talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3
Jeffrey Cox
Archive-name: talk-origins/creation/part3
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 25 May 1997
Version: Posting 2.5, some minor changes
URL: http://www.zeta.org.au/~jeffcox/creation.html
The talk.origins FAQ (Creation) Homepage
[34] Some kinds of species seem to appear in the fossil record in simpler
or more primitive forms that the forms that are currently found on earth.
Why would God create simpler forms of species rather than producing the
more advanced forms straight away?
[A] Some of these apparently simpler forms may have been intermediate
stages as it seems that God chose to create new kinds of species by
modifying existing ones, however the intermediate stages would have been
ecologically useful. God was managing ecosystems as well as anticipating
more complex kinds of life, and there is no particular reason why changes
would have to occur quickly. A slow pace of change would have produced
more stability in ecosystems.
Introducing a new kind of animal in a form with limited effectiveness as a
predator would have allowed changes to ecological balance to occur slowly.
Natural selection could produce small changes in prey species such as
modifications in instinctive behaviour that would allow a prey species to
survive in the presence of a new predator. A new highly effective predator
arriving in an ecosystem would be likely to cause extinction if there were
multiple prey species or produce a small population if there was only one
species of prey.
[35] Are "transitional" fossils evidence of evolution?
[A] Some fossils appear to be the remains of organisms with
characteristics that are intermediate between those of major groups.
Examples include _Archaeopteryx_, a bird that had a number of
characteristics similar to those of reptiles, and Therapsida, an order of
reptiles that had some characteristics similar to those of mammals. These
examples are commonly quoted as representing transitional stages in the
evolution of more advanced or complex groups, however they would also be
animals that were well adapted to a particular environment before
environmental change rendered them extinct. Transitional forms are
consistent with progressive creation by modification since God was
designing ecosystems as well as species and these extinct forms of life
would have occupied ecological niches that were later filled by more
advanced species.
[36] What is a kind?
[A] The creation account in Genesis tells us that God created animals and
plants "according to their kind". Some interpret this to be each species
but in some cases the term kind may also apply to a higher level of
classification such as a genus or family. The arbitrary nature of
classification means that kinds and our classification systems don't
necessarily match. Among different kinds of life to humans a kind may be a
family in the classification system, for example kangaroos and wallabies
appear to be a single kind although they belong to different genera.
An example of two different kinds are the the fossil _Australopithecus_
species including Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A.boisei and
A. robustus that are thought to include a common ancestor of humans, and
the early _Homo_ species, Homo habilis and H. erectus.
All the Australopithecus species were one distinctly apelike kind. They
had relatively small brains around 450 cc in volume, thick skulls, faces
that jutted forward with a strongly protruding jaw, very large molars and
premolars, a conical chest that was narrow at the top and broad at the
bottom, little neck with no waist, an extremely apelike build with twice
the body mass of humans of equivalent height, long and very muscular arms,
short legs, toes that were long and curved, a high degree of sexual
dimorphism and the occipital lobes at the back of the brain were larger
than the frontal lobes.
Homo species have larger brains, thinner skulls, flatter faces, smaller
molars, a barrel shaped chest, a longer neck and a waist, a leaner build
more typical of modern humans, shorter and less muscular arms, longer
legs, shorter and straight toes, sexes of approximately equal sizes, and
the occipital lobes at the back of the brain are smaller than the frontal
lobes. There are other changes to the shape of the brain in Homo,
including the appearance of Broca's area, the part of the brain that
controls complex vocalisation.
The genus Australopithecus is thought to have evolved into the genus Homo
over the course of about 1.5 million years and approximately 10**13
zygotes, a relatively large number of base changes would need to have been
produced in this time and the number of beneficial mutations required may
not be sufficiently probable for evolution to explain this change.
[37] Are fossils that appear to be apes that walked upright or simpler
forms of humans evidence of evolution?
[A] No. If humans are directly descended from animals then these fossils
may indicate stages that are close to the path of common descent, although
different forms that do not appear to be direct ancestors of humans
indicate a degree of adaptation to different environments by random
mutations sorted by natural selection. This is consistent with progressive
creation by modification. If the first humans were created by the
modification of an upright bipedal species of animal, we are still a
deliberately created design.
The existence of species that walked upright on two legs and were similar
in appearance to humans would also have served a useful function for the
coming humans, since God already had the design of humans in mind and was
preparing the earth for us. Other species existing before humans may have
had a tendency to attack human sized individuals, and the fights between
cave apes and potential predators would have produced natural selection
among then existing species for instinctive behaviour that favoured
aversion to upright bipeds. Fossil evidence of tooth marks in bones show
that early upright biped species such as _Australopithecus afarensis_ were
preyed on by tigers or similar predators. Cave dwelling apes that used
simple tools and weapons, particularly the more robust forms that had
larger bones and presumably stronger muscles that humans, would have been
useful for early humans in this regard by killing a proportion of these
predators so that alleles that produced aversion behaviour towards upright
bipeds became more common in the predator population. The cave apes may
have established an ecological niche for Adam and Eve and their
descendants.
[38] Who was Adam?
[A] Adam was _Homo sapiens sapiens_, and the first of our modern species.
The similarity of our DNA with that of chimpanzees suggests common
ancestry and therefore that that God formed Adam by modifying an existing
pre-human species, yet God changed Adam significantly from his pre-human
ancestors. Adam was the first individual of the Homo genus to have a soul
and this gave him and his descendants a sense of self that changed the
nature of thinking so that abstract thought and the use of abstract
concepts in language became possible.
There is a major change in the fossil and archaeological record called the
Upper Paleolithic Revolution that is dated around 50 000 to 35 000 Years
bp., it shows the simultaneous appearance of a number of novel objects in
the archaeological record - evidence of the appearance of modern human
culture. These new objects include sophisticated stone tools that required
a high degree of skill to produce, the use of bone and antler as raw
materials for toolmaking, tool kits comprising a large number (more than
100) of different items that included implements for fashioning rough
clothing, beads and pendants for adornment and cave paintings. Humans then
began changing at a much more rapid pace, significant changes were
appearing in thousands of years rather than in hundreds of thousands or
millions of years as had previously been the case. Agriculture first
appears after this change.
It is suggested by this writer that God modified the DNA of an archaic
Homo sapiens zygote to form Adam and then Eve, and that this event
immediately preceded the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. This implies either
that the biblical record is inaccurate by a factor of 6 to 8 as a result
of errors in the duplication of the oldest manuscripts or that the dating
of the Upper Paleolithic Revolution is incorrect. The rapid pace of
cultural change that follows the Upper Paleolithic Revolution is
consistent with the appearance of a new species with a new mode of
thinking that arose when God gave Adam a soul.
Humans have a special place in God's creation and we are a different kind
to the archaic Homo species that lived before the creation of Adam.
Although the existence of a soul may not be part of our molecular biology
it is an integral part of our psychology and this mind within a mind of
Homo sapiens sapiens makes us think very differently to our presumed
ancestors.
The bible describes the creation of Adam in this way:
".. the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
[Genesis 2:7]
This could refer to progressive creation by modification beginning with
the creation of an ancestral organism from inorganic materials, and the
giving of a soul to Adam. The word "life" in the bible is frequently used
to mean eternal life.
[39] Can the sophistication of humans be explained by evolution?
[A] No. Human culture has progressed in around 12 000 years from the
making of stone tools to the launch of spacecraft to explore the solar
system. This is a fleeting moment of geological time, much too short a
time frame for mutations sorted by natural selection to have produced the
required increase in brain complexity since microelectronic circuit design
and astrophysics require thinking skills considerably more advanced than
those used by simple hunter gatherers or the members of the first small
agricultural communities.
Evolution cannot explain the origin of complex characteristics that
represent unused potential since mutations and natural selection cannot
increase the functional adaptation of combinations of genes that are not
used. We were created in God's image.
[40] What about Noah's ark?
[A] Noah's ark was a miracle and miracles need not follow physical laws or
scientific principals. We are not expected to understand how they
happened.
[41] Why should I believe the Christian version of creation rather than
the alternatives proposed by other religions?
[A] Around 700 BC the prophet Isaiah told the Jewish people of a coming
messiah who would be born of a virgin. Isaiah also described the things
this messiah would do on earth and explained in detail how he would suffer
for the healing of others. Other prophets including King David, the second
king of the nation of Israel, also described this coming heavenly king.
Around 30 AD a man named John began baptising people and telling them that
the kingdom of heaven was near, then John the Baptist was imprisoned. Soon
afterwards Jesus began his public ministry in Israel and John sent a
messenger to Jesus asking if he was the messiah who the prophets had said
was coming. Jesus replied:
"Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind
receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor."
[Luke 7:22]
Jesus was not saying that people should believe he was the messiah because
he said so. He was pointing out that he was performing the miracles Isaiah
had predicted several centuries earlier that the messiah would perform.
Jesus later explained to his followers that he and God our creator are
one. He healed the sick, raised the dead and was raised from the dead, God
came down from heaven and lived among us in the person of Jesus.
[42] What are the moral consequences of advocating a belief in evolution?
[A] Evolution contradicts the bible because the bible states that God
created different kinds of plants and animals. The bible also describes
how to gain eternal life. If a supporter of evolution falsely claims that
the bible is wrong, and as a result another person disbelieves the bible
and loses their eternal life, then the actions of the evolution supporter
produce an outcome far worse than the killing of another human.
People wonder where life came from, and many people have been mislead to
believe that science has an explanation for the origin of life that has
been proved to be correct. This misleading of the public verges on
outright dishonesty when the unproved theory of evolution is presented
alongside other scientific explanations that are known with a high degree
of certainty to be true without distinguishing clearly between the two
types of explanations.
The followers of evolution have had 125 years to come up with a theory
that is a complete and valid explanation for the origin of living things
and they have failed to do so. The first living organism must have been
created by God.
Scientists have been claiming that the bible and, by implication,
Christianity is wrong and this is a false, misleading and harmful claim.
During the last century science has gained an exaggerated importance in
western philosophy and it is time for this harmful distortion to be
corrected. People look to science to help them understand the world and if
science gives them erroneous data then some very important decisions they
may make based on their understanding of who they are and why they are
here might be very wrong.
Science is a guessing game with rules, it is a useful way of answering
some types of questions but it cannot answer moral questions because our
understanding of the nature of humans and of human behaviour is imperfect.
The answers that science can give are limited to the hypotheses that can
be posed and tested, if an area is insufficiently understood for the real
answers to questions to be guessed then science cannot give us
understanding of that area. Science is unable to provide definitive
answers to questions of right and wrong in human behaviour since science
has only a limited understanding of humans.
Moral relativism, the idea that right and wrong can be determined by
arbitrary decisions based on what is known of the possible consequences of
actions, is junk philosophy. Rather than giving an answer to moral
questions it invites people to pick their own answer that may or may not
be correct. This limited view of living derives from the limited
understanding that science gives us of life.
We once had a Christian culture that integrated philosophy with moral
values, this has been replaced in a large proportion of popular culture by
a science oriented philosophy and almost a moral vacuum. This shift in
philosophy from religion to science has had a very harmful impact on our
society. The loss of moral values from popular western culture has
resulted in major social problems caused by damaging relationships
including family breakup, violence and the self destructive behaviour
that results from lost self esteem.
Christian moral values are the instructions for life given by the creator
of humans, if we disregard these instructions our lives will not work
properly and if our culture disregards these instructions then our culture
will develop serious social problems.
[43] Are there any unsolved problems in developing an understanding of the
Genesis account of creation that is also consistent with modern science ?
[A] Yes. The genealogy found in the book of Genesis traces the ancestry of
Abram from Adam, and Abram lived during the early part of history that is
recorded in ancient texts other than the bible. The biblical genealogy
gives the ages of the fathers at the birth of their sons and simple
calculations give a time span of a little over 2000 years between the
creation of Adam and the birth of Abram who lived about 2166 BC. The
Genesis account indicates that Adam was created about 6000 years ago.
Radioactive dating indicates that individuals that used fire and tools and
had skeletons very similar to those of modern humans were present on earth
more than 12000 years ago and the oldest human culture, that of the
Australian Aborigines, dates back at least 30000 years based on
radioactive dating of charcoal from campfires. This seems to contradict
the 4000 BC date for the creation of Adam.
Radioactive dating of Carbon samples is based on the assumption that the
ratio of the isotopes Carbon 12 and Carbon 14 in the atmosphere has
remained relatively constant over time and it is possible that this
assumption may not be correct, however tree ring studies indicate that
radiocarbon dating gives an accuracy of better than plus or minus 20
percent over 4000 years or more. Radioactive Carbon dating is only useful
for samples younger than about 50 000 years, for older samples isotopes of
other radioactive elements or other methods are used.
Radioactive dating is done by comparing the amounts of particular
radioactive isotopes of elements in samples with the amounts of other
isotopes in the sample that are known to be the breakdown products of the
original radioactive atoms. Errors can occur when dating individual
samples as some of the original isotopes or their breakdown products may
have been lost. Radioactive dating is based on the assumptions that the
rate of radioactive decay has remained constant over time, that the
original samples contained only the radioactive isotopes and not a mixture
of the isotopes and their breakdown products, and that atoms of the
radioactive elements or their decay products have not been lost from a
sample. Although the former two assumptions seem valid in the opinion of
this writer, and the later one may be valid in many cases, dates obtained
by radioactive dating are not known with absolute certainty.
An alternative explanation to errors in radioactive dating may be that
either the ages or the number of individuals in the genealogy in Genesis
may have been incorrectly copied during the history of the manuscript.
This part of the bible is much older than the rest and while we can be
confident that the manuscripts we have of the later parts of the bible
contain very few errors, this may not be true of the very oldest part of
the bible, the creation account. The repetition of the phrase "according
to their kind" in reference to the creation of plants and animals enables
us to be confident that this phrase accurately reflects the original
manuscript.
[44] Does the discovery of material that is believed to be the fossil
remains of bacteria in a meteorite was that is thought to have originally
come from Mars mean that abiogenesis and evolution are now more plausible?
[A] There is considerable disagreement within the scientific community
about the origin of the Carbon compounds in the meteorite. A number of
scientists think that the material in the meteorite was produced by
inorganic processes and is not the remains of living organisms.
Abiogenesis and the evolution of a self-replicating molecule into a
bacterium like organism cannot occur as a result of purely physical
processes on any planet because small organic molecules formed in the
atmosphere of a planet and dissolved in water would react in combinations
other than the ones that produced RNA, molecules of a useful length cannot
self-replicate and even if RNA was somehow formed by inorganic processes
it would not be stereo specific and natural selection for stereo
specificity to produce a functional molecule could not occur because the
number of combinations of useful length is much larger than the number of
water molecules in all the earth's oceans. If there were or are bacteria
on Mars, then God must have made them.
[45] Why is it important to develop an understanding of the Genesis
account of creation that is also consistent with modern science?
[A] The bible tells us how to live and how to relate to God, other issues
are only addressed in the context of explaining our relationships with
others and with our creator. In order to relate to God it is helpful for
us to understand who God is and so Genesis tells us that God is the
creator of the universe, the earth, different kinds of plants and animals,
and of humans.
The bible does not go into detail about the process of creation since this
is not the focus of Genesis. We are told that God created different kinds
of plants and animals and that on a later occasion he created humans. It
is relevant to relate this small amount of information we are given about
creation in the bible to our quest for a scientific understanding of
nature since those of us who consider the bible inspired by God believe
these answers to be statements of truth, and therefore things that are
known for certain.
Given this view of the bible we have a limited number of reference points
that are authoritative statements of truth we can gain a more detailed
view of the world with logical deductions that are the product of applying
the scientific method to observations of nature. If we want our
understanding of nature to be close to the truth then it must be
consistent with the statements of truth contained in the bible. If there
is an apparent disagreement between science and the bible then this
appearance of disagreement can only result from our imperfect
understanding of the bible text, errors in translation or in the copying
of the original bible manuscripts or from errors in observation or
deduction when using the scientific method to understand nature.
The scientific method and the accumulated answers to questions that have
come from using it are an important part of modern culture, however the
question of how to live and how to relate to God is more important.
The Apostle Paul writes:
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, his
eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood
from what has been made, so that men are without excuse". [Romans 1.20]
References
All quotations from the bible are from the New International Version (NIV).
[#1] Miller, S. Formation of Organic Compounds On The Primitive Earth.
Reports On The International Symposium on The Origin Of Life On Earth,
Moscow 1957. The Publishing House of The Academy Of Sciences Of The USSR.
[#2] Joyce, J.F., Orgel, L.E., Prospects for Understanding the Origin of
the RNA World. In, The RNA World, 1993, Ed. Gesteland, R.F., Atkins, J.F.,
Cold Spring Harbour Press.
[#3] Ferris, J.P., Hill, A.R. Jr., Liu, R., & Orgel L.E., Synthesis of long
prebiotic oligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature Vol 381, p 59 - 61 (1996).
[#4] Crick, F., Introduction to "The RNA World", 1993, Ed. Gesteland,
R.F., Atkins, J.F., Cold Spring Harbour Press.
Notes
Some minor changes in this version.
This FAQ is also available at http://www.zeta.org.au/~jeffcox/creation.html
It is posted to the talk.origins usenet newsgroup each month.
There is another talk.origins FAQ that answers questions on evolution from
a non creation point of view, it is also posted to the talk.origins
newsgroup and can be found at http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/
The author asserts ownership of the intellectual property of original
ideas contained herein. This document may be freely distributed, archived,
printed and copied, the document must either be reproduced in it's
entirety or be quoted from with acknowledgement of the source and author.
Posting a reply on usenet such as Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) is an
acceptable way of attributing a quote.
Posting 2.5, May 25 1997.
Jeffrey Cox <jef...@zeta.org.au>
Michael D. Painter
Jeffrey Cox <jef...@zeta.org.au> wrote in article
<jeffcox-2505...@d28.syd2.zeta.org.au>...
Interesting. It starts off with what appears to be an attempt at rational
thought. By FAQ 3 it's pretty obvious that this guy is another believer
that "if it ain't in the bible, it ain't true"
At least he has enough faith to say that the flood is a matter of faith.
I've only one question. Why did I read all that stuff?
Paul Yost
> [34] Some kinds of species seem to appear in the fossil record in simpler
> or more primitive forms that the forms that are currently found on earth.
> Why would God create simpler forms of species rather than producing the
> more advanced forms straight away?
> [A] Some of these apparently simpler forms may have been intermediate
> stages as it seems that God chose to create new kinds of species by
> modifying existing ones, however the intermediate stages would have been
> ecologically useful. God was managing ecosystems as well as anticipating
> more complex kinds of life, and there is no particular reason why changes
> would have to occur quickly. A slow pace of change would have produced
> more stability in ecosystems.
>
> Introducing a new kind of animal in a form with limited effectiveness as
a
> predator would have allowed changes to ecological balance to occur
slowly.
> Natural selection could produce small changes in prey species such as
> modifications in instinctive behaviour that would allow a prey species to
> survive in the presence of a new predator. A new highly effective
predator
> arriving in an ecosystem would be likely to cause extinction if there
were
> multiple prey species or produce a small population if there was only one
> species of prey.
God is patient, and works with the slow purposefulness of a glacier, except
during the precambrian explosion some 600 million years ago you already
mentioned, and various mass extinctions between then and now. Igneous
plumes are another instance of God's careful planning swept away by
millions of square miles of molten rock. Oops!
You do make a lot of good and interesting arguments, I don't mean to sound
as though I'm dismissing all of them flippantly. I have skipped several
important things you stated because at this time there ARE no natural
answers.
Before the Curie's work on radiation, we did not have any way to explain
how the sun shined. At that time the only "reasonable" explanation for the
sun's brilliance was that it was God manifesting Her glory. Along came
Chandresekhar (sp) and laid that explanation to rest. We now know not only
what makes the sun shine but a great deal more about solar life cycles and
stellar evolution.
Today we have many unanswered questions regarding biological origins. You
would like to exploit this ignorance to promulgate one particular religious
belief.
Again, I do not doubt there is a God, nor that She is responsible for the
state of affairs here on earth. There is one serious matter concerning my
indoor plumbing I would particularly appreciate having Her look into.
wf...@enter.netxx
On 25 May 1997 19:52:59 -0400, "Paul Yost" <c...@iea.com> wrote:
>Before the Curie's work on radiation, we did not have any way to explain
>how the sun shined. At that time the only "reasonable" explanation for the
>sun's brilliance was that it was God manifesting Her glory
hardly. it was thought that the surface of the sun was falling towards
the center at a rate of about 300 feet/year. kelvin calculated that
this would supply all the energy necessary for the sun's output.
however, a textbook i saw from around the turn of the century where i
found the above explanation also had a footnote about recent
discoveries in radioactivity that 'might play a part'. as a
subfootnote, another theory popular was that huge numbers of comets
were bombarding the sun and that this caused the suns to shine....
. Along came
>Chandresekhar (sp) and laid that explanation to rest.
actually it was hans bethe who won the nobel prize for his work.
chandrasekhar did work on stellar (gasp!) evolution and black holes...
delete the xx from my email address to reply
Paul Yost
A. boisei and some of the others used fire and made their own tools. No
modern ape ever did that.
Doesn't this contradict the Bible, that says God created man out of the mud
from a river bank? Then robbed a rib to make a help meet?
J.W. Tait
Michael D. Painter <mpai...@maxinet.com> wrote:
>Interesting. It starts off with what appears to be an attempt at rational
>thought. By FAQ 3 it's pretty obvious that this guy is another believer
>that "if it ain't in the bible, it ain't true"
>At least he has enough faith to say that the flood is a matter of faith.
>I've only one question. Why did I read all that stuff?
This is a singularly useless rebuttal. Finally a creationist not only
cogently lists the various problems he sees in evolutionary theory, but is
also willing to forward his own ideas on what happened. The fact that you
take one small part of the positive part of his post, misrepresent it and
use it to dismiss the whole thing makes it "pretty obvious" that you are
unable to answer the numerous objections he raised.
Cheers,
Chase
Michael D. Painter
J.W. Tait <tai...@muss.CIS.McMaster.CA> wrote in article
<5mdplf$k...@muss.CIS.McMaster.CA>...
The only thing that differs him from the others is the length and his
admitting that the flood is, as the catholics say "a mystery". Hew would
have done well to say that about the whole post.
This was no attempt at a rebuttal. Had I tried to do that I would have just
refered him to the TO FAQS and pointed out that everything he said has been
said over and over again by other fundamentalists.
This type of person always strikes me as someone trying to hide a lack of
faith in a veil of pseudo science.
Tim Thompson
In article <jeffcox-2505...@d28.syd2.zeta.org.au>,
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) writes:
[ ... ]
>[39] Can the sophistication of humans be explained by evolution?
