I hope I haven't come off as partronising because I know you're an intelligent person. It is that very fact that weirds me out because it seems like such a small step from believing in microevolution to believing in macroevolution. To me it is really the same thing on a different scale, and the distinction is a needless and arbitary one.

Not patronizing at all.

The problem I have with macroevolution is, in a nutshell, that with microevolution animals do change to adapt to conditions but they still remain basically the same animal. Using your dog examples, yes they can be bred to be larger, different breeds of dogs, whatever, but they are still dogs. It's the same with all examples of microevolution, as the dog/bird/rat adapts it's still a dog/bird/rat. I don't see macroevolution as the same thing at all as what we are talking about is simple organisms evolving into more complex ones, and one type of animal evolving into a completely different kind of animal. To me it just seems to be a huge leap in logic, an observable phenomenon extrapolated to an extreme conclusion that isn't supported by direct evidence. To use your movie analogy, it's like seeing that 5 minute film and believing that the film will spontaneously grow into a full featured film given enough time.

You'll note that at no time have I ever claimed that it's impossible or that I believe it can't be true, but rather that I have never seen enough direct evidence to convince me that it has ever happened. I've been very interested in reading studies in genetic biology and so far haven't read anything in that field that would support the idea of simple organisms evolving into more complex ones either, but I'll admit it's a relatively young field when compared to others. That field of study may eventually produce hard data to support or discredit macroevolution at some point in the future.

I don't see macroevolution as the same thing at all as what we are talking about is simple organisms evolving into more complex ones, and one type of animal evolving into a completely different kind of animal.

But that's the point. There is no animal alive that is completely different to the ones claimed to be its antecedents. To continue the bird and croc analogy, birds and crocodiles aren't completely different kinds of animals. Both have bone structures based on deposits of calcium, both use blood to oxygenate their muscles, both have brains and a nervous system, both breathe oxygen into lungs. There are more similarities than differences. It's only because their outward appearance is so different that we can be fooled into thinking they are completely different.

Of course, you could say that God was simply unoriginal as a creator and decided to use the same stock model for 9/10 of the world's creatures. But evolution fits as an explanation for that surprising degree of uniformity as well, and does a better job in my view of altering itself to fit new evidence.

I'm not familiar with the particular example. Do you have a link to a reputable image?

well here's a bunch of links for you to look at.....one excerpt from one of them

Africa’s Congo jungle is becoming increasingly known as the reputed refuge of a mysterious creature called Mokele-Mbembe.1 The locals appear familiar with this creature, which they readily identify from drawings of fossil reconstructions as being like one of the dinosaurs. Few realize, however, that similar accounts occur in other parts of the world. Australian Aborigines have stories of encounters with huge, sometimes frightening monsters which range from what sound like dinosaurs to giant marsupials, also believed to have long become extinct.

Apparent dinosaur sightings by man from centuries past are legion, in the form of dragon legends around the globe.13 This magazine has previously shown photographic evidence of ancient rock drawings of dinosaurs.14All of this contradicts the evolutionary belief system, which insists that no man has ever seen anything like a dinosaur, since evolutionists claim that these died out millions of years before man appeared.

and here's a fish for Kingbee from one of these links as well

Coelacanths are a classic example of this. This is an unusual fish which was once known only as fossils, and believed by evolutionists to have been extinct for over 60 million years. But in 1938, the coelacanth was found to be alive and well, living in waters off the coast of Madagascar, and recently it was found in northern Indonesian fish markets. 18

and another from this set of links on encyclopedias ...is this just innocent deception Baker, or an outright lie? Or maybe it's just old news in light of new evidence?

Much of the scientific ‘evidence’ claimed by one popular encyclopedia1 to support evolution has in fact long been discredited and/or discounted, even by secular scientists. The examples given by the World Book Encyclopedia 2000 (WBE2000)as evidence for evolution—but which were long ago abandoned by evolutionists—include: (goes on to show the deceptions)

and the link Cacto where I got the original quote you can check the reference....

Link

cavewall paintings are now generally conceded to be abstract representations of visions experienced by tribal peoples in trance states

soooooo were they smokin funny stuff?

ooops here's the links

Link

"and another from this set of links on encyclopedias ...is this just innocent deception Baker, or an outright lie? Or maybe it's just old news in light of new evidence?"

Wow, that's a whole, what... 5 examples, some of which you've already posted? I've happily admitted to the fact that there has been dishonesty and mistakes in science. You've refused to acknowledge more than a couple from creationists, and none that you have yourself foisted on us here.

You have a cut-and-paste position on evolution, and frankly a cut-and-paste religion. Unable to form your own ideas, you're only going to be as reliable as what you cut-and-paste from. I've tried to argue honestly at the very least. In response to scientific arguments you just wave them away irrationally. So long as you can just invent reality off the top of your head, like your 'scientific' pals Hovind and Ham, there's really no way to talk to you reasonably.

