What Darwin Didn't Know

bob_2 · 03-15-09 1:56 pm

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:What Darwin Didn't Know by Fazale Rana, Ph.D. [published in Charisma online, February 2009] A sage once said, "It's not what you know you don't know that's the problem; it's what you don't know that you don't know." When Charles Darwin advanced his theory of biological evolution, there was a lot of biology he didn't know. Some of it he recognized. But there was much he never even thought about. During the 150 years since then, scientific advance has yielded important understanding about life's origin, history and characteristics. These accomplishments provide the framework for modern biology. Even more, they are causing scientists to question his theory. Learning what scientists know will equip Christians with a response to the Darwin anniversaries and his theory of biological evolution that can change minds and lives. Darwin didn't address life's start in his seminal work, The Origin of Species. However, in 1871, while writing to a friend, Darwin speculated that the first spark of life may have taken place in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes." Still, it took until the 1920s before Russian biochemist Alexander I. Oparin and British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane independently provided a comprehensive scientific hypothesis for abiogenesis (life coming from nonlife) based, in part, on Darwin's musings. Providing detailed pathways from inorganic systems on primordial Earth to the first living entities, the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis postulated an atmosphere without oxygen. Instead, reducing gases-hydrogen, ammonia, methane and water vapor-supposedly dominated. Energy discharges formed simple organic (prebiotic) molecules that accumulated in Earth's oceans to brew the primordial soup. There, presumably, chemical reactions led stepwise to life's first forms. In the 1950s Stanley Miller provided what many considered the first experimental verification of this hypothesis. By passing an electrical discharge through a reducing gas mix, Miller produced amino acids and other organics. His success launched the origin-of-life research program and became standard textbook fare. These now-famous experiments inaugurated a series of experiments by others that seemingly provided ongoing support for Oparin's and Haldane's ideas. Giddy with Miller's accomplishment, many scientists predicted the origin-of-life problem would soon be solved. But several recent discoveries have diminished that confidence. Miller's Experiment Didn't Matter Few textbooks acknowledge that today most origin-of-life researchers consider Miller's experiment irrelevant. Strong evidence revealing a primordial atmosphere composed of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water has changed the scientific consensus. This gas mixture does not yield organic compounds in laboratory prebiotic simulation experiments-a devastating blow for the evolutionary scenario. In the May 2, 2003, issue of Science, Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano, Miller's long-time collaborators, commemorated the 50th anniversary of his experiment. While explaining its historical interest, they acknowledged that "contemporary geoscientists tend to doubt that the primitive atmosphere had the highly reducing composition used by Miller in 1953." Equally problematic is the lack of any evidence for a prebiotic soup. If life arose from a chemical stew, then Earth's oldest rocks should bear that soup's chemical residue. Yet, according to origin-of-life researcher Noam Lahav in Biogenesis, so far, no geochemical evidence for the existence of a prebiotic soup has been published. Life could not arise from a primordial soup that never existed. Life's Amazing Design Researchers have traditionally maintained that hundreds of millions of years would be necessary for abiogenesis. They also claim that the first life to emerge would be extremely simple, evolving toward complexity. Darwin embraced the protoplasmic theory-the idea that the cell consisted of only a wall surrounding a nucleus and a homogeneous, jellylike protoplasm. This understanding made early evolutionary explanations of abiogenesis plausible. Biologists and chemists easily envisioned chemical routes that could produce the single ingredient believed to form the cell's protoplasm. By the end of the 19th century, however, this concept waned. With the discovery of enzymes in the cell's protoplasm capable of catalyzing a large collection of chemical reactions, scientists recognized protoplasm as a complex heterogeneous system. During the last century, advances in biochemistry continue to affirm the complexity of life at a molecular level. Even the simplest bacterium requires nearly 2,000 different proteins in the "protoplasm" to