Ok, but the further you go along with your epiphany - sooner or later you will have to find a way to reconcile the fact that all evidence suggests that humans are the product of evolution. I suppose how you reconcile that aspect will be up to you. Some on here have found a way, of sorts lol. God ends up being pushed right to the margins in those scenarios IMO.

I always knew you'd be back Yeti, I sense your slightly irrepressible

Thanks Belle - this point of yours may be a philosophical/religious question. Let's talk about the signature of the divine. Something that's not often touched upon. We're talking about scientific evidence for creationism and I've said that God is outside of his creation so does not lend himself to scientific analysis. What about his signature? Is it seen in creation?

http://energytherapy.net/human-energy-field-aura.htm How does this relate to the biblical soul of a man?

Our bodies are an electrical source and produce electrical output - like the premise of the movie "The Matrix" This output can be measured as electrical energy output.
http://amasci.com/emotor/voltmeas.html Not the best source, maybe someone can provide a better?

The point being that we are energy at some level. Since this is true then the law of conservation of energy which states that energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred, or changed from one form to another, applies to us. Does that not imply that we are by nature or design eternal in some form? Is it not evidence of the eternal soul of a man?

If this is true, then I submit that it is a signature of the divine.

I think you are stretching the 'some form' part. 'Some form' does not lend itself in entirety to eternal design/God.



Now that is a leap to it being the soul. First you would have to define characteristics. Usually the soul is defined by quasi human characteristics - and again 'some form' doesn't necessarily tee up with any of those things. Then animals would have souls etc - so how far are you going with this concept? 'The eternal soul of Man' sounds very ethereal and I think you are making leaps that are not justified, or have equally good alternatives.

I will submit that this is not evidence of the divine.

So? We have stupid people, and smart people. We are a diverse nation. Just because we have stupid people, it doesn't make the smart people any dumber. Plus, the rest of developed nations contribute to science as much or more then we do.
This came up because you attacked hundreds of years of science, observation, genius, brilliance, and experimentation by suggesting that perhaps people who wrote the Illiad and the Bible were smarter then our top scientists today.




The pre-cambrian time period is known to have been around 4 billion years. THE MAJORITY OF THIS TIME life did NOT even begin to evolve. Life began at the middle/end of the Pre-Cambrian.
However, the Earth probably didn't take more then 2 billion years to become fairy stable.
The other 2 billions years is vast; It is basically impossible for us to fathom such time periods. That is a LONG time for Abiogenesis to start.


It only wiped out about 60% of life on Earth; then, Life had millions of years to flourish again.
Think of how fast humans have grown in the last 20,000 years; then imagine life coming back after millions of years.


True; But remember- A WHOLE LOT - A LOT is still = A LOT.


I'll spare you a long post and simply link to the rebuttals:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE310.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE310_1.html

Actually, I was surprised. Those talk origins pages weren't very good.
Wait until EvoWiki is back up. They'll have a good rebuttal.


I agree. Half of America thinks we are in a 'war' that 'we are winning'.
Yeah right. It's a rather pointless occupation in which Americans die every day.
OF course, we wouldn't want the terrorists to think they've won!!!11
Half of America also believes in something called 'terrorism' being an awful threat to the US. I find it ironic that the only winners in the war on terror(well, it's more of terror vs terror) are the radical Christian Terrorists, and the Radical Islamic Terrorists. The ones who have lost are the average Americans like you and me.


Anyway, that was 5% post and 95% rant... XD

Cheers,
SQLserver

I'm posting a piece from your rebuttal on my sun shrinkage post. Other stars expand and contract cyclically. Our own sun might do the same on a small scale. I bolded the word might because if I tried to offer you guys a "scientific rebuttal" that said it might do this or that you would jump all over it like a flock of buzzards on a rotting carcass. So far no one has been able to adequately deal with the sun shrinkage thing and its implications.

I'm just making a point that no matter what we creationists come up with, you guys shred it to pieces. Like I said earlier, after my epiphany I don't really care as much anymore but I'll still point it out.

We say there are dinosaurs in the bible and we've found tracks of modern man in the same layers of strata. (Taylor Tracks)

You say - the dinosaurs were extinct by then and therefore couldn't exist. The tracks were misinterpreted or misidentified. Then twenty years go by and you say some guy with a chisel faked the tracks. The "dinosaurs" mentioned in the bible were really just blue whales and hippos. OK! They are not blue whales and hippos and even the most casual of observers could see that.

We say that a physicist has done a "scientifically published and reviewed" piece that the earth moon system has a maximum age of 1.5 billion years and his results are published to back it up.

You say he offered his results at a "Creation Research" conference and they are therefore invalid.

We say that the Mt. St. Helen's rocks from the 1980 eruption were tested using modern dating techniques and provided hugely inaccurate readings.

You say the guys that did the study were creationist and so they must not have known what they were doing. I could go on and on but I think I have made my point.

Someone like myself points out the extreme bias that exists in the scientific community toward creation research and all you say is there is no evidence for creationism therefore your points are invalid.

PS. Radical Christian Terrorist? I don't know whether to laugh at that or pray for you.

Scientific Evidence for Creationism Continued http://www.icr.org/article/177/

Finding the Creator in the DNA http://www.creationism.org/heinze/SciEvidGodLife.htm

Worlds most famous atheist changes his mind http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/10/one_o...ost_famous.html

General thoughts of Creationism verses Evolutionism

More scientific evidence in favor of Creationism [url="http://bibleplus.org/creation/evidence.htm"]http://bibleplus.org/creation/evidence.htm


A series of quotes from famous scientists and others that should be scrutinized by any evolutionist.


"LAWS" OF NATURE, James H. Shea, Editor, Journal of Geological Education, "The most serious problem with this concept grows out of the fact that it uses a metaphor, the Laws that govern or control nature.... We seem to believe that there literally are such laws. The concept is anachronistic in that it originated at a time when the Almighty was thought to have established the laws of nature and to have decreed that nature must obey them.... It is a great pity for the Philosophy of Science that the word 'law' was ever introduced.", Geology, v. 10, p. 458

　

1st Law of Thermodynamics

Albert Einstein, "Classical thermodynamics...only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown." Science, Vol. 157, p. 509

　

Isaac Asimov, "This law is considered the most powerful and most fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists have ever been able to make. No one knows why energy is conserved... All that anyone can say is that in over a century and a quarter of careful measurement scientists have never been able to point to a definite violation of energy conservation, either in the familiar everyday surroundings about us, or in the heavens above or in the atoms within." Smithsonian Institution Journal, 6/1970, p.6

　

ORIGIN OF MATTER, Isaac Asimov, "Perhaps in an infinite sea of nothingness, globs of positive and negative energy in equal-sized pairs are constantly forming, and after passing through evolutionary changes, combining once more and vanishing. We are in one of these blobs in the period of time between nothing and nothing, and wondering about it.", Science Digest, Vol.69, p.69

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

FAMILIAR TO EVERYONE, Isaac Asimov, "Another way of stating the second law then is 'The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!' Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and ev-erything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself–and that is what the second law is all about.", Smithsonian Institution Journal, June, 1970, p. 6

　

HOPELESS EVASION, Sir Arthur Eddington, "...if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.", p.74 Nature of the Physical World.

