Creation Site -- Your Thoughts???
Michael Sturgeon
I have just posted a new website on Creation and why it is so important as
well as other information. This has plenty of information to assist the
Christian in refeuting the theory of evolution over creation. There are also
resource pages and pages for teaching your children no matter what their
age.
I have been adding pages to this site on an avg of 2 pages per week.
Please check it out and let me know what you think. Send comments to
mstu...@vei.net please.
The URL for this site is http://www.parousia.net/genesisnetwork/
God Bless,
Michael
Keith Littleton
Michael Sturgeon <mstu...@vei.net>
>Hello,
>
>I have just posted a new website on Creation and
>why it is so important as well as other information.
>This has plenty of information to assist the Christian
>in refuting the theory of evolution over creation.
>There are also resource pages and pages for teaching
>your children no matter what their age.
>
>I have been adding pages to this site on an avg of 2
>pages per week. Please check it out and let me know
>what you think. Send comments to mstu...@vei.net
>please.
>
>The URL for this site is
>http://www.parousia.net/genesisnetwork/
I went to
http://www.parousia.net/genesisnetwork/ .
I would like to see what documentation for the "Bomb
Building" web page and cartoon which shows that the
teaching of evolution produces bomb-throwing mass murders
as the cartoon on this web page shows. To me, it sounds
like just the same old evangelical propaganda against
people and ideas with which they disagree. I have seen
some evangelical Christians make similar cartoons about
Islam and Judaism. The cartoons remains the same, only
the target of the slander changes according to what
ideas that are judged to be unacceptable because they
contradict some personal religious belief. Given the
recent events at Littleton, CO and elsewhere, the "Bomb
Building" cartoon gives me the sense that you are just
exploiting such tragedies to smear and defame people
who disagree with you about the subject of evolution.
Your page titled "Dating Systems" gives a very shallow
and one-sided discussion at:
http://www.parousia.net/genesisnetwork/Myths/Dating_Systems/dating_systems.htm
First, it talks about specific rock paintings from South
Africa that were dated in 1991 by Oxford University's
radiocarbon accelerator unit. Then it chides these people
for misdating a modern painting. However, the brief
summary on the web page omits key facts and, thus, presents
a very distorted and false account of what happened. The
below post explains what the truth of the situation.
+++++++++++ reposted text below this line +++++++++++++
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.test
Xref: ramtops.demon.co.uk talk.origins:547
From: sout...@tyrell.net (southdar)
Subject: The Oxford C14 Accelerator Unit thingy (was: Re: A challenge to
talk-origins) Followup-To: talk.origins
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: tyrell.net
Message-ID: <DGKt...@tyrell.net>
Sender: ne...@tyrell.net (*)
Organization: Friends of Fossils
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 04:49:23 GMT
Lines: 107
WARNING, WARNING. This is also being posted
to alt.test in order to determine if it gets posted.
Therefore, in following up to this post, make sure that
you are not also posting to alt.test. Considered
yourself warned.
To continue Tero Sand's new thread from message
<45oe8b$8...@kruuna.helsinki.fi>,
in article <1...@milton.win-uk.net>,
Richard Milton <ric...@milton.win-uk.net> wrote:
> In message <44hd3l$r...@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca>
>Andrew MacRae wrote:-
>> Since you have only a handful of anomalous dates
>>"for which there is independent evidence", and which has
>>contributed to your skepticism regarding the radiometric
>>techniques on long time-scales, why not list one?
>I listed one in my last post: the failure of Oxford's C14
>Accelerator Unit to correctly date the 'bush paintings'
>found in South Africa. Every time I provide the kind of
>concrete detail you demand, you deal with it by simply
>ignoring it or dismissing it because it does not fit
>your preconceptions.
>From another post in the Re: A challenge to talk-origins
>thread
>>Richard Milton <ric...@milton.win-uk.net> wrote:
>>> has granted some real outside verification. In a
>>>recent post I mentioned the case of rock paintings
>>>dated by Oxford University's C14 accelerator unit
>>>as being 1,200 years old which turned out to be recent
>>>paintings. (Obviously to be independently discovered
>>>as falsely dated, with complete certainty, a sample
>>>must really date from recorded human history -- hence
>>>the very small number of such cases).