exist as a living entity. Not only are the cell's chemical systems irreducibly complex, but they also display an extraordinary degree of order undergirded by an elegant, sophisticated logic. Biochemists have also discovered that the salient characteristics of biochemical systems are identical to features immediately recognizable as the product of human designers. This close match logically compels the conclusion that life's most fundamental processes and structures stem from the work of an intelligent Agent. Many of the proteins that operate in the cell function as molecular-level machines. And many bear a striking resemblance to man-made machines replete with drive shafts, camshafts, turbines, clamps, lever arms, bushings, stators and rotors. Even atheists agree that life's chemical systems appear designed. The late Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, cautioned in What Mad Pursuit that "biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." By all appearances, life's chemistry looks like the product of a Creator. Because common experience teaches that information and codes always emanate from a mind, new discoveries about the information systems in the cell and the genetic code refute Darwin's theory while providing powerful evidence for the work of an intelligent Agent. Necessary to give meaning to the information stored in DNA, the genetic code supplies rules used by the cell's machinery to make proteins that also harbor information. Additionally, biochemists have recently learned that these rules are optimally fine-tuned. Given the time scale for the origin of life, natural selection would have had to evaluate roughly 1055 codes per second to find the genetic code. On this basis alone, it couldn't have an evolutionary origin. There simply wasn't enough time for natural processes to stumble upon it. Fossil Record Finds Darwin knew that the fossil record didn't offer much support for his ideas. In The Origin of Species, he devoted a chapter to the "difficulties," with two features considered most troubling: the absence of transitional forms and the abrupt appearances of biological groups the first time they occurred in the fossil record. Darwin lamented that "by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" Convinced that the fossil record was incomplete, Darwin expected missing transitional forms and gradual evolutionary transformations to be uncovered over time by paleontologists. And indeed they have found fossils that supply two key pieces of evidence to support biological evolution. The fossil record shows that past life is different from life today and simple life preceded complex. For many scientists these features indicate life must have evolved. But the work of a Creator, who brought different life forms into existence at different times, could just as easily account for these factors. The Genesis 1 and Psalm 104 creation accounts record this pattern. Despite all discoveries, the overall features of the fossil record still look the same today as in Darwin's time. Transitional forms are scarce. When new biological groups appear in the fossil record, they show up explosively, then undergo little change. Perhaps the chief example of sudden appearances is the Cambrian explosion. About 540 million years ago complex marine organisms exploded into the fossil record. Instead of relatively simple organisms originating at the base of the Cambrian, then evolving toward increased intricacy, complex animals appeared early and suddenly. Evolutionary biologists struggle to account for this because they believe life transitioned from simple to complex in a gradually branching, treelike fashion. Yet explosive appearances are exactly what to expect if a Creator orchestrated life. In The Blind Watchmaker atheist Richard Dawkins admits: "The Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups ... many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear." Such explosive appearances dominate the fossil record. Every time biological innovation occurs, it happens explosively. A big bang occurred when life first appeared, when the first complex cells originated and when animal body plans arose. The Origin of Humanity Although Darwin carefully avoided humanity's start in The Origin of Species, he detailed it in The Descent of Man. He speculated that, like all species, humanity evolved. "In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some ape-like creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point when the term 'man' ought to be used." Darwin interpreted humanity in a fully materialistic fashion. According to this view, all of human nature, not just humanity's physical makeup, emerged through natural selection. Lacking direct evidence, Darwin argued that humans must have evolved from an apelike animal based on anatomical comparisons and embryological similarities