　

JUST STATISTICAL? A.B. Pippard, Cambridge Univ., "There is thus no justification for the view, often glibly repeated, that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is only statistically true, in the sense that microscopic violations repeatedly occur, but never violations of any serious magnitude. On the contrary, no evidence has ever been presented that the Second Law breaks down under any circumstances.", Elements of Chemical Thermodynamics for Advanced Students of Physics, p.99-100

　

COMPREHENSIVE APPLICATION, Richard Morris, "The second law of thermodynamics has a chameleonlike character. It can be expressed in more different ways than any of the other laws of physics. The reason that it takes so many different forms is that it is the most general of all the laws that scientists have discovered. It applies to practically everything." Time's Arrows: Scientific Attitudes Toward Time, 1984, p.113

　

APPLIES TO INFORMATION, Tom Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90, "Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? ....The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental..." [Quotes Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin]

　

GREAT FAITH, Eric J, Chaisson, Harvard, "Along an arrow of time starting at the Big Bang, Chaisson depicts cosmic evolution in a wide range of systems: particulate, galactic, stellar, planetary, chemical, biological, and cultural. Over time, all these systems-be they manifested in worms, human brains, or microchips-become both more complex and more ordered…" Cosmic Evolution, Bookcover

Applies To Open System

OPEN?, John Ross, Harvard University, Chemical And Engineering News, p.40 July 7, 1980, "Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems." Arnold Sommerfel, "...the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, p.155

　

USEFUL ABSTRACTION, Richard Morris, "An isolated system is one that does not interact with its surroundings. Naturally there are no completely isolated systems in nature. Everything interacts with its environment to some extent. Nevertheless, the concept, like many other abstractions that are used in physics, is extremely useful. If we are able to understand the behavior in ideal cases, we can gain a great deal of understanding about processes that take place in the real world In fact treating a real system as an isolated one is often an excellent approximation.", Time's Arrows, p.113

　

UNSATISFACTORY "EXPLANATION" Charles J. Smith, "Biological systems are open and exchange both energy and matter. This explanation, however, is not completely satisfying, because it still leaves open the problem of how or why the ordering process has arisen (an apparent lowering of the entropy), and a number of scientists have wrestled with this issue. Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology." Biosystems, Vol.1, p259.

　

SURPLUS ENERGY: INSUFFICIENT! George Gaylord Simpson & W.S. Beck, "But the simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order. A bull in a china shop performs work, but he neither creates nor maintains organization. The work needed is particular work; it must follow specifications; it requires information on how to proceed.", An Introduction To Biology, p. 466

　

INFORMATION REQUIRED, Manfred Eigen (Nobel Laureate) "Here at the molecular level are the roots of the old puzzle about the chicken or the egg. Which came first, function or information? As we shall show, neither one could proceed the other; they had to evolve together." Evolution, p.13, 11/10/1982.

　

SOURCE OF INFORMATION??? Carl Sagan, Cornell, "The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 1012 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.", Life, Vol.10, p.894. Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft, Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we have ever created." The Road Ahead, p.228

　

MUTATIONS, Theodosius Dobzhansky, "....one can say that mutations are owing to incorrect copying, to occasional mistakes in the generally so remarkably accurate process of replication... You may, if you wish, compare mutations to accidental misspellings or misprints which even the most experienced copyist makes.... ...harmfulness of most mutants is just what could be reasonably expected. ....an accident, a random change, in any delicate mechanism can hardly be expected to improve it. Poking a stick into the machinery of one's watch or into one's radio set can hardly be expected to make it work better." Heredity And The Nature Of Man, p.126

　

MOST PROBABILE, Peter T. Mora, National Institute of Health, "Crystallization occurs because it leads to the lowest energy state, and to the most stable arrangement of atoms or molecules under the given conditions. Crystallization leads to simple, very uniform repeating structures, which are inert. These structures do not function, and are not designed by function." Nature, Vol. 199, 1963, p 216.

　

STRUCTURE CONFUSED WITH ORDER, Richard Morris, "For example, when a crystal grows in a liquid, structure appears that was not present before the process of crystallization began. As the crystal becomes larger, the entropy of the system does increase. ...The appearance of structure does not always imply an increase in order, even though "structure" and "order" are equated in our everyday speech." Time's Arrows, p.119.

People like to say that disproving evolution is not a proof of creationism. I understand that logic. However, since there are really only two plausible views right now, by default it is. I came across another interesting quote I'd like to share.

When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!
That quote is from George Wald, "The Origin of Life" Scientific American 191:48, May 1954

Something else I found really interesting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/

Soft tissue, preserved blood vessels and dna from a 70 million year old fossil? Red flags should be going off right now because everyone here knows that is impossible. Now if a creationist had made this assertion, you would be calling in the men in white coats - right after you picked yourself off the ground from laughing so hard. But since this comes from your side, I'd be interested in your comments.

I was thinking about my last post. All of the sudden it hit me -what if that story were a fabrication? What if this was some sort of a joke? I had only checked two sources. I mean, this really can't be can it? This is too good to be true. So I checked again. This is real!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03dinosaur.html

"Lucy........you've got some splainen to do!!!!!" Ricky Ricardo

Sigh... so much that could be tackled in this thread, so little time...

I will settle for explaining the "T-Rex blood" debacle.

What they FOUND in these cases were fantastically well-preserved fossils, with even the structures of small blood vessels and even a few cellular outlines visible (although some scientists dispute the last point and think other factors could have produced the structures observed, there is not a tight consensus yet). There have been many soft-tissue fossil finds in the past, but these samples were PARTICULARLY good. In addition, they were so well preserved there was even a little of the original organic material present. Nothing you would recognize as tissue, HORRIBLY degraded, and only appeared upon chemical treatment, but with modern protein sequencing technology the tiny protein fragments were able to be pieced together to obtain a sequence for a protein or two.

As for telling that the t rex was ovulating, that was inferred by finding bone structures only found in ovulating birds today.

I never trust the news media when it comes to science stories. They overhype everything and try to generate controversy and make it a good story. Look at the academic articles if you want to know what REALLY happened.

YetiHunter, you have no real evidence. Your argument basically breaks down into improbability and complexity.

