Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[Ashendant]

Actually it’s a pretty established law, by information theorists, that information never arises devoid of a mental or intelligent source. The body’s ability to replicate (not create) DNA and interpret it is itself written in the DNA. So this would be like saying an operating system has no mental source because there are pieces in it that interpret its code for it. We have never created any piece of code that can come close to matching the scale and information holding power of DNA, to say it arose by natural means is pretty absurd.

If this law that all information can be traced back to a mental source were not valid then it would destroy the fields of archeology and anthropology because they use it all the time.

Isn't that the opposite of the conclusion that should be taken, that if we can't create information that large by artificial means, but nature can, isn't it saying that it's perfectly natural that it did so, also nature had a longer time than us and much of the information contained is useless crap, mostly of it caused by rouge genetic programs called Virus.

And no it wouldn't destroy archeology and anthropology study, because they are the studies of Humanity, not the studies of the source of all information.

Also we already found connections bet north American indians and french people that date 20.000 years old, so the earth can't be that young.

and finally you still failed to prove why young earth creationism is true

[Thor]

[quote='Thor' pid='110800' dateline='1292860408']

Where did I say that scientific facts are established by consensus? Because I didn't.

Oh whew! I was worried you actually believed that because you said, ““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.” I am glad that you realize that throwing your lot in with the majority is not any more rational than throwing it in with the minority since scientific facts are not determined by the majority.

Yeah, I figured you were going to come back with this bullshit.

Way to twist around my meaning.

I never said or implied that scientific facts are determined by the majority. However, when 99.5% of scientists agree on something (such as the age of the Earth) and they can support their contention with solid evidence, I'm inclined to believe their conclusion. In contrast, when a very small minority wants to claim that the 99.5% are off by a factor of over 400,000, and they have no evidence to support this notion, I am inclined to label them as kooks. Do you seriously think scientific dating methods are so far off that they would show the Earth to be over 4 billion years old when it is truly only 10,000 years old? This is absolutely ludicrous! This would be like scientists measuring the distance from NY to LA and concluding it's 3,000 miles. Then people like you come along and want to insist that the measuring instruments are unreliable, and the actual distance from NY to LA is only 35 FEET!

Yeah, sign me up for your camp.

And that "consensus" was hardly scientific. It was based on nothing but belief, not science.Today we have scientists from all over the world in a variety of disciplines using different dating methods all concluding that the Earth is somewhere around 4-4.5 billion years old. Now, what dating methods are you using to conclude that the planet is less than 10,000 years old?

On the contrary, the majority of the greatest scientific minds the World has known, many of whom opened up the very disciplines you are referring to were creationists.

So what?

So to say their beliefs were not founded upon science is absurd.

What's absurd is you constantly wanting to credit creationism with scientific discoveries. Sorry, the creationist beliefs of religious scientists like Newton or Galileo were NOT based on "science". They were based on blind faith. Just like yours.

There are dozens of dating methods that indicate the earth and universe are very young. Do you want them from any particular discipline or just from many disciplines?

Really? Dozens, huh? Since you have "dozens", give me two dozen.

You may as well be arguing that the Earth is flat.

Non-sequitur. The shape of the Earth can be directly observed and our beliefs about it are shaped by operational sciences. The age of the earth cannot be directly observed and our beliefs about it are not based on operational sciences but rather origins/historical sciences.

No, it's not a non-sequitor. My point is that there is just as much support for a flat Earth in the scientific community as there is for a young Earth.

You don't think C-14 dating has any validity. So how can you make any assertions based on C-14 data?

Where did I say it has no validity at all? It was not calibrated correctly so its ages are not exact, but it is completely legitimate for establishing a maximum age for organic matter (around 100,000 years for the lowest detectable amounts) because we can empirically measure its current rate of decay. So finding it in diamonds means the maximum age for those diamonds is around 40,000 years old. Remember this is only a maximum, so the diamonds could be much younger, but cannot be any older.

I see... so you want to use C-14 for your purposes even though you say "it was not calibrated correctly". Ya got a source to back up that statement, by the way?

All it means is that we have an anamoly that bears investigating. You want to jump to the ludicrous conclusion that it means the planet is only a few thousand years old.

Translation: “I am going to wait until someone can show me how I can force this evidence to fit my paradigm. Even though there seems to be all of this amounting evidence that does not fit an old earth paradigm, I still think believing in a young earth is ludicrous, just because.”

Yeah, that's it...

It's more like, "Since there is a mountain of evidence that indicates the planet is much older than 10,000 years, I'm going to wait until experts have had a chance to investigate this anomaly before deciding that the Earth is much younger than previously thought."

So then you don’t trust the method.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth.

If you trusted the dating method, when it said the diamonds were nearly four million times younger than originally thought you would believe they were four million times younger than originally thought.

