"Radical" evolution: False?

[Iamme]

I'm not talking about the little stuff. I'm not talking about interspecy evolution, either.

Do any of you ever frequent TBN when they have that PH.D. guy on, who is associated with www.creationscience.org ?

I was watching it last night when he had a featured guest on with him, and they were both debunking evolution and making it out to seem silly. They cite various proofs that evolution is a false teaching. They do accept changes within specy groups...but that's as far as it goes. They don't believe that there is this carbon trail that finally led to man. Go to their various sites...and read this:



More information against evolution is at the original page www.dougieshaw.com/creation.html

More information on why the earth is young at www.dougieshaw.com/creationearthyoung.htm

Information on the geological side and introductions to the sciences involved in the creation/evolution debate is at www.dougieshaw.com/cgeology.htm

Debate is at www.dougieshaw.com/crevolutionreplies.htm and at www.dougieshaw.com/creation.html#debate

[sparklecat]

Me and my very very limited knowledge of science wants to ask:

6. Mutations
Mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material becomes available for evolution. a Rarely, if ever, is a mutation beneficial to an organism in its natural environment. Almost all observable mutations are harmful; some are meaningless; many are lethal. b No known mutation has ever produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability than its ancestors.

What about viruses?

[geni]

Iamme

Asumming that lot was quoted it breaks forum rules as it is probaly a breach of copywrite. Standard pracitse is to have a quote of up to 300 words and post a link to the rest.

Starting with Archaeopteryx (because that how far I got before deciding that the whole thing was rubish). There are a least 5 know fosils not 2. There are fosils that fit to either side of Archaeopteryx in terms of everlotion from reptile to bird. For a number of reasons I rather doubt thier claim that it is a fake.

[espritch]

This is all just standard Creationist crap. If I was really bored I might waste some time explaining it to you but it's all been covered before. If you really want to know about these issues, I suggest you head over to http://www.talkorigins.org and spend some time browsing the archives. These arguements have been refuted ad nauseum.

[DarkMagician]

Creationist Scientific Method (http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/things.htm#method)

[Rules For]

Even if any of that "evidence" were valid, it wouldn't disturb the "confirmed evolutionist," because people believe in evolution and an old earth based on evidence and reasoning, not out of emotional comfort. The opposite is true of creationism.

[Iamme]

Geni---I apologize for the long CCP. I had no idea it went on, and on, and on, and on, and...oh shut up(slap, slap) .:D Anyway, I read some of it. Obviously you are getting THEIR side of the picture, just as you get evolutionists side of THEIR picture. Who is right?

You say 5 instead of 2. Know what you should do? Try to get an e-mail to them and see what they say. That's what I would do. All I know is that Ph.D. guy is never at a loss for words. And when you listen to him, he really SOUNDS like he knows the truth, and what he is talking about. He just doesn't generalize and say that evolution is huey. He goes into specific things and has his pointer and diagrams, and all that jazz.

[DarkMagician]

Originally posted by Iamme
Geni---I apologize for the long CCP. I had no idea it went on, and on, and on, and on, and...oh shut up(slap, slap) .:D Anyway, I read some of it. Obviously you are getting THEIR side of the picture, just as you get evolutionists side of THEIR picture. Who is right?

You say 5 instead of 2. Know what you should do? Try to get an e-mail to them and see what they say. That's what I would do. All I know is that Ph.D. guy is never at a loss for words. And when you listen to him, he really SOUNDS like he knows the truth, and what he is talking about. He just doesn't generalize and say that evolution is huey. He goes into specific things and has his pointer and diagrams, and all that jazz. Know what, I'm never at a loss for words, and I've got a pointer and diagrams. Hell, with a few hundred bucks, I can probably get a Ph.D. as good as his.
The Creation Science webpage with the most facutal information on it. (http://gameshow.keenspace.com/creationscience.htm)

[Iamme]

BTW---I can't see how there can a copyright infringement from a CCP(such as THIS one). Their information is on the web, for all to see. By transfering it, to the very web, and not taking it OFF the web to publish/sell for profit...I can't see how this could be an infringement. I could be wrong...but from a logic standpoint, I can't understand why this would be illegal. With Napster, there was copyright ingfringement. Downloading a saleable commodity (songs) for free is an obvious infringement. In comparison, I do not have to pay anyone to view that long CCP at the original creationscience.org site. Simply by moving a free piece of information from one site to another would make no sense to me as to how that could be illegal, when no financial gain is made on my end/nor deprivation of income on THEIR end. If I am wrong, please explain. But as I said earlier, I'll try to be more carefull in the future, as I was quite surprised at the length of this. But....You gotta admit that they sure do cover a lot of subjectmatter, all in brief easy to understand numbered paragraphs.

[DarkMagician]

Originally posted by Iamme
You gotta admit that they sure do cover a lot of subjectmatter, all in brief easy to disprove numbered paragraphs. FIXED!

