Domain: answersingenesis.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to answersingenesis.org.
Comments · 663
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Re:There are interesting differences
Where do we go for the peer-reviewed Creation Science papers?
Answers in Genesis has a creation 'science' journal here.
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Re:Red Sea tag suggestion:
The debate about the age of the earth is ultimately a question of whose word we are going to trust: the all-knowing truthful Creator who has given us His inerrant book (the Bible) or finite, sinful creatures who give us their books that contain errors and therefore are frequently revised. If you firmly trust and carefully read the Bible and become informed on creationist interpretations of the geological record, you can easily see how the rocks of the earth powerfully confirm the Bible's teaching, both about Noah's Flood and a young earth.
-- Taken from the text of "The Key to the Age of the Earth", found at Answers In Genesis.
Dr. Terry Mortenson is a well-known speaker, researcher, and writer. He earned his doctorate in history of geology from Englandâ(TM)s University of Coventry and his M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.
I would challenge most scholars to review the other material at Answers In Genesis to get a true understanding of Biblical Geology before further discussion on the matter.
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Re:MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL
It's closer than you think. I thought I remembered a lawsuit relating to U.S. Berkely admission requirements that students have a demonstrable background in modern science. (No reference to that suit, maybe someone else can find it.)
It seems that IDers were pissed off that Berkely wouldn't admit their students due to a lack of education in the principles of evolution.
Here's a link to an article from the website Answers in Genesis discussing the issue. That particular article doesn't refer to a lawsuit, so my memory may be fuzzy on this.
But your point is well taken, there are already people working that issue. And the real hilarity will ensue when our society fails to compete in the world marketplace due to a lack of depth in current scientific thought...
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Re:You've just repeated your error.
Not only the rates of decay, but the ratio of Carbon-12 to Carbon-14 (which scientists assume has always been 1:1 trillion).
See this: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible
The 'A Critical Assumption' section is where it starts getting interesting (if you are already familiar with the basics). -
People
The Bible doesn't reveal much about the appearance or mental acuity of Adam, the first human. The fact that God holds him morally accountable for sin, however, indicates that he had a soul/spirit, which at least sets him apart from the animal kingdom. (The "serpent," who apparently could stand up before he was cursed, is universally interpreted to be Satan.)
It seems that Noah, who built a pretty complex ark (although with God's specific building instructions), probably was a fully "modern" human.
The Creationist position that I've heard is that Neanderthals are simply a peculiar kind of human. Some say possibly a "sub-species," Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which is how they were classified by scientists in the 1960s.
Since Neanderthal fossils are all post-Flood, we could say that Adam, Noah, and other humans were pre-Neanderthal*. And likely Homo sapien.
* "pre" as in chronology only
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Re:Scientific community?
Actually, you are partially right. The Bible does talk about the roundness of the earth.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/does-the-bible-say-anything-about-astronomy
That page talks about different scriptures that indicate the possibility that the earth is round.
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Re:that's the ideal
Wait millions of years? Oil can be produced from organic material in 20 minutes (see bottom gray box).
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Re:Microevolution
They have their own opinion of what the results mean:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2007/0131observation.asp -
Re:First!
The results are critiqued by the Intelligent Design crowd here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2007/0131observation.asp
All in all, if what they say is correct, this mutation is a lot less impressive.. -
Young Earth
Never did anybody other than retarded atheists with nothing else to do claim that christians or jews say the earth is 6000 years old.
There are plenty of Young Earth Creationist Christians who believe the earth was created in 4004 BCE, making the earth 6000 years old. By saying atheists all came up with it you're showing your ignorance.
As for political, yes, it has changed the face of politics for good.
Burning witches on the stake was good? The crusades were good? Queen Isabella of Castile forcibly making Jews and Muslims either convert or leave Spain was good? The persecution of Gnostic Christians by the church was good? If you mean religion brought us democracy and liberty, you're wrong there too. Democracy and liberty came out of the Age of Enlightenment which was preceded by the Age of Reason in Europe. Both were rebellions from church authority. Among the Founding Fathers of the USA, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamen Franklin were supporters of Enlightenment, which gave rise to Classical Liberalism, meaning liberty and small governemnt.
Where is compassion without christianity or judaism I ask you?
Compassion is partially what Buddhism is about. Specifically Buddhism is about eliminating suffering. The Four Noble Truths focuses on suffering. Islam too deals with compassion and suffering.
Falcon -
Re:Finaly!
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Re:Finaly!
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Re:Finaly!
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Re:doubtfulI don't see how the catholic clergy can just say "yeah alien life doesn't contradict our religeon" without addressing these questiosn. Naive ever? You think Christian theologians haven't questioned the salvation of alien beings?
http://answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/are-ets-and-ufos-real is clearly not buying the whole alien thing.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/35/story_3519_1.html is open and suggest a path of Christ to have been presented to other worlds. does that mean that any intelligent alien life is doomed to hell because they don't have the benefit of baptism and the forgiveness of original sin Original sin goes back to Adam and so probably the doctrine doesn't come in to play. The one thing we can be certain of is that God is a fair judge and that people will be judged according to what they have heard. Baptism, in any case, is not a requirement for salvation only faith in Jesus Christ son of God. -
Re:This is how science works
"Look guys, a cool science article! I'll use it to ridicule ideas I don't understand!"
