The evolution thread

Scientists don't answer with "Because God made it that way" or "It's magic" because it introduces a whole new level of complexity, and it does not advance our understanding of (As Erasmus so quaintly puts it "The Way Things Work").

You are right they don't use those phrases, they use different one: "Over milions of yours it worked itself out" Anything you look at, it's "see that little change?, now imagine milions of years of changes like that". It's like time is your divine power.

You know that all scientific devices and processes must be calibrated before they can be used reliably. Has radiometric dating been calibrated? If so how?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating#Calibration

The point is moot, because if radiometric dating is so inaccurate as Creationists claim, then the Earth should be burnt to a crisp.

I believe in the Divine, and Magic, but I don't fall to them to answer scientific questions.

So you think origins of life is a scientific question?
Well then, some news for you. Questions on origins of life and afterlife are inherently religious, you can't get more religious than that. And when science gets into these questions it becomes another religion, that people follow based on faith, not hard evidence, because you don't have and never will have hard evidence for afterlife and origins of life.

So this thread is nothing more that an argument between two religions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating#Calibration

The point is moot, because if radiometric dating is so inaccurate as Creationists claim, then the Earth should be burnt to a crisp.

No not Earth, just your theory.
Your link only deals with carbon dating and is relying on even more unreliable methods for calibration (like dendrochronology, ice cores, deep ocean sediment cores, lake sediment varves, coral samples, and speleothems), And shockingly, radioactive rate is not the biggest assumption on C14 dating method.

You got anything for methods that give you millions of years, not thousands?

... even more unreliable methods for calibration (like dendrochronology, ice cores, deep ocean sediment cores, lake sediment varves, coral samples, and speleothems),

*knock knock*

What's so unreliable about these methods?  Also, don't you think that the fact that all these methods back each other up show that they're all reasonably good?

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/top.htm

just an interesting website with arguments against evolution writen in a very easy to understand way.

I'm a creationist, and I believe in evolution ( along with a massive amount of the Muslim community). I just don't believe that we came from apes, as there's some debate about the topic, but I don't have a link to a reliable source right now. I don't really see what's wrong with saying evolution took place. The Bible does mention animals from modern times as being here since the days of creation, but it's authenticity is extremely doubtful as people have warped and twisted it so much over the years. The Qu'ran itself doesn't say 'everything is exactly as it was, and all species stayed put and did not adapt or evolve', in fact one of God's names in Islam is 'The Evolver'. And I believe it to be more authentic as every copy is pretty much exactly like the first ever copy in existence. What is the problem?

So you think origins of life is a scientific question?
Well then, some news for you. Questions on origins of life and afterlife are inherently religious, you can't get more religious than that. And when science gets into these questions it becomes another religion, that people follow based on faith, not hard evidence, because you don't have and never will have hard evidence for afterlife and origins of life.

So this thread is nothing more that an argument between two religions.

You have it backwards.  Religion is an object of interpreting belief.  Science is an object of interpreting facts.

When religion does not mesh with Science, that is called Dogma.  It is the rejection of data, because it does not match belief.  Science attempts to take observe facts and build from there.  Dogma takes accepted belief and attempt to bend fact to it.  Thus Science was able to change when observations led to the conclusion that the Earth revolved around the Sun, but Religious Dogma fought and threatened when faced with the same observations.

Can anyone "Prove' the scientific conjecture as to the age of the earth?  Not without a time machine or FTL travel.  Are there facts that support an "Old Earth" more than a young earth? Yes.  

Science tries to tie al the facts together, while the "religious" POV tries to come up with reasons to question the theories made from observations.

Take the tree Rings.  You are quick to point out that the oldest living tree, aged by rings is less than 5000 years old.  You ignore the dead trees laying nearby with over 7,000 rings.  You ignore the colonial plants that using the observed growth rings are extrapolated to be tens of thousands of years old.

You ignore the simple geological findings of primitive life remains at lowest levels of striated rock.

You liKe your Halos that Gently uses to theorize a young earth, but ignore the ones nearby that indicate much greater age.

If it doesn't fit, you deny it.  At least in the Scientific view, you look for reasons for unexpected results, like Radon leaks from the Uranium as a cause of Gentry's Halos.  It matches the observation and the underlying theories.

You know that all scientific devices and processes must be calibrated before they can be used reliably. Has radiometric dating been calibrated? If so how?

