Posted on 08/11/2003 8:57:56 AM PDT by fishtank
PDF file.
Ever think we might be misinterpreting what we see? Or have we always been right on down through the ages? You know, the earth being flat and all?
no, you are.
Have you been here long?
About five years.
Have you *ever* seen an evo 'discuss' a scientific matter seriously to its logical conclusion?
Yes indeed, very frequently. Although I have seen them often give up midstream when faced with frequent namecalling, catcalls, hoots from the peanut gallery, and denials of basic fact that make any sort of common ground difficult to find.
Hey by now we just cut to the chase. We know they always back out when it comes down to "where'd it all come from?"
Not true -- I've seen many "evos" cheerfully dive into discussions of the question "where'd it all come from?". If you think they "always back out" at that point, you're simply not paying attention, or are mistaking your preconceptions about them for reality.
Because the answer to that either A. doesn't matter or B. it turns a person's whole world upside down. Quite a choice. Easier to just ignore it.
I see no problem with "doesn't matter". You don't have to know where air came from to study meteorology. Weather is weather either way. And when physicists study the manner in which balls roll down hills, they rightly get exasperated at people who keep insisting on asking, "but how did the ball get up the hill to start with, huh, huh?"
That's not "ignoring" the question as if there's something they're trying to avoid, it's just that the question is not pertinent to the phenomenon currently at hand.
And your simplistic characterization totally fails to address the many "evos" who are Christian or Jewish and comfortably answer the "where'd it come from" question with "God did it", but still accept evolution also. You sort of "forgot" to even consider them when you incorrectly said that evos "always back out" from pondering first causes, eh?
Your mischaracterization of the participation of "evos" on these threads says a lot more about your own preconceptions than it does about theirs.
So people who religiously apply sunscreen, or live exclusively indoors, can be expected to live 900 years?
and create a greenhouse atmosphere, where plants and animals and people would grow quite large.
I'm not sure what this means. So in the tropics, it's hot and very human, people would be expected to grow very large. Like the pygmies, say?
In addition C-14 decay would be drastically different than it is today.
Nothing we currently know of nuclear physics allows a significant change in the 14C decay rate (unless the 14C is in another frame, and the rate will be the same measured within that frame. )
very humid, dammit.
IMHO
Actually, Scripture teaches it is round.... "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in" (Isaiah 40:22).
The Hebrew language did not have a word for "sphere." Circle is quite sufficient.
no, you are.
Then I shall have to ask you to clarify your previous statement "All these 'missing link' discussions are moot if you cannot explain where the stuff came from by natural means.". I maintain the evolution of life as we know it from a few single celled organisms, for which we have abundant evidence, is a separate issue from the issue of where those single-celled organisms came from. I certainly think we should look for a natrualistic explanation for their origin, too, but I don't see why the issue of their origin impacts their later evolution.
From such a learned man I am surprised you haven't read the evolutionist Michael Behe's book.
Very different conditions huh? Like a primordial sea with electrical charges zapping the surface every so often? Yeah I can see how that might create a protein strand or two.
Then again, wonder where that soup and electricity came from? How did love, consciousness, personality, intellect, imagination, creativity, morality, a thirst for the imaginary God, arise from essentially, a rock?
ROFL! I haven't heard that argument for a while.
Then I could quip that any idiot who doesn't even know the difference between C14 and 14C (it's hard, but I'm resisting the temptation) has no business posting anything on any subject.
To anyone else, I can prove it was stolen only when I show them YOU have it. I cannot prove each bill was mine beforehand. What does that have to do with this discussion? It's you guys who insist we show you where each bill was minted. We're just showing you that you can't do it either, even MORE so, and yet we're the ones who are labeled unscientific.
I'm surprised. Fortunately, I know someone who can illuminate this question.
Maybe we leave because we get tired of all the namecalling.
Nope. It doesn't work even a fraction as well. The protective canopy as well as the nutritive qualities it gave to the plants we would have eaten then, are gone.
Said canopy would have also increased atmospheric pressure. I hear that hyperbaric chambers can speed bodily healing.
I've read some of it. Behe, as I understand it, can't make up his mind what he is. Very different conditions huh? Like a primordial sea with electrical charges zapping the surface every so often? Yeah I can see how that might create a protein strand or two.