While talking about using mass spectrometer to date rock
art with archaeologist friends in the Texas Archaeological
Society the radiocarbon dates quoted above by Mr. Milton
came up as an example of what not to date with radiocarbon
dating. They told me of several items concerning the
above radiocarbon dates that Mr. Milton very conveniently,
for his case, failed to mention.
Mr. Milton failed to mention that;
1. The Oxford University people were very worried
about the sample even before they dated it because of
indications that the sample to be dated contained
petroleum products. That the person submiting the
sample failed to provide any useful information
concerning from where the sample came frustrated any
attempt at pretreating the sample to remove contaminants.
2. This rock art was NOT DATED to 1,200 B.P. The dating
report is explicit in giving only a radiocarbon
concentration equivalent to 1,200 B.P. The report is
very carefully worded to warn that this date did not
necessarily indicate the age of the painting because of
contamination and other problems; and
3. There were a number of problems, e.g. the presence
of petroleum products as part of the pigment, with this
sample. The pigment very likely contained oil made from
petroleum. In other cases, the pigment itself can
consist of carbon black made from natural gas. Because
it was actually part of the pigment to be dated and not
a natural contaminant, pretreatment could not be used
to remove the oil. As a result, the age of the pigment
was not contemporary with the age of the painting. This
problem was realized and thus, in their report on this
dating, the Oxford people plainly stated that the the
result failed to be any sort of date, but rather a
radiocarbon concentration.
In conclusion, Mr. Milton's statement about the above
dates; < turned out to be recent paintings. (Obviously
to be independently discovered as falsely dated> is
completely and utterly false because the Oxford people
realized before hand that the material dated would fail
to give a valid date. Indeed, a warning to this effect
was included in the dating report. Although vital
information concerning the origin of the dated sample
of painting was withheld from them, they recognized the
material as being unsuitable for dating the true age of
painting contrary to the above incorrect claims.
It should not take a rocket scientist to realize that if
a pigment composed of mixture of modern material containing
radioactive carbon and ancient petroleum derived carbon
(either as mineral oil or carbon black) is dated that the
mixture will not give a valid date. Also, if a pigment
derived entirely from petroleum products entirely is used
to paint something, this painting would give an apparent
age much greater than 50,000 B.P. even if painted yesterday.
Any date derived from the pigment of a painting is a
function of the age of the components of the pigments and
the proportions of these components in the mix. Thus,
they can have nothing to do with the age of the painting.
This is a basic fact that only someone who is completely
clueless about radiometric dating would fail to grasp.
Sincerely Yours;
Darby South
sout...@tyrell.net
+++++++++++ reposted text above this line +++++++++++++
The additional details clearly show that there the
measurements of radiocarbon activity on the rock fail to
constitute a "crazy result." The only thing "crazy" about
the analysis made on the South African rock painting is
the inability of creationists to simply understand
that it is bogus to claim it to be a "radiocarbon date,"
much less a date that has any chronological meaning.
Second, the above web page briefly notes a sharpened tool
made from a caribou bone from the Old Crow River that
was dated in 1966 initially at 25,000 to 32,000 BP and
later dated to be only a few thousand years old. The
page calls this a "crazy result."
The specific citation for this "crazy result" is:
Nelson, D. E., R. E. Morlan, J. S. Vogel, J. r. Southon,
and C. r. Harington. (1986) New Dates on Northern Yukon
Artifacts: Holocene Not Upper Pleistocene. Scence,
vol. 232, no. 4751, pp. 749-751 (May 9, 1986).
Again, this web page ignores significant details. The
first date came from the inorganic components of the bone.
This part of the bone readily dissolves or recrystallizes.
In either case, diagenetic exchange of carbon occurs
between the bone and bicarbonate in the ground water
dissolved from ancient loesses and lake deposits. As a
result, there is nothing "crazy" about either the bone
being heavily contaminated with older carbon or the apatite
fraction of the bone giving an old and false apparent
date as Nelson et al. (1986) explains. The second
radiocarbon date came from bone protein that was dated
using the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) technique.
This gives a more accurate date because the protein in
the bone does not exchange significant amounts of carbon
with the ground water. Given the different materials
dated, the difference in dates is only "crazy" to people
ignorant of the basics of radiocarbon dating. The
invention of AMS dating made the dating the very small
amounts of bone protein that remain in a bone possible.