Well,
http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/jres/109/2/j92cur.pdf#search=%22carbon%20dating%20validation%22

Shows the results of carbon dating object related to known historical times through the past 4600 years.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/97legacy/pompeii.html
describes the validation of the Argon-Argon dating methods.

And the various other radioactive decay methods have been cross-check within themselves.  There are over 40 radio isotope methods which agree with each other closely to give the age of the Earth as 4.5 billion years.

Can your religious view survive that kind of cross checking and validation?  Even the New testiment can not be "cross checked" without finding variation.

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/top.htm

just an interesting website with arguments against evolution writen in a very easy to understand way.

Easy to understand, and wrong, and many of these points have been addressed in this thread.

Just follow the developement of teeth in the proposed chain of humanity. Or the changes in the brain structure as reflected by the skull changes.

one of the main problems i have with evolution is the fact that the First life to ever exist must have been created, even if all life since that has evolved from that first life, so life of course must have been created.

To produce a living thing you must start with a living thing. get me?

also, 'The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (time and chance) is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'.  Sir Fred Hoyle, who was infact an evolutionist.

Easy to understand, and wrong, and many of these points have been addressed in this thread.

Weren't you the one that said the easiest explanation is the right one?

Just follow the developement of teeth in the proposed chain of humanity. Or the changes in the brain structure as reflected by the skull changes.

Right, feed us some more evolutionists fantasy or "proposed chain of humanity" based on 5 teeth and 4 skulls found on different continents.

Quote from: "googleSearch"

You know that all scientific devices and processes must be calibrated before they can be used reliably. Has radiometric dating been calibrated? If so how?

Well,
http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/jres/109/2/j92cur.pdf#search=%22carbon%20dating%20validation%22

Shows the results of carbon dating object related to known historical times through the past 4600 years.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/97legacy/pompeii.html
describes the validation of the Argon-Argon dating methods.

Not a word about results that produced milions of years.

Also, samples of 1980 Mt St.Helens erruption gave results ranging from 400K years to 1.2 mil years using your radiometric dating method.

I guess it depends on the sample huh. Or is it some kind of a method to verify that sample has not been contaminated since it's formation?

To produce a living thing you must start with a living thing. get me?

No, I don't particular get you.  Do you have any good reason to think that might be true?  Or are you just assuming that since all the living things you've personally encountered came from other living things, then this generalization should just apply to all of them that ever existed?

If so, you should note that there are lots of things that are on the border between living and nonliving, from which obviously-living things can arise, and that these things can themselves arise from obviously-nonliving things.

also, 'The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (time and chance) is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'.  Sir Fred Hoyle, who was infact an evolutionist.

That's just plain wrong.  If the rebuttal to the blind-watchmaker argument isn't obvious to you, I suggest looking it up on Wikipedia, or elsewhere on these forums (it's been discussed plenty of times).

Quote from: "Hamaz"

To produce a living thing you must start with a living thing. get me?

No, I don't particular get you.  Do you have any good reason to think that might be true?  Or are you just assuming that since all the living things you've personally encountered came from other living things, then this generalization should just apply to all of them that ever existed?

If so, you should note that there are lots of things that are on the border between living and nonliving, from which obviously-living things can arise, and that these things can themselves arise from obviously-nonliving things.

Quote

also, 'The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (time and chance) is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'.  Sir Fred Hoyle, who was infact an evolutionist.

That's just plain wrong.  If the rebuttal to the blind-watchmaker argument isn't obvious to you, I suggest looking it up on Wikipedia, or elsewhere on these forums (it's been discussed plenty of times).

and how do you propose that life just suddenly appeared in the universe?

In middle of this heated debate, I say only this: evolution have nothing to do with abiogenesis. Hell, first cell could be created by God, seeded by space aliens or arose from autocatalityc chemical reactions, but its not matter for evolution.

Evolution will work anyway, regardless of cause of first life. Do not mix them - these are seperate problems.

and how do you propose that life just suddenly appeared in the universe?

Well I imagine that early on there were complex chemicals on the bottom of the ocean somewhere, near a source of heat and raw materials like a vent, which undergo certain reactions with other chemicals that result in more copies of the same molecules forming.  Anyway it's not my proposition.

Or maybe the gods created bacteria and viruses.  I dunno.

Or are you just assuming that since all the living things you've personally encountered came from other living things, then this generalization should just apply to all of them that ever existed?

Is it a good old uniformitarism in its core? You know, the way things are now is the way they always been … simplest explanation is the right one.
Or is it not that simple anymore?

Or maybe the gods created bacteria and viruses.  I dunno.

