Claim CC381. There are too few Stone-Age remains for a long history of humanity.
Evolutionary anthropologists say Stone-Age people, who buried their dead, were around for about 185,000 years, at a population between one and ten million. If these numbers are correct, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies, but we have found remains of only a few thousand. That is more in line with an age of only a few hundred years before history.
Source:
Humphreys, D. Russell. 2005. Evidence for a young world. _Impact_ 384 (June): vi. http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1842
Response:
1. The fact that some people buried bodies does not mean all did. Even today, common funerary practices include incineration, exposure to the scavengers and elements, and burial at sea.
2. Burial alone does not preserve a body. In acid soil, all organic matter can easily decay in 1,000 years. Moisture, plant roots, digging animals, or a combination of these can also speed decay to the point where nothing would remain after a few thousand years. Fossilization is not a common process.
In the Stone Age, enduring artifacts would likely have been buried only with people of high status, so we would not expect them to be common. _______________________________________________________
"Claim CA115.1: Design arguments converted atheist Anthony Flew to theism.
Design arguments have caused philosopher Anthony Flew to renounce 66 years of atheism and admit that the universe is created. Specifically, he was convinced by the [CI101]complexity of life and the [CB010] improbability of abiogenesis.
Source:
Yahya, Harun. n.d. The scientific world is turning to God.
http://www.harunyahya.com/articles/70scientific_world.html
Response:
1. Anthony Flew's conversion was not to theism, but to deism, a belief that a creator set the universe in motion but has not participated in any way since (Carrier 2004).
2. Flew's one and only piece of relevant evidence for accepting a deistic god was the apparent improbability of a naturalistic origin for life (Carrier 2004). Flew, by his own admission, had not kept up with the relevant science and was mistaught by Gerald Schroeder, a physicist and Jewish theologian (e.g., Schroeder 2001). He later conceded, "I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction" (Carrier 2005). Thus Flew's conversion is, by Flew's own admission, baseless.
Flew remains a deist but calls his belief a "very modest defection from my previous unbelief" (Carrier 2005).
Links:
Carrier, Richard. 2004. Antony Flew considers God--Sort of. _The Secular Web_ (Oct. 10), http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
Young, Matt. 2005. Antony Flew's conversion to deism: An update. http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000723.html (Jan. 9).
References:
1. Carrier, Richard. 2004. Antony Flew considers God--Sort of. _The Secular Web_ (Oct. 10), http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
2. Carrier, Richard. 2005. Antony Flew considers God--Sort of; Update (January 2005). _The Secular Web_ (Oct. 10), http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369#January2005-1
3. Schroeder, Gerald. 2001. _The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth_.
Wishing does not make a thing so, creationists! There is a real world out there and it isn't anything your momentary convenience dictates.