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"Intelligent Design" figurehead = nutcase

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by F8L, Dec 21, 2006.

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  1. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tnthub @ Dec 22 2006, 03:39 PM) [snapback]365849[/snapback]</div>
    Atheists have considered intelligent design. They have counsidered it, and found it inadequate to explain the observable world. They have also considered the hypothesis of various sorts of gods, and found these also inadequate to explain the world. And they have considered traditional creationism and found that inadequate to explain the observed world.

    In fact, an atheist who has not considered the possibility of a god or gods is not really an atheist, because you cannot disbelieve in something unless you have some understanding of what it is you don't believe in. If you ask me whether I believe in unicorns I can answer NO because I know what unicorns are supposed to be. But if you ask me whether I believe in gryxlakkls I cannot answer you, because I don't know what a gryxlakkl is supposed to be. I can disbelieve in gods only because I know what they are supposed to be. But I cannot know what they are supposed to be unless I have considered the possibility. I have done this.

    But anyone who thinks you can have intelligent design without an intelligent designer (which is by definition a god, if the thing being designed is all of space, time, and matter) needs to grow some brain cells.

    The only hypothesis that accurately explains the observed world is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
     
    #61 daniel, Dec 22, 2006
  2. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    I have provided references to the best of my ability. The facts I have pointed out remain pretty much unanswered. Only one person has brought up one point that deserves a reply and that is F8L and his reference to the calibration of carbon dating via dendrochronology. Carbon dating is only good for approx. 30 thousand years; they found that out in the 70's, has that changed? I don't know, I will have to read up on this but I don't think that it has.

    Science may have changed or advanced in the last 30+ years but rocks have not. They still remain porous and subject to incorporation of elements such as K and Ar which are both water soluble and Ar which is easily mobile through rocks. I have seen no references that has refuted this point, I have seen no references refuting the need to have the quantity of the elements known in order to make an accurate measurement in the end to establish the ratio. Think about if you don’t know the amount of K and Ar in the rock to begin with how on earth can you claim that your measurement is accurate in the end?

    In addition there is no paper or reference that I can cite but my understanding is that when a radiometric measurement is made on a sample that is outside the norms previously established by evolutionary scientist they revert to dating the fossil by the strata it is found in or the strata (rocks being measured) by the fossils that are found in it. i.e. Circular Logic which is not considered scientific by anyone other than evolutionary science.

    I would appreciate some type answer to these points other than snubs and snideness.

    Wildkow

    p.s. Bring on the Nazi’s!
     
    #62 Wildkow, Dec 22, 2006
  3. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    Wildkow: You still haven't read the talkorigins link that Alric cited, have you?
     
    #63 daniel, Dec 23, 2006
  4. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 22 2006, 07:20 PM) [snapback]365898[/snapback]</div>

    I'm cooking dinner so I'll try my best to get answers down for ya. This one may help with the K Ar one above.

    "Potassium-Argon. Potassium is an abundant element in the Earth's crust. One isotope, potassium-40, is radioactive and decays to two different daughter products, calcium-40 and argon-40, by two different decay methods. This is not a problem because the production ratio of these two daughter products is precisely known, and is always constant: 11.2% becomes argon-40 and 88.8% becomes calcium-40. It is possible to date some rocks by the potassium-calcium method, but this is not often done because it is hard to determine how much calcium was initially present. Argon, on the other hand, is a gas. Whenever rock is melted to become magma or lava, the argon tends to escape. Once the molten material hardens, it begins to trap the new argon produced since the hardening took place. In this way the potassium-argon clock is clearly reset when an igneous rock is formed.

