OT: The words "under God" will remain in the Pledg

mobiggins · Post by **mobiggins** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:43 am

The theoretical side of Creationism is a movement called Intelligent Design. Creationism in and of itself isn't a theory. ID is.

Hope that helps.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:47 am

This may sound nuts, but I believe in Creation and evolution. No question in my mind that God created heaven and Earth and its original species, and those species all have evolved throughout the milleniums.

So hell yes, I'm having my Creation cake and eating evolution, too!

Out,
PK

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 10:03 am

pk500 wrote:This may sound nuts, but I believe in Creation and evolution. No question in my mind that God created heaven and Earth and its original species, and those species all have evolved throughout the milleniums.

So hell yes, I'm having my Creation cake and eating evolution, too!

Out,
PK

Yeah baby! That's a funny concept. The earth is God's petri dish!

What do you think were the Earth's "original species"? Surely not "Adam and Eve" right?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 10:38 am

>>>What do you think were the Earth's "original species"? Surely not "Adam and Eve" right?<<<

Well, I do, along with the other creatures in the Garden of Eden. Snicker all you want, but I'm a believer, practicing Catholic, yada, yada, yada, so yes, I do believe the Bible's account of creation.

I don't have a strict interpretation of every word or book of the Bible, but I do believe the account of creation. I haven't read or heard any other account, religious or scientific, that is more believable than the Bible's account, so I'm sticking with it.

It's called faith, something of which I have an abundance despite how f*cked up this world can be at times.

Take care,
PK

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 11:40 am

"faith"

I can accept that. I don't really have any myself, and I do not understand it, but I accept it.

Post by **Jared** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 11:44 am

mobiggins wrote:The theoretical side of Creationism is a movement called Intelligent Design. Creationism in and of itself isn't a theory. ID is.

Hope that helps.

In a nutshell, ID says that there are things that are "irreducibly complex". The idea is that structures that are "irreducibly complex" are too complex to have evolved naturally, therefore they must have been designed. Often used is the example of a standard mousetrap. If you remove one of it's major pieces (platform, hammer, spring, catch, bar), then you don't have a mousetrap anymore. And something that is irreducibly complex MUST have a designer.

First of all, this is logically flawed. Just because something is "irreducibly complex" doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't evolve or wasn't created. It's making a leap to say if it's irreducibly complex, it was created.

Now someone can hold this as an opinion, and that's fine. But I don't see how this is in any way a testable, empirical scientific theory. That's why so many people are against teaching ID as science in school...it's because ID ISN'T science. How do you "test" ID theory? What predictions does it make? ID is trumpeted as a valid theory by many, but in the mind of nearly all scientists it's considered to be pseudoscience.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:23 pm

Design is just as testable as evolution is. We've brought up a few points in this thread that test both theories. Creation science isn't throwing a tree under a microscope and searching for "God residue"... Its observing the world and recognizing and testing whether or not the Biblical account of creation is possible... Just as evolution tests whether evolving from simpler organisms is possible.

Basically rocks have certain elements in them. A certain type of rock should have a certain amount of a certain type of element in it. That element has a specific half-life, where it takes x years for half of a sample of a certain element to decay into it's daughter element. Different elements have different half-lives.

Carbon-14 dating makes many assumptions about the history of the world that are entirely implausible. It has been proven untrustworthy, yet dates are always assigned to things as though they are based on fact.

"Living penguins have been carbon dated and the results said that they had died 8,000 years ago"

"The shells of living mollusks have been dated using the carbon 14 method, only to find that the method gave it a date as having been dead for 23,000 years"

"The body of a seal that had been dead for 30 years was carbon dated, and the results stated that the seal had died 4,600 years ago"

"Shells from living snails were dated using the Carbon 14 method. The results stated that the snails had died 27,000 years ago"

It also makes assumptions that atmospheric conditions and surrounding elements have been a constant throughout time. Sunspots, biological changes in surrounding soil, and moisture are amoung the many things that cause readings to be unreliable.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/m ... lete.shtml
"Evolutionary science is a work in progress. New discoveries are made and explanations adjusted when necessary. "

This, to me, is not science. When you test a theory, you assemble hypothesis that support or disprove that theory. When these hypothesis are proven incorrect, you don't simply adjust the area in which it was found flawed in order to make it work.

Badgun · Post by **Badgun** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:05 pm

Leebo33 wrote:
James_E wrote:Hell, I don't know what I believe. I was raised Catholic, but no longer believe in the God that I was taught as a child. I don't necessarily believe in evolution either. I'm still searching.
I'm with you. I'm still searching for an answer. I find it amazing that people can truly believe one way or the other. I tend to lean towards a belief in God because there is no way I can believe in evolution. Plus my spiritual side cannot believe we are here by accident. I just can't handle the math and the odds against evolution happening. I'm sure it's a small part of the answer, but it just doesn't answer enough for me. The odds are a lot less that a tornado would go through a Home Depot and accidentally build a house.