>[A] No. Human culture has progressed in around 12 000 years from the
>making of stone tools to the launch of spacecraft to explore the solar
>system. This is a fleeting moment of geological time, much too short a
>time frame for mutations sorted by natural selection to have produced the
>required increase in brain complexity since microelectronic circuit design
>and astrophysics require thinking skills considerably more advanced than
>those used by simple hunter gatherers or the members of the first small
>agricultural communities.
>
>Evolution cannot explain the origin of complex characteristics that
>represent unused potential since mutations and natural selection cannot
>increase the functional adaptation of combinations of genes that are not
>used. We were created in God's image.
[ ... ]
Either this question should be removed from this file, or the answer
should be substantially revised. Not all changes that occur are the result
of evolution, which concerns itself only with changes in genes over time,
and the affect thereof on the population. The advances/changes made in the
appearance of humanity over the last 12,000 years have nothing at all to do
with evolution, nor does any aspect of standard evolutionary theory make
such a claim. Rather, they are the result of the intellectual invention of
language, and the ability to use language as a data/information storage and
communication system. The subsequent invention of writing accelerated the process
greatly. All of this is entirely outside the realm of genetics, and therefore
is an example of entirely non-evolutionary change, not relevant to the question
of creation/evolution. The observation that evolution cannot explain these
changes is entirely correct, but also entirely irrelevant.
--
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8851/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Thompson, Timothy.J...@jpl.nasa.gov
NASA/JPL Terrestrial Science Research element
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer.
Atmospheric Corrections Team - Scientific Programmer.
David L Evens
J.W. Tait (tai...@muss.CIS.McMaster.CA) wrote:
: Michael D. Painter <mpai...@maxinet.com> wrote:
: >Interesting. It starts off with what appears to be an attempt at rational
: >thought. By FAQ 3 it's pretty obvious that this guy is another believer
: >that "if it ain't in the bible, it ain't true"
: >At least he has enough faith to say that the flood is a matter of faith.
: >I've only one question. Why did I read all that stuff?
: This is a singularly useless rebuttal. Finally a creationist not only
: cogently lists the various problems he sees in evolutionary theory, but is
: also willing to forward his own ideas on what happened. The fact that you
: take one small part of the positive part of his post, misrepresent it and
: use it to dismiss the whole thing makes it "pretty obvious" that you are
: unable to answer the numerous objections he raised.
You're right, you did present a totally useless rebutal.
Where did you hallucinate any misrepresentations in the post you pretended
to rebut?
Where did you hallucinate any valid objections to reality in the fake FAQ?
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron, | "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,| But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion, +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down! | "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
down all the laws?"
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e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
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Jeffrey Cox
And in the future kids will think it quaint that you guys believed in
spontaneous generation.
Jeffrey
Gavin Wheeler
In article <jeffcox-2905...@d20.syd2.zeta.org.au>,
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
> And in the future kids will think it quaint that you guys believed in
> spontaneous generation.
Spontaneous generation of what? Particle pairs? Life on earth? Larvae
in decomposing meat?
--
Gavin Wheeler whe...@lpbc.jussieu.fr
wf...@enter.netxx
On 29 May 1997 08:09:11 -0400, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox)
wrote:
>And in the future kids will think it quaint that you guys believed in
>spontaneous generation.
>
>J
ah, the typical creationist misquote...when confronted with facts,
just distort them. after you, you're arguing for god.
no citation stated here...just a little ignorant jibe at science...
mebbe you should talk to bellarmine to see what the outcome of the
scientifically ignorant argument is.
Larry Kurka
>
> >Interesting. It starts off with what appears to be an attempt at
rational
> >thought. By FAQ 3 it's pretty obvious that this guy is another believer
> >that "if it ain't in the bible, it ain't true"
> >At least he has enough faith to say that the flood is a matter of faith.
> >I've only one question. Why did I read all that stuff?
>
> This is a singularly useless rebuttal. Finally a creationist not only
> cogently lists the various problems he sees in evolutionary theory, but
is
> also willing to forward his own ideas on what happened. The fact that
you
> take one small part of the positive part of his post, misrepresent it and
> use it to dismiss the whole thing makes it "pretty obvious" that you are
> unable to answer the numerous objections he raised.
>
1) How are the "problems" he sees in evolutionary theory meaningful as
anything more than his misguided opinions?
2) How are "problems" in evolutionary theory in any way meaningful as
support for creationism?
3) How are his ideas meaningful as anything more than his ideas?
4) How is it indicative that the "objections" cannot be answered when one
points out that his arguments are based on the Bible, which has already
been falsified many times over?
Why do you feel that every issue raised must be addressed in any response?
Creationists feel no such obligations. They just ignore the rebuttal
anyway and continue to raise the same objections, even when they have been
shown to be wrong.
Jan Friberg
On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>[38] Who was Adam?
>[A] Adam was _Homo sapiens sapiens_, and the first of our modern species.
>The similarity of our DNA with that of chimpanzees suggests common
>ancestry and therefore that that God formed Adam by modifying an existing
>pre-human species, yet God changed Adam significantly from his pre-human
I can't see that the similarity between our DNA and that of a
chimpanzes suggests anything about the meaning of the Biblical text in
which there is no references whatsoever about chimpanzees or DNA.
>".. the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed
>into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
>[Genesis 2:7]
Yes from dust not from some other animal.
>[40] What about Noah's ark?
>[A] Noah's ark was a miracle and miracles need not follow physical laws or
>scientific principals. We are not expected to understand how they
>happened.
>
I don't think the Bible describes the story about Noah as a miracle.
For example in Gen 7:11 the water was not created by a miracle.
It was no miracle that saved Noah and his family but the ark.
At the end of the flood the water didn't vanished miraculously but
'sank down and abated' and a 'wind blow over the land' and the rain
was checked.
>[42] What are the moral consequences of advocating a belief in evolution?
>[A] Evolution contradicts the bible because the bible states that God
>created different kinds of plants and animals. The bible also describes
Why should this contradict evolution? Why could not the different kind
of plants and animals have been 'created' through an evolution.
>how to gain eternal life. If a supporter of evolution falsely claims that
>the bible is wrong, and as a result another person disbelieves the bible
>and loses their eternal life, then the actions of the evolution supporter
>produce an outcome far worse than the killing of another human.
>
If a supporter of evolution gives good reasons to think his theory is
correct and therefore someone believes it's correct is it not then
reasonable to have difficulties in believing the Bible when we are
told that the Bible contradicts evolution? Is it then not very unfair
that such a person should lose the eternal life?
>Radioactive dating is done by comparing the amounts of particular
>radioactive isotopes of elements in samples with the amounts of other
>isotopes in the sample that are known to be the breakdown products of the
>original radioactive atoms. Errors can occur when dating individual
Yes individual datings me be in error
>by radioactive dating are not known with absolute certainty.
>
But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
more difficult. Also remember that there are non radioactive methods
who confirm the old datings.
>An alternative explanation to errors in radioactive dating may be that
>either the ages or the number of individuals in the genealogy in Genesis
>may have been incorrectly copied during the history of the manuscript.
>This part of the bible is much older than the rest and while we can be
>confident that the manuscripts we have of the later parts of the bible
>contain very few errors, this may not be true of the very oldest part of
>the bible, the creation account. The repetition of the phrase "according
>to their kind" in reference to the creation of plants and animals enables
>us to be confident that this phrase accurately reflects the original
>manuscript.
>
But wouldn't it be rather many year numbers from the genealogies that
would have to be incorrectly copied (Gen 5:3-32).
And is the first chapaters of Genesis older than the later or Exodus
and so on?
Fred M. Williams
On 2 Jun 1997 16:52:30 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
Friberg) wrote:
>On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>
>>Radioactive dating is done by comparing the amounts of particular
>>radioactive isotopes of elements in samples with the amounts of other
>>isotopes in the sample that are known to be the breakdown products of the
>>original radioactive atoms. Errors can occur when dating individual
>
>Yes individual datings me be in error
>
>>by radioactive dating are not known with absolute certainty.
>>
>
>But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
>more difficult.
Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
built in.
>Also remember that there are non radioactive methods
>who confirm the old datings.
Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
Fred Williams
--------------------------------------------
Peasant: "What are you doing about the war on poverty ?"
King: "Nothing. Its over, and you lost"
Christopher J. Carrell
Fred M. Williams wrote:
>
>
> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
Full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature,
please.
Chris
--
Chris Carrell
Replace each _dot_ with . if'n you really want to email me
If Cyberpromo wants to email me, it's ze...@alt.net
David Jensen
On 3 Jun 1997 21:29:13 -0400, in talk.origins
>On 2 Jun 1997 16:52:30 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
>Friberg) wrote:
>
>>Also remember that there are non radioactive methods
>>who confirm the old datings.
>
>Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
>
>Fred Williams
Please name one and provide supporting evidence.
========================================================
The talk.origins faqs are at http://www.talkorigins.org/
Christopher C. Wood
In article <3394c640...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) writes:
|> On 2 Jun 1997 16:52:30 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
|> Friberg) wrote:
|> >On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
|> >>Radioactive dating is done by comparing the amounts of particular
|> >>radioactive isotopes of elements in samples with the amounts of
|> >>other isotopes in the sample that are known to be the breakdown
|> >>products of the original radioactive atoms. Errors can occur when
|> >>dating individual
|> >Yes individual datings me be in error
|> >>by radioactive dating are not known with absolute certainty.
|> >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
|> >more difficult.
|> Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
|> built in.
Care to identify the assumptions and presuppositions built into the
isochron technique? Or are you just spouting off?
|> >Also remember that there are non radioactive methods who confirm
|> >the old datings.
|> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
Care to describe those dating techniques? If you provide any examples
for which refutations exist in the FAQs (see
http:/www.talkorigins.org), without explaining why the refutation is
in error, we will laugh.
|> Fred Williams
Chris
--
Speaking only for myself, of course.
Chris Wood chr...@lexis-nexis.com.youKnowWhatToDo ca...@CFAnet.com.HereToo
Thomas Scharle
In article <339682b7...@news.su.se>, ev-mi...@SPAMSTOPnrm.se (Mike Noren) writes:
|> Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
|>
|> : >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
|> : >more difficult.
|> :
|> : Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
|> : built in.
|>
|> explanation the creationists has offered to explain away radioactive
|> dating: that the speed of light was 10000 times faster 6000 years ago.
...
Hugh Ross, a creationist, believes that the human race was the
subject of special creation some 10,000 or so years ago.
But he believes that universe is some billions of years old.
Moreover, he believes that that age of the universe is one of the
evidences for a transcendent Creator of the universe. See, for
example, his essay in "The Creation Hypothesis", ed. J.P. Moreland,
InterVarsity Press 1994, or a couple of his books: "Creation and
Time", NavPress 1994; "The Fingerprint of God", Promise Pub. Co. 1991.
--
Tom Scharle scha...@nd.edu "standard disclaimer"
Mike Noren
Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
: >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
: >more difficult.
:
: Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
: built in.
I take it you are here referring to the preposterous ad hoc
explanation the creationists has offered to explain away radioactive
dating: that the speed of light was 10000 times faster 6000 years ago.
: >Also remember that there are non radioactive methods
: >who confirm the old datings.
:
: Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
They do? Care to expand on that? For instance, how dendrochronology
can possibly have gotten to 10500 BP if the earth was created 6000
years ago.
: Fred Williams
Michael Norén, Doctoral student, Tel: Int +46 (0)8 6664236
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Fax: Int +46 (0)8 666
Dept. of Invertebrate Zoology
P.O.B. 50007
S-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden
REMOVE THE WORD 'SPAMSTOP' IN MY ADDRESS TO MAIL ME
Jeffrey Cox
> In article <jeffcox-2505...@d28.syd2.zeta.org.au>,
> jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) writes:
>
> [ ... ]
> >[39] Can the sophistication of humans be explained by evolution?
> >[A] No. Human culture has progressed in around 12 000 years from the
> >making of stone tools to the launch of spacecraft to explore the solar
> >system. This is a fleeting moment of geological time, much too short a
> >time frame for mutations sorted by natural selection to have produced the
> >required increase in brain complexity since microelectronic circuit design
> >and astrophysics require thinking skills considerably more advanced than
> >those used by simple hunter gatherers or the members of the first small
> >agricultural communities.
> >
> >Evolution cannot explain the origin of complex characteristics that
> >represent unused potential since mutations and natural selection cannot
> >increase the functional adaptation of combinations of genes that are not
> >used. We were created in God's image.
> [ ... ]
>
> Either this question should be removed from this file, or the answer
> should be substantially revised. Not all changes that occur are the result
> of evolution, which concerns itself only with changes in genes over time,
> and the affect thereof on the population. The advances/changes made in the
> appearance of humanity over the last 12,000 years have nothing at all to do
> with evolution, nor does any aspect of standard evolutionary theory make
> such a claim. Rather, they are the result of the intellectual invention of
> language, and the ability to use language as a data/information storage and
> communication system. The subsequent invention of writing accelerated
the process
> greatly. All of this is entirely outside the realm of genetics, and therefore
> is an example of entirely non-evolutionary change, not relevant to the
question
> of creation/evolution. The observation that evolution cannot explain these
> changes is entirely correct, but also entirely irrelevant.
No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
Jeffrey
The talk.origins FAQ (Creation) Homepage:
http://www.zeta.org.au/~jeffcox/creation.html
Elmer Bataitis
Jeffrey Cox wrote:
> According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
> selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
> sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
> brain.
Why? The brain's "sophistocation" could have been the result of some
other trait that was actually subject to selection.
> Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
> environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
> advantage...
Why? What evidence do you have that the hunter/gatherer niche *did not*
require abstract thinking skills?
> and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
> the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
I suppose one could call the natural laws of the universe "intelligent"
(and I'd so contend) but how would one demonstrate this
satisfactorially?
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis “Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!”
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884
******************************************************************
Jeffrey Cox
jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan Friberg) wrote:
> On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>
> >[38] Who was Adam?
> >[A] Adam was _Homo sapiens sapiens_, and the first of our modern species.
> >The similarity of our DNA with that of chimpanzees suggests common
> >ancestry and therefore that that God formed Adam by modifying an existing
> >pre-human species, yet God changed Adam significantly from his pre-human
>
> I can't see that the similarity between our DNA and that of a
> chimpanzes suggests anything about the meaning of the Biblical text in
> which there is no references whatsoever about chimpanzees or DNA.
If the texts I have read on the subject are correct then base sequences in
both humans and chimpanzees have a very large overlap of identical
sequences and include many identical noncoding regions, so called junk
DNA. One possibility is that these sequences that are not currently
recognised as genes may have some unknown function, however the extremely
high degree of overlap and the similarity of non gene sequences is strong
evidence of common descent.
Separate creation by a common designer may produce many identical genes
for mammalian physiology but would not be expected to include identical
non functioning sequences with a pattern of increasing divergence that
matches divergencence of physical characteristics and is entirely
consistent with common descent unless the designer deliberately wanted to
give the incorrect impression that common descent had occurred and this
latter possibility is inconsistent with the nature of God since he tells
us he is the truth.
I recall reading about so called fossil DNA although I can't find the
reference. [does anyone have a reference for this?]
Apparently complex species have base sequences in the noncoding part of
their DNA that has a high degree of overlap with functional sequences in
simpler organisms, very strong evidence for common descent.
> >".. the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed
> >into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
> >[Genesis 2:7]
>
> Yes from dust not from some other animal.
From dust as a starting point, possible intermediate stages are not specified.
> >[40] What about Noah's ark?
> >[A] Noah's ark was a miracle and miracles need not follow physical laws or
> >scientific principals. We are not expected to understand how they
> >happened.
> >
> I don't think the Bible describes the story about Noah as a miracle.
> For example in Gen 7:11 the water was not created by a miracle.
> It was no miracle that saved Noah and his family but the ark.
> At the end of the flood the water didn't vanished miraculously but
> 'sank down and abated' and a 'wind blow over the land' and the rain
> was checked.
If God causes something to happen that would not happen according to
normal physical processes that is a miracle and Genesis records that God
caused the flood to happen.
> >[42] What are the moral consequences of advocating a belief in evolution?
> >[A] Evolution contradicts the bible because the bible states that God
> >created different kinds of plants and animals. The bible also describes
>
> Why should this contradict evolution? Why could not the different kind
> of plants and animals have been 'created' through an evolution.
>
> >how to gain eternal life. If a supporter of evolution falsely claims that
> >the bible is wrong, and as a result another person disbelieves the bible
> >and loses their eternal life, then the actions of the evolution supporter
> >produce an outcome far worse than the killing of another human.
> >
> If a supporter of evolution gives good reasons to think his theory is
> correct and therefore someone believes it's correct is it not then
> reasonable to have difficulties in believing the Bible when we are
> told that the Bible contradicts evolution? Is it then not very unfair
> that such a person should lose the eternal life?
A few people have commented about this point, I tried when writing it to
examine the situation objectively and I am not expressing an opinion on
fairness. My point is that from a logical and objective point of view the
bible might be right and therefore of great value and evolution might be
wrong. If a person misleads another to accept a falsehood - that evolution
is known to be correct - and is wrong, then they have potentially done a
very harmful thing to another person if they cause them to lose something
valuable they might otherwise have gained by accepting the bible.
As I have previously said I think it is perfectly acceptable for someone
to say honestly that they think that the evidence that they know of
supports the theory of evolution and that it is in their view likely that
evolution is what happened. It is objectively unacceptable to mislead
others to accept something that is not true - the claim that evolution has
been proved to be correct - and I am pointing out here that this is
potentially a very serious lie.
> >Radioactive dating is done by comparing the amounts of particular
> >radioactive isotopes of elements in samples with the amounts of other
> >isotopes in the sample that are known to be the breakdown products of the
> >original radioactive atoms. Errors can occur when dating individual
>
> Yes individual datings me be in error
>
> >by radioactive dating are not known with absolute certainty.
> >
>
> But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
> more difficult. Also remember that there are non radioactive methods
> who confirm the old datings. [...]
I don't think this about radiometric dating although I have my doubts
about thermoluminesence. I was examining the vaious options on the dating
issue since this is one of the very few points where I am unable to
reconcile both science and the bible. It appears to me that either the
data science gives us or the current copy we have of the origianal Genesis
manuscript may be in error although there may be other possibilities.
Jeffrey
The talk.origins FAQ (Creation) Homepage:
http://www.zeta.org.au/~jeffcox/creation.html
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
[snip]
>
>If God causes something to happen that would not happen according to
>normal physical processes that is a miracle and Genesis records that God
>caused the flood to happen.
>
Did God also cover up the evidence later so it would look like there
was no flood?
>A few people have commented about this point, I tried when writing it to
>examine the situation objectively and I am not expressing an opinion on
>fairness. My point is that from a logical and objective point of view the
>bible might be right and therefore of great value and evolution might be
>wrong. If a person misleads another to accept a falsehood - that evolution
>is known to be correct - and is wrong, then they have potentially done a
>very harmful thing to another person if they cause them to lose something
>valuable they might otherwise have gained by accepting the bible.
Then you had better be very careful in your statements about
evolution. If you make assertive statements about evolution that you
know to be false, or have reason to believe to be false, or even have
not fully checked, then you may be guilty of the same thing. If
evolution is right and your interpretation of the Bible is wrong, then
you are potentially causing people to loose what is valuable in the
Bible.
[snip]
Matt Silberstein
-------------------------------
The science from the stars, Astronomy, the career of evil
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
[snip]
>No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
>selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
>sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
>brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
>environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
>advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
>the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
>
Do you always give up this easily? You present one factor (banging
rocks together) and say it is insufficient, so therefore we must
change the rules. Now please show your work that demonstrates that
increased use of various tools and increased sociality would not
create a substrate that allowed some sort of language.
Ken Denny
Mike Noren wrote:
>
> I take it you are here referring to the preposterous ad hoc
> explanation the creationists has offered to explain away radioactive
> dating: that the speed of light was 10000 times faster 6000 years ago.
Exacly, and I have done extensive research on the slowdown of the speed
of light and my calculation indicate that the speed of light will reach
zero at exactly 7:20 AM EST on Nov 12, 1998. Things should be very
interesting on the highways in the days just prior to that.
Regards
Ken
Thomas Scharle
Seriously ... what I have seen of the "slowdown of the speed of
light" is that it stopped slowing down about 1960. I'm not making
this up. They do some fancy curve-fitting, of a cosecant-squared
or some such not-particularly-the-first-curve-that-I-would-have-
thought-of variety (not the 17th, either) and then adjust it back
about 4000 BCE (so it doesn't quite make it to infinity), and at
about 1960 CE (coincidentally when measurements started becoming
very precise, but also having the result that the speed of light
doesn't start increasing).
Tedd Hadley
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) writes:
>No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
>selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
>sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
>brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
>environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
>advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
>the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
Why don't you get together with creationist Dan Hughes sometime.
*He* thinks ancient man was far more intelligent than mankind
today.
(Creationists, sheesh. If they could just agree among themselves
they might be dangerous.)
++
Tedd Hadley (had...@uci.edu)
Mike Noren
Replying to sch...@ubiquity.cc.nd.edu (Thomas Scharle)
: |> : >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
: |> : >more difficult.
: |> :
: |> : Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
: |> : built in.
: |>
: |> I take it you are here referring to the preposterous ad hoc
: |> explanation the creationists has offered to explain away radioactive
: |> dating: that the speed of light was 10000 times faster 6000 years ago.
: ...
:
: Hugh Ross, a creationist, believes that the human race was the
: subject of special creation some 10,000 or so years ago.
:
: But he believes that universe is some billions of years old.
Then that can hardly be used to claim that the radioactive datings are
wrong.
: Moreover, he believes that that age of the universe is one of the
: evidences for a transcendent Creator of the universe. See, for
: example, his essay in "The Creation Hypothesis", ed. J.P. Moreland,
: InterVarsity Press 1994, or a couple of his books: "Creation and
: Time", NavPress 1994; "The Fingerprint of God", Promise Pub. Co. 1991.
No thanks, although it would be kindof interesting to see him explain
away hominid fossils.
: Tom Scharle scha...@nd.edu "standard disclaimer"
Fred M. Williams
On 3 Jun 1997 23:29:11 -0400, "Christopher J. Carrell"
<cjc@pandora_dot_bio_dot_purdue.edu> wrote:
>Fred M. Williams wrote:
>>
>>
>> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
>
>Full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature,
>please.
>
>Chris
Your anti-knowledge ilk just LUUUVs to hide behind your one-sided
"science" magazines. Science derives from "knowledge", something
many of your kind "know nothing" about. A secular science journal
publishing creationist work is about as rare as a favorable mutation.