    In its simplest form, the geologist simply needs to measure the relative amounts of potassium-40 and argon-40 to date the rock. The age is given by a relatively simple equation:

    t = h x ln[1 + (argon-40)/(0.112 x (potassium-40))]/ln(2)

    where t is the time in years, h is the half-life, also in years, and ln is the natural logarithm.

    page 5

    However, in reality there is often a small amount of argon remaining in a rock when it hardens. This is usually trapped in the form of very tiny air bubbles in the rock. One percent of the air we breathe is argon. Any extra argon from air bubbles may need to be taken into account if it is significant relative to the amount of radiogenic argon (that is, argon produced by radioactive decays). This would most likely be the case in either young rocks that have not had time to produce much radiogenic argon, or in rocks that are low in the parent potassium. One must have a way to determine how much air-argon is in the rock. This is rather easily done because air-argon has a couple of other isotopes, the most abundant of which is argon-36. The ratio of argon-40 to argon-36 in air is well known, at 295. Thus, if one measures argon-36 as well as argon-40, one can calculate and subtract off the air-argon-40 to get an accurate age.

    One of the best ways of showing that an age-date is correct is to confirm it with one or more different dating
    method(s). Although potassium-argon is one of the simplest dating methods, there are still some cases where it does not agree with other methods. When this does happen, it is usually because the gas within bubbles in the rock is from deep underground rather than from the air. This gas can have a higher concentration of argon-40 escaping from the melting of older rocks. This is called parentless argon-40 because its parent potassium is not in the rock being dated, and is also not from the air. In these slightly unusual cases, the date given by the normal potassium-argon method is too old. However, scientists in the mid-1960s came up with a way around this problem, the argon-argon method, discussed in the next section."

    "Argon-Argon. Even though it has been around for nearly half a century, the argon-argon method is seldom discussed by groups critical of dating methods. This method uses exactly the same parent and daughter isotopes as the potassium-argon method. In effect, it is a different way of telling time from the same clock. Instead of simply comparing the total potassium with the non-air argon in the rock, this method has a way of telling exactly what and how much argon is directly related to the potassium in the rock.

    In the argon-argon method the rock is placed near the center of a nuclear reactor for a period of hours. A nuclear reactor emits a very large number of neutrons, which are capable of changing a small amount of the potassium-39 into argon-39. Argon-39 is not found in nature because it has only a 269-year half-life. (This half-life doesn't affect the argon-argon dating method as long as the measurements are made within about five years of the neutron dose). The rock is then heated in a furnace to release both the argon-40 and the argon-39 (representing the potassium) for analysis. The heating is done at incrementally higher temperatures and at each step the ratio of argon-40 to argon-39 is measured. If the argon-40 is from decay of potassium within the rock, it will come out at the same temperatures as the potassium-derived argon-39 and in a constant proportion. On the other hand, if there is some excess argon-40 in the rock it will cause a different ratio of argon-40 to argon-39 for some or many of the heating steps, so the different heating steps will not agree with each other."

    Be right back, dinner is bruning. lol
     
    #64 F8L, Dec 23, 2006
  5. fshagan

    fshagan Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Dec 22 2006, 09:28 AM) [snapback]365691[/snapback]</div>
    They were also written before Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium was accepted. I'll bet the quotes in question came from a supporter of Gould's who was pointing out that Gould's theory resolves some of the issues that existed with dating at that time.

    As conservative, evangelical Francis Collins points out in his book "The Language of God", the predictions made by evolutionists as to what they would find in the fossil record have come true, and the new technologies that we have created in the 40 years since the quotes Wildkow provided have confirmed dating methods.

    Continuing to publish material you know to be proven wrong is simply lying. It is unacceptable in science, and a sin in religion.
     
    #65 fshagan, Dec 23, 2006
  6. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Dec 23 2006, 12:16 AM) [snapback]365951[/snapback]</div>
    I will stand up for my friend Wildkow here: He is not actually "lying" because he does not know the material he is quoting is wrong, because he does not understand any of it.
     
    #66 daniel, Dec 23, 2006
  7. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    i think fshagan is referring to the websites that wildkow is using to come up with this stuff. obviously he is not digging through the primary literature himself, especially not from the 1970s. that stuff is a real pain to get to. i know because unlike most here who have argued either side of the debate, i have gone and dug up some of the articles that have been quoted here and there for the simple reason of seeing what the context of each quote was... and found that many were taken waaaay out of context and twisted, if they existed at all.
     