[espritch]

He just doesn't generalize and say that evolution is huey. He goes into specific things and has his pointer and diagrams, and all that jazz.

He has a pointer? …and graphs? :eek: Wait. I want to take back my last post. Obviously this guy knows what he’s talking about. Evolution must be wrong! How could I have been so foolish as to not see it in the first place? Man, you just can’t argue with graphs.


:p

http://www.besse.at/sms/hominids.gif

[EdipisReks]

wow, what a load of crap. all of it is gone over at www.talkorigins.org.

[c4ts]

What's a "specy?"

Oh, it's "specie" mispelled. If it is impossible for one species to become another, how do you account for biodiversity?

[Ratman_tf]

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~tisco/yeclaimsbeta.html

http://www.geocities.com/qraal/evidences.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20020205074922/http:/66.186.202.216/polohalo/poindex.htm

http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/sap.htm

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/earth's_magnetic_field.htm

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/a_radiometric_dating_resource_list.htm

http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/dailynews/carbon0220.html

http://www.tim-thompson.com/trans-fossils.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/walt_brown_and_archaeopteryx.htm

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/other_issues.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/PRATTslist.html

The list goes on and on. I could sit here and post links all day.

In my opinion, it all boils down to who you're going to trust. The Young Earth Creationists, who have admitted they have a religious agenda (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/faith.asp) or mainstream science. And in order to refute mainstream science, you'd have to throw out biology, palentology, atronomy, physics, geology and many other fields.

The only way to reconcile this (and it HAS been proposed by many YECs) is with a global evil atheist conspiracy of scientists to destroy religion and replace it with evolution.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Ratman_tf
In my opinion, it all boils down to who you're going to trustNot really, no. We can show why their arguments are wrong. We can show evidence for our position.

[c4ts]

Conspiracy or not, ark theory does not account for biodiversity without admitting that speciation occurred after the flood. If speciation ("specy evolution") is impossible, ark theory is impossible. Sorry, but if you argue for biblical Creationism you set yourself up the bomb.

But you're not proposing an alternate theory, are you?

[fishbob]

I read about a dozen of the various paragraphs, randomly scattered throuhg the post. 100% of the ones I read contained either some factual error or erroneous assumptions. If my sample size was adequate, then the whole 96 paragraph diatribe is garbage.

For example: Direct measurements of the earth's magnetic field over the past 140 years show a steady and rapid decline in its strength. This decay pattern is consistent with the theoretical view that there is an electrical current inside the earth which produces the magnetic field. If this is correct, then just 20,000 years ago the electrical current would have been so vast that the earth's structure could not have survived the heat produced. This implies that the earth could not be older than 20,000 years. There is no big welding arc in the earth's core and the magnetic field does not decay in some linear pattern, it fluctuates. Etc.

PS - this is the longest post ( Malachigram or Windpost ) I have ever seen, and it qualifes for some kind of award.

[Earthborn]

What's a "specy?"Perhaps what is mean here is 'Speccy' as in 'Rubber Keyed Chum':
http://www.essjayar.com/emulation/speccy.jpg

Okay, maybe I don't feel like reading all that to know the context. :D

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by c4ts
What's a "specy?" Oh, it's "specie" mispelled.Attempting to dismiss or demean a position by pointing out spelling errors is more than a bit juvenile, don't you think?

[Ladewig]

Attempting to dismiss or demean a position by pointing out spelling errors is more than a bit juvenile, don't you think?

If it happened once, I could write it off as a typo, but if a geologist consistently misspells "earth" or an astronomer consistently misspells "solar" or a evolutionary biologist (or anti-evolutionary biologist) consistently misspells "specie," then I think credibility is an issue.


(edited to correct speeling errors)

[triadboy]

Creationists have the unenviable task of trying to force reality to fit their holy book. The J author wrote her/his writings in around 800 BC. Think of what we've learned in the intervening 2800 years - creationist are stuck back there.

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Ladewig


If it happened once, I could write it off as a typo, but if a geologist consistently misspells "earth" or an astronomer consistently misspells "solar" or a evolutionary biologist (or anti-evolutionary biologist) consistently misspells "specie," then I think credibility is an issue.


(edited to correct speeling errors) What are you talking about? Our young friend lamme does not claim to be an 'anti-evolutionary biologist'. The supposed 'consistent' mispelling was, in fact, two spelling errors in his 6-sentence introduction to the mother-of-all-quotes. Ridiculing these two errors is cheap, fallacious, and unnecessary. Defending such an appraoch with talk of "a geologist [who] consistently misspells 'earth'" is simply inane.

[Martin]

To clarify, 'specy' is, as ReasonableDoubt states, Lamme's word. It is not from Walt Brown's website. Brown's made a whole load of daft mistakes, but this isn't one of them.