And on the novel occasion your secular buddies publish a study, such
as when Statistical Science refereed and reluctantly acknowledged the
validity of the Torah codes phenomenon, which BTW remains
unchallenged, the evidence is ignored or riducled simply because it
just may indicate there may be that GOD you try so desperately to
aviod.
70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
treatment. Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. Fortunately
there are some intellectually honest evolutionists left, but
hypocrites like you aren't worth the trouble.
Fred M. Williams
On 4 Jun 1997 10:07:00 -0400, chr...@lexis-nexis.com (Christopher C.
Wood) wrote:
>In article <3394c640...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) writes:
>|> On 2 Jun 1997 16:52:30 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
>|> Friberg) wrote:
>
>|> >On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>
>|> >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
>|> >more difficult.
>
>|> Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
>|> built in.
>
>Care to identify the assumptions and presuppositions built into the
>isochron technique? Or are you just spouting off?
You should know what the assumptions are, if you had CAREFULLY read
the very FAQs you mention later in this post. If you don't know
there are assumptions built in to ANY dating method (a testimony to
your presupposition), then you're in the wrong forum and should go to
the back of the classroom a stick with paper football. Your
embarassing some of your colleagues.
For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can
rely on their dating tests. Till then, we'll just have to put up with
the circular reasoning that goes on (here's a little secret - they
won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated a
200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
>|> >Also remember that there are non radioactive methods who confirm
>|> >the old datings.
>
>|> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
>
>Care to describe those dating techniques? If you provide any examples
>for which refutations exist in the FAQs (see
>http:/www.talkorigins.org), without explaining why the refutation is
>in error, we will laugh.
Moon recession.
Origin of the Moon, for that matter. And where's the dust ? Watch
out for this one, you don't have as many on your side as you may
think, despite your precious FAQ archive.
Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
"reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
one its trying to protect.
Ok, that's enough for now.
Richard Keatinge
In article <jeffcox-0506...@d31.syd2.zeta.org.au>, Jeffrey Cox
<jef...@zeta.org.au> writes
>
>No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
>selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
>sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
>brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
>environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
>advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
>the development of such sophistication.
You ever tried knapping flints? Achieving high social status in a
tribe? Do these things, then come back and tell us that sophisticated
absract thinking skills aren't advantageous. Better still, just think
through the problems in advance.
> We had an intelligent designer.
>
>Jeffrey
You too? Mine was a surgical registrar. He took out my appendix when I
was eleven.
--
Richard Keatinge
homepage http://www.keatinge.demon.co.uk
Tim Thompson
I have maintained a full slate of included text so as to maintain
the connection back the Cox's FAQ file original.
In article <jeffcox-0506...@d31.syd2.zeta.org.au>, jef...@zeta.org.au
(Jeffrey Cox) writes:
> In article <5mi9sc$i...@netline.jpl.nasa.gov>, t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov wrote:
>> In article <jeffcox-2505...@d28.syd2.zeta.org.au>,
>> jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) writes:
>> [ ... ]
>> >[39] Can the sophistication of humans be explained by evolution?
>> >[A] No. Human culture has progressed in around 12 000 years from the
>> >making of stone tools to the launch of spacecraft to explore the solar
>> >system. This is a fleeting moment of geological time, much too short a
>> >time frame for mutations sorted by natural selection to have produced the
>> >required increase in brain complexity since microelectronic circuit design
>> >and astrophysics require thinking skills considerably more advanced than
>> >those used by simple hunter gatherers or the members of the first small
>> >agricultural communities.
>> >
>> >Evolution cannot explain the origin of complex characteristics that
>> >represent unused potential since mutations and natural selection cannot
>> >increase the functional adaptation of combinations of genes that are not
>> >used. We were created in God's image.
>> [ ... ]
[Thompson ... ]
>> Either this question should be removed from this file, or the answer
>> should be substantially revised. Not all changes that occur are the result
>> of evolution, which concerns itself only with changes in genes over time,
>> and the affect thereof on the population. The advances/changes made in the
>> appearance of humanity over the last 12,000 years have nothing at all to do
>> with evolution, nor does any aspect of standard evolutionary theory make
>> such a claim. Rather, they are the result of the intellectual invention of
>> language, and the ability to use language as a data/information storage and
>> communication system. The subsequent invention of writing accelerated
>> the process greatly. All of this is entirely outside the realm of genetics,
>> and therefore is an example of entirely non-evolutionary change, not relevant
>> to the question of creation/evolution. The observation that evolution cannot
>> explain these changes is entirely correct, but also entirely irrelevant.
[Cox ... ]
> No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
> selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
> sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
> brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
> environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
> advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
> the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
Wrong; the 'evolution viewpoint' does not hold this to be true, as long as
we agree that 'evolution viewpoint' is intended to refer to ideas and theories
actually espoused by people who actually accept the theory of evolution. You
have stated that changes in alleles that have taken place only over the last
12000 years must be responsible for human intelligence, sophistication, and
language; not only is this a false statement of the 'evolution viewpoint',
it is just plain silly, as alleles don't change that significantly that
fast.
A correct statement of the 'evolution viewpoint' is that, with respect to
biological evolution, humans today are not signifcantly different in any
respect, including basic reasoning capability, than were humans 12000 years
ago. You have mistaken non-evolutionary change for evolutionary change; I
suggest you re-visit the "What is Evolution" FAQ file written by Larry Moran
at [ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html ] where the
difference is explained.
A correct statement of the 'evolution viewpoint' is that humans were, by
12000 years ago, essentially the same as they are today. The changes that
have taken place since then are all the result on non-evolutionary changes;
essentially through the interaction of intelligence with environment. As a
for-instance, those rock-bangers you talk about are the very same humans who,
in between banging rocks, invented language in the first place. The act of
intellectual learning in the human community since then is analogous to the
act of intellectual learning in an individual, as that individual grows from
an infant to an adult. Babies start out with no language, but they learn one
despite having the same alleles at the age of two that they had when they
were born. The difference is that the baby is surrounded by adults who have
already gone through the learning curve, and are able to actively intervene
to accelerate the infant's learning curve. You can see the vary same process
at work in collective human learning, which starts out very slow, and then
accelerates more-or-less exponentially as knowledge is held onto and then
passed to the new generation in a feedback process. The invention, and later
enhancements, of language, increased the feedback rate, and accelerated the
process.
All of this was accomplished without the intervention in any form of
biological evolution in the time span of the process. Rather, biological
evolution had already set the stage over the few million proceeding years,
allowing the human brain to achieve its current status. You have also
overestimated the effect of 'natural selection' in the process; natural
selection is only one of at least a few ways to change the alleles in a
population. Studies of the function in human brains show that coevolution
of various parts of the brain, and adaptation from one function to another
within the brain, played a major role in the development of language,
beginning perhaps as long ago as 100,000 years.
Cemtech
In article <339780f4...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com says...
> >Care to identify the assumptions and presuppositions built into the
> >isochron technique? Or are you just spouting off?
>
> You should know what the assumptions are, if you had CAREFULLY read
> the very FAQs you mention later in this post. If you don't know
> there are assumptions built in to ANY dating method (a testimony to
> your presupposition), then you're in the wrong forum and should go to
> the back of the classroom a stick with paper football.
So, basically, you don't know what those assumptions are and you've know
idea what you're talking about.
> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
> evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can
> rely on their dating tests.
You still haven't mentioned what assumptions are being made. In carbon
dating, 1/2 the equation is the initial condition. No imaginary time
machine needed.
> >Care to describe those dating techniques? If you provide any examples
> >for which refutations exist in the FAQs (see
> >http:/www.talkorigins.org), without explaining why the refutation is
> >in error, we will laugh.
>
> Moon recession.
Which is where it should be, care to go into any detail or our just
wasting time?
> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. And where's the dust?
It's all there, as expected. Care to go into any detail or our just
wasting time?
> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
> one its trying to protect.
You've not gone into ANY detail, so why should we think there are any
holes?
Care to go into any detail or our just wasting time?
> Ok, that's enough for now.
You've said practically nothing.
Do you intend to masturbate like this from here on out?
----------------------------
Steve "Chris" Price
Associate Professor of Computational Aesthetics
Amish Chair of Electrical Engineering
University of Ediacara "A fine tradition since 530,000,000 BC"
ra...@kaiwan.com OR Cem...@pacbell.net
Elmer Bataitis
Fred M. Williams wrote:
> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
> evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can
> rely on their dating tests. =
Why? Do we need a time machine to rely on the fact that there was a
Roman empire?
> Till then, we'll just have to put up with
> the circular reasoning that goes on (here's a little secret - they
> won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated a
> 200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
Really? Did you ever read the paper where this information was
originally published? Do you even know what was being tested?
> Moon recession.
What is the moon recession rate?
> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =
Why?
>And where's the dust ? Watch
> out for this one, you don't have as many on your side as you may
> think, despite your precious FAQ archive.
OK. Why don't you find out the rate of cosmic dust production and do the
calculations. =
> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
> one its trying to protect.
Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis =93Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!=94
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884 =
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis
Fred M. Williams wrote:
> Your anti-knowledge ilk just LUUUVs to hide behind your one-sided
> "science" magazines. =
Why do you think this?
> Science derives from "knowledge", something
> many of your kind "know nothing" about. =
Where do you think this "knowledge" resides?
> A secular science journal
> publishing creationist work is about as rare as a favorable mutation.
Much rarer.;-) since there is little or no creationist research that I
know of.
> And on the novel occasion your secular buddies publish a study, such
> as when Statistical Science refereed and reluctantly acknowledged the
> validity of the Torah codes phenomenon,...
"...reluctantly acknowledged the validity..."?? Published papers are not
validated by virtue of being published, that is left to the evidence to
so determine.
> which BTW remains
> unchallenged, the evidence is ignored or riducled simply because it
> just may indicate there may be that GOD you try so desperately to
> aviod.
I don't avoid god at all. Well, perhaps your particular version of god.
> 70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
> treatment. =
Do you support what the Catholic church did to galileo?
> Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. =
These magazines simply report the evidence.
> Fortunately
> there are some intellectually honest evolutionists left, but
> hypocrites like you aren't worth the trouble.
To each his own.
Christopher C. Wood
In article <339780f4...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) writes:
|> On 4 Jun 1997 10:07:00 -0400, chr...@lexis-nexis.com (Christopher C.
|> Wood) wrote:
|> >In article <3394c640...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) writes:
|> >|> On 2 Jun 1997 16:52:30 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
|> >|> Friberg) wrote:
|> >|> >On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
|> >|> >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
|> >|> >more difficult.
|> >|> Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
|> >|> built in.
|> >Care to identify the assumptions and presuppositions built into
|> >the isochron technique? Or are you just spouting off?
|> You should know what the assumptions are, if you had CAREFULLY read
|> the very FAQs you mention later in this post.
But I wanted to get you to state what you think those assumptions are.
|> If you don't know there are assumptions built in to ANY dating
|> method (a testimony to your presupposition), then you're in the
|> wrong forum and should go to the back of the classroom a stick with
|> paper football.
Obviously your forte.
|> Your embarassing some of your colleagues.
No, only you. I don't think of you as one of my colleagues.
|> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie.
Which initial conditions? You are stepping closer to the pitfall.
|> Once the evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then
|> maybe we can rely on their dating tests.
Once the creationists demonstrate, in the lab, God creating the
universe, then maybe we can rely on their dating tests. In the mean
time, science continues to do science. You don't seem to be doing a
good job dealing with the conclusions of science.
|> Till then, we'll just have to put up with the circular reasoning
|> that goes on (here's a little secret - they won't do blind tests,
|> cus when they do, they find out they've dated a 200 year old rock
|> from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
The old Xenoliths. There's an answer to those in the FAQs as well.
If you understood dating half as well as you claim to, you would
understand why the age of the Hawiian lava flows are not a mistake.
But you're fool, and love to prattle on.
|> >|> >Also remember that there are non radioactive methods who confirm
|> >|> >the old datings.
|> >|> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
|> >Care to describe those dating techniques? If you provide any examples
|> >for which refutations exist in the FAQs (see
|> >http:/www.talkorigins.org), without explaining why the refutation is
|> >in error, we will laugh.
|> Moon recession.
Why is this a problem? Do the math yourself: 4 cm/year * 4 billion
years. How far is that? Where's the problem? This is covered in the
FAQ. One out.
|> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. And where's the dust ? Watch
|> out for this one, you don't have as many on your side as you may
|> think, despite your precious FAQ archive.
You have to show why the FAQ is wrong. Two out.
|> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
|> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as
|> the one its trying to protect.
Three out. You're done.
|> Ok, that's enough for now.
Yup.
Fred M. Williams
On 6 Jun 1997 07:14:47 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
<"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>Fred M. Williams wrote:
>
>> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
>> evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can
>> rely on their dating tests. =
>
>
>Why? Do we need a time machine to rely on the fact that there was a
>Roman empire?
This rebuttal is completely moronic. To say that because we know
there was a Roman Empire with the many other internal and external
evidences and equate this to dating 1 billion year old rocks is beyond
ROTFL.
>> Till then, we'll just have to put up with
>> the circular reasoning that goes on (here's a little secret - they
>> won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated a
>> 200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
>
>Really? Did you ever read the paper where this information was
>originally published? Do you even know what was being tested?
>
>> Moon recession.
>
>What is the moon recession rate?
There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. This dating
mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
>
>> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =
>
>Why?
For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
(1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
came from.
>>And where's the dust ? Watch
>> out for this one, you don't have as many on your side as you may
>> think, despite your precious FAQ archive.
>
>OK. Why don't you find out the rate of cosmic dust production and do the
>calculations. =
W. Brown's technical paper on this stands by itself. A few attempts
have been made to address his technical note, and he has since pointed
out legitimate flaws in their analysis. If necessary I will post it
in the future, but only if you REALLY need to see it and if you
understand integrals (must have gone through at least Calculus 2).
>
>> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
>> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
>> one its trying to protect.
>
>Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
>system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
Shows again you don't know what the heck you are talking about. The
reversal theory applies to ocean floor magnetic anomalies, not your
Bary Mantilo stereo speakers. I'd cut back on the pot.
Elmer Bataitis
Fred M. Williams wrote:
=
> On 6 Jun 1997 07:14:47 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
> =
> >Fred M. Williams wrote:
> >
> >> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
> >> evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can=
> >> rely on their dating tests. =3D
> >
> >
> >Why? Do we need a time machine to rely on the fact that there was a
> >Roman empire?
> =
> This rebuttal is completely moronic. =
Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But how far back in time do we
have to go before we *need* a time machine to verify our reasonings?
> To say that because we know
> there was a Roman Empire with the many other internal and external
> evidences and equate this to dating 1 billion year old rocks is beyond
> ROTFL.
Really? What evidence do you have otherwise?
> >> Till then, we'll just have to put up with
> >> the circular reasoning that goes on (here's a little secret - they
> >> won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated =
a
> >> 200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
> >
> >Really? Did you ever read the paper where this information was
> >originally published? Do you even know what was being tested?
No answer to this question? =
> >> Moon recession.
> >
> >What is the moon recession rate?
> =
> There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
> indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. =
OK.
> This dating
> mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
> evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
> course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
What age does this mechanism date the earth to? Do you have a reference
for this?
> >> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =3D
> >
> >Why?
> =
> For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
> (1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
> BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
> classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
> doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
> placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
> came from.
OK. I'll look this paper up. But you do realize that a 22 bya date kinda
is *not* evidence for a 6,000 year old earth, don't you? ;-)
=
> >>And where's the dust ? Watch
> >> out for this one, you don't have as many on your side as you may
> >> think, despite your precious FAQ archive.
> >
> >OK. Why don't you find out the rate of cosmic dust production and do t=
he
> >calculations. =3D
> =
> W. Brown's technical paper on this stands by itself. A few attempts
> have been made to address his technical note, and he has since pointed
> out legitimate flaws in their analysis. If necessary I will post it
> in the future, but only if you REALLY need to see it and if you
> understand integrals (must have gone through at least Calculus 2).
Look, why should I need integrals?? Dust accumulates over time. Give me
an amount of dust per unit area and the time required for that to
accumulate. It shouldn't be too difficult from there.
> >> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
> >> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as t=
he
> >> one its trying to protect.
> >
> >Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
> >system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
> =
> Shows again you don't know what the heck you are talking about. The
> reversal theory applies to ocean floor magnetic anomalies, not your
> Bary Mantilo stereo speakers. I'd cut back on the pot.
Really? Is there a current in iron in the earth's core or not? Does not
a current in iron make a magnetic field?
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
>On 4 Jun 1997 10:07:00 -0400, chr...@lexis-nexis.com (Christopher C.
>Wood) wrote:
>
>>In article <3394c640...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) writes:
>>|> On 2 Jun 1997 16:52:30 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
>>|> Friberg) wrote:
>>
>>|> >On 25 May 1997 07:49:23 GMT, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>>
>>|> >But to think that all or many radioactive datings should be wrong is
>>|> >more difficult.
>>
>>|> Not difficult at all, considering the assumtions and presuppositions
>>|> built in.
>>
>>Care to identify the assumptions and presuppositions built into the
>>isochron technique? Or are you just spouting off?
>
>You should know what the assumptions are, if you had CAREFULLY read
>the very FAQs you mention later in this post. If you don't know
>there are assumptions built in to ANY dating method (a testimony to
>your presupposition), then you're in the wrong forum and should go to
>the back of the classroom a stick with paper football. Your
>embarassing some of your colleagues.
>
No one said there were no assumptions. You objected to the
assumptions, so you are asked to provide a list of them, of at least a
list of the problem ones.
>For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
>evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can
>rely on their dating tests. Till then, we'll just have to put up with
>the circular reasoning that goes on
Initial conditions of what? I am sorry, but that is way to vague to be
of meaning. What are the assumptions of initial conditions and what is
the problem with them?
>(here's a little secret - they
>won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated a
>200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
Are you actually aware of the facts in this case? Because it sounds
like you are coming very close to lying for God. And that certainly
sounds like a sin to me. By 200 year old rock, I assume you mean lava
that came to the surface 200 years ago. But things in that lava may
not have melted, in which case they are older. The people doing this
dating are well aware of these issues and make sure they take them
into account.
>>|> >Also remember that there are non radioactive methods who confirm
>>|> >the old datings.
>>
>>|> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
>>
>>Care to describe those dating techniques? If you provide any examples
>>for which refutations exist in the FAQs (see
>>http:/www.talkorigins.org), without explaining why the refutation is
>>in error, we will laugh.
>
>Moon recession.
Do the numbers for us. Here is a hint, I have seen these numbers in
this newsgroup at least twice in the month of May, so they are
available.
>Origin of the Moon, for that matter. And where's the dust ? Watch
>out for this one, you don't have as many on your side as you may
>think, despite your precious FAQ archive.
Why should there be dust? Once again, do you know before hand that you
are wrong? Are you lying for God?
>Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
>"reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
>one its trying to protect.
And three of those holes are?
>Ok, that's enough for now.
It is enough if you mind is closed. It is useless if you care about
the actual science.
Sean Ellis
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
>selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
>sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
>brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
>environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
>advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
>the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
In what respects does the environment of a social hunter-gatherer fall
short of providing the selective advantage required?
However, other species with a similar degree of sociability seem to
have got along quite well without a full abstract language (chimps,
bonobos, baboons spring to mind).
However, once a rudimentary abstract intelligence reaches a critical
point, then we enter a positive feedback regime where the more you
have, the more you get. The smarter people communicate better, and the
better communicators hunt better together, and they have more
offspring as a result. There's your selection pressure.
Like other positive feedback mechanisms, it requires that you make it
over a threshold. It could just be that we're the first species to do
so.
There's no evidence of a designer here.
Sean
"Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity!
Have you ever considered a career in the Church?" - Bishop of Bath and Wells.
[Non spammers: Delete "un-" after @ in reply-to field]
URL: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2448/atheism.html
Richard Keatinge
In article <339780e4...@news.prodigy.net>, "Fred M. Williams"
<fr...@mcdata.com> writes
>On 3 Jun 1997 23:29:11 -0400, "Christopher J. Carrell"
>>
>>please.
>>
>>Chris
>
>many of your kind "know nothing" about. A secular science journal
>publishing creationist work is about as rare as a favorable mutation.
I'm trying to collect material right now on difficulties faced by people
who have good evidence and want to get it published, but can't because
it goes against conventional thinking. Do you have any documentation on
such a thing happening?
>
>
>And on the novel occasion your secular buddies publish a study, such
>as when Statistical Science refereed and reluctantly acknowledged the
>validity of the Torah codes phenomenon, which BTW remains
>unchallenged,
Obvious explanations include:
- There's some sort of bug in the calculations used.
- People have tried every coding system they could think of on the Bible
for millennia. Sooner or later thay were bound to come up with
something improbable. And when they did, they were bound to make a lot
of noise about it.
- This is a message from god (as if the rest of the bible wasn't
enough). In which case, one might ask, what on earth is it trying to
say? "Meaningful references" to famous Jews of the last millennium are
postulated - but I've yet to see that they actually mean anything,
except, possibly, god's a statistician with a nasty sense of humour. At
least the statistical bit is news.
>the evidence is ignored or riducled simply because it
>just may indicate there may be that GOD you try so desperately to
>aviod.
>
>70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
>treatment. Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. Fortunately
>there are some intellectually honest evolutionists left, but
>hypocrites like you aren't worth the trouble.
Someone's noticed at last!
>
>
>Fred Williams
>--------------------------------------------
>Peasant: "What are you doing about the war on poverty ?"
>King: "Nothing. Its over, and you lost"
>
--
Richard Keatinge
"In conclusion, hate is an absolutely necessary family value for the traditional
American family."
http://www.wonder.org/~ffxafa/hateesy.html
The Fairfax County Affiliate of the American Family Association
Elmer Bataitis
> > >Fred M. Williams wrote:
> > For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
> > (1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
> > BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
> > classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
> > doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
> > placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
> > came from.
Well, I looked for this one. Page 57 of volume 240 of Nature for 1972 is
part of the book reviews page. There were reviews of the following:
"Natural Science in English, 1600-1900"; "Combinatorics"; and "Drugs and
Driving". Nothing about moon rocks at all. One of the later pubs in the
240 volume had some stuff on moon rocks, but I did not find the authors
listed above among the authors cited in the table of contents.
=20
Can you give me a corrected reference?
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis =93Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!=94
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884 =20
******************************************************************
Tim Thompson
Since my own earlier reply has not propagated this far yet, I will
tack my extended comments onto Matt's post.