among man and other mammals. By then, paleontologists had discovered 35,000-year-old Cro-Magnon fossils. But these human remains and the first Neanderthal specimen discovered in 1856 did little to support Darwin's theory. The first so-called ape-human intermediate interpreted from the fossil record wasn't discovered until 1890, in Java, Indonesia. It became known as Homo erectus. In 1924, anthropologist Raymond Dart uncovered a small skull interpreted to have a blend of ape and human features that appeared to be humanity's most primitive predecessor. This fossil, nicknamed the Taung child, was formally classified as Australopithecus africanus. In the early 1960s Louis Leakey unearthed the first Homo habilis specimen in east Africa. Paleontologists considered this species (the first to use stone tools) to be the connection between the more primitive apelike australopithecines and Homo erectus. Then the floodgates opened. In the ensuing decades, paleontologists unearthed many hominid fossils that encompassed a wide range of species and accompanying archeological remains. Each new hominid appeared to fill in the evolutionary tree and clarify the pathway that human evolution took over the last 6 million years. But some of the most recent advances related to hominid-human relationships raise questions about evolution's validity. In 1997 fragments of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000- to 100,000-year-old skeleton were found in West Germany. When scientists compared them with the corresponding fragment of human DNA, the researchers discovered that Neanderthals made no contribution to human genetics. Indirect genetic comparisons now eliminate Homo erectus from human ancestry also. The discoveries of new fossils caused evolutionary biologists to eliminate "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) and the Taung child from the human evolutionary lineage. The last few years have forced evolutionary biologists to completely abandon the traditional view of human evolution presented in biology textbooks. Scientific consensus confirms that humanity originated about 100,000 years ago in east Africa near the location ascribed to the Garden of Eden. Mitochondrial- and Y-chromosomal DNA markers trace that origin back to one man and one woman. Also, this research indicates that humanity migrated around the world from in or near the Middle East. Referred to as the Out-of-Africa hypothesis by evolutionary biologists, this account of humanity's origin appears to be simply an awkward attempt to force the biblical model into an evolutionary framework. If humanity's genesis happened as Scripture describes, genetic diversity patterns should be identical to those observed. Science attests to a real Adam and Eve who gave rise to all humanity. So, why then would so many people, especially scientists, celebrate Darwinism? Part of the reason has to do with the Christian approach to these matters. Often Christians are quick to point out the many problems. Rightly so. But merely explaining the difficulties isn't enough. In The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, paleontologist Niles Eldredge explains that creation scientists have not managed to come up with even a single intellectually compelling, scientifically testable statement about the natural world. So there is as little of substance in the scientific creationists' treatment of the origin and diversification of life as there is in their treatment of cosmological time. He goes on to complain that creationists refuse to pose testable hypotheses or make predictions worthy of science. Instead they devote their efforts to "attacking orthodox science" to establish "the truth of their own position." To be taken seriously, Christians must present a positive case for creation and offer scientifically testable ideas. Many scientists and scholars have been involved in developing a biblically based creation model-one that makes predictions so the creation theory can be compared with new discoveries and scientifically tested. Presenting the biblical account in the form of a testable model provides a powerful and exciting new approach to evangelism and apologetics. Not surprisingly, many recent scientific discoveries validate the biblical description of the origin and history of life. In sharp contrast, the most recent scientific data contradicts the predictions motivated by Darwin's ideas. If only he had known. Fazale Rana, PH.D., is the vice president of science apologetics for Reasons to Believe and author of The Cell's Design. He is an award-winning researcher, who also co-authored, with Hugh Ross, Origins of Life and Who Was Adam? Hugh Ross, PH.D., is the founder and president of Reasons to Believe. His latest of many books, More Than A Theory, reveals a testable model for creation. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