[Iamme]

c4ts---I kinda THOUGHT that 'specy'didn't look quite right when I typed it.. That 'Y-ie' thingy has always been some problem for me. I should have checked first, before typing.:hit:

Somebody above pointed out that this was like the world's longest post. Ya...so I found out mySELF. :book:

[c4ts]

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
Attempting to dismiss or demean a position by pointing out spelling errors is more than a bit juvenile, don't you think?

Originally I just didn't know what "specy" meant. I edited in the second part once I realized it was a spelling error.

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by Martin
Not really, no. We can show why their arguments are wrong. We can show evidence for our position.

Creationists can show why the refutations are wrong. It's like a vicious circle.

There does come a time where, unless you're a learned expert on every damn topic, where you have to just pick a side. I'm not saying arbitrarily flip a coin a pick yer flag, but decide who seems right based on what you can understand.

For example, Behe's "Darwin's Black Box". At first glance, it seems HE'S RIGHT! How could such complex structures form! The refutation is that it isn't all that complex when you know about chemistry and microbiology.

But I DON'T know that much about chemistry and microbiology. Not as much as someone who's studied them all their lives.

Take this bit of refutation from TalkOrigins:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html

Behe is apparently completely ignorant of the enormous amount of literature on tandem duplication, in which one copy of a gene spawns multiple copies. A common mechanism is unequal crossing over, due to the recombinational machinery misaligning two chromosomes. These can be shown to occur in the lab.

Behe? I'M ignorant of the literature on tandem duplication. And I have no lab to test it, and wouldn't know how to if I did!

So I'm not saying trust scientists blindly. But there comes a time when the education of the layman is inadequate.

[Dancing David]

lamme while that post is probably very ineteresting, in the laugh out loud sense.

I am not sure how it can make some of the claims it makes in the first part about the arcae-bird thingie( who is that for a speeling prublom).

They say that the fossils are afake and that this was proved through crystal x-ography. But then I am not sure the numbers match up in the foot notes. Are they just citing a self reference in thier own work.

So which part lamme do you really feel is a counter refutation of evolo-ution and we can talk about that part? Thanks!

PS
quote"
Honest disagreement as to whether Archaeopteryx was or was not a forgery was possible until 1986, when a definitive test was performed. An X-ray resonance spectrograph of the British Museum fossil showed that the material containing the feather impressions differed significantly from the rest of the fossil slab. The chemistry of this "amorphous paste" also differed from the crystalline rock in the famous fossil quarry in Germany where Archaeopteryx supposedly was found. 8 Few responses have been made to this latest, and probably conclusive, evidence. 9
" endquote

quote"
5. Two milligram-size samples of the fossil material were tested; one from a "feather" region and a control sample from a nonfeathered region. The British Museum "contends that the amorphous nature of the feathered material is an artifact explainable by preservatives that they have put on the fossil." [Lee M. Spetner, "Discussion," Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship, 1990), p. 289.] If this excuse were correct, then why were no "preservatives" found on the control specimen? Control specimens are tested for precisely this purpose-to dispel unique, last minute excuses. The British Museum has refused further testing, a shocking position for a scientific organization, and one which raises suspicions to the breaking point.



6. Tim Beardsley, "Fossil Bird Shakes Evolutionary Hypotheses," Nature, Vol. 322, 21 August 1986, p. 677.

o Alun Anderson, "Early Bird Threatens Archaeopteryx's Perch," Science, Vol. 253, 5 July 1991, p. 35.

o Sankar Chatterjee, "Cranial Anatomy and Relationship of a New Triassic Bird from Texas," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, Vol. 332, 1991, pp. 277-342.
"
end quote

First off they do not even get there notation right on thier citations and then they go and self cite themselves or some cronie.

The British Museum "contends that the amorphous nature of the feathered material is an artifact explainable by preservatives that they have put on the fossil." [Lee M. Spetner, "Discussion," Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship, 1990), p. 289.]

This is rather typical of self citation, there is no reference to where the reasearch was published by the British Museum, there is no reference to when the crystal-ography was donne, just using it in the body of the text. BUT NO REAL VERIFICATION!

They make reference to the feather and the control, but where is the source, did they just make it up?

Sorry lamme this does not look like science.


So which point do you really think is cool and I will read it and address it. But the stuff about arcae-birdee thingee is bunk.

[Ladewig]

RD-
What are you talking about?

1. Our young friend lamme does not claim to be an 'anti-evolutionary biologist'.
2. The supposed 'consistent' mispelling was, in fact, two spelling errors in his 6-sentence introduction to the mother-of-all-quotes.
Ridiculing these two errors is cheap, fallacious, and unnecessary. Defending such an appraoch with talk of "a geologist [who] consistently misspells 'earth'" is simply inane.

My bad. I read the post too quickly and thought that the misspellings were in the material quoted from the website. You are right: such criticism is inappropriate. I apologze.