In article <339be901...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, mat...@ix.netcom.com
(Matt Silberstein) writes:
> In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
> jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
> [snip]
>> No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
>> selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
>> sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
>> brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
>> environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
>> advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
>> the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
[Matt ... ]
> Do you always give up this easily? You present one factor (banging
> rocks together) and say it is insufficient, so therefore we must
> change the rules. Now please show your work that demonstrates that
> increased use of various tools and increased sociality would not
> create a substrate that allowed some sort of language.
Of course Cox's implication is that 12000 years of *biological evolution*
is presumed to be responsible for the intellectual changes in humanity over
that same time period. But no 'evolutionist' I ever ran across has argued
that biological evolution could work so fast. Hence, that which Cox has
labeled the 'evolution viewpoint' is not that at all, assuming that
'evolution viewpoint' is intended to refer to what 'evolutionists' actually
say and/or do, as opposed to Cox's own private version thereof.
As I said before, the correct 'evolution viewpoint' is that biological
evolution
[I make a point of saying 'biological' to avoid confusion; if one
accepts the viewpoint of Larry Moran's "What is Evolution?" FAQ file
{ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html } then the
word 'evolution' implies 'biological' along with it]
had set the stage and prepared the human brain for language long
before, perhaps as long ago as 100,000 years.
One point in making another follow-up post is in part to reiterate my own
idea in perhaps clearer language. Another is to draw the reader's attention
to the book "The Evolution of Human Languages", edited by John A. Hawkins &
Murray Gell-Mann, Addison-Wesley 1992 [Proceedings of the Workshop on the
Evolution of Human Languages, held August, 1989 at the Santa Fe Institute;
ISBN 0-201-52572-0 (HB) 0-201-52573-9 (PB)], wheren these issues are
confronted in considerable detail. Specifically, section 2 "Brain and Speech
Physiology in Language Evolution", and section 4 "The Evolution of Linguistic
Diversity and Language Families". In section 2 Terrence Deacon presents a
very interesting paper "Brain-Language Coevolution", and in section 4 noted
linguist Joseph H. Greenberg of Stanford University presents a paper entitled
"Preliminaries to a Systematic Comparison between Biological and Linguistic
Evolution".
In the introduction to his paper, Terrence Deacon [Harvard University] says,
in the last paragraph ...
" In order to provide an explanation of language competence one
has to do more than merely describe it. The questions we need to
answer are simultaneously biological and social: How and when did it
originate? What were its functional and biological precursors? And
why are its forms constrained to their present range?
In this paper I will present evidence for the theory that (a) language
competence evolved over a long period (>= 2 million years) of continuous
selection determined by brain-language interactions, (b) language was
the major cause not just the consequence of human brain evolution,
(c) the origin of the unusual organizational features of human brain
structure (not just its size) can best be understood in terms of
brain-language coevolution, and (d) the brain structures and circuits
most altered in the course of human brain evolution reflect some
unusual computational demands imposed by natural languages. Finally,
I will compare these findings with evidence concerning the evolution
of the vocal tract and demonstrate how the two forms of anatomical
evidence, considered together, may help explain some contemporary
patterns of language structure, language change, and language
acquisiton."
This paragraph is noteworthy on at least two accounts. First, it
certainly detracts from the standard creationist argument that the theory
of evolution is not science and makes no testable predictions; Deacon's
work is clearly awash in both. Second, it shows a far deeper insight into
the problem than the simplistic approach adopted by Cox, who simply
asserts from Dogma that early humans, even as recently as 12000 years
ago, could not have acquired language through any evolutionary process.
Deacon's comments are consistent with the standard 'evolution viewpoint'
that the roots of language go much farther back in time than 12000 years
ago, and that evolution had already prepared the brain for its current
linguistic competence long before the anthropologically recent language
explosion.
I do not propose that Deacon's paper expresses the last word on the
subject, nor will I pretend that is position is not controversial; not
everyone agrees with his 'language causes evolution' idea, but it is
not obviously wrong either. Clearly the fields of brain & language
evolution are linked, and clearly there is plenty of room to learn,
but the 'evolution viewpoint' expressed by Cox is clearly quite wrong.
Deacon's paper is proceeded by the paper "On the Evolution of Human
Language" by Philip Lieberman [Brown University, Rhode island] I will
reproduce his two paragraph introduction, with emphasis on the observation
that it too represents a much more effective explication of the 'evolution
viewpoint'.
" Human language is a comparatively recent evolutionary innovation
that added two powerful devices, speech and syntax, to older systems;
it probably reached its present form at least 100,000 years ago. Human
language clearly involves a number of biological components including
the ability to acquire and use words, speech, and syntax. Words are
powerful devices for both communication and thinking - an entire
family of concepts can be transmitted or considered when a single word
is uttered or placed in thought. However, chimpanzees, gorillas and
other animals can comprehend and in some cases, use words - the most
important distinction being the total number of words. Therefore,
archaic hominids undoubtedly had languages using words for the past
four-million years or so. In contrast, the research of the past twenty
years indicates that the evolution of human speech, complex syntax,
and some aspects of creative thought are linked. And that the driving
force that produced modern human beings may have been the evolution
of speech adapted for rapid communication.
" Charles Darwin first made the point that nature is a miserly
opportunist; the process of evolution always makes use of 'old' parts,
modifying them to perform new functions. The biological basis of the
newest 'unique' components of human language, the human tongue and
mouth and the brain mechanisms that regulate speech production and
syntax, evolved from the tongues, mouths and brains of archaic human-
like animals - hominids who resembled present-day apes in this respect.
Organs that were originally designed to facilitate breathing air and
swallowing food and water were adapted to produce human speech. The
brain mechanisms that control speech prduction probably derive from
ones that facilitated precise one-handed manual tasks. Through a
series of perhaps chance events these brain mechanisms eventually
evolved to allow us to learn and use the complex rules that govern
the syntax of human language. The brain mechanisms that are the
bases of syntax also appear to enter into other aspects of 'creative'
thought."
Lieberman goes even farther than Deacon did, suggesting that humans
were using words 4,000,000 years ago. I will not pretend that this is
uncontroversial either. However, this combined with Deacon's introduction
show up the major flaw in Cox's thesis. Cox treats language as if it
appeared suddenly circa 12000 years ago [which may be a popular and common
misconception]. But the real 'evolution viewpoint' is clearly that the
process of language development extends far back in time; I have said
'perhaps 100,000 years', a notion clearly consistent, and perhaps even
conservative, when compared to the professional opinions expressed here.
Once we see what the real 'evolution viewpoint' is; that biological
evolution and linguistic evolution are synergistic over perhaps millions
of years, we can recognize that Cox's characterization of the 'evolution
viewpoint' is incorrect. He falsely tries to compress the evolution of
language into a period of circa 12000 years, and he falsely implies that
'evolutionists' actually think that *biologcal evolution* over the short
course of 12000 years is responsible for language development. I stand by
my original criticism - this question should be removed, or the answer
substantially altered to reflect a valid 'evolution viewpoint'.
> Matt Silberstein
> -------------------------------
> The science from the stars, Astronomy, the career of evil
>
Until recently, my brother was a long time member of the astronomy
staff at Lowell Observatory. When asked once at a party what he did for
a living, he said he was an astronomer. The woman who asked the question
immediately responded "Why don't you get a real job?"
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
>On 6 Jun 1997 07:14:47 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
><"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Fred M. Williams wrote:
>>
[snip]
>>
>>> Moon recession.
>>
>>What is the moon recession rate?
>
>There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. This dating
>mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
>evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
>course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
>
Please show your work. You are asserting something that has been
refuted in this newsgroup already this month. If you have new
information we would love to see it.
>>
>>> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =
>>
>>Why?
>
>For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
>(1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
>BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
>classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
>doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
>placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
>came from.
Wow. How did that article get published. Aren't you complaining about
one-sided publications? Or is this just an anomaly? Anyway, has there
been any more work on this since 1972 or was it just ignored?
[snip]
Fred M. Williams
On 6 Jun 1997 07:06:25 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
<"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>Fred M. Williams wrote:
>
>> And on the novel occasion your secular buddies publish a study, such
>> as when Statistical Science refereed and reluctantly acknowledged the
>> validity of the Torah codes phenomenon,...
>
>"...reluctantly acknowledged the validity..."?? Published papers are not
>validated by virtue of being published, that is left to the evidence to
>so determine.
The evidence is irrefutable, therefore it has not been refuted. The
only possible explanation is dumb luck. But hey, dumb luck is the
backbone of evolution. The odds of the Torah codes happeneing by
chance is well into the quadrillions. I guess it could happen, heck
we got far luckier than that to have this amzingly complex world and
universe around us. Gee wiz we're so lucky!
>> 70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
>> treatment. =
>
>Do you support what the Catholic church did to galileo?
Of course not, too bad you can't read something and understand
content. I'm illustrating how you guys are HYPOCRITES!
>
>> Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. =
>
>These magazines simply report the evidence.
Yea, there's no bias, purely objective, yep. Its the same story,
different day. You evolutionist liberals will deny media bias, then
turn around and whine about a guy like Limbaugh being bias and
unobjective. The difference is Limbaugh knows and freely admits to
his bias, yet a guy like Dan Rather claims to be purely objective and
just reporting the news. He probably really believes this, but he's
only fooling himself and you goofy evolutionists!
Fred M. Williams
On 6 Jun 1997 16:08:25 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
wrote:
>>>
>>>> Moon recession.
>>>
>>>What is the moon recession rate?
>>
>>There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>>indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. This dating
>>mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
>>evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
>>course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
>>
>Please show your work. You are asserting something that has been
>refuted in this newsgroup already this month. If you have new
>information we would love to see it.
See previous post. Also post or send me the "refutation". Hopefully
you also will have the technical notes, as this involves in-depth
math, someothing that is not foriegn to my background. If it exposes
a flaw in Brown's math or software program, I'll be more than happy to
concede. If they do not, will you do the same ?
>>>
>>>> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =
>>>
>>>Why?
>>
>>For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
>>(1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
>>BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
>>classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
>>doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
>>placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
>>came from.
>
>Wow. How did that article get published. Aren't you complaining about
>one-sided publications? Or is this just an anomaly? Anyway, has there
>been any more work on this since 1972 or was it just ignored?
Oh, they try to appear un-biased and fair, just like Dan Rather trys
to be. When Scientific American or Nature accept ONE scientist who is
a creationist, then maybe we can talk. I'm sure this group has
already covered the well publicized case of that contract withdrawl by
SA to a qualified scientist after learning he was a creationist.
>
>[snip]
>
>Matt Silberstein
>-------------------------------
>The science from the stars, Astronomy, the career of evil
>
Huh?
Fred M. Williams
On 5 Jun 1997 16:53:42 -0400, sch...@ubiquity.cc.nd.edu (Thomas
Scharle) wrote:
>In article <339722...@interpath.com>, Ken Denny <kde...@interpath.com> writes:
>|> Mike Noren wrote:
>|> >
>|> > I take it you are here referring to the preposterous ad hoc
>|> > explanation the creationists has offered to explain away radioactive
>|> > dating: that the speed of light was 10000 times faster 6000 years ago.
>|>
>|> Exacly, and I have done extensive research on the slowdown of the speed
>|> of light and my calculation indicate that the speed of light will reach
>|> zero at exactly 7:20 AM EST on Nov 12, 1998. Things should be very
>|> interesting on the highways in the days just prior to that.
>
> Seriously ... what I have seen of the "slowdown of the speed of
>light" is that it stopped slowing down about 1960. I'm not making
>this up. They do some fancy curve-fitting, of a cosecant-squared
>or some such not-particularly-the-first-curve-that-I-would-have-
>thought-of variety (not the 17th, either) and then adjust it back
>about 4000 BCE (so it doesn't quite make it to infinity), and at
>about 1960 CE (coincidentally when measurements started becoming
>very precise, but also having the result that the speed of light
>doesn't start increasing).
The speed of light may be decreasing in relation to orbital time, but
not to atomic time since this is the measuring mechanism that began in
the 60s. Also, recently researchers have discovered a kind of axis
running through space indicating a "rotating" of light that would
cause the relative speed of light to slow down. Obviously much more
to discovered here.
Fred
Fred M. Williams
On 6 Jun 1997 12:37:34 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
<"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>> >Fred M. Williams wrote:
>> >
>> >> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
>> >> evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can=
>
>> >> rely on their dating tests. =3D
>> >
>> >Why? Do we need a time machine to rely on the fact that there was a
>> >Roman empire?
>> =
>> This rebuttal is completely moronic. =
>
>Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But how far back in time do we
>have to go before we *need* a time machine to verify our reasonings?
The oldest archeological evidence I know of is related to the Tower of
Babel. This outa get you anti-Bible lunatics churning!
>> To say that because we know
>> there was a Roman Empire with the many other internal and external
>> evidences and equate this to dating 1 billion year old rocks is beyond
>> ROTFL.
>
>Really? What evidence do you have otherwise?
>
>> >> Till then, we'll just have to put up with
>> >> the circular reasoning that goes on (here's a little secret - they
>> >> won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated =
>a
>> >> 200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
>> >
>> >Really? Did you ever read the paper where this information was
>> >originally published? Do you even know what was being tested?
>
>No answer to this question? =
Refer me to the FAQ, I'm sure there must be one in your amazing,
always accurate, 100% objective FAQ archive!
>
>> >> Moon recession.
>> >
>> >What is the moon recession rate?
>> =
>
>> There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>> indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. =
>
>OK.
>
>> This dating
>> mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
>> evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
>> course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
>
>What age does this mechanism date the earth to? Do you have a reference
>for this?
It doesn't date the earth, it shows the oldest possible age of the
moon at 1.2 billion years. Of course a moon orbiting so close to
earth would not permit life to exist for quite some time. The
ramifications for evolution are devastating. Only Newton's
graviational constant, a cornerstone of science, is the assumption.
Walt Brown's entire technical note, including computer program is
online at http://www.creationscience.com. Oh shoot, that's right, its
not peer-reviewed by dogmatic evolutionists. Oh well, I guess it
mustn't be true then. Maybe Galeleo was really wrong and the Sun is
orbiting us. Weve been lied to!
>
>> >> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =3D
>> >
>> >Why?
>> =
>
>> For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
>> (1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
>> BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
>> classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
>> doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
>> placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
>> came from.
>
>OK. I'll look this paper up. But you do realize that a 22 bya date kinda
>is *not* evidence for a 6,000 year old earth, don't you? ;-)
No, but its negative evidence for old earth argument. Only a chink,
but negative nevertheless.
>> >> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
>> >> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as t=
>he
>> >> one its trying to protect.
>> >
>> >Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
>> >system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
>> =
>
>> Shows again you don't know what the heck you are talking about. The
>> reversal theory applies to ocean floor magnetic anomalies, not your
>> Bary Mantilo stereo speakers. I'd cut back on the pot.
>
>Really? Is there a current in iron in the earth's core or not? Does not
>a current in iron make a magnetic field?
OK, enough of the obfuscating. Does the ocean floor have magnetic
reversals or not? This is one of the arguments <some> evolutionists
use against the reverse decay argument.
Fred M. Williams
On 5 Jun 1997 17:33:59 -0400, ev-mi...@SPAMSTOPnrm.se (Mike Noren)
wrote:
>
>No thanks, although it would be kindof interesting to see him explain
>away hominid fossils.
Quite easy, compared to you trying to explain away the utter lack of
trasitional fossils between micro-organisms to invertabrates, or
invertabrates to vertabrates. There should be BILLIONS of them yet
there are not. As a matter of fact, there's not ONE. Hmm. Why ?
Gould explained it away by saying it happened too fast. What's your
argument ?
Elmer Bataitis
Fred M. Williams wrote:
> On 6 Jun 1997 07:06:25 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
> >Fred M. Williams wrote:
> >> And on the novel occasion your secular buddies publish a study, such
> >> as when Statistical Science refereed and reluctantly acknowledged the
> >> validity of the Torah codes phenomenon,...
> >
> >"...reluctantly acknowledged the validity..."?? Published papers are not
> >validated by virtue of being published, that is left to the evidence to
> >so determine.
>
> The evidence is irrefutable, therefore it has not been refuted. The
> only possible explanation is dumb luck.
What hasn't been refuted? The Torah codes stuff, or the fact that the
paper was published?
> But hey, dumb luck is the
> backbone of evolution.
Certainly there are many examples that demonstrate this ;-)
> The odds of the Torah codes happeneing by
> chance is well into the quadrillions.
Hmmm, so we supposedly have a book written by god that contains codes to
prove it was written by god. Rather odd, don't you think? Sort of like
taking a book written by Gould and analyzing the word order to show that
it was written by Gould. To quote Matt Wiener, "Like DUH!"
> I guess it could happen, heck
> we got far luckier than that to have this amzingly complex world and
> universe around us. Gee wiz we're so lucky!
Is this sarcasm? You don't think we're lucky to inhabit this amazingly
complex universe?
> >> 70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
> >> treatment. =
> >
> >Do you support what the Catholic church did to galileo?
>
> Of course not, too bad you can't read something and understand
> content. I'm illustrating how you guys are HYPOCRITES!
I fail to follow this at all.
> >
> >> Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. =
> >
> >These magazines simply report the evidence.
>
> Yea, there's no bias, purely objective, yep. Its the same story,
> different day. You evolutionist liberals will deny media bias, then
> turn around and whine about a guy like Limbaugh being bias and
> unobjective. The difference is Limbaugh knows and freely admits to
> his bias, yet a guy like Dan Rather claims to be purely objective and
> just reporting the news. He probably really believes this, but he's
> only fooling himself and you goofy evolutionists!
Well, since this is not talk.media.personalities, I fail to see what
this has to do with biology.
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis “Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!”
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis
Fred M. Williams wrote:
> On 6 Jun 1997 12:37:34 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
> >> >Fred M. Williams wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> For those who care, Initial conditions is a real biggie. Once the
> >> >> evolutionists solve that one (with a time machine) then maybe we can rely > >> >> on their dating tests.
> >> >Why? Do we need a time machine to rely on the fact that there was a
> >> >Roman empire?
> >> This rebuttal is completely moronic.
> >Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But how far back in time do we
> >have to go before we *need* a time machine to verify our reasonings?
> The oldest archeological evidence I know of is related to the Tower of
> Babel. This outa get you anti-Bible lunatics churning!
You mean the story of how god decided to spread confusion among humans?
But how does this reply address the question I asked?
> >> To say that because we know
> >> there was a Roman Empire with the many other internal and external
> >> evidences and equate this to dating 1 billion year old rocks is beyond
> >> ROTFL.
> >
> >Really? What evidence do you have otherwise?
Asked but not answered.
> >>>> Till then, we'll just have to put up with
> >>>> the circular reasoning that goes on (here's a little secret - they
> >>>> won't do blind tests, cus when they do, they find out they've dated a
> >> >> 200 year old rock from Hawaii at 2 million years old!)
> >> >Really? Did you ever read the paper where this information was
> >> >originally published? Do you even know what was being tested?
> >No answer to this question?
> Refer me to the FAQ, I'm sure there must be one in your amazing,
> always accurate, 100% objective FAQ archive!
No, I won't do that to you. I'll just refer you to the original paper:
Funkhouser & Naughton (1968) “Radiogenic helium and argon in ultramafic
inclusions from Hawaii”, Journal of Geophysical Research 73: 4601-4607.
Note the title. It is about dating the inclusions (xenoliths) in the
lava, and is *not* about the age of the lava itself. The 200 year old
lava dates to essentially zero, as it should: “The matrix rock...indeed
can be said to contain no measurable,radiogenic argon within
experimental error.” (pg. 4603).
> >> >> Moon recession.
> >> >
> >> >What is the moon recession rate?
> >
> >> There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
> >> indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. =
> >
> >OK.
> >
> >> This dating
> >> mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
> >> evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
> >> course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
> >
> >What age does this mechanism date the earth to? Do you have a reference
> >for this?
> It doesn't date the earth, it shows the oldest possible age of the
> moon at 1.2 billion years.
By what method?
> Of course a moon orbiting so close to
> earth would not permit life to exist for quite some time.
Well, I looked at Brown's work and I saw nothing particularly
definitive. Did anyone else confirm his work? I especially want the use
of a constant recession rate checked for validity.
> The
> ramifications for evolution are devastating.
Why?
> Only Newton's
> graviational constant, a cornerstone of science, is the assumption.
No. He also assumes a constant rate of recession near as I can tell. And
his conclusion of 1.2 By is somewhat inconsistent with a 6,000 year old
earth and moon anyway.
> >> >> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =3D
> >> >
> >> >Why?
> >
> >> For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
> >> (1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
> >> BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
> >> classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
> >> doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
> >> placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
> >> came from.
> >
> >OK. I'll look this paper up. But you do realize that a 22 bya date kinda
> >is *not* evidence for a 6,000 year old earth, don't you? ;-)
>
> No, but its negative evidence for old earth argument. Only a chink,
> but negative nevertheless.
How does a date of 22By negatively impact a 5By date? Certainly it
screams "OLD", and not something like 6,000 years ;-). BTW your
reference is incorrect. I was unable to find this paper where you said
it was. Can you recheck your notes and repost the citation?
> >> >> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
> >> >>"reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
> >> >> one its trying to protect.
> >> >
> >> >Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
> >> >system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
> >
> >> Shows again you don't know what the heck you are talking about. The
> >> reversal theory applies to ocean floor magnetic anomalies, not your
> >> Bary Mantilo stereo speakers. I'd cut back on the pot.
> >
> >Really? Is there a current in iron in the earth's core or not? Does not
> >a current in iron make a magnetic field?
>
> OK, enough of the obfuscating. Does the ocean floor have magnetic
> reversals or not? This is one of the arguments <some> evolutionists
> use against the reverse decay argument.
Obfuscating? If you're claiming that there is a remnant magnetic field
in rocks, that's true. If you're claiming that we can see that this
field changes, that is also true. What are you implying? I have no idea.
You seem to feel that this somewhow is a problem for biology, and I just
don't see what you're getting at.
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
>On 6 Jun 1997 16:08:25 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>>> Moon recession.
>>>>
>>>>What is the moon recession rate?
>>>
>>>There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>>>indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. This dating
>>>mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
>>>evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
>>>course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
>>>
>>Please show your work. You are asserting something that has been
>>refuted in this newsgroup already this month. If you have new
>>information we would love to see it.
>
>See previous post.
I have seen your posts. You have not posted the work to show this. If
you did, then please provide the reference (when did you post it at
the least) and I will find it.
> Also post or send me the "refutation".
Sorry, you made the claim, you support it. Or you can look it up in
DejaNews. Like I said, I have seen the refutation twice, at least, in
May.