Irreducible complexity
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter10.asp -
RD's Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying
Richard Dawkin's " Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda" is relevant.
The creationism / evolution debate has been done many times here on Slashdot. There'll be comments making one or more of the hundreds of old and refuted creationist arguments(1). It's possible that a couple of comments will use arguments even the Answers in Genesis creationist group says not to use(2). Someone will say there's no evidence for Macroevolution and someone else will point out 29 plus evidences for Macroevolution(3).
The point of Expelled is to make people think they've learned about the creation / ID / evolution debate, but to feel that Darwin= Holocaust. Note how they interview scientists of all sorts, but they don't interview academics who cover antisemitism in pre-20th century Europe. Even one hint or reminder that, say, Martin Luther wrote On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543 would ruin the Darwin -->Holocaust propoganda.
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(1) "evolution requires faith," "Piltdown," "Midocean magnetic anomalies are not reversals"...
(2) "there are no beneficial mutations," "no new species have ever been produced"...
(3) Even if there were no fossils, how to explain how biochemistry matches phylogeny? It's one thing to claim the designer re-uses code to explain similarity, but why would a designer reuse broken code? -
About time...
It's about time we challenge the presuppositions behind evolution on a larger scale.
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How to polarize your scientific audience...
"We found methane gas..." => "Molecular basis for life..."?
Political double-speak is the cause of the polarization problem in communicating science, not the solution.
How about just sticking with "We can detect methane gas on an extra-solar planet"? Isn't that cool enough by itself? Nobody on either side of the debate has problems with repeatable observations. But instead, every discovery is used as a club to beat the Big Bang or Evolution over the head of creationists, whether it has anything to do with it or not (note that the writeup concedes that there is zero chance of life despite the polarizing statement). This is why people are polarized and as long as it continues people will continue to be polarized.
The repeated statements about creationist ignorance fall on deaf ears as well (except to aid polarization), since I would doubt that anyone making them has spent more than 2 minutes at a site like Answers in Genesis to see what very good science that questions the commonly-accepted notions actually exists. Ignoring people with something important (to them) to say increases polarization.
Wishing desperately for life on other worlds isn't science. It's a dogmatic world-view. It can't be science because as of yet we don't have a single shred of evidence that such a situation exists.
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Re:The 6000-year people may be rightI wonder how many atheists will just pooh-pooh this evidence instead of actually trying to retort it.
Okay, here goes:
(Items 1 and 2 don't have particular arguments, so I'm skipping those):
3. Niagara Falls only dates to the last ice age, so it's not that old. Are do you expect a waterfall to last as long as the Earth does?
4. Halley's is not a long-period comet. There are comets with periods of millions of years and whose orbits go out hundreds of astronomical units, far past Pluto. Where did they come from, or did God create them on their way in?
5. Eddy and Boornazian are wrong about the Sun shrinking in diameter.
6. Even Answers in Genesis (a creationist organization) says the argument about Moon dust is fallacious.
7. Helium can escape the atmosphere through the mechanism of ion outflow.
8. Salt doesn't stay suspended in the waters of the Dead Sea but becomes part of the rock around it.
9. The rate of 2.4 children per family is a huge increase and far from typical. Remember, these children have to survive to adulthood and breed. Even if you assume that such a rate has persisted, you can calculate back to find such absurdities as only about a dozen Egyptians being around to build the Pyramids.
10. Contrary to the claim, there are many ways of independently calibrating radiometric data.
11. People seem to think that a coelacanth is a specific species of fish. It's not, it's a whole classification, on the same level as rodentia. It's no surprise that the grouping has lasted seventy million years.
It took me maybe fifteen minutes to come up with evidence that every single one of these claims was false to the point of being ludicrous. It should be no wonder that atheists (or any rational human being) just pooh-poohs young Earth claims if these are as good as they get.
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Re:The 6000-year people may be right
[from that link, in reference to the retreat rate of Niagara Falls]
"Since that day accurate measurements have shown that the rate of recession is over six feet per year making the age of the Falls less than 6,000 years, a near confirmation of the Usher date."
I don't know if you've noticed, but this "near confirmation" leaves out a rather important and much lengthier part of the story: the time it took to form the rock into which the Niagara gorge is cut! These rocks contain such things as coral reefs that are rather difficult to explain if the bedrock was formed by rapid deposition in a global flood. The article also mentions that this is "one of" Lyell's items of evidence, which is true -- there were many more examples presented.
Lyell and many other geologists rejected the interpretation of a global flood, or even numerous local floods, because it just didn't fit with the geological evidence. For example, there is ample evidence for sediment deposition on land all through the Earth's history -- soil horizons, mudcracks, plant roots, all sorts of things. Because of such evidence virtually all geologists rejected global flood models in the early 1800s whether they accepted Darwin's evolutionary theory or not.
