Where do you start? by citizen

Quote:
Originally posted by SimonWho:
I say ignore them, let them rant into their own living rooms but make sure they don't get to do anything like, say, decide on the syllabus for a school, for obvious reasons.

Unfortunatly they seem to manage to find their way in there regardless...

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Friday, March 10, 2006 4:59 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

There are geologists in the US who will happily date strata as being X-million years old (for oil exploration purposes) then sincerely claim the earth is only a few thousand years old b/c their religion tells them so. In Pakistan there are scientists who declare women should wear the veil 'cause that was the standard a few hundred years ago, then trade in nuclear technology.

I guess I have problems with that.

You can't just say 'if you ignore them, they'll go away'. In 2004, 55% of Americans believed god created humans just the way they are now. 66% wanted intelligent design taught along with evolution. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.sht
ml

How the majority of Americans got to be so ignorant is beyond me but it can't be good for the country.

There are examples ahead of the US going down the same path. One of Pakistan's biggest problems is the madrass system which fluorishes b/c people want it. They're comfortable with it. The madrassas substitute the Koran for real education, leaving a population poorly able to compete in the global marketplace. As Pakistan's economy slides and people get poorer, they get more radicalized, and so on circling the drain.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Friday, March 10, 2006 7:38 PM

Quote:
How the majority of Americans got to be so ignorant is beyond me but it can't be good for the country.

Ask Kansas science teachers. Ask the former head of the CDC. Ask the climatologist from NASA. Ask someone in the know about the "Clear Skies" initiative.

The reason you'll get from all of them is the current crop of assholes running the show is ridiculously anti-science and pro-talking point. They've turned science into a political game and tied it to appealing to a fundamentalist base that in any other age (short of the Dark Ages) would be considered irrational at best. They find the one whacko out there that agrees with their position and puts him in the spotlight on a major news network which repeats what he says ad nauseum until everyone buys into it.

Part of the problem lies with scientists themselves. The anti-science nuts trot out and spread their message over the media waves, and the scientific community sits back and says "no one's really buying into this, are they?" and go right back about their business, instead of standing up and going ballistic like they should be. They let it go and let it go, and now, personally, I think they may have let it go too far.

Part of the blame lies with people. No one can think critically anymore. A news story goes out over the wire that says "A study done by Shell Oil says that Shell Oil really isn't price gouging anyone," and Joe Public turns to his wife and says, "see that? The oil company really isn't gouging us." It's ridiculous. And, frankly, part of the blame lies with parents and teachers (and I am both, so I think I have a say). Look at Jay Bennish. He tries to show kids a critical argument, picks a bad choice of words, and BAM, there's his career, because of a parent looking for his 15 minutes of fame (and it is the parent; if my daughter came home saying she was going to tape record a teacher because she didn't like his politics, she wouldn't sit right for a month). So teachers play it safe, and the kids suffer.

Part of the problem is the "instant news" our culture has acquired. An "expert" comes on to do an interview, and by the time the research is done that shows he has no real credentials, the damage has already been done and the story has been forgotten. Look at the Schiavo debacle; their so-called "prominent neurosurgeon" who did all the interviews was later revealed to have been a fraud (in calling himself a Nobel Prize nominee) and his license was under review for several charges relating to substandard patient care in Florida (to be fair, they were overturned after lengthy battles).

No one checks credentials of the people they hear on the news anymore, either. "Tonight on Fox, we'll be talking to Dr. John Doe about why global warming is a myth. A highly regarded analyst, we'll see what he has to say." And who is John Doe? Doctorate in business administration who works for a chemical company, that's who, but you never hear those credentials. He's just an "analyst" with "insider knowledge of the problems."

I think you're right about poverty and oppressive regimes pushing folks towards religious extremism, and I think it's slowly but surely happening in this country, too. Look at Missouri right now; they are fighting two battles at once - first, trying to get stem cell research banned, and right on its heels, trying to get Christianity recognized as the state religion. Anti-science and pro-religion, all in the same breath. Why are people becoming more ignorant? Just ask Missouri, whose state motto is very soon going to read, "Just Like Kansas."

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 2:43 AM

I'm not entirely sure how a global flood would change the decay rate of Carbon-14. Unless I'm missing something from the argument, nor where all the water to cover the entire Earths surface came from. Just one of the things I've been wondering.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 3:24 AM

The Carbon-14 gets soggy.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 4:03 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

To add a flip side...

Some of the ignorance that floats around is pathetic. Often, faith causes people to ignore perfectly sound ideas and concepts, just because it contradicts what they want to believe.

Macro-Evolution is a good example of this. It's a damn good theory. It's supported by reams of evidence and logical thinking. But it's not a fact. It never will be, sadly. We lack the ability, as a race, to conduct the sort of experiment that could prove macro-evolution. (Though, you know, selective breeding is a real good first-step.) Unfortunately, when I was in school, Macro-Evolution was never presented as 'the best damn theory we've got.' It was presented as the factual truth. Just like Christopher Columbus discovering America... with all these damn people running around on the place already, apparently incapable of discovering shit for themselves.

I was also told that viruses weren't alive. Factually, it was conveyed to me. Fortunately, I was old enough by then to think that this was rather odd. Interesting to note that scientists and biologists weren't yet prepared to revise their understanding of life. Rather, something that didn't fit into their little box of what life was, couldn't possibly be alive. And since only life evolves, I suppose that viruses are expertly engineered nano-machines designed by an intelligent agency to infiltrate and destroy animal cells.

I hope that by now scientists have acknowledged that viruses are alive, and have re-written their rules of what life is allowed to be. I don't keep up with that sort of thing the way I should.

Anyhow, I think that school would be a better experience overall if people qualified a lot of our 'facts' by saying, "This is the best damn theory we've got, and here's some other theories we didn't go with because they haven't stood up as well to the logic game."

I've got no problem at all with someone trying to prove the Earth is 6,000 years old, just like I've got no problem at all with folks trying to prove that it's 60 billion years old. Let them each present their evidence for their theories. What a wonderful world we'd live in if people considered both arguments and decided for themselves.

The average person knows why the world is 6,000 years old. "Because the priest says so." The average person also knows why the world is 60 billion years old. "Because the scientists say so." Most people can't point to the 'evidence' for either theory.

We really need a better grasp of things than that.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 5:15 AM

Problem is that there really isn't evidence to support the Earth and the Universe being 6000 years old. It requires people to sound off without clarifying their statements, much like the Intelligent Design debate.

Furthermore as others have stated Intelligent Design and the above aren't mentioned in order to further understanding or to prove that those 'theories' are correct, they're stated to make it seem like they are as valid as and on an equal footing too scientifically vigorous theories when they are, in fact, not.

They are not, for instance, open to rigorous analysis by scientific peers and never have been. They also seem to be worked on by people who's scientific credentials were either bought on Ebay or simply non-existant

...

The above and ID are creationism repackaged and even when aspects or ideas from those theories are disproved the 'believers' continue to state them ad nauseum in order to get them accepted through sheer repetition. Opening up the debate seems to give the proponents what they want, not acceptance of the theory, more validation of an invalid theory.

To answer your query on viruses it's still under debate. The sticking point is largely, as you say how we define life. Life is generally defined NOT as something that ‘evolves’; it is an organism that meets ALL of the following criteria:

MOTION -- does it seem to move under its own power? Does it move with some discernible purpose? (Toward food, away from heat, etc)

Viruses (I think) don't do this; I believe they can't actually move under their own steam.

REPRODUCTION -- does it have some way of making more of itself, either through sexual reproduction or by budding or fissioning in some way?

A sticking point, Viruses can't reproduce themselves, they have to get a host cell to reproduce for them, you could say this is reproduction since the Virus does start this process off by injecting it's DNA or RNA (Viruses have either RNA or DNA, not both) into the cell, which along with proteins kick start the process of Virus 'manufacture'.

What if we had a robot that built computers under the control of a computer? Could we say the computer is alive?

CONSUMPTION -- does it eat or drink? Does it take in nutrients in one way or another in order to survive, grow, and eventually multiply?

Viruses, too my knowledge, don't do this.

GROWTH -- does the organism develop over time, increase in complexity, until it reaches a mature stage?

I'm not entirely sure if they could be said to do this either.

STIMULUS RESPONSE -- does the organism respond to external stimuli, i.e. has a nervous system of some sort to detect external conditions?

I think they do this. Viruses will 'hide' in host cells and 'hibernate' if conditions are not right for infection.

Point is there's no consensus either way, ASFAIK there never has been.

Some people say Viruses are complex chemicals that exhibit some life-like qualities, much like a crystal can grow and in a way consume, yet is not alive.

Others say they are the simplest forms of life, living parasites, which like larger parasites can't survive without a host.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 6:21 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

For those of you who have unqualified faith in science, here is something I did not know. I was curious and decided to look it up. Here is the process for Radiocarbon dating...

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The html: http://www.unmuseum.org/radiocar.htm

A Bristlecone Pine high in the mountains of California. (All photos on this page courtesy of J. Scott Bovitz. Copyright J. Scott Bovitz.)

Radiocarbon Dating
Until the middle of the twentieth century archaeologists had a real problem. If they found a bit of pottery, an old coin, or another object while digging up a site, just how old was it? How could they tell if the object had been dropped on the ground thirty years ago or thirty centuries ago?

In general, archaeologists knew that the farther they had to dig down to find an object, the older it probably was and that objects found at the same level, or stratum, were close in age. That was helpful when comparing the relative ages of two items, but how could they get the actual age? And how could they compare the ages of items found at sites fifty miles apart?

If a society had written records the archaeologists could compare the history against the type of objects they were finding in the ground. A coin bearing the likeness of Augustus Caesar certainly couldn't have minted before Caesar started his reign. Likewise an Egyptian piece of pottery with a design depicting horse and chariot couldn't have been made before the horse was introduced to Egypt.