[fishbob]

For example, Behe's "Darwin's Black Box". At first glance, it seems HE'S RIGHT! How could such complex structures form! The refutation is that it isn't all that complex when you know about chemistry and microbiology. Behe's Black Box is a conjectural thought experiment. No testing, no analysis, only logical sounding questions. Many creationists try to use this tactic, most not as cleverly as Behe. Many of the quoted paragraphs are poorly done examples of this.

[sparklecat]

In regards to Behe... and a host of other creationists, at that... there's a book by a theistic evolutionist that speaks against their refutations (in detail). Miller's Finding Darwin's God.

Think creationists would be more likely to listen to a Christian? At all?

[ReasonableDoubt]

lamme, which 'argument' in that unseemly laundry list ... have you researched, do you understand, and do you find most compelling?And, how do you explain the conspiratorial refusal of mainstream science to concur?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You're all a bunch of cynics and a hate group. I'm going with Creationism as soon as they uncover the migration route that the platypus took from the ark to Australia. It'll be right next to the route of the wombat.

~~ Paul

[c4ts]

How do you suppose all the plants on earth survived the flood? I'd better ask my local creation scientist instead of think about it.

[espritch]

Think creationists would be more likely to listen to a Christian? At all?

Not really. They would just say he was misled by the evil atheistic evolutionists or else he wasn't really a Christian.

[Iamme]

Dancing David & ReasonableDoubt---All I have to say at this time is that I like to read and listen to both sides of the evolutionary argument. I really don't know what to think. You take one Ph.D. on THIS side of the fence...and you pit him against some OTHER Ph.D. on the OTHER side of the fence, and to listen to them both...well, they both sound like they make sense.

I feel that there should be a debate. I tell you what I do. I will get ahold of TBN and tell them I like watching the good doctor from Creationscience...but in all fairness, what they should do is have some counter-expert on so that they can hash out the various claims. I think that will help SOME...don't you?(BTW...those of you that have gotten to 'know' me, know I am likely to do as I say. Remember all the leg work I went through when we debated the Tornado on that Fuel saver pro (or whatever it was called) thread in the science forum?)

When anyone one makes an 'uncontested' claim about ANYthing...it sounds plausible. Heck...I fell for Bob Barefoot's Coral calcium. HE truly sounds like he knows what HE is talking about. In that case also, you need some OTHER expert on, WITH him, to counter him.

[the_ignored]

Originally posted by Ratman_tf


Creationists can show why the refutations are wrong. It's like a vicious circle.

There does come a time where, unless you're a learned expert on every damn topic, where you have to just pick a side. I'm not saying arbitrarily flip a coin a pick yer flag, but decide who seems right based on what you can understand.

For example, Behe's "Darwin's Black Box". At first glance, it seems HE'S RIGHT! How could such complex structures form! The refutation is that it isn't all that complex when you know about chemistry and microbiology.

But I DON'T know that much about chemistry and microbiology. Not as much as someone who's studied them all their lives.

Take this bit of refutation from TalkOrigins:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html



Behe? I'M ignorant of the literature on tandem duplication. And I have no lab to test it, and wouldn't know how to if I did!

So I'm not saying trust scientists blindly. But there comes a time when the education of the layman is inadequate.
And THAT, along with all they emotional manipulation they put into their stuff, about "evolution means no morality" etc. is what makes them so powerful, even to the extent that they can get away with debunked (http://www.chick.com/bc/1994/beetle.asp) .

[epepke]

I nominate this for the most needlessly idiotic thing ever posted to a public or semi-public newsgroup, blog, or forum.

[plindboe]

lamme,

I can understand how you feel. For a layman it can indeed seem impossible to figure out who is right and who is wrong. Instead of trying to figure out who argues best for their case, you can look at it like this;

Science have started from the bottom, studying the world, trying to arrive at the Truth, while Creationism have started with the "Truth" and then tried to fit the world into that picture. So the goals are completely different. Science aims for the Truth, while Creationism aims to justify their hypothesis.

It should be obvious that one shouldn't start with a complex and grand hypothesis explaining the entire world, and then set out to justify it.

Hope this makes sense. I have been up all night. *Yawn!*

[Dancing David]

Lamme,
I certainly did not mean to give offense, I just read the first part about the archae-bird thingee, and I noticed somethings that tell me it is not accurate science.

You will notice that there are a lot of statements that are totaly unsupported conjecture. Then there are conclusions drawn from the conjecture.
The footnotes do not support the conjectures or the conclusions.

And I again I do not mean to give offense, but just because someone with a PHD says something does not make it credible.

Iwll reread and show you what I mean, please again point to an article that you really feel has some credence. I for one will show you if I agree withit. I am sorry but you are going to get a lot of grief for posting all that ..um..'stuff'.



Galaxies
There are good reasons why natural processes cannot form galaxies a and why galaxies cannot evolve from one type to another.b Furthermore, if spiral galaxies were billions of years old, their arms or bars would be severely twisted.(See 89 on page 171.) b.) Since they have maintained their shape, either galaxies are young, or unknown physical phenomena are occurring within galaxies. Even structures composed of galaxies are now known to be so amazingly large, and yet relatively thin, that they could not have formed by slow gravitational attraction. e If slow, natural processes cannot form such huge galactic structures, then rapid, supernatural processes may have.