Well..... I just showed you that your team recently found a T-Rex that was practically bleeding! I guess you're not going to believe it until it stomps out of the jungle and bites you on the butt!

Eh... did you even read the title of that page? It's 70 million years old.

And how do you suppose that refutes evolution or supports creationism?

i don't feel like reading all these posts so lets cut to the chase. has he put forth any evidence what so ever for creationism or is he just hopelessly trying to disprove evolution?

No, no evidence at all so far. I don't think he has really tried to disprove evolution either.

so am i also to assume that hes using the same old tried and false BS to make his arguments?

Stop, stop stop! No offense, but that is exactly what he WANTS to hear.


You see guys, just saying 'lolz wrong' makes you just as bad as the Creationists, EVEN if you are right!
I'll go through every piece for you.

Shrinking Sun
OK. It appears this claim is mostly built on little / false evidence.
OK. The claim is debunked mostly here by the Professor of Physics and Astronorny at Calvin College Grand Rapids, Michigan.
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1986/PSCF9-86VanTill.html

Top arguments from OTHER sources:
--Other stars expand and contract cyclically. Our own sun might do the same on a small scale.
Therefore, the shrinking(which isn't well supported), probably shrinks, then expands, shrinks, then expands, like other stars have been observed to do.
-- There is not even any good evidence of shrinkage. The claim is based on a single report from 1980. Other measurements, from 1980 and later, do not show any significant shrinkage. It is likely that the original report showing shrinkage contained systematic errors due to different measuring techniquies over the decades.

Taylor Tracks
Not exactly. I would like you to please stop twisting words. Then again, we are all guilty of it.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/tsite.html

Earth/Moon System

I've never heard of this. Link?


--Austin sent his samples to a laboratory that clearly states that their equipment cannot accurately measure samples less than two million years old. All of the measured ages but one fall well under the stated limit of accuracy, so the method applied to them is obviously inapplicable. Since Austin misused the measurement technique, he should expect inaccurate results, but the fault is his, not the technique's. Experimental error is a possible explanation for the older date.
--Austin's samples were not homogeneous, as he himself admitted. Any xenocrysts in the samples would make the samples appear older (because the xenocrysts themselves would be old). A K-Ar analysis of impure fractions of the sample, as Austin's were, is meaningless.
http://noanswersingenesis.org.au/mt_st_helens_dacite_kh.htm


Well, if you ask me, the definition of terrorist is:
'someone who scares people to gain what they want'.
Most common definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal.
Lets see...
Have the Islamic Terrorists won?
Well, their goal was to bring down the US, and it looks like they've succeeded.
We loose over $4,000 dollars every second to the occupation in Iraq. Our economy, and the dollar, and both down, and look to be heading down.
Our national debt is in an insane state of crisis.

Looks to me like they've won economically.
Not to mention all of the Americans killed in the occupation, and the previous war.
Not to mention the large number of Americans who STILL are afraid to fly.

The most ironic part of all, is, Osama Bin Laden, the reason we went over there is STILL ALIVE.(Probably in Afghanistan or Pakistan!)
So. Looks to me like the Islamic terrorists have indeed won.

But what about the radical Christian/Republican/Fascist terrorists?
Like any terrorist, they've used FEAR to get what they want.(Besides, of course, that Christianity exists because of fear!)
They've made 1/2 Americans afraid enough to vote for them.
They've made Americans afraid enough to allow a 'patriotic act', which limits our basic rights.
They've made Americans afraid enough to allow torture tactics such as water boarding, which make us as brutal as classic terrorists.
They've made Americans afraid enough to make this a 'Christian Iran vs Islamic Iran' war.
They've made Americans afraid enough to actually vote for someone who wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years.
They've made Americans afraid enough to actually vote for someone who wants to attack Iran next.
They've made Americans afraid enough to hate Islamic people.

You see, in the end, radical Christians and Republicans have used FEAR to get what they want, just like any terrorists.
What's next? Government control of the net to stop 'terrorists'? Christianity becoming the official religion of the US to 'join us together' to fight Islam?
Heck, some people in POWER have actually claimed they want a complete irradiation of Islam.(Like, oh McCain's welcomed spiritual advisor)
Plus, there are some VERY scary laws out there. Heck, this one allows Bush to practically declare 'Martial Law':
http://petulantrumble.blogspot.com/2006/10...er-by-bush.html

Anyway- Back on track.
ughh- you know, I'll tackle those links some other time. Got to go for now.

Cheers,
SQLserver

Very intriguing indeed and a very good post

Another point to support your argument

I was shocked to see fundamentalist like Hucakabee able to secure so many votes in the primary

Its scary time in US Christian fundamentalism is on the rise

From Sqlserver


Of all the evolutionists on this board that I've encountered, you post the most lengthy responses with scientific "facts." For a person who trusts so completely in science and the scientific methods you either don't know it's fundamental laws or you choose to ignore them when they run contrary to your own world view. Have you forgotten about the laws of thermodynamics? Do you think that the sun can continuously "burn" off radiation to the tune of 386 billion billion megawatts (nineplanets.org) per second and not suffer a reduction in mass? The claim is based on false evidence? HA! Yeah, I DONT THINK SO! You're just not even using your head on that one.

From Wombat


You don't get it do you? Allow me to help you understand the point - ITS NOT 70 MILLION YEARS OLD!!!!!!!! It can't be and everyone here who knows anything will have to admit it. Not long ago scientist examining fossilized teeth from gigantopithecus were discouraged because they could not extract dna from a fossilized tooth. Why? Because they admitted that they cannot extract dna from a fossil greater than 500,000 years old!!!!!!!! Now, here you have the skeletal remains of a T-Rex, the lizard king, that has dna, soft tissue remains, and red blood cells. Scientists have extracted dna and are already studying it and making conclusions and publishing papers on the link between dinosaurs and birds!

You evolutionists sing the praises of the scientific method and peer review - it's self-correcting and weeds out experimental error and bogus findings thus correcting itself to give us a clearer picture of the "truth." Well, if that's true as you say, then fasten your seatbelts. Science has some correcting to do - majorly! That fossil is not 70 million years old - it can't be. The textbooks are going to have to be re-written on this one.

You say that evolution is a fact and the theory of evolution is there to help explain those facts. Many of your biggest hitters (including Cimber) claim that the theory is actually more important than the facts because the theory accounts for all the facts and gives us a clear picture of what they mean. FACT: you just found the remains of a giant lizard that has supposedly been exctinct for more than 65 million years that has red blood cells, soft tissues and dna in its' bones. HOW IS THAT OBSERVED FACT GOING TO CHANGE YOUR THEORIES?!!!!!! If you are going to be consistent and intellectually honest with yourselves and the world at large then you're going to have to concede this point. NO YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO WEASEL OUT OF THIS ONE.

