Posted on 06/20/2007 9:05:55 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
What is it that you know that you think is so important?
I know that you don’t know much about Newton based on your comment but what you know or don’t know is of relatively little importance to me. But for the record Newton didn’t just “dabble” in religion, he was consumed by it.
Considering he pretty much definde science and methodological naturalism, that seems a bit odd. Either he was schizophrenic, or he understood that religion and science occupy separate and distinct spheres of knowledge.
Either way, I don’t follow the argument in the thread starting article. Scientists can be religious, but science does not study miracles.
I’m srry, but bacteria dying and then having the few remaining end up being resistant isn’t “evolution”.
It’s still the same bacteria, it’s just had all it’s other traits knocked out of the gene pool. Congrats, you’ve just narrowed the natural genetic potential of a species.
Taking a flu vaccine- for one, is a virus alive? For another, all you end up doing is restricting the most recent population. It’s still the flu. No evolution, just more pigeon-holing.
When the bacteria that keep becoming resistant to our drugs changes into a completely new species (one not formally present in it’s host culture) we’ll start talking about bacteria evolving.
Smirk. Didn't I just tell you we aint talking bout no bacteria in a petri dish, neither? BTW, the flu is still the flu is still the flu, it ain't created a new Genus. Same with your bacteria. W/ bacteria, the genetic mutation that allows them to be resistant to certain medicines, which kill off all of their compatriots, is passed on to thier "offspring". This is genetic mutation amplified by natural selection. Duh. No one has a problem with that. The problem arises when you suggest LOOOOOOONG term creation of Genus based on these minor accumulations. (BTW, creation implies a creator, hence the routine use of these terms by evolutionists regarding evolution). If >99% of mutations are bad for the organism, and the remaining ones may be beneficial, how do you suppose they passed on to all the other squirrels, say? You have FAITH that what you see in a petri dish is the same thing that happens in sexual reproduction. FIne with me, but it is not provable. We have NO EVIDENCE of genus creation via natural selection, just assumptions, hyposthesis, and guesses built on bones in the dirt.
Does not it seem odd to you that we find bones of several animal SPECIES that have not changed over MILLIONS of years? Oh, I know, they reached the peak, had not further beneficial mutations, and/or had not envioronmental pressures to induce natural selection. This, in my mind, is completely untenable. Believe it if you will, for this is untestable.
Are you so completely ignorant that you don't know that evolution studies on bacteria start with a single cell?
How do you explain the age of the earth versus the Genesis account, as most men read it?
Be cause the Global Flood occured, I would expect to find:
1. Large fields of biomass (plant and animal) buried under other sediment.
2. Large numbers of animals buried intact.
3. Catastrophic rearrangement of land masses, valley creation and mountain upheaval.
4. Evidence of a worldwide greenhouse, with evidence of tropical plantlife qat the poles.
5. Evidence from mankind in a variety of cultures, either oral or written.
This seems ample evidence to me...
1. Large fields of biomass (plant and animal) buried under other sediment.
2. Large numbers of animals buried intact.
3. Catastrophic rearrangement of land masses, valley creation and mountain upheaval.
4. Evidence of a worldwide greenhouse, with evidence of tropical plantlife qat the poles.
5. Evidence from mankind in a variety of cultures, either oral or written.
This seems ample evidence to me...
And all of those have better explanations than a global flood.
Lets try something very simple: The commonly accepted date for the global flood is about 4350 years ago. That is a time period that is well-known by soil scientists and archaeologists (not geologists, as you are dealing with soils, not rock, at that young age). Find a soil column that spans, say, the last 10,000 years. If there was a global flood about 4350 years ago it will show up in that soil column. Given the claims made about the flood it should be noticeable.
In fact, there are many areas where such soil columns have been examined spanning the 4350 year old date attributed to the flood and there was no evidence of a global flood. Even worse are the cultural and genetic continuities before and after the date attributed to the flood. The Egyptians were keeping good records of the annual flooding of the Nile 4350 years ago, but they failed to mention a global flood. DNA has been found in many areas of the world which shows a continuity before and after the date claimed for the flood, but no replacement with Near Eastern DNA.
You also mentioned flood legends in early cultures? Almost all early cultures lived near water, and floods happen all the time (hear about New Orleans?). Now if you could show that all of the flood stories originated at the exact same time that might be better, but wasn't that supposed to be the time when there were no people left to tell tales?
I don't know why you are asking about biomass, fossils, land masses, valleys, mountain upheaval, etc., as those events took place millions of years ago. The claims for a global flood were only 4350 years ago.
It seems you have not thought out the supposed evidence presented in support of a global flood, and examined that evidence in light of scientific findings.
Here is a link that might help: Problems with a Global Flood, Second Edition, by Mark Isaak
1. The Bible is arguably the most concise, accurate historical record we have before 400BC, and has been proven correct repeatedly, never disproven with archaeology. However, you discount it in favor of Egyptian records that a full of holes & contradictions, and the timelines commonly accepted for the dynasties are often disputed amongst Egytologists.