bob_2 · 03-15-09 2:08 pm

Does God Exist Scientifically: <a href="http://www.allaboutgod.com/does-god-exist.htm" target=_top>http://www.allaboutgod.com/does-god-exist.htm</a>

bob_2 · 03-15-09 2:45 pm

The source for the first post is: <a href="http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/news/18474-what-darwin-didnt-know" target=_top>http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/news/18474-wh at-darwin-didnt-know</a>

john8verse32 · 03-15-09 9:00 pm

carisma magazine's "home page" We are Strang Communications, a multi-media communications company focused on spreading the name and fame of Jesus throughout the world through the mass media not exactly a resounding scientific appeal to finding the truth... shouldn't one then expect that whatever they postwill denigrate anything which disagrees with their preconceived ideas based on ancient writings? and that is what happens... tho in this passage, the creationist apologist writer admits thatcreationists havenot done a good job so far in presenting testable ideas: why then would so many people, especially scientists, celebrate Darwinism? Part of the reason has to do with the Christian approach to these matters. Often Christians are quick to point out the many problems. Rightly so. But merely explaining the difficulties isn't enough. In The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, paleontologist Niles Eldredge explains that creation scientists have not managed to come up with even a single intellectually compelling, scientifically testable statement about the natural world. So there is as little of substance in the scientific creationists' treatment of the origin and diversification of life as there is in their treatment of cosmological time. quite an admission!!! to include that charge against creationism in a creationist leaning web site... but it gets worse: He goes on to complain that creationists refuse to pose testable hypotheses or make predictions worthy of science. Instead they devote their efforts to "attacking orthodox science" to establish "the truth of their own position." that is the main problem, Bob...in most all of your creationist posts.... they only attack those areas of evolution where more research and data are needed... so the creationist author admits: To be taken seriously, Christians must present a positive case for creation and offer scientifically testable ideas. but instead of proposing any testable idea, the author goes on to make a general, untestable statement designed to put creationism in a positivelight with no proof: Many scientists and scholars have been involved in developing a biblically based creation model-one that makes predictions so the creation theory can be compared with new discoveries and scientifically tested. ...BUT.... no such ideas are currently available!!!! and the author fails to admit that.... he simply tries to make readers think it is possible since, as he claims...'blue{Many scientists and scholars have been involved in developing a biblically based creation model but, so far... NO RESULTS OF PROVEABLE, TESTABLE CREATIONIST MODELS.... then the creationist author makes this statement: Presenting the biblical account in the form of a testable model provides a powerful and exciting new approach to evangelism and apologetics. but he does not provide such a "testable model"!!! hemerely says it is good if one can do it!!! but then, he lies for Jesus by exaggerating this unprovable claim: Not surprisingly, many recent scientific discoveries validate the biblical description of the origin and history of life. what are they? name one!!!! and he continueslying for Jesus: In sharp contrast, the most recent scientific data contradicts the predictions motivated by Darwin's ideas. If only he had known. Darwins theory is constantly being adjusted to take into account new ideas, and new data... while creationist models have nothing to adjust to the new data, and rely on ancient stories the Hebrews probably copied from their Babylonian captors.... none of this means you and I shouldn't be Christians... but it does mean that there is a lot of "new information" since the Old Test was impressed in clay tablets...which needs to be addressed ...and taken into account in our beliefs.

bob_2 · 03-15-09 9:29 pm

John, did you expect God to say, excuse me here is My update on creation???? Yeah right!!!

john8verse32 · 03-15-09 11:56 pm

He is said to have written two books for us... in one He is supposed to have inspired ancient nomads to put down what they (often mis)understood...including passages which tend to incriminate the Hebrew God as the biggest mass killer in history!!! in the other book, this God created universal laws, elements, minerals, and carved rocks into monuments which can be understood today in the light of modern science.... problem is the Book of Rocks disagrees dramatically with a fundamental interpretation of a literal reading of the Old Test.... the Book of Rocks can be read today...with modern methods giving well defined results...which, unfortunately, tend in many cases to disagree with what we were once told to believe based on the Old Stories... which if I remember correctly, were written by folks who believed that: ...the earth was flat, (so that the Ole Debil could take Jesus to a mountain so high that they cold see "all the kingdoms of the world"the sun went around the earth) ...the sun circled around the earth, and could be stopped so Gods favorite tribe of nomads could kill more of their neighbors to steal, ah, excuse me... "ethnically cleanse" their land...killing all themen and boys, and any women who had had sex, but saving the virgins to use. ...the written stories also claim that snakes and donkeys could talk, presumably in Hebrew... ...and that a guy could live on a dry mountain top in the desert for "40" daze with no food or water...and only have a sunburn to show for it (his face "shone...") ...and that a guy could live underwater in the belly of a big fish for daze...with no air...while fighting off all those fishy digestive juices... ...and that after only "40" daze of rain, the entire earth could be flooded above the highest mountains.... 5ive plus miles deep!!!!and that after that, the waters went DOWN...no matter that its impossible to even imagine where all that water came from, or where it went!!! especially in light of the fact that Cosquers Cave conclusively shows that over the last many millenia the waters have come UP.... (Message edited by john8verse32 on March 16, 2009)

bob_2 · 03-16-09 3:45 am

John Baumgardner at <a href="http://www.globalflood.org/" target=_top>http://www.globalflood.org/</a> has the model of the flood that shows through Catastrophic Plate Tectonics that it is possible for a Global Flood. BUT there were no Mount Everests to cover during the Flood, it or they were created as a result of the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics. That explains the sea fossils in the granite that you and Neal keep asking about. Your trap is Uniformitarianism. The present doesn't always predict the past based on present rates of anything.