There are good reasons why natural processes cannot form galaxies a and why galaxies cannot evolve from one type to another.

This is conjecture, they just state that there are reasons why this can not happen, they do not give the sources or a literature review to support thier claim. It is an assertion without evidence.


b Furthermore, if spiral galaxies were billions of years old, their arms or bars would be severely twisted.(See 89 on page 171.)


I don't know what they are citing there , it is unclear from the text. But this is just BLATANTLY wrong, the spirals of a galaxy are not a hard mechanical object, they are a visual effect created during the rotation of the individual stars in a galaxie. Stars take thier own paths around the galactic center, they move in an out of the galactic arms, I don't really know about the bars.

So this is just a blatantly wrong assertion leading to a false conclusion. It is important to support claims with a literature review.


Since they have maintained their shape, either galaxies are young, or unknown physical phenomena are occurring within galaxies.


They haven't proved that galaxies maintain thier shape and then they move on to make a conclsuion based upon that unsupported conjecture. galaxies change thier shape all the time.



Even structures composed of galaxies are now known to be so amazingly large, and yet relatively thin, that they could not have formed by slow gravitational attraction.


That is very true, but it is based upon the premise that the large structures of the universe are caused by the same mechanisms as the small structures of the universe. We know that stars and planets and galaxies are most like created by gravity. But the foamy structure of the universe at large? I don't beleive that I have seen that claim made.

So this is refutation through generalization and crossing scales of magnitude.


If slow, natural processes cannot form such huge galactic structures, then rapid, supernatural processes may have.


May have, that is the first neutral statement in the whole paragraph.
There is also a theory called inflation that could account for the foamy structure of the universe without paranormal intervention.



Peace

[The Don]

Taking a shot at the first two

1. The Law of Biogenesis
Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently that it is called the law of biogenesis. The theory of evolution conflicts with this law by claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes.

Apparently this is no longer true. The attached reference relates to the creation of a virus from synthetic genes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A38211-2003Nov13&notFound=true

Or course it can be argued that viruses aren't truly living. Of course someone who had a vested interest in such a thing never being true would say, after the spontaneous creation of a single celled animal (well sure you can do easy ones, how about spontaneously creating an elephant)

2. Acquired Characteristics
Acquired characteristics cannot be inherited. a For example, the long necks of giraffes did not result from their ancestors stretching their necks to reach high leaves. Nor can the large muscles acquired by a man in a weight lifting program be inherited by his child.

That is entirely correct, the evil-utionary theory is that the animals which eventually evolved into giraffes had relatively short necks. Some had abnormally long necks by mutation (in the same way that basketball players are abnormally tall in the main). Theory would then suggest that these "long necks" (thinks mmmmm beer) were proportionally more successful and thus survived to reproduce and pass on their mutated characteristics.

Some moth or other has demontrated this.

I suppose the real point of the exercise is to demonstrate that if you are unwilling to consider any evidence to the contrary and are willing to invent evidence to support a theory, you can show almost anything.

[ReasonableDoubt]

Originally posted by Iamme
I feel that there should be a debate. There is - it's called scientific peer review and it goes on continuously. This is precisely why fringe 'science' finds itself relegated to the fringe.

Again, which argument do you find most compelling?

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by sparklecat
In regards to Behe... and a host of other creationists, at that... there's a book by a theistic evolutionist that speaks against their refutations (in detail). Miller's Finding Darwin's God.

Think creationists would be more likely to listen to a Christian? At all?

Yes. Most YEC's dismiss it as they are biblical literalists.

Personally, I wonder if that means Revelations is meant to be taken literally or as allegory? ;)

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by fishbob
I read about a dozen of the various paragraphs, randomly scattered throuhg the post. 100% of the ones I read contained either some factual error or erroneous assumptions. If my sample size was adequate, then the whole 96 paragraph diatribe is garbage.

For example:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Direct measurements of the earth's magnetic field over the past 140 years show a steady and rapid decline in its strength. This decay pattern is consistent with the theoretical view that there is an electrical current inside the earth which produces the magnetic field. If this is correct, then just 20,000 years ago the electrical current would have been so vast that the earth's structure could not have survived the heat produced. This implies that the earth could not be older than 20,000 years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no big welding arc in the earth's core and the magnetic field does not decay in some linear pattern, it fluctuates. Etc.



It might surprise some, that scientists have actually investigated this ( the weakening of the Earth's magnetic field ), and it is no mystery and does not require a less-than-20,000 year old earth.


Nova had a very nice program about this..

Magnetic Storm (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/)

The weakening has happened many many times, and often preceeds a reversal of the magnetic poles.

