"Intelligent Design" figurehead = nutcase

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Dec 21 2006, 12:19 PM) [snapback]365277[/snapback]</div>

Thank you for taking me off ignore. I hope we can have a reasoned discussion not laden with snubs and snide remarks. Quite a few posters on PC and in this topic stated that the facts support evolution. I think we can have a discussion about these facts and see that there are just as many facts that don’t support evolution. Selecting only supporting data and ignoring conflicting data is not the scientific way and that is what is being done. So yes this will be an argument about points and if you are not in the mood, so be it. Others may be and I would like to point out that most of the data that contradicts evolution comes from the very scientists that support evolution.

My main contention about dating fossils is the way they use the fossils to date the strata and the strata to date the fossils.

Wi1dkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Dec 21 2006, 05:04 PM) [snapback]365386[/snapback]</div>

I feel like science is a quest to disprove in the pursuit of greater understanding, while religion is intent on preserving existing dogma.

 

Dating of fossils is done in various ways, and when several independent dating methods agree, the conclusion is convincing.

There is radioactive carbon dating of the bone.
There is tree-ring dating of wood when present.
There are radioactive dating methods of rocks.
There are other "layer" methods of dating, such as sedimentary depositing.
There is evidence related to climatic change recorded in the rocks.
There is evidence related to the advance and recession of ice sheets.

There are many many different, independent methods of deriving dating information, but since I am not a geologist I cannot name them all. Borrow a geology textbook from your library. The circular logic you impute to the science of evolution is a false charge. Such methods would be laughed off the pages of any peer-reviewed journal.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 21 2006, 06:22 PM) [snapback]365400[/snapback]</div>

Name one. Just one fact that contradicts evolution.

And not true. Fossils and rocks are dated using many independent methods as Daniel pointed out. One method for biological samples is the proportion of C14 to C12 in tissues. While alive organisms have the same proportion as the environment. At death the C14 isotopes decay into C12 and can not equilibrate with the environment. Therefore, you just measure the amount of C14 and the less there is the older the tissue is.

Rocks are dated based on decay of heavy isotopes which is even more accurate and easier to detect then C14. This is how the rocks in which fossils are embedded are sometimes dated. These are just two methods. There are many and most of the time they all agree when used for the same sample. When there is a disagreement is so rare and circumstances so unusual that it merits a paper!

Cheers,

 

I don't know how large the world's collective accumulation of fossils is by this time, but it must be sizable, containing many thousands of distinct species (perhaps tens of thousands), from every area of the planet.

Every single fossil found both can be explained by and usually reinforces evolutionary theory - not a single fossil even slightly contradicts the theory, from the nature of the fossil itself to where it was found. Given the size of the body of evidence and the complete lack of contradiction within it, Darwin's fundamental insight was truly breathtaking in its essential accuracy.

Creationist complain that there are "gaps" in this massive collection of fossils, that we don't have a complete, unbroken chain of remains that document in hard calcium every infinitesimal evolutionary step as organisms mutated and evolved into new species. It's a disingenuous, specious, cynical argument - equivalent to claiming that if a reel of the film "Casablanca" were found with frames missing at random intervals in the filmstrip, it would be impossible to figure out the plot of the story.

With their logic, they can't lose. The next fossil found that happens to fall between a former "gap" instantly creates two new "gaps!" As if replacing missing frames in the filmstrip makes the plot HARDER to figure out! What contemptible mental rubbish!!

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Adam Sills @ Dec 21 2006, 06:31 AM) [snapback]365032[/snapback]</div>

That's basically the ID argument ... from a theological standpoint, you use a scripture to help you violate the "literal rule" in other scripture. In this specific case, they will point to the scripture that says a thousand years is like a day to God, and therefore the days could be longer periods of time.

But why bother? From a theological standpoint you've already abandoned the idea of literal, 24 hour days, so why do you have to work so hard to come up with an alternative to what 99.9% of the scientists already believe about evolution? The verse about time not meaning anything to God should mean just that ... you don't need to try and find a specific mention of a specific period of time for "day". Its obvious from Genesis that it is allegory anyway, otherwise the sun and moon (which "rule" the day and night") would have been created on the first day, not the third.