neal · 03-16-09 7:37 am

The present doesn't always predict the past based on present rates of anything. Generally its a good principle. We have been struck by large objects in the past. This upset things for a period of time as far as the environment of living things but its not going to fundamentally change the way rocks are formed or how to date them. We can go to the Bible and study and make predictions about what we find in the earth. These predictions always fail. We could predict that if we go up to Greenland or over to China or down to the South Pole that we would consistently find either no ice older than 4500 years OR that there is an unexplained ice layer made from something other than naturally occurring snow/rain (like would be caused by a global flood). We should be able to show that Galileo was wrong. We should be able to prove that the earth is flat. We should be able to figure where Hades is located down under Jerusalem somewhere. We should have discovered the dome that the ancient people were trying to build their tower to. Going around poking holes in science results which are growing by the day (actually making predictions and having those predictions falsified or not) is just moving you closer and closer to being as knowledgeable as the most well educated person from 2500 years ago. If geologists or biologists or chemists or whatever thought they already knew everything we could shut down all the research and call it Good. They are the first to say that they don't know everything. Your position comes from the point of what people thought they knew thousands of years ago. You and creationists continue to study the old book for the interpretation which will allow them to keep believing what the people from long ago believed. Deny science. Give up your car, your electricity, your medicine, your computer, your grocery store, and live like it was back when the non-scientists swore up and down that they already knew everything.

john8verse32 · 03-16-09 11:21 am

That explains the sea fossils in the granite actually, this statement shows how much there is still to learn by most people about science.... granite comes from deep in the earth..it is older, melted materials, and when it extrudes upwards toward the earths surface, it would be too hot to save "fossils".... the summit of Everest is limestone...which is the result of very slow growing corals and tiny marine animals which were under a shallow sea a long time ago... (over 50 my!!).. ... shallow, because they require sunlight ...and under a sea, because they are marine animals.... the northerly drifting sub continent of India slowly ground its way into Asia, lifting up the limestone which had been formed in the shallow sea between them...and the limestone is now at the top of the Himal mts....complete with fossils of marine animals embedded. something similar occured in the Northern Rockies...notice here in Glacier National Park...the multiple sedimentary layers of limestone and shale on TOP of the mts!!!! <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/16/810.jpg" alt=""> that's how all the weird ancient Burgess Shale marine animals got fossilized ...originally under water, buried by an underwater mud slide, then tectonically raised up over a mile high into the Canadian Rockies... while down south, the Rockies are more granite...with little or no fossils..... one will never understand any of that by simply reading apologists far fetched explanations of "reasons to believe".... Instead of simply reading ancient nomads misunderstandings of things, one must study science to understand God's Book of Rocks.

john8verse32 · 03-16-09 11:30 am

there were no Mount Everests to cover during the Flood, it or they were created as a result of the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics. were there Sierra Mts before the flood? or were these raised up during the flood like the Himalayas? If the Cal-Nev Sierras were raised up due to the flood, then there is a real problem of dating... because Bristlecone pine trees still growing on top of the WhiteMts of Nevada are possibly OLDER than the date calculated for the flood by use of the KJV's geneologies... so how could the trees be older than the flood which caused the mountains to be raised up to 2 miles high? possible answer? the LXX gives almost 2,000 years more time frame than the KJV... but that would mean the KJV is wrong!!! presuming the LXX is right so which version of the ancient stories should we believe? unfortunately, neither version explains how there could be a dendrochronology of B Pines going back over 9,000 yrs!!! on top of mountains which were raised up in the wild Baumgartner theory by the flood only 4-5 thousand years ago!!!

bob_2 · 03-16-09 12:43 pm

Dating is so flawed, I wonder why you bring it up. But no, I do not believe the Sierras existed before the flood either.