Do you even read much of what you post yourself? I'd love for you to explain what the quote:

"It should be completely clear to all who are not willfully ignorant that universal process of conservation and disintegration could never produce a universe requiring almost infinite process of innovation and integration for its production."

really means. You aren't willfully ignorant, are you?

I'd love for you to prove that non-fossilized bones can't last 4,000 years as you said earlier. You ignored it when I pointed out that Gould, himself had published material exposing Haekel's dishonestly before Behe. You paint Michael Ruse as a reformed 'evolutionist', when in reality he is a philosopher who still characterizes himself as a Darwinist who still rejects creationism. (Re: Creationists twisting things, look at how they shamefully handle Ruse's quote here.) These are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Frankly I'm tired of arguing that the sky is blue with someone who can just declare it purple regardless of the truth of it. You see whatever color you need to see in order to justify the inerrancy of your beliefs. At the very least science has the whole of the universe for discovery, but literalist creationism is confined by the imagination of an unknown bronze-age author. Ham's "science" is just a band-aid on the wound of biblical inerrancy.

No, you require proof of their existence. That's the trouble with this argument. I post an argument, and you just disagree. It's like some sad remake of the Monty Python argument sketch. I say there are 4,000 year old bones, and you say no there aren't. If you need for there to be to prove your archeological evidence of the Bible, though, you'll embrace them without a doubt.

It’s the same here Baker. I post and you disagree also. It’s called debating. No what we were discussing was dino non-fossilized bones and I said that by this time they mostly would have disintegrated by now. I do believe in the dust to dust biblical account for the most part but do believe there are exceptions to the rules. I have a friend who tightly packed away a baby sweater 20 years ago and when she went to retrieve it, it disintegrated in her hands, nothing but threads. For the most part that’s what happens even to bones. I will acknowledge right now that there are some bones in dinosaur fossils some have had even red blood cells detected in them. Why do you have some kicking around? But actually this is more in line with the creationist thinking than the “other side” because we’re talking thousands of years vs millions.

I don't have any bibilical mandate to show you the truth. People like Hovind state that they are trying to spread the truth, and then just ridicule and ignore people that differ with them. They openly impose interpretations of the Bible that their fellow creationists can't even tolerate, for which there is no basis whatsoever.

You don’t like Hovind and that is made perfectly clear. I’m not the one that keeps bringing him up…you are. You are going after what you assume is the weakest link here. He’s a science teacher, not a scientist, who goes around informing the public on the lies in the textbooks. Why don’t we discuss that issue? You stay away from the lies on the other side, Baker, doing what you accuse me of doing. I give you some and you dismiss them or say that you have more. I have tons, I’m just not interesting in showing lies as much as you are. I’d rather stick to arguments than tear people down.

I would just suggest you consider seriously what 'bearing false witness' means. It isn't just in court against other people. So long as you refuse to check the validity of the points you make and pass on other people's falsehoods without caring if they are true, you won't woo anyone toward your beliefs.

Again, this is Hovind. What about Ham? Is he lying too? Why don’t you mention Sagan and his TV series “Cosmos?” At the beginning of his show was his statement…”The Cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be.” What experiments can we perform to test this statement....hmmm? Isn’t this a lie according to your definition?

Like Mr. Anonymous above, you've spent a lot of time building up perspectives that crumble. Why? Because to stand they need for there to be no 4,000 year old bones, so you just go ahead and say there aren't any. You need for there to be no transitional fossils, so you just say there aren't any.

There are none Baker. Darwin predicted that fossil hunters would eventually find a great many transitional intermediates between the major groups (they didn’t) and that animal breeders would succeed in creating distinct species (they didn’t). So the question is whether the theories have passed the experimental test or failed it. I’d say failed. You say passed but where’s your evidence? Here’s a question for you. Does the fossil evidence considered as a whole, and without bias, tend to confirm the predictions of Darwinian theory?

You NEED for there to be no physical substance to the theory of evolution, so you'll just ignore what there is, or make it into something you can use. You NEED the playing field artificially leveled by making evolution into a religion, because then you can laugh and say that no one is more right or wrong than anyone else. The theory of evolution isn't a religion, though, you just need for it to be.

The playing field is far from level. The creationists have an uphill battle. Look around. It’s the evolutionists that have the money and power. They hold the microphone like I showed you in the Phillips case. I can give you many such examples of this. Darwinists use their control of the mike to cast their opponents as religious dogmatics creating intellectual suicide by choosing to believe in a literal Genesis. They control 100% of the media, schools and many churches as well. If critics object to the teaching of philosophical doctrines as scientific facts, the microphones say they are trying to prevent students from learning. If critics attempt to tell the other side of the story and bring out evidence that the textbooks ignore, they are accused of trying to insert religion into the science curriculum. The rule of the microphone is “heads we win, tails you lose.