Maybe I am just too skeptical concerning science. They still can't tell me for sure if a low fat or low carb diet is more beneficial...lol. And there are just so many things much more simple (cancer and other diseases, for instance) that we can't solve. I just can't be that quick to accept what amounts to a theory no matter how you define it.

I think there is a key word here that everyone is missing. That word is "FAITH". You can't study it, you can't prove or disprove it, you just have to feel it.

The Bible said that God would not be visible or obvious to us, that if we wanted the ultimate reward, which of course, is spending Eternity in Heaven, then we would just have to believe or trust that God was there. People who base their life on logic, probably won't have a lot of faith and therefore will present tons of reasons why God isn't real.

I'd like to share a story about faith and answered prayers. This is my own personal experience and to this day still gives me hope and restores my faith whenever I think about it. It's a little long, but it's true.

On October 3rd, 1989, I got a call from my mom to come to her house ASAP. Being a retail manager I couldn't just run out unless it was of ultimate importance. She had a sense of urgency in her voice when I asked her what this was all about. "Just come now!!", she said.

I hopped in my car and drove the 4 miles to her house as fast as I could go, my mind racing with what could have happened. My dad had recently been having chest pains so I convinced myself that he had had a heart attack. As I drove the last mile or so, I mentally began to prepare myself for the loss of my dad...I just knew he was gone.

As I turned the corner on their street, I passed the paramedics going the other way...great, I thought...at least he's still alive. As I pulled into their driveway, people were out in the front yard. I began to count them...my mother, my sister, my niece,...my dad! Then it hit me. My parents kept my 3 month old daughter everyday while my wife and I worked. I didn't see her anywhere and no one was holding her.

My dad ran up to the car..."It's Ashley...she wasn't breathing!" Immediately I began to ask questions. "Is she ok?" "I don't know", my dad said. "She was asleep in the baby bed and when we went to check on her, she was cold". I knew then that she was gone. About that time, my wife showed up and I had to break it to her. "Let's get to the hospital", she said. So off we went, but inside I knew that my daughter was gone...I knew it. Sure enough, when we got there, they took us straight to the chapel where a doctor informed us that she was gone. He tried to explain to us how Sudden Infant Death Syndrome works...which is what he said happened to our child. I really didn't want to hear it...I had just lost the most precious thing in my life...and for no real apparent reason.

As you can imagine, the next few days were absolutely horrible for us. We had a lot of support, but at the end of the day, you still come home alone. We buried our daughter on Oct 5, 1989. We came home and picked up all remnants of her ever being here and put them in her room and closed it off. We talked about the future and what we would do without her and my wife, as emotionally distraught as she was, wondered aloud if it was medically safe for her to try and have another child so soon after giving birth. So we called the OB-GYN and he said that he thought it would be ok if she tried to get pregnant, just not to expect it to happen right away, especially since she had already resumed taking birth control pills.

So that night, completely alone, I prayed. While my wife wondered what kind of God would take her child away, I prayed that God would give us another chance. I said aloud, "I have no idea why you took our little girl, but please, God let us have another child" I cried like a baby and continued to ask God for another chance.

So my wife and I tried that night, and the next night, and the next night. Hehe, it sure was fun trying.

A few weeks later, she had missed her period. She got one of those home pregnancy tests and it came up positive. She went to see the doctor and he confirmed it...she was pregnant!

I didn't think anything about it initially. I guess I was so caught up in my own grief and then newfound happiness that I had forgotten all about my talk with God. When she was about 4 months pregnant, I asked the doctor during one of her visits could he accurately pinpoint the date of conception. He said he could. He said based on the measurements of the baby and my wife's current state, he would say that the date of conception was probably October 5th or 6th. Unbelievable!

Some people might call it blind luck, others might say it's a coincidence, but to this day, I am certain that God answered my prayer and gave us another child. I have heard so many stories of people that lost children and then never could have another one no matter how hard they tried.

That's the story of my personal experience with God. As for wondering if He's really there, well I'd say that while you may never see Him or feel Him, you have to have that invisible thing called "Faith" if you really want to be with Him some day.

It's like this...if I get to the end and He isn't there, then I haven't lost anything, but if you don't believe and He is there, then you have lost everything.

Let me add a little disclaimer. I'm not a bible thumper by any means. I don't even go to church regularly and my faith sometimes is lacking, but I do believe in God. I can't believe sometimes how people can say "You're crazy for believing in the "man in the sky" theory", all the while trying to convince me that we're here because of a rock blowing up. I'll stick with God.

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:37 pm

I'm happy that you and your wife were able to work through a terrible loss like the one above. I'm literally almost in tears at my desk here because I cannot freakin imagine what it would do to me if one of my little ones died.

That being said... it's stories like the one above that make be not believe in a loving God like I was brought up with. How can someone who supposedly loves us so take what is most precious from us like that? He gives us the most precious gift of all, then WHAMMO... takes it away. Is this on the premise of him "testing our faith"?