That's a rather 1950's view of abiogenesis, and it's doubtful proteins came first.
How did love, consciousness, personality, intellect, imagination, creativity, morality, a thirst for the imaginary God, arise from essentially, a rock?
No, not essentially 'a rock'.
Are you suggesting we try and set up a protective canopy over the earth so we can study the effects? Where shall we accurately duplicate such conditions?
In a greenhouse, partially. But you'd be leaving out a lot of factors that we cannot duplicate. Yeah plants tend to grow quite well in those greenhouses...
Things also have adapted to cope with conditions we have now, so it may take a while to get results. Yes, creationists *do* believe in adaptation and some amount of 'microevolution.'
Sounds like you disbelieve Jesus, who called Adam the first man.
He was annhilated catastrophically and left no living progeny,
That would mean death came before the Curse, which also contradicts the words of Jesus.
I'm thinking that it had to do with the amount of carbon that would be present in the atmosphere when under a canopy of ice.
Nope. It doesn't work even a fraction as well.
You have it backwards. Water and ice don't absorb ultraviolet radiation at all, except in the 'vacuum UV' region where oxygen and nitrogen block it as well. On the other hand, your SPF 45 absorbs virtually all of it.
Said canopy would have also increased atmospheric pressure.
How did it stay up there?
I don't think it would have the tensile strength to hold together.
Don't forget tidal effects from the moon and sun.
So there aren't any harmful rays that water would block from the sun in that 80 (?) percent of the sun's energy that it reflects?
Trying to figure out how I can get sunburned from the reflection off the snow and water if it doesn't reflect those things.
Oh have you researched the evolutionist movement much?
If twenty five years counts as "much", then yes, I have.
It always comes down to that.
No, it does not "always" come down to that. Please try to reign in your penchant for overgeneralization.
Redefining scientific as meaning only those facts that support/do not undermine evolution.
Nonsense. Feel free to provide an example which you think exhibits this, and let's see just how fair and accurate your grasp is of these discussions.
Like I said, we cut to the chase.
No, you keep cutting to one thing *you* think is More Important than any other. That doesn't make it "the chase", especially when people explain to you why they think it's less relevant to other topics than you apparently believe.
All these 'missing link' discussions are moot if you cannot explain where the stuff came from by natural means.
Ahem. A moment ago you faulted people for allegedly "Redefining scientific as meaning only those facts that support/do not undermine evolution". And yet, aren't you now setting up your *own* litmus test for what shall be considered moot or not? How is that any different than the accusation you just made?
It comes down to a choice - the stuff is preexistent and impersonal, which leaves you with the question of how life and intellect and morality arose from it (since spontaneous generation has been disproven... or are we to suggest that we need to reexamine that theory?).
No, spontaneous generation doesn't need to be reexamined, but you're trying to apply it improperly. Spontaneous generation was *only* the old notion that complex life could spring forth in a matter of hours or days out of non-living material (i.e., people used to believe that mice sprang fully formed out of rotting grain, flies from dead meat, etc.) That was indeed disproven. But that in no way applies to the question of whether simple chemical replicators can arise from non-replicating chemicals given enough time and material, or whether things like thought or morality can arise through progressive changes.
OR there is a transcendent power which brought it into existence.
False dichotomy -- there are many other options (and variations on the two you mention). Some more plausible than others, granted, but it's an error to declare that there are only two possibilities, and that they are exactly as you describe them.
Once you have decided for one or the other, you will by faith (be you creationist or evolutionist) fit everything to support that one presupposition.
I'll let you speak for the creationists, but no, evolutionists are quite open to evidence and arguments which challenge their current views.
They're not, however, so open that they'll swallow just anything. If you've had a hard time changing their minds, perhaps its the quality of your material and not their intransigence.
The thing is, the creationist's puzzle pieces fit much better and leave less room for faith than do the evos.
So they believe.
Yet they insist the opposite.
Yes, and for good reason. Perhaps I can claim some perspective on this, since I've been on both sides. I started life as a creationist, but over time my beliefs changed because, quite frankly, the "puzzle pieces fit much better" from an evolutionary standpoint.
If you have a few minutes, please read this post from the talk.origins newsgroup. It describes the situation rather well.