Polls show that under 10% of the American public believes in the official scientific orthodoxy which is all livings things were created by an evolutionary process in which a god played no part. The remaining 90% is more or less evenly divided between biblical creationists and theistic creationists. Why with all the control they have don’t more people buy what they are selling?

There's no way to deal with someone like that, and it just affirms what people believe about creationists as a whole. Sadly, people like myself who DO believe that God created the universe, and who DO appreciate what science has discovered in terms of evolution have to pay for that stigma every time we discuss our ideas with atheistic evolutionists. Thanks heaps.

Again you keep attacking the person not the arguments. I think we need to stop seeing this issue as a conflict between the bible and science and to believe uncritically in one or the other. I believe evolutionists rely on this to shut off all criticism of their philosophy. They stereotype all opponents as extreme Genesis literalists who reject the evidence of science for purely religious reasons. As long as the conflict is perceived this way the grave scientific defects in the ruling theory and the bias that sustains it can be effectively concealed from view. I absolutely believe there is an undercurrent in all this.

Let’s look here. You and I do agree on some things. We agree that God had a hand. We differ on the how. We agree on the appreciation of science and its tested experiments. A really good experimental test can call everybody’s bluff. We agree that the church has committed grave errors in not listening to that science in the past. Now we have the opposite problem. Not wanting to make the same mistake many churches are jumping on the evolutionary bandwagon marrying Moses and Darwin and I disagree on that and here is our major difference. We both have faith, but my faith is in God and his revealed (to us) word. In it God said he made the world in 6 days. He said it and that settles it until I see some scientific evidence to the contrary. To date, there is none. The NT writers believed Genesis as history as did Jesus. There is nothing biblically that challenges that.

That young HS studet, Danny Phillips, as I wrote before walked right into a wall of religious dogma. I think also that’s what I’m up against here believe it or not.

I’m not an expert on Science. I’m still learning as I go. I believe Baker you know more than I do. I enjoy learning and will continue to do so. I’m not infallible nor do I pretend to be. What I have tested tho is the word of God and I find it very dependable.

Australian Aborigines have stories of encounters with huge, sometimes frightening monsters which range from what sound like dinosaurs to giant marsupials, also believed to have long become extinct.

There are fossils of these creatures in Australian museums. They're not dinosaurs; they're simply enormous versions of currently existing creatures. There's a giant goanna (as big as a minibus) and a giant wombat on display in Brisbane. I think the giant Australian carnivores are called megadons.

They don't prove or disprove the existence of dinosaurs because they lived in a different time frame - it's already been established that aborigines hunted them around 30-40,000 years ago. Dinosaurs are believed to have existed millions of years ago.

Of course the requirement of that article is that you first believe in a 6000-year-old earth. What I'd like to see is an article that argues creationism without ever once referring to the bible. If it's really a theory based on scientific fact then it should be possible to argue it based on science and not just a book only a few people believe is inerrant.

Frankly the article's declaration that Noah held every type of breathing dinosaur on his ship doesn't particularly impress me either. To have the storage necessary to carry every kind of dinosaur as well as more ordinary animals he would need a boat roughly the size of Tasmania. Where on earth would he get the wood and bronze? Divine providence can only do so much. The boat would probably be heavy enough anyway to touch bottom on the Marina Trench.

You paint Michael Ruse as a reformed 'evolutionist', when in reality he is a philosopher who still characterizes himself as a Darwinist who still rejects creationism. (Re: Creationists twisting things, look at how they shamefully handle Ruse's quote here.)

I gave you a reliable site and you gave me a wacko site. I went to the home site and know exactly what they believe in. They are religous extremest fundamentals and they have things twisted themselves. I'm not there. So what are you saying? Put me in with all those religious wackos? Isn't that what I've been saying the evolutionists want to do if you disagree with them? And no I'm not painting him with any brush.... just brought it up to show you that even a well known evolutionist that gets air time believes that evolution carries quite a bit of faith with it. even shocking his evolutionry community. After all that is the whole point of this thread.

You ignored it when I pointed out that Gould, himself had published material exposing Haekel's dishonestly before Behe.

I'm not ignoring you, ok? You don't reply to many of my comments either. Do you have a complex? I'll check into it. By why did Gould get all hot and bothered about it and call Behe a creationist for pointing out the dishonesty?

As far as the quote? I can't remember where I got it and I have to read it in context so I'll check back.

I read of a great description on qualities that makes an expert trustworthy and it comes from Richard Feynman at a 1974 commencement speech at the CA Institute of Technology. He told them to cultivate...

a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty-a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think may make it invalid-not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiement, and how they worked-to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.....In summary, the idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution: not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

I would like to add something that's not essential to the science but something I kind of believe which is that you should not fool the laymen when you're talking as a scientist. I'm talking about a specific extra type of integrity that is (more than) not lying but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists certainly to other scientists and I think to laymen."