Most of the other examples -- changes in the size of the Sun, dust on the Moon, Kelvin's estimates based on the cooling of the Earth, and so forth, are either old arguments that are deeply flawed (e.g., Kelvin's estimates were WAY off, because he didn't include radioactive heat -- and how could he, when radioactivity wasn't even discovered yet?), based on extrapolations that clearly aren't realistic, or they are old arguments put forward by some "young Earth" creationists back in the 1960s and 1970s and which are so bad that even other "young Earth" creationists reject them. The "moon dust" argument fits into the latter category, for example.
Believe what you want, but your arguments are old news that have been negated many times over. -
Re:This happens everywhere
Truly critical analysis of evolution requires a thorough understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, and mathematics at the graduate level or above. There is absolutely no point in saying "some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't" because it imparts absolutely nothing to a child's education. They have no way to grasp the arguments on both sides, and simply have to trust one side or the other without evidence of which can present the stronger argument.
This perfectly illustrates my viewpoint. Evolution, as it is widely taught in schools, is simply taught to students as fact. Unfortunately, as you stated, the students do not have the graduate level understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, or mathematics. They are unable to discern for themselves and, as you stated, simply have to trust one side or the other. Where I disagree with you is that there is "no point in saying 'some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't'" Because the students can not yet rigorously discern for themselves, they should at least know that it is not fact, and that some scientists disagree.
It would be akin to teaching history by saying "here, read all these personal diaries, anecdotes, pamphlets, and advertisements from a long time ago and try to figure out what was really going on. By the way, we're not going to tell you what the majority of historians think actually happened."
I am not saying that we cannot say what the "majority of historians think actually happened", but on an issue as controversial as evolution, I think that teachers should be allowed to say that there is another viewpoint. That evolution is not certain -- and it isn't! I think that teachers should be allowed to point out that there are many important questions concerning evolution that are unanswered and possibly unanswerable. The thing is, evolution has more holes and unexplained mechanisms than any other field of science that is taught in high school or below (which is what we are talking about here). I know people are going to hate me saying that, so let me give some examples:
(1) The mechanisms necessary for evolution to occur as it is claimed have never been demonstrated. I'm not talking about natural selection or speciation. Those are perfectly good science. They are observable, testable, and repeatable, with predictive power. But we have never observed large changes. We have never observed something like ape to human evolution. And neither is this in the scope of observational science. These alleged changes take millions of years. The claim that speciation and natural selection can be responsible for changes of this magnitude is simply not testable. The fossil record fails to be convincing here as well; see articles here and here. While it is a nice theory, it is simply not supported by data. The problem lies in presuppositions. When an evolution-believing scientist finds a fossil, he asks the question: "How can this be explained in light of evolution?" But this may be the wrong question to ask. I submit that he should instead ask "How can the past be explained in light of this fossil?". The first question tries to make sense of data given a theory, and the second question tries to make sense of a theory given data.
(2) This is related to (1). I fail to see by what mechanism the ordering and increasing of information occurs. This has not been observed. See this paper. It's a bit long, but I would recommend skimming through it.
(3) Evolution as it is taught in schools is almost always coupled with abiogenesis. At the very least, I would request that this be removed from schools. This has never been observed, and any ideas about how it could have happened are -
Re:This happens everywhere
Truly critical analysis of evolution requires a thorough understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, and mathematics at the graduate level or above. There is absolutely no point in saying "some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't" because it imparts absolutely nothing to a child's education. They have no way to grasp the arguments on both sides, and simply have to trust one side or the other without evidence of which can present the stronger argument.
This perfectly illustrates my viewpoint. Evolution, as it is widely taught in schools, is simply taught to students as fact. Unfortunately, as you stated, the students do not have the graduate level understanding of biology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, or mathematics. They are unable to discern for themselves and, as you stated, simply have to trust one side or the other. Where I disagree with you is that there is "no point in saying 'some scientists believe organisms evolve over time, and some scientists don't'" Because the students can not yet rigorously discern for themselves, they should at least know that it is not fact, and that some scientists disagree.
It would be akin to teaching history by saying "here, read all these personal diaries, anecdotes, pamphlets, and advertisements from a long time ago and try to figure out what was really going on. By the way, we're not going to tell you what the majority of historians think actually happened."
I am not saying that we cannot say what the "majority of historians think actually happened", but on an issue as controversial as evolution, I think that teachers should be allowed to say that there is another viewpoint. That evolution is not certain -- and it isn't! I think that teachers should be allowed to point out that there are many important questions concerning evolution that are unanswered and possibly unanswerable. The thing is, evolution has more holes and unexplained mechanisms than any other field of science that is taught in high school or below (which is what we are talking about here). I know people are going to hate me saying that, so let me give some examples:
(1) The mechanisms necessary for evolution to occur as it is claimed have never been demonstrated. I'm not talking about natural selection or speciation. Those are perfectly good science. They are observable, testable, and repeatable, with predictive power. But we have never observed large changes. We have never observed something like ape to human evolution. And neither is this in the scope of observational science. These alleged changes take millions of years. The claim that speciation and natural selection can be responsible for changes of this magnitude is simply not testable. The fossil record fails to be convincing here as well; see articles here and here. While it is a nice theory, it is simply not supported by data. The problem lies in presuppositions. When an evolution-believing scientist finds a fossil, he asks the question: "How can this be explained in light of evolution?" But this may be the wrong question to ask. I submit that he should instead ask "How can the past be explained in light of this fossil?". The first question tries to make sense of data given a theory, and the second question tries to make sense of a theory given data.