How can there be any meeting of minds when one party insists black is white and white is black?
Good question. Perhaps a good start would be to listen with respect to each other, instead of, oh, making multiple posts of sarcastic broadsides, for example.
Oh ok. 99 percent of the time it comes down to that. I must say that I did talk to a very nice atheist about six years ago online that actually persevered with me. He eventually admitted his decision to call himsef atheist was an emotional one, in response to something stupid a priest said.
I consider him one of the few. I also had a friend in high school with whom I had long discussions on origins. She had come to the conclusion on her own that there had to be a God but didn't know what he was like. She certainly didn't want to believe in the kind of God represented to her by her wacky legalistic parents...(both of which were highly educated, her mother had her PhD in Chemistry). I have lost touch with her since.
But there seem to be few who are really as openminded as they want to think they are.
When light hits something, it can be transmitted, absorbed or reflected. Whatever fraction UV is reflected, a similar fraction of visible light would be reflected. So, sure, a shiny surface above the earth could reflect 80% of the UV, but only if it reflects about 80% of the visible light. Without visible light, plants don't grow. What you want is to absorb the UV and transmit the light. That's what sunscreens do.
Ozone actually absorbs UV; if you could see UV, the sky would have a color (just as, say, wine has a color) because the UV light is missing from the region of the ozone absorbtion band. The atmosphere actually scatters red light differentially, as a result of a weird effect called Rayleigh scattering, so the sky looks slightly blue.
When you get familiar with *individuals,* perhaps you won't jump into a flame war which may or may not be sincere.
You are familiar are you not with the concerted crusades which have gone on against certain creationists here, which ends up getting them banned for simply doing what you recommend I do?
Plants don't grow? What kind of plants? Plants we have today that have adapted, or plants we had back then? I find it more plausible to believe that the kind of light spectrum they were able to utilize back then was different than today, rather than believe a cat evolved from a rock.
I did actually think of ozone. Would an ozone layer combined with a translucent ice canopy give you that effect?
The verse in Isaiah speaking of "the circle of the earth" uses the word chug, which usually means a disc or ring.
People choose to study the Bible and mysteriously determine that all of the references to Adam throughout the Old and New Testaments are mythological. There are genealogies in Gen 5, 1 Chronicles, Luke 3 and Romans 5, which place Adam prominently as the first man, not to mention Adam's biography in Gen 1-5.
There are those who refuse that the Holy Spirit integrated 66 books by 40 authors to produce a singular complete message regarding the God of the universe and His dealings toward men. The text throughout the Bible supports this contention.
To take the Bible and pick and choose what one wants to believe is confusing for all. There can be no place to take a stand when wholescale text are relegated to the chopping block to support an unbiblical position.
I admit that there is much that is beyond my comprehension in the Bible, and that defending it can be difficult, however the areas that are clear, undoubtedly justify it's disagreement with evolution.
A couple of years ago when that same verse came up, I found an on-line concordance, which not only gives the word's meaning, but it also cites all the other verses where that same word appears. As I recall, the word is never used in the context of a sphere.
H2329
chuòg
khoog
From H2328; a circle:—circle, circuit, compassive
22 It is he that sittethH3427 upon the circleH2329 of the earthH776, and the inhabitantsH3427 thereof are as grasshoppersH2284; that stretchethH5186 out the heavensH8064 as a curtainH1852, and spreadethH4969 them out as a tentH168 to dwellH3427 in:
I searched Strongs for the word sphere and nothing came up.
H2329 appears only in:
Job 22:14
Prov 8:27
Isa 40:22
No reference to "Lord of the Rings" in any of the passages.
[VadeRetro wrote: When they get three down, they'll have about 37 to go. Right now it's about 40 to zero for an old earth. I doubt that they intend to ever address, much less make any serious dent in, the real evidence for the age of the earth.]
If that ain't anti creationist bias I don't know what is.
Then I'm sorry that I'm going to have to go with "you don't know what is".
He wasn't declaring that it must be wrong because it's done by creationists. He was declaring that there are *mountains* (literally!) of evidence supporting the age of the Earth as being vastly older than a few thousand years, and that even proving a few of them mistaken (which the article in this thread has *not* done) leaves someone a hell of a long way to go before they might have carried away enough of the mountain in a teaspoon to be able to claim that it was actually a prairie after all.