I'm afraid there are too many out there that are trying to fool, bluff and intimate us. I trust that Ham is one of Feynman's men and he's giving as much info as he can in laymen's terms to help better educate the general public.

Of course the requirement of that article is that you first believe in a 6000-year-old earth. What I'd like to see is an article that argues creationism without ever once referring to the bible. If it's really a theory based on scientific fact then it should be possible to argue it based on science and not just a book only a few people believe is inerrant.

I think that's fair. When we say we go by the bible it's using the geneologies and going backward. According to the Jews now we are in something like year 5,756 (thereabouts). Using the fact that there may be gaps in the geneology record, it has been estimated it still wouldn't be over 10,000 years since it all began.

here's one, kind of, but it doesn't mention scripture until the last section. It's titled, "The Earth, How Old Does it Look?
Just skip the last paragraph. I know creationists love to give God the credit so it's hard for them not to mention scripture.
Link

Frankly the article's declaration that Noah held every type of breathing dinosaur on his ship doesn't particularly impress me either. To have the storage necessary to carry every kind of dinosaur as well as more ordinary animals he would need a boat roughly the size of Tasmania. Where on earth would he get the wood and bronze? Divine providence can only do so much. The boat would probably be heavy enough anyway to touch bottom on the Marina Trench.

First off, Christians believe that many of these animals, if not all, were baby ones. The average size of a dino was the size of a sheep. The big ones get lots of attention but most were not nearly that big. Also many shipbuilders thru the years have looked at these dimensions and found that the specs of this boat were perfect and many times the pattern was copied by modern shipbuilders of our day. I think I read somewhere that the Queen Mary was built after this formula.

It was 450' long,75' wide and 45 ' high. It had a total deck of 97,700 sq ft It was the largest ship ever built until 1884 when the Italian vessel Eturia was built, and nearly one half the length of the Queen Mary. This means it had the carrying capacity of over 520 boxcars more than enough for the total animal population.

I think that's fair. When we say we go by the bible it's using the geneologies and going backward. According to the Jews now we are in something like year 5,756 (thereabouts). Using the fact that there may be gaps in the geneology record, it has been estimated it still wouldn't be over 10,000 years since it all began.

What I meant was find some actual physical evidence of a 6000-year-old Earth and then I might consider creationism as rational as science. I've yet to see a convincing argument based on geological and environmental evidence for creation to have begun 6000 years ago which doesn't rely on the bible. I want to see an explanation that would be as plausible to a Hindu or Buddhist as it would be to a Christian.

here's one, kind of, but it doesn't mention scripture until the last section. It's titled, "The Earth, How Old Does it Look? Just skip the last paragraph. I know creationists love to give God the credit so it's hard for them not to mention scripture.

Actually they seem to love giving themselves the credit. It sounds good, but when you look at it closely all their references are from obviously creationist journals, most one they themselves write. Where's their references from Science or other academic journals who have established a reputation for excellence?

It was 450' long,75' wide and 45 ' high. It had a total deck of 97,700 sq ft It was the largest ship ever built until 1884 when the Italian vessel Eturia was built, and nearly one half the length of the Queen Mary. This means it had the carrying capacity of over 520 boxcars more than enough for the total animal population.

The modern live exports ship is as large as the Eturia. One, the MV Bader III, holds around 800,000 sheep and 700 cattle. If we consider the number of species there are in the world, both extinct and still living, they would number far, far greater than a million. How could they and their fodder possibly fit in such a tiny vessel? Unless Noah only carried the base species - say one kind of rodent, one kind of carnivorous mid-sized mammal etc and then let evolution fill the gaps to create possums and rats, cats and dogs and so on. But then you hit the timeline problem.

Oh, and a blue whale breathes, so if we're going to take Noah literally he took two of those onboard, along with two humpbacks, two sperm whales etc. Even their babies are as big as a full-grown horse and they grow very quickly.

• Re: Dinosaur bones. Show me some that aren't fossilized. The ones that supposedly have blood in them were rocks, not bones. 4,000 years ago is around the time of the Great Pyramid, and not even you can dispute we have human and animal bones from that period.


• Re: Transitional forms. Ham has suggested you not use that argument, because people don't understand what that means enough to argue it. We most certainly have transitional forms, you are just looking for something that Darwin never predicted.


• Re: Darwin's predictions. They had no time limit. We've had less than 100 years of real scientific work on evolution without creationists squelching it. Creationists have had several thousand. How's that coming?