neal · 03-16-09 4:38 pm

Dating is so flawed.... If dating methods showed the earth to be 6000 years old I am certain you would support it completely. Wouldn't you? I have seen a video making the rounds today... Michael Shermer goes to the Answers In Genesis Creation Museum in KY. Let it load and scroll to about 14:30 of the talk (if you have a strong stomach you can watch the whole thing). The genetics PhD is asked by Shermer what kinds of experiments she would do to test her assertions, she says something along the lines of, We wouldn't do that because we know there's no point in doing that, because the Bible has the answer. Now, this is their token genetics PhD. She is not trying to find out if its true!! Why would they do a silly thing like that when they already have the answer from the bronze-age experts. <a href="http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2009/03/michael-shermer-goes-to-creation-museum.html" target=_top>http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2009/03/michael-sher mer-goes-to-creation-museum.html</a>

bob_2 · 03-16-09 4:44 pm

Neal that is your problem you think there is only one group or person looking at these flaws. Answers in Genesis is one group.

neal · 03-16-09 5:04 pm

... you think there is only one group or person looking at these flaws. I am WELL aware that several groups are looking at it including some from our SDA past. AIG I like because they are literalists. They believe a a lot more about the Bible writers believed than Ross etc that has accepted non-biblical positions of a long span for life, the earth, and the whole universe. You seem to have taken a longer earth view but still believe the flood story. Everybody seems to have a different interpretation and their own "group" to use as warrior quote fields. I think if there were some deity it would show up and give us an update. That's the only thing that has not happened- evidence.

bob_2 · 03-16-09 5:06 pm

<a href="http://www.creationism.org/caesar/fatal.htm" target=_top>http://www.creationism.org/caesar/fatal.htm</a> <a href="http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/06dat2.htm" target=_top>http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclop edia/06dat2.htm</a> <a href="http://creationismunleashed.blogspot.com/2005/08/ten-major-flaws-of-evolution.html" target=_top>http://creationismunleashed.blogspot.com/2005/08/t en-major-flaws-of-evolution.html</a> <a href="http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=373" target=_top>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&actio n=view&ID=373</a> <a href="http://creationwiki.org/Radiometric_dating" target=_top>http://creationwiki.org/Radiometric_dating</a> <a href="http://www.khilafah.com/index.php/concepts/belief/2274-exposing-the-flaws-in-the-theory-of-evolution" target=_top>http://www.khilafah.com/index.php/concepts/belief/ 2274-exposing-the-flaws-in-the-theory-of-evolution</a>

neal · 03-16-09 5:12 pm

That doesn't tell me a thing about what you believe. If its not Biblical then I don't care.

john8verse32 · 03-16-09 6:12 pm

Dating is so flawed, ....I do not believe the Sierras existed before the flood either. but according to a literal interpretation of the KJV, the flood happened about 2500 BC.... and now it's 2009 AD... so about 4500 yrs ago the flood raised up the Sierras....according to your theory. but there are growing trees up there with tree rings proving they are closer to 5000 yrs old... meaning the trees are older than the mountain tops they are growing in!!!! nobody can be that ignorant, can they? how else do you explain that the trees are older than the dirt? well, the LXX offers about 1800 additional years of patriarchial age... so that solves the 2500 BC problem.... making the flood happen (and presumably the uplift of the Sierras) a milenium before the oldest LIVING trees... but there would remain two problems: 1) if you believe the LXX, you have to discard the KJV....since they disagree. and 2) even the LXX timeline does not allow for the dendrochronology which goes back over 9,000 yrs... your theory fails to take into account that a retired president of an SDA University believs that Jericho shows evidence of human habitation going back 10,000 yrs.... it fails to take into account the multiple ways that NOAA (pronounced like the ark guy) uses to date the rise of sea level, corraborated by Cosquers Cave... meaning the waters have been rising the last 20,000 yrs, not going down, as in the NOAH tale.... with that worldwide rise in sea level probably flooding low lying coastal areas around the world, resulting in world wide stories about floods....