Now, let me ask you one question Wombat. Is the speed of light consistent, or has it been slowing in recent years? Please answer the question.

If it can be shown that the speed of light has been decreasing in recent years, then the opposite would be true. The speed of light was faster long ago. If the speed of light was faster long ago then radioactive decay would be much accelerated. This fact alone would completely skew your estimates for time periods, era and epochs. YOUR DATES ARE INCORRECT. You can no longer hold to published dates on the ages of "ancient" strata and thus the ages of the fossil record.

From Ravinar


I'm sorry to bother you with the facts. I wonder if the scientific community shares your opinion - very interesting. You claim to have a problem with "fundies" and yet you just displayed more blind faith in science than your so-called fundies do in creationism. You are no different at all from the so-called religious fundies that you mock. Actually you are different. Your religion promises you nothing more than nothing when you die, and your "fundies" hope in the afterlife. Their religion is better than yours because at least it promises to reward them with something fantastic when they die.

It is interesting how you abandoned all of your other points, and concentrated on this one.

IF you haven't noticed, this is how Creationists work.
1. They start with presenting 'scientific evidence'.
2. They then loose 4/5 of their points, try and concentrate on the best ones.
3. Next, they insult you and make it clear they know nothing about science, and eventually loose all of their points.
4. They finally end up trying to say Evolution is evil, and atheists are going to hell.

You just entered stage 2 Yeti.

Blah, blah blah. Honestly, that's all that deserves.


Wow. Do you have ANY idea how stellar evolution and nuclear fusion works?


Why do stars expand?
After millions to billions of years, depending on the initial mass of the star, the continuous fusion of hydrogen into helium will cause a build-up of helium in the core. Larger and hotter stars produce helium more rapidly than cooler and less massive ones. The accumulation of helium, which is denser than hydrogen, in the core causes gravitational self-compression and a gradual increase in the rate of fusion. Higher temperatures must be attained to resist this increase in gravitational compression and to maintain a steady state.

Eventually, the core exhausts its supply of hydrogen, and without the outward pressure generated by the fusion of hydrogen to counteract the force of gravity, it contracts until either electron degeneracy becomes sufficient to oppose gravity, or the core becomes hot enough (around 100 megakelvins) for helium fusion to begin. Which of these happens first depends upon the star's mass.

Sigh. Once again, Creationists show that they have not only no understanding of what they are talking about, but also the concept of time.


Nuclear Fusion requires ATOMS. ATOMS. The sun has billions of trillions of these.


-- There is not even any good evidence of shrinkage. The claim is based on a single report from 1980. Other measurements, from 1980 and later, do not show any significant shrinkage. It is likely that the original report showing shrinkage contained systematic errors due to different measuring techniquies over the decades.
A single report, while OTHER REPORTS show no constant shrinking IS WHAT DEFINES 'false evidence'.



I'm not quite sure if you are serious, or just trolling.

As it appears that once again you are unable to follow a link, I'll post it below.

In recent years, advocates of the young earth hypothesis have assembled numerous lists of "scientific evidences" for their recent creation scenario. In this paper we critically evaluate the scientific adequacy of one such evidential claim of "creation-science," viz., that the sun's diameter has been shrinking in such a manner as to preclude the credibility of the standard multibillion-year chronology for terrestrial history. Within the professional scientific community, a preliminary report which suggested a long-term and rapid shrinkage of the sun presented a puzzle for solar astronomers. Consequently, additional studies were made and the credibility of the original data was re-evaluated. The result is that secular shrinkage has not beenPost Flare Loops on the Sun substantiated, but an 80-year oscillatory behavior was discovered. Within the "creation-science" community, however, the response to the original report has been remarkably different. The suggestion of rapid long-term shrinkage was uncritically accepted, the evidence and conclusions drawn from subsequent studies were generally dismissed, and extrapolations of the presumed rapid solar shrinkage have been performed without restraint. Isolated from the corrective of continuing professional investigation and evaluation, the "creation-science" community continues to employ this unwarranted extrapolation of a discredited report as a scientific evidence" for a young earth. The credibility of the Christian witness to a scientifically knowledgeable world is thereby clouded.

For more, SEE:
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1986/PSCF9-86VanTill.html

I'm Glad THAT'S over.
NEXT!


Blah, blah, blah.
Answer:
Claim CC371:
Schweitzer et al. (1997a) found evidence of hemoglobin and red blood cells in an unfossilized Tyrannosaurus rex bone. This indicates that the dinosaur died rather recently, not millions of years ago, which in turn indicates that the earth is young.

Response:
1. Schweitzer et al. did not find hemoglobin or red blood cells. Rather, they found evidence of degraded hemoglobin fragments and structures that might represent altered blood remnants. They emphasizd repeatedly that even those results were tentative, that the chemicals and structures may be from geological processes and contamination (Schweitzer and Horner 1999; Schweitzer and Staedter 1997; Schweitzer et al. 1997a, 1997b). The bone is exceptionally well preserved, so much so that it may contain some organic material from the original dinosaur, but the preservation should not be exaggerated.

2. The bone that Schweitzer and her colleagues studied was fossilized, but it was not altered by "permineralization or other diagenetic effects" (Schweitzer et al. 1997b). Permineralization is the filling of the bone's open parts with minerals; diagenetic effects include alterations like cracking. Schweitzer commented that the bone was "not completely fossilized" (Schweitzer and Staedter 1997, 35), but lack of permineralization does not mean unfossilized.

3. An ancient age of the bone is supported by the (nonradiometric) amino racemization dating technique.

4. Soft tissues have been found on fossils tens of thousands of years old, and DNA has been recovered from samples more than 300,000 years old (Stokstad 2003; Willerslev et al. 2003). If dinosaur fossils were as young as creationists claim, recovering DNA and non-bone tissues from them should be routine enough that it would not be news.

Links:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/blood.html

References:
1. Schweitzer, Mary H., Mark Marshall, Keith Carron, D. Scott Bohle, Scott C. Busse, Ernst V. Arnold, Darlene Barnard, J. R. Horner, and Jean R. Starkey, 1997a. Heme compounds in dinosaur trabecular bone. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 94: 6291-6296. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/12/6291
2. Schweitzer, M. H., C. Johnson, T. G. Zocco, J. H. Horner and J. R. Starkey, 1997b. Preservation of biomolecules in cancellous bone of Tyrannosaurus rex. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 17(2): 349-359.
3. Schweitzer, M. and T. Staedter, 1997. The real Jurassic Park. Earth, June, pp. 55-57.
4. Schweitzer, Mary Higby and John R. Horner, 1999. Intrasvascular microstructures in trabecular bone tissues of Tyrannosaurus rex. Annales de Paléontologie 85(3): 179-192.
5. Stokstad, Erik. 2003. Ancient DNA pulled from soil. Science 300: 407.
6. Willerslev, E. et al. 2003. Diverse plant and animal genetic records from Holocene and Pleistocene sediments. Science 300: 791-795.