• Re: Sagan. He explicitly on several occasions stated that 'cosmos' references everything that is and has been. God, I think you'll agree, falls into that category if you believe in Him. A set that contains everything can't exclude anything, can it? After all, "In the beginning..." wasn't metaphorical, was it? If so, what in Genesis wasn't?


• Re: Uphill battles. The era of science having the money and power is barely 100 years old. In the 20th century people were persecuted for trying to assert evolution as a valid scientific study. As I said, creationists had a long, long time as the standard science and made little of it.


• Re; Gould hot and bothered. He's trying to establish the same thing creationists are, that Intelligent Design is just another name for creationism, and so he brands people looking into Intelligent Design as creationists. You guys have done wonders making it impossible for scientists to explore anything but unguided evolution. Thanks again for that.


• Re: He said it and that settles it. To borrow from Ham, were you there? Were the people who printed the book you are reading there? Were the people who translated it there? The Bible itself can't be an eyewitness account, because the people who wrote it weren't eyewitnesses to creation. If it can be independently proved, then there's no need to put words in God's mouth, right?


• Re: Learning as you go. You'll never learn anything so long as you take what professional creationists say at face value. You learn by study and forming your own opinions, not getting the predigested account from Ham.


• Re: Wacko sites. What are they saying that you aren't? If they seem wacko to you, perhaps it is time to reevaluate your ideas and their delivery. To me, it sounds like you are saying the exact same thing.


• Re: Evolution carries a little faith with it. No, Ruse was saying that some evolutionists make claims that require philosophical belief. He was differentiating between evolution science and evolution philosophy, which is something I have written about myself. He most certainly wasn't portraying evolution science itself to be a religion, and I think the quote I posted from him from 2005 shows that.


• Re: Fooling laymen. Ham and Hovind have made careers out of doing just that; twisting conclusions from study they didn't undertake to mean things that the scientists themselves never tried to prove. I can think of no better examples of committing the scientific sin you describe. Putting it in the simplest terms for laymen is the oldest trick in the book, and it doesn't excuse mischaracterizing other people's work.

I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not going to address things I've addressed before. I've done several of those points several times, and if you didn't get it the first few another isn't going to help. I'll be as polite as I can and try to address new claims, but I don't see why I should help out with the 'ask a question, ignore the answer, ask the same question again' tactic.

Baker,

you have way tooooo much time on your hands. I can go back and put together a list much like you just did...but I just don't have as much time right now as you do. There are many, many reputable Christian Scientists out there that are much more learned than you or I who believe as I do. I get my resources from all over, not just Ham and Hovind. I'm not that limited. BTW you never did answer my question of who you like to listen to or go by. Don't tell me you don't have a favorite go to guy or guys because I know better.

BTW.......have you have heard of a guy named......Charles Templeton?

Oh, and a blue whale breathes, so if we're going to take Noah literally he took two of those onboard, along with two humpbacks, two sperm whales etc. Even their babies are as big as a full-grown horse and they grow very quickly

WHY WOULD YOU BRING A FISH ON A BOAT TO KEEP IT ALIVE?

Actually they seem to love giving themselves the credit. It sounds good, but when you look at it closely all their references are from obviously creationist journals, most one they themselves write

so what difference does it make that they are creationist science journals? A creationist Scientist is using the same science but coming to different conclusions. Everyone has the same evidence. Are you biased against Creation Scientists? Why? They are using the same evidence. They have a different worldview. That's all.

The problem science has is a lot of people make these hypotheses and then set out to try to prove them.... and they end up trying to make the evidence fit what they think rather than look at the evidence objectively.

What I meant was find some actual physical evidence of a 6000-year-old Earth and then I might consider creationism as rational as science

The RATE project is working on that. It's funded by the Institute for Creation Research. It stands for Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth. Here's a link,

Link

Here's a brand new article that just came out this month on the age of the earth. There is no bible in the article itself.
Link

Answers in Genesis or AiG is basically for the laymen and ICR is more technical and was founded by Henry Morris who is supposedly the great reknown Christian Scientist.

Also, here's another all about the RATE project, but I'm warning you it's really long. Unless you are very serious you probably won't read this.

Link

A whale is not a fish.

WHY WOULD YOU BRING A FISH ON A BOAT TO KEEP IT ALIVE?

A whale isn't a fish, it's a mammal. It, like all other mammals, breathes. So if Noah brought all the animals that breathe onto his ark, he would by definition be bringing whales. It's a stupid point but I think it points out one of the flaws of the biblical description of the flood. They don't show a particularly well-informed understanding of science and therefore can't be all that divinely inspired.

so what difference does it make that they are creationist science journals?

All the difference in the world. I'm a political scientist by education, so naturally when I want an impartial study of the issues on Communism, say, I don't go to either the Red Workers Daily or Patriot! Magazine. I go to one of the great peer-reviewed journals of the field (peer-reviewed means that the article has been checked by a panel of experts in the field and it's findings subjected to criticism before publication.)