>Hopefully
>you also will have the technical notes, as this involves in-depth
>math, someothing that is not foriegn to my background. If it exposes
>a flaw in Brown's math or software program, I'll be more than happy to
>concede. If they do not, will you do the same ?
Why not present you work. I can take the technical stuff. But yes, if
you start out with valid assumptions and you valid math, then you will
have a pursuasive argument.
>>>>
>>>>> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =
>>>>
>>>>Why?
>>>
>>>For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
>>>(1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
>>>BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
>>>classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
>>>doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
>>>placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
>>>came from.
>>
>>Wow. How did that article get published. Aren't you complaining about
>>one-sided publications? Or is this just an anomaly? Anyway, has there
>>been any more work on this since 1972 or was it just ignored?
>
>Oh, they try to appear un-biased and fair, just like Dan Rather trys
>to be. When Scientific American or Nature accept ONE scientist who is
>a creationist, then maybe we can talk. I'm sure this group has
>already covered the well publicized case of that contract withdrawl by
>SA to a qualified scientist after learning he was a creationist.
Except now it turns out that the article you reference is not in that
issue of Nature. Did you know this? Have you actually read the
article?
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>Matt Silberstein
>>-------------------------------
>>The science from the stars, Astronomy, the career of evil
>>
>Huh?
A line from a album of many years ago. It does not mean anything, but
is sounds neat.
Matt Silberstein
-------------------------------
Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, 'The Origins of a
World War', spoke in terms of 'secret treaties', drawn up between the
Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These
treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The
career of evil.
Jan Friberg
On 3 Jun 1997 21:29:13 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
wrote:
>
>Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
>
Actually no dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
And for some claimed creationist dating methods none has passed
a scientifically critical test which is the case about established
dating methods used by scientist today.
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
[snip]
>
>The oldest archeological evidence I know of is related to the Tower of
>Babel. This outa get you anti-Bible lunatics churning!
>
What I don't understand is why you come in here and start insulting
people. You have been, ISTM, trying your best to attract flames rather
than discussion. Is this deliberate? Anyway, if you have a reference
to this Tower of Bable evidence I would love to look at it. I hope the
reference is better than your Nature reference though.
[snip]
>
>Refer me to the FAQ, I'm sure there must be one in your amazing,
>always accurate, 100% objective FAQ archive!
All you need to do, instead of attempts at sarcasm, is to point out
the errors in the FAQ. I don't think anyone has claimed the FAQ is
either 100% accurate or 100% objective. But until you point out a
specific error, we can't fix it.
[snip]
>
>It doesn't date the earth, it shows the oldest possible age of the
>moon at 1.2 billion years. Of course a moon orbiting so close to
>earth would not permit life to exist for quite some time. The
>ramifications for evolution are devastating. Only Newton's
>graviational constant, a cornerstone of science, is the assumption.
>Walt Brown's entire technical note, including computer program is
>online at http://www.creationscience.com. Oh shoot, that's right, its
>not peer-reviewed by dogmatic evolutionists. Oh well, I guess it
>mustn't be true then. Maybe Galeleo was really wrong and the Sun is
>orbiting us. Weve been lied to!
Looked again at his page. He makes all kinds of errors. As one major
problem he assumes that the shape of the oceans and the amount of
water has always been exactly what it is today. But my favorite, and
the one the stopped me cold was the step between equation 4 and 5. He
has constants C1 and C2 (which are really not constants). Then he says
"replacing all the constants by C". Wow. Suddenly something that was
proportional to mass becomes a constant fixed through time.
[snip]
>>OK. I'll look this paper up. But you do realize that a 22 bya date kinda
>>is *not* evidence for a 6,000 year old earth, don't you? ;-)
>
>No, but its negative evidence for old earth argument. Only a chink,
>but negative nevertheless.
Even if true, no number of these chinks will ever add up to support
for creationism. You have to actually present you theory and show the
evidence for it. Even if evolution is totally and completely
discredited, the default position is not creationism, but "I don't
know".
[snip]
>
>OK, enough of the obfuscating. Does the ocean floor have magnetic
>reversals or not? This is one of the arguments <some> evolutionists
>use against the reverse decay argument.
I am not sure what you are asking. The ocean floor has magnetically
aligned material. As you sample from the center you find different
polarity to the alignment.
Mike Noren
Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
: >> Moon recession.
: >
: >What is the moon recession rate?
(It is, if memory serves, one inch per year)
: There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
: indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. This dating
: mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
: evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
: course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
No it doesn't. Sorry. The recession rate has been checked by looking
at growth rings in 300 million year old corals, which would be
difficult if the moon had collided with the earth 6000 years ago in
the back-calculation.
: >
: >> Origin of the Moon, for that matter. =
: >
: >Why?
:
: For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
: (1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
: BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole
: classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
: doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
: placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with this
: came from.
Never heard of that study. Let me guess - they then went on to suggest
explanations for this anomaly, right? In the bit you DIDN'T quote?
: >> Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
: >> "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as the
: >> one its trying to protect.
: >
: >Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
: >system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
:
: Shows again you don't know what the heck you are talking about. The
: reversal theory applies to ocean floor magnetic anomalies, not your
: Bary Mantilo stereo speakers. I'd cut back on the pot.
You do that. Then perhaps you can tell us why you don't believe in
reversals in the earths magnetic field, and why you think this is a
dating technique (hint: the time between reversals isn't constant).
: Fred Williams
Michael Norén, Doctoral student, Tel: Int +46 (0)8 6664236
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Fax: Int +46 (0)8 666
Dept. of Invertebrate Zoology
P.O.B. 50007
S-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden
REMOVE THE WORD 'SPAMSTOP' IN MY ADDRESS TO MAIL ME
Mike Noren
Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
: >Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But how far back in time do we
: >have to go before we *need* a time machine to verify our reasonings?
:
: The oldest archeological evidence I know of is related to the Tower of
: Babel. This outa get you anti-Bible lunatics churning!
And re: the tower of babel we can say that a) it was nowhere near
'reaching the sky'; that concept is only valid if one thinks that
there is a material dome above the earth, and that that dome is
reachable with bronze-age building technology, and b) there were
already numerous languages in the world at the time.
Mike Noren
Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
: >> Sorry, most dating techniques point to a young earth and solar system.
: >
: >Full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature,
: >please.
: >
: >Chris
:
: Your anti-knowledge ilk just LUUUVs to hide behind your one-sided
: "science" magazines. Science derives from "knowledge", something
: many of your kind "know nothing" about. A secular science journal
: publishing creationist work is about as rare as a favorable mutation.
Etc.
I can't but help to notice that you do not in any way support your
assertion that "most dating techniques point to a young earth and
solar system".
: And on the novel occasion your secular buddies publish a study, such
: as when Statistical Science refereed and reluctantly acknowledged the
: validity of the Torah codes phenomenon, which BTW remains
: unchallenged, the evidence is ignored or riducled simply because it
: just may indicate there may be that GOD you try so desperately to
: aviod.
The torah/bible/koran codes have not remained unchallanged.
: 70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
: treatment. Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. Fortunately
"One sided magazines"? Imagine that. How do they manage to not have
atleast two sides to a paper?
: there are some intellectually honest evolutionists left, but
: hypocrites like you aren't worth the trouble.
Hot air and handwaving isn't proof.
:
: Fred Williams
Mike Noren
Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
: On 5 Jun 1997 17:33:59 -0400, ev-mi...@SPAMSTOPnrm.se (Mike Noren)
: wrote:
: >
: >No thanks, although it would be kindof interesting to see him explain
: >away hominid fossils.
:
: Quite easy,
(He says, then not touching on the subject further)
: compared to you trying to explain away the utter lack of
: trasitional fossils between micro-organisms to invertabrates, or
: invertabrates to vertabrates.
There are such fossils. You want invertebrate to vertebrate? Look at
Pikaia, look at the early armoured fishes.
: There should be BILLIONS of them yet
: there are not. As a matter of fact, there's not ONE. Hmm. Why ?
There's droves of them. Bucketloads.
There are several reasons why you think there are not:
1) You want 'transitionals' between groups. Transitionals are species
which, by antiquity and placement in the phylogenetic tree, and by
virtue of being discovered after two taxons has been defined, one of
which is rendered paraphyletic by the removal of the other, display
some diagnostic characteristics of both groups.
In short, the status of 'transitional' is a man-made taxonomic
artifact, and if all taxa were monophyletic (=purely reflecting
evolution) then there would be no transitionals at all.
2) You don't accept the transitionals which exist. Not because the
concept of transitionals is an artifact, which would be an somewhat
acceptable position (although not an argument against evolution), but
because you don't understand that evolution isn't lateral: you want
transitionals between, say crocs and birds or prokaryotes and
eukaryoutes - a "half-bird/half-croc" or "half prokaryote/half
eukaryote) chimera which clearly can never have existed, and which
noone but creationists propose have existed.
: Gould explained it away by saying it happened too fast. What's your
: argument ?
Gould does not say that there are no transitionals. He actually says
they are common. What he says are rare (NOT non-existant) is
intermediates; species which can be shown to be _directly_ ancestral
to a particular later species.
Personally I think this is a misunderstanding stemming from how
species are detected and how relationship is analyzed in paleontology;
firstly lots of 'species' in paleontology is 'chrono species', that is
a population which moves through time and changes in morphology, but
which does not give rise to new species - no speciation has occurred.
Secondly the methods used in phylogenetic analyses _cannot_ state with
certainty that a species is another species direct ancestor.
The bottom line?
* Transitionals aren't real. They are not a pattern of evolution.
But they are common as muck in the fossil record because paraphyletic
groups are common as muck in taxonomy. This is the class you don't
think exist.
* Intermediates are real in that they have existed and can be
inferred. What one cannot do is to say that any particular fossil
species is an intermediate - it is a statement which cannot be either
proven or disproven without prior knowledge. However, this is the
class you believe exist, since we're here talking species-level
evolution.
Conclusion: You do not have an argument.
(You will probably interpret what little you understand of this post
as a knee-jerk defence of Gould. As it happens I am not a fan of
Gould, and wouldn't hesitate a second to trash his ideas on this ng -
in fact I have on a couple of occasions. However, he simply does not
say what you claim he says, and punc eq does not imply what you think
it implies.)
Cemtech
In article <3398f76a...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com says...
> On 5 Jun 1997 17:33:59 -0400, ev-mi...@SPAMSTOPnrm.se (Mike Noren)
> wrote:
> >
> >No thanks, although it would be kindof interesting to see him explain
> >away hominid fossils.
>
> trasitional fossils between micro-organisms to invertabrates,
How would expect such organisms to fossilize?
> invertabrates to vertabrates.
Same.
> There should be BILLIONS of them yet
> there are not.
Why do you expect billions? Do you expect every carcass to fossilize?
Please demonstrate your knowledge of fossilization.
----------------------------
Steve "Chris" Price
Associate Professor of Computational Aesthetics
Amish Chair of Electrical Engineering
University of Ediacara "A fine tradition since 530,000,000 BC"
ra...@kaiwan.com OR Cem...@pacbell.net
Cemtech
In article <339822b0...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com says...
> On 6 Jun 1997 07:14:47 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
> >Why? Do we need a time machine to rely on the fact that there was a
> >Roman empire?
>
> This rebuttal is completely moronic. To say that because we know
> there was a Roman Empire with the many other internal and external
> evidences and equate this to dating 1 billion year old rocks is beyond
> ROTFL.
Translation: Duh.
Frank....@drn.zippo.com
(snip:
Only Newton's
>>graviational constant, a cornerstone of science, is the assumption.
>>Walt Brown's entire technical note, including computer program is
>>online at http://www.creationscience.com. Oh shoot, that's right, its
>>not peer-reviewed by dogmatic evolutionists. Oh well, I guess it
>>mustn't be true then. Maybe Galeleo was really wrong and the Sun is
>>orbiting us. Weve been lied to!
(snip)
Walt Brown's web site is an unmitigated collection of pseudo-scientific
nonsense. Please see the detailed discussion in section
http://users.deltanet.com/~fsteiger/debunk.htm of my web site for details.
Tim Thompson
Fred Williams takes for granted Walter Brown's assertions on the
young age of the earth based on the tidal recession of the moon away
from the earth. But Walter Brown's work is not very convincing, as
I already demonstrated last March (and repeat here).
This is a particularly long post, but I think the inconvenience
will be worth it. I have included a copy of my own post from last
March 14, and I have also appended two significant responses, on the
presumption that the original authors Grumbine & Kluge will not
object. The result is a post that has essentially everything under
one roof, so to speak, on the matter of the tidal recession of the
moon away from the earth. My post includes references to significant
papers from the literature to support my claims and arguments.
The argument from lunar recession is quite peculiar because
even Brown cannot force the issue to an age less than 1.2 bilion
years, which hardly seems to me like a comfort to someone who wants
to argue that the earth is 6000 years old. It is also peculiar
because it is an extremely rare example of technical competence on
the part of a young-earth creationist. Brown does his mathematics
correctly so far as I can tell; but, alas, he solves the wrong problem,
and so not surprisingly gets the wrong answer.
In article <3398f145...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com
(Fred M. Williams) writes:
> On 6 Jun 1997 16:08:25 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com
> (Matt Silberstein) wrote:
[Williams ... ]
>>> There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>>> indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise. This dating
>>> mechanism puts the maximum possible age of the earth well below
>>> evolutionist estimates, enough to utterly destroy the theory (of
>>> course they'd dream up some other fair tale).
[Matt ... ]
>> Please show your work. You are asserting something that has been
>> refuted in this newsgroup already this month. If you have new
>> information we would love to see it.
[Williams ... ]
> See previous post. Also post or send me the "refutation". Hopefully
> you also will have the technical notes, as this involves in-depth
> math, someothing that is not foriegn to my background. If it exposes
> a flaw in Brown's math or software program, I'll be more than happy to
> concede. If they do not, will you do the same ?
###
And Williams also has this to say, responding to Elmer Bataitis ...
In article <3398ed35...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com
(Fred M. Williams) writes:
> On 6 Jun 1997 12:37:34 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>> What age does this mechanism date the earth to? Do you have a reference
>> for this?
[Williams ... ]
> It doesn't date the earth, it shows the oldest possible age of the
> moon at 1.2 billion years. Of course a moon orbiting so close to
> earth would not permit life to exist for quite some time. The
> ramifications for evolution are devastating. Only Newton's
> graviational constant, a cornerstone of science, is the assumption.
> Walt Brown's entire technical note, including computer program is
> online at http://www.creationscience.com. Oh shoot, that's right, its
> not peer-reviewed by dogmatic evolutionists. Oh well, I guess it
> mustn't be true then. Maybe Galeleo was really wrong and the Sun is
> orbiting us. Weve been lied to!
###
In article <5ncl96$k...@drn.zippo.com>,
Frank....@drn.zippo.com writes:
> (snip)
> Walt Brown's web site is an unmitigated collection of pseudo-scientific
> nonsense. Please see the detailed discussion in section
> http://users.deltanet.com/~fsteiger/debunk.htm of my web site for details.
Steiger does indeed take on Walter Brown's web pages, but so far as I
can see does not specifically address the particular question here: the tidal
recession of the moon away from the earth. I have already addressed this in
some detail myself, and the easiest thing to do now is to include a copy of
my detailed post from last March 14. Copies of two significant responses, from
Robert Grumbine and Mark Kluge are included for completeness.
====================================
Begin Included Copy of March 14 Post
====================================
From tim Fri Mar 14 11:34:04 1997
Distribution:
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Followup-To:
References: <5g1dob$t...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>
From: t...@aster.jpl.nasa.gov (Tim Thompson)
Reply-To: t...@aster.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: NASA/JPL, Terrestrial Science Research Element
Subject: Re: Moon Orbit (was Re: DIY Ark?)
Summary:
Keywords:
In article <5g1dob$t...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, swa...@bnr.ca
(Stephen Watson) writes:
> Yeesh, not only do they not read FAQs, they can't do simple
> arithmetic.
> In article <5fvs21$i...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>,
> Edward L. Mincher <ed...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> [......]
>> We are not always very good at portraying past events via leftover
>> evidence, even extreme changes. For example the orbit of the moon
>> expands about three inches per year (some say 4 cm). This means that
>> not very long ago it came up form the earth or was captured by it.
[Watson ... ]
> How long ago was the moon part of the earth?
>
> Present radius of moon's orbit = ~400000km.
> 400000km / (4cm/year) = 10 billion years, i.e. about twice the total
> age of the earth.
>
> This assumes a constant rate of recession, which is a bad assumption,
> but it would have to vary by a *lot* to make the numbers much
> different. BTW, there *is* a FAQ on this.
Elementary, Dr. Watson :-)
This argument, that the moon's rate of recession is too fast for
evolutionary time scales, is one of the old stand-by young-earth
creationist arguments. It is even enshrined in good-looking math
on Walter Brown's web pages.
[ See
[ http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/technicalnotes/moonrecession.html ]
Walter Brown's calculation is, not surprisingly, bogus, but more on
that later. The currently accepted recession rate of the moon from the
earth, based on lunar laser ranging, is 3.82 +/- 0.07 cm/yr. If we use
the strict uniformitarian assumption, then over 4,500,000,000 years this
amounts to 17,190,000,000 cm or 171,900 km. The semimajor axis of the
lunar orbit (which is also the mean distance for one orbit) is about
384,400 km. That puts the moon 212,500 km from the earth 4.5 billion
years ago. The Roche limit, that is the distance from the earth where
tidal forces would tear the moon apart, is 2.97 Earth radii, or 18,922 km.
212,500 is rather larger than 18,922, and so we see that even using
a strictly uniformitarian assumption, no obvious violation of either
physics, or a reasonable history for the earth-moon system has occurred.
Watson is quite right.
---
{ In message <5gd8r4$bqp$1...@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> dated March 15 Tom Swanson }
{ made this remark in response ... }
TS> If I may pick a nit - it is more accurate, I think, to say that this
TS> is a *linear* assumption. It is a uniformitarian assumption in that
TS> the same forces are thought to act, but I don't think that uniformity
TS> necessarily implies that the rate must be the same.
---
[Mincher ... ]
>> ... It
>> also means that even more recently it was a lot closer and thus
>> causing dramatic (profound) changes in weather.
[[Watson ... ]
> This must be some peculiar Creationist usage of the terms "recently"
> and "a lot closer" with which I am not familiar.
Indeed, it is very important to define 'recently' in this context,
which also brings us to Walter Brown's bogus calculation. A very simple
description of the earth-moon tidal interaction is that the moon raises
a bulge on the earth, which the rotation of the earth moves out in front
of the radial line between the earth and the moon. That bulge slings the
moon around, transferring momentum from the earth to the moon, which
speeds up the moon, and causes it to recede from the earth.
Brown uses this model with no further modifications. He uses the same
recession rate I have here, and the same orbital distance for the moon.
He (correctly) realizes that the uniformitarian assumption is wrong, and
comes up with a probable age for the earth-moon system of 1.2 billion
years, which is a reasonable result given his input assumptions (it is
also interesting to note Brown's comment that it took him 13 years to
figure this all out, when the level of the problem he actually solves
is about what one would expect for a graduate student homework problem).
But, of course, Brown realizes that 1.2 billion years is not very helpful
if you think the universe is less than 10,000 years old (even if he does
not actually say so explicitly). That's when the fast dancing starts.
After having dazzeled the reader with a typical page of greek-letter
filled mathematics to get his 1.2 billion years, Brown suddenly retreats
to the comfort of prose, where everything goes. In a heartbeat he decides
that the earth must have been much less rigid in the past than it is now
(a poor assumption under these conditions), that the recession rate must
have been much faster in the past (not so poor an assumption *if* the
simple input model is taken as-is), and that 1.2 billion years is the
upper limit on the age of the moon. Note that here he switches from the
dynamic age of the earth-moon system, and says this is the upper limit
on the age of the moon itself. Then he simply says without any other
justification "It could be much less such as 6,000 to 10,000 years".
Voila; just one snap of the fingers, and 1.2 billion years becomes
10,000 years. But even more hilarious is Brown's sudden and unjustified
statement that, 1.2 billion years ago, "Tides exceeding a mile in height
would have swept the earth twice a day for millions of years".
The problem is that Brown's model is very simple, no more complicated
than the original models from 1879/1880 that George Darwin proposed
[George, by the way, was Charles Darwin's son (nephew perhaps?) and was
the first person too propose the problem]. Modern investigators realize
that ocean tides are more important than solid body tides, that plate
tectonics and continental drift have a profound effect on the tidal
forces between the earth and the moon, and that internal viscous
dissipation in both the earth and the moon cannot be ignored. One major
consequence of this is that the sudden formation of the earth's solid
core is a major perturbation that pushes the moon away from the earth
suddenly (in a geological sense).
All of this has to be considered in ferocious detail, and the real
models, unlike Brown's, are really complicated. It is only fairly
recently, with the advent of newer computational capabilites, that
really detailed models could be calculated. Those who want to see the
current state of knowledge in detail should see Kagan & Maslova (1994)
and Touma & Wisdom (1994). For those who want to see how the problem
developed, add Goldreich (1966) and Hansen (1982). Goldreich set the
pace for the modern investigation, by examining the problem in more
rigorous detail than had been the case before, and Hansen was the first
to actively include the effects of continental drift. And of course, if
you want to see where it all began, then you want to find Darwin
(1879,1880). Darwin was the first to approach the problem at all.
Watson had already made the point clear enough, that the argument
was simply wrong. But I want to emphasize another aspect of all this,
which is why I have intentionally gone into some detail. It is very
typical of the young-earth creationists, that they latch on to some
problem that they perceive in science, and then jump to wild and
eternal conclusions about the meaning and impact of that problem.
Scientists have been laboring collectively over the problem of
describing the earth-moon tidal interaction since 1878; it's a tough
problem, and there is no reason to assume that it should have been
quickly solved. When the modern young-earth creationist movement
took off, there really were a lot of unanswered questions. The real
scientists just kept plugging away at it, and after a few decades,
made real progress, to the point where realistic computations are
already the order of the day, including the full array of physical
conditions required. But the young-earth creationists instead
exaggerated the effect of the problem, by declaring that "evolutionist's"
inability to fully answer all questions on the spot meant that they
really knew nothing at all, and then froze themselves in place. They
have ignored everthing done to solve the problem, they do not even
now that the literature exists, they live in a pretend world where
the problem remains totally intractable. This is not surprising,
especially in light of Brown's own admission that it took him 13
years to figure out what amounts to a homework problem, and is less
impressive than what George Darwin did over 100 years before.
Finally, this problem is mentioned in the FAQ archive
[ http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/old-earth.html#l17 ]
but no detail is given. I hope to produce a more appropriate FAQ file
on the topic myself, when time permits.