Even the weakening currently under way may be a false alarm. The field often gets very weak, then bounces back, never having flipped. As Ron Merrill, a magnetic-field specialist at the University of Washington remarked when asked whether we're in for a reversal: "Ask me in 10,000 years, I'll give you a better answer." So hang on to your compass. For the foreseeable future, it should work as advertised.--Peter Tyson


Of course the Creationists, young-earth or otherwise, could satisfy the scientific rebuttal to their assertions by simply pointing out that all god had to do was create the illusion of a billions-of-years-old Earth, and no one could prove otherwise.

Instead, they just make up stuff, that impresses the hell out of their ignorant suplicants, while showing them to be the idiots they are, to anyone who bothers to do a little research on their own..

[Dancing David]

Which points do you fel we should debate lamme?

I am waiting, while waiting there is this gem of poor reasoning:

43. Molten Earth?
If the earth formed by gravitational accretion (the infalling of small rocky bodies), heat released by the impacts would have made the earth molten. a Had the earth ever been molten, dense, nonreactive chemical elements such as gold, which is almost twice as dense as lead, would have sunk to the earth's core. Since gold is found at the earth's surface b, the earth was never molten and it did not evolve by gravitational accretion. If the earth did not evolve by gravitational accretion, it may have begun in nearly its present state.


WooHoo!

Um the vast amjority of the iron in the arth and the other metals is at the core, the vast majority of the surface of the earth is silicon.
two: the earth is molten, numbskull, the surface which is cool is like only twenty miles think, the rest is molten, what are volcanoes, furnaces?
three; gee maybe the same process that causes volcanoes brings gold to the surface.
four; the crust subsides and is recreated, that new material is sometimes gold.

[c4ts]

Hey guys, bacteria make gold! (http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/trek/4wd/Over44.htm) That's why we find it at the surface.

[Iamme]

Dancing David---So. You would like to debate some of the numbered paragraphs, from the creationscience website?

I was flipping channels last night, and on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), is that Ph.D. guy again who is associated with "creationscience" and "creationevidence".

I got his name and the mailing address for any that are interested. He is: Dr. Carl Baugh, P.O. Box 309, Glen Rose, Texas 76043. You can also go to: www.creationevidence.org

I have been busy...and fighting the cold (-9 here last night!)...but as I said in my earlier post...I am going to try to get ahold of him and see if he will debate an evolutionist. I could even try to get him to come here and debate any of you posters who think you might be in the know about aspects of evolution. (Keep in mind that he believes in evolution within species...just not evolution which creates new species out of lesser species). I have a hunch that he will say that he has debated PLENTY of evolutionists. With that ammo in mind, I will ask him who and when and where. And if he has these on tape. Etc.

You'll be hearing from me again.

[c4ts]

I'd be careful about bringing him to this board. He may not like it and he might react irrationally to the number of "evolutionists" debating with him.

[blakehaydn]

while Creationism have started with the "Truth" and then tried to fit the world into that picture. So the goals are completely different.

Perfect way to put it, this is how a lot of (not all) people argue in the political forum here.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Perfect way to put it, this is how a lot of (not all) people argue in the political forum here.
Resurrecting old threads to whine about some of your fellow posters is a time-honoured Forum tradition. I see you learn quickly.

[kmortis]

Marquis,
While I agree that whining about fellow posters is a THT, ressurecting a dead and gone thread to do so shows a certain amount of, dare I say it, pluck? THat's going above and beyond the norm.

COngrats.

[Dr Adequate]

OK, I'll pick out the howlers in the Archaeopteryx section. And I mean HOWLERS.

What Was Archaeopteryx ?
If reptiles evolved into birds, as evolution claims, there should have been thousands of types of animals more birdlike than reptiles and yet more reptilelike than birds. Evolutionists claim that Archaeopteryx (ark ee OP ta riks) is a transition between reptiles and birds, basically a feathered reptile. If so, it is the only transitional form between reptiles and birds. HOWLER. There are plenty of other transitional forms.

Furthermore, of the relatively few claimed intermediate fossils, HOWLER. Thousands of fossils are claimed to be intermediate forms.

this is the one most frequently cited by evolutionists and shown in almost all biology textbooks. Some say it is the most famous fossil in the world. True. If there was the slightest shadow of doubt over it, something else would be cited.

Archaeopteryx means ancient ( archae ) wing ( pteryx ). But the story behind this alleged half-reptile, half-bird is much more interesting than its fancy, scientific-sounding name or the details of its bones. If Archaeopteryx were shown to be a fraud, the result would be devastating for the evolution theory. HOWLER. No it wouldn't. The overwhelming evidence from genetics, morphology, and all the rest of the fossil record, would be quite sufficient without one single fossil genus.

Since the early 1980s, several prominent scientists have charged that the two Archaeopteryx fossils with clearly visible feathers are forgeries. "Several?" Could we have a list?

1Allegedly, thin layers of cement were spread on two fossils of a chicken-size dinosaur, called Compsognathus (komp SOG nuh thus). HOWLER. Although Compsognathus is amongst the dinosaurs most similar to Archaeopteryx, there are many gross anatomical differences, of which more later.