(2) This is related to (1). I fail to see by what mechanism the ordering and increasing of information occurs. This has not been observed. See this paper. It's a bit long, but I would recommend skimming through it.
(3) Evolution as it is taught in schools is almost always coupled with abiogenesis. At the very least, I would request that this be removed from schools. This has never been observed, and any ideas about how it could have happened are -
Response to common ancestory
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/RE2/chapter6.asp
"So the general pattern of similarities need not be explained by common-ancestry (evolution). Furthermore, there are some puzzling anomalies for an evolutionary explanation--similarities between organisms that evolutionists don't believe are closely related. For example, hemoglobin, the complex molecule that carries oxygen in blood and results in its red color, is found in vertebrates. But it is also found in some earthworms, starfish, crustaceans, mollusks, and even in some bacteria. An antigen receptor protein has the same unusual single chain structure in camels and nurse sharks, but this cannot be explained by a common ancestor of sharks and camels.6 And there are many other examples of similarities that cannot be due to evolution." -
Falsifiability? Predictability?
There are plenty of repeatable Creation experiments that include predictability. To assume there are none is pure ignorance of what Creation Science has to offer, the kind of ignorance that will be perpetuated by keeping it out of the classroom.
Prior to the Voyager launches, scientists attempted to predict the magnetic fields of each planet. Put simply, the Non-Creationists' theory is that the magnetic field is generated by metallic mass spinning at a certain velocity. The Creationists' theory is that everything was created from aligned water molecules ~6000 years ago and then decayed in a straight line from there.
Link to Original 1984 article Link to Less Technical Follow-Up
Mercury
Non-Creationist: 0
Creationist: 7.5 x 1022 J/T
Actual: (4.8 ± 0.3) x 1019 J/T
Non-Creationist quote: ... the very existence of the field is puzzling. If Mercury can maintain a steady dipole field, the earth, which rotates 59 times as fast and has a core twice as large, should be able to sustain more complicated fields.Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were known prior to the predictions.
Uranus
Non-Creationist: smaller field, or none at all
Creationist: 2.05 x 1025 J/T
Actual: 3.0 x 1024 J/TNeptune
Both did equally well, but there was a surprise problem for the Non-Creationists. The Magnetic axis is at a 60 degree offset to the rotation axis, meaning that their predicted value would need to be reduced by 2/3.
Non-Creationist quote: Two odd magnetic fields is one too many.The Creationist was within an order of magnitude on every planet in the Solar System. The Non-Creationists and their dynamo theory were wrong on more than 50% of the planets.
Non-Creationist quote: you would have thought we would have given up guessing about planetary magnetic fields after being wrong at nearly every planet in the solar system. . . .Has the dynamo theory been falsified, even though it has an accuracy of less than 50%? No. It has been updated with wild additions involving multiple asteroid collisions and other even more fantastic theorized objects.
Has the Creationist theory replaced it, even though it predicted everything with 100% accuracy (within an order of magnitude)? No. It is rejected outright because it came from a Creationist, the same as what we are talking about in this article.
Although I only provided a single example (and there are thousands), I hope that this shows several points:
- There are Creationists doing actual repeatable, predictable, falsifiable experiments according to the scientific method. These should be looked at because they are pure science. The source should be irrelevant if the experiment is sound and repeatable. The safety to do this is what is being proposed in the article.
- Non-creationist theories are often not "falsifiable", even when they are wrong. The theory is simply updated with asteroid collisions or dark matter or the Oort cloud or various other "faith" objects that come out of devotion to a theory rather than observation. These violate the principle of the simplest explanation usually being the correct one.
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Before making ignorant statements about what Creation Science offers (or doesn't offer), why not spend an hour or two familiarizing yourself with it: Answers in Genesis Q&A. Since this information has always been censored from you, you rightly assume that all evidence points unquestionably toward evolution, billions of years, etc., because there is "no evidence" to the contrary. Of course there is "no evidence", because your science books won't publish it. Why not read through it and make up your mind based on facts instead
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Re:Sounds fine to meGenesis may very well be 100% accurate and true-- if so, that simply means that science cannot describe the origin of man or the universe, not that Genesis is science.... I'm not against Genesis being taught in school either, as long as it's in Social Studies, Comparative Religion, or even Literary Studies. It's simply not science. I agree, Genesis is not science - but you can use it as a hypothesis, and once you do, then you can start doing science. For example, the Bible gives a rough idea how long ago Creation occurred (there are genealogies listed that we can extrapolate from). If you start with the hypothesis that the earth is 6,000 years old, then you can look for evidence that supports your hypothesis. Now we're getting into the realm of science.