More about the problems of dating bone can be found at:
"Dates on Bones"
http://www.canadianarchaeology.com/radiocarbon/card/bones.htm
More about dating of artifacts and bones from the Old Crow
River area can be found in:
Morlan, R.E., D. E. Nelson, T. A. Brown, J. S. Vogel, and
J. R. Southon. (1990) Accelerator mass spectrometry dates
on bones from Old Crow Basin, northern Yukon Territory.
Canadian Journal of Archaeology. vol. 14, pp. 75-92.
http://www.canadianarchaeology.com/caabiblio/abstract/vol14/14-5.htm#e
Another note from the "Dating Systems" web page states:
"* Shells of mollusks that were living have been
dated as having died 2300 years ago."
This sounds like a radiocarbon study that is much abused
by creationists. This study is:
Keith M. L. and G. L. Anderson (1963) Radiocarbon dating:
fictitious results with mollusk shells". Science. vol. 41,
pp. 634-635 (August, 1963).
The above citation is a radiocarbon-mollusk shell study
that creationists often deceitfully misquote and misuse to
fabricate a case against radiocarbon dating. A detailed
discussion of the misuse of this study can be found on
pp. 156-157 of:
Strahler, A.N. (1987) Science and Earth History- The
Evolution Creation Controversy," Prometheus Books,
Buffalo, New York.
Anyone familiar with radiocarbon dating knows that there
are problems with radiocarbon dating with mollusks because
of the well-known "reservoir effect" that occurs with
mollusks and other animals that live in the water. This
happens when "old" carbon is introduced into the water by
the dissolution of carbonate or in the ocean with bottom
waters that take thousands of years to circulate.
For newbees, the "reservoir effect" happens when "old"
carbon is introduced into the water by the dissolution
of carbonate or in the ocean with bottom waters that take
thousands of years to circulate.
Also, in http://www2.waikato.ac.nz/c14/webinfo/corr.html ,
Dr. Thomas Higham states,
"Reservoir effects
Radiocarbon samples which obtain their carbon from a
different source (or reservoir) than atmospheric carbon
may yield what is termed apparent ages. A shellfish
alive today in a lake within a limestone catchment,
for instance, will yield a radiocarbon date which is
excessively old. The reason for this anomaly is that
the limestone, which is weathered and dissolved into
bicarbonate, has no radioactive carbon. Thus, it
dilutes the activity of the lake meaning that the
radioactivity is depleted in comparison to 14C activity
elsewhere. The lake, in this case, has a different
radiocarbon reservoir than that of the majority of
the radiocarbon in the biosphere and therefore an
accurate radiocarbon age requires that a correction
be made to account for it."
The radiocarbon effect can affected materials of almost
any age, historic to prehistoric. It all depends on
whether there was "old" carbon in the system from either
the dissolution of carbonate or old ocean bottom waters.
Where such bottom waters upwell the animals that live
in it and the birds, mammals, and fish feeding on them
will be greatly effected.
For a more detail explanation of the Reservoir effect, a
person can go to:
http://www2.waikato.ac.nz/c14/webinfo/corr.html .
The "Dating Systems" web page also states:
"* Seals that had only just been killed gave an
age of 1300 years."
and
"* Mummified seals that had been dead about
30 years yielded an age of 4600 years."
Both apparently come from Wakefield (1971). He states:
"Radiocarbon analysis of specimens obtained from
mummified seals in southern Victoria Land has yielded
ages ranging from 615 to 4,600 years. However, Antarctica
sea water has significantly lower carbon-14 activity
than that accepted as the world standard. Therefore,
radiocarbon dating of marine organisms yields apparent
ages that are older than true ages, but by an unknown
and possibly variable amount. Therefore, the several
radiocarbon ages determined for the mummified seal
carcasses cannot be accepted as correct. For example,
the apparent radiocarbon age of the Lake Bonney seal
known to have been dead no more than a few weeks was
determined to be 615 +/- 100 years. A seal freshly
killed at McMurdo had an apparent age of 1,300 years."
In case of the seals, they feed off of animals that live
in an nutrient-rich upwelling zone. The water that is
upwelling has been traveling along the bottom for a few
thousands years before surfacing. The carbon dioxide in
came from the atmosphere before the water sank and traveled
for a couple of thousand years. Thus, the carbon in the
sea water is a couple of thousand years "old" from when it
was in the atmosphere and its radiocarbon content reflects
this time. Plants incorporate this "old" carbon in them as
they grow. Then animals incorporate this "old" carbon in
them when they eat the plants and the seals incorporate
this "old" carbon in themselves when they eat the animals.