That is not just mean, it's torture.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:19 pm

This is a common misconception about God...

"How can loving God allow famine and all the other atrocities in the world?"

According to the Bible...

God created this world initially to be an eternal entity along with man. The introduction of sin into this world is what has brought upon it death and corruption. God wanted man to have a free will to make his own decisions rather than being a robotic servant. God wanted man to worship Him of his own choice rather than as a inherant reaction. Man chose a path against God and introduced the element of sin, and with it sin's penalty - death. Sin and its result have then been passed down through many generations and we have a world that is quite chaotic due to its introduction. After Adam's sin, he was confronted by God, and God promised both he and Eve of a remedy to the problem of sin... this was the first promise of a coming Saviour. This Saviour was Jesus Christ, born of a virgin- thus avoiding the sin-corrupted bloodline of man. Jesus Christ is the begotten Son of God, a part of God's Trinity being. He lived a life here on earth - without sin - for the purpose of taking all sin upon himself to pay its penalty. That was accomplished upon the cross. It is up to us to realize that sin is a problem that each and every one of us face and are personally guilty of. We then have the opportunity to accept by faith the gift of atonement - made possible by Christ's sacrifice. He paid the penalty of our sin in our stead, so once we accept His gift, we again have peace with God and positionally stand before Him without any sin on our record. God's position with sin? He is righteous beyond our comprehension... He can have no part of it. It's because of His love for us that He supplied a remedy for it. Is it still in this world and wreaking havoc? Yes, but He has taken care of it and its just up to us to accept His remedy by faith.

By the way, this is the basic Bible story of Salvation and has no specific or official offiliation with any organized religion that claims Christ.

So again... do atrocities happen? Yes, but blaming God for them is the incorrect approach as this world's corruption was introduced by the fall of man, not by Him.

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:43 pm

The concept of sin/free will could explain things like murder etc where sin/evil is involved. I don't think that it applies to the particular tragedy we are discussing.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:54 pm

I'm not describing sin/evil in the concept that every death can be traced back to the fact that a person deliberately deserved to die for an action they have done previously in their life. I'm describing it as contaminate to mankind and to nature itself. Sin brought descruction.. sin brought disorder to an orderly world.. I'm saying that tragedies are the result of sin being introduced to the equation.

Post by **Jared** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:58 pm

skidmark wrote:Design is just as testable as evolution is. We've brought up a few points in this thread that test both theories. Creation science isn't throwing a tree under a microscope and searching for "God residue"... Its observing the world and recognizing and testing whether or not the Biblical account of creation is possible... Just as evolution tests whether evolving from simpler organisms is possible.

It's not the same. Provide me specific hypotheses based on the Biblical account of creation, and then show the evidence for it. And observations about the complexity of life don't count, as they're only observations...there's no hypothesis testing involved.

Basically rocks have certain elements in them. A certain type of rock should have a certain amount of a certain type of element in it. That element has a specific half-life, where it takes x years for half of a sample of a certain element to decay into it's daughter element. Different elements have different half-lives.
Carbon-14 dating makes many assumptions about the history of the world that are entirely implausible. It has been proven untrustworthy, yet dates are always assigned to things as though they are based on fact.

Well, first of all Carbon-14 dating is only reliable for things that are up to about 50,000 years old.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/carbon-14.htm

So most evolutionary scientists are working on far older materials, and use other forms of half-life dating. This is a criticism of these methods, but this is fairly irrelevant for the evolution argument.

"Living penguins have been carbon dated and the results said that they had died 8,000 years ago"

"The shells of living mollusks have been dated using the carbon 14 method, only to find that the method gave it a date as having been dead for 23,000 years"

"The body of a seal that had been dead for 30 years was carbon dated, and the results stated that the seal had died 4,600 years ago"

"Shells from living snails were dated using the Carbon 14 method. The results stated that the snails had died 27,000 years ago"

It also makes assumptions that atmospheric conditions and surrounding elements have been a constant throughout time. Sunspots, biological changes in surrounding soil, and moisture are amoung the many things that cause readings to be unreliable.

Quotes from http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/carbondating.html

The mollusk shell quote is from Science, where the article says that there are specific problems in using C-14 to date mollusks because they incorporate inactive C-14 (via humus) in their shells. So the paper is saying that with a specific thing, C-14 is somewhat inaccurate. What about everything else?

The living snail quote is also from an article in Science, which says that the normal assumptions made in dating most other living things don't work well with shells because of certain unique characteristics. C-14 works well with things like wood, and it doesn't work well with shells. So scientists have learned this and now don't use it on shells and/or have worked on their formulas to make it more accurate. That's really not an indictment of C-14 dating, as neither of these articles were written to say that C-14 dating is bunk. They were written to show flaws in it so that it can either be altered, not used in specific situations, or (if it never works) thrown out. But the last is definitely not the case.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/m ... lete.shtml
"Evolutionary science is a work in progress. New discoveries are made and explanations adjusted when necessary. "

This, to me, is not science. When you test a theory, you assemble hypothesis that support or disprove that theory. When these hypothesis are proven incorrect, you don't simply adjust the area in which it was found flawed in order to make it work.