Claim CC371.1:
Soft, flexible tissue, complete blood vessels, and apparently intact cells were found when a Tyrannosaurus bone was broken open (Schweitzer et al. 2005). Such preservation indicates that the bones are only a few thousand years old, not millions of years.

Response:
1. The reports of the soft tissue, though remarkable, have been sensationalized further. The tissues were not soft and pliable originally. The tissues were rehydrated in the process of removing the surrounding mineral components of the bone (Schweitzer et al. 2005). Moreover, it is unknown whether the soft tissues are original tissues. Fossil flexible tissues and nucleated cells have been found before in which the original material was not preserved (Stokstad 2005).

2. The age of fossils is not determined by how well they are preserved, because preservation depends far more on factors other than age. The age of this particular bone was determined from the age of the rocks it was found in, namely, the Hell Creek Formation. This formation has been reliably dated by several independent methods (Dalrymple 2000).

3. DNA has never been recovered from any dinosaurs nor from anything as old as them, and researchers do not expect to find DNA from these soft tissues (though they can still hope). DNA has been recovered, however, from samples much more than 10,000 years old (Poinar et al. 1998), even more than 300,000 years old (Stokstad 2003; Willerslev et al. 2003). If dinosaur fossils were as young as creationists claim, finding soft tissues in them would not be news, and recovering DNA from them should be easy enough that it would have been done by now.

Links:
Hurd, Gary S. 2005. Dino-blood redux. http://www.talkreason.org/articles/DinoBlood.cfm

References:
1. Dalrymple, G. Brent. 2000. Radiometeric dating does work! Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(3): 14-19. http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_con..._12_30_1899.asp
2. Poinar, Hendrik N. 1998. Molecular coproscopy: Dung and diet of the extinct ground sloth Nothrotheriops shastensis. Science 281: 402-406.
3. Schweitzer, M. H., J. L. Wittmeyer, J. R. Horner, and J. K. Toporski. 2005. Soft-tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 307: 1952-1955.
4. Stokstad, Erik. 2003. Ancient DNA pulled from soil. Science 300: 407.
5. Stokstad, Erik. 2005. Tyrannosaurus rex soft tissue raises tantalizing prospects. Science 307: 1852.
6. Willerslev, E. et al. 2003. Diverse plant and animal genetic records from Holocene and Pleistocene sediments. Science 300: 791-795.



THERE. Now that THAT IS OVER.



Blah, blah, blah. All of this is a useless rant. The nonsense has been debunked as NOT evidence for crackpot religious BS.


It's constant. 386,000 MPH.
It is ironic how you quote Einstein, and claim he supports your argument, and then go against his very Experiments, observations, and known LAWS.

Your rant said something about 'lolx evolutionists breakz the laws11!!'.
You realize the speed of light is a law, right?

Anyway. The other nonsense you posted farer up must be debunked. That will take another post.

Cheers,
SQLserver

PS-waiting for stage 3.

No need to be sorry, you had none to bother him with.


It does.


Does anyone see the irony here?


Wow. Are you clinically insane?(You might not want to answer that)


NO, it means their religion SELLS BETTER.

In 1 post, you successfully called Science a religion, and claimed Christianity is better because they believe that they are cool enough to go to heaven when dead.

Wow.

Quick Overview before moving on:
A. Your T-Rex supporting YEC has been debunked.
B. Your shrinking sun theory turns out to be based on 1 study from 1980, with more recent studies showing no to little shrinking. Not to mention that the shrinking of the sun WOULD NOT be a constant. THIS IS A FACT.
A small shrink over 5 years IS MEANINGLESS to the sun. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BILLIONS OF YEARS.

Link 1:
from:
http://www.creationism.org/heinze/SciEvidGodLife.htm
Part by Part:

Did God Create Life? Ask a Protein!

WRONG. Just another idiot misusing the law of Biogenesis.
http://www.vuletic.com/hume/cefec/3-1.html


LOL. That's it? THAT is his entire argument as to why amino acids will not form protein?
1. The amino acids that are used in life, like most other aspects of living things, are very likely not the product of chance. Instead, they likely resulted from a selection process. A simple peptide replicator can amplify the proportion of a single handedness in an initially random mixture of left- and right-handed fragments (Saghatelian et al. 2001; TSRI 2001). Self-assemblies on two-dimensional surfaces can also amplify a single handedness (Zepik et al. 2002). Serine forms stable clusters of a single handedness which can select other amino acids of like handedness by subtituting them for serine; these clusters also incorporate other biologically important molecules such as glyceraldehyde, glucose, and phosphoric acid (Takats et al. 2003). An excess of handedness in one kind of amino acid catalyzes the handedness of other organic products, such as threose, which may have figured prominently in proto-life (Pizzarello and Weber 2004).

2. Amino acids found in meteorites from space, which must have formed abiotically, also show significantly more of the left-handed variety, perhaps from circularly polarized UV light in the early solar system (Engel and Macko 1997; Cronin and Pizzarello 1999). The weak nuclear force, responsible for beta decay, produces only electrons with left-handed spin, and chemicals exposed to these electrons are far more likely to form left-handed crystals (Service 1999). Such mechanisms might also have been responsible for the prevalence of left-handed amino acids on earth.

3. The first self-replicator may have had eight or fewer types of amino acids (Cavalier-Smith 2001). It is not all that unlikely that the same handedness might occur so few times by chance, especially if one of the amino acids was glycine, which has no handedness.