Or maybe he created fully functional human... or this is not possible?

Is it a good old uniformitarism in its core?

But it's quite clear that the set of organisms he has encountered -- dogs and people and trees and fish and so on -- comprise a tiny fraction of the kinds of organisms that we know to exist.  Many of the organisms that we know to exist are exactly the sort of borderline cases I talked about.

Or maybe he created fully functional human... or this is not possible?

Maybe.  It's entirely possible.  It's just not considering all the observations at once, along with the fact that we have no particularly good reason to believe he exists in the first place.

Not a word about results that produced milions of years.

Since I was showing validation of techniques compared to known historical events, no there are none that are in the millions of years.  Not surprising, as if you ask me about sharks, I probably won't mention aardvarks.

Also, samples of 1980 Mt St.Helens erruption gave results ranging from 400K years to 1.2 mil years using your radiometric dating method.

Yes, badly collected samples sent to a lab that states that it's testing is not valid for samples less than 2 million years old could not give reliable results...Who'd have thunk?  If I park my car on a bathroom scale I won't get a reliable reading.  I guess that means that bathroom scales aren't reliable.

I guess it depends on the sample huh. Or is it some kind of a method to verify that sample has not been contaminated since it's formation?

No it's a question of having qualified people, using established procedure to perform repeated testing.  
Steve Austin (gee and I used to love the 6 million dollar man) or Stuart Nevins as he used to name himself (I think he went into hiding after proving that the earth had to be at least 30,000,000 years old to account for the sediment in the oceans.)

Weren't you the one that said the easiest explanation is the right one?

No, I said the simplest, not the easiest, based on Occams Razor.  When the easy answers have consistant holes, how can you believe in them?

Right, feed us some more evolutionists fantasy or "proposed chain of humanity" based on 5 teeth and 4 skulls found on different continents.

Even your Museum of Creation and Earth History admits to more than 200 "Human Fossils", what's this 5 teeth bull.

...  If it doesn't fit, you deny it.  ...

And science does not do that at all? Well, it most defenetly should not, but it still does. You probably want examples, so here is one:

thread by the name "Sea Serpents & Dragons" contains lots of information on dinosaurs still alive, it's got many links to sites with credible information about sightings.

Did evolution change it's position on dinosaurs? No! According to the theory they still died 70 mil years ago and no human has ever seen a life dino.

Does this mean that you deny facts that don't fit your theory, or it means that all those people that saw live dinos are stupid rednecks that know nothing of science?

Wow, you've sunk pretty low if you think mythical sea monsters mess with evolution.

Wow, you've sunk pretty low if you think mythical sea monsters mess with evolution.

Sorry, master, I know that noone can mess with evolution, after all it is the untouchable holy grail. Thousand appologies.

Do you see your religios obsession with that theory? You dismiss facts that contradict your theory without even looking at them. You are indeed a strong man of your faith.

thread by the name "Sea Serpents & Dragons" contains lots of information on dinosaurs still alive, it's got many links to sites with credible information about sightings.

Credible? Suuuure. Like sightings of UFO, ghosts or Elvis. Or many, many other misintepreted, overlooked or simply made up things. Bunch of sites exists that talks about Zeta Reticuli, Scientology or magic. Who cares about kooks and crackpots?

Not to mention that dinos can't survive without their own whole ecology, plant-eaters, predators, preys, parasites etc. Such ecological systems are impossible to hide completely. In other words, if alive dinos exists today, they're would be in zoos and biology books like all other species, for example birds.

Oh, I forget. Of course. Scientific CONSPIRACY!!!!!11oneoneone...

[quote="googleSearch]thread by the name "Sea Serpents & Dragons" contains lots of information on dinosaurs still alive, it's got many links to sites with credible information about sightings.[/quote]

Do you believe in ghosts?  Almost all cultures have Ghost myths, and they have much more in common then the "Dragon Myths".  

Following the links in the other threat is at least entertaining, but so far I haven't seen more than fuzzy pictures and bad drawings.  Most of the famous ones, like Nessy have been debunked.

How about flying saucers?  Are they out there too?

Your reactions tells me exactly what I've been trying to tell you all along. Your evolution is your religion, and that's fine, just don't call it science. Because a real scientist will investigate the facts and draw conclusions, whereas you already have your conclusion and deny facts that don't fit it.
You do exactly what you accused me of doing!

No. It is simply laughable that you think a scientific theory would be threatened by barely, if at all credible reports of sea monsters.