Using these types of clues archaeologists were able to construct a firm history for some societies. By matching pottery between a culture with a known chronology against one without, they could even hazard a guess about historical dates when there were no records. This still left scientists wondering about the age of sites where neither cross-matching of pottery or written records could be used. That was, until the invention of radiocarbon dating.

The development of atomic physics in the beginning of the 20th century allowed scientists to understand the phenomenon of radioactivity. Radioactivity results when an atom has a combination of neutrons and protons in its nucleus which is unstable. The atom will expel particles or energy in an attempt to become stable. The expelled energy or particles are the radioactivity. Eventually the atom will change itself into a different substance which may no longer be radioactive. The time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample of radioactive material to decay into another form is known as the "half-life" of the radioactive material. Different radioactive materials may have half-lives that range from a few seconds to hundreds of thousands of years.

One naturally-occurring radioactive material found in the atmosphere is carbon-14. As plants and animals use the air, their tissues absorb some of the carbon-14. After they die, though, they no longer absorb the carbon-14 and the material in their tissues starts to decay.

In 1949 it occurred to a scientist named Willard Libby that the amount of carbon-14 decay found in an animal or plant could be used as a gauge of how long it had been dead. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years. That meant if Libby found a sample where the amount of carbon-14 was only half the amount that might be expected in a living creature, he knew the age of it would be about 5730 years.

Though archaeologists could not directly use radiocarbon dating on objects such as coins, they could often find organic material (like charcoal from a fire) on the same stratum at a site as the object. In this way the age of the coin, or any other non-organic item, might be inferred from the age of the charcoal.

When scientists began to use this method to find the age of sites they ran into a problem. The new radiocarbon numbers didn't seem to jibe with the written records. In some cases they seemed to be hundreds of years off.

In an attempt to understand the differences, scientists looked towards the bristlecone pines of California. These trees are thought to be the oldest living things on Earth and some have ages of almost 5,000 years. Fortunately the bristlecone pine, like other trees, lays down a growth ring every year. Each growth ring turned out to be a measure of the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere during that year. What scientists hadn't understood was that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere wasn't constant, but changed. This meant that the living organisms had different levels of carbon-14 in their tissues depending on the year in which they died. This explained why the early radiocarbon dates didn't match up with the written records.

With a record of the amount of carbon-14 found in the atmosphere available through the pines, scientists were then able to calibrate the test and get dates that matched their written records. The bristlecone pine is such a tough tree that its wood can survive intact for a long time after it is dead. By comparing the growth rings of living bristlecone pines with ones dead for many years, scientists have been able to extend the calibration chart back about 11,000 years.

The radiocarbon dating method has been invaluable in helping scientists date archaeological sites where no other method was available and confirm dates at other locations. Some of these sites include Stonehenge, in England, Mystery Hill, in the United States, and Easter Island in the Pacific.

Dead bristlecone pine trunks like this one hold the key to getting accurate radiocarbon dates as far back as 11,000 years. (Photo by J. Scott Bovitz)

Copyright Lee Krystek 1997. All Rights Reserved.

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Until reading this, I was under the impression that radiocarbon dating was a much more... Ummm... How shall we say... Scientific process than it really is.

Fact 1) Radiocarbon dating is not good for dating actual archeological artifacts. It dates organic things found near the archeological artifacts.

Fact 2) Radiocarbon dating works by assuming the amount of carbon-14 absorbed by a life form.

Fact 3) For a while, when dating objects of known age from thousands of years ago, discrepancies of hundreds of years were noted. (Could that be as much as a ten percent variance, just on recent objects?)

Fact 4) By studying the strata of a tree growing in one place in the world, scientists have obtained what they believe to be accurate representations of the amount of carbon-14 found in the atmosphere during different years, thereby correcting the errors of Fact 3, back to about 11,000 years ago. (They were able to do this, mysteriously, even though the oldest tree of this type is in the 5,000 year range.)

After reading this information, I can see why 'creationists' (a rather odd term, since both scientists and bible adherents believe that we were created... But merely by different means.) where was I? Ah. 'Creationists' would seem to have plenty of room to throw stones at the radiocarbon dating process. (But they shouldn't throw stones. 'Let he who is without sin throw the first stone' and all that.)

I mean, if I took a California pine that is 5,000 years old, chopped it into firewood, threw it in my fireplace, and kept warm all winter... What would the radiocarbon date of the charcoal be? Could it be used to accurately date my DVD player, which is found in the same strata? What about that bloke who found the Dead Sea scrolls and chucked a few into his fireplace before thinking they might be important? What's the radiocarbon date on that fireplace going to look like? How about a coal mine? How old is the coal from that mine? A thousand years? A million years? If I burn it, what is my radiocarbon date then? Also, is carbon 14 present everywhere in the world in the same quantity and quality as it is in California?

If radiocarbon dating can be off a century for something a thousand years old, how far is it off for things 'hundreds of thousands' or 'millions' of years old?

It sounds to me like archaeology is more 'educated guesswork' than it is science. And if that's the case, I don't think that historians and archaeologists should throw stones either. There's plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

While I don't think the Earth is 6,000 years old, I think it's a healthy bit of skepticism to wonder at figures of billions of years bandied about by someone who can't accurately date something from 12,000 years ago.

Let's all be skeptical together. Both of the priest and of the scientist. We might learn something.

The truth might even be somewhere in the middle.

--Anthony

P.S. On the subject of viruses: While evolution isn't a criteria for life, I think it's universally accepted by evolution theorists that only life can evolve. A rock doesn't evolve into a chair, and a chair doesn't evolve into a table. Not without help. Crystals do grow, but they don't turn into amulets by themselves. The most interesting thing about viruses is that they can't exist without life. So they can't possibly pre-date life. (How would they reproduce?) They could be an early form of pre-life, but certainly not any early form that evolutionists believe could become life. (They need life to reproduce, again.) They are 'built' for lack of a better word, to inject material into cells so that they CAN reproduce. (Material which is, surprise, compatible with the way cells work.) Either viruses are alive, or they are amazing little gadgets, and probably the best evidence for 'intelligent design' there is. (Be interesting if creationists turned their logic bombs on the issue of the virus.)

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 6:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
For those of you who have unqualified faith in science

Faith in science. Hmmm. I frequent a lot of discussion boards, and usually that's one of the first strikes of a creationist in disguise. You claim to not be one, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt; however, given the fact that in an earlier post you also used the term "macroevolution," something no one with a real understanding of the process would use, I'm skeptical right off the bat (no offense intended, just an observation).

Quote:
Until reading this, I was under the impression that radiocarbon dating was a much more... Ummm... How shall we say... Scientific process than it really is.

And what scientist has ever claimed that it is 100% accurate? None that I am aware of. What do you want them to do, given periods of thousands of years, break it down to the exact minute? That's another sticking point the anti-science crowd leaps on. "Aha, you say this is from about 5500 years ago, but the histories say it happened 5600 years ago - carbon dating is wrong!" What a crock. "Aha, you used isometric dating to show that this fossil is from 250 million years ago, but you're only accurate to within 2 or 3 million years - what if the earth really is 6000 years old?" I mean, seriously, do you know how silly that sounds?

Quote:
Fact 2) Radiocarbon dating works by assuming the amount of carbon-14 absorbed by a life form.

Fact, there are all different types of dating methodology, and not all of them use carbon-14. Also, let me bold this so people can see it - you have cited an article from 1997. That's 10 years of advancement in technique and usage in the field. In modern science, that's an eternity.

Quote:
Could that be as much as a ten percent variance, just on recent objects?

I cited this above, but I'll rehash it just for my own amusement. Ten percent? So for something 11000 years old, that's + or - 1100 years. Wow. 10000 vs 12000 on an 11000 year old object. I'm impressed by the scientists, not critical; they got it to within a couple thou years? Awesome.

Quote:
a rather odd term, since both scientists and bible adherents believe that we were created... But merely by different means

Last time I checked, scientists took no position on how we were "created." As far as I'm aware, the answer is "we're still trying to figure that one out."

Quote:
'Creationists' would seem to have plenty of room to throw stones at the radiocarbon dating process.

Just like you were doing? But you aren't a creationist, right?

Quote:
I mean, if I took a California pine that is 5,000 years old, chopped it into firewood, threw it in my fireplace, and kept warm all winter... What would the radiocarbon date of the charcoal be? Could it be used to accurately date my DVD player, which is found in the same strata?

Again, what do you want from them? If, 12000 years from now, a group of scientists says, hmm, we think this DVD player may be from @the year @2000, plus or minus 50-100 years, you'd consider them to be poor scientists? Your argument is absurd.

Quote:
It sounds to me like archaeology is more 'educated guesswork' than it is science. And if that's the case, I don't think that historians and archaeologists should throw stones either. There's plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

No. Not really. Your disdain for science oozes out of your whole post, even though you are trying to sound reasonable. You're casting scientists as a bunch of blokes who sit around in a room all day and make things up.

Quote:
I think it's a healthy bit of skepticism to wonder at figures of billions of years bandied about by someone who can't accurately date something from 12,000 years ago.

Again, I defy your claim of inaccuracy. Ask a statistician, just because something's off by a few percentage points doesn't make it dismissable.

Quote:
Let's all be skeptical together. Both of the priest and of the scientist. We might learn something.

Fine. I'm all for skepticism, but lets not confuse the issue that the priest and the scientist have the same job. Contrary to your belief, science is about facts, evidence, theories; religion is about souls and belief. Is God beyond our understanding? Certainly. Is our universe? No, it just takes time to get the pieces straight. By muddying the waters you do disservice to our future.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Until reading this, I was under the impression that radiocarbon dating was a much more... Ummm... How shall we say... Scientific process than it really is.