When it comes to science there a great many journals that fit that peer-reviewed requirement. [I[Creation does not. As a fairly uninformed observer when it comes to science I'm not prepared to trust any argument that hasn't first met the scrutiny of a properly qualified board of general scientists.

Everyone has the same evidence.

That's not entirely true. Everyone has different evidence and draws conclusions based on that different evidence. From what I can tell the creationists do not do the same experiments as evolutionists and neither do they rely upon the same sources.

The problem science has is a lot of people make these hypotheses and then set out to try to prove them.... and they end up trying to make the evidence fit what they think rather than look at the evidence objectively.

How is that different to creationists? They start out believing the world is young and then investigate to try and prove it. The announcement that the world seemed to be billions of years old met with a lot of controversy you know. It was not an intended discovery, unlike the sandstone example I'll talk about in a sec.

Here's a brand new article that just came out this month on the age of the earth. There is no bible in the article itself.

I have a minor issue with that article. It states that sandstone formation in that example could not have happened over millions of years. But it extrapolates from that the idea that somehow that means that, simply because that pipe could be 100 years old, the world is young as well. It fits the profile of a young earth but it hardly proves the theory. Most of the earth isn't made of sandstone.

Also, here's another all about the RATE project, but I'm warning you it's really long. Unless you are very serious you probably won't read this.

I don't have the science background or the maths to make much sense of most of those articles, but I did find the appendix interesting. It's a very clever way of obtaining funding, don't you think? Certainly a rather unusual one.

You know, never mind. Forget it. After giving it thought I have to realize that no matter what I write here, you're just going to skip over it like the one I took the time to write, and that you brushed off with barely a comment. This isn't worth any more of my time.

There's nothing scientific about that journal. The guy who wrote the Lucy section is a geologist, and an assistant to boot. Regardless of the fact they claim there are few if any anatomists that support Lucy walking upright, they don't name one. In a real journal they'd have named them, cited the papers, and given the real reasons.

It's just more pre-digested stuff inteded to sound scientific and explain for "lay persons". There's no reason to continue this when you answer thought-out posts with cut and paste you may or may not have even read.

...this was just another redundant comment with facts you aren't interested in. I'd rather just step away from this altogether.

I'm heading off to sleep but let me leave you with just one quote from the co-founder of evolution and I'll get to the rest later.

Alfred Wallace, was a contemporay of Darwin. From His book "Man's Place in the Universe" Chap 12 on whether or not there's enough water on the earth for a biblical flood.

“the oceans are deep enough to submerge all the mountains of Europe and temperate North America… and if all the land surface and ocean floors were reduced to one level, that is, if the solid mass of the globe were a true oblate spheroid, the whole world would be covered with water about two miles deep.”

So here's a devout evolutionist and the founder of it pretty much backing up scripture.

boy Baker, can't decide if you are angry or just cranky. Let's stick to the issues and not the attacks. And no, I don't need a cheat sheet.

and one for Cacto.....

It's a stupid point but I think it points out one of the flaws of the biblical description of the flood. They don't show a particularly well-informed understanding of science and therefore can't be all that divinely inspired.

be careful, your bias is showing.......well this is actually what the bible does say.....

And of every living thing of all flesh two of every sort shall you bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee, they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto you to keep them alive. And take thoou unto you of all food that is eaten and you shall gatehr it to you and it shall be for food for you and for them. Gen 6:19-21

where does it say, sea creatures, whales, fish, etc? Where does it say fish that swim in the sea or whales that jump in the sea? It does mention creeping things and fowls and such. Do you notice tho where it does say...."to keep them alive?" I'm sure that is there for a purpose. I'm betting if I go back into the Hebrew we'll see all this means "land" animals.

Later gators.......really wanted to tackle that peer-review Cacto. I'll do that later and Baker get some sleep you do sound a bit cranky.....I did read what you had to say. I just didn't think you wanted a comment on them since you said you didn't want to revisit those things so I didn't engage you in them. .

Frankly, yes, I'm angry at myself for taking this discussion seriously. By the second page I should have seen that you were just going to breeze over answers to questions you pose and just ask them again. When I read your idea that we can't have 4,000 year old bones because they'd rot, I should have known for sure.

Live in ignorance with Mr. Ham to predigest the world for you, I don't care. My patience is finally exhausted.

be careful, your bias is showing.......well this is actually what the bible does say.....

I think it's more ignorance - I was just seizing on what someone else said about the ark containing every animal that breathes. As a non-biblist I couldn't be bothered reading the bible too closely. I don't believe the flood was a planet-wide cataclysm, so it's not a big deal to me.

Although I guess I am biased if that means I don't accept arguments without proof from actual repeatable experiments. My strong 'bias' against creationism is largely based on the flimsiness of the arguments and the lack of support that I've seen time and time again.