REFERENCES
Darwin, G.H.
"On the precession of a viscous spheroid and on the remote history of
the earth"
Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 170: 447-530, 1879
Darwn, G.H.
"On the secular change in the elements of the orbit of a satellite
revolving about a tidally distorted planet"
Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 171: 713-891, 1880
Goldreich, Peter
"History of the Lunar Orbit"
Reviews of Geophysics, 4(4): 411-439, November 1966
Hansen, Kirk S.
"Secular Effects of Oceanic Tidal Dissipation on the Moon's Orbit
and the Earth's Rotation"
Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics, 20(3): 457-480, August 1982
Kagan, B.A. & Maslova, N.B.
"A Stochastic Model of the Earth-Moon Tidal Evolution Accounting for
Cyclic Variations of Resonant Properties of the Ocean: An Asymptotic
Soluton"
Earth, Moon and Planets, 66: 173-188, 1994
Touma, Jihad & Wisdom, Jack
"Evolution of the Earth Moon System"
Astronomical Journal, 108(5): 1943-1961, November 1994
[See in particular, figures 8,14,20, and 27, which plot the lunar orbit
semimajor axis with time. See also page 1959, section 5.3, "Goldreich
revisited". There we find the remark "It was sobering to find, a few
decades after its inception, that Goldreich's brush stroke captured
the essence of the dynamics".]
==================================
End Included Copy of March 14 Post
==================================
Robert Grumbine expanded on the importance of the ocean tides.
==============================================================================
Subject: Re: Moon Orbit (was Re: DIY Ark?)
From: rm...@access5.digex.net (Robert Grumbine)
Date: 1997/03/17
Message-Id: <5gjqtq$4...@access5.digex.net>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
[More Headers]
In article <5gc97d$d...@netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov>,
Tim Thompson <t...@aster.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
[deletia]
> The problem is that Brown's model is very simple, no more complicated
>than the original models from 1879/1880 that George Darwin proposed
>[George, by the way, was Charles Darwin's son (nephew perhaps?) and was
>the first person too propose the problem].
Son.
>Modern investigators realize
>that ocean tides are more important than solid body tides, that plate
>tectonics and continental drift have a profound effect on the tidal
>forces between the earth and the moon, and that internal viscous
>dissipation in both the earth and the moon cannot be ignored.
To elaborate a little bit as to why the ocean is more important than
the solid earth:
If the bulge that the lunar tide raised in the earth pointed precisely
towards the moon, there would be no tidal 'drag'. The 'solid' earth
responds largely elastically, with an order 90 minute adjustment time.
The ocean, in contrast, responds by sending (long) surface waves around
the globe. These waves have an adjustment time of more like a day. The
mismatch in response times ensures that the oceans are less well adjusted
to the tidal force than the solid earth, so it is they who provide
most of the torque.
Continental drift becomes important in that it changes the size and
shape of the oceans, and hence the response times of the ocean to the
tidal forces.
George Darwin, by the way, worked on tide for much of his career,
and did a lot of very good work. He also wrote an excellent book
on the subject (I'd say he's a better writer than his father, but
this is probably colored by the fact that I'm an oceanographer rather
than a biologist). If you have a 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica around,
the tides article (fairly lengthy) was by G. H. Darwin as well.
==============================================================================
And Mark Kluge expanded on the criticism of Brown's model as over simplistic.
==============================================================================
Subject: Re: Moon Orbit (was Re: DIY Ark?)
From: mkl...@wizard.net
Date: 1997/03/19
Message-Id: <8587989...@dejanews.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
[More Headers]
In article <5gc97d$d...@netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov>,
t...@aster.jpl.nasa.gov wrote:
> In article <5g1dob$t...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, swa...@bnr.ca
> (Stephen Watson) writes:
> [Watson ... ]
> > How long ago was the moon part of the earth?
> > Present radius of moon's orbit = ~400000km.
> > 400000km / (4cm/year) = 10 billion years, i.e. about twice the total
> > age of the earth.
> > This assumes a constant rate of recession, which is a bad
> > assumption, but it would have to vary by a *lot* to make the
> > numbers much different. BTW, there *is* a FAQ on this.
> Elementary, Dr. Watson :-)
> This argument, that the moon's rate of recession is too fast for
> evolutionary time scales, is one of the old stand-by young-earth
> creationist arguments. It is even enshrined in good-looking math
> on Walter Brown's web pages.
> [ See http://www.creationscience.com/
> onlinebook/technicalnotes/moonrecession.html]
> Walter Brown's calculation is, not surprisingly, bogus...
<snip>
> A very simple description of the earth-moon tidal interaction is
> that the moon raises a bulge on the earth, which the rotation of
> the earth moves out in front of the radial line between the earth
> and the moon. That bulge slings the moon around, transferring
> momentum from the earth to the moon, which speeds up the moon,
> and causes it to recede from the earth.
The model of the moon raising a bulge on the rotating earth nonaligned
with the centers of the earth and moon is useful for explaining some
simple features of ocean tides, such as the occurrence of two high-tides
per day and their correlation with the apparent motions of the moon.
However, the model contains NOTHING of the physics of the moon's
recession. For that one needs to include the dissipative processes of
tidal friction.
The simplest model consists of the moon above a nonrotating earth covered
with an ocean of uniform depth and density, but with no friction between
the ocean and the earth’s surface, or viscous friction within the ocean.
The moon would cause a tidal bulge to appear on both the region of the
earth directly facing the moon, and an approximately symmetric bulge in
the region directly opposite. The tidal bulges would be aligned with the
centers of the earth and moon.
The extension of this simple model to include the rotating earth was
considered by Pierre LaPlace in about 1775. He found that the tidal
bulges would be misaligned with the earth and moon centers, and that the
misalignment would depend upon both the earth's rotation rate and the
depth of the uniform ocean. The misalignment, however, would be
time-independent.
Since there is no friction between the ocean and the model earth, there
can be no transfer of angular momentum between the moon and earth.
Despite this lack of friction, the model does predict a misalignment of
the tidal bulge. Therefore, it impossible to learn anything about
transfer of angular momentum between the earth and moon using a
tide-model including tidal-bulge misalignment, but not friction.
Since there is no feature of Brown's model present with friction but
absent without, his model can say nothing about transfers of angular
momentum between earth and moon, and his estimate of the time of
recession of the moon to its present orbit is physically worthless.
Brown's model involves, although he does not say it in such terms, the
application of a torque by the moon on equal-sized tidal bulges on
opposite sides of the earth. While the bulges are, to a crude first
approximation, of equal size, they are not exactly so. If there were no
tidal friction, then the net torque of the moon on the two bulges, of
slightly different shapes, would be exactly zero.
In considering tidal friction, it is essential to note that most of the
tidal friction comes from tidal currents interacting with the bottoms of
SHALLOW seas (such as, in our era, the Berring Sea), and the breaking of
tides along the shorelines of continents and islands. Obviously the sea
level and extent and geometry of shorelines has varied considerably
during the earth's geological history. It is absurd to rely
quantitatively upon a model (such as Brown's) that does not, and cannot,
take such changes into account.
Brown's calculation is valueless.
> (it is also interesting to note Brown's comment that it took him
> 13 years to> figure this all out, when the level of the problem
> he actually solves is about what one would expect for a graduate
> student homework problem).
That is too generous to Brown. After deriving his (unphysical) differential
equation, he solves it numerically using EULER'S METHOD! (See Brown's "final
equation" labeled "from (5)", "from(9)" and "from(7).")
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/technicalnotes/moonrecession.html.)
Everyone who has taken a sophomore undergraduate course on differential
equations has encountered Euler's Method as the simplest prototype for other
numerical methods. Although conceptually simple, Euler's method is NEVER used in
obtaining useful quantitative solutions to differential equations, except as a
first, crude approximation. The method's local error is of order of the step
size used. Just about any other numerical method for numerically solving
ordinary differential equations would be better. Every competent undergraduate
Differential Equations instructor in the world emphasizes that Euler's method
isn't used in practice. Brown has no excuse for its usage here, especially to a
largely innumerate audience.
==============================================================================
Tim Thompson
> On 6 Jun 1997 12:37:34 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>> Really? Is there a current in iron in the earth's core or not? Does not
>> a current in iron make a magnetic field?
[Williams ... ]
> OK, enough of the obfuscating. Does the ocean floor have magnetic
> reversals or not?
Yes it does. The evidence left behind by reversals of the earth's magnetic
field is so compelling and obvious that even arch-creationist D. Russell
Humphreys has abaondoned the old party line and accepted the reality of the
obvious. However, he has tried to compress the entire sequence of reversals
into a very short time in order to salvage a young age for the earth.
> This is one of the arguments <some> evolutionists
> use against the reverse decay argument.
The fallacy of the magnetic field decay argument for a young earth is
dealt with in detail by my own FAQ article on the subject:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/magfields.html
You can also consult the very relevant book "Reversals of the Earth's
Magnetic Field" by J.A. Jacobs, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press,
1994.
Stephen F. Schaffner
In article <339822b0...@news.prodigy.net>,
Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
>>What is the moon recession rate?
>
>There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise.
This is physically nonsensical. You can't calculate a rate of recession
assuming only an unvarying gravitational constant, since the recession
requires tidal friction, and the amount of friction depends strongly on
the details of the bodies in question.
[...]
[regarding moon dust]
>W. Brown's technical paper on this stands by itself. A few attempts
>have been made to address his technical note, and he has since pointed
>out legitimate flaws in their analysis. If necessary I will post it
>in the future, but only if you REALLY need to see it and if you
>understand integrals (must have gone through at least Calculus 2).
I've read it before, and been decidedly unimpressed with it. The
math isn't difficult (although it is surprisingly convoluted); as a
piece of physics it is basically worthless. He makes an arbitrary
assumption in handling the data (vary the assumption and the answer
changes by a factor of twenty or more), and uses a clearly incorrect
physical model. (He assumes that, in a large impact on the moon, 100%
of the impacting material will be 1) vaporized, and 2) deposited on
fragments of lunar surface. (1) is reasonable, (2) is probably grossly
wrong; at any rate, it's offered without support or comment by Brown).
I dare say other criticisms could be offered.
That you offer badly flawed arguments isn't too surprising -- I've
made plenty of badly flawed arguments in my time. That you do so
without bothering to check their validity in any way depresses me, but
doesn't surprise me either. What surprises me is that you offer them
with such arrogance and contempt toward those you are addressing.
Just what are you trying to accomplish here, anyway? My impression of
Christianity has always been that it considers both truthfulness and
humility to be virtues. Is it really your desire to demonstrate
otherwise?
I assume, by the way, that your arguments are offered sincerely. Trolls,
of whatever flavor, I have no use for at all.
Steve Schaffner ssc...@slac.stanford.edu
Opinions expressed may be mine, and || Immediate assurance is an excellent sign
may not be those of SLAC, || of probable lack of insight into the
Stanford University, or the DOE. || topic. Josiah Royce
Jan Friberg
On 5 Jun 1997 06:54:22 -0400, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>high degree of overlap and the similarity of non gene sequences is strong
>evidence of common descent.
>
I agree that we have support for this in science
>Separate creation by a common designer may produce many identical genes
>for mammalian physiology but would not be expected to include identical
>non functioning sequences with a pattern of increasing divergence that
>matches divergencence of physical characteristics and is entirely
>consistent with common descent unless the designer deliberately wanted to
>give the incorrect impression that common descent had occurred and this
>latter possibility is inconsistent with the nature of God since he tells
>us he is the truth.
But I don't see any support for this in the Bible, which don't say
anything about genes or common descent.
>> Yes from dust not from some other animal.
>
>From dust as a starting point, possible intermediate stages are not specified.
It's not written that it was dust as a starting point. I think the
Bible could be more specificic if it would like to say dust n form of
an animal was formed to be the first human.
>
>If God causes something to happen that would not happen according to
>normal physical processes that is a miracle and Genesis records that God
>caused the flood to happen.
>
Maybe the ultimate cause for the flood to happen but I don't think we
could say the same about what is supposed to have happened during the
flood and the expected consequences of it.
>A few people have commented about this point, I tried when writing it to
>examine the situation objectively and I am not expressing an opinion on
>fairness. My point is that from a logical and objective point of view the
>bible might be right and therefore of great value and evolution might be
>wrong. If a person misleads another to accept a falsehood - that evolution
>is known to be correct - and is wrong, then they have potentially done a
>very harmful thing to another person if they cause them to lose something
>valuable they might otherwise have gained by accepting the bible.
>
For this to be passible we also must assume that the person in
question must have been told that evolution can't be true according to
the Bible which has to be interpreted literally.And I think we have
very good reasons to believe that the whole Bible can't be litarally
true. So if someone loses eternal life for not believing in the Bible
literally I think it's unfair.
>I don't think this about radiometric dating although I have my doubts
>about thermoluminesence.
Why?
> the current copy we have of the origianal Genesis
>manuscript may be in error although there may be other possibilities.
If there are errors in the Genesis manuscript is it then not possible
to think that there could be errors in the other Bible manuscripts?
Jan Friberg
On 7 Jun 1997 01:36:31 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
wrote:
>The speed of light may be decreasing in relation to orbital time, but
>not to atomic time since this is the measuring mechanism that began in
>the 60s.
What do you mean? There or not two kinds of time, orbital and atomic
time, only times measured in seconds with different methods.
>running through space indicating a "rotating" of light that would
>cause the relative speed of light to slow down. Obviously much more
>to discovered here.
References please.
Elmer Bataitis
Douglas Weller wrote:
> On 6 Jun 1997 17:46:25 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
> >> > >Fred M. Williams wrote:
> >> > For starters, see Hale, Arden, Hutchison, Nature, vol 240, pg 57
> >> > (1972). Based on moon rocks and conflicting dates as high as 22
> >> > BILLION years, they concluded "It therefore follows that the whole=
> >> > classical interpretation of the meteorite lead isotope data is in
> >> > doubt, and the radiometric estimates of the age of the earth are
> >> > placed in jeopardy". Yea, evolution is a fact, Yup. More with t=
his
> >> > came from.
> >
> >Well, I looked for this one. Page 57 of volume 240 of Nature for 1972 =
is
> >part of the book reviews page. There were reviews of the following:
> >"Natural Science in English, 1600-1900"; "Combinatorics"; and "Drugs a=
nd
> >Driving". Nothing about moon rocks at all. One of the later pubs in th=
e
> >240 volume had some stuff on moon rocks, but I did not find the author=
s
> >listed above among the authors cited in the table of contents.
> >
> >Can you give me a corrected reference?
> =
> He must have found this 2nd hand, could be made up.
It was certainly second hand, and had but a tenuous connection to
reality. This took a long search of vol 240 (from which I found nothing)
and then a search of the 1972 Nature index. I found *Gale* cited on page
378. I went there and it was reference to his work elsewhere. I then hit
the Science Citation Index and finally found the actual authors and
title for Fred's cite:
N. H. Gale (NB: *NOT* Hale), J. Arden and R. Hutchsio (NB: *NOT*
Hutchinson); "The Uranium-Lead Chronology of Chrondritic Meteorites"
Nature Physical Science, Vol 240; pg 56.
My library doesn't have this journal. I will request a copy via ILL
tomorrow.
It will be interesting to see whether or not the quotation Fred posted
was out of context, or incorrect. Yea, this citation is a fact, Yup? =
More where this came from? More later.
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis =93Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!=94
Planetech Services -Hobbes
716-442-2884 =
******************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis
wf...@enter.netxx
On 7 Jun 1997 00:27:00 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
wrote:
You evolutionist liberals will deny media bias
well since scientists come in all political stripes what about
CONSERVATIVE evolutionists? kind of smokes your argument..
, then
>turn around and whine about a guy like Limbaugh being bias and
>unobjective.
a creationist is about as objective as a voodoo priest...for the same
reason..both are pushing their religious ideology.
He probably really believes this, but he's
>only fooling himself and you goofy evolutionists!
>
yeah scientists are pretty stupid...had zip to do with inventing your
computer, did we? wasnt that invented at the institute for creation
research? didnt they win the nobel prize for it?....
delete the xx from my email address to reply
wf...@enter.netxx
On 7 Jun 1997 01:21:57 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
wrote:
>
>See previous post. Also post or send me the "refutation"
of course, no creationist can answer 2 simple questions
1. why do only fundies believe in creationism?
2. why do scientists accept evolution
arguing science with a creationist is a waste of time. they dont
understand it, they dont accept it, and they twist data to fit their
religious belief that the bible is a science book.
wf...@enter.netxx
On 7 Jun 1997 01:48:15 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
wrote:
>>away hominid fossils.
>
>Quite easy, compared to you trying to explain away the utter lack of
>trasitional fossils between micro-organisms to invertabrates, or
>invertabrates to vertabrates. There should be BILLIONS of them yet
whats REALLY embarrassing is the fact that by the creationists own
logic, their argument fails. if there was a worldwide flood
catastrophe 6000 yrs ago there SHOULD be billions of dead carcasses.
aint none. what creationists say is damaging to science is fatal to
creationism.
wf...@enter.netxx
On 7 Jun 1997 01:36:31 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
wrote:
Also, recently researchers have discovered a kind of axis
>running through space indicating a "rotating" of light that would
>cause the relative speed of light to slow down. Obviously much more
>to discovered here.
>
>
uh, no they havent. 2 researchers THINK they MAY have found something.
thats quite a bit different than what you say.
but being a creationist, you dont understand science so im not
surprised at your statement.
wf...@enter.netxx
On 5 Jun 1997 04:03:11 -0400, jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
>environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
>advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
>the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
>
1. why not?
2. how do you know this is the only type of behavior associated with
language?
3. your answer contains its own ideological bias and disqualifies you
as an objective observer.
Jeffrey Cox
t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov wrote:
> Since my own earlier reply has not propagated this far yet, I will
> tack my extended comments onto Matt's post.
>
> In article <339be901...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, mat...@ix.netcom.com
> (Matt Silberstein) writes:
>
> > In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
> > jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
> > [snip]
> >> No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
> >> selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
> >> sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
> >> brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
> >> environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
> >> advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
> >> the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
>
> [Matt ... ]
> > Do you always give up this easily? You present one factor (banging
> > rocks together) and say it is insufficient, so therefore we must
> > change the rules. Now please show your work that demonstrates that
> > increased use of various tools and increased sociality would not
> > create a substrate that allowed some sort of language.
>
> Of course Cox's implication is that 12000 years of *biological evolution*
> is presumed to be responsible for the intellectual changes in humanity over
> that same time period. But no 'evolutionist' I ever ran across has argued
> that biological evolution could work so fast. Hence, that which Cox has
> labeled the 'evolution viewpoint' is not that at all, assuming that
> 'evolution viewpoint' is intended to refer to what 'evolutionists' actually
> say and/or do, as opposed to Cox's own private version thereof.
Tim, maybe you were having a bad day. I know I have sometimes posted
replies when I was tired and not expressed things as clearly as I
otherwise would. Anyway, you appear to have missed the point and responded
to something that you think I might have said.
My point is not that language developed very recently but that technology
has progressed incredibly rapidly and that the intellectual skills
associated with modern technology require a sophistication in brain
function beyond that required in the physical and cultural environment of
12000 years ago or earlier. I pointed out that mutations and natural
selection could not produce such an improvement in thinking skills in this
short time and suggest that the sophistication of modern human thought is
therefore evidence of intelligent design.
I will modify the next version of the FAQ to make my existing point more
clearly.
> As I said before, the correct 'evolution viewpoint' is that biological
> evolution
>
> [I make a point of saying 'biological' to avoid confusion; if one
> accepts the viewpoint of Larry Moran's "What is Evolution?" FAQ file
> { http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html } then the
> word 'evolution' implies 'biological' along with it]
>
> had set the stage and prepared the human brain for language long
> before, perhaps as long ago as 100,000 years.
>
> One point in making another follow-up post is in part to reiterate my own
> idea in perhaps clearer language. Another is to draw the reader's attention
> to the book "The Evolution of Human Languages", edited by John A. Hawkins &
> Murray Gell-Mann, Addison-Wesley 1992 [Proceedings of the Workshop on the
> Evolution of Human Languages, held August, 1989 at the Santa Fe Institute;
> ISBN 0-201-52572-0 (HB) 0-201-52573-9 (PB)], wheren these issues are
> confronted in considerable detail. Specifically, section 2 "Brain and Speech
> Physiology in Language Evolution", and section 4 "The Evolution of Linguistic
> Diversity and Language Families". In section 2 Terrence Deacon presents a
> very interesting paper "Brain-Language Coevolution", and in section 4 noted
> linguist Joseph H. Greenberg of Stanford University presents a paper entitled
> "Preliminaries to a Systematic Comparison between Biological and Linguistic
> Evolution".
>
> In the introduction to his paper, Terrence Deacon [Harvard
University] says,
> in the last paragraph ...
>
> " In order to provide an explanation of language competence one
> has to do more than merely describe it. The questions we need to
> answer are simultaneously biological and social: How and when did it
> originate? What were its functional and biological precursors? And
> why are its forms constrained to their present range?
> In this paper I will present evidence for the theory that (a) language
> competence evolved over a long period (>= 2 million years) of continuous
> selection determined by brain-language interactions, (b) language was
> the major cause not just the consequence of human brain evolution,
> (c) the origin of the unusual organizational features of human brain
> structure (not just its size) can best be understood in terms of
> brain-language coevolution, and (d) the brain structures and circuits
> most altered in the course of human brain evolution reflect some
> unusual computational demands imposed by natural languages. Finally,
> I will compare these findings with evidence concerning the evolution
> of the vocal tract and demonstrate how the two forms of anatomical
> evidence, considered together, may help explain some contemporary
> patterns of language structure, language change, and language
> acquisiton."
>
> This paragraph is noteworthy on at least two accounts. First, it
> certainly detracts from the standard creationist argument that the theory
> of evolution is not science and makes no testable predictions; Deacon's
> work is clearly awash in both. Second, it shows a far deeper insight into
> the problem than the simplistic approach adopted by Cox, who simply
> asserts from Dogma that early humans, even as recently as 12000 years
> ago, could not have acquired language through any evolutionary process.
> Deacon's comments are consistent with the standard 'evolution viewpoint'
> that the roots of language go much farther back in time than 12000 years
> ago, and that evolution had already prepared the brain for its current
> linguistic competence long before the anthropologically recent language
> explosion.
Seems like an opinion to me. Deacon thinks that any evidence he might have
encountered supports his conclusions and he is entitled to believe in his
guesses. Maybe he has some status in the scientific community and that
makes his guesses science.