Actually, this is EXACTLY what science is. If part of your theory is wrong, then you see if you can alter the theory so that it fits the evidence. If it doesn't fit the evidence, then you discard the theory.

For something to be a theory, it already has to have had quite a bit of evidence to support it already. It has to have an empirical basis, be consistent with pre-existing theory, be supported by many strands of evidence, etc. If a piece of evidence comes that doesn't fit the theory, then you can alter the theory to fit the evidence or discard the theory. But if you discard the theory based on one thing, you run the risk of ignoring the evidence that was provided for it beforehand. Thus you see if the theory can be altered to work with the new evidence.....and if it's not possible, you then discard the theory.

Also, you can come up with a different theory and see if it fits all of the evidence better. But (in the case of evolution) no one has done that yet.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 4:51 pm

Bad:

What a touching story with incredible amounts of inspiration and sadness intertwined. I had the same feelings as James while reading it, quite touched.

James:

You bring up a good question about faith and how a loving God could allow such a tragedy as what happened to Bad and his family. My parish priest explained it in his Sunday Mass homily about two months ago, during Lent, better than I've ever heard it explained.

Basically, Christ was human like us in many ways. He had good days and bad days. His worst days were during the Passion and his crucifixion. He prayed to his father, God, in the Garden of Getshemane (bad spelling) on Holy Thursday evening, asking Him to spare the horrible torture he knew was coming the next day. God did not spare His son from this.

So the next day was the worst anyone can imagine for Jesus. Sentenced to death, tortured brutally, killed on a cross. Yet throughout it, he remained Jesus. But it certainly wasn't all peaches and cream on that day for Jesus.

And when good things happen to those with faith, they're sharing with the Jesus who encountered many good things in his life. And when horrible things happen to those with faith, they're sharing with the Jesus who encountered unimaginable suffering and death on Good Friday.

But Catholics and all Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead Easter Sunday in ultimate glory. Essentially the happiest ending possible for someone, and those with faith eventually will share in that salvation and glory. At least that's what we believe and what I believe.

In a nutshell, Jesus had glorious days. He had the worst days imaginable. His life on Earth wasn't perfect -- far from it. And as believers and those with faith here on Earth, we are witnesses to all of the various facets of Jesus' life, good and bad. But either way, we're sharing the experience of Jesus.

Man, that sermon really explained one of the greatest mysteries and challenges of my faith in about 12 minutes. Fantastic. I'll never forget it.

Take care,
PK

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:41 pm

Well, first of all Carbon-14 dating is only reliable for things that are up to about 50,000 years old.

Then why is it common to see things dated as 4.3 billion years old with no explanations as to where they came up with that number? There are many different dating sciences and they all begin to vary with each other on anything older than a few thousand years.

The mollusk shell quote is from Science, where the article says that there are specific problems in using C-14 to date mollusks because they incorporate inactive C-14 (via humus) in their shells. So the paper is saying that with a specific thing, C-14 is somewhat inaccurate. What about everything else?

Claiming that something that is still living has been dead for 23,000 years is "somewhat inaccurate"? These mollusks are in direct denial to the hypothesis that carbon dating is valid dating method. That means that it is no longer accurate in all cases. To assume that all other cases of carbon dating are completely accurate outside of direct and solid proof against its accuracy is exactly the kind of altering to hypothesis that I have trouble with.

Actually, this is EXACTLY what science is. If part of your theory is wrong, then you see if you can alter the theory so that it fits the evidence. If it doesn't fit the evidence, then you discard the theory.

True science is built on hypothesis based upon observation. Evolution has always seemed, at least to me, like a hypothesis that was invented outside of observation - then altered when observation discounts it.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:57 pm

pk500 wrote:His life on Earth wasn't perfect -- far from it.

If you are saying that His life wasn't without hardships I completely agree with you:

Matthew 8:20 "...The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

and of course His suffering on the cross

Isaiah 53:5 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

But as far as perfection, He did achieve it in that He lived without sin:

Hebrews 4:15 "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

Romans 5:15-19 gives a little comparison contrast between Adam and Christ:
"But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

Post by **Jared** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 6:37 pm

skidmark wrote:
Well, first of all Carbon-14 dating is only reliable for things that are up to about 50,000 years old.
Then why is it common to see things dated as 4.3 billion years old with no explanations as to where they came up with that number? There are many different dating sciences and they all begin to vary with each other on anything older than a few thousand years.

Because in those cases, they've used tests that aren't Carbon-14 dating.