No, it's always been a way of getting a rough ball park figure. Discrepancies of a hundred years are common in any dating method for events or artefacts from thousands of years in the past.

Quote:
Fact 4) By studying the strata of a tree growing in one place in the world, scientists have obtained what they believe to be accurate representations of the amount of carbon-14 found in the atmosphere during different years, thereby correcting the errors of Fact 3, back to about 11,000 years ago. (They were able to do this, mysteriously, even though the oldest tree of this type is in the 5,000 year range.)

Tree ring records go even further back. Fossilised and dead tree rings will closely match the rings of living trees from the same area so it's possible to go further back where dead and fossilised tree growth overlaps that of living trees.

Quote:
After reading this information, I can see why 'creationists' (a rather odd term, since both scientists and bible adherents believe that we were created... But merely by different means.) where was I? Ah. 'Creationists' would seem to have plenty of room to throw stones at the radiocarbon dating process. (But they shouldn't throw stones. 'Let he who is without sin throw the first stone' and all that.)

Not really, creation in this context implies a creator. Many of the 'stones' thrown by creationists against radiocarbon dating are logically fallacious, as they say since carbon-14 dating can't give an exacting date, if Carbon-14 says something is significantly older than 6000 years then it must be wrong. Doesn't follow at all.

If I say something happened in March last year but I can't give an exact date it doesn't logically follow that if I say I'm over 24 years old then I must be wrong.

Quote:
If radiocarbon dating can be off a century for something a thousand years old, how far is it off for things 'hundreds of thousands' or 'millions' of years old?

Assuming ten percent for a million years you're talking about 100,000 years. Still doesn't lay the margin of error in the 6000 year range.

Quote:
While I don't think the Earth is 6,000 years old, I think it's a healthy bit of skepticism to wonder at figures of billions of years bandied about by someone who can't accurately date something from 12,000 years ago.

Because the margin of error reduces in significance as the time frame increases.

Quote:
Let's all be skeptical together. Both of the priest and of the scientist. We might learn something.

Great idea I agree wholeheartedly

. This is how science is supposed too, and on the whole does operate. I'm not about to say science or scientists are perfect, they're not, but by comparison creationism and it's 'scientific' variants such as ID in no way shape or form operate on this principle.

Quote:
Either viruses are alive, or they are amazing little gadgets, and probably the best evidence for 'intelligent design' there is. (Be interesting if creationists turned their logic bombs on the issue of the virus.)

This is not true at all. The ID debate has nothing to do with whether Viruses are alive or not. By this reasoning Viruses being alive or not proves ID whatever the outcome, which it doesn't.

Viruses are either Alive or they are a complex chemical constructs and reactions that show some aspects of life.

Fire is a chemical reaction that grows, reproduces, consumes and moves. At a stretch you could even say it reacts to stimuli, but no one says fire is alive. The existance of fire is also not proof of an intelligent creator. Fires can occure due to Human action, but they also occure naturally.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:46 AM

GAMMARAYGIRL

Citizen- very interesting post.

I heard a speaker several years back trying to promote his proof of a young Earth and the reality of a Noah's ark flood. It was a little surprising that people were taking him seriously, but at the time it didn't bother me too much.

Stuff like this bothers me so much more now. I think because I'm much more aware how unscientific thinking is getting entwined with public policy. And that can be pretty scary.

I also wanted to mention one more thing about the Earth's age. Yes, there is uncertainty in radioactive dating, but the age of Earth and solar system is not obtained using 14-Carbon. The generally accepted 4.5 billion years comes using isotopes with much longer halflives such as 238-Uranium (4.5 billion year half life) or 40-Potassium (1.3 billion years), among others. So we can say with some certainty that the Earth is at least 4.5 billion years old. Radioactive dating of lunar rocks and meteorites also show a 4.5 billion year old solar system. And models of the Sun's interior give it an age of about 5 billion years, plus or minus 1.5 billion

. I will shut up now.

Trust me, I'm a scientist!

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 9:43 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

7%

the current crop of assholes running the show is ridiculously anti-science

They are, but I think the problem goes beyond that.

They get traction because culturally, the US has been anti-education for at least two centuries, with only brief interludes. Think of all the disdainful comments about those w/ education: artsy-farty, hi-fallutin', 'evil scientist' types. Compare that to the plain spoken wisdom of the hard-working 'common man' who doesn't know much about art, but knows what he likes. He also knows his Bible and sets the standard for truth and decency.

The US was shocked out of its complacency by Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, but that lasted perhaps a decade.

After that science, particularly chemistry, became associated with industry and toxic products.

Americans are uncomfortable with education, with educated people, and with science in particular. There needs to be a cultural change, IMHO, for this to change.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 10:00 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Faith in science. Hmmm. I frequent a lot of discussion boards, and usually that's one of the first strikes of a creationist in disguise. You claim to not be one, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt; however, given the fact that in an earlier post you also used the term "macroevolution," something no one with a real understanding of the process would use, I'm skeptical right off the bat (no offense intended, just an observation)."

No disguise here. We know from the other thread that I believe in God. We can presume that I believe God made things. But that's neither here nor there. I'm not trying to prove that the Earth or the universe is 6,000 years old, nor do I believe it to be. Even if we take the Bible at face value, there are many many interpretations of how old IT says the Earth is. (Quite frankly, I don't put much faith in those sorts of vague interpretations from a book that has been re-assembled multiple times, and doesn't adequately address the question of who Caine was getting on with.)

Macroevolution is the evolution of one type of creature into another type of creature, as taught to me by Biology teacher in High school. I didn't make it up. You know, like when a fish becomes a gerbil over the course of X millions of years.

Microevolution is the provable evolution. Natural selection at work. The example from High School was that when a forest turned black due to pollution, the moths there also turned black. (The light colored ones got eaten, I guess, and the dark colored ones all had kids.) This is the same kind of process we interfere with in order to breed types of flowers and types of dogs. Because of the speed of results, microevolution (you know, changes within a creature type) is 100% provable. People use microevolution to assume macroevolution, and use fossil evidence to support their theory. (A good sound theory, by the way. If a type of moth can become black over 10 years, who knows what changes it might see over a million years, thanks to random mutation and natural selection?)

By the way: "you also used the term "macroevolution," something no one with a real understanding of the process would use"

Be sure to correct my understanding of evolution in your next post. We'll call it -

TALKING POINT ONE - HOW ANTHONY HAS NO REAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS.

**************
**************

"And what scientist has ever claimed that it is 100% accurate? None that I am aware of. What do you want them to do, given periods of thousands of years, break it down to the exact minute? That's another sticking point the anti-science crowd leaps on. "Aha, you say this is from about 5500 years ago, but the histories say it happened 5600 years ago - carbon dating is wrong!" What a crock. "Aha, you used isometric dating to show that this fossil is from 250 million years ago, but you're only accurate to within 2 or 3 million years - what if the earth really is 6000 years old?" I mean, seriously, do you know how silly that sounds?"

Well, I can't think of any scientist worth his salt that says anything is 100% accurate. But I do hear them talk about margins of error. If 5,000 years ago I cut down a sapling and burn it, you can date my sword to 5,000 years ago. If 5,000 years ago I cut down a 5,000 year old tree and burn it, you can date my sword to 10,000 years ago. If 5,000 years ago I used some million year old coal in my fire, you can date my sword to 1,000,000 years ago. None of this suggests that the Earth is 6,000 years old. It does tell us that the margin of error on carbon dating can be really far off. (Like, really super far off.) And this is just the obvious stuff. Carbon dating things found close to things should be one of many ways to date something, and perhaps even the least important evidence. Unfortunately, carbon dating was invented as a consequence of there being no other valid way of dating certain things and sites. So, something that can be way, way, way off is sometimes the only thing used to date an artifact. Then once the site has been dated, it can be used as evidence to date other nearby sites. Keep in mind I never said the earth is really 6,000 years old. I don't believe this. But you are asserting that I do believe this, and telling me I sound silly. That's kind of silly in and of itself. Try to remember what I did say. I said that the truth may be somewhere in the middle. As in, 60 billion and 6,000 may both be wrong figures. That's a lot of wiggle room.

As an aside, I remember a bit about the carbon dating of the Turin shroud. Now, I've got no particular feelings about the authenticity of the Turin shroud one way or the other. I don't think it really matters, any more than if we found baby Jesus' diaper. But there happened to be a fire near the shroud at one point, and they were worried that the carbon of the fire may have contaminated the shroud and created false readings on carbon decay, and thus inaccurate age determination. A fire. That's what it takes to goof a carbon test. Smoke. There are many other ways to date something, though. There were some seeds on the shroud that pointed them in new directions. It's interesting, but it all does really point to how shadowy the art of dating objects can be.

Incidentally, "What do you want them to do, given periods of thousands of years, break it down to the exact minute?" Here you are suggesting things I never suggested again. Given periods of thousands of years, it is possible to be off by thousands of years. Based on carbon evidence, my DVD player might date to 2,000 BC. Or it might date to 2006. Or anything in between.

I think this is called the straw man arguing technique. You suggest I'm suggesting something that I'm not suggesting. Then you point out how silly of a suggestion I've made. That would be like me saying, "Evolution says apes became humans, right, and we still have apes who aren't humans. Do you know how stupid you sound?" Well, evolutionists didn't say that apes all became human. So I've lied about what they did say, and then shot down the falsehood. Go me.

