Posted on 05/26/2007 9:24:34 AM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
Some Scientists Worry That Sophisticated Center Will Distort Children's Views of Science
According to an ABC News poll, 60 percent of Americans believe God created the world in six days. In Petersburg, Ky., this weekend, a creation museum is opening that depicts a story far from what you may have learned in science class.
Exhibits at almost every natural history museum teach that dinosaurs are millions of years old, and that they died out long before human beings existed. But at the Creation Museum, they say God created dinosaurs and humans at the same time.
The Creation Museum, designed by the same man behind some of the attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, is a $27 million, high-tech sensory experience with animatronic dinosaurs and a movie theater with seats that shake.
The museum is intended to convince visitors that evolution is wrong and that the biblical story of life on earth from Adam and Eve to Noah's ark is scientifically verifiable.
The museum depicts Adam living with animals, including a dinosaur.
Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, the group that is funding the museum, says that only "secular scientists" would maintain that the first humans never lived with dinosaurs.
"[Scientists] can say that, but what's their evidence?" Ham says, insisting that "All land animals were made on day six."
Mainstream scientists worry that because the museum is so technically sophisticated, it could be effective in giving children a distorted view of science.
"That they'll show up in classrooms and say, 'Gee, Mrs. Brown, I went to this spiffy museum last summer and they say that everything you're teaching me is a lie,'" said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education.
Ham believes that's what should happen.
"And I say, great. Amen. That's what this place is all about," he said. "It's meant to challenge people."
The stakes are high. The museum argues that evolution jeopardizes people's belief in the Bible and leads to social ills like pornography and abortion.
"In an evolutionary world view, why should you have things like absolute morality? Why would it be wrong to kill someone?" said Jason Lisle, of Answers in Genesis. "I'm not saying that evolutionists aren't moral. I'm saying they have no reason to be moral."
[more at the link]
So stop making claims that you know are not true.
Typical evolutionist assertions with no facts to support them
How about all those radiocarbon dates older than 6,000 years? I have obtained quite a few of those myself.
Not to mention all the other evidence.
As you well know, the dating methods are very suspect
The radiometric dating methods are based on those same naturalistic, uniformitarian, anti-biblical assumptions and there is plenty of published evidence that they do not give valid dates. Besides the RATE research mentioned earlier, consider the well-researched arguments in The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods. You cannot expect this icon of evolution to be overthrown in a few short paragraphs.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2006/0303.asp
Mythology of Modern Dating Methods (The)
by John Woodmorappe
SKU: 10-3-090
List Price: $12.99
Price: $12.99
Publisher: Institute for Creation Research
Published: 1999
A masterful demonstration of the fallacy of radioactive dating assumptions and techniques with citations of almost 500 articles by evolutionists. A solid refutation of the belief that radiometric dating proves the Earth is old.
Woodmorappe
10-3-090
radiometric
dating
radiation
radioactive
carbon
dating
http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Mythology-of-Modern-Dating-Methods-The,4612,226.aspx
If you want to learn about radiocarbon dating, I have included some links below.
But I still need you to show me how radiocarbon dating past 6,000 years is incorrect. All you have done is link to religious apologists comments.
You need to use science in your argument if you want scientists to pay any attention. And creation "science" is not going to cut it. Just one quick example--don't some of these folks calibrate the radiocarbon method by reference to the global flood? What a joke!
ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth CreationistsRadiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.
Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
Tree Ring and C14 DatingHow does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
I doubt that will happen. My daughter's been to Disneyland three times and she knows that mice don't actually talk.
It may give them an accurate view of what the Bible says. But let's not pretend it's science.
Can you honestly name a time when it didn't?
The way it really is: little-known facts about radiometric dating
by Tas Walker
Long-age geologists will not accept a radiometric date unless it matches their pre-existing expectations.
Many people think that radiometric dating has proved the Earth is millions of years old. That’s understandable, given the image that surrounds the method. Even the way dates are reported (e.g. 200.4 ± 3.2 million years) gives the impression that the method is precise and reliable (box below).
However, although we can measure many things about a rock, we cannot directly measure its age. For example, we can measure its mass, its volume, its colour, the minerals in it, their size and the way they are arranged. We can crush the rock and measure its chemical composition and the radioactive elements it contains. But we do not have an instrument that directly measures age.