Also, objects that have ages don't need to have an explanation next to every one. The dating processes have been vetted and agreed upon by the scientific community. And they have explanations...just because the explanation isn't laid out in every article about a fossil doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Do just a little research on dating fossils and rocks and you'll see a vast literature on different techniques and how scientists come up with these dates.

(Actually, I just found a site that discussed these corrections. True, dating certain things like shells will give you bad dates IF you don't make corrections for them. Fortunately, there are ways to make corrections for them to get a more precise age. http://www.c14dating.com/corr.html has information on this stuff, if you're curious.)

And you say that there are "many different dating sciences and they all begin to vary with each other on anything older than a few thousand years." Really? What are they? How do they differ?

Claiming that something that is still living has been dead for 23,000 years is "somewhat inaccurate"? These mollusks are in direct denial to the hypothesis that carbon dating is valid dating method. That means that it is no longer accurate in all cases. To assume that all other cases of carbon dating are completely accurate outside of direct and solid proof against its accuracy is exactly the kind of altering to hypothesis that I have trouble with.

No, these mollusks are not in direct denial that carbon dating is valid.

Let's say I have a watch and it works everywhere except underwater. And I decide to go underwater with the watch on and it doesn't work. Does this invalidate the watch as a valid way to keep time? No...it just means that you shouldn't try and use the watch underwater, because it won't work.

Same thing with the C-14 dating. There are certain situations where it's applicable to use (things younger than 50,000 years, not on shells and mollusks), and other situations where you use other things. So if I go underwater and want to tell time, I should use a waterproof watch. If I'm dating something older than 50,000 years or something in specific types of shells, then I should use a different radiometric method (for example, using an element with a much longer half-life than C-14).

Actually, this is EXACTLY what science is. If part of your theory is wrong, then you see if you can alter the theory so that it fits the evidence. If it doesn't fit the evidence, then you discard the theory.

True science is built on hypothesis based upon observation. Evolution has always seemed, at least to me, like a hypothesis that was invented outside of observation - then altered when observation discounts it.[/quote]

It seems to you that it's invented outside of observation. If that's the case, then prove it. And again...in science, you alter theories when experimental evidence discounts it. If most of the evidence points towards something (say, evolution) but new evidence comes up that discounts part of it, you see if a new theory can explain things or you adjust the current theory.

You haven't brought up any clear examples anyways, of how the core tenet of evolution has altered. There have been some changes to it (with more modern knowledge about genetics and ideas about rapid species change in punctuated equilibrium), but the core of the theory has always remained the same.

And again...what are the specific hypotheses based on the Biblical account of creation? What's the evidence supporting these hypotheses?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:30 pm

Skid:

I meant that His life wasn't a bowl of cherries. I know He lived without sin.

Out,
PK

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:48 pm

Jared wrote: Because in those cases, they've used tests that aren't Carbon-14 dating.

From http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dati ... c%20dating

"Geologists often say that the percentage of anomalies is low. But there are quite a number of rather outstanding anomalies in radiometric dating that creationists have collected...For example, one isochron yielded a date of 10 billion years. A Rb-Sr isochron yielded a date of 34 billion years. K-Ar dates of 7 to 15 billion years have been recorded. It's also not uncommon for two methods to agree and for the date to be discarded anyway. Samples with flat plateaus (which should mean no added argon) can give wrong dates. Samples giving no evidence of being disturbed can give wrong dates. Samples that give evidence of being disturbed can give correct dates. The number of dates that disagree with the expected ages is not insignificant. I don't know what the exact percentage is."

And you say that there are "many different dating sciences and they all begin to vary with each other on anything older than a few thousand years." Really? What are they? How do they differ?

"It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is not absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock'. The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists..."

Quotes from several scientists taken from John Woodmorappe's 1979 paper, "Radiometric Geochronology Reappraised,"

"Improved laboratory techniques and improved constants have not reduced the scatter in recent years. Instead, the uncertainty grows as more and more data is accumulated ... " (Waterhouse).

"In general, dates in the `correct ball park' are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are discrepancies fully explained." (Mauger)

" ... the thing to do is get a sequence of dates and throw out those that are vastly anomalous." (Curtis et al)

" ... it is usual to obtain a spectrum of discordant dates and to select the concentration of highest values as the correct age." (Armstrong and Besancon).

"In general, strong discordances can be expected among ages deduced by different methods." (Brown and Miller)

Let's say I have a watch and it works everywhere except underwater. And I decide to go underwater with the watch on and it doesn't work. Does this invalidate the watch as a valid way to keep time? No...it just means that you shouldn't try and use the watch underwater, because it won't work.

Let's say you have a watch that you say works anywhere... I prove that it doesn't work underwater... how are we to know it works any other environment other than the one where we officially know it works... does it work in space? How about the stratosphere?

I mentioned that there aren't any clear examples of dating methods that can show that something is billions of years old... and it disturbes me that they use that label on so many things as if it were fact.

the core of the theory has always remained the same...