4. Some bacteria use right-handed amino acids, too (McCarthy et al. 1998).

Jacoby, Mitch. 2003. Serine flavors the primordial soup. Chemical and Engineering News 81(32): 5. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8132/8132notw1.html

References:
1. Cavalier-Smith T. 2001. Obcells as proto-organisms: membrane heredity, lithophosphorylation, and the origins of the genetic code, the first cells, and photosynthesis. Journal of Molecular Evolution 53: 555-595.
2. Cronin, J. R. and S. Pizzarello. 1999. Amino acid enantiomer excesses in meteorites: Origin and significance. Advances in Space Research 23(2): 293-299.
3. Engel, M. H. and S. A. Macko. 1997. Isotopic evidence for extraterrestrial non-racemic amino acids in the Murchison meteorite. Nature 389: 265-268. See also: Chyba, C. R., 1997. A left-handed Solar System? Nature 389: 234-235.
4. McCarthy, Matthew D., John I. Hedges and Ronald Benner. 1998. Major bacterial contribution to marine dissolved organic nitrogen. Science 281: 231-234.
5. Pizzarello, S. and A. L. Weber. 2004. Prebiotic amino acids as asymmetric catalysts. Science 303: 1151.
6. Saghatelian, A., Y. Yokobayashi, K. Soltani and M. R. Ghadiri. 2001. A chiroselective peptide replicator. Nature 409: 797-801.
7. Service, R. F. 1999. Does life's handedness come from within? Science 286: 1282-1283.
8. Takats, Zoltan, Sergio C. Nanita and R. Graham Cooks. 2003. Serine octamer reactions: indicators of prebiotic relevance. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 42: 3521-3523.
9. TSRI. 2001 (15 Feb.). New study by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute suggests an answer for one of the oldest questions in biology. http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/021401.html
10. Zepik, H. et al. 2002. Chiral amplification of oligopeptides in two-dimensional crystalline self-assemblies on water. Science 295: 1266-1269.

OK. I admit I'm NO GOOD at abiogenesis, which is what this is about.
Someone like Cimber could probably explain it.

OK. Yeti, I don't have enough time to go through each of these links. Perhaps you can paste some evidence here?

I believe you missed my post on the age of the Earth. Here we go!

Age of the Earth and Universe:
The following is a collection of Evidence that indicates an Old Earth and Universe.

Helioseismology
The composition of the sun changes as it ages. The differing composition changes the way sound waves behave inside the sun. Using helioseismic methods (models of preasure waves in the sun) the age of the sun can be inferred. With this method, an Italian team came up with an age of 4.57 +/- 0.11 billion years.
Approximate Age of the Sun: 4.57 Billion Years
Source:
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=arti......390.1115BPDF


Space Weathering:
Space weathering is an effect that is observed on most asteroids. Extraterrestrial objects tend to develop a red tint as they age due to the effects of cosmic radiation and micrometer impacts on their surfaces. Because this process proceeds at a constant rate, observing the color of an object can provide basis for a generally reliable estimate. The ages provided by this dating technique exceed millions of years.
Minimum Age of Universe: 500,000,000 years
Source:
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~davidn/papers/sloan1.pdf

Naica Crystals:
The Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico is home of some of the largest gypsum crystals on earth. Specimens in the area have been found to exceeded 11 meters in length and 1 meter in width. Based on classical crystal growth theory these crystals are older than one million years.
Mininum Age of the Earth: 1 million years
Source:
http://giantcrystals.strahlen.org/library/...iaruiznaica.pdf

Ice Layering:
Ice layering is a phenomenon that is almost universally observed in ice sheets and glaciers where the average temperature does not rise above freezing.

As the ice is being laid down, annual differences in temperature and irradiance cause the ice to form differently, and this generates alternating layers of light and dark ice. This method is considered a relatively accurate way to measure the age of an ice sheet, as only one layer will form per year. While there have been a few cases where several layers have formed per year, these incidents do not challenge the ability of ice layering to provide a minimum age, as these false layers can be discerned from the real thing after close inspection.

Currently the greatest number of layers found in a single ice sheet is over 700,000, which clearly contradicts the idea of an earth less than 10,000 years old. Even if one were to assume an error rate of over 1000%, the age demonstrated by this method would still be far greater than that suggested by young earth creationists.[11]

the minimum age of the earth identified by these means is 160,000 years. (+/- 15,000 years.)
Source:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html

WMAP Technology provides accurate reading of the Age of the Universe to be 13.7 billion years old
Source:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03...lion-years-old/


More at:
http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Evidence_agai...recent_creation
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/age.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

Cheers,
SQLserver

Wow very nice work yetiman. It is true it is either spontaneous generation (disproved but we will say chance instead) or a designer. I am glad that I believe in God and also in evolution and am not one of the ones who base all their beliefs on evolution or such (not that all do). If I was not then it would be a blow to even doubt evolution but hey I have doubted God before too but the personal non-subjective evidence I have makes me a firm believer. The information presented here does make me doubt the dating methods used by scientist. The sun, well using computer models and other methods, scientist can come up with a possible answer but I have yet to hear one say this is completely fact rather they say 'we think' the sun is this old. It is more likely that we simply do not know and there just might be an expiration date. Of course the establishment (dare I say the 'man') will not attempt to verify the t-rex claim because it will disprove everything they believe in and they believe in. Classic denialism but taken to another level where it is not others ignoring science but the scientist themselves who ignore science. Either way the evidence is fascinating both ways. What can I say I am glad I do not base the decisions of how to live my life or prepare for the afterlife on empirical evidence. It does seem evolution might just get pwned sooner or later. Not that it matters to me one way or another.

My personal thoughts...

1. The Creation Itself
- No argument here. I think God is a logical theory for how everything started.
2. The Holy Bible
- I don't understand how it's "scientific evidence". It's historical evidence that at some point some one thought something. There's no evidence that, other than their own word, it's from God. And no reason to believe it, either.
3. Problems with Abiogenesis
- Problems with one theory do not support another. I think abiogenesis is daft, too.
4. Problems with Evolution
- There are more "problems" with creationist theory than evolution and more overwhelming evidence in evolution's favour than problems with it.
5. Problems with the Fossil Record
- Like what? Examples?
6. Problems with Radiometeric Dating Methods
- Again, not something I know much about, examples?
7. Unexplained Phenomenon
- I think history teaches us that "unexplained" things become explained.
8. Personal Testimony
- Unreliable.
9. Miracles and Healings
- And what of the opposites of such things?
10. Prophecies and Other Proofs
- Vague predictions which partially come true when you bend their cryptics?

None of those things were scientific evidence, yeti.

I think everyone needs to settle down.

This is the main problem on this board and the reason why I have stopped posting so often.

All people are doing on both sides of the debate is simply posting links. No one is presenting any thoughtful material with substance. No one is bringing personal knowledge to the table. Torgo was one of the only posters who did this in this thread that I have seen.

Simply posting material from other websites is nothing more than websites debating other websites. It doesn't get us anywhere. We need to come together and figure out a more structured way of dealing with this besides the same old way of just shotgunning websites in every post and hope the opposing party reads it (which no one ever does and is why we keep getting back to square one).

People who oppose evolution do this because they don't have the background to formulate their own hypotheses as to why evolution might be wrong and rely on websites and organizations that try to sound scientific to laypeople, but real scientists know that they are just spewing nonsense every which way.

