I love that, “14C in coal is probably produced”, they don’t have the slightest clue why it is there becaue their accepted paradigm can’t explain it. It’s also quite funny that they never tested for it in the first place because they knew there would not be any because they knew the coal was far too old to contain C14. It took a bunch of creationists to actually do the tests and find exactly what they predicted they’d find. So now the old earth crowd is struggling and thinking up these crazy un-observed occurrences to explain away the mysterious C14. However, if they argue too much for contamination they will essentially destroy radio-carbon dating because it could never be trusted from here on out. Find a date that doesn’t fit your paradigm, argue for contamination! That’s not science.
I also find it interesting that you will accept someone’s email over the validity of a eight year, multi-million dollar, peer-reviewed research project. At least we all know you are not objective about these matters.
(December 17, 2010 at 6:17 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: I never said Creationists don't make predications! You have invented the goalposts to move all by yourself. I'll wait for you to revoke that. Sure Creationists make lots of predictions, mostly garbage: see Kent Hovind. He also has a lot of interesting theories; one which sticks in the mind explaining the formation of the polar ice caps from a comet impact. Brilliant! You remind me of him :-). What I actually said was:Nice, you pulled the old “guilty by association fallacy”. I am sure you are aware that Kent Hovind is not part of the mainstream Creation movement and the argument you mention has been refuted by AIG, CMI, and ICR. If you have to set up these straw-man arguments to feel smart, by all means continue. It’s not like no evolutionists ever have proposed ridiculous theories (afterall Darwin did believe cells were only bags of protoplasm and blacks were closer to gorillas than whites).
"When you have done that could you tell us how superntural creation can be used to predict results as successfully as evolution does in its application in the fields of medical research and agricultural research?"
It has still not been answered, but hey take your time.
What does an actual mainstream Creation organization say about Hovind?
CMI says, “CMI’s scientists have no personal beef with Kent Hovind, though we have tried to persuade him for a long time to not have seriously discredited (and some fraudulent, like the Wyatt discoveries) arguments on his site, nor to link creationism with things like his esoteric notions on tax.”
So maybe you should try and make arguments that actually hold water.
Quote:I think what you meant to say was that evolution requires time to take effect, and to get to current bio-diversity a lot of time. I would agree with that. Thus when we look at the age of the earth it is good support that evolution did infact have enough time to take effect. c14 It is not strong evidence against the ages of coal seams as there are many other stronger indicators including the process of petrification, stratigraphy, well preserved fossilised remains of plants in the coal seams from amongst the matrix. For sure its an anomoly, but I'd rather wait for the research first, wouldn't you?
Huh? So when radiocarbon dating doesn’t support your paradigm it’s not reliable but when it does it’s the best thing on Earth?
Petrifaction does not have to require long periods of time (petrified teddy bears, toy cars, and fencing have all been found) so you should not use that as justification to ignore the obvious implications of C14 in Diamonds and Coal. Stratifying of soil and rock layers also does not require long periods of time, the Mt. St. Helens eruption laid down over 600 feet of sediment that was all stratified. So you should not use that as reason to ignore the obvious implications of C14 in coal and diamonds either.
Wait for the research? Well the research that found it was an eight year, multi-million dollar, peer-reviewed project. So when you actually say, “wait for the research”, you mean, “I’ll wait for the scientists who accept my paradigm to give me a reason to doubt the results” right? That’s not science.
Quote:No I can't see how they remotely provide evidence for creation. Just as the crocodile has a common ancestor with alligators and caymens, but in itself is relatively unchanged from the Cretaceous period. There is no proof of creation here. If someone found a living dinosaur tomorrow that would not prove creation. However if someone found humans remains in a Cretaceous sedimentary layer, then we would have some evidence disproving evolution, but not evidence supporting "YAHWEH did it".
Since you brought Yahweh up, how did He say He created animals? “Each after their kind”, so yes we’d expect to see many of the kinds of animals to be present very “early” in the fossil record, just like the early Chordates. Remember, fossilization is a very rare occurrence, so to use it as evidence that humans did not live alongside dinosaurs is not appropriate. After all, we know that coelacanths and whales live alongside one another and they have never been fond together in the fossil record. I think stronger evidence would be accepted historical sources such as Marco Polo and Josephus saying they saw large terrible lizards (dinosaurs) long before dinosaur fossils were discovered.
Quote: Are you an expert in evo-devo? How do you know this?
Well actually I am a professional in the scientific community, so that would make me more of an expert than you. That’s beside the point, observed mutation rates do not occur fast enough today to account for the significant levels of change in that “short” of a time period. In fact, that significant amount of change in organisms has never been observed to even be possible. We can intentionally select for traits for thousands of years but all the breeds of dogs are just as equally dogs, I assure you. So if you want to believe other-wise purely on faith go ahead, I already have my own faith though so I don’t need yours.
Quote: I would imagine she tested the result 17 times because scientists are skeptical, tend to care about the truth and be rigorous around validating it. I guess she was a little surprised as it is a unique find (at least thus far!). Bare assertion and incredulity on your part, to assume that she had it in for YEC. But how does it prove YEC? Again it demonstrates how petrifiction is not a linear process but varies with environment and conditions, although given the enormous timescales involved most dinosaur remains are fully petrified, whereas those from more recent strata are less so and for ancestral hominids are not petrified at all given they are 100-200k years ago.