Can you provide a scientific source that reached this conclusion? Because I'll bet you can't.

Because I do not need an actual age for the diamonds, I just need a maximum. Radiocarbon dating is excellent for establishing a maximum age for organic matter. The maximum age for the diamonds tested is around 40,000 years. So of course a 6000 year old age for the earth is consistent with these results since it is less than the maximum. If a global flood did occur I would expect these inflated ages for organic matter, so again it’s completely consistent with my axiom.

And how can you be confident "the maximum" is valid when you said that it's "not calibrated correctly"?

Yes, radiocarbon dating is horribly flawed! That's why the scientific world uses it.

Oh yes, I forgot the scientific community is infallible in your eyes. My bad.

Putting words in my mouth again. I never said the scientific community is "infallible". However, it does police itself pretty well and bad science is usually exposed rather quickly.

Again, I do accept radiocarbon dating as being reasonably accurate. If radiocarbon dating reveals something we wouldn't expect, then we should investigate the cause. Not jump to unrealistic conclusions.

Circular argument. Tsk tsk.

1: “How do you know the Earth is 4.5 billion years old?”
2: “Well several dating methods suggest it’s that old.”
1: “What about when those and other dating methods suggest it is far younger?”
2: ‘well those ones need to be investigated.”
1: “Why?”
2: “Well they yield results we didn’t expect.
1: “Why didn’t you expect those results?”
2: “Well because we know the earth is 4.5 billion years old”
1: “But how do you know the earth is that old?”

Yeah, this is the argument I made.

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and read my posts?

Try this analogy:

An autograph of Abraham Lincoln surfaces. Experts examine it and declare that the paper it is written on wasn't manufactured until 1920.

Would you now consider the autograph to be a forgery? Or would you think this is proof that Abraham Lincoln was alive in 1920?

So when a dating method suggests an age you like, you accept it. When it suggests one you don’t like, you say it needs to be investigated because it doesn’t fit the ages suggested by the ones you accept. Bad logic.

Not at all. See above example.

Ok, well then you are accepting the fact that others have observed boulders falling off cliffs, and applying that through reasoning to the boulder you see at the bottom of the cliff. Your reasoning is still based off of observation. Nobody observed the forming of the earth so this boulder analogy does not apply to origins sciences.

Wrong. My reasoning is based upon logic, not observation. No matter how you want to twist it to match your argument.

[Statler Waldorf]

Isn't that the opposite of the conclusion that should be taken, that if we can't create information that large by artificial means, but nature can, isn't it saying that it's perfectly natural that it did so, also nature had a longer time than us and much of the information contained is useless crap, mostly of it caused by rouge genetic programs called Virus. [/quote]

The point is that nature cannot. We have never observed information rising by natural means. So to say nature could have created the information held by DNA is not based on observation and therefore is only a matter of blind faith. You are free to believe nature can and did do such a thing but this would just be your faith based system, not a scientific belief.
When I look at the artwork done by Leonardo da Vinci I don’t say, “Hmm, I could not have done this, therefore nature must have done it.” Rather I would conclude, “Given my artistic ability I could not have done something this beautiful, therefore someone with greater artistic ability must have done it.” The same goes for DNA, if we has humans cannot create it, then something with far greater creative ability would have to be the source. Nature has zero ability to create specified complexity, so this is not an option.

And no it wouldn't destroy archeology and anthropology study, because they are the studies of Humanity, not the studies of the source of all information.

Yes it would destroy both of them because both of them use our knowledge of information and how it is created to make inferences about human causation. If we believed that specified complexity could arise by natural means we would never say that we believe the pyramids were built by humans or pictographs were done by humans because they could have just been results of natural processes. However, because we know that both contain specified complexity we can infer that humans or some intelligent source was responsible for both.

Also we already found connections bet north American indians and french people that date 20.000 years old, so the earth can't be that young.

How do you know they are 20,000 years old?

[Ashendant]

The point is that nature cannot. We have never observed information rising by natural means. So to say nature could have created the information held by DNA is not based on observation and therefore is only a matter of blind faith. You are free to believe nature can and did do such a thing but this would just be your faith based system, not a scientific belief.

Isn't the fact that DNA is information that rose by natural means, enough proof that information can rise by natural means?

When I look at the artwork done by Leonardo da Vinci I don’t say, “Hmm, I could not have done this, therefore nature must have done it.” Rather I would conclude, “Given my artistic ability I could not have done something this beautiful, therefore someone with greater artistic ability must have done it.” The same goes for DNA, if we has humans cannot create it, then something with far greater creative ability would have to be the source. Nature has zero ability to create specified complexity, so this is not an option.