Let's talk about what I am saying, not about what other people are saying. I'm saying that carbon dating can be grossly inaccurate. Not just by 10% (under the ideal circumstances) but by orders of magnitude above that under less than ideal circumstances. If an archaeologist tells you something is 60,000 years old, you're liable to think it might be 59,000 or 61,000 but who really cares? But if it could be 10,000 years old, that puts a new spin on things.

********************
********************

"Fact, there are all different types of dating methodology, and not all of them use carbon-14. Also, let me bold this so people can see it - you have cited an article from 1997. That's 10 years of advancement in technique and usage in the field. In modern science, that's an eternity."

Well, a lot can happen in 10 years. Cell phones are a lot different now than they were in 1997. Computers are tons better. Maybe radiocarbon dating is better, too. This is still guys taking a sample from somewhere near something they want to date, and using that to determine the age of that thing, yeah? I think I've beaten this to death.

********************
********************

"I cited this above, but I'll rehash it just for my own amusement. Ten percent? So for something 11000 years old, that's + or - 1100 years. Wow. 10000 vs 12000 on an 11000 year old object. I'm impressed by the scientists, not critical; they got it to within a couple thou years? Awesome."

Well, if they got it right within a couple thou years, that might be awesome. Or it might be bad. Depends on what they're using it for. "Civilization A had X before Civilization B!!!!" It's something I see a lot of. Anyhow, it can be worse. Much worse. See dead horse above.

********************
********************

"Last time I checked, scientists took no position on how we were "created." As far as I'm aware, the answer is "we're still trying to figure that one out.""

Well, quite a few scientists have taken a position on how we were created. But so far the consensus is that we were indeed created, either by a precipitating event or person. No one is suggesting, for instance, that cause and effect doesn't work. (Although they ought to. Under the assumption of cause and effect, any creation theory is hard to swallow. What was before the Big Bang? What was before God? Tough to answer under our present understanding of the universe.)

*********************
*********************

"Just like you were doing? But you aren't a creationist, right?"

I am a creationist. I believe the world was created, I even believe it was created by God. You're the only one who said I wasn't a creationist. Now, I don't believe the world was created 6,000 years ago. But I do believe it was created. Do I need to make up a new term for myself?

I'm willing to do more than laugh at people who DO believe this, though. I'm willing to investigate their claims, validate those that are valid, and invalidate those that aren't. I'm willing to present a counter-argument filled with facts instead of insults like 'silly' and 'crock' and whatnot. I'm willing to avoid straw man arguments.

Did you know that in Middle school I was taught that electricity flowed from positive to negative? I have no understanding of physics. I accepted it on faith. In High School I was taught that electricity actually flows from negative to positive. I accepted that on faith, too. What else is it when you believe a scientific principle that you haven't personally researched? You have faith in the principle. You have faith in the scientists that created the principle. But hey, you know, the light bulb turns on no matter which way the electrons are flowing. So how do YOU know?

**********************
**********************

"Again, what do you want from them? If, 12000 years from now, a group of scientists says, hmm, we think this DVD player may be from @the year @2000, plus or minus 50-100 years, you'd consider them to be poor scientists? Your argument is absurd."

I guess we can add absurd to the list of things my arguments are. Try actually reading my stuff, please. I said that my DVD player might date 5,000 years before it really existed. You know, like the year 3000 BC.

***********************
***********************

"No. Not really. Your disdain for science oozes out of your whole post, even though you are trying to sound reasonable. You're casting scientists as a bunch of blokes who sit around in a room all day and make things up."

Dude. First of all, I don't disdain science. What else are we going to study the world with? I disdain the idea that scientific theories are considered proven facts. I disdain the idea that we shouldn't laugh at people who believe a scientific principle that can be 100% wrong, but we should laugh at people who believe a religious principle that can be 100% wrong.

Nobody brought up anything about the validity of the meteor thing in the article. Nobody studied the validity of carbon dating. Everyone just said, "These people are NUTS!"

So you know, I looked up cabon dating and found ways it can go super duper wrong. But there are folks who don't know how it works. They don't know how wrong it can be. They think that if you're dating a helmet that you do some kind of sampling or star trek scan on the helmet and come up with an age based on mysterious radioactive principles of molecules. They don't know that the helmet might be dated based on how old the coal is in a fire 100 yards away. Can you dig it?

Faith, man. There's a lot of faith going around, in adherents of both followings. Don't snark on folks who believe in a book called The Bible when you believe in a book called Physics 101. (Or in my case, an Electronics textbook in Middle School and another one in High School, each contradicting the other.)

Incidentally, scientists do sit around in a room and make stuff up. It's, like, a third of their job. They observe a phenomenon. Then they create a theory about what they observed (this is the make stuff up part) and then they create an experiment to see if they can disprove the theory. Sometimes scientific breakthroughs are the result of one scientist making something up that no one else made up, and then doing experiments to show that he can't disprove his made up theory.

Or do I misunderstand the process?

************************
************************

"Fine. I'm all for skepticism, but lets not confuse the issue that the priest and the scientist have the same job. Contrary to your belief, science is about facts, evidence, theories; religion is about souls and belief. Is God beyond our understanding? Certainly. Is our universe? No, it just takes time to get the pieces straight. By muddying the waters you do disservice to our future."

I really don't think you're all for skepticism. Skepticism is the process of muddying the water and then examining the mud and setting it aside till the water is clear, yeah? And sometimes the process of examination reveals that some of the water is really mud, and some of the mud is really water.

The parishiner has faith in the Bible because they have faith in the priest to accurately convey the information in the Bible. The priest has faith in the Bible because he has faith in God, and he believes God created this book for him, to guide him, and that God wouldn't lead him astray.

We have faith in scientific principles because we have faith in our teachers to accurately convey these principles, and we have faith in the scientists, and their adherence to methods which have allowed them to proximate reality to within a few percentage points of certainty.

To this day, I'm not entirely sure which way the electrons flow. I'm not convinced of the accuracy of carbon dating now that I know how it works, and I'm real curious about this asteroid impact thing that the original article said.

I don't think I'll ever believe the world is 6,000 years old. I haven't drunk that cool-aid.

But I have apparently drunk a bit of cool-aid on other topics. Topics stamped with the scientific seal of approval.

Let's muddy the waters, and stop laughing at folks. If their ideas are outlandish, just show the evidence.

To do otherwise, is a disservice to everyone.

--Anthony

P.S. The article, as an attempt to prove God by disproving science, shows an alarming lack of faith. I'd rather see them question the age of the world and challenge assumptions on general principle, than to see them question the age of the world for the purpose of proving God.

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 12:09 PM

FLETCH2

If I can ask a stupid question why 6000 years? It bothers me because the bible doesnt actually list how long ago something was. It implies that creationist types have taken the supposed age of the oldest human civilization, added 1000 years and set that as the upper limit. Which means that they do accept at least biblical archeology.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 12:37 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Fletch,

I don't know how they came up with the 6,000 year figure, though I can take a stab at a guess.

The bible goes on and on about who begat who and how long they lived. I think you're supposed to be able to trace the entire lineage of Jesus back to Adam. That might provide Bible scholars with an estimate. I don't know if the 6,000 year advocates use the 7 day forging of the world as literal or metaphorical. I also don't know how long they give Adam and Eve credit for living in Eden. (Where presumably there was no aging, since there was no death.) From a Biblical point of view, I don't know that it says 'Adam and Eve lived in eden for 17 years before they blew it' and while I think an age for Adam is given upon his death, I'm not sure if that includes Eden or is considered post-eden.

Then again, I also don't know who Cain was shacking up with later on. It's always felt to me like a lot of the story is missing.

What I am interested in knowing is how you date a moon rock. Any scientists in the crowd please explain the process.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 12:38 PM

In a similar vein:
The National Geographic channel just put on "Robin Hood: Prince of Theives" as part of it's "fact on film" season...

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:12 PM

CARTOON

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
If I can ask a stupid question why 6000 years?

The time going back to the establishment of the kingdom of Israel is the only part which can be ascertained with any sort of fairly acceptible dating. These dates are readily ascertained as we know that Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 586BC, and the Bible records the length of the reigns of all the kings (of both Judah & Israel) from the Babylonian captivity back to the establishment of the kingdom. Therefore, we can ascertain that Saul probably became first king of Israel c.1050BC (David in 1010BC, etc.).

The period of the judges (prior to the establishment of the kingdom) isn't quite as specific, but can be determined from time periods given in scripture to be in the neighborhood of 300 years.

However, going back prior to the period of the judges, one starts to run into dating problems -- which is why I don't think anyone should speak of biblical dating prior to this with any dogmatism.

I think the 6000 year number comes from an approximation of the time when Abraham lived (c.2000BC), then incorporates the Adamic genealogy (which lists how old Adam was when Seth was born, how old Seth was when Enosh was born, etc.), and goes backwards from Abraham to Adam (which is approximately another 2,000 years).

Of course, in order for anyone to believe dogmatically that the earth is approximately 6,000 years old, it would have to assume firstly, that no generations were skipped over in the geneaologies (which aparently was something done in the case of some ancient genealogies), then secondly, that the seven "days" mentioned in Genesis were literal, 24-hour days (with Adam having been created on the 6th day, thus the earth having been created 6 days prior to Adam's creation), then thirdly (as AnthonyT eluded to above), that Adam & Eve were in the garden only a short time before the birth of Seth.

Could God have done all this in 6,000 years? Yes, I have no doubt. Did God do it all in 6,000 years? I haven't a clue, and wouldn't want to speculate whether He did or didn't.

I believe that if the Lord wanted us to know how old the earth was, He would've told us. As He hasn't (at least as far as I know), I think it's foolish to speculate.

Anyhow, that's how I think the 6,000 year figure was likely derived.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
What I am interested in knowing is how you date a moon rock. Any scientists in the crowd please explain the process.

