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

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | May 1, 2006 | Helen Fields

[ahayes]

From what I can find about Tim White that's probably Australopithecus afarensis. Still looking, still not sure what the point is supposed to be. . .

[betty boop]

Most of us didn't set out to eliminate deities. We just noticed they never appear. I doubt Pinker or Wilson set out to construct an atheistic system; they're just used to eliminating unnecessary entities from their model.

"Deities" don't appear in science; and it's not science's job to find them. And it's not necessary for a scientist to have an opinion in the matter one way or the other. However, I can think of dozens of scientists who believe in God and it doesn't seem to detract from their work.

In fact, "a religious attitude" seemed to help Einstein:

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.

Actually, Professor, this is how I feel about the matter myself.

As for Pinker and Wilson, I just can't shake the impression that the reason they bump off God is to reduced the universe to manageable proportions. They can't "get at God," so they aver they can explain everything without Him. But if you will allow this: IF there is a God (and I, of course am convinced there is), THEN any account of reality whatsoever, scientific or philosophical, that denies this will not be the whole truth. Indeed, it might actually be an outright falsification of reality.

At the same time, no scientist ought to be theologizing: that belongs to religious people and philosophers. But because something does not fall within the purview of science does not mean that something does not and cannot exist.

[betty boop]

Thanks you for your kind words, Conservative Texas Mom!

[Thatcherite]

Oh No! Don't say someone has found out that we are conspiring to suppress all the evidence against evolution. Whadda we gonna do? I say rub out the schmuck before he tells anyone.

Wait a minute, if he says it is unfalsifiable, not only is there no evidence against it, but there can be no evidence against it by definition. The guy's just some poor drunk; move along folks. Nothing to see here.

[Thatcherite]

Ok. So how do you calibrate a 68 million year dating method?

Use different methods and see if they give the same answer. Cross check those answers against other data, such as the known rate of geological and biological processes such as gene-clocks. Further cross-check assumptions such as the constant rate of atomic decay and constant lightspeed by observing atomic decay rates in distant supernovae. Numerous different methods of calculating this stuff come up with the same answers (within reasonable experimental error) every time.

[Diamond]

I meant to say two hundred million years.

No problemo.

Hakatai Shale Precambrian pollen. Collection technique:

At each sample site, the first three to four inches (7.5 to 10 centimetres) of exposed rock was chipped off, to avoid any surface contamination (the pores in the rock are in any case too fine to allow pollen to penetrate to any significant depth). Then the rock beneath was sampled, taking care to avoid any cracks and fissures. The team opened previously sealed, sterile plastic bags just long enough to allow freshly flaked-off rock to drop in. They quickly resealed them. In addition, the collection was done in winter, with snow at the canyon top and all shrubs and trees dormant.

Great care was taken in the laboratory to avoid contamination. In addition, control experiments were performed in which, among other things, slides were exposed to the air in various actively used laboratories for a total of some 400 slide-exposure-days. Each slide was exposed for between seven and 57 days. In that time, only three possible pollen grains appeared on the exposed slides, although there were many other contaminants found - fungal spores, plant hairs, epitheleal cells (skin tissue), and even cells resembling blood cells. Thus, the chances of pollen from the air falling on to the slides in the short time they were exposed during preparation were extremely small.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3916e5874705.htm

Cordially,

[Right Wing Professor]

. And it's not necessary for a scientist to have an opinion in the matter one way or the other...At the same time, no scientist ought to be theologizing: that belongs to religious people and philosophers.

Scientists frequently do have opinions on the matter. They're allowed. And they're also allowed to bring their knowledge of the universe, gleaned from science, to bear on philosophy, and to have the opinion that theology is an empty and anachronistic pursuit.

[Liberal Classic]

Precambrian Pollen

This latter example is instructive because it shows that even when "creation science" is refuted there is an urge to cling to "evidence" favorable to the cause (Austin 1994:137). Burdick (1966) claimed to have isolated pollens of pine, juniper and Mormon tea in samples of the Proterozoic Hakatai Shales in the Grand Canyon, rocks much older than the first appearance of vascular plants in the geologic record. When later, more comprehensive and careful studies failed to reproduce these results, it was concluded that Burdick's work was simply a case of contamination by modern pollens (Chadwick 1981). MTC still leaves the door open by concluding, "The possibility of pollen in Precambrian rocks, no doubt, will remain controversial among creationists."

Source: National Center for Science Education

[2nsdammit]

Well, now you've done it. They're going to scream "creationist evidence is being repressed!" (Never mind that "creation scientists" are part of said repression...)

;-)

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Well, now you've done it. They're going to scream "creationist evidence is being repressed!" (Never mind that "creation scientists" are part of said repression...)

;-)"

"Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

[2nsdammit]

LOL! You read my mind!

[Liberal Classic]

This new learning amazes me. Tell me again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

[music_code]

Questions for evolutionists

How long did it take for the acid in our stomachs to be the right amount for us to digest food?

How long did it take for eyes to form, was everyone farsighted at first or nearsighted?

Why are their two sexes?

Why are there sexes?

When did we grow two arms because one wasn't sufficient?

If we came from monkey's why are there monkeys?

Where are the species that have derived from humans ,if they haven't formed yet where are they on this planet so I can go see them?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Once there were only three gaps standing between eohippus and horse, now there are twenty-one. The distance is growing!

[King Prout]

good good... I eagerly anticipte the opportunity to feel Ghengis Khan's "greatest pleasure"

[Doctor Stochastic]

"Tie the dog loose and let him run the alley up and down."

[js1138]

Theology ought to be under the control of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and other Professional Thinking Persons.

[Pippin]

Did yoy see this one?

[Diamond]

The National Center for Science Education has not done its homework. This is NOT pollen from the Burdick collection or the Chadwick studies.

Read this. http://www.rae.org/pollen.html

Cordially,

[Liberal Classic]

When no one else is able to duplicate their results, the reasonable conclusion to reach is that their sample was contaminated.