I've yet to come across an argument that suggests young earth without requiring the belief that the earth is young to begin with. Nor have I come across evidence that is as convincing to the atheist or Hindu as it is to the biblist Christian.

how old was the pitch noah used to seal the ark? how, why and when did it, coal and oil come to be? why was so much so generously placed under what is now muslim territory rather than beneath the promised land?

for that matter, why are tar pits filled with the remains of very large & now very extinct mammals but none of the dinosaurs with whom you claim those mammals rubbed shoulders? mammals--including humans--are dumber than dinosaurs?

do you wear a diamond wedding ring? why? diamonds aren't even close to being rare gemstones. diamonds are associated with marriage in our culture because they symbolize eternity. is yours really only 6-10k years old?

lastly, how many young earth and/or literal creationists are employed as petroleum geologists?

I think it's more ignorance - I was just seizing on what someone else said about the ark containing every animal that breathes. As a non-biblist I couldn't be bothered reading the bible too closely. I don't believe the flood was a planet-wide cataclysm, so it's not a big deal to me.

ok, at least you're honest. But if someone told you this was wrong....maybe the local flood idea could be wrong as well. Why don't you believe the flood was universal? Is it because someone told you this?

All the difference in the world. I'm a political scientist by education, so naturally when I want an impartial study of the issues on Communism, say, I don't go to either the Red Workers Daily or Patriot! Magazine. I go to one of the great peer-reviewed journals of the field (peer-reviewed means that the article has been checked by a panel of experts in the field and it's findings subjected to criticism before publication.)

exactly, you wouldn't go to the Democrats to learn about the Republicans either. That's the same thing with the journals.

Everything written comes with a bias. It's impossible to be unbiased. Every word and thought has come from a biased opinion that has been created by your worldview. I have admitted my bias. I'm coming from a biblical worldview.

Every single science journal out there is coming from the evolutionary worldview. They are biased as well. Every single peer viewed journal is based on the evolutionary worldview some more than others. Some rarely acknowledging this because of the topic matter. For instance the Journal Nature is so pro-evolution it's sickening, but with something like the journal of neurophysiology or journal of cell biology you wouldn't really notice as they are more concerned with how things work rather than how things evolved.. So the harshest you'll get in those types of journals is articles that mention little tid bits of evolution to explain how certain mechanisms work.

The same with the Christian Sceintists. Some get into the bible more than others. Some articles are loaded with scripture and some hardly touch on it simply wanting to examine the evidence from a scientific standpoint.

There is not a single science journal out there that could hint at any form of creation and get published in it.
It just won't happen. In fact I believe it was the Journal Nature who fired an editor for allowing an article to get printed that talked about creationism (it didn't support it or anything it just mentioned it as a belief system).

So you can look at the Christian Scientists and the Evolutionary Scientists sort of like the Republicans vs the Dems........a Dem would not be invited to publish his findings in the Rebublican's journals any more than a Rebublican would be welcome into the journals of the Dems.

have a minor issue with that article. It states that sandstone formation in that example could not have happened over millions of years

I don't have a clue really about sandstone although I've seen this topic show up before.

All I'm saying Cacto is your opinion is based on your worldview. Somewhere along the line you adopted the evolutionary worldview that this world is defined and is the official position of the American National Assoc of Biology Teachers which states:.

The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.

I would believe in the exact opposite that this world is a result of a loving God who with his own hands crafted and made the whole world and all that is in it. I see his fingerprints all over the universe.

how old was the pitch noah used to seal the ark? how, why and when did it, coal and oil come to be? why was so much so generously placed under what is now muslim territory rather than beneath the promised land?

well I think I know where you're going with this.....but have you thought about the pitch coming from trees? Here's an excerpt and a link for you to check out.

The pitch for Noah's Ark was probably not bitumen but the gum based resins extracted from pine trees. Such manufacturing practice has ancient origins, and timber ships were waterproofed by tree resin pitch well before the petrochemical industry was born. This substance is not necessarily "pitch black" either, this refers to coal tar or bitumen - a more recent invention. The core ingredient of a tree resin pitch is gum rosin [6] which can be extracted from a variety of tree species, notably pines.

Link

From a scriptural standpoint the pitch which is the Hebrew word "Kapher" is the same word for Atone. This whole ark was a picture of Christ just like the whole OT is about Him. Noah was safe beneath the atonement much the same way we as Christians are saved by the atonement of the Cross in the NT. There you have the wood and the atoning blood of Christ. Notice how the ark was built like a big coffin. No helm, no bow, no stern.