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Re:Sounds fine to meGenesis may very well be 100% accurate and true-- if so, that simply means that science cannot describe the origin of man or the universe, not that Genesis is science.... I'm not against Genesis being taught in school either, as long as it's in Social Studies, Comparative Religion, or even Literary Studies. It's simply not science. I agree, Genesis is not science - but you can use it as a hypothesis, and once you do, then you can start doing science. For example, the Bible gives a rough idea how long ago Creation occurred (there are genealogies listed that we can extrapolate from). If you start with the hypothesis that the earth is 6,000 years old, then you can look for evidence that supports your hypothesis. Now we're getting into the realm of science.
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Re:hey, then pi =3, problem solved! n/t
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Re:Under Who's Watch?
"The only reason science (and evolution) bothers you is that when we get around to measuring things, the hard, cold facts contradict a few chapters of your religious books. And you are willing to lie to try and protect those chapters. You are willing to pass laws that pi is 3.0 instead of 3.1415 because of a biblical verse. You are willing to kill people because of a biblical verse. You are willing to behave extremely immorally in order to protect your religious verses. To me that says more about your faith in your version of god (who should not be threatened by facts)."
I don't think that pi is 3 because that is the approximation that the Bible gave. 3.1415 is also an approximation of pi, just to a different degree. The Bible does not say for us to go killing other people.
There are people who call them selfs 'Christians' who will pick verses from the Bible and ignore others. There is a small minority of Christians who believe every verse in the Bible and understand the context that it is in. In the Bible there is a verse that says that there is no God. There are people who will take that verse by it's self and conclude that God doesn't exist.
Also, if you don't think there is scientific evidence for creation, check out: http://www.answersingenesis.org/
"Let's keep schools for *facts*. And the theory of evolution is just as much a fact these days as the theory of gravity is."
I agree that only facts should be taught in schools. However, the theory of evolution is just that, a theory. It is not proven. It has not ever been proven that one type of creature will evolve into something completely different. Only that there are differences withing one species of animals, like dogs.
Check out: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i2/genetics.asp -
Re:Under Who's Watch?
"The only reason science (and evolution) bothers you is that when we get around to measuring things, the hard, cold facts contradict a few chapters of your religious books. And you are willing to lie to try and protect those chapters. You are willing to pass laws that pi is 3.0 instead of 3.1415 because of a biblical verse. You are willing to kill people because of a biblical verse. You are willing to behave extremely immorally in order to protect your religious verses. To me that says more about your faith in your version of god (who should not be threatened by facts)."
I don't think that pi is 3 because that is the approximation that the Bible gave. 3.1415 is also an approximation of pi, just to a different degree. The Bible does not say for us to go killing other people.
There are people who call them selfs 'Christians' who will pick verses from the Bible and ignore others. There is a small minority of Christians who believe every verse in the Bible and understand the context that it is in. In the Bible there is a verse that says that there is no God. There are people who will take that verse by it's self and conclude that God doesn't exist.
Also, if you don't think there is scientific evidence for creation, check out: http://www.answersingenesis.org/
"Let's keep schools for *facts*. And the theory of evolution is just as much a fact these days as the theory of gravity is."
I agree that only facts should be taught in schools. However, the theory of evolution is just that, a theory. It is not proven. It has not ever been proven that one type of creature will evolve into something completely different. Only that there are differences withing one species of animals, like dogs.
Check out: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i2/genetics.asp -
Re:Jesus Fucking ChristI don't believe we have DNA evidence linking fossils of different animals to different animals do we? I ure would be interested in seeing this if it is true. But as far as I know, we can't trace the differences between animals and DNA to a common ancestor. This is mostly because the DNA doesn't survive well in fossils.
I know that DNA is actually pretty simple in reality and the presence of it in anything would require and astoundingly close representations of it depending on the complexity of the animal or plant being looked at. If I remember right, a frog has almost as much or more DNA in a chain then humans do although they are one chromosome different from a human biological.
I suspect that from your court room comment you are making an error. The same error that the parent wasn't able to seeIf you reject DNA as evidence of common ancestry, you must also reject DNA evidence in the court room. Lots of really bad people would have to be set free...
When I said common ancestor, I didn't mean you and your brother share a mom. I meant that you and your brother are monkeys in disguise. Well, apes really. As far as we can tell, or at least as I can confirm from an accredited source, we have no direct DNA evidence linking any one species of animal to a species of another through an extinct common ancestor. We have similarities in sequencing among animals, but like the frog I mentioned above, it has a lot of the same codon rearrangements as humans do yet no one is claiming a common ancestor in the mix.
So you see, the DNA in question perform two separate functions in relation to common ancestor like with the ape genus and various homindae compared to Hominoidea as it would with you, your mom and dad or the relation to uniqueness of your specific traits within the same genetic family. The rejection, is done on a macro micro scale imposed in order to separate these into manageable and provable/demonstrative contexts. Here is an article talking a little about this.