bob_2 · 03-16-09 10:07 pm

<a href="http://www.icr.org/article/381/" target=_top>http://www.icr.org/article/381/</a>

bob_2 · 03-16-09 10:36 pm

Neal said: That doesn't tell me a thing about what you believe. If its not Biblical then I don't care. At first Neal didn't want sources that were religious in nature, now he doesn't want any thing that isn't from the Bible. I think Neal just likes to get people chasing their tails. <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/blush.gif" border=0>

john8verse32 · 03-16-09 11:15 pm

from Bob's ICR web article..... Even without adjustment, the living Bristlecones do fit well within the range of dates for the flood provided by numerous Biblical scholars. except, of course, for those trees that are OLDER THAN THE FLOOD!!!!! so the author admits: However, some recent debate concerning the record of rings found in the dead wood has led to proposals of much older dates for the flood, and ultimately creation. Flood dates in the range of 10,000 to 15,000 years before present have been suggested,6 but it could be possible that the preserved dead wood grew in the period before the flood. Only the living trees by strict necessity need date from the time of the flood or more recent times. In that case, the pre-flood trees would have to remain in the same vicinity probably anchored as stumps, for the period of around a year until the flood waters receded. in other words, if the flood killed off many Bristlecone Pines, the raging flood waters would not have left deadwood lying around....theflood would have floated away all the evidence!!! But...what do we actually see??!!!! on the ground, all around the forest, huge logs of dead wood, have been measured and calibrated to a "dendcrochronology" which goes back up to 9,000 yrs!!! and logs used in paleo american dwellings have also been fitted into this chronology..well before any flood!!! article continues: Dead wood, both on the trees and on the ground, have provided a tree-ring record going back to proposed dates of around 6800 B.C. or earlier.6,7This causes a little bit more problem for the Ussher dating, but it is not insurmountable. The same argument for multiple ring growth in wet years could hold, and even the possible pre-flood greenhouse environment that may have existed on earth may have been a factor. so, to explain away the possibility that there are older tree rings than the flood, these apologists propose multiple tree ring growth on an annual basis.... which is absurd. Winter comes, and growth stops at this altitude in early September...and doesn't restart until late May....so multiple growth rings are out of the question!!! but here is their other way to explain away the evidence: Also, creation had to involve some superficial appearance of earth history. Trees were likely created with tree-rings already in place. Rocks would likely have yielded old dates by the faulty radio-isotope methods in use today. Even man and animals did not appear as infants. This is known as the "Appearance of Age Theory." so is it possible that before the flood, when there were no Sierra Mountains, that B Pines were growing in lowlands, and as the catastrophic plate tectonics hypothesis raised up the mountains, and the flood washed over everything, that logs which had been growing before the flood remained in the forest as the mountains were raised up.... then new trees started growing, with multiple rings each year in order to make them appearyounger than thedate for the flood!!! all totally absurd!!! but there is another problem. the summits where the trees grow is LIMESTONE!!!!! and limestone only grows slowly, under water!!! from the deposition and compaction over huge periods of time of giga billions of tiny marine animals and their lime skeletons and shells..... so thedirt the trees grows in was once under water, growing limestone and corals...for a very long time...not just the year of the flood. so any logs there from before the flood, would have floated away in the flood, but they have not...giant logs are still there showng huge age....and logs older than the flood were used by paleo americans in making beams for their stone houses.... yet these idiot savants who write this kind of tripe for ICR choose to ignore all the evidence, and apologize for creation still claiming it only happened a few years ago... Even with only minor adjustments in the growth-ring-to-year correlation, most creation scientists would feel quite comfortable with a resulting date of creation in the 6000-7000 B.C. range. ya, creation "scientists" feel comfortable, because they are in denial of all the facts!!!! and then the author of the web article does what many apologists do...instead of making a statement which can be countered, he asks a qauestion which is designed to make his point without actually making himself vulnerable to counter claims: Did God preserve the Bristlecone pines, with their unique combination of living and dead wood, as a record of recent creation? We don't know for sure, but dendrochronology is certainly a science that provides facts which evolutionists do not care to publicize. absurd.... evolutionists arehappy with dendrochronology, as it has helped correlate radio carbon dating to actual tree ring dating.... this is the kind of clintonesque misdirection/bunk coming out of creationist web sites which appeal to believers, and gloss over the problems, and try to seem as tho they are providing real evidence in favor of young earth creationism, when in fact, to a knowledgeable reader, they only prove the paucity of the YEC position, and cast a dim light on Christianity, making intelligent, educated people ask why they have to bend the facts (if not actually lie) for Jesus!!!