Why do the Arabs have all the oil and the Jews don't? Do you think that materialism is what God wants for us? Give us this day our daily bread he said should be all we need. He knows what takes us away from him. No, it's not in physical riches, but in spiritual riches he bless us with. Give me neither poverty nor riches it says in Proverbs. I would rather be poor and rely on him then be rich and depend on my riches that will do nothing for me in the long run. No matter how rich you get materially, it's never enough.

I heard a story once about a guy in Texas who lived in a community that everyone but he and his family found oil on their land. One by one these neighbors got stinking rich. Yet he had no oil on his land. He was a Christian and questioned God. He wondered why God didn't bless him in this. For years he wondered until one day he realized something. The riches his neighbors had acquired quite suddenly ended up destroying them. He saw marriages break up, drugs and alcohol problems, families splinter and the anger that permeated throughtout and he realized that yes, he was the one who was rich. He had the love of his family and the love of God and his questions were now answered.

Again I think of Robin Williams who said......Cocaine is God's way of saying you have too much money.

Now let me ask you a question.....if the Jews don't have all that oil that the surrounding countries have, why all the fuss over the land of Israel? Why do they all want that tiny piece of land over there? That is the real question.

Here's another link on the pitch....

Link

pitch1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pch)
n.
Any of various thick, dark, sticky substances obtained from the distillation residue of coal tar, wood tar, or petroleum and used for waterproofing, roofing, caulking, and paving.
Any of various natural bitumens, such as mineral pitch or asphalt.
A resin derived from the sap of various coniferous trees, as the pines.

tr.v. pitched, pitch·ing, pitch·es
To smear or cover with or as if with pitch.

When I read your idea that we can't have 4,000 year old bones because they'd rot, I should have known for sure.

no I said that most would have decayed unprotected by the elements, and I did go on to explain that I did agree that although I do believe in the dust to dust account I do acknowledge that there are bones that even have red blood cells in them. How could that be if I felt they all rotted away? But you did not answer the fact that this lines up more with creationist thinking than evolutionary. I'm talking thousands of years maybe 4500 and you're talking millions of years.

From Emil Silvestru, Ph.D (Babes Bolyai University, Cluj, Romainia, a geologist and is a world authority on the geoogy of caves)

"The discovery of dinosaur flesh attached to an unfossilized bone and the presence of elastic blood vessels in the flesh (Science 307(5717):1952, March 25,2005) was so shocking that the discoverers didn't even try to explain how unfossilized flesh, blood vessels and bones could be preserved for 70 million years. Then there are fossils found in places they could not have possibly lived, like Sequoias, turtles and varanids beyond the Artic Circle!! The discoveries on the Axel Heiberg Island in Northern Canda have puzzled geologists and plaeontologists alike from the very beginning and to this day they find it difficult to explain how wood could be preserved for 45 million years without being fossilized and buried. Wht if the wood was only 4,500 years old?"

"no I said that most would have decayed unprotected by the elements, and I did go on to explain that I did agree that although I do believe in the dust to dust account I do acknowledge that there are bones that even have red blood cells in them. How could that be if I felt they all rotted away? But you did not answer the fact that this lines up more with creationist thinking than evolutionary. I'm talking thousands of years maybe 4500 and you're talking millions of years. "

We have lots of bones from humans and animals, older than 4,500 years that weren't carefully protected, and you know it. We do NOT have red blood cells from dinosaur bones. The "bone" those came from was a rock, a fossil, not a bone. They were not red blood cells, either, it was only stated that they appeared to be consistant with heme, and "resembled" red blood cells. Both are speculation and hardly accepted science at this point.

If you had read the link I supplied you regarding that "blood" in bone crap, you'd already know what my answer would be. You don't, though. You make an argument, then you skim the answer, and then later you just make the argument again and pretend not to know that anyone already answered you.

"But you did not answer the fact that this lines up more with creationist thinking than evolutionary. I'm talking thousands of years maybe 4500 and you're talking millions of years. "

No, it's just the opposite. If they do start finding more preserved specimens, it will just mean that things can be preserved in nature longer than we think. No one that isn't irrationally biased or patently dishonest would believe that dinosaurs and people lived in the same time period given the obvious difference in how and where we find their remains; a problem you refuse to address.

I see no reason to discuss it further with you, since all you have to do is go off and find any loon and quote them. It's like arguing with conspiracy theorists and alien abduction believers; creationists can just make up their answers. If you differ, then you're in on evil they are righteously fighting.

I started the conversation expecting more from you, but to no avail. You esteem any nut or anonymous quote that agrees with you as being equal to anyone else, data or no data. You'll always be able to find some quote from some professional creationist with a correspondance course degree who says what you want to say.

If you think that guesses and supposition are equal to science, then what's the point? I might as well be arguing with someone that the Earth is on the back of a turtle, to borrow from your irresponsible evangelist. Scientists work to prove their points with evidence, and you and Ham will just declare yourselves correct. Why bother? Deal with cacto and kingbee, I'm done.