> I do not propose that Deacon's paper expresses the last word on the
> subject, nor will I pretend that is position is not controversial; not
> everyone agrees with his 'language causes evolution' idea, but it is
> not obviously wrong either. Clearly the fields of brain & language
> evolution are linked, and clearly there is plenty of room to learn,
> but the 'evolution viewpoint' expressed by Cox is clearly quite wrong.
>
> Deacon's paper is proceeded by the paper "On the Evolution of Human
> Language" by Philip Lieberman [Brown University, Rhode island] I will
> reproduce his two paragraph introduction, with emphasis on the observation
> that it too represents a much more effective explication of the 'evolution
> viewpoint'.
>
> " Human language is a comparatively recent evolutionary innovation
> that added two powerful devices, speech and syntax, to older systems;
> it probably reached its present form at least 100,000 years ago.
A bad guess. The most obvious time for a change is the Upper Paleolithic
Revolution and it is dated much more recently than this.
> Human
> language clearly involves a number of biological components including
> the ability to acquire and use words, speech, and syntax. Words are
> powerful devices for both communication and thinking - an entire
> family of concepts can be transmitted or considered when a single word
> is uttered or placed in thought. However, chimpanzees, gorillas and
> other animals can comprehend and in some cases, use words - the most
> important distinction being the total number of words.
Fairly basic.
> Therefore,
> archaic hominids undoubtedly had languages using words for the past
> four-million years or so.
A guess, the word undoubtedly doesn't apply here. The vocalisation part of
the brain does show an increase in size in _Australopithecus_ around 4
million years bp, however the language part does not show evidence of
expansion until much later with the appearance of _Homo_. Thus the
evidence indicates that _Australopithecus_ used more complex vocalisation
than earlier primates but that language came with the genus _Homo_.
> In contrast, the research of the past twenty
> years indicates that the evolution of human speech, complex syntax,
> and some aspects of creative thought are linked. And that the driving
> force that produced modern human beings may have been the evolution
> of speech adapted for rapid communication.
Maybe, but not relevant to the last 12000 years.
> " Charles Darwin first made the point that nature is a miserly
> opportunist; the process of evolution always makes use of 'old' parts,
> modifying them to perform new functions. The biological basis of the
> newest 'unique' components of human language, the human tongue and
> mouth and the brain mechanisms that regulate speech production and
> syntax, evolved from the tongues, mouths and brains of archaic human-
> like animals - hominids who resembled present-day apes in this respect.
> Organs that were originally designed to facilitate breathing air and
> swallowing food and water were adapted to produce human speech.
Irrelevant.
> The
> brain mechanisms that control speech prduction probably derive from
> ones that facilitated precise one-handed manual tasks.
Some justification for this staetment would have been appropriate.
> Through a
> series of perhaps chance events these brain mechanisms eventually
> evolved
A guess presented as fact, most unscientific.
> to allow us to learn and use the complex rules that govern
> the syntax of human language. The brain mechanisms that are the
> bases of syntax also appear to enter into other aspects of 'creative'
> thought."
Maybe, but not relevant to the last 12000 years.
> Lieberman goes even farther than Deacon did, suggesting that humans
> were using words 4,000,000 years ago. I will not pretend that this is
> uncontroversial either. However, this combined with Deacon's introduction
> show up the major flaw in Cox's thesis. Cox treats language as if it
> appeared suddenly circa 12000 years ago
No I don't.
> [which may be a popular and common
> misconception]. But the real 'evolution viewpoint' is clearly that the
> process of language development extends far back in time; I have said
> 'perhaps 100,000 years', a notion clearly consistent, and perhaps even
> conservative, when compared to the professional opinions expressed here.
>
> Once we see what the real 'evolution viewpoint' is; that biological
> evolution and linguistic evolution are synergistic over perhaps millions
> of years, we can recognize that Cox's characterization of the 'evolution
> viewpoint' is incorrect. He falsely
Woah there. ...
> tries to compress the evolution of
> language into a period of circa 12000 years, and he falsely
You appear to be claiming that I am making false statements because some
book says something different to what you think I might have said.
> implies that
> 'evolutionists' actually think that *biologcal evolution* over the short
> course of 12000 years is responsible for language development. I stand by
> my original criticism - this question should be removed, or the answer
> substantially altered to reflect a valid 'evolution viewpoint'.
>
> > Matt Silberstein
> > -------------------------------
> > The science from the stars, Astronomy, the career of evil
> >
> Until recently, my brother was a long time member of the astronomy
> staff at Lowell Observatory. When asked once at a party what he did for
> a living, he said he was an astronomer. The woman who asked the question
> immediately responded "Why don't you get a real job?"
>
> --
> http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8851/
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Timothy J. Thompson, Timothy.J...@jpl.nasa.gov
>
> NASA/JPL Terrestrial Science Research element
> Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer.
> Atmospheric Corrections Team - Scientific Programmer.
Tim you missed the point, your arguments are flawed and you are being rude.
Jeffrey
The talk.origins FAQ (Creation) Homepage:
http://www.zeta.org.au/~jeffcox/creation.html
Jeffrey Cox
My previous post on this thread contains an error. Broca's area, the bulge
on the side of the brain near the temple that is associated with complex
vocalisation, first appears not in _Australopithecus_ but in _Homo
habilis_. Wernicke's area, the bulge in the side of the brain above the
ear that is associated with speech recognition first appears in _Homo
erectus_. This indicates that the first use of spoken words was around 2.5
million years bp, and the first use of syntax appeared around 1.6 million
years bp.
Sverker Johansson
In article <33a38a31...@news.su.se>,[deletia]
>: 70 years ago your kind was crying foul because of your Galelean
>: treatment. Now you hide behind one-sided magazines. Fortunately
>
>"One sided magazines"? Imagine that. How do they manage to not have
>atleast two sides to a paper?
Obviously a one-sided magazine is printed on a Mobius strip :-)
--
Sverker Johansson HLK, physics,
l...@hlk.hj.se Jonkoping College
Sweden
A.afarensis -> A.creationus -> H.habilis -> H.erectus -> H.sapiens (with apologies to Lucy...)
Christopher C. Wood
In article <5n8rf2$klc$2...@node2.frontiernet.net>, Elmer Bataitis <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> writes:
|> Fred M. Williams wrote:
[ snip ]
|> > Reverse decay of earth's magnetic field. Oh I know, there's been
|> > "reversals". This magnetic reversal theory has any many holes as
|> > the one its trying to protect.
|> Hmm, the magnetic field reverses many times a second in my sound
|> system's speakers. What holes does this imply?
On my system's speakers, those holes would be the vented ports that
extend the bass reach. The other holes would be in the surrounds, and
caused by my cat's claws. Or, at least, Sidney made the universe in
which I recall witnessing Mousie clawing up the speaker cone...
Chris
--
Speaking only for myself, of course.
Chris Wood chr...@lexis-nexis.com.youKnowWhatToDo ca...@CFAnet.com.HereToo
Fred M. Williams
On 7 Jun 1997 12:54:43 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
wrote:
>In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
>fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) wrote:
>
>[snip]
>>
>>The oldest archeological evidence I know of is related to the Tower of
>>Babel. This outa get you anti-Bible lunatics churning!
>>
>What I don't understand is why you come in here and start insulting
>people. You have been, ISTM, trying your best to attract flames rather
>than discussion. Is this deliberate? Anyway, if you have a reference
>to this Tower of Bable evidence I would love to look at it. I hope the
>reference is better than your Nature reference though.
Sheesh Matt, chill out! Do you have to respond to everything ? I
personally don't have time to (not an insult, I really don't). I
really don't feel like digging up the reference. If you REALLY want
it let me know. Its one heck of a side-bar though from the original
discussion.
>
>[snip]
>>
>>Refer me to the FAQ, I'm sure there must be one in your amazing,
>>always accurate, 100% objective FAQ archive!
>
>All you need to do, instead of attempts at sarcasm, is to point out
>the errors in the FAQ. I don't think anyone has claimed the FAQ is
>either 100% accurate or 100% objective. But until you point out a
>specific error, we can't fix it.
"Attempts" at sracasm ? Come on, I'd say I was quite successful!
[snip]
>
>[snip]
>Looked again at his page. He makes all kinds of errors. As one major
>problem he assumes that the shape of the oceans and the amount of
>water has always been exactly what it is today. But my favorite, and
>the one the stopped me cold was the step between equation 4 and 5. He
>has constants C1 and C2 (which are really not constants). Then he says
>"replacing all the constants by C". Wow. Suddenly something that was
>proportional to mass becomes a constant fixed through time.
I can't respond to everything so I will direct my response to Tim
Thompson's in-depth response. Nothing personal. Note that he also
confirmed Brown's math, just disagrees in many other areas.
Fred
Fred M. Williams
On 8 Jun 1997 02:32:17 -0400, ssc...@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen
F. Schaffner) wrote:
>In article <339822b0...@news.prodigy.net>,
>Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
Note: I can only address a few of these articles, there appears to be
quite a few who are interested in what I have to say! How thoughtful!
Seriously, I have only time after work for this stuff and my wife is
already complaining about being a computer widow. Since I'm not
prepared to face my Creator just yet, I will have to curtail somewhat
here. No disresect intended for those I don't resond to, exept for a
few to remain un-named!
>>>What is the moon recession rate?
>>
>>There is only ONE assumption, and that is the gravitational consant is
>>indeed constant. Never been observed to be otherwise.
>
>This is physically nonsensical. You can't calculate a rate of recession
>assuming only an unvarying gravitational constant, since the recession
>requires tidal friction, and the amount of friction depends strongly on
>the details of the bodies in question.
I should have said one major assumption. I found no errors in my
analysis of Brown's math. I also freely acknowledge that I have not
studied this problem at great length. Nevertheless, there appears to
be more evidence available to construct a model and reduce the affect
of assumption than do radiometric estimates.
Point noted; however, I find your statements somewhat hypocritical.
Under careful consideration you perhaps wouldn't deny that I can make
the same observation of you and even more so of others on this group.
As far as my "alleged" obtuse behavior, I think your a complete
moronic idiot for thinking that (JUST KIDDING!). I won't go into
in-depth detail on doctrinal issues regarding Christianity here (sighs
of relief from the audience) but there are some Christians who are
noting that many Christians are "nicer than God". Jesus called men
fools, devil, hypocrites, etc. He was, as you said, truthful and
humble, but he was also OFFENSIVE (He wasn't hanged for being a nice
guy!) Now I'm not going to be foolish and hypocritical and say that
I'm trying to be like Jesus, because I often fail miserably. Two
things come to mind to explain my obstinate obtusness 1) I'm an
opinionated SOB, and 2) I get incredibly frustrated when arguing with
someone who will look at an arrowhead and recognize it as a design,
then look a human with billions of complex cells, trillions of
synoptic connections, and call it natural process. Ludicrous, my
friends! Now much of my attacks are intended as humor, immpecable as
it is! I once warned a guy in alt-fan-rush-limbaugh to avoid his
professor if he wore sandals, ate crouscents, and drove a VW bus, and
a proffesor actually emailed me and called me every name in the book,
because I had described him to a tee! OK, enough rambling.
>I assume, by the way, that your arguments are offered sincerely. Trolls,
>of whatever flavor, I have no use for at all.
Nope, generating a good argument sometimes requires a good JOLT.
Unfortunately, I have generated too much activity that I can't
possibly resond to everything (our news-server at work has been down
now for about 2 months; restoring this will help)
Fred
Staff Engineer, McDATA Corp
Owner, Tony Rigatoni's
Fred M. Williams
On 7 Jun 1997 12:57:49 -0400, ev-mi...@SPAMSTOPnrm.se (Mike Noren)
wrote:
>Replying to fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
>
>: On 5 Jun 1997 17:33:59 -0400, ev-mi...@SPAMSTOPnrm.se (Mike Noren)
>: wrote:
>: >
>: >No thanks, although it would be kindof interesting to see him explain
>: >away hominid fossils.
>:
>: Quite easy,
>
>(He says, then not touching on the subject further)
I'm sure we can later, I just honestly don't have the time, and must
pick-and-choose.
>
>: compared to you trying to explain away the utter lack of
>: trasitional fossils between micro-organisms to invertabrates, or
>: invertabrates to vertabrates.
>
>There are such fossils. You want invertebrate to vertebrate? Look at
>Pikaia, look at the early armoured fishes.
This is all that you can present! Once again, there should be
BILLIONS, not just a controversial one such as this chordate, which we
have today (ie Amphioxus). Sorry, if this is all you can find it just
not too confincing, when our museums should be lined with them!
Puncuatied equilibrium, that's the ticket! Use lack of evidence to
explain it away!
Also, why can you not name one micro-organism to complex invertabrate?
To my knowledge there is not even acceptable conroverisal ones, yet,
once again, well, to be fair, there should be MILLIONS!
Please name one micro-organism to complex invertabrate. If you
cannot, please give your personal explanation, evolutionists sure do
vary on this one!
>
>: There should be BILLIONS of them yet
>: there are not. As a matter of fact, there's not ONE. Hmm. Why ?
>
>There's droves of them. Bucketloads.
I don't think two controversials qualifiy as a bucketload. Can you
name another one ? Maybe this will qualify as a bucket-load!
<snip>
Fred
Fred M. Williams
On 8 Jun 1997 13:17:03 -0400, jafr...@helios.student.gu.se (Jan
Friberg) wrote:
>On 7 Jun 1997 01:36:31 -0400, fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams)
>wrote:
>
>
>>The speed of light may be decreasing in relation to orbital time, but
>>not to atomic time since this is the measuring mechanism that began in
>>the 60s.
>
>What do you mean? There or not two kinds of time, orbital and atomic
>time, only times measured in seconds with different methods.
Of course there is one true time. Arguments for orbital time seem too
have more merit (ie orbital time appears to be increasing relative to
atomic time; if so, the garviational constant should be changing).
>>running through space indicating a "rotating" of light that would
>>cause the relative speed of light to slow down. Obviously much more
>>to discovered here.
>
>References please.
This is from a 4/18/97 NY Times article reporting on the discovery of
researchers who published their findings in "Physical Review Letters".
The research has yet to be subjected to rigourous testing by peers.
Fred
Fred M. Williams
On 5 Jun 1997 12:54:35 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
wrote:
>Did God also cover up the evidence later so it would look like there
>was no flood?
No, you are simply ignoring the overwhelming evidence for a
catastrophic flood.
Fred
Tim Thompson
In article <5ndjmm$snr$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, ssc...@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU
(Stephen F. Schaffner) writes:
> In article <339822b0...@news.prodigy.net>,
> Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
> [...]
> [regarding moon dust]
>> W. Brown's technical paper on this stands by itself. A few attempts
>> have been made to address his technical note, and he has since pointed
>> out legitimate flaws in their analysis. If necessary I will post it
>> in the future, but only if you REALLY need to see it and if you
>> understand integrals (must have gone through at least Calculus 2).
Brown can use any model he wants, but his results are not compatible
with actual observations of dust accretion rates. See my FAQ file on the
subject at ...
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html
Stephen F. Schaffner
In article <5nhuu3$a...@netline.jpl.nasa.gov>,
Tim Thompson <t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <5ndjmm$snr$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, ssc...@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU
>(Stephen F. Schaffner) writes:
>
>> In article <339822b0...@news.prodigy.net>,
>> Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>> [regarding moon dust]
>>> W. Brown's technical paper on this stands by itself. A few attempts
>>> have been made to address his technical note, and he has since pointed
>>> out legitimate flaws in their analysis. If necessary I will post it
>>> in the future, but only if you REALLY need to see it and if you
>>> understand integrals (must have gone through at least Calculus 2).
>
> Brown can use any model he wants, but his results are not compatible
>with actual observations of dust accretion rates. See my FAQ file on the
>subject at ...
>
>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html
Your FAQ, while covering very useful ground, actually does not address
Brown's model. In his model, the dominant contribution to moon dust
is a (relatively) small number of large impacts, occurring largely in
the distant past. The observed dust accretion rates you cite either
are direct observations of the amount of dust currently falling on the
earth, or are indirect measurements of the amount that has fallen in
the relatively recent (geologically speaking) past. They therefore do
not include the contribution Brown claims to be the most important.
Fred M. Williams
On 8 Jun 1997 01:22:40 -0400, t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov (Tim Thompson)
wrote:
>In article <3398ed35...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com
>(Fred M. Williams) writes:
>
>> On 6 Jun 1997 12:37:34 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
>> <"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Really? Is there a current in iron in the earth's core or not? Does not
>>> a current in iron make a magnetic field?
>
>[Williams ... ]
>> OK, enough of the obfuscating. Does the ocean floor have magnetic
>> reversals or not?
>
> Yes it does. The evidence left behind by reversals of the earth's magnetic
>field is so compelling and obvious that even arch-creationist D. Russell
>Humphreys has abaondoned the old party line and accepted the reality of the
>obvious. However, he has tried to compress the entire sequence of reversals
>into a very short time in order to salvage a young age for the earth.
Is there any point on the ocean floor today that will point a compass
in the opposite direction ? Have magnetic reversals ever been
observed ? Seems to be a common problem with evolutionists.
Fred
Bruce Salem
In article <339cd467...@news.prodigy.net>,
>in the opposite direction ? Have magnetic reversals ever been
>observed ? Seems to be a common problem with evolutionists.
Get thee to a library, ignoramus! It is magnetic anomaloy patterns
in sea floor basalts, the residual mangnitism is reversed and flips through
the record, through vertical sections on dry land and as stripes on the
sea floor, caused by flip flop of the earth's field in time. The resulting
anomalies are + and -. This has been known since 1960.
Bruce Salem
--
!! Just my opinions, maybe not those of my sponsor. !!
Bruce Salem
Again, a misinformed, and possibly biased person speaks,
remembering the blather on the reconciliation between science and
religion, read, force science to agree with religion, the beliefs
of Fred Wiliams.
In article <339cd11e...@news.prodigy.net>,
Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
>>: compared to you trying to explain away the utter lack of
>>: trasitional fossils between micro-organisms to invertabrates, or
>>: invertabrates to vertabrates.
>>
>>There are such fossils. You want invertebrate to vertebrate? Look at
>>Pikaia, look at the early armoured fishes.
>
>This is all that you can present! Once again, there should be
>BILLIONS, not just a controversial one such as this chordate,
Wrong. All we need is one fossil that conclusively shows
an animal of the right age to be ancestral. The fossil record not
only is not complete because processes that have no bearing on the
correctness of ecolution create gaps in it, but it doesn't matter.
The Creationists demand a continuous record with every individual
represented. That is a strawman. All that is required is a very
few examples that show the changes necessary to relate the large
groups of animals and plants to common ancestery, evolution. We
have such a record. The only thing that needs to happen is to
decrease the distance in taxinomy between fossils that succced
each other in time and place. This is for the edification of the
historians of life, it would be wasted insight on the likes of
Fred Williams.
In the famous Burgess Shale of the Middle Cambrian of
Alberta there is a fossil that very much resembles _Amphioxos_.
It is the right age to be ancestral to vetebrates, the first
bone is not seen until Silurian time. Now, even if there were
no traces of fossils linking vetebrates with other animals do
you think that there might be clues in extant animals as to
their origins? The answer is "Yes". I leave it as a trip to
the library, a place that you appearently haven't spent
enough time inhabiting.
Bruce Salem
In article <339cd164...@news.prodigy.net>,
Asside from being an idiot Christian, do you have a degree?
In what subjects are you schooled? Engineering? :-)
Fred M. Williams
On 8 Jun 1997 01:09:30 -0400, t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov (Tim Thompson)
wrote:
> Fred Williams takes for granted Walter Brown's assertions on the
>young age of the earth based on the tidal recession of the moon away
>from the earth. But Walter Brown's work is not very convincing, as
>I already demonstrated last March (and repeat here).
<snip remainder>
These comments are directed to the previous post in its entirety, but
its text is left out because of the length.
I will first acknowledge that I am an engineer and not a physics
expert, nor have studied this particular problem in great detail. But
neither has Thompson, as his post would indicate. Thompson
acknowledges math calculations as correct, but lablasts the
assumptions. Thompson proceeds to point out, "Scientists have been
laboring collectively over the problem of describing the earth-moon
tidal interaction since 1878; it's a tough problem, and there is no
reason to assume that it should have been quickly solved." He then
chides Brown for spending 13 years on such a simple "homework"
problem. Now Tim, who is apparently a systems engineer, should know
better. Devolping a model, and especially devolping the equations, is
a long, painstaking process. Doing the math after the equations are
established is the easy part, and does amount to a "howework" problem.
Tim proceeds to lamblast Brown's model as simple, then turns around a
presents a simpler model and proclaims his conclusions as
"elementary"! (If you do not believe Tim's model is simpler, then
you have a screw loose. Compare them side-by-side. Its obvious which
one has more research put in to it.).
Tim is hypocrital in presenting a model that doesn't consider the very
factors he blasts Brown for based on current research, which he gave
several references for. I think to be fair I (and other who care)
should research the work that Tim references from, since his arguments
aren't very confincing and his knowledge on the subject appears to be
as limited as mine.
Finally, Tim blasts Brown by stating "Then he simply says without any
other justification "It could be much less such as 6,000 to 10,000
years" Voila; just one snap of the fingers, and 1.2 billion years
becomes 10,000 years. " This is misleading in the context in which
Brown presented the problem. He did not conclude that the earth may
be 10,000 years on this evidence alone.
As for as the supporting post from Mark Kluge that Tim included, Mark
asserts "After deriving his (unphysical) differential equation, he
solves it numerically using EULER'S METHOD!... Every competent
undergraduate Differential Equations instructor in the world
emphasizes that Euler's method isn't used in practice. ". Too bad
Mark didn't provide the more rigorous calculation, perhaps because the
estimational error was minimal and did not greatly affect the result
of Brown's result. Maybe someone will email Mark and ask him to
explain that to us.
Fred
Mike Trettel
On 7 Jun 1997 00:27:00 -0400, Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
>On 6 Jun 1997 07:06:25 -0400, Elmer Bataitis
><"nyli...@frontiernet.net/nylicence"@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Fred M. Williams wrote:
>>
>Yea, there's no bias, purely objective, yep. Its the same story,
>different day. You evolutionist liberals will deny media bias, then
>turn around and whine about a guy like Limbaugh being bias and
>his bias, yet a guy like Dan Rather claims to be purely objective and
>just reporting the news. He probably really believes this, but he's
>only fooling himself and you goofy evolutionists!
>
>--------------------------------------------
>Peasant: "What are you doing about the war on poverty ?"
>King: "Nothing. Its over, and you lost"
>
Hey, Fred, I have a question for you. Why do you assume an "evolutionist" is
a liberal? The theory of natural selection has got to be one of the most
conservative theories ever formulated, since by definition it preserves what
works, and chucks out what doesn't.