And don't take this as I am pushing it one way or the other or anything. I have done nothing to show I either accept or deny this. I was only attempting to show the GP why there is a difference in opinion and where the rift is. The DNA question you posed doesn't address it but attempts to make a connection that isn't there in in the context in order to support or deny the rift. Hopefully with the study of epigenetics and how this effects the RNA and DNA representations. It could be that the connection is either by design or by ancestral connections. It wouldn't matter because most people have no personal stake in this. Even if it was by design, it doesn't invalidate evolution (and no I'm not talking about intelligent design) but at the same time, neither specifically validates it either. It is one of those things that add support to a theory but isn't definitive left on it's own. The study of DNA is relatively young compared to all the other sciences and biological classifications in itself. 100 year from now, I am sure we will be looking back and thinking about all the early mistakes made and how close we actually were in some places. That's the beauty of science. -
Re:Devils advocate
Actually AiG draw an artificial distinction between what they call "macroevolution" and "microevolution". [Citation needed]
Actually, AiG have long discouraged using the terms micro- and macroevolution.
Arguments we think creationists should NOT use (next to last on the list)
They do believe in speciation within the originally created broad "kinds," which is generally what creationists mean when they say "microevolution."
The problem in these discussions is that terms are moving targets, or actually multiple targets that sometimes get munged. There are several definitions in the dictionary for "evolution" and "theory," for instance. Not even a so-called "scientific" definition of evolution is pinned down, because evolutionists themselves use the word differently. They try to apply the word as often as possible, and this keeps expanding what it means. It's understandable that people have felt the need to break down the bloated term into parts. -
Re:Jesus Fucking Christ
Anybody who thinks that the human eye is 'poorly designed' is ignorant of human anatomy and optics. http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter7.asp If any engineer in the world could build an optic system that was even half as good as the human eye they would win a Nobel prize.
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Re:Devils advocate
You're not one of the creationist fundies that I'm talking about, since you accept natural selection as part of the process that has created the life we see today.
I'm glad that the world's foremost creationist ministry, Answers In Genesis, is now considered among the enlightened creationists.
"Why do evolutionists claim that natural selection supports evolution?"
"How does it fit into the creation model?" -
Re:Devils advocate
You're not one of the creationist fundies that I'm talking about, since you accept natural selection as part of the process that has created the life we see today.
I'm glad that the world's foremost creationist ministry, Answers In Genesis, is now considered among the enlightened creationists.
"Why do evolutionists claim that natural selection supports evolution?"
"How does it fit into the creation model?" -
Re:The Market Speaks!
"Adam" is not an historical figure, but an allegorical one, a representative of our human nature.
The New Covenant writings say that the Messiah came as the last Adam. Do you believe that Jesus was merely an allegorical figure like the first Adam and not a particular human being?
The problem that a lot of "cultural Christians" have is that they want to pretend that the Older Covenant is just metaphorical stories while things in the Newer Covenant literally happened as described.
Jesus made reference to Noah, Jonah, Abraham, and others, and there is nothing to indicate that He thought these men or the Biblical stories about them were not historical or literal. Jesus refers to the literal man Jonah and the three literal days that he spent inside the big fish, saying that He too would be in darkness for three days (between His execution and resurrection). -
Creationist predictions
>>Creationism makes no predictions.
This just simply isn't true. Creationists make predictions all the time, and they are often simpler, more accurate and require less precise asteroid collisions to make them true.
For example, in this paper, Dr. Humphreys makes predictions for the strengths of the magnetic fields for Uranus and Neptune, well before these magnetic fields were measured by the Voyager spacecraft. His predictions were "right on," whereas the predictions of evolutionists were not.
Also, helium diffusion shows the earth to be 6000 years old. The levels of helium found by an evolutionist third party sent to an evolution-believing lab were correctly predicted by creationists, because they assumed that 6000 years worth of helium would have been lost.
There is plenty of good science (repeatable experiments) being performed by incredibly intelligent people that would tend to disprove facets of the theory of evolution. Looking at all the evidence relating to a theory is what my science book described as good science.
Not looking at some of the evidence because you don't like it smacks of medieval "earth-is-flat" behavior. The last time we did that, it took us 1200 years to advance science. That period was called "The Dark Ages". The only difference is that it is now the scientific community that burns heretics at the stake of career ruination...
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Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact....