2. Dating that relies on decay methods have numberous assumptions, such as intial amounts of parent/daughter elements, decay rates, and no outside influences, e.g. migration of elements, cross-contamination, etc. Often, dates are off by 50% with different methods, and some dates can be off by more. Several methods argue for a young earth, buit of course you will discount those immediatly.
3. Verify the earth is the age you assert, without any assumptions in the so called dating methods offered for evidence.
The real crux of the matter, is can the New Testament be trusted in it's account of Jesus resurrection. And if so, do I choose to believe he did, and if so, who is he?
1. The Bible is arguably the most concise, accurate historical record we have before 400BC, and has been proven correct repeatedly, never disproven with archaeology. However, you discount it in favor of Egyptian records that a full of holes & contradictions, and the timelines commonly accepted for the dynasties are often disputed amongst Egytologists.
The Bible has been "disproved with archaeology" in at least one instance. There is simply no evidence for a global flood at the appointed time. You can deny that evidence, or you can disbelieve it, but that will not make it go away.
2. Dating that relies on decay methods have numberous assumptions, such as intial amounts of parent/daughter elements, decay rates, and no outside influences, e.g. migration of elements, cross-contamination, etc. Often, dates are off by 50% with different methods, and some dates can be off by more. Several methods argue for a young earth, buit of course you will discount those immediatly.
You seem to be equating "assumptions" with "baseless guesses." That is not correct.
You berate scientists for, as an example, assuming decay rates are constant (an assumption for which there is a lot of evidence). But by taking the opposite position, that decay rates fluctuate all over the place, you fall into an even bigger contradiction than the one you accuse scientists of because there is no significant evidence that decay rates do fluctuate. It seems that you are the one with the "baseless guess" here, not the scientists. Your other objections are on the same order. Scientists do not just pull assumptions out of the thin air.
But if you want just one decent dating method, try tree rings from the standing dead bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of southern California. You can count individual rings. You can see the effects of volcanoes and other natural disasters of known dates in the rings, and they show up where they should (that demolishes the argument of more than one ring per year). And by comparing the ring sequences from many trees, and overlapping those sequences, you can go back some 12,600 years. This ring sequence in turn can calibrate the radiocarbon dating method, as it accounts for atmospheric variation of 14C. So, another one of those nasty assumptions is cross-checked.
3. Verify the earth is the age you assert, without any assumptions in the so called dating methods offered for evidence.
Nothing wrong with assumptions, as I have noted above. They can be checked and poorly-supported assumptions don't last long.
If you are interested, here are some good links for the radiocarbon and radiometric dating methods:
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.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...."
Quantum Theory. Though by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, as the position and and momentum of a system can never be simultaneously known, we can never really perceive of the "beginning", although the contemporary expansion of the universe "seems" to account fairly well for a "creation event" within the constraints of the Planck Time.
Given this, it doesn't stretch credulity that such expansion by E=mc2, where mass(m) is relativistically constrained, that 15 billion years might be expressed otherwise as "6 days".
"If I knew Him I'd be Him." Yet He doesn't seem stingy in time.
We agree to disagree on that, and you have not addressed the evidence I raised, on you offered your own explantion based on Millions of years. Try some verifiable evidence or archaeoligical errancy, and before you do, consider the previous assertions, later proven inccorect, eg Jericos existence, David's existence, Beltashazzar's kingship, etc.
...radiocarbon...
I never alluded to radiocarbon, but rather radiometric, such as Pb/Pb isochron. Big difference, and you know it.
...tree rings...
Do you understand correlation coeficients (r-values)? Do you understand Statistical Significance (p-values)? If you do, do some persoanal, independent research on dendrochronolgy (outside of talkorigins) and try and understand it's inherent weekness for dates earlier that circa 1700 AD. Research Bristle Cone Pines, and the methuselah tree, and it's age...
Just because a theologian says something, don't mean it's true, as is often the case. The same is true concerning scientist, even more so, in my estimation.
Neither of us will convince the other, but my hope is that we both would honestly look at each set of arguments, the assumptions behind each, and make a decision.
You'll notice no one argues about grvity, where babies come from, or the effect of cigarette smoking. These are scientifically verifiable. However, the discussion of age of the earth, the diversity of Genus on the earth, and the origins of life all require faith.
I'm done.
This is factually incorrect. Studies of bacterial adaptation start with a single cell. Any adaptation occurs as a result of mutation.
What do you have in mind when you refer to bacterial species?
When refering to a bacterial species, I am refering to the culture.
Every mutation was one within the confines of its own genetic makeup.
Killing so many of one strain within a culture only provides that those mutations are no long represented in the numbers they once were.
It is still the same culture, regardless of it’s cellular population.
What specifically do you mean by that?
That the mutations that occur in the sample are not outside of the species. There is no species jump in such mutations, any more than there is between a blonde man and a burnette man.
What do you mean by bacterial species? What specific limitations are you claiming?
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