--
Mike Trettel Because of all the nice people who want to
tre...@fred.net sell me stuff, the "Reply-To:" line is hosed.
This is a NO-FRILLS flight -- hold th' CANADIAN BACON!!
Mr. M.J. Smith
In article <339cd467...@news.prodigy.net>,
Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
>Is there any point on the ocean floor today that will point a compass
>in the opposite direction ?
Magnetic reversals are demonstrated by the orientation of magnetic
particles in the ocean crust, which was determined when the rock
was molten at the time of formation. Not by the behavior of compasses
on the ocean floor.
>Have magnetic reversals ever been
>observed ? Seems to be a common problem with evolutionists.
Have creations ever been observed? Seems to be a problem for you.
Martin smith
Peter Swindells
Fred M. Williams wrote:
>
> On 5 Jun 1997 12:54:35 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
> wrote:
>
> >Did God also cover up the evidence later so it would look like there
> >was no flood?
>
> No, you are simply ignoring the overwhelming evidence for a
> catastrophic flood.
Please post this evidence.
PETE
Christopher J. Carrell
Mike Trettel wrote:
>
> On 7 Jun 1997 00:27:00 -0400, Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
> >>
> >Yea, there's no bias, purely objective, yep. Its the same story,
> >different day. You evolutionist liberals will deny media bias, then
> >turn around and whine about a guy like Limbaugh being bias and
> >unobjective. The difference is Limbaugh knows and freely admits to
> >his bias,
This is a lie.
> > yet a guy like Dan Rather claims to be purely objective and
> >just reporting the news. He probably really believes this, but he's
> >only fooling himself and you goofy evolutionists!
>
> Hey, Fred, I have a question for you. Why do you assume an "evolutionist" is
> a liberal? The theory of natural selection has got to be one of the most
> conservative theories ever formulated, since by definition it preserves what
> works, and chucks out what doesn't.
I susoect Fred's one of those people who trolls around bus stations
saying stuff like, "Have I told you today that I'm a conservative?
Morally, I'm the best there is. Now pat me on the head and give
me a dog biscuit." yadda yadda yadda
Chris
--
Chris Carrell - Replace each _dot_ with . if you want to email me
"There are things one can do/with Ben-Gay, Nair and superglue/a package
of indelible dye/Why would a guy such as I ever buy indelible dye/
blue as the sky/Don't ask me why." - Heywood Banks
Matt Silberstein
In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
>On 7 Jun 1997 12:54:43 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins, on thread _Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation) 3 of 3_,
>>fr...@mcdata.com (Fred M. Williams) wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>>>
>>>The oldest archeological evidence I know of is related to the Tower of
>>>Babel. This outa get you anti-Bible lunatics churning!
>>>
>>What I don't understand is why you come in here and start insulting
>>people. You have been, ISTM, trying your best to attract flames rather
>>than discussion. Is this deliberate? Anyway, if you have a reference
>>to this Tower of Bable evidence I would love to look at it. I hope the
>>reference is better than your Nature reference though.
>
>Sheesh Matt, chill out! Do you have to respond to everything ?
No, but when a nasty person comes in, shows his ignorance of science,
his ignorance of the newsgroup, and insults broadly I get a little
miffed.
> I personally don't have time to (not an insult, I really don't). I
>really don't feel like digging up the reference. If you REALLY want
>it let me know. Its one heck of a side-bar though from the original
>discussion.
So you don't know of the evidence. Near as I can tell you just made it
up. Are you just a particularly nasty troll or are you lying for
Christ?
[snip]
>>
>>[snip]
>>Looked again at his page. He makes all kinds of errors. As one major
>>problem he assumes that the shape of the oceans and the amount of
>>water has always been exactly what it is today. But my favorite, and
>>the one the stopped me cold was the step between equation 4 and 5. He
>>has constants C1 and C2 (which are really not constants). Then he says
>>"replacing all the constants by C". Wow. Suddenly something that was
>>proportional to mass becomes a constant fixed through time.
>
>I can't respond to everything so I will direct my response to Tim
>Thompson's in-depth response. Nothing personal. Note that he also
>confirmed Brown's math, just disagrees in many other areas.
I saw your response to Tim. You disagreed. Now how about dealing with
the issues. Tim gave detail, I just presented the first two glaring
errors I found. You could easily respond to my objections and show me
where I am wrong.
Matt Silberstein
-------------------------------
Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, 'The Origins of a
World War', spoke in terms of 'secret treaties', drawn up between the
Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These
treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The
career of evil.
Richard Harter
jef...@zeta.org.au (Jeffrey Cox) wrote:
>t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov wrote:
>Tim, maybe you were having a bad day. I know I have sometimes posted
>replies when I was tired and not expressed things as clearly as I
>otherwise would. Anyway, you appear to have missed the point and responded
>to something that you think I might have said.
This indeed appears to be the case.
>My point is not that language developed very recently but that technology
>has progressed incredibly rapidly and that the intellectual skills
>associated with modern technology require a sophistication in brain
>function beyond that required in the physical and cultural environment of
>12000 years ago or earlier. I pointed out that mutations and natural
>selection could not produce such an improvement in thinking skills in this
>short time and suggest that the sophistication of modern human thought is
>therefore evidence of intelligent design.
This is a very dubious thesis. You seem to be arguing that modern
intellectual skills require capabilities not necessary prior to modern
civilization (modern being post 10,000BC). It seems fairly clear that
the genetic capability was pre-existing and that the "sophistication
of modern human thought" is a reflection of cultural elaboration.
Your time line is too short. How the brain could evolve to support
such a capability is another matter - one where the phrase "we don't
know" is applicable.
>> Deacon's paper is proceeded by the paper "On the Evolution of Human
>> Language" by Philip Lieberman [Brown University, Rhode island] I will
>> reproduce his two paragraph introduction, with emphasis on the observation
>> that it too represents a much more effective explication of the 'evolution
>> viewpoint'.
>>
>> " Human language is a comparatively recent evolutionary innovation
>> that added two powerful devices, speech and syntax, to older systems;
>> it probably reached its present form at least 100,000 years ago.
>A bad guess. The most obvious time for a change is the Upper Paleolithic
>Revolution and it is dated much more recently than this.
There is a problem in that recent finds suggest that the revolution
was not a revolution, i.e., use of complex artifacts occurred in
different places at different times and was not nearly as dramatically
sudden as the term "revolution" implies.
Be that as it may, it is a pretty good guess that human language was a
precondition for the revolution. It does not at all follow that it
immediately preceded the revolution. There are lines of evidence
suggesting that homo sapiens had more effective modes of social
expression than his predecessors. A critical factor is when the
requisite physical adaptations for human vocalization appeared.
It should be emphasized that there is an awful lot of cheesy guesswork
going on here.
>A guess, the word undoubtedly doesn't apply here. The vocalisation part of
>the brain does show an increase in size in _Australopithecus_ around 4
>million years bp, however the language part does not show evidence of
>expansion until much later with the appearance of _Homo_. Thus the
>evidence indicates that _Australopithecus_ used more complex vocalisation
>than earlier primates but that language came with the genus _Homo_.
Subsequent correction noted. No, the evidence does not indicate this.
A precondition for complex vocalisation is the relocation of the
larynx. Without it the physical capability of complex vocalization
does not exist. We don't know the original function of the requisite
areas of the brain; for that matter we don't know their major
functionality now.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing well.
If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly.
R. Tang
In article <339cc6c2...@news.prodigy.net>,
Fred M. Williams <fr...@mcdata.com> wrote:
>On 7 Jun 1997 12:54:43 -0400, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>>the errors in the FAQ. I don't think anyone has claimed the FAQ is
>>either 100% accurate or 100% objective. But until you point out a
>>specific error, we can't fix it.
>
>"Attempts" at sracasm ? Come on, I'd say I was quite successful!
I wouldn't.
How about the errors in the FAQs?
--
Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
Editor, Asian American Theatre Revue:
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~gwangung/TC.html
Declared 4-F in the War Between the Sexes
Stephen F. Schaffner
In article <339cc586...@news.prodigy.net>,
>F. Schaffner) wrote:
>>This is physically nonsensical. You can't calculate a rate of recession
>>assuming only an unvarying gravitational constant, since the recession
>>requires tidal friction, and the amount of friction depends strongly on
>>the details of the bodies in question.
[Note: it's not friction!]
>
>I should have said one major assumption. I found no errors in my
>analysis of Brown's math. I also freely acknowledge that I have not
>studied this problem at great length. Nevertheless, there appears to
>be more evidence available to construct a model and reduce the affect
>of assumption than do radiometric estimates.
There is lots of evidence, and scientists have spent a lot of time
constructing models. Brown, however, simply ignores all of the
evidence. To be specific: he correctly calculates that the size of
tides is proportional to 1/r^3. He then uses a single constant of
proportionality for the earth-moon system for all times. But the size
of real tides depends critically not just on the distance of the moon,
but on the details of what it is that's bulging. As you might have
noticed, the tides in, say, Phoenix are much smaller than those
somewhere in the Pacific -- even though the tidal force is just about
identical. Furthermore, even the size of tides in the ocean varies a
lot -- it depends on the shape and size of the basin the water is in.
A scientist might well do Brown's calculation as a
back-of-the-envelope estimate (and it's not bad as an order of
magnitude estimate), and _then_ go on to do some real work,
calculating the effect of moving continents over geological time on
the size of tides, for example. And he or she will should go on to
test those calculation. For example, we have quite accurate
measurements of the number of days in a year at times in the past,
based on daily growth of fossil corals. Since, as the moon has been
receding the earth has been slowing to compensate, an obvious test of
a recession model is to compare the calculated day length with the
measured one for some time in the past. (By the way, I have no idea
what the results of this comparison are. But I'm willing to bet that
standard scientific models fare better than Brown's model.)
This is hard physics to do, and I simply cannot take Brown's efforts here
seriously. By the way, the physics involved in radio-dating (at least
in its more robust forms) is much more straightforward, and the
assumptions are much better tested.
[...]
>>That you offer badly flawed arguments isn't too surprising -- I've
>>made plenty of badly flawed arguments in my time. That you do so
>>without bothering to check their validity in any way depresses me, but
>>doesn't surprise me either. What surprises me is that you offer them
>>with such arrogance and contempt toward those you are addressing.
>>Just what are you trying to accomplish here, anyway? My impression of
>>Christianity has always been that it considers both truthfulness and
>>humility to be virtues. Is it really your desire to demonstrate
>>otherwise?
>
>Point noted; however, I find your statements somewhat hypocritical.
>Under careful consideration you perhaps wouldn't deny that I can make
>the same observation of you and even more so of others on this group.
Certainly there are regulars on t.o who display contempt for others (a
fact I point out from time to time); I generally only concern myself
with those who give the impression that they are speaking as
Christians, however. And yes, if I have shown contempt for you (or
anyone else, for that matter) in what I've written, by all means point
it out. I don't enjoy correction, but it is useful.
>As far as my "alleged" obtuse behavior, I think your a complete
>moronic idiot for thinking that (JUST KIDDING!). I won't go into
>in-depth detail on doctrinal issues regarding Christianity here (sighs
>of relief from the audience) but there are some Christians who are
>noting that many Christians are "nicer than God". Jesus called men
>fools, devil, hypocrites, etc. He was, as you said, truthful and
>humble, but he was also OFFENSIVE (He wasn't hanged for being a nice
>guy!) [...]
He was not, however, hanged for being smug. As it happens, you can
get away with a lot of arrogance if you happen to be right. Too many
of your arguments, however, are well known to be really, really wrong
(like the Hawaiian lava business, for instance). Being wrong is ok,
but being wrong while loudly trumpeting how stupid everyone else is
isn't such a good idea. And doing so while presenting yourself as a
Christian strikes me as being counterproductive.
>>I assume, by the way, that your arguments are offered sincerely. Trolls,
>>of whatever flavor, I have no use for at all.
>
>Nope, generating a good argument sometimes requires a good JOLT.
Enhancement for rhetorical effect I have no objection to. It's trolling
for the sake of irritating people that I dislike.
Tim Thompson
In article <339cdebf...@news.prodigy.net>, fr...@mcdata.com
(Fred M. Williams) writes:
> On 8 Jun 1997 01:09:30 -0400, t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov
> (Tim Thompson) wrote:
>
>> Fred Williams takes for granted Walter Brown's assertions on the
>> young age of the earth based on the tidal recession of the moon away
>> from the earth. But Walter Brown's work is not very convincing, as
>> I already demonstrated last March (and repeat here).
Yo, I said that.
[ ... ]
> Thompson proceeds to point out, "Scientists have been
> laboring collectively over the problem of describing the earth-moon
> tidal interaction since 1878; it's a tough problem, and there is no
> reason to assume that it should have been quickly solved." He then
> chides Brown for spending 13 years on such a simple "homework"
> problem. Now Tim, who is apparently a systems engineer, should know
> better. Devolping a model, and especially devolping the equations, is
> a long, painstaking process. Doing the math after the equations are
> established is the easy part, and does amount to a "howework" problem.
My BS & MS degrees are both in physics, during the course of which I
took almost every physics class the department offered, the notable
exception being biophysics. I tended to specialize in astronomy &
astrophysics. My professional experience is centered around planetary
radio astronomy & atmospheric radiative transfer (applied to the
atmospheres of Earth, Jupiter, Uranus & Neptune). Celestial mechanics,
as in orbital physics and tides are not my specialty, but in fact I
have studied this problem in rather more depth than has Walter Brown,
which should be obvious from my post. Fans who want to know more about
me can visit my home page, URL at the bottom of the post.
I have done homework problems more complex than the problem Brown
worked on his webpage, and I am not prepared to be sympathetic about
it. I recall the remark from my last visit to that webpage, but I do
not see it on the webpage now [the page apears to have been changed
recently]. In any case, everything presented mathematically was in
fact already in the literature when brown wrote it; he could just as
easily have copied it out of a celestial mechanics textbook, or a
technical paper, as opposed to laboring over it for 13 years. I will
admit the caveat that I don't know exactly what he was doing for those
13 years, or what he might have been working on, but I hope he didn't
really spend 13 years on this.
> Tim proceeds to lamblast Brown's model as simple, then turns around a
> presents a simpler model and proclaims his conclusions as
> "elementary"! (If you do not believe Tim's model is simpler, then
> you have a screw loose. Compare them side-by-side. Its obvious which
> one has more research put in to it.).
This is an incorrect statement; I did no such thing. The model I
presented of the tidal bulge alone is the model Brown analyzes on his
web page, not mine. The model I present, mostly by virtue of the
referenced papers, is far mode complex than anything Brown has yet
demonstrated, which is my major point. Brown's model is the simple
one.
> Tim is hypocrital in presenting a model that doesn't consider the very
> factors he blasts Brown for based on current research, which he gave
> several references for. I think to be fair I (and other who care)
> should research the work that Tim references from, since his arguments
> aren't very confincing and his knowledge on the subject appears to be
> as limited as mine.
Certainly anyone interested should consult the references, that's
what I put them there for. I don't demand or expect that anyone should
simply take my word for anything. The models presented in the papers
I referenced are, at least in the current papers, much more detailed.
The first papers by Darwin were included for historical completeness;
the current level of effort is now well beyond anything that could
reasonably be expected of Darwin.
> Finally, Tim blasts Brown by stating "Then he simply says without any
> other justification "It could be much less such as 6,000 to 10,000
> years" Voila; just one snap of the fingers, and 1.2 billion years
> becomes 10,000 years. " This is misleading in the context in which
> Brown presented the problem. He did not conclude that the earth may
> be 10,000 years on this evidence alone.
Here is what Brown says:
" If we could incorporate these effects into the above analysis,
the upper limit on the moon's age would be even less. Again, all of
this does not say that the moon is about 1.2 billion years old.
Instead, the maximum possible age for the moon is about 1.2 billion
years. It could be much less such as 6,000 to 10,000 years."
If one fears to read this paragraph out of context, then go and look
at the webpage:
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/technicalnotes/moonrecession.shtml
Evidently this page has been revised since the last time I saw it, none of
the numbered equations referred to in the text are there, which makes the
argument rather hard to follow [I have E-mailed the webmaster about that].
> As for as the supporting post from Mark Kluge that Tim included, Mark
> asserts "After deriving his (unphysical) differential equation, he
> solves it numerically using EULER'S METHOD!... Every competent
> undergraduate Differential Equations instructor in the world
> emphasizes that Euler's method isn't used in practice. ". Too bad
> Mark didn't provide the more rigorous calculation, perhaps because the
> estimational error was minimal and did not greatly affect the result
> of Brown's result. Maybe someone will email Mark and ask him to
> explain that to us.
Mark can take care of himself I'm sure, but the comment does raise an
issue worth pointing out. This is a usenet newsgroup; it is not a classroom.
You are not going to learn numerical integration or orbital mechanics
here, though you might learn something *about* either or both. I, for
instance, have presented no detailed model for the tidal interaction
between the earth and the moon, but I have presented outside sources
that you can go to and see the real blood-and-guts, get-your-hands-dirty,
solve-those-differential-equations-mama models, no holds barred, no
details ignored. If you want it, go and read those papers (see my original
post). If you don't do that, then you will have to (a) believe me, (b)
believe Williams, (c) believe nobody or (d) screw the whole thing and
go get a beer.
My criticism of Brown's model is that it is woefully oversimplified.
Contrary to Mr. Williams' suggestion, I did not in fact present an
alternative that was even more simple. Rather, I have pointed the reader
towards sources wherein realistic models can be found. WHat you do with
that information is your own affair.
In article <5nkqlh$l34$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, ssc...@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU
(Stephen F. Schaffner) writes:
[ ... ]
> A scientist might well do Brown's calculation as a
> back-of-the-envelope estimate (and it's not bad as an order of
> magnitude estimate), and _then_ go on to do some real work,
> calculating the effect of moving continents over geological time on
> the size of tides, for example.
This helps to bring out the crucial simplicity of Brown's model, and its
real value. As a first-order effort, it's not so bad. However, there is no
indication that Brown ever even considered the effect of any other processes
beyond what is on his webpage. He does talk about the earth being more
elastic in the past, and argues that this will slow the earth even faster.
However, he ignores the effect of continental drift on the ocean tides,
and that is a major factor to overlook. Because of this Brown fails to
realize that the current continent-ocean arrangement is resonant, and that
the moon's current recession rate is in fact higher than average. He also
fails to consider the effect of the continuous accretion of the earth's
solid inner core. Like the proverbial skater drwaing in their arms, the
transfer of mass to the inner core tends to speed the earth up, countering
the lunar tidal slow-down.
One can base soft conclusions on Brown's soft model, but formidable
conclusions, such as the clear assertion that the earth-moon system
cannot be over 1.2 billion years old, require formidable models, and that
Brown emphatically does not provide. The models that include processes
that Brown has ignored invariably produce much longer ages for the system.
Tim Thompson
In article <jeffcox-0906...@d31.syd2.zeta.org.au>, jef...@zeta.org.au
(Jeffrey Cox) writes:
> t...@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov wrote:
>> Of course Cox's implication is that 12000 years of *biological evolution*
>> is presumed to be responsible for the intellectual changes in humanity over
>> that same time period. But no 'evolutionist' I ever ran across has argued
>> that biological evolution could work so fast. Hence, that which Cox has
>> labeled the 'evolution viewpoint' is not that at all, assuming that
>> 'evolution viewpoint' is intended to refer to what 'evolutionists' actually
>> say and/or do, as opposed to Cox's own private version thereof.
[ ... ]
> Tim, maybe you were having a bad day. I know I have sometimes posted
> replies when I was tired and not expressed things as clearly as I
> otherwise would. Anyway, you appear to have missed the point and responded
> to something that you think I might have said.
I don't think so.
In article <jeffcox-2505...@d28.syd2.zeta.org.au>, jef...@zeta.org.au
(Jeffrey Cox) writes:
># [39] Can the sophistication of humans be explained by evolution?
># [A] No. Human culture has progressed in around 12 000 years from the
># making of stone tools to the launch of spacecraft to explore the solar
># system. This is a fleeting moment of geological time, much too short a
># time frame for mutations sorted by natural selection to have produced the
># required increase in brain complexity since microelectronic circuit design
># and astrophysics require thinking skills considerably more advanced than
># those used by simple hunter gatherers or the members of the first small
># agricultural communities.
>#
># Evolution cannot explain the origin of complex characteristics that
># represent unused potential since mutations and natural selection cannot
># increase the functional adaptation of combinations of genes that are not
># used. We were created in God's image.
In article <jeffcox-0506...@d31.syd2.zeta.org.au>, jef...@zeta.org.au
(Jeffrey Cox) writes:
># No. According to the evolution viewpoint there needs to have been a
># selective advantage to explain the development of a high degree of
># sophistication for the platform that runs the language software, the
># brain. Banging rocks together and hunter gathering would not provide an
># environment where highly sophisticated abstract thinking skills were an
># advantage and so natural selection couldn't sort variant alleles to tune
># the development of such sophistication. We had an intelligent designer.
And now ...
In article <jeffcox-0906...@d31.syd2.zeta.org.au>, jef...@zeta.org.au
(Jeffrey Cox) writes:
> My point is not that language developed very recently but that technology
> has progressed incredibly rapidly and that the intellectual skills
> associated with modern technology require a sophistication in brain
> function beyond that required in the physical and cultural environment of
> 12000 years ago or earlier. I pointed out that mutations and natural
> selection could not produce such an improvement in thinking skills in this
> short time and suggest that the sophistication of modern human thought is
> therefore evidence of intelligent design.
I do not know any other way to interpret what you have said here than that
the 'evolution viewpoint' referred to above is that 12,000 years of mutations
and natural selection are required to explain the development of human
sophistication, which appears to be what you have explicitly said in this
message. I maintain that there is no such 'evolution viewpoint', if by the
phrase 'evolution viewpioint' you mean the opinion of evolutionists. So the
first obvious question is just what exactly does 'evolution viewpoint' mean?
Everybody agrees that 12,000 years of mutation and natural selection cannot
be responsible for the advance of human sophistication, but I think you are
not making much sense. I maintain, and the mainstream of evolutionary thought
maintains ,that all of the necessary functions were already present in the
brain 12,000 years ago. The advance in human culture/sophistication over the
last 12,000 years has nothing at all to do with physiological changes in the
brain over that time period; furthermore, until you brought up the subject,
I have never heard anyone express such an idea. All of those changes in human
sophistication are merely a matter of making better use of the brains we already
had.
Why is it that the brain 12,000 years ago could not have already had all
of the physiological functionality within it already, to exploit the invention
of writing circa 5,000 years ago?