Dinosaur Shocker (YEC say dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years)

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | May 1, 2006 | Helen Fields

[Coyoteman]

Believe it or not, dinosaur footprints, and the footprints of man, are found in the same strata, in the very same formation, in some cases only 18 inches apart, at a geological dig in Glen Rose, Texas, called the Paluxy River Bed.

OK, I don't believe it.

[scottdeus12]

"Well...this black monolith comes down from the sky and... oh... sorry that is a movie.

I don't know"

Well, that's my point.....it's not statistically possible for complex life forms to come into existence by randomness and chance. Any design (complex life forms in this instance) by definition can *only* be created by a designer.....even plants are somewhat complex, wouldn't you agree?

[ahayes]

I don't understand =/= it's impossible.

[trashcanbred]

While I don't know enough science to take sides, the ID contingent seems far more gentlemanly than the Darwinians.

Perhaps it is because people who believe in the scientific method and the processes that theories go through do not like the ID contingent to do a "run around" and try and teach it in public schools. It isn't Evolution I care about, but about the scientific process that we go through to sort of show whether a theory holds water or not. The ID'ers do not do this, they believe they can simply push their ideas irregardless.

This has a tendency for people such as myself to get very very angry and very very "ungentlemanly".

You may ask why do I hold the scientific process in such "high regard"? It is because it is responsible for many great things, such as the computer you are typing on and medicines and surgical procedures that save lives everyday. Subversion of this process, for all its known flaws, is not a very good thing.

I hope this helps explain it.

[scottdeus12]

" don't understand =/= it's impossible."

Is this part of your devious plot? I don't understand your comment.

[Teacher317]

First we find:

insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old.

Science is refuted because of their personal beliefs? Not exactly rational. Then they say:

“If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence.

So they claim this is proof that supports their belief, but that there is no proof to support their beliefs, because God designed it so that we would have no proof...

so which is it?

[trashcanbred]

Well, that's my point.....it's not statistically possible for complex life forms to come into existence by randomness and chance. Any design (complex life forms in this instance) by definition can *only* be created by a designer.....even plants are somewhat complex, wouldn't you agree?

Well I would not say it is statistically impossible at all. But... let's say it is statistically unlikely... that it is 1 in a billion. Well... all that means is it IS likely to happen over a long period of time, right?

Plus I disagree with the randomness and chance point you make. Natural selection is actually the opposite of random chance.

[Sofa King]

"So they claim this is proof that supports their belief, but that there is no proof to support their beliefs, because God designed it so that we would have no proof.."

I believe that quote was from Schweitzer.

"This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”"

[Almagest]

I had written:

<< But the seven-day week has no basic natural pattern to it. >>


You responded:

<< Except to those who have observed the moon. (Or a woman.) >>


No, that's wrong. Many different cultures came up with "months" by observing the moon. Only one culture came up with the seven-day week. The cycle of the moon is between 29 and 30 days. So -- those cultures that used months had months of 29 or 30 days.

And there really is no logic behind the idea that a seven-day cycle came about from observing a 29-30 day cycle.

Now the woman's period -- you may have something there! I don't mind the idea that the 7-day week may have come from this. What bothers me is that women have an excuse to be crazy for three weeks out of every four!

I knew a woman who used to excuse her bizarre behavior by saying, "I was ovulating!"

[scottdeus12]

"Natural selection is actually the opposite of random chance."

Then who or what selects?

"Well... all that means is it IS likely to happen over a long period of time, right?"

Why would this even happen at all?

[ahayes]

The environment selects.

And why wouldn't it?

[scottdeus12]

How does an "environment" select....? Does that mean an environment is intelligent?

[ahayes]

Nope, not at all. The environment changes and if the organisms in it don't have traits that fit, they are unable to reproduce effectively.

[jennyp]

waaaaaaaaaaay-past-sell-date PLACEMARKER

[BrandtMichaels]

In the Bible God says the majesty of His creation is proof of his existence and mankind is without excuse for not repenting and believing. Probably has something to do with the Bible being reproduced in more copies than any other book as well as more languages.

Or just consider the words from the Galaxy song.

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The Hindu's had 7-day week. So to Tibet, Burma (although I haven't checked if these were borrowed from the Chinese who borrowed them themselves.) The Egyptians had a 7-day week (at least the followers of the Handsome Sin) which devolved into the Roman week. So the Jews were not the only ones to use 7 days. Sumer didn't use weeks, but they took the first, seveth, and fifteenth of each month off anyway.

Some Egyptians and Greeks (and later French) used a 10-day week. The Aztecs (copying the Mayas) used 13 and 20-day weeks together.

But how is this anything but an historical accident? Other cultures survived, even for millenia without a 7-day week or even without the concept of a week. (Some did do alternating 7 and 8-day weeks.)

Hours, days, weeks, months, eveny years don't come out evenly placed in any calendar construction anyway. Omar Khayyam's was the best for leap years, 31 leap years in 128 years (skip one year evey 128 instead of every 100); tidal drag will change the length of the day relative to the year before the approximation fails (much better than the Julian calendar). The guys working on the Gregorian did know of Omar's work though.

Can one use a julienne-colander for slicing carrots?

[PatrickHenry]

Hours, days, weeks, months, even years don't come out evenly placed in any calendar construction anyway.

Bad design.

[Almagest]

<< But how is this anything but an historical accident? Other cultures survived, even for millenia without a 7-day week or even without the concept of a week. (Some did do alternating 7 and 8-day weeks.) >>


I agree with you. I consider it completely arbitrary. I do not believe the claims of those who say that the 7-day week originated "in the garden" in the Bible. I was just including that in anticipation of the arguments of the biblical literalists. The evidence seems to point to the Babylonians as the origin of OUR 7-day week.

That is very interesting about the Hindus, Burma, and the others. I'll enjoy reading up on that. Thanks.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

Romans 1:20

20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.


I find "invisible qualities" to be very interesting. It makes me wonder if nature is His invisible qualities. I know it's His creation. Maybe we're looking at proof of Him when we observe nature itself?

One thing I keep wondering lately is if it's arrogant to expect proof of God apart from nature. Is that like saying to God, "Prove yourself," when He has told us that He already has through His invisible qualities? I don't know. It's just something I've been thinking about a lot as I've read more and more of these threads.

[Heartlander]

The time has come to take seriously the fact that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day. In particular, we must recognize our biological past in trying to understand our interactions with others. We must think again especially about our so-called “ethical principles.” The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no [ethical] justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will.... In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.

Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.
-Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, ed. J. E. Hutchingson (Orlando, Fl.: Harcourt and Brace, 1991)

So you disagree with the scientific finding that we share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees?

Although the number and meaning of this finding can vary depending on the source, the ‘scientific’ philosophical implications remain.

With that in mind, consider the following representative statements made by leading sociobiologists. Richard Dawkins, easily the best-known spokesman for this movement, writes that ‘we are . . . robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes',[1] and again that we are ‘manipulated to ensure the survival of [our] genes’.[2] The same writer also says that ‘the fundamental truth [is] that an organism is a tool of DNA’.[3] (That is, of the DNA molecules which are the organism’s genes.) Again, Dawkins says that living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA’.[4] Similarly, E. O. Wilson, an equal or higher sociobiological authority, says that ‘the individual organism is only the vehicle [of genes], part of an elaborate device to preserve and spread them…The organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA’.[5]
Royal Institute of Philosophy