Theistic evolution accepts facts as they are, and posits that God planned it all. Theologians will make that case for God having planned all of this seemingly random events by putting in place the elements for it to come about this way, and the believer will simply marvel all the more about God's creation. Meanwhile, their kids actually learn the facts about science and are not hampered in furthering their education and won't limit their careers to non-science areas. Non-believers won't have to worry about dogma somehow obscuring the truth and limiting the furtherance of science.

 

No one has touched the Fossil/Strata – Strata/Fossil point I mentioned above so we will move right along to radiometric dating.

Requirements for radiometric time measurement
1) The decay constant and the abundance of the substance being dated must be known accurately.

2) There must have been no incorporation of the substance being dated into the mineral at the time of crystallization or a leak of the substance from the mineral following crystallization.

3) The system must have remained closed for both the parent element and the daughter element since the time of crystallization.

No scientist can answer any of these questions because they have only been alive for the last 80 years at the most.

I believe that the K-Ar method is the most often used radiometric dating process. Potassium and argon are both water soluble and argon is mobile in rock. Meaning that since rock is porous simply bathing the rock in liquids possessing potassium and argon in them could alter the results substantially. We won’t mention how heat and cosmic rays affect this method. Can this method be called scientific?

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(huskers @ Dec 21 2006, 08:47 AM) [snapback]365126[/snapback]</div>

I believe the doctrine of original sin (I'm a Calvinist, so I pretty much have to!) Not all of Christianity does, as some in the orthodox and Catholic branches of the faith believe that each and every person falls short all on their own (well, we believe that too, I guess.)

Here's what we know about man's descent from innocence to sinful, from the scriptures:

At one time man lived in harmony with God, interacting with Him in nature. At some point, man's ability to think and reason led him to do things that were not in harmony with God's wishes. To take of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil represents, in my view, an intimate, experiential knowledge of doing evil. Once we knew what was right and what was wrong, and decided to do the wrong thing, sin entered the world.

We do not talk of chimps, dogs or cats being sinful. We realize they do what they do as a matter of their instinct, and when they do something our ethics would not allow us to do, we realize they mean no harm, as they cannot reason well enough to understand the consequences of their actions. But we hold humans to a higher standard. There's a point in the evolutionary sequence of events where you might be able to say "Hey, Lucy, that wasn't right!"

There are harder questions to answer, like the worldwide flood and Noah, which seems much less allegorical in language in the scriptures.

 

It is interesting, but sad, to see how someone with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of a scientific procedure will mix lies with misunderstandings with fantasy to generate arguments against those procedures. And you cannot argue against him because he will simply invent (or more likely he will parrot others' inventions) more lies, misunderstandings, and fantasies.

It is also curious how, in the face of science's obvious successes (all of technology is a testament to the validity of science) they will stubbornly insist that the entire scientific community is in a great conspiracy to fob off one idea they don't want to accept.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Dec 21 2006, 07:21 PM) [snapback]365510[/snapback]</div>

I read it a bit differently. I read the account as an allegory proclaiming that the thing that differentiates humanity from all the other animals is our knowledge of good and evil. That is, our moral sense.

The apple, the punishment, the driving out of Eden, are all parts of the allegory. Bible literalists lose all the literary quality of the book. To "eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" is just a very poetic way of saying to "come to know the difference between right and wrong." This particular passage is saying that when we came to understand right and wrong we became fully human. (I do not necessarily agree with this as philosophy, but it's what I believe the author of Genesis is saying.)

All the other things that distinguish humans in the days of early civilization (because the Bible's authors knew nothing of earlier social structures) are then attributed to our condition as humans: We have to work for a living, women give birth in pain, etc., etc.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 21 2006, 07:26 PM) [snapback]365513[/snapback]</div>

To whom and what are you referring too?