Approximately 95% of all known fossils are marine invertebrates, about 4.7% are algae and plants, about 0.2% are insects and other invertebrates and only about 0.1% are vertebrates (animals with bones). Finally, only the smallest imaginable fraction of vertebrate fossils consists of primates (humans, apes, monkeys and lemurs). Because of the rarity of fossil hominids, even many of those who specialize in the evolution of man have never actually seen an original hominid fossil, and far fewer have ever had the opportunity to handle or study one. Most scientific papers on human evolution are based on casts of original specimens (or even on published photos, measurements and descriptions of them). Access to original fossil hominids is strictly limited by those who discovered them and is often confined to a few favored evolutionists who agree with the discoverers' interpretation of the fossil. Since there is much more prestige in finding an ancestor of man than an ancestor of living apes (or worse yet, merely an extinct ape), there is immense pressure on paleoanthropologists to declare almost any ape fossil to be a "hominid." As a result, the living apes have pretty much been left to find their own ancestors.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/did-humans-really-evolve
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/lucy.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter8.asp
The website cites sources so you can check the fact yourself. I doubt you'll believe even a word it says though. As for "Lucy", I can't say but I'm not going to make wild assumptions not supported by the evidence either. "Lucy" was a great find but taking that find and trying to wedge it in as some sort of missing link totally defaces the worth of the find. -
Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact....
Approximately 95% of all known fossils are marine invertebrates, about 4.7% are algae and plants, about 0.2% are insects and other invertebrates and only about 0.1% are vertebrates (animals with bones). Finally, only the smallest imaginable fraction of vertebrate fossils consists of primates (humans, apes, monkeys and lemurs). Because of the rarity of fossil hominids, even many of those who specialize in the evolution of man have never actually seen an original hominid fossil, and far fewer have ever had the opportunity to handle or study one. Most scientific papers on human evolution are based on casts of original specimens (or even on published photos, measurements and descriptions of them). Access to original fossil hominids is strictly limited by those who discovered them and is often confined to a few favored evolutionists who agree with the discoverers' interpretation of the fossil. Since there is much more prestige in finding an ancestor of man than an ancestor of living apes (or worse yet, merely an extinct ape), there is immense pressure on paleoanthropologists to declare almost any ape fossil to be a "hominid." As a result, the living apes have pretty much been left to find their own ancestors.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/did-humans-really-evolve
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/lucy.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter8.asp
The website cites sources so you can check the fact yourself. I doubt you'll believe even a word it says though. As for "Lucy", I can't say but I'm not going to make wild assumptions not supported by the evidence either. "Lucy" was a great find but taking that find and trying to wedge it in as some sort of missing link totally defaces the worth of the find. -
Re:Opposed to teaching Evolution as a fact....
Approximately 95% of all known fossils are marine invertebrates, about 4.7% are algae and plants, about 0.2% are insects and other invertebrates and only about 0.1% are vertebrates (animals with bones). Finally, only the smallest imaginable fraction of vertebrate fossils consists of primates (humans, apes, monkeys and lemurs). Because of the rarity of fossil hominids, even many of those who specialize in the evolution of man have never actually seen an original hominid fossil, and far fewer have ever had the opportunity to handle or study one. Most scientific papers on human evolution are based on casts of original specimens (or even on published photos, measurements and descriptions of them). Access to original fossil hominids is strictly limited by those who discovered them and is often confined to a few favored evolutionists who agree with the discoverers' interpretation of the fossil. Since there is much more prestige in finding an ancestor of man than an ancestor of living apes (or worse yet, merely an extinct ape), there is immense pressure on paleoanthropologists to declare almost any ape fossil to be a "hominid." As a result, the living apes have pretty much been left to find their own ancestors.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/did-humans-really-evolve
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/lucy.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter8.asp
The website cites sources so you can check the fact yourself. I doubt you'll believe even a word it says though. As for "Lucy", I can't say but I'm not going to make wild assumptions not supported by the evidence either. "Lucy" was a great find but taking that find and trying to wedge it in as some sort of missing link totally defaces the worth of the find. -
Re:This is a capitalist economy
Actually, Helium 4 (and especially Helium 3) escape out of Earth's atmosphere continuously into space. (As well as Hydrogen)
It is not merely that it is too expensive to extract Helium from the upper atmosphere, but it is also that the atmosphere is leaking Helium into space, lost forever.
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=247
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/helium.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/helium.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium -
Re:So it continues..
This is basically what you said, but a more general point is that any explanation involving a non-naturalistic cause isn't a scientific hypothesis. Therefore, even if intelligent design was supported by heaps of excellent evidence, it still wouldn't be science. Creationists see this as a problem with science, but in fact, it is a feature. Without it, almost anything would qualify as science.
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Re:Science and GodAh, but the science/creationist conflict is all the minds of the creationists. It's based on misinformation that they have originated. They believe that science is about truth, when in fact it is about truth given the assumption of materialism. Science can't reason about supernatural things: how do you measure them, theorise about their operation, or perform experiments on them? Here is a quote from an Scott Todd:
'Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.'
This quote is triumphantly displayed by creationists as evidence of the anti-creationist bias of the scientific establishment. However, it only reveals a misunderstanding of the scientific method. They imagine that science will accommodate everything that they believe is true, but even if creationism is true, science cannot include it because it assumes a supernatural cause:Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday.
(Source.) So that is a good answer to the creationists - even if your claims about the creator God are true, they still aren't science! And conversely even if the theory of evolution is wrong, it still is science because it's the best materialistic explanation for the world we see. -
Impossible
Clearly this is bad information, because the morons at http://www.answersingenesis.org/ and their 27 million dollar monument to ignorance (http://www.creationmuseum.org/) say the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and surely the universe can't be that much older than the Earth.