This goes not just for creationists, but for *anyone* hoping to overturn some of the more well-established tenets of science, including other scientists.
The authors of the C14 article sought to "explain" the trace amounts of C14 by postulating a complete revision of something that's a key part of countless other studies/findings/etc., and which is itself supported by countless pieces of evidence and tests. Not only did they not even bother to explain how their "new theory" accounts for all the other things they'd be pulling the rug out from under if they were right, they didn't even really explain their own results very well -- handwaving about "changed decay rates" due to a flood (um, how?) isn't much of an "explanation".
It's as if I declared to have proven the Earth was flat after all because that helped one of my experimental results make more sense. You'd quite reasonably respond, "but, what about photos of Earth from space, and people who have sailed around the world, and globes which are consistent with geographic measurements, and all the other evidence supporting a spherical Earth?" I'd be no scientist if I responded, "hey, not my problem, I'm sure that eventually they'll figure out how to reconcile those observations with the true flat Earth" -- I'd be a crackpot.
VadeRetro's point is simply that the age of the Earth is so well established by such overwhelming amounts of evidence and so many multiple lines of independent testing that *any* study (from *any* source) which purports to modify the age a million-fold (up or down) is a) quite likely to be mistaken, and b) is going to have to spend a LOT of time (massive understatement) explaining exactly how and why all the other studies confirming the 4+ billion year age of the Earth were wrong, and why their one little argument is so ironclad that it trumps all the others which came to the opposite conclusion and have stood the test of time until now.
VadeRetro was not being anti-creationist, he was being frank about how much work (and rework of past observations) the authors will have to do if they're going to have a hope in hell of actually making their case.
If the authors are purporting to actually be doing science, they're going to have to actually *do* it, and that includes being able to deal with all evidence which appears to support the contrary, since that's part of the scientific method. And in the age-of-Earth field, that's a GIGANTIC amount.
People first began accepting that the Earth had to be a *lot* older than several thousand years back in the 1700's (NOT a typo). Note that this is long before evolution was being pondered a century later, and long before any sort of radiological dating was possible. So no, the age of the Earth is not merely an evolutionary presumption, nor critically dependent upon the validity of radiological dating. If you could somehow disprove all of evolution and all forms of radiological dating (there are many) tomorrow, it would *still* not counteract the vast amount of evidence in multiple independent lines of investigation which led people (long before Darwin) to conclude that the Earth must be at the very least many, many millions of years old. For just one trivial example, it was noted long ago that there are so many shark teeth in the ocean beds that if they had all once belonged to sharks that lived across only a few thousand year period, the oceans must have been packed as tightly with sharks as a sardine can. Unlikely.
The following might be instructive at this point -- it's the account of a young-earth creationist who went to work as a geophysicist at a seismic company, and suffered a crisis of faith when he learned how much of the evidence he saw first-hand clearly supported an old-Earth view, and how many of the things he learned from young-earth creationists were simply wrong: Why I left Young-earth Creationism by Glenn R. Morton .
Note that VadeRetro's response would equally apply, without changing a single word, to the work of an evolutionary biologist who claimed to be able to prove that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. His comment was *not* dependent upon the creationist provenance of the study. It was a statement about the standards of proper science.
THAT is what I was referring to.
Then you should be relieved to learn that it wasn't what you thought it was.
Creationists are incapable of being scientific, don't you see?
That's another topic -- would you like to get into that one now?
ahem.
I can remember when two of the old-timers used to at least pretend to talk about the science. They seem to have abandoned that tactic for the web equivalent of flash-mobbing.
Wow. Facts, data, and cogent observations all interpreted as heresy by the ICR. What a surprise - NOT.
Exactly right! And why aren't the ICR folks addressing the preponderance of evidence?
Creationists have an uncanny ability not to see contrary evidence. Which means they typically don't see most of the evidence out there. That same ex-YEC Glenn R. Morton described the evidence filtration YECs do as the operation of Morton's Demon.
With your Solomonic wisdom, you have solved the problem! We can declare that half of all species are the result of evolution, and the other half are specially created. (The only problem then would be how to decide which half a particular species belonged in.)
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