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 21 2006, 11:15 PM) [snapback]365508[/snapback]</div>

1) And both are. Decays are physical constants. I am not sure why abundance since what matters are ratios and these are easily measured.
2) If there is incorporation it only makes it more recent. The fact that you get ancient datings means there must not have been newer incorporation. Just think about it.
3) Same as #2.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 21 2006, 10:26 PM) [snapback]365513[/snapback]</div>

Some people, despite overwhelming evidence, just don't want to believe (humans evolved from lower life forms/global warming is a fact/the world is round/the earth rotates around the sun); however, unless they try to pass their views off as "fact" (or claim what has pretty much been proven scientifically time and time again as false), I figure they're not harming anybody.

Yes, there is lots of circumstantial evidence that would make The Earth appear to be flat; if someone wants to stick with that viewpoint (because the Bible says it, dammit), more power to them.

 

Is it true that in his decision Judge Jones copied almost verbatium (90%+) of the ACLU paper given to him a month before his judgement was issued?

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alric @ Dec 21 2006, 07:52 PM) [snapback]365525[/snapback]</div>

If the decay of K produces Ar over a certain amount of time if you don't know how much K or Ar is already in the rock how can your ratio be accurate?

If there is incorporation of Ar at a later date from the crystallization/formation of the rock that would make the rock appear older than it really is and if there is incorporation of K that would make the rock appear younger. It's quite simply if you think about it, if you are measuring the decay of K into Ar and if Ar is added by some other process doesn't that screw the entire process up? Yes! Of course it does.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 21 2006, 07:37 PM) [snapback]365518[/snapback]</div>

That's a perfectly acceptable interpretation of the scriptures, in my view. It does no violence to the central message and maintains the beauty of the passage. And you've hit upon a key point of my understanding of scripture: they are written by men, from man's perspective. I believe they were inspired, but I suspect you do not. But we can agree on what the original author probably meant by the passage, what his limitations were as an observer, and how his time and culture would have influenced how he viewed things.

"Original sin" is not necessarily required by these passages, and as you probably know, the Christians you hung out with while looking for peace advocates generally don't accept the concept anyway. I lean toward a wholly unscientific and purely theological view that there was a point in time where "by one man sin entered the world". But that's not a core belief in Christianity.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 21 2006, 07:15 PM) [snapback]365508[/snapback]</div>

With all due respect, these are the same arguments put forth by the Creationists when I was a creationist, in the early 1970's. And they are simply not true. And by "not true" I don't mean that they are simply mistaken. They are lying.

When I parted company with the Creationists is when I found Duane Gish or Henry Morris, can't remember which, lying in one of their books. How do I know they were lying? They used elipsis to remove a phrase from sentences to make them seem to say something they did not, and then presented evidence to disprove it. It would be similar to saying that a person has said "... there is no God." and try to prove him an atheist, when the original quote was "The fool says in his heart 'there is no God." I found the original source quote, and it was obvious what was done.

I expect the heathen to lie. But the Christian cannot. Christians have to be committed to the truth because the "father of all lies" is not Jesus. Gish or Morris corrected the passage in a future edition of the book by completely excising it.

For a Christian perspective by a world famous and well respected scientist, Francis Collins, who is head of the Human Genome Project, read his book "The Language of God." He is as strong a Christian as you will find anywhere, and he presents a compelling case for the idea of theistic evolution. He sends the atheists up the wall with his stuff because they view him as much more of a threat than the Creationists and ID people (especially since anyone taking a college level class can see through the political and social warfare arguments used rather than theological arguments). Where the atheists can easily pick off the young Christians by presenting truth (which every Christian is committed to), they cannot pick off and destroy the faith of a Christian who accepts God's creation in all its glory and stands in awe of God's foresight in putting in motion all events that would lead to me writing this message.

One other book that is a bit more theological is by the Professor of Biology and associate provost for research at the Point Loma Nazarene University, Darrel Falk. "Coming to Peace with Science" goes into a bit more spiritual and theological depth than Collins' book.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 21 2006, 07:48 PM) [snapback]365521[/snapback]</div>

To your earlier posts, which repeat the false claims found in all the creationist literature and web sites. And to the people who compose those fallacious arguments and those who repeat them on faith without ever having read actual scientific writings on the subject.

 

You're wasting your time.

See my tag below.