As a result, "old" carbon from the bottom waters is passed
up the food chain resulting in an old date. The problem is,
as in case of the shells, the carbon is coming from sources
other then the contemporaneous atmosphere. The
"reservoir effect" is well known by scientists and, unlike
many creationists, well aware of this short coming. There
is nothing crazy about this date. It is just a matter of
the carbon not coming directly from the atmosphere that
valid radiocarbon dating requires.
The original reference is:
Wakefield, Dort, Jr. (1971) Mummified seals of southern
Victoria Land. Antarctic Journal. vol. 6, pp. 211-232.
(September-October 1971).
Finally the "Dating Methods" web page also states:
"* An English castle that had been built 785 years ago
gave an age of 7370 years when part of it was dated."
As in previous claims, this claim distorts the situation
by overlooking important facts. These facts are found in:
Baxter, M. S., and A. Walters (1970) Radiocarbon Dating
of Mortars. Nature. vol. 225, no. 5236, pp. 937-938.
(March 7, 1970)
What the "Dating Methods" web page fails to mentions is
that the paper demonstrates that the dating of mortar,
amorphous calcium carbonate, by radiocarbon fails to
work for mortars in Great Britain. It also falsely claims
that this date is "crazy, " because Baxter and Walters
(1970) explain that such bad dates are the expected
consequence of mortars made using incompletely kilned
limestone and / or calcareous sands. Of course, the
failure of these mortars to provide reliable dates has
no bearing on the reliability of radiocarbon dates on
wood, charcoal, and other organic materials as the
"Dating Methods" misleading implies.
>My first step in research on this matter that is so
>controversial was to prove that creationism was incorrect.
>In doing so I had to read the books scientific and non-
>scientific that supported creationism.
Well, you have done a very poor job of researching this
topic as your page about radiocarbon dating shows. You
seem to be completely unaware that geologists are well
aware of the above limitations and they do not apply to
all radiocarbon dates. If you are going to criticize
radiocarbon dating, you needs to learn something about
what you are talking about and present the fact fairly
instead of in the usual creationist comic-book style
of random text-bites. If all of the details are given,
the claims of radiocarbon dating giving "crazy results"
are nothing more than a failure to understand
the science behind each of the cases that the "Dating
Methods" web page presents.
A number of basic references can be found at:
http://c14.sci.waikato.ac.nz/webinfo/bib.html
Some of them are:
Aitken, M.J. (1990) Science-based Dating in Archaeology.
Longman, England.
Bowman, S.G.E. (1990) Radiocarbon Dating. "Interpreting the
Past" series. British Museum Publications, London.
Faure, G.(1986) Principles of Isotope Geology. (Second
Edition). Wiley, New York.
Taylor, R.E. (1987) Radiocarbon Dating. An archaeological
perspective. Academic Press, Orlando, USA.
As illustrated above, scientific content of the web pages
at your web page is woefully lacking. Complex issues are
summarized in simplistic text-bites that are at best
misleading and at worse dishonest. Also, the dishonest
cartoon about evolution education producing bomb-throwing
mass-murders is the type of mindless propaganda that only
discredits your arguments among the non-believers and
engenders disgust among many fellow Christians like me.
Cheers to You,
Keith Littleton
litt...@vnet.net
New Orleans, LA
"To deny the past is to deny the future."
Sparrowhawk in "The Farthest Shore"
- Ursula K. LeGuin
Mark RM
much needed.
the page on bombmaking is RIGHT ON !! It does not exploit the Littleton
tragedy it seeks to offer an explanation why seemingly normal kids go off
the deep end. This line of reasoning certainly makes sense to me.... 'If
I'm no more than an animal it shouldn't be a surprize when I act like one.'
The sanctity of life is not a logical nescessity in evolutionist reasoning.
Therefore, why not kill millions of unborn babies. Why not shoot innocent
people in a drive-by shooting over a disagreement or because words were
exchanged. Why not blow up a school and kill as many peole as possible
because of being misunderstood.
It all follows.
Thanks for your work Keith.
Mark
Keith Littleton <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in message
news:3%6i3.235$ko4....@ralph.vnet.net...
Keith Littleton
>I've checked out your web page Keith and I think its a
>great endeavor and much needed.
First, it is not my web page. I guess that this shows
little you pay attention or thing about what you read. :-)
In reality, I guess that you are just being sarcastic.