For the most part it is the same with Carbon-14 dating, just using different, longer lived species. Uranium-235, for instance will decay until it eventually becomes lead-207 with a half life of something like ~billion years. Most rocks contain minerals that have at least one decay series. I think maybe Rubidium-87/Strontium-87 decay series may be used for moon rocks, which has a half life of maybe ~50 billion years. Moon rocks tend to be old.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:40 PM

GAMMARAYGIRL

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

What I am interested in knowing is how you date a moon rock. Any scientists in the crowd please explain the process.

Radioactive dating is used for Moon rocks. The idea is to look at isotopes with long half-lives (not carbon). One method uses the decay of 87-rubidium (half life is 47 billion years) into 87-strontium. There are a number of techniques using different isotopes. If you understand the idea of nuclear decay you can get the rest of the story at a hyperphysics site...

Check out http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/clkroc.html

Sorry to lead you to another site, but I started typing things out, and the post was getting painfully long.

cf

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:42 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Whoa there, Mac. I'm not following you.

Carbon dating involves using material from a once-living thing to determine the age of something found near the once-living thing. Like the carbon in the campfire dating the village, and the village dating the pottery fragment.

This works, presumably, because we can estimate how much carbon a living thing should have absorbed in its lifespan, and compare it to how much carbon it's got right now. (At least, that's what I gathered from the article I copied.)

A moon rock can't work that way, because there's no living things or campfires or anything to compare it to.

I give you a five pound rock. What happens next?

--Amthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
What I am interested in knowing is how you date a moon rock. Any scientists in the crowd please explain the process.

Some radioactive elements can only exist after other elements have decayed into them. To use a very simplified example Uranium-238 can decay into Lead-206 with a half life of 4.5 Billion years. Thus if there is equal amounts of Uranium-238 and Lead-206 present in the sample the sample is approximately 4.5 Billion years old.

It is more accurate than Carbon-14 dating, as it doesn't depend on assumptions about the Carbon content of the Earths environment through history, just that some quantity of Uranium-238 (or whatever parent isotope being tested) exists within the sample.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 1:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I give you a five pound rock. What happens next?

Well, I’ve never actually radio-dated a rock so I can’t give you a play by play analysis, but basically the question you seem to be asking is ‘what is the baseline?’ In Carbon-14 dating the baseline is perhaps the amount of Carbon absorbed by a living thing, and a rock, as you surmise, is not likely to absorb much carbon at any kind of predictable rate. But what is done in this case is to compare two different decay series. Decay series one should decay linearly compared to decay series two. So that if you evaluate the ratio of the parent and daughter isotopes of each decay series and then match them you should get a straight line and the slope of that line will be the relative concentration of one decay series with the other which will be directly related to the date of the rock.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 2:04 PM

GAMMARAYGIRL

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
What I am interested in knowing is how you date a moon rock. Any scientists in the crowd please explain the process.
For the most part it is the same with Carbon-14 dating, just using different, longer lived species. Uranium-235, for instance will decay until it eventually becomes lead-207 with a half life of something like ~billion years. Most rocks contain minerals that have at least one decay series. I think maybe Rubidium-87/Strontium-87 decay series may be used for moon rocks, which has a half life of maybe ~50 billion years. Moon rocks tend to be old.

Hey, sorry Finn, I just posted pretty much the same thing you just said. I get a bit too excited about half-lives and such. I could talk forever about decay chains

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 3:13 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

So the idea for dating rocks seems to be this...

It's got 5 units of uranium and 5 units of lead, so we can surmise that X amount of time ago it had 10 units of uranium and 0 units of lead?

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 3:16 PM

FLETCH2

Yes, except it's not ordinary lead. It's not a lead that exists on it's own anywhere. It's a kind of lead that only exists because the Uranium decays to form it.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:31 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

That's pretty cool.

I guess the only question left is...

Is there anything that can affect the decay rate of these isotopes?

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:55 PM

As in the case of almost all science, there are several assumptions. For starters, Fletch2 gave you one, which is that the stable daughter end product is unique, or more generally that the concentrations of parent and daughter isotopes are not effected by external processes. Another assumption is that the decay rate is constant. And paradoxically, the age of the rock itself must be assumed in order to choose a correct dating method.

For some reason I seem to have answered a different question then the one you asked.

Not sure why, but oh well.

Quote:
Originally posted by gammaraygirl:
Hey, sorry Finn, I just posted pretty much the same thing you just said. I get a bit too excited about half-lives and such. I could talk forever about decay chains .

It’s all good.

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Saturday, March 11, 2006 8:05 PM

FLETCH2

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
That's pretty cool.

I guess the only question left is...

Is there anything that can affect the decay rate of these isotopes?

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

Not as far as anyone knows. If a mechanism could be found that would be good news since it would allow rapid disposal of nuclear waste.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
That's pretty cool.

I guess the only question left is...

Is there anything that can affect the decay rate of these isotopes?

Sort of, Rocks underwater can have erroneous results on the weathered surface, but the centre of the rock can be reliably tested.

Confidence in the dating process can increase by using different techniques that correlate.

It's a question of picking good samples, like the core of the rock not the centre, just like Carbon-14, pick seeds rather than remains of trees that can live for 5000 years.

This brings up another point. Carbon-14 dating hinges largely on environmental Carbon and we have reliable data for environmental Carbon stretching back something like 40,000 years, so the results from Carbon-14 tests can be adjusted making them far more accurate.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 4:42 AM

Oddly, while checking my mail this morning, I came upon this article -

http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588
EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=2

From the scientific American; it's their response to arguments against evolution -

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:11 PM

I see I didn't miss a whole lot while I was away.

What does it matter? I mean aside from life expectancy and size difference, there's essentailly not much separating a human from a common fieldmouse.

Here's some facts, which are just the balance of evidence from the way too much time I devoted to this issue over the years:

People say "Oh the Earth is 4.6 Billion years old": that's nonsense.

The Earth is 3.3 Billion years old.

The only reason people say it's older is to support a wacked theory that the Earth is somehow related to the moon, which is 4.6 Billion years old. But it's not.

The Earth isn't even in its proper orbit. It belonged originally out between Jupiter and Mars. It was moved to its present location from there be a catastrophic event some 3.3 billion years ago. Anything it was before that is pretty likely lost, but the earth was undoubtedly not very old at the time.

Mouse-monkey-man first appeared a couple hunderd million years ago in dinosaur times. It's evolution to its current form is pretty recent, but I don't know that it's a terribly significant event.

The significant event was the evolution of written language, which was a random one, and resulted in the world we see. It's quite possible that larger mouse-monkey beings, our ancestors, and dinofood, were perfectly intelligent, at least as much as most humans, and had language, culture, religion, etc. But without written language, their development was limited, and they became dinofood.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Here's some facts, which are just the balance of evidence from the way too much time I devoted to this issue over the years:

People say "Oh the Earth is 4.6 Billion years old": that's nonsense.

The Earth is 3.3 Billion years old.

Some facts huh?

How do you explain zircon mineral in Australia recently dated to 4.4 billion years?

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The only reason people say it's older is to support a wacked theory that the Earth is somehow related to the moon, which is 4.6 Billion years old. But it's not.

What about meteorites on the earth dated to ~4.6 billion yr?

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 3:36 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
It's quite possible that larger mouse-monkey beings, our ancestors, and dinofood, were perfectly intelligent, at least as much as most humans, and had language, culture, religion, etc. But without written language, their development was limited, and they became dinofood.

...and with this comment, Dreamtrove joined the tin-foil hat brigade along with PirateNews and PirateJenny, never to be considered for serious conversation again.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 4:11 PM

KHYRON

Quote:
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
From the scientific American; it's their response to arguments against evolution -

Thanks for the link, 7%. A great rebuttal, but I doubt too may creationists would bother reading it, and those that do would probably not understand it since, after all, the article is based on facts and common sense and scientific reasoning and logic and etc...

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

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Monday, March 13, 2006 7:49 AM

Finn,

The only rocks I've ever run into dated over 3.3 billion years are meteorites. Bounce around in space for billions of years and slam into the Earth, at a point in time not more than 3.3 billion years ago.

Just shooting down the scientific communities random assertions which are based on little or nothing but the desire to fit something into their preconceived notions, a very intellectual thing to do. I have no agenda at all. Just telling it as I sees it.

I actually am serious about this. All of the real scientific evidence I have seen supports an Earth which is slightly younger than accepted theory. Academics don't like that because it isn't 'pat' with their pseudo-creationist theory.

In reality, planets take a long time to cool, even if the Earth and the moon became liquid globs at the same time, which is possible but not certain, they didn't become solid rocks at the same time. I would imagine 4 billion years ago, there was no solid surface of the earth on which to stand. I could be wrong about this, but I looked up those rocks of which you spoke and it said, from metorites, not an indication of the age of the Earth.

Consider the Earth's crust and rock temperature. It really doesn't make any sense that the Earth would cool so quickly initially, and not more later on. If the Earth's surface were truly 4.6 billion years old, you would expect to see a core behavior much more like that of Mars. My point in all of this is that science has become infected with religion, and alters its findings based on preconception, the way religion does, and it becomes the new religion, and not science at all. Science, in the absence of any predetermined conclusions if sought to support, would frequently come up with different results from the ones which it officially does. I say again, this is not some lead in to a grand conspiracy theory. I have studied these subjects for years, and this is my objective conclusion, based on what I see. It isn't leading anywhere at all.

Geezer,

Clearly you think evolution is tinfoil hat material. I really haven't been taking you seriously for a while, and don't care what you think. If you had read anything about biology you would know that mammals predate dinosaurs, and that large mouselike beings, our ancestors, were most certainly around at the time. The fact that they were furry and had long tails did not make them much different from us. What I stated was really just a reflection of the officially accepted science, no theory or embellishment was added. The only reason I phrased it as I did was to make a point, which was, we are really not much different from our long tailed ancestors, genetically speaking. The human race is different from animals in one way and one way only of any significance, which is the existance of a written language. Because of this, human knowledge became cumulative in a way never possible through oral tradition, for an abunance of reasons.