The core of the theory has hanged its hat on infinite permutations and billions of years make life as we know it possible. How do you disprove something that's "explanations are adjusted when necessary"... evolution as a science is a moving target.

And again...what are the specific hypotheses based on the Biblical account of creation? What's the evidence supporting these hypotheses?

Why isn't the hypothesis that the "universe displays the order and handiwork of a Supreme Being" good enough for you? It's a valid observation about the world around us that can be tested, tried, and predicted upon.

Post by **Jared** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:10 pm

skidmark wrote:
"Geologists often say that the percentage of anomalies is low. But there are quite a number of rather outstanding anomalies in radiometric dating that creationists have collected...For example, one isochron yielded a date of 10 billion years. A Rb-Sr isochron yielded a date of 34 billion years. K-Ar dates of 7 to 15 billion years have been recorded. It's also not uncommon for two methods to agree and for the date to be discarded anyway. Samples with flat plateaus (which should mean no added argon) can give wrong dates. Samples giving no evidence of being disturbed can give wrong dates. Samples that give evidence of being disturbed can give correct dates. The number of dates that disagree with the expected ages is not insignificant. I don't know what the exact percentage is."

So this author isn't attacking the process of how radiometric dating is done. Instead, he's saying that there are anomalies that give wrong dates. That makes sense...there will always be the occasional error in measurement and what not. However, the important thing is how often do these errors occur and are they replicable errors. One isochron may have yielded a date of 10 billion years, but what if 50 others in the same strata yielded a date of 2 billion years? It's likely that something's wrong with that specific sample. These scientists aren't making conclusions based on one sample...they look at multiple samples, see if they match up, and then make their conclusions based on that.

Also, his argument is based on anomalies. He says "The number of dates that disagree with the expected ages is not insignificant. I don't know what the exact percentage is." How can he say it's not significant without knowing what the percentage is? Does he even give an estimate? Is it backed up? He just throws this out with no evidence whatsoever.

And you say that there are "many different dating sciences and they all begin to vary with each other on anything older than a few thousand years." Really? What are they? How do they differ?
"It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is not absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock'. The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists..."

Quotes from several scientists taken from John Woodmorappe's 1979 paper, "Radiometric Geochronology Reappraised,"

It's a common technique to take scientists quotes out of context with regards to evolution to make it seem like there's more doubt about it (in the minds of scientists) than there actually is. I couldn't quickly find the references to Woodmorappe's 1979 article. However, he published something in 1999 called "The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods" which basically puts forth the same argument (that radiometric dating doesn't work). In this article, he frequently takes what scientists have written out of context in order to make it seem like they have large doubts about their methods when they're actually talking about minor methodological issues. I'll take a long quote from an article here...but it's worth it, since it shows Woodmorappe's dishonesty:

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/hidi ... _henke.htm

Woodmorappe (1999) presents numerous examples of what he claims are "discrepant" radiometric dates that contradict each other, fossil data, field structures and/or stratigraphic evidence. For example, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 41) quotes the following statement from Swisher et al. (1993, p. 1994) to "demonstrate" that dates from Evernden et al. (1964), which were once highly regarded and characterized as state-of-the-art, are now considered unreliable:

“The same unit was most likely the one dated by Evernden et al. (1964) at 66.4 Ma [Ma = millions of years]. These ages are most likely too old, owing to the inclusion of detrital grains in the mineral separates.”

Yet, how anomalously old are Evernden et al.'s results? We find the answer in the proceeding sentences, which Woodmorappe (1999, p. 41) chooses to ignore. Here's a more complete quotation from Swisher et al. (1993, p. 1993-1994):

“Obradovich and Cobban (1975) and Obradovich (1984) dated biotite from dacitic pumice located approximately 22 [meters] above the K-P [Cretaceous-Tertiary (Paleocene)] boundary at 65.9 Ma by K-Ar and 65.8 +/- 0.3 Ma (2 sigma) by 40Ar/39Ar methods. The same unit was most likely the one dated by Evernden et al. (1964) at 66.4 Ma. These ages are most likely too old, owing to the inclusion of detrital grains in the mineral separates.”

Swisher et al. (1993, p. 1993-1994) are arguing over trivial errors of about 1% and Woodmorappe (1999, p. 41, 52) is misleading us into believing that these errors are huge and fatal to radiometric dating!

In another example, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 40-41) quotes Prothero (1994, p. 60) and argues that K-Ar dates from Evernden et al. (1964), which had been used to calibrate the Eocene-Oligocene boundary of the geologic time scale, were later shown to be "unreliable":

“When Carl Swisher of the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley began to redate the Flagstaff Rim ashes in 1989, he discovered something shocking. Many of the K-Ar dates first run by Jack Evernden and Garniss Curtis in 1963 were drawn from contaminated samples. These dates (Evernden et al. 1964) had served as the basis for dating the North American mammalian chronology for over a quarter century, and everyone relied on them ...”