    #67 galaxee, Dec 23, 2006
  8. fshagan

    fshagan Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 23 2006, 06:46 AM) [snapback]365976[/snapback]</div>
    Yes, good point. I should have clarified that the people I speak of "publishing" things they know are inaccurate are not the common people involved in debate on this issue. They are people of "goodwill" in that they sincerely believe they have been given true and accurate information. It is the people who "publish" the material in books and on websites that are the "leaders" of the ID and Creationist movements that I consider liars and sinners.

    Wildkow is simply mistaken. ;)

    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Dec 23 2006, 08:12 AM) [snapback]366001[/snapback]</div>
    Yep, exactly right. Going to the source documents is very important, but it is hard to do unless your local library has the stuff. You normally won't find it on-line because it is so out of date.

    I had a challenge from a friend to go compare the quotes in Gish's or Morris' book to the original source studies, and I did. And they were simply lying. There is no way to say they misunderstood, or that they had a typo, because when you inserted the phrase that was missing from the sentence, it completely changed it. In other cases, when you looked at the sentence before and after the one they quoted, it was obvious that it meant something entirely different in context than it did out of context.

    Besides which, there are Christians ... conservative, evangelical Christians who are also scientists or in the related sciences ... calling the ID and Creationists out. Their time is over.
     
    #68 fshagan, Dec 23, 2006
  9. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Dec 21 2006, 08:57 PM) [snapback]365544[/snapback]</div>
    I'm a bit surprised by your accusation which part is a lie?

    Wildkow
     
    #69 Wildkow, Dec 24, 2006
  10. geologyrox

    geologyrox New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 24 2006, 01:02 AM) [snapback]366196[/snapback]</div>
    Well, if you look at the quotes he was replying to, you'll see that those are the same quotes you used in the young-earth thread. In that thread, I responded to the first point with the following:

    If you go back to the paper that was drawn from, you'll find that it was taken completely out of context. The same paper continues on to say,

    "The charge of circular reasoning in stratigraphy can be handled in several ways. It can be ignored, as not the proper concern of the public. It can be denied, by calling down the Law of evolution. Fossils date rocks, not vice-versa, and that's that. It can be admitted, as a common practice. The time scales of physics and astronomy are obtained by comparing one process with another. They can also be compared with the geologic processes of sedimentation, organic evolution and radioactivity. Or, it can be avoided, by pragmatic reasoning.

    The first step is to explain what is done in the field in simple terms that can be tested directly. The field man records his sense perceptions on isomorphic maps and sections, abstracts the more diagnositc rock features, and arranges them according to their vertical order. He compares this local sequence to the global column obtained from great many man-years of work by his predecessors. As long as this cognitive process is acknowledged as the pragmatic basis of stratigraphy, both local and global sections can be treated as chronologies without reproach."

    The post after that is a bitesized summary about the process of putting together the geologic timeline, in case anyone is interested.



    To Wildkow: See, daniel and fshagan blame the Creationist websites that deliberately post things out of context to capture the weak minded. I agree that those Christian leaders hold some of the blame, but I'm afraid I just can't absolve you of all responsibility. If you happen to read the remainder of your quote this time, remember that using that quote out of context in the future is being dishonest.
     
    #70 geologyrox, Dec 24, 2006
  11. Hitler

    Hitler New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Dec 21 2006, 11:53 AM) [snapback]365133[/snapback]</div>
    Wow MegansPrius, sorry to miss the call to duty, but I usually don't think I need to be around until Page 3 or 4 of a thread.... But I guess PriusChat members like to throw my name around more than the other BB's I frequent. I will need to begin visiting FHOP threads a little more often.

    By the Power vested in me by Godwin's Law, I declare Huskers as the loser in this thread, and that this thread should be closed! Anyone debating against any point mentioned by Huskers should declare a victory.

    Heil PriusChat Hitler!
     
    #71 Hitler, Dec 24, 2006
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