Finally. Team Pirate is not bad company to be in. I think they are wrong a good percentage of the time, but they are not wrong significantly more often than, say, you, or a number of people on this forum, IMHO. Sometimes they are probably spot on, or at least in the right general direction of the truth. Objectively, I think the pirates are right maybe one time in four. By contrast, I think the Bush Admin are right about one time in twenty. Given these figures, I'm very aware that I'm not right significantly more than that. I hope to be right maybe half the time. I think if someone were right three times in four, they would be Nostradamus. Unfortunately, a large number of people seem to think that they are right 100% of the time.

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Monday, March 13, 2006 11:09 AM

OMEGADARK

Man, look what has spawned in the Real World Discussion Board:

Another Science/Religion battle of changing the 'facts' to support whatever/whoever/ need's the evidence for some particular view because they will either lose 'something' themselves or their constituents will also lose 'something' thus the main party losing out possibly twice....

Does anyone see the connection between philosophy, religion, and science?

OR are some people too buys deifying each one on the account of the others?

For example:

Those science minded among us must truly consider what it is that they do 'know'. Take the type of knowledge that they have and ask does anything of what you do, say, know, discover, test, etc etc etc really affect anything the religious community does or says in terms of MORALITY. You will see that nothing you say makes a difference to the price of potatoes.

To those who are religion minded don't you realize what religion IS. Do you actually believe those things that science claims/theorizes/proves takes anything away from you? You think if someone proves the world is 6000 yrs old or 6000000000000 it will make any difference in how you conduct your daily life?

The problem we often run into as humans is that we try to categorize things to fit nicely into titles and categories so that we can then easily label our experiences for ease of thought, communication, etc etc etc...and we often come across people who manipulate things for their own gain...

Often on these boards i find it hilarious to see such smart people often bickering about two different points that have NOTHING to do with each other, and only because some people have preconditioned themselves to hold a greater value on the information that they hold that it intrinsically has itself, they will end up defending it because their ideas of self-worth of intellectual ability is jeopardized...

For all those who claim to be self-proclaimed logicians and the such, why do you often act quite illogically?

Lastly, why if some of you realize that a part of what you believe could possibly be false not see that it doesn't mean the entirety of what you say is also false...

-OD

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Monday, March 13, 2006 3:57 PM

Clearly I'm getting too ornery again, and thus I need to take some time off from politics etc.

But before I go:

Yes. It really makes a difference. Everything we do in our everyday lives is based on the world as we understand it. If the world is 6,000 that would profoundly change almost all facts about the world as we know it, and thus every action we take would be effected.

So profound is this influcence, that it probably exceeds other facts such as whether or not there is a God. Even to the point where whether the Earth is 3.3 Billion or 4.6 Billion is going to affect our world views as it would indicate the possibility of life. In a 3.3Byo world, life is a rapidfire effect of having a habitable planet, thus indicating an abundance of alien life in the world. If the earth were say, 600Byo, the late occurance of life would show a true scarcety of alien life in the universe. I'm not a big alien fan, so it doesn't particularly matter to me, but that's one thing that might be impacted by even a slight difference like that.

All of what we are is the some total of what we know, experience, and understand. If someone imposes an unnatural belief system that limits what we understand, we are definitely less for it.

Quote:
Lastly, why if some of you realize that a part of what you believe could possibly be false not see that it doesn't mean the entirety of what you say is also false...

Because true and false are not absolutes. There is an unreachable truth, let's call it one, and a nexus of anti-truth, call it zero. If you happen to hold a position at .50, then you are half right/half wrong. In a sense, sure, everything you know is wrong, because it isn't one, and will potentially be supplanted by .75 at some later date, provided you are open minded enough to see this possibility.

A few people here with drastically different positions to my own have shown me a perspective that has changed my overall outlook. If I have position .50, and I see pirate News, and he's got position 2.00, and the truth lies somewhere at 1.00, then by seeing that there is some truth in PN that I don't yet hold, I know that the truth would then lie somewhere between us. Neither one of us is more right or more wrong than the other in this hypothetical example. I would think I'm more right, but that would only be because I'm me, and my ego is standing up for team me, but he would think that he was more right with an equal degree of justification for thinking so.

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Monday, March 13, 2006 4:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by OmegaDark:
Another Science/Religion battle of changing the 'facts' to support whatever/whoever/ need's the evidence for

You can't change facts. Facts are what they are. To be sure, they can be interpreted different ways, or be omitted, but the only people trying to 'change' facts are religious zealots.

Quote:
Does anyone see the connection between philosophy, religion, and science?

Certainly. Each asks the same fundamental question - "Why are we here?" But never fall into the trap of thinking that while it's the same question, the answers the three seek are the same. They aren't.

Quote:
Those science minded among us must truly consider what it is that they do 'know'. Take the type of knowledge that they have and ask does anything of what you do, say, know, discover, test, etc etc etc really affect anything the religious community does or says in terms of MORALITY. You will see that nothing you say makes a difference to the price of potatoes.

The science community isn't the community with the problem. The science community says "believe what you want, we won't stop you." They really don't care whether or not it affects the religious folk at all.

Quote:
To those who are religion minded don't you realize what religion IS. Do you actually believe those things that science claims/theorizes/proves takes anything away from you? You think if someone proves the world is 6000 yrs old or 6000000000000 it will make any difference in how you conduct your daily life?

Yes, they do. That's the problem. If they didn't, they wouldn't be fighting scientists at every turn. You don't see scientists fighting churches for the right to teach particle physics in Sunday School, do you? Yet you do see the religious right, with a subpar (at best) knowledge of science barging into the classrooms. If suddenly tomorrow every biologist in America demanded that Jehova's Witnesses teach evolution every Sunday morning, you could make a case that both sides are equally at fault. But they aren't, so you can't.

Quote:
The problem we often run into as humans is that we try to categorize things to fit nicely

It's not a problem, it's how we cope. It only becomes a problem for those too ignorant or too foolish to accept that some square things don't always fit into the round holes. The rest of us just alter our perspectives and move on.

Quote:
etc etc etc...and we often come across people who manipulate things for their own gain...

If a scientist manipulates data, other scientists catch them, prove them to be phonies, and trash their reputations in the field. Same thing can't be said of religion - Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell still have ministries; priests get "shuffled," not excommunicated. I see policing happening in one community, not the other.

Quote:
Often on these boards i find it hilarious to see such smart people often bickering about two different points that have NOTHING to do with each other,

One side isn't pressing an issue, just defending themselves. Besides, how are scientists supposed to respond? They've already tried "we're not attacking your faith," so what option is there? Allow people with no grasp of science to set their own arbitrary rules for the laws of nature? It's not gravity, evolution, or quantum mechanics, it's the magical will of an invisible ghost! Cast off ye thy lab coats and rejoice!

Quote:
For all those who claim to be self-proclaimed logicians and the such, why do you often act quite illogically?

Damn right, Chrisisall, you logician you!

Quote:
Lastly, why if some of you realize that a part of what you believe could possibly be false not see that it doesn't mean the entirety of what you say is also false...

And with this I leave you with this thought: Some people so badly want to believe that they have the market cornered on Truth (with a capital T) that they believe that they must force their 'Truth' over the top of plain little ol' 'truth' (small t) - but no matter how hard they try, truth always seems to win out in the end.

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Monday, March 13, 2006 5:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The only rocks I've ever run into dated over 3.3 billion years are meteorites. Bounce around in space for billions of years and slam into the Earth, at a point in time not more than 3.3 billion years ago.

Just shooting down the scientific communities random assertions which are based on little or nothing but the desire to fit something into their preconceived notions, a very intellectual thing to do. I have no agenda at all. Just telling it as I sees it.

I actually am serious about this. All of the real scientific evidence I have seen supports an Earth which is slightly younger than accepted theory. Academics don't like that because it isn't 'pat' with their pseudo-creationist theory.

Why would scientists falsely claim that the earth is 4.6 Gyr old, if scientific evidence asserts a 3.3 Gyr age, simply because they want to dispute the Creation argument which claims that the earth is ~10,000 years old? Is there something about 3.3 billion years that doesn’t say “old” compared to 10,000, like 4.6 Gyr? To put it another way, 10,000 years is so small that either way it will get lost in the margin of error, so you can’t even calculate a significant difference. This is crazy even for a conspiracy theory, and there’s no way this is true.

I’m sure that there is a lot of bias among scientists concerning Evolution and Creationism. I think that scientists are a little too quick to assert that Macro-Evolution is a fact, and a little to quick to dismiss Intelligent Design sometimes. So bias exists in science as it does everywhere, but the age of Earth is very likely not influenced by any such “pseudo-creationist theory.”

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
In reality, planets take a long time to cool, even if the Earth and the moon became liquid globs at the same time, which is possible but not certain, they didn't become solid rocks at the same time. I would imagine 4 billion years ago, there was no solid surface of the earth on which to stand. I could be wrong about this, but I looked up those rocks of which you spoke and it said, from metorites, not an indication of the age of the Earth.

I thought you said that it was a fact that the earth was 3.3 billion years old?