Before we can calculate the age of a rock from its measured chemical composition, we must assume what radioactive elements were in the rock when it formed.1 And then, depending on the assumptions we make, we can obtain any date we like.
It may be surprising to learn that evolutionary geologists themselves will not accept a radiometric date unless they think it is correct—i.e. it matches what they already believe on other grounds. It is one thing to calculate a date. It is another thing to understand what it means.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/radiometric.asp
We were discussing radiocarbon dating, not radiometric dating. I know a lot about the former, not much about the latter.
Radiocarbon dating shows the earth is far older than 6,000 years. A couple of dozen dates I have done are older than that.
You have yet to show me that the radiocarbon method is incorrect. (And stay away from Answers In Genesis if you want to argue science. They are seriously deficient in that regard.)
Evolutionists are full of assumptions, just like Creationists.
We operate from a different paradigm and deal with the data accordingly.
Both schools have scientists, and come to the same conclusion when dealing with objective evidence.
What they disagree with is over the implications of the evidence.
“Creation Museum Marries Adam, Eve and Dinosaurs”
Dang, and I always thought it was the liberals who would be pushing to legalize humans wedding animals.
I am always willing to learn something new. That separates me from the practitioners of creation "science."
Now, where is the evidence that radiocarbon dates older than 6,000 years are inaccurate?
You have to show that the dating is indeed accurate.
As for AIG, that is where I found about the real dinosaur bones.
False. You are challenging mainstream science with a fringe idea. You have to show that your fringe idea has more merit than mainstream science.
That's the way it works in science. Fringe ideas stay on the fringe until they can bring some evidence to the discussion.
Where is your evidence?
I'll check back later. Right now I have more important things to do. I haven't dusted my dental floss collection in weeks.
Clearly, you are not willing to the learn the most important thing, In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth
You asked for evidence against your dating.
You got it.
Deal with the evidence.
Just saying it is 'fringe' is a copout and you know it.
Your 'science' if dating is suspect and you well know it.
You have no dating that dates conclusively with over 10,000 years.
radiocarbon dating n.
a method of estimating the ages of organic materials using the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 (the content of the former decreasing as the content of the latter increases within the organic material over time); tested effectively only to ages of about 3000 years
radiometric dating n.
a method of dating artifacts by the use of measurable, unstable isotope elements, which are known over time to to decay at currently known rates into measurable, stable elements; the difference in content of each element within the artifact in question is used as a ratio to estimate an “age” of the artifact; this process, while often portrayed as accurate and reliable, invariably requires multiple unverifiable assumptions in calculating alleged “ages”—making it highly suspect as a reliable dating method; results often vary widely (“useful” dates retained & published, others ignored), confirming the method’s unreliability.
http://www.trueorigin.org/glossary.asp
I was quite surprised at reading this thoughtful piece from the New York Times.
It seems to be that the author of this review is a good multiculturalist.
He seems to be saying that if you grant the premises of multiculturalism, then even creationists are as entitled to tell their own story using privately donated funds as any other cultural group.
As long as there is no effort by anyone to squash this museum by force, I believe it will be good for science in the long run.
If the scientific evidence presented by this museum does not hold up, people will simply be looking at it as a curiosity — similar to mythology.
I watched two old BBC Horizon reruns last night about Atlantis. The first one focused on this 'scientist' that reminds me of Ken Ham. One of a very few actual scientists that forwarded a crackpot idea that 10,500 years ago Atlanteans went around the world and instilled some sort of memory of Atlantis. Fast forward 7-8,000 years and all these monuments pop up that are reminiscent of star constellations. He had an answer, however ridiculous, for any refutation of his claims.
Now why do I bring this up? Because accepted science is that carbon dating works. Next you'll be telling us that Einstein's theory which helps astronomers measure the explosion of stars and their distance from earth (and therefore distance in time) is somehow flawed because it shows we're picking up gamma rays from 13 billion years in the past. Nowhere in the Bible does it state the earth is 6,000 years old. Nowhere. And to continually argue a point that in no way should shape a person's faith is sort of ridiculous
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