They are only that rigorous when the data seems to contradict their paradigm. Trust me; she would not have done the test 17 times if she had found exactly what was expected, no soft tissue present. Mary is actually a Christian, so I do not believe she “has it out” for YEC, she is just not young Earth herself. However, since her amazing discovery, numerous other cases of soft tissue have been found once paleontologists started looking. So who knows, the majority of fossils looked at in the past may also have had it, it was never really looked for. I assure you though, soft tissue breaks down far too quickly for those fossils to be 65 million years old. A vile of blood left at room temperature is almost unrecognizable in a matter of weeks. Blood that is even preserved in blood banks couldn’t last for millions of years (the Red Cross only keeps blood for 42 days, plasma that is frozen only lasts a year). Like I said, it’s rather amazing soft tissue even lasted a few thousand years.
Quote: You are going to have to do a lot better than this rag-tail assortment to show evidence FOR creation. Still it is no surprise when you look at the stats. for Intelligent Design (creation by any other name; and before you argue with that - yes it is!)
Haha, oh the old ID= Biblical Creationism canard. Are there Biblical Creationists who are part of the ID movement? Only a couple. However, there are also agnostics (Dr. David Berlinski) and even scientists who believe in pan-spermia. So to paint them all with the Creationist brush is rather ignorant. I wish they were all YEC, but sorry they are not.
Quote: when 20m scientific papers were searched through a couple of years ago:
the keyword evolution appeared 115k times
the keyword intelligent design 88 times (yes eighty-eight and not thousands)
of the 88, 77 were in engineering journals
of the 11 remaining 8 were critical of intelligent design
the remaining 3 failed to get published in research journals
So? If I did a study that examined all the Creation Journals, I would not be surprised if the term evolution was never used in a positive manner. So I am not surprised Secular journals don’t publish articles that affirm the truth of Creation.
More guilt by association fallacy. It’s just as invalid here as it was the first time you used it. I love how Dawkins won’t debate actual Creation Scientists because he “doesn’t want to give them credibility”, but he will debate a bishop. So it’s obvious it’s not granting credibility he is worried about, it’s being publicly humiliated he is really worried about. The guy is a joke.
(December 17, 2010 at 10:39 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: [
You just pulled a bait and switch with the definition of “Evolution”. Creationists believe in speciation through natural selection (a concept proposed by a creationist before Darwin by the way), they just don’t believe in common descent. So to say that the majority of creationists don’t believe organisms change over time is absurd.
(December 17, 2010 at 11:30 am)Thor Wrote: Have you ever had a tetanus shot? If so, I guess that demonstrates your idealism concerning the infallibility of scientists. Same goes if you have ever taken an aspirin. Or flown in a plane.
I do not believe scientists are infallible. They can get things wrong. And it is OTHER SCIENTISTS who expose bad science. So, I'll throw my lot in with the 99.5% of scientists who conclude that the Earth is over 4 billion years old. You can join the handful of kooks who want to believe in an Earth that is only a few thousand years old.
Again, your scientific ignorance seeps through. Scientific facts are not established by consensus in the scientific community. Remember, the consensus prior to Darwin was Creation, and you certainly don’t seem to believe that now do you?
Quote: Oh, so your conclusion that C-14 in coal and diamonds is evidence of a young Earth has been "peer reviewed"? Because that is what I was referring to. I am not refuting the work that found C-14 in coal and diamonds. What's "pretty lame" is twisting around my meaning. And in case you didn't notice, the article I referenced listed numerous sources.
The presence of C14 in both coal and diamonds does mean they are young. That’s why the old earth crowd comes up with these silly little stories about contamination because they also know what the studies truly mean. Why do you only trust radiocarbon dating when it fits your paradigm but not when it doesn’t?
Quote: I must also mention that YECs like you normally dismiss C-14 dating as being "unreliable". But here you want to use it as evidence of what you want to believe. If you're using it here, then you must also accept it as valid. In which case, C-14 dating is evidence that the planet is much more than just a few thousand years old. So which is it? Is C-14 dating valid or not?
C14 is not very accurate for determining the actual age of organic matter. This is because the original assumptions behind the method assumed the atmosphere was in carbonic equilibrium, which has since been disproven. However, these assumptions are still used today. So radiocarbon dating traditionally yields very erroneous ages when the actual age is known. Since it cannot really be used to determine an actual age, it can certainly be used to determine the maximum age possible when the minimal amount detectible is present which is about 50,000 years. This argument could very well be turned around on you, why do you think radiocarbon dating is reliable when it yields ages you like but not when it yields ages you don’t like? At least creationists admit that it should never be considered reliable (which is why they don’t accept the 40,000 year date for the coal), but can be used to disprove ages in the billions when it is found in organic matter.
Quote: Things don't need to be directly observed in order for us to make a reasonable conclusion as to what happened. You find a large boulder lying at the base of a cliff. No one saw the boulder fall. Is it reasonable to conclude that the boulder fell from the cliff above? Or should we think a deity placed it there?
Bad analogy, you would conclude that the boulder landed there because you have directly observed other boulders falling off of cliffs, so you are applying deductive reasoning to the situation. However, you have never observed natural carbon contamination taking place in coal or diamonds. The only reason you believe it must have taken place is because the evidence does not fit your paradigm. That is not deductive reasoning, and it is certainly not scientific. On a side note, maybe the boulder was moved there by a glacier, hence why historical sciences are not one hundred percent.