neal · 03-17-09 8:59 am

At first Neal didn't want sources that were religious in nature now he doesn't want any thing that isn't from the Bible. My statement wasn't about quoting Bible verses but quoting sources that believe in the Bible- ARE Biblical. Followers of the Bible. If the source wants to argue from a non-Biblical interpretation then I AM not interested. Polkinghorne is a scientist, is a C of E priest, has written several books, and he argues that he accepts the earth is over 4 billion years old, its going to last another 5 billion years or so, and die or get evaporated by the sun. Then he has all kinds of theories about how Jesus was resurrected and He is going to save us and our pets and every animal that has lived on this planet. THAT is a a non-Biblical source. Polkinghorne believes about 1% of the Bible yet writes books on christianity and is a priest to-boot. If you want to believe in an old earth, and use 'old earth believers' as your sources because they think that somehow the God of the Bible is a great manager of evolution like Hugh Ross then I don't care. The Universal Church (catholics) and the ensuing Protestants all argued from a literal Biblical standpoint for 1600 years. Now, when the literal interpretation of the Bible has been shown to be false, they start going back through and "reinterpreting" the Bible to make it fit the facts so they don't look so stupid. Its a business. The idea is to keep the customers. In a thousand years they will probably be all the way to Polkinghorne's view except for a remnant of 1 SDA. My position, which you know, is that a view, a belief system, is captured in the Bible. It includes a literal Creation with Adam and Eve, a literal flood, etc. We can test that and look at the physical evidence and compare that to the Word of God to see whether it might possibly be words from a god. It fails miserably. Now believers want to change the belief system to interpret the old beliefs as a long poem... except for the part about salvation, the cross, the resurrection, etc. This is a joke. The guy on the supposed cross spoke about the days of Noah. If the story of Noah is false, then the conclusion of the guy that ended up the cross- that He is coming back when it will be like the days of Noah, is also false. As John has pointed out, and probably had already been pointing out for years before I arrived on this forum, the Flood Story cannot have happened as the Bible claims. So, give me a good reason why the flood story can be a myth but I'm supposed to believe some cross story? I think Neal just likes to get people chasing their tails. You seem to chase your own tail without my help at all.

bob_2 · 03-17-09 10:10 am

Make you choice and live with it.

neal · 03-17-09 10:55 am

Appeals to force. False choices. Can't you come up with a new fallacy and use it periodically to break up the monotony?

bob_2 · 03-17-09 11:34 am

You must have not taught me to well, in Atheism 101.<img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/blush.gif" border=0>

john8verse32 · 03-17-09 6:14 pm

they must not have taught grammar or science TOO well in Kanada either. Make you choice sea fossils in the granite The present doesn't always predict the past based on present rates of anything. but the Past usually predicts the Present... and past records of sea level suggest that current global warming might be a natural event... and past records in glaciers, antarctic and Greenland ice cores together prove that the earth has a record of climate change far longer than the 6000 yrs myth which some keep trying to preserve. There are many other things which are too recent for Darwin to have studied, ie.... "what Darwin didn't know"... but recent discoveries invariably seem to fit into a meshweb of science which includes Darwin's original theory...

Adventists for Tomorrow

Announcement

#1 03-15-09 1:56 pm

What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#2 03-15-09 2:08 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#3 03-15-09 2:45 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#4 03-15-09 9:00 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#5 03-15-09 9:29 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#6 03-15-09 11:56 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#7 03-16-09 3:45 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#8 03-16-09 7:37 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#9 03-16-09 11:21 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#10 03-16-09 11:30 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#11 03-16-09 12:43 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#12 03-16-09 4:38 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#13 03-16-09 4:44 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#14 03-16-09 5:04 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#15 03-16-09 5:06 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#16 03-16-09 5:12 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#17 03-16-09 6:12 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#18 03-16-09 10:07 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#19 03-16-09 10:36 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#20 03-16-09 11:15 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#21 03-17-09 8:59 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#22 03-17-09 10:10 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#23 03-17-09 10:55 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#24 03-17-09 11:34 am

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

#25 03-17-09 6:14 pm

Re: What Darwin Didn&#39;t Know

Board footer

What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know

Re: What Darwin Didn't Know