At face value, this quotation appears to be very bad news for the 1964 K-Ar dates and the ability to date the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. However, if subsequent sentences are quoted from Prothero (1994, p. 60), the situation changes:

“In some cases, the dates were off by as much as 2 million years. Flagstaff Rim Ash J, for example, had been K-Ar dated at 32.5 million years, but laser-fusion 40Ar/39Ar methods gave a date of 34.4 ...[reference to figure omitted].”

Clearly, this discrepancy is a serious challenge for geologists that want high resolution (less than 1% error) in the geologic time scale. However, Prothero’s relatively minor adjustment of the 32.5 million year old date to 34.4 million years provides no comfort to young-Earth creationists that want to destroy the reliability of the geologic time scale and reduce all dates below 10,000 years. Again, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 40-41) fails to mention the magnitude of the discrepancies because they hardly undermine the reliability of radiometric dating and support young-Earth creationism.

So Woodmorappe misused references by scientists to support his claims. That's pretty dishonest and is a fairly desperate technique to get people to believe your own claims about how radiometric dating doesn't work.

Let's say I have a watch and it works everywhere except underwater. And I decide to go underwater with the watch on and it doesn't work. Does this invalidate the watch as a valid way to keep time? No...it just means that you shouldn't try and use the watch underwater, because it won't work.
Let's say you have a watch that you say works anywhere... I prove that it doesn't work underwater... how are we to know it works any other environment other than the one where we officially know it works... does it work in space? How about the stratosphere?

You're setting up a straw man argument here. C-14 dating scientists don't claim that it "works anywhere". They claim that it only works in certain situations and they use it there.

And also, for the "other" situations, there is lots of evidence that shows that C-14 dating works in situations other than +50,000 years and shells. If you're interesting, browse http://www.c14dating.com as it has lots of information on how C-14 dating was calibrated with other evidence in lots of situation (for instance, dating historical artifacts from ancient Egypt that have fairly well known historical dates, dating wood from trees and using the rings to verify the accuracy of the dating, etc.)

I mentioned that there aren't any clear examples of dating methods that can show that something is billions of years old... and it disturbes me that they use that label on so many things as if it were fact.

But there are clear examples. There are multiple methods; Pb-Pb, Sm-Nd, Rb-Sr, Lu-Hf, Re-Os, etc. etc. all of which give the dates of the oldest rocks at about 4.5 billion years old.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

How are these methods not "clear"? Where in the scientific community are these numbers challenged?

By the way, how old do you think the Earth is? Most of the links you're sending are by "young Earth" proponents, that believe that the Earth is anywhere from 6,000 to 50,000 years old.

the core of the theory has always remained the same...
The core of the theory has hanged its hat on infinite permutations and billions of years make life as we know it possible. How do you disprove something that's "explanations are adjusted when necessary"... evolution as a science is a moving target.

First of all, you still haven't brought up any clear examples of how the core tenets of the theory of evolution have changed. So this "evolution as a science is a moving target" doesn't hold any water without that.

And again...what are the specific hypotheses based on the Biblical account of creation? What's the evidence supporting these hypotheses?
Why isn't the hypothesis that the "universe displays the order and handiwork of a Supreme Being" good enough for you? It's a valid observation about the world around us that can be tested, tried, and predicted upon.

Because that is not a scientifically testable hypothesis. How would you design an experiment to test this? What scientific predictions does this make? How can it be "predicted upon?

The idea that the "universe displays the order and handiwork of a Supreme Being" is an observation and an opinion. BUT for it to be scientific, it has to be empirically testable. You need to design experiments with hypotheses where you can look at the results and make predictions, where if the results are A they support the hypothesis, but if the results are B they reject the hypothesis. So you need to lay this out for it to be part of the science. Otherwise, it's just opinion.

(And again, it's a fine opinion to hold. It's just that science can't answer questions about a Supreme Being. The scientific method isn't designed to work with theological questions.)

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 10:34 pm

Jared wrote: So this author isn't attacking the process of how radiometric dating is done. Instead, he's saying that there are anomalies that give wrong dates. That makes sense...there will always be the occasional error in measurement and what not.

So radiometric dating is good enough as long as it gets it right most of the time? Good for Vegas, not for science.

Also, his argument is based on anomalies. He says "The number of dates that disagree with the expected ages is not insignificant. I don't know what the exact percentage is." How can he say it's not significant without knowing what the percentage is? Does he even give an estimate? Is it backed up? He just throws this out with no evidence whatsoever.

He's saying that there are plenty of evidences collected that refute radiometric dating... he doesn't know the percentage of the whole (as compared to successful radiometric readings on things we do know the age of) but that there are plenty of examples of it not working... he then says "It's interesting to note that in a few cases, old radiometric dates are above young ones" ... which means in the layers of time, somehow a newer age snuck under the soil of an older one.