One of the rocks that I mentioned was not from meteorites. According to a paper by Dr. Simon A. Wilde et al in Nature they have discovered evidence, not only of a solid crust on the earth 4.4 Gyr ago, but also water on that crust. It says the sample came form sedimentary rock, not meteorites. And this isn’t the only evidence of rocks on the earth older then 3.3 Gyr. [1][2][3]

Now many meteorites found on Earth do date to ~4.6 Gyr, which gives us an upper bound for the age of the Earth. That is where the 4.6 number comes from, not some theory concerning the moon. So we can safely conclude that the earth is probably not any older then 4.6 Gyr and that it is likely that a solid crust and water began to form on the surface 200 million years later. [3]

[1] Evidence from detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago. Nature, January 2001

[2] http://www.esi-topics.com/nhp/2003/march-03-SimonWilde.html

[3] http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 6:02 AM

CARTOON

Quote:
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
You can't change facts. Facts are what they are. To be sure, they can be interpreted different ways, or be omitted, but the only people trying to 'change' facts are religious zealots.

All three of the quotes given below are given by admitted atheistic, evolutionary-supporting scientists...

biologist Prof. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution (is) a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible. " [D.M.S. Watson, "Adaptation", Nature, 123:233]

geneticist Prof. Richard Lewontin (note that the italics are in the original, and not added by myself): "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, the materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." [Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons", The New York Review, Jan. 9, 1997, p. 31]

astrophysicist, Sir Fred Hoyle: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." [Fred Hoyle, "Engineering and Science" - Nov 1981]["The World Treasury of Physics, Astonomy & Mathematics" ed. by Timothy Ferris - 1991, p. 392]

And in case anyone missed it at the top of this post, all three quotes here are from admitted atheist, evolution-endorsing scientists.

Hoyle as much as admitted that evolution cannot conceivably have happened, yet he still stubbornly follows its tenets, like those before him, because they are not willing to even consider the alternative -- which is creation by an intelligent designer.

On this tangent, Chuck Colson (once an atheist, himself) admitted that the reason that most atheists don't want to even consider that evolution is false is because, by implication, if evolution is false it means there is a sovereign, creator God who made everything. And by implication, if there's a sovereign, creator God who made everything, then we (His creation) are accountable to Him -- and the one thing that mankind does not want is to be accountable to anyone. In Colson's words, mankind wants (more than anything) to have autonomy. If we were created, we have no autonomy, and therefore we will grasp at any straw which tries to show otherwise in an effort to escape responsibility and accountability to the One who made us.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 8:43 AM

OMEGADARK

Quote:

Yes. It really makes a difference. Everything we do in our everyday lives is based on the world as we understand it. If the world is 6,000 that would profoundly change almost all facts about the world as we know it, and thus every action we take would be effected.

i am going to stop there... no need to answer anything else..

So if the world is 6000 years old now? and we don't know it, why aren't you freaking out yet? What if it turns out to be 1,000,000,000,000 years old then why aren't you freaking out yet...

Give me a break! Nothing changes with it!(Nothing in the morality/religious/ethical section of life) You know it as well as I do, the only differene is you don't know it yet...

Everything about man has not come out of certain facts, it has been man who needed to search for these things that has caused him to be who he is...

You're putting the horse before the cart

[quote} All of what we are is the some total of what we know, experience, and understand.

WOW!! Hahahahaha.... oh boy

So, you must value those higher who have experienced more, know more and understand more? They are superior to he who knows little?

Quote:
So profound is this influcence, that it probably exceeds other facts such as whether or not there is a God.

FACTS?! Believing in God is a fact?! What a dry and miserable life...IF God exists then he would have superceeded the life of the earth...so how does knowing the age of the earth superceed asking whehter God exists...you know that there will be no 'evidence' for it...don't you?

Quote:
If someone imposes an unnatural belief system that limits what we understand, we are definitely less for it.

you are right...and yet fail to see who is limiting who....

Quote:
Because true and false are not absolutes.

LOL! NO?! you're world must be sad... because true and false are absolutes in and of themselves, it is the problem of people when they have a complex statement with elemets that are true and false and they can't realize which is true or false, then do they only say crap like, 'there is no absolute true or false'

Give me a break!

Quote:
There is an unreachable truth, let's call it one, and a nexus of anti-truth, call it zero. If you happen to hold a position at .50, then you are half right/half wrong.

No, my friend, it is not on a scale...it is either truth or not truth... 99% true and 1% false is not truth....to believe so is folly...but this does not apply to statements it applies to individual and basic facts; they must be 100% true, if not they are false...

Finding out the earth is a trillion years old then saying that that knowledge supercedes believing in God is not only idiotic it is illogical and comes from someone who would rather not believe in God or has been lied to/ lacks understanding/ deisre to know about the nature of what it is to believe in God or what God is....

unfortunately some are more right then others...

Quote:
and my ego is standing up for team me,

and that is as I have said the ultimate downfall to any intellectual pursuit, PRIDE.

You see, I had someone ask me how I can reconcile being Catholic, a Philosopher, and a believer in science all in one?

I now see where he is coming from when people are unable to see that they are all part of the same machine...you can't have it running properly if you only believe in one part of the whole...You think pursuing one to it's fullest extent will get you anywhere? THere are ethics in this world that must be followed or the world (what's left of it) will become a bitterly bleak place (hence Religion is needed to keep boundaries intact) and with out philosophy people will be stuck with out the necessary glue to hold their life together and apply both scientific knowledge and religious knowledge as one cohesive unit...

*sigh*

you must know that nothing I say takes anything away from YOU. You must also know that knowing something else does not cancel out what you already know...they are not in competition they are in union... As someone religious, to know more about science only helps me, makes me more religious because I see the amazing-ness of this world, it utterly astounds me...but why do many scientists believe knowing religion will harm them? Get what I am saying

As someone as intelligent as your self, you have to take a moment and ask your self about the TYPE of knowledge you know, and see that the different types of knowledge are not meant to be veiwed (necessarily) from the same lense...if so, you get a quite distorted and often silly world...

It sounds to me that some people need to take some time and sit...just sit in a moment of time and let yourself become yourself, not allow your self to become the things you know...in the end the things you know were created for YOU, not YOU for THEM...if you don't believe that then know if all these things we see, the earth, etc where always here and man just happened to pop up in the earth because things happend to be perfectly conditioned for our lives, then you must also see that in this case we are still of the world and that it is OURS to use and understand, to let ourselves become what we are trying to understand destroys why we were trying to understand it in the first place...

good luck...

i don't think I can write any more about these topics

- OD

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 9:07 AM

Quote:
Why would scientists falsely claim that the earth is 4.6 Gyr old, if scientific evidence asserts a 3.3 Gyr age, simply because they want to dispute the Creation argument which claims that the earth is ~10,000 years old?

No. Because scientists are human beings, and make errors of their own. The thing is, most of this stuff is written by academics, and once something becomes doctine, it tends to stay, whether the evidence supports it or not, until such a time as it is proven undeniably false.

The origin of the assertion was actually not based on any scientific evidence at all. The universe was suspected to be around 5 billion years old, and moon rocks were found to date from 4.6 billion years old, and so a theory was constructed. The speculation of the Earth's age was originally generated from that model.

But that makes it by no means a sacred number. The model could be flawed. It's quite possible that the cooling of planets is in fact much slower than the model would indicate, and there is plenty of evidence in the solar system that that may be the case.

Quote:
Is there something about 3.3 billion years that doesn’t say “old” compared to 10,000, like 4.6 Gyr?

You're really missing the point. First off, I don't give a rat's ass about any opinion which starts with the idea that the Earth is 10,000 years old. That's not even in the same building as the scientific evidency, or any viable theories.

The point is, the truth is an elusive entity which is found only through due dilligence and painstaking search. It's not found by flipping to channel five and waiting for someone to spit it out. My own number 3.3 Billion may very well be wrong, but it is based on three key pieces of information which lead me to the conclusion:

1. I am fairly certain the Earth is not the original 3rd planet from the sun. It is originally the fifth planet from the sun. There's really an abundance of evidence to support that conclusion, not the least of which is that the Earth's current #3 spot places it inside the hyrdogen sphere from which the sun was formed. Since the planets were formed after the sun, it would stand to reason that nothing inside the hydrogen sphere would possess much in the way of hydrogen. 2 objects inside the sphere possess hyrogen, Mercury and the Earth, everything else does not. Both the chemical composition of the Earth and its mass would clearly position it as fifth without a serious problem, and explain the missing 5th planet.

2. The moon appears to have gone through a major trauma around 3.3 billion years ago, the age of 1/2 of its surface. This event could have been the arrival of the Earth. Picture an Earth originally on a highly eliptical orbit, or perhaps sent into one by a collision, and then being snagged into the moon's gravitational pull, Earth in it's life.

3. The absense of large amount of non-meteoric rock dated any older than 3.3 Billion years, or any at all. The moon has an abundance of older rock, in spite of constant bombardment.

4. The absense of any simple life forms prior to this date.

Now picture a seen of a newly formed planet, slowly cooling in deep space, struck by a large comet. It would be like a bullet hitting a water balloon in zero gravity. The spilled material would instant freeze, and the rest would coalesce into a new planet, probably losing it's entire original surface, should it have had any. The impact would then change the new planet's trajectory, while leaving behind in the old orbit small bits of frozen lava.

The mass of the asteroid belt is way to small to be the planet calculated by the band which would have formed it. Following Bode's law, and calculating the density of the solar disk, composition and size, you can predict that planet #5 would be about 10,000 miles in diameter. After our little accident, this planet may have become the Earth, which later joined the moon, in what is its own natural orbit, or close enough, about 3.3 billion years ago.

But accepted science is largely not scientific, and often very out of date. What you see is an endless number of patched to old theories that the scientific community uses because it doesn't want to let go of its old conclusions. This is the same thing that allowed the idea of a 10,000 year old Earth to survive for all these centuries, just people defending the old idea, even if the evidence seems to not support it.