Bird feathers were then imprinted into the wet cement.

Were it not for these perfectly formed, modern feathers, that are visible only on two of the six known specimens... HOWLER! There are more than six known specimens --- eight at a conservative estimate, and a quick look at the literature shows that there were feather impressions on the Maberg, Teyler, and Solnhofen specemins as well.

... Archaeopteryx would be considered Compsognathus . HOWLER! There are many anatomical features making it edifferent from Compsognathus, of which more below

4 The skeletal features of Archaeopteryx are certainly not suitable for flight, since no specimen shows a sternum (breast bone) which all birds, and even bats, must have to attach their large flight muscles. HOWLER. It has WINGS. HELLO. EARTH TO STUPID GUY? W - I - N - G - S. It is not the feathers alone which prove it capable of flight, but the W - I - N - G - S. Didn't you notice the W - I - N - G - S?

Finally, Archaeopteryx should not be classified as a bird. We concur. It should be classified as a winged dinosaur intermediate in form between dinosaurs and birds.

The two fossils with feathers were "found" and sold for high prices by Karl Häberlein (in 1861 for 600 pounds) and his son, Ernst, (in 1877 for 36,000 gold marks) HOWLER! It is nowhere claimed that they "found" the fossils. They were fossil dealers, buying from the quarrymen and selling to collectors.

just as Darwin's theory and book, The Origin of Species (1859), were gaining popularity. While some German experts apparently thought the new (1861) fossil was a forgery... Did any of them examine it?

the British Museum (Natural History) bought it sight unseen.

Evidence of a forgery includes instances where the supposedly mating faces of the fossil (the main slab and counterslab) do not mate. The feather impressions are primarily on the main slab, while the counterslab in several places has raised areas that have no corresponding indentation on the main slab. These raised areas, nicknamed "chewing gum blobs," are made of the same fine grained material that is found only under the feather impressions. How is this evidence of a forgery? Is this something that forgers do?

The rest of the fossil is composed of a courser grained limestone.

Some might claim that Archaeopteryx has a wishbone, or furcula-a unique feature of birds. It would be more accurate to say that only the British Museum specimen has a visible furcula. It is a strange furcula, "relatively the largest known in any bird." 6 Furthermore, it is upside down, a point acknowledged by two giants of the evolutionist movement-T. H. Huxley (Darwin's so-called bulldog) and Gavin deBeer. Yes, Archaeopteryx is different from modern birds, isn't it? Well done.

As Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe stated, "It was somewhat unwise for the forgers to endow Compsognathus with a furcula, because a cavity had to be cut in the counterslab, with at least some semblance to providing a fit to the added bone. This would have to be done crudely with a chisel, which could not produce a degree of smoothness in cutting the rock similar to a true sedimentation cavity." . Ah yes, Fred "Life was made by a spacegoing supercomputer" Hoyle. Nice argument from authority.

Many feather imprints show what has been called "double strike" impressions. Apparently, feather impressions were made twice in a slightly displaced position as the slab and counterslab were pressed together. ) You were there? Or you made that up? Or you have evidence for it which you are for some reason unable to mention?

Honest disagreement as to whether Archaeopteryx was or was not a forgery was possible until 1986, when a definitive test was performed. An X-ray resonance spectrograph of the British Museum fossil showed that the material containing the feather impressions differed significantly from the rest of the fossil slab. The chemistry of this "amorphous paste" also differed from the crystalline rock in the famous fossil quarry in Germany where Archaeopteryx supposedly was found. 8 Few responses have been made to this latest, and probably conclusive, evidence. 9 HOWLER! What a shame that the references to this "conclusive evidence" don't exist.

Fossilized feathers are almost unheard of, and several complete, flat feathers that just happened to be at the slab/counterslab interface is even more remarkable. HOWLER. Does he have no idea of how fossils are formed?

Furthermore, there has been no convincing explanation for how to fossilize (actually encase) a bird in the 80% pure, Solnhofen limestone. One difficulty, which will be appreciated after reading about liquefaction on pages 147 - 160 , is the low density of birds. Another is that limestone is precipitated from sea water, as explained on pages 237 - 239 . Therefore, to be buried in limestone, the animal must lie on the sea floor-a rarity for a dead bird. HOWLER! The Solnhofen quarries are full of delicately preserved fossils: there is no special need to explain the preservation of primitive birds per se.

And ... he's never seen a dead bird on a beach?

Significantly, two modern birds have recently been found in rock strata dated by evolutionists as much older than Archaeopteryx. 10 Therefore, Archaeopteryx could not be ancestral to modern birds. Significantly, no-one claims it as ancestral, they claim it as an intermediate form, a claim that he seems unable to refute.