People who try to debunk creationists claims are doing the exact same thing. Most of the people on here don't have a scientific education and resort to posting material from websites. With the exception of me, camlax, goblin, mattshark, and a few others (i apologise if i missed your name). The only reason I choose not to posts websites is because its counterproductive. It offers nothing to the table that personal insight and direct evidence from scientific journals and publications can offer, which we can't post on here. Plus it gets old debunking the same claims over and over and over again.

All you have done here is attack evolution ,Where is your proof of creation?


fullywired

I don't understand science Sqlserver? You should go check your science textbooks - 186,000 miles per second. That's a little different don't you think?

It's awesome to see the tables turned for a change. But this time your impenetrable wall has been violated. One question, can you see it - or will your faith keep you blind?

That's fine if it does - I LOVE FAITH TOO. But I didn't use size 7 font to prove it. Cheers!

Tables turned? What have you actually said? Nothing you offered in terms of evidence hasn't been seen before. What do you expect to somehow prove evolution, an established fact, is false to the scientific community?

No tables have turned.

Perhaps you should bring these statements up to Nature for peer-review.

In fact, why don't you say exactly what you disapprove of in evolution. That way we can determine if you have the slightest understanding of its basic principles, instead of just repeating what websites have already written down.

Yes, I did do more debunking than proving. But, does it not hold logically true that if there are only two possible outcomes and one is disproven, then the other must be true? It's more than just attempting to disprove evolution. I was hoping that at least some valid questions would be raised and some concessions made. But did you see the response? So I think that alone proves some of my points.

As far as proof of Creationism. If I build something, that thing I built is not me. I am separate from my creations. I do not exist in the things that I've created. You can spot my work or recognize it, or maybe I've left my signature in the lower right hand corner as an artist often will. In any event, one of my principle points is that WE are the evidence of creationism. The bible also tells us quite a bit. If there is a God, then of all people that have ever lived, or maybe beings is a better word, then above all, He is to be trusted. His word is the word of a gentleman of the highest order. I'm relatively new at this and I've done the best I can. But in any event it's kind of fun isn't it?

Regards

As far as I know, the speed of light in a vacuum, c = 670 616 629 miles per hour = 186 282.397 Miles per second = 299 792.458 Kilometres per second = 1.07925285 × 10⁹ Kilometres per hour

Proof
1 The evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true.

2 1. The validation of a proposition by application of specified rules, as of induction or deduction, to assumptions, axioms, and sequentially derived conclusions.
2. A statement or argument used in such a validation.

3 1. Convincing or persuasive demonstration: was asked for proof of his identity; an employment history that was proof of her dependability.
2. The state of being convinced or persuaded by consideration of evidence.

Evidence
n.

1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.
2. Something indicative; an outward sign: evidence of grief on a mourner's face.
3. Law. The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.

(from answers.com)


What Science is not:


Just a couple of definitions that may be important in this conversation Yeti. I'm a big fan of science and the scientific method myself, and frankly mourn the fact that some "scientists" seem to dispense with it when it gets in the way of what they "know" must be the truth.

Most of the "proof" of evolution which has been presented in this thread is EVIDENCE. Evidence can be interpreted in many ways, and the fact that the evidence supports a theory does not make the theory TRUTH, which is why science is not a process which produces certainties or absolute facts (see #6 above).

So how about everyone gets off their "evolution is true because science says so" high horse and take a clean look at the evidence and at least wonder if the same evidence which is used to "prove" evolution could be interpreted in other ways.

What debunking have you done?

You can't just use false statements and claim something (which is established and true) is false and say you successfully debunked it.

Your whole argument fails because evolution is a fact. What don't you understand? Its like saying the Earth orbits around the sun. That is a fact, just like evolution is a fact.

This is why it is true.

You can argue the theory of evolution all you want (natural selection as a mechanism of evolutionary change), but you can't dispute the fact that evolution happens.

Cimber, you have said that the theory of evolution exists to explain the FACTS that we see in the fossil record and in the many observations and experiments made in the last hundred years or so right? How are you going to deal with the FACTS of this recent discovery? You and I both know that science cannot extract dna from fossils older than 500,000 years, right? And yet, there is dna recovered from the bones of a T-Rex; a creature supposedly extinct for over 65 million years. How are you going to address that fact?

Reread Torgo's post. He explained it quite nicely.

It is currently, is there any way to ascertain it was so 40 billion years ago? Light travels at different speeds through different media, is it possible that in the first seconds (millennia?) after the big bang, matter was close enough that light traveled not through vaccuum but through different types of matter, so that what appears now to be light from millions of light years is actually light from thousands? Curious, I've never really looked into this, hoping someone has because I'm feeling too lazy to do research today.

i highly doubt I'm the only one who has completely lost there patience with you people.



naa its just i have been in these debates long enough to not get my hopes up that the creationists will put forth some thing other than the same old debunked and ignorant BS they always put forth.



hey sqlserver! looks like hes made the jump to stage 4.

Light travels fastest through a vaccum. As far as I'm aware, any other type of matter would only serve to slow light down, meaning that the light would be from a point further back in time, rather than more recently in time. The only way that Light could be from a point more recently in Time is if the speed of Light has slowed over Time.

My mistake. Sorry.


What ARE you talking about?


.....

I did as you asked. Now, since you are an expert and are also very fond of reading scientific journals; perhaps you would be so kind as to enlighten us with your own personal opinion based on your research from the scientific literature? It would be great to get an expert's opinion instead of having to rely on the statements of the scientists themselves as quoted in the news media. I'm not a scientist so I don't have access to as many journals as you do. I for one would be very interested in getting this whole mess cleaned up! I mean, something has got to change as a result of this discovery. Either, it is no longer true that dna cannot be extracted from a fossil older than 500,000 years, or the dates ascribed to sedimentary layers are inaccurate, or the dating methods themselves are in question, or - last but not least - THE T-REX HASN'T BEEN DEAD THAT LONG!!!!!!

Seriously, I really do look forward to your response.

There's an interesting article in NewScientist about the possibility of the speed of light changing, and an article in Wikipedia discussing what a Variable speed of light would mean.

You don't need to be an expert to see what the problem is.
There were no red blood cells.

In the popular magazine article that these results were first shown, the writers says that they couldn't say whether or not blood was present in it, and more work had to be done. Carl Wieland, however, incorrectly said that there were cells present.

Schweitzer, Mary H., Mark Marshall, Darlene Barnard, Scott Bohle, Keith Carron, Ernst V. Arnold, Jean R. Starkey 1997B Blood from a Stone, Dinofest International 101-104
Goes on to state blood was not found.

