know the Earth could be much older - assuming the dating methods are incorrect. The dating methods all assume that a minimum amount of time has taken place for the various processes to take place.

You don't have a scientific background, do you? Yes, one unexplained "exception" does indeed destroy a theory - but only as long as it is unexplained. One set of human bones underneath a set of dinosaur bones, completely destroys the whole superposition argument, no matter how many human remains are found above dinosaur remains. One exception destroys a theory, unless it can somehow be explained (something like the natives dug down under the dinosaur remains and buried the human - of course you have to see evidence of the dig).

Einstein did not disprove Newton's theories, he only fine-tuned them. Newton was not "superceded" by Einstein and Relativity.

Your last line proves the point I was trying to make, thank you. I do not have a science degree, it is true, but please don't assume that that means I don't have some kind of scientific background. I personally would be fascinated to discover how successful you are in getting your Physics Ph. D. after you tell your professors that you don't believe in peer review.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

David F.: MW, yes I can explain. First, the Earth is older than 6000 years. Second, the civilizations you cite did exist but the ages you cite are incorrect. They are not as old as you have been lead to believe. Can you tell me why I should think civilizations in Crete, Turkey, Greece and the Greek Islands are from 30,000-50,000 years old? Why should I believe these numbers? You don't know, nor does anyone else know, how old these civilizations are.
*************
M*W: I would 'assume' that archeologists studied these sites before documenting and museumizing them. In the book, When God Was A Woman, by Merlin Stone, 1976, she states:

"Even more astonishing was the archeological evidence which proved that Her religion (Goddess) had existed and flourished in the Near and Middle East for thousands of years before the arrival of the patriarchal Abraham, first prophet of the male deity Yahweh. Archeologists had traced the worship of the Goddess back to the Neolithic communities of about 7000 BC, some to the Upper Paleolithic cultures of about 25,000 BC. From the time of its Neolithic origins, its existence was repeatedly attested to until well into Roman times. Yet Bible scholars aagreed that it was as late as somewhere between 1800 and 1550 BC that Abraham had lived in Canaan (Palestine)."

"The third line of evidence, and the most tangible, derives from the numerous sculptures of women found in the Gravettian-Aurignacian cultures of the Upper Paleolithis Age. Some of these date back as far as 25,000 BC."

"In a proto-Neolithis site and Shanidar, on the northern stretches of the Tigris River, another grave was found, this one dating from about 9000 BC."

"James Mellaart, formerly the assistant director of the British Institute of Archeology at Ankara, now teaching at the Institute of Archeology in London, describes the proto-Neolithic cultures of the Near East, dating them at about 9000 to 7000 BC."

"At the site of what is now known as Jericho (in Canaan), by 7000 BC people were living in plastered brick houses, some with clay ovens with chimneys and even sockets for doorposts."

"But just as the people of the early Neolithic cultures may have come down from Europe, as the possible descendants of the Gravettian-Aurignacian cultures, so later waves of even more northern peoples descended into the Near East. There has been some conjecture that these were the descendants of the Mesolithic (about 15,000-8,000 BC)."

"Although the earliest examples of written language yet discovered anywhere on earth appeared at the temple of the Queen of Heaven in Erech in Sumer, just before 3000 BC, writing at that time seems to have been used primarily for the business accounts of the temple."

"In 1962 James Mellaart described the cultures of 9000 to 7000 BC in his Earliest Civilizations of the Near East."

"In Neolithic periods in Anatolia, the Great Goddess was extolled. Her worship appeared in the shrines of Catal Huyuk in 6500 BC."

"These Maglemosian and Kunda people of Mesolithic times (about 15,000-8,000 BC) were generally located in the forest and coastal areas of northern Europe, most especially in Denmark."

"In about 4000 BC the Ubaid peoiple built a temple at Eridu. Though shrines to the Goddess had been built in many Neolithic nd Chalcolithic towns along along the Tigris and Euphrates from 7000 BC onward, this temple at Eridu appears to be the first built on a high platform."

"With rivers and streams that flow across Europe and the Near East more numerous at a time closer to the melting of the Ice Age glaciers and pluvial rains that were still occuring in 10,000 BC, it may have been some of these ancient sailors, possibly over many generations, who eventually made their way to the warmer climate of Eridu."

"Somewhere between 3400 and 3200 BC another group of people appear to have entered Sumer."
*************
David F.: BTW, how are we to know which is the original story? There must have been an original story somewhere, don't you agree? My opinion is that the Genesis story is more true to the original than say Gilgamesh (which doesn't really tell the flood story but only mentions it in passing). If I have to pick an original, I prefer Genesis - and other stories, like Gilgamesh, are copied from Genesis. Can you prove me wrong?
*************
M*W: Stone discusses Gilgamish in the following:

"The Babylonian epic of Gilgamish, based on an earlier Sumerian saga known only from small fragments, the name of Tammuz was included in a long list of lovers whom Ishtar had in some way deeply injured. Gilgamish, historically listed as an early En of Erech, pointedly declined the honor of becoming the husband of Ishtar and thus being added to the list. The story probably represents one of the earlier refusals of a consort/king to follow the ancient customs and the attempt to institute a more permanent power kingship."

"The story of Gilgamish takes place in Sumer. But once again we may suspect the influence or presence of the patrilineal northerners, perhaps from Aratta (Ararat). The name Gilgamish may well be associted with the later Hurrian city of Carchemish, whose ancient name was Kar Gamish. The story of Gilgamish is found not only in Sumerian and Bablyonian literature but in Hurrian and Hittite texts as well."

:Gilgamish is listed as an En of Erech; therefore he gains the role of "king" as consort to the high preistess. His father is listed as Lugal Banda, who, though a previous En of Erech, "taking the son from the father, taking the maiden from her lover." Nex we reaad that he is about to aattend a feast at which he willl "fertilize the woman of destiny," suggesting his role in the sacred marriage."

"Shortly afterward, Ishtar proposes marriage to Gilgamish, telling him that She has longingly gazed upon his beauty. But, Gilgamish, acting not in accordance with the role he is supposed to ply, spurns the proposal of the Goddess."

"Gilgamesh is spared and at this point goes off on his search for immortality, which leads into the Sumerian account of the flood and its survivors."

"The custom of ritual regicide disppeared s the patrilineal tribes gained dominance. The numerous copies of the legend of Gilgamish, in varoius languages, may have been used to further this purpose."
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David F.: Edit: I have been to Glenrose and I have seen the dinosaur tracks - and what appear to be very large human prints mixed with the dinosaurs. When I put my foot in the human-like prints, they did appear to be a foot print but they were HUGE - as if our ancestors were much much bigger.
*************
M*W: There are some dinosaur relics near Austin or San Marcos. I've never actually been to the location of the bones, but there is a giant lizard's bones among others in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I've never really been that interested in dinosaurs, although they seem to be quite popular with little boys. I tend to believe that size is everything. Big dinosaurs, big people. Little lizards, little people. Do you know the ages of the dinosaurs? I don't. I haven't researched it. I try to limit my researchings to religion, because I tend to "go ape" when I'm reading, and there's no stopping me!