Archaeopteryx's fame seems assured, not as a transitional fossil between reptiles and birds, but as a forgery. Unlike the Piltdown hoax, which fooled leading scientists for more than 40 years, the Archaeopteryx hoax lasted for 125 years. (See "26. Ape-Men? on page 7 .) Since the apparent motive for the Archaeopteryx deception was money, Archaeopteryx should be labeled as a fraud . The British Museum (Natural History) gave life to both deceptions and must assume much of the blame. Those scientists who were too willing to fit Archaeopteryx into their evolutionary framework also helped to spread the deception. Piltdown man may soon be replaced as the most famous hoax in all of science. I guess daydreaming is a sort of substitute for reality.

When Piltdown man was exposed as a fraud, palaentologists agreed that it was a fraud. This is because it had been shown to be a fraud. Archaeopteryx has not been shown to be a fraud. This is why, 30 years after he claims "conclusive evidence" for fraud, all palaentologists believe it to be genuine.

Some more information:

http://dino.lm.com/images/display.php?id=3044
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx#The_Fossils
http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Intermediate_Forms_Between_Classes#Dinosaur-bird_intermediates

And if you want to laugh your ass off:

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/20hist08.htm

Read both pages. Then look in silent wonderment from one to the other.

OK, so I should bother with the rest of it?

[blakehaydn]

Resurrecting old threads to whine about some of your fellow posters is a time-honoured Forum tradition. I see you learn quickly.

Actually I was researching and often come to this site during to see what people of this persuasion think. I also posted that because it is a good point in helping yourself to be objective (not to debate from your belief system but to debate in search of the truth). Debating from your belief system only brings incessant defense mechanisms which triggers emotion, emotion is destructive to objective thought.

[Dr Adequate]

Some defenders of Archaeopteryx will claim that three of the other four specimens also have feathers-the Teyler Museum specimen, the Eichstätt specimen, and the poorly preserved Maxberg specimen. Hoyle, Wickramasinghe, and Watkins put it bluntly. "Only people in an exceptional condition of mind can see them." The Maxberg specimen (http://www.stonecompany.com/fossils/casts/archaeopteryx/images/439az.JPG)

The Solenhofeer Akktien Verein specimen (http://www.stonecompany.com/fossils/casts/archaeopteryx/images/444az.JPG)

[RandFan]

Geni---I apologize for the long CCP. I had no idea it went on, and on, and on, and on, and...oh shut up(slap, slap) .:D Anyway, I read some of it. Obviously you are getting THEIR side of the picture, just as you get evolutionists side of THEIR picture. Who is right?

You say 5 instead of 2. Know what you should do? Try to get an e-mail to them and see what they say. That's what I would do. All I know is that Ph.D. guy is never at a loss for words. And when you listen to him, he really SOUNDS like he knows the truth, and what he is talking about. He just doesn't generalize and say that evolution is huey. He goes into specific things and has his pointer and diagrams, and all that jazz. You read "some" of it?

Why should we read any of it? You won't even take the time to read the damn thing.

[RandFan]

Hey guys, bacteria make gold! (http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/trek/4wd/Over44.htm) That's why we find it at the surface.To be fair, from the link.

The bacteria don't actually ''make'' the gold - they just attract gold that is already dissolved in the groundwater.

[RandFan]

HOWLER. It has WINGS. HELLO. EARTH TO STUPID GUY? W - I - N - G - S. It is not the feathers alone which prove it capable of flight, but the W - I - N - G - S. Didn't you notice the W - I - N - G - S?em are ducks
em are not ducks
oh es a are, see em wings
ell I be, em r ducks.

[Meffy]

Q: What's the difference between an Archaeopteryx?
A: One furcula ain't both the same, and the higher it glides, the much.

[Elizabeth I]

I got his name and the mailing address for any that are interested. He is: Dr. Carl Baugh, P.O. Box 309, Glen Rose, Texas 76043.

O-M-G - do you know what Glen Rose, Texas, is famous for? It's the home of some of the best-preserved dinosaur tracks around. Obviously Dr. Baugh doesn't get out much.

Um, no wish to reopen the "spelling" controversy (although I do believe correct spelling is important for reasons I would be glad to explain somewhere else), but I DO think precision of speech is vital. "Specie" is coins. The word "species" referring to biological divisions is both singular ("Modern man belongs to the species homo sapiens") and plural ("Darwin's The Origin of Species.") It's true that my dictionary notes that "specie" as a back-formation from species is sometimes used as a singular, but back-formations are particularly ignorant ("commentate" from "commentator" [nope, "comment"]; "orientate" from "orientation" [uh-uh, "orient"]; "administrate" from "administrator" [no, nein, non and nyet - "administer."]

[Foster Zygote]

I've actually heard Carl Baugh say that his creation "science" starts with the assumption that the Bible is literal truth and that any evidence that doesn't support a literal interpretation of the Bible should be discarded. That isn't science! In science the question comes first and then you follow the evidence wherever it leads. Baugh advocates starting with the preferred answer and then cherry picking questions and answers to support it.

Steven