I find it remarkable that a person considers the publishing
of falsehood, misinformation, and unsubstantiated propoganda
to be a "great endeavor" and something that is "much needed."
As I noted in a previous post and people have noted in posts
to the talk.origins newsgroup, this web page is factually
bankrupt provides nothing more than the usual creationist
misinformation. The material that I and others have posted
have documented numerous cases of it. The web page being
dicussed is at:
http://www.parousia.net/genesisnetwork/
>the page on bombmaking is RIGHT ON !!
If the page on bombmaking is right on, where is the the
proof for the cartoon that teaching evolution creates
killers and bombmakers?
The bombmaking page under discussion is at:
http://www.parousia.net/genesisnetwork/Truths/Bomb_Building/bomb_building.htm
>It does not exploit the Littleton tragedy it seeks to
>offer an explanation why seemingly normal kids go off
>the deep end. This line of reasoning certainly makes
>sense to me.... 'If I'm no more than an animal it
>shouldn't be a surprize when I act like one.'
Evolution doesn't teach this. This is just your biased
interpretation of evolution. For counter arguments to
your claims, I would suggest that people go to:
"Would We All Behave Like Animals? A Conversation"
by William Thwaites, Ph.D. at:
http://www.natcenscied.org/behave.htm
There are a number of other brochures about the evolution-
creations debate at:
http://www.natcenscied.org/broclist.htm
>The sanctity of life is not a logical nescessity in
>evolutionist reasoning.
>Therefore, why not kill millions of unborn babies.
>Why not shoot innocent people in a drive-by shooting
>over a disagreement or because words were exchanged.
>Why not blow up a school and kill as many peole as
>possible because of being misunderstood. It all
>follows.
Given the murder and mayhem in Nothern Ireland and
rape and murder by "Christian" Serbians against
Albanians, and the innumerable pogroms that Christians
have conducted against Jews, an atheist could argue the
same about Christianity. That argument is just as
much propaganda as your argument. Violence is a far
complex problem. I guess simple minds require
simplistic answers to complex problems.
>Thanks for your work Keith.
Well it is not my web page. I amazes me how supportive
even few Christians can be of a web page that is packed
full of falshoods, misinformation, and ignorant cartoons.
.... text deleted ...
Stanley L. Moore
Mark RM <MMes...@csi.com> wrote in message
news:ujx9hoCz#GA...@nih2naac.compuserve.com...
> I've checked out your web page Keith and I think its a great endeavor
and
> much needed.
> the page on bombmaking is RIGHT ON !! It does not exploit the
Littleton
> tragedy it seeks to offer an explanation why seemingly normal kids go
off
> the deep end. This line of reasoning certainly makes sense to me....
'If
> I'm no more than an animal it shouldn't be a surprize when I act like
one.'
Of course, the bomb makers and shooters of this world are NOT acting
like animals, rather they are acting like human beings who know what
they are doing. To purposely cause death and destruction is found
almost exclusively among humans and very rarely among animals. In any
case evolution has very little to do with human destructive tendencies.
Evolution as a scientific idea has only been around for about 150 years.
Are you saying that all murders and bombings since 1859 are due to
evolution and all murders (many many more) and other destruction from
all past centuries are from some other source? It seem you try to blame
evolution for a whole lot of unrelated phenomena. Evolution is
scientific fact and hiding your head in the sand is counter productive.
As a personal disclaimer, I am an atheist but am also solidly pro life,
as human life is precious and it is all we have. I am probably more
consistent about my pro life posiotion than many Christians. Since ALL
human life is valuable, I oppose capital punishment, war, and murder as
well as abortion. So the fact of evolution has nothing to do with moral
principles. Take care.
Avital Pilpel
> I'm no more than an animal it shouldn't be a surprize when I act like
one.'
Animals, however, usually don't kill for pleasure - as opposed to the deeply
religions person who first said "kill them all and let god sort them out", a
state of mind of religious people so often exemplified in human history,
from the crusades to modern-day radical Islam.
This is really rich. Almost every day, some nutcase kills innocent people
because God told them to - but that is not religion's fault. But when, for a
change, some nutcase kills innocent people *without* claiming that God told
them to, that *is* evolution's fault?
Yeah, right.
The only difference the teaching of creationism and religion would have made
to the "Trench-coat Mafia" killers would have been that they would have kill
those people "because god told them to".