There is also the fossil found near Sydney where a piece of wood (dated 430 years old) was encased completely in Hawkesbury Sandstone which is assumed to be 225-230 million years old.

We could go back and forth with claims and examples and counter claims all day long... I think that the assumption that climate was consistent (a necessary claim for radiometric dating to be valid) and the number of known examples of its failed consistency are a serious blow to the validity of radiometric dating. You mentioned yourself that large portions of the earth may have once been underwater... how can we claim that a rock up in Canada is 4 billion years old when we have no idea what that rock has been through?

It's a common technique to take scientists quotes out of context with regards to evolution to make it seem like there's more doubt about it (in the minds of scientists) than there actually is.

There is quite a few methods of discrediting scientists, like taking a few of his collection of examples and dismissing them as trivial...

Again, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 40-41) fails to mention the magnitude of the discrepancies because they hardly undermine the reliability of radiometric dating and support young-Earth creationism.

So some of the discrepancies he referenced were only minor? What a dishonest man and desperate man.

Let's say you have a watch that you say works anywhere... I prove that it doesn't work underwater... how are we to know it works any other environment other than the one where we officially know it works... does it work in space? How about the stratosphere?
You're setting up a straw man argument here. C-14 dating scientists don't claim that it "works anywhere". They claim that it only works in certain situations and they use it there.

Its not a straw argument but rather a bad analogy... C-14 assumes constant carbon conditions throughout the course of time... that's a huge assumption that they're quick to use as a counter when carbon dating proves something against their findings. Lets take a look at the canned talk.orgins response to the fossilized wood in sandstone example I gave above:

1. It probably wasn't wood to begin with
2. It was a porous substance and it might have absorbed carbon from its surroundings
3. Well, even if it isn't 230 million years old it came up as 33,720 - which is still older than the creationists believe the earth is.

By the way, how old do you think the Earth is? Most of the links you're sending are by "young Earth" proponents, that believe that the Earth is anywhere from 6,000 to 50,000 years old.

I believe the earth to be somewhere around 6,000 years old.

(And again, it's a fine opinion to hold. It's just that science can't answer questions about a Supreme Being. The scientific method isn't designed to work with theological questions.)

and earlier...
Also, you can come up with a different theory and see if it fits all of the evidence better. But (in the case of evolution) no one has done that yet.

Let me pose this to you... you have to believe that the Bible is either the Word of God, the result of the imagination of man, or some combination of the two. If it's the Word of God, then the account of creation is undoubtedly true. If its the imagination of man, then its a different theory that fits all of the evidence.

Take a look at the "big bang"... there is nothing in observable science that points to it - it is the complete result of the imagination of man. To purport it as an orgin is just as untestable as to purport that God spoke everything into existence. How is one science and the other not?

By the way, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy the discussion Jared... hope there is no hard feeling on your side as these topics are often apt to turn heated.

FatPitcher · Post by **FatPitcher** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 5:08 am

I think that saying that the Bible is infallible is being a bit naive. After all, who physically wrote it? A bunch of different people, none of whom were perfect, and many of whom were not even present for the events they recorded. And who decided what text was included the "official" Bible? A bunch of people got together and argued about it. I'm not even sure they claimed that it was infallible, but rather that was a pretty good handbook for Christianity.

The book of Genesis was written around 750 B.C. by Jewish scribes. It is, essentially, Jewish "mythology". Much of what is there is simply guesswork and legend. The story of Noah's ark is full of extreme exaggeration or is completely false.

The story of creation also smacks of legend. For example, if God is everywhere, morning and evening are completely meaningless (but of course the Jewish scribes did not know that yet). The creation of Eve from Adam's rib is probably just a patriarchal society's explanation for when men were dominant. And so on. I think that accepting anything man-made, such as the Bible, as purely divine, is just asking for trouble. People make mistakes, even Popes, apostles, and rabbis. Ascribing divine perfection to their works is not only wishful thinking, it's also dangerous. The Catholic Church's scientific teachings have been proven wrong time and time again (the Earth is not the center of the solar system, surprise, surprise).

I'm not arguing against Christianity's central message in the least. However, I think that Christians tend to shy away from truths they don't like or that they weren't raised to believe, rather than embracing them. If you have faith in your beliefs, then intense scrutiny (which seems to offend many Christians) would only confirm and strengthen those beliefs.

K_Mosley · Post by **K_Mosley** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:29 am

Fatpitcher,

I understand your perspective... But from my perspective of faith, I believe the Bible to be God-inspired, not man-made. I have a fundamental belief that every word written is true, not the product of man's imagination.

Some may feel that's ignorant, and that's fine. I believe that by design it's difficult to "prove" that there is a God, at least to a non-believer, from a "scientific" premise. One could certainly aruge that the fullment of many prophecies is proof, but others would argue that the Bible's words are being twisted to meet today's events, much like Nostradamus' words can be twisted to validate his predictions to today's events. There is a belief component to salvation (and a repentence component as well).

Take Care,

Kevin