Schweitzer, M.H., Johnson, C., Zocco, T.G., Horner, J.H., Starkey, J.R., 1997C Preservation of biomolecules in cancellous bone of Tyrannosaurus rex, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Volume 17, No. 2, June 19. 349-359
"An exceptionally well preserved specimen of the tyrannosaurid dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex Osborn shows little evidence of permineralization or other diagenetic effects. It appears that the cancellous bone tissues of the specimen may have been protected from water infiltration or mineral deposition by the very dense cortical bone which surrounds them. "
http://www.vertpaleo.org/publications/jvp/17-349-359.cfm

I sure hope that ravinar doesn't come in here and call you slippery! That would not be polite, I can tell you from personal experience that it's no fun. Wait, he wouldn't do that cause you're on his team. The only ones that are going to get that type of hyperbole are the creationists - so no worries! One question....if you don't mind....how old is the fossil?

Thank you Tiggs! That is helpful. So let's see if I can summarize some of the results in laymans terms. An effective decrease or increase in the speed of light would change the half-life ages of radioactive elements. So any methods used to date fossilized objects in layers of strata that have been classified in age groups based on measurements of radioactive decay from those very same fossils, would be in question. I think I've got it now. So if I make a generalization like this.....It's impossible to know with any degree of certainty how old any fossils or layers of strata found in the earth actually are; no one would really have much of a problem with that.

WELLL THEN IT IS A GOOD THING I'VE POSTED A DOZEN OTHER DATING METHODS THAT CONFIRM THE SCIENTIFIC AGE OF THE EARTH, RIGHT?

Perhaps you also missed the talk origins stuff I gave you on the TRex?
Claim CC371:
Schweitzer et al. (1997a) found evidence of hemoglobin and red blood cells in an unfossilized Tyrannosaurus rex bone. This indicates that the dinosaur died rather recently, not millions of years ago, which in turn indicates that the earth is young.

Response:
1. Schweitzer et al. did not find hemoglobin or red blood cells. Rather, they found evidence of degraded hemoglobin fragments and structures that might represent altered blood remnants. They emphasizd repeatedly that even those results were tentative, that the chemicals and structures may be from geological processes and contamination (Schweitzer and Horner 1999; Schweitzer and Staedter 1997; Schweitzer et al. 1997a, 1997b). The bone is exceptionally well preserved, so much so that it may contain some organic material from the original dinosaur, but the preservation should not be exaggerated.

2. The bone that Schweitzer and her colleagues studied was fossilized, but it was not altered by "permineralization or other diagenetic effects" (Schweitzer et al. 1997b). Permineralization is the filling of the bone's open parts with minerals; diagenetic effects include alterations like cracking. Schweitzer commented that the bone was "not completely fossilized" (Schweitzer and Staedter 1997, 35), but lack of permineralization does not mean unfossilized.

3. An ancient age of the bone is supported by the (nonradiometric) amino racemization dating technique.

4. Soft tissues have been found on fossils tens of thousands of years old, and DNA has been recovered from samples more than 300,000 years old (Stokstad 2003; Willerslev et al. 2003). If dinosaur fossils were as young as creationists claim, recovering DNA and non-bone tissues from them should be routine enough that it would not be news.

Links:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/blood.html

References:
1. Schweitzer, Mary H., Mark Marshall, Keith Carron, D. Scott Bohle, Scott C. Busse, Ernst V. Arnold, Darlene Barnard, J. R. Horner, and Jean R. Starkey, 1997a. Heme compounds in dinosaur trabecular bone. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 94: 6291-6296. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/12/6291
2. Schweitzer, M. H., C. Johnson, T. G. Zocco, J. H. Horner and J. R. Starkey, 1997b. Preservation of biomolecules in cancellous bone of Tyrannosaurus rex. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 17(2): 349-359.
3. Schweitzer, M. and T. Staedter, 1997. The real Jurassic Park. Earth, June, pp. 55-57.
4. Schweitzer, Mary Higby and John R. Horner, 1999. Intrasvascular microstructures in trabecular bone tissues of Tyrannosaurus rex. Annales de Paléontologie 85(3): 179-192.
5. Stokstad, Erik. 2003. Ancient DNA pulled from soil. Science 300: 407.
6. Willerslev, E. et al. 2003. Diverse plant and animal genetic records from Holocene and Pleistocene sediments. Science 300: 791-795.



Claim CC371.1:
Soft, flexible tissue, complete blood vessels, and apparently intact cells were found when a Tyrannosaurus bone was broken open (Schweitzer et al. 2005). Such preservation indicates that the bones are only a few thousand years old, not millions of years.

Response:
1. The reports of the soft tissue, though remarkable, have been sensationalized further. The tissues were not soft and pliable originally. The tissues were rehydrated in the process of removing the surrounding mineral components of the bone (Schweitzer et al. 2005). Moreover, it is unknown whether the soft tissues are original tissues. Fossil flexible tissues and nucleated cells have been found before in which the original material was not preserved (Stokstad 2005).

2. The age of fossils is not determined by how well they are preserved, because preservation depends far more on factors other than age. The age of this particular bone was determined from the age of the rocks it was found in, namely, the Hell Creek Formation. This formation has been reliably dated by several independent methods (Dalrymple 2000).

3. DNA has never been recovered from any dinosaurs nor from anything as old as them, and researchers do not expect to find DNA from these soft tissues (though they can still hope). DNA has been recovered, however, from samples much more than 10,000 years old (Poinar et al. 1998), even more than 300,000 years old (Stokstad 2003; Willerslev et al. 2003). If dinosaur fossils were as young as creationists claim, finding soft tissues in them would not be news, and recovering DNA from them should be easy enough that it would have been done by now.

Links:
Hurd, Gary S. 2005. Dino-blood redux. http://www.talkreason.org/articles/DinoBlood.cfm

References:
1. Dalrymple, G. Brent. 2000. Radiometeric dating does work! Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(3): 14-19. http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_con..._12_30_1899.asp
2. Poinar, Hendrik N. 1998. Molecular coproscopy: Dung and diet of the extinct ground sloth Nothrotheriops shastensis. Science 281: 402-406.
3. Schweitzer, M. H., J. L. Wittmeyer, J. R. Horner, and J. K. Toporski. 2005. Soft-tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 307: 1952-1955.
4. Stokstad, Erik. 2003. Ancient DNA pulled from soil. Science 300: 407.
5. Stokstad, Erik. 2005. Tyrannosaurus rex soft tissue raises tantalizing prospects. Science 307: 1852.
6. Willerslev, E. et al. 2003. Diverse plant and animal genetic records from Holocene and Pleistocene sediments. Science 300: 791-795.

Question:
How would the speed of light change radiometric results, anyway?

Talk origins? If you would not accept data from us quoted from "creationist" websites like ICR, why would you bring it's opposite into this debate? That's a little hypocritical isn't it?

I have to go now. I'll see everyone later. Regards.

Talk origins doesn't claim to conduct scientific research