How do you know God isn't dead?

[Statler Waldorf]

These replies are getting too big again... time for a TLDR, no?

I’ll try to respond to the highlights of your post, I only have about an hour, here we go!

And you miss the option where this bending was done over a long time and that is why it's not broken.

Well that’d be plausible if the top layers were not also bent, but they are, so that indicates the bending happened after all of the layers were deposited, even the top ones. I would have to look it up but I believe they also find crystalized structures in a lot of this sedimentary rock that are only formed by intense heat and pressure, which would not form under very gradual bending.

You usually have volcanic rock and sedimentary rock mingled in those bands... You don't think they were all molten or soft at the same time, do you?

Well they are sedimentary rock now, so I am not sure what you mean.

Well, I claim all I ever wrote on this forum to be infallible... except where I forgot some details (That wasn't me posting.. it was my alter-ego).
There.

Cute.

Water contaminates radioisotopes causing them to show a more advanced decay than they should?

Water can violate the assumption of a closed system, yes.

There you go with that moon thing again.

It’s a good argument to stick with because it doesn’t make any sense given the accepted timelines.

Oh, notice the conservation of angular momentum of the Earth-moon system... as the moon comes closer, the Earth rotates faster, as well as the moon, thus "decelerating" the moon as it comes closer to the Earth (with time moving backwards).

No, that’s backwards, the moon’s recession would have been faster in the past due to the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum because the energy that is lost on Earth through tidal friction must be gained by the moon.

With each reply, a new "creationist scientific fact" appears...
When I google "helium retention rates", all I get are creationist websites... And the first one shows exactly how unbiased this study was

Well the measurements were done by secular labs, that’s more unbiased than any study you can point me to, your side never has creationists do their measurements for them in order to remain unbiased now do they?

Somehow, these people managed to publish on a real geology journal: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003AGUFM.V32C1047H

Yup, imagine that.

And then there is one worthy exception in the google list of results: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showth...-quot-list

That’s a message board sir; I’ll stick to the findings of the actual peer-reviewed study.

Oh, but I don't even need to find the rebuttal in non-creationist sites... http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/original.html

I’ll stick to the actual peer-reviewed study; most of those objections have been addressed by Humphrey’s and are easily accessible.

Science keeps evolving... if one method is found to have some downsides, then its scope becomes reduced.

Wasn’t one of your justifications for the method the fact that all of the different radiometric methods allegedly agree with one another? Well do they or don’t they?

As you may have noticed in that Helium retention fiasco, each rock can be dated by more than one radioisotope... if one fails, then scientists try to find out why. They discover that, under some conditions the K-Ar method is not reliable... and promptly came up with another more reliable method.

If you do not already know the age of the rocks beforehand then how do you know which method is failing and which one is yielding accurate results?

No.... they don't expect soft tissue because the fossilization mechanism has been well described... and nothing soft is expected to remain... however, it's clear that models can be thwarted by nature and it's quirks and details that elude the model.

No that’s not accurate, we’ve been finding partially petrified wood for over a century now, so there was no reason to believe the fossilization process removed all soft-tissue, the reason they were surprised to find it (and did the test 17 times before they’d accept it) was because they know such tissue cannot last that long. There are paleontologists who still do not accept the fact it’s really DNA because they know the implications of it.

Perhaps there are some special conditions in which those strands of DNA can last that long

What, like a time machine?

Science is not based of unsubstantiated claims.

Yup, but good science makes successful predictions, and this was a big one for the Creation model.

I missed the part where it's a problem...

Sub-freezing global temperatures = no abiogenesis.

Errr.... you are aware of thermal gradients... At the vent it may be too hot... but a bit further out.... just enough to keep the water from freezing... let's say, above zero degrees Centigrade.

Now you’ve got no catalyst for the reaction. You’d be better served not trying to defend abiogenesis, it’s a fool’s errand my friend.

If the sun is 5 billion years old, then the Earth and all planets in the solar system must be less than that. And what do you know?... they are!

Yes, 6,000 is less than 5.0 * !0^9

TLDR: creationist "science" keeps failing to sustain itself, while real science acknowledges its limitations and advances...

Real science? Where’s the distinction?

No, Statler, they would not have to do any such thing, and yet again I have to remind you that what you call impossible happens with regularity. We've already been over this, why should I repeat myself? You mean a 4th...don't you? Since we already have mutation, non-random selection, and random selection. Is there any room for a 4th (what might we point to that doesn't fall under any of these headers?)?

No it must happen that way, you just do not seem to get it. If all Humans possess a certain cognitive capacity, there must be a reason for that. Either it became fixed through Natural Selection or it became fixed through drift and Neutral Mutation. The latter has never been observed to create new genetic information and to suggest it can is mathematically absurd. So it must have had to be through Natural Selection, so what were the selective pressures that fixed it? (Random and non-random selection are merely subtypes of selection, so you still only have two mechanisms)

LOL, no, you're arguing from a point of ignorance. If we're talking about selection, be it neutral, deleterious or beneficial - and genetic drift...we are -not- talking about the origin of these things -at all-. You would know this, if you understood the theory. It's right in the damned name of the theory -Synthesis.

Wrong again, if you’re going to postulate that all life on earth arose from a common ancestor then you need a mechanism that gives rise to new genes and genetic information, you have none. So talk about the frequencies of genetic information in populations all you want but until you can originate the novel genetic information in the first place it’s all a waste.

I explained to you what natural selection could not do pages ago. It clearly went right over your head - because here we are. It isn't as though I haven't reminded you -in every post- that you've been arguing with yourself. I don't see why you're bitching -to me- about your time being wasted?

Because you were wasting my time with a multitude of red herring arguments; so what were the selective pressures that gave rise to the new mental capacities found only in Humans? Do not toss out some red herring about neutral mutations because you’ve finally admitted that it cannot give rise to new genetic information.

Let me help you steer clear of wasted time in the future. Learn.....the.....theory - and then- come back and argue against it. Is that too much to ask? Why should I have to correct you at every turn - why am I required to notify you when you're arguing against yourself in the first place man?

I’ve already learned the theory. The biggest problem is you do not understand your own theory. When you get pinned in a corner you toss out some jargon you’ve no doubt read on some website, and then when I point out that does not solve the problem you reverse your position and claim you knew it didn’t all along. Well then why toss it out? You do not have the proper grasp of the theory in order to play this game; it takes more than simple jargon and verbiage.

All that is required of a mutation for it to be passed on or become fixed in a population is that it be non-deleterious. Can you move forward from here, or is your contention DOA from this point onward?

Sure, but how does the mutation become fixed and how does it give rise to new genes? One mutation on one base pair is not going to get you anything. You’re arguing an irrelevant point.