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Re:Yawn Squared
Hey Copid, Objective evidence and you have numbers? Not sure what you mean by the numbers thing, but the concept is simple. When you look at the DNA for a single-celled organism compared to that of a fish, you will find a fish has a lot more DNA information not present in the single-celled organism. So if the only letters you have to write a book with are A through D, you can only have that much variation to work with. A fish by analogy, has the letters A through M and there are no observable methods or transistional forms to indicate where the extra letters could come from - in fact observable microevolutionary changes to DNA have always show a deletion of letters or duplication at best and never the addition of more letters. I don't know how to make it any simpler. What numbers are you referring to? This article may help address what you are asking: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/feedback/negative_10September2001.asp As to the remarkable coincidence, this article covers this quite nicely and thoroughly. A very short summary would be that having similar DNA simply means a designer uses the same building blocks for similar things, but does not definitely indicate that one species evolved from another. In fact, it is not consistent in that other primates do not have the same coincidence so evolution seemed to have burped really badly
... http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes_genomes.asp The article you referred to simply makes an assumption based on 20-20 hindsight. Kind of like making a prediction based on previously known information - well I guess I could do that to. The real test is the one Darwin himself indicated - transitional fossils should abound for macroevolution and if not he would be wrong - guess what, he was wrong. -
Re:Yawn Squared
Hey Copid, Objective evidence and you have numbers? Not sure what you mean by the numbers thing, but the concept is simple. When you look at the DNA for a single-celled organism compared to that of a fish, you will find a fish has a lot more DNA information not present in the single-celled organism. So if the only letters you have to write a book with are A through D, you can only have that much variation to work with. A fish by analogy, has the letters A through M and there are no observable methods or transistional forms to indicate where the extra letters could come from - in fact observable microevolutionary changes to DNA have always show a deletion of letters or duplication at best and never the addition of more letters. I don't know how to make it any simpler. What numbers are you referring to? This article may help address what you are asking: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/feedback/negative_10September2001.asp As to the remarkable coincidence, this article covers this quite nicely and thoroughly. A very short summary would be that having similar DNA simply means a designer uses the same building blocks for similar things, but does not definitely indicate that one species evolved from another. In fact, it is not consistent in that other primates do not have the same coincidence so evolution seemed to have burped really badly
... http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/pseudogenes_genomes.asp The article you referred to simply makes an assumption based on 20-20 hindsight. Kind of like making a prediction based on previously known information - well I guess I could do that to. The real test is the one Darwin himself indicated - transitional fossils should abound for macroevolution and if not he would be wrong - guess what, he was wrong. -
Re:Top-flight journalism from Slashdot again
My issue was with the fact that they linked a quote to a story where it didn't appear, not that the quote was linked elsewhere in the summary. Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal. But let me illustrate:
Dinosaurs first existed around 6,000 years ago God made the dinosaurs, along with the other land animals, on Day 6 of the Creation Week (Genesis 1:20-25, 31).The point here is that linking quotes to wrong publications can, for the majority who doesn't bother to read beyond the summary, provide seeming endorsement or validation from an independent source when it really doesn't. It may seem like a fine distinction, but I don't think it is from a true "journalistic" standpoint.
Maybe it's just a typographical error. But given Slashdot's outstanding track record for balanced stories and scrupulous fact-checking, it seemed worthwhile to point out that maybe they should do a little more QA before publishing stories. Oh well, maybe it's just me...
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The counter arguments
Here they are:
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From http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/06/01/reason-eight-radioactivity
However, to extrapolate into the unknown past requires three main unprovable assumptions.
1. Initial conditions--it is assumed that when the rock was formed only the parent element (e.g. Potassium, Uranium, etc.) was present, and there was no daughter element (e.g. Argon, Lead) present;
2. Closed system--it is assumed that within any given sample, no parent or daughter elements ever entered or left the sample;
3. Constant Rate--it is assumed that the rate of radioactive decay has remained constant.
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From http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp
A canyon in six days!
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The counter arguments
Here they are:
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From http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/06/01/reason-eight-radioactivity
However, to extrapolate into the unknown past requires three main unprovable assumptions.
1. Initial conditions--it is assumed that when the rock was formed only the parent element (e.g. Potassium, Uranium, etc.) was present, and there was no daughter element (e.g. Argon, Lead) present;
2. Closed system--it is assumed that within any given sample, no parent or daughter elements ever entered or left the sample;
3. Constant Rate--it is assumed that the rate of radioactive decay has remained constant.
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From http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp
A canyon in six days!
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Re:i'm confused on the timeline
Where in the bible does it state that the earth is 6000 years old? Can you please quote this?
This site should provide you with the answer to your question. In particular, this document lays out the argument quite nicely. -
Re:i'm confused on the timeline
Where in the bible does it state that the earth is 6000 years old? Can you please quote this?
This site should provide you with the answer to your question. In particular, this document lays out the argument quite nicely.