Quote:
To put it another way, 10,000 years is so small that either way it will get lost in the margin of error, so you can’t even calculate a significant difference. This is crazy even for a conspiracy theory, and there’s no way this is true.

I don't get what you're saying. There is no way that 10,000 is true? That I would certainly agree with. There are undoubtedly lifeforms on the earth which are 10,000 years old. There are colonies of life forms much older.

Quote:
I’m sure that there is a lot of bias among scientists concerning Evolution and Creationism. I think that scientists are a little too quick to assert that Macro-Evolution is a fact, and a little to quick to dismiss Intelligent Design sometimes. So bias exists in science as it does everywhere, but the age of Earth is very likely not influenced by any such “pseudo-creationist theory.”

I don't get Macro-Evolution, I read the wikipedia entry, and I still don't get it. Is this a religion? I get how evolution works. In large part genes are copied from one life form to another by genesplicing parasites with no motive other than to build themselves a new home.

Evolution, in and also outside of biology, is more than a fact, it's one of the guiding mathematical principles of the universe. To fail to recognize that would be as grevious an error in the search for the truth as to optionally decide not to learn to read.

Creationism is not discarded out of hand enough. The idea, which is close to devoid of merit, has simply mutated into scientific form. 10,000 years became 10,000,000,000 but little else changed. I would accept the idea if I thought the facts support such a notion, but from what I've seen, which is quite a bit, they clearly do not. The nature of the universe is far different from this.

Creation is not an event, but an ongoing process. It was not started by a random inexplicable miracle but as the natural expression of forces which were already at work long before what we call 'the universe' existed. These are the events as I understand them based on the evidence. No guiding hands, no sparking of miracles, just natural forces in motion.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 9:35 AM

Quote:
I thought you said that it was a fact that the earth was 3.3 billion years old?

As I understand it. Earth as a molten blob for a billion years is neither proveable nor important to the age of the Earth as far as life is concerned.

Quote:
One of the rocks that I mentioned was not from meteorites. According to a paper by Dr. Simon A. Wilde et al in Nature they have discovered evidence, not only of a solid crust on the earth 4.4 Gyr ago, but also water on that crust. It says the sample came form sedimentary rock, not meteorites. And this isn’t the only evidence of rocks on the earth older then 3.3 Gyr.

Yeah, possibly. I read the article before and the sediment was meteor derived, but I could be wrong. I'll check it out.

Quote:
Now many meteorites found on Earth do date to ~4.6 Gyr, which gives us an upper bound for the age of the Earth.

Nah, it tells us nothing at all. Those rocks could be very old, floating through space, and have hit the earth yesterday. They were probably created by a collision on a the surface of a plant or moon at that time, 4.6 b years ago.

This is a problem with science, often it draws illogical conclusions from conclusive evidence.

Take the OJ's blood in the truck. It said "oj's blood is in the truck" but doesn't tell you how it got there. The speculation was then constructed on faulty logic. I suspect Gates and Co might have put it there after stealing it from the lab.

I also firmly believe that OJ killed his wife, but that's based on other evidence. The blood on the scene, and in the truck, possibly planted, and verifying that it was OJ's by detailed genetic analysis created the illusion of proof, when actually the connection was entirely flawed.

Quote:
That is where the 4.6 number comes from, not some theory concerning the moon.

I am quite certain that this is not the case. Even if as you say newer evidence proves the case, that evidence was not available when I studied the subject, and yet the moon based theory was already in existance, so historically, I feel confident about that series of events.

Quote:
So we can safely conclude that the earth is probably not any older then 4.6 Gyr and that it is likely that a solid crust and water began to form on the surface 200 million years later.

I don't think we know anywhere near this much. I'll take a look at the links.

But here's my point:

Just because person A is told that the Earth is 10,000 years old and person B is told that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and then they both regurjitate it back, doesn't make Person B any smarter than Person A.

I think the fact that we analyze it as Person B being smarter is a serious problem with our society. I got to the position "Everything George W. Bush says is a lie" through paying attention, due dilligence, and researching, fact checking what he says. This also led me to the ideas that Bush was Clinton, and that neocons were former socialists. If I had just parroted one side or the other, I'd either still be supporting Bush or I'd be now supporting Hillary Clinton.

This message of "It's officially this way" becomes one of "Trust what you're told, don't try to think for yourself."

I'm by no means hinging this on my 3.3B year Earth age estimate, but the grains of the mineral could be an eroded metorite. The fact is we don't know. "Ancient rocks exceeding 3.5 billion years in age are found on all of Earth's continents." would indicate I am wrong, but not support that the accepted figure is correct. Provided, of course, that the dating is accurate. But assume so, this is still much closer to what I would have thought. But the meteor data tells us nothing other than the origin of a massive number of meteorites, via major collision or some other event. Earth or the solar system could be 5 billion.

I know objectively this might seem like nitpicking the issue, but my point is: Challenge everything. If you accept the accepted word, you'll be buying the official story, and you'll end up living in the world of constructed lies of what people want you to think, without knowing if they might have an agenda for making you think that. I think this kind of information activity is rampant in the field of science, it's pandemic in religion, and it's omnipresent in politics.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 3:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by cartoon:
Quote:
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
You can't change facts. Facts are what they are. To be sure, they can be interpreted different ways, or be omitted, but the only people trying to 'change' facts are religious zealots.

All three of the quotes given below are given by admitted atheistic, evolutionary-supporting scientists...

...and none of those quotes had anything even remotely to do with the brunt of my statement. Actually, stop the thread, I've discovered the root of the problem; it's a lack of reading comprehension skills.

Adn then you went and did something even more blitheringly stupid, which is didn't check those quotes before you posted them. I, on the other hand, did check them.

Quote:
biologist Prof. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution (is) a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible. " [D.M.S. Watson, "Adaptation", Nature, 123:233]

Nice one - too bad it's over 70 years old and taken out of context. Here's the link,
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie031.html
wherein it says, and I quote, But even if the Watson quote was not hopelessly out-of-date and even if Watson was an influential figure in evolutionary biology the quote would still be invalid because it is out-of-context.
Check the link for the entire quote, because for being 70 years out of date, he's still a nice read.

Then, you proceeded to drop this fraudulent little bomb.

Quote:
geneticist Prof. Richard Lewontin (note that the italics are in the original, and not added by myself): ...yadda, yadda, yadda, edit by 7%"... [Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons", The New York Review, Jan. 9, 1997, p. 31]

But, that again, is a lie- The article you cite was an attack on another author, Carl Sagan, and again the quotes are taken out of context. Not to mention the fact that Lewontin has not been considered a leader in the field for more years than both of us together have probably been alive.
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/LS.html

Lewontin is often taken out of context, because he is easy to borrow from since he is highly critical of other scientists work. Another link:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quote_lewontin.html

Wherein it says, and I quote again, In short, Dr. Lewontin was clearly referring to the opinions of people long dead. He stated those opinions as part of explaining why he thinks those opinions are wrong. The quotes, as given, are a fraud.

And I'm not going to even get into the third one. Again, look all upon this thread and see what has happened. A creationist has popped in with out-of-context quotes and misinformation in order to rebut a point that wasn't even being made. Good work.

Is this the part now where someone comes in to tell you that you just got owned, or does everyone pretty much just know it?

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 4:07 PM

CARTOON

I footnoted the quotes. The quotes appear exactly as quoted in the source material I used in the footnotes. You have apparently found "another" source which contradicts my footnoted sources -- yet my footnoted sources are accurate.

I personally have more faith in my footnoted sources than those you've presented (which are obviously, anti-creation biased -- my sources were not anti-evolution biased). (BTW, those user-created websites were very impressive. Shows that anyone could be an expert on just about anything these days.)

I'm also left wondering what difference does it make that first quote was from 1929? Whether it was said in 1929 or 1979, it reflects the way that particular (very respected) pro-evolutionist scientist viewed the process of scientific method for "proving" evolution.

And yes, by all means, I agree with your decision to avoid the third quote, as that's the more recent and most damning to the theory of evolution, and made by one of it's staunchest advocates... Sir Fred Hoyle.

But then, nothing anyone says against the theory of evolution will satisfy those who staunchly support it even in the face of undeniable fallacies in even the most basic tenets of the theory. So, I have to agree with you that I am indeed the stupid one here. I am old enough to know better than to enter into a discussion with those who argue with accurate quotations from people on their own side who find problems with the theory they, themselves, endorse.

That other evolutionary proponents have decided to put those quotes (apparently out of context) into webpages which are clearly anti-creationism, doesn't surprise me in the least.

The original locations of those quotes are not biased sources. I stand by them. Yes, even in the face of a few John-Doe-user-created-webpages which refute those legitimate quotes.

You might want to write to Chuck Colson, too, and tell him he's an idiot for his views on why atheists are afraid of evolution being proved false. But then, I suppose that you'd probably want to tell him that he was never an atheist, and doesn't know what he's talking about.

You are absolutely correct. Never should've stepped into this one. I know when I'm outmatched.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 4:35 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

You don't see scientists fighting churches for the right to teach particle physics in Sunday School, do you?

Brilliant !

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 5:09 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

cartoon,

You inadvertantly left things out.

From the first one you left out the date:
Watson, DMS (1929), Adaptation, Nature, August 10, 123:233 The quote is obviously not about extant science.

Here is a link to other quotes from Lewontin, including this one: "Creationists have capitalized on scientific disputes among biologists on the details of the evolutionary process by pretending that serious students of the subject are themselves in doubt about evolution. Evolutionary study is a living science; as such it is rich with controversy about particular issues off detail and mechanism." http://bevets.com/equotesl3.htm

Finally, I'm not sure why you think Hoyle (an astrophysicist) has any claim to knowledge of evolution.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 5:24 PM