Art would be "This is artificial so a intelligent being must have done it" while DNA is "This is Natural so nature must've built it", and art is subjective while dna is objective, also the argument of complexity has been rebuked quite perfectly by the Stonemaker Argument 1

Yes it would destroy both of them because both of them use our knowledge of information and how it is created to make inferences about human causation. If we believed that specified complexity could arise by natural means we would never say that we believe the pyramids were built by humans or pictographs were done by humans because they could have just been results of natural processes. However, because we know that both contain specified complexity we can infer that humans or some intelligent source was responsible for both.

So archaeology and anthropology would be destroyed by the existence of another sapient lifeforms, there's a clear distinction between the artificial and the natural, Nature never gave us the Why's it always gave us the How's

How do you know they are 20,000 years old?

Don't remember it was a documentary that gone a long time ago

[Captain Scarlet]

Actually I have provided plenty of evidence for creation. Your unwillingness to accept it as evidence is not my problem, and comes more down to our differing interpretative frameworks. For me, the fact that specified complexity cannot arise by natural means is evidence for a creating intelligence. The fact that when you interpret the evidence using a Biblical framework it is the most consistent is evidence for creation. The fact that the prerequisites for intelligibility can only be explained through a Biblical framework is evidence for creation. We use these inferences to the best possible explanation all the time when we infer human intelligence created something, the need to use them in nature is even more reasonable and more logical in my view.

So the real question is, what exactly would you accept as evidence for creation?

The real question is why you can't accept evolutionary theory as THE best explanation of 100's of thousands facts evidenced from a very wide range of disciplines. You have provided NO EVIDENCE for creationism at all:

- Coelocanths in the present day do not evidence animals being magic'd into existence and are even consistent with evolution
- C14 in coal is an unexplained phenomona under research. What is in no doubt is that these sediments take a long time to petrify and attest to the fossilised remains of plants no longer seen on the earth. Plants that have never been seen in the relatively recent past (000's of thouands of years) with quaternary deposits of pollens and seeds. Even if true, which I remain skeptical of, it does not evidence a being issuing an incantaion to spontaneously create plant life.
- Soft tissues within dinosaur bones are evidence of the extreme and variable conditions in which petrification occurs. So how does this prove that a large immaterial hand descnded through the clouds and zapped them into existence.

I don't apply 'my world view' to these facts to deny YEC, I just apply a skeptical mind and do not OVER-ATTRIBUTE relatively peripheral findings against a mountain of facts which are best explained by ToE...and still are.

To convince me you need to state the model under which the YEC would form a coherent theory. Then explain why that better explains the facts. Then provide a mechanism by which we can test its efficacy. That would be the scientific method. You are a scientist aren't you?
-

[Captain Scarlet]

Well we kind of already addressed this earlier in the thread, but here goes. What I am doing is actually not a bifurcation. The only two propositions that can be presented for our existence are natural means or supernatural means. So when you have two contradictory possibilities as these most certainly are you can use the principle of the excluded third. Once this is done, a person can then apply disjunctive reasoning to provide evidence for one by providing evidence against the other. Since everyone on here agrees that Evolution is the best (and only really) natural explanation for the natural means and Creation was the accepted supernatural explanation prior to evolution, evidence against evolution is evidence for creation. Darwin uses this exact same logic in the Origin of Species and it is completely valid.

Don’t forget to answer, what exactly you would accept as evidence for Creation.

You are creating a straw man. You are not arguing supernatural against natural, you are arguing evolution against YEC. You have restated the terms of the debate to suit your argument. Evolution is the best natural explaination, but it isn't necessarily the only natural explanation. As for supernaturalism, there are a very large number (almost finite) of possible theories one of which is YEC. It is a bifurcation and disproving evolution does not demonstrate that YEC nor Yahweh did it. Or are you going to argue that if evolution was found to be false tomorrow, that Yahweh or YEC or whatever is stronger explanation than Lord Vishnu, Woden or even extra-terrestial causes?

I've already suggested how you should start to create an argument for convincing people of YEC. But as a start a similar battery of evidence from: taxonomy, paleontology, paleobotany, stratigraphy, bio-geography, molecular biology, geochemistry, dendrochronology. Of course there is more, but start there. These present a body of evidence wholly consistent with evolution and inconsistent with YEC. What evidence would you accept for evolution?

Questioning someone’s authority or expertise on a subject is not an ad hominem attack.

But you didn't. You have never asked me for my credentials, I have never given them. You have assumed something which isn't true. Stated it was obvious becuase of something I have written and then not responded when I asked you to specify. In addition you assert that people like myself hold our views becuase of a particular world view. This is a circumstantial ad Hominem and a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest.

This one is interesting because I think it actually applies to your position more than mine. My argument was completely scientific, “we observe C14 in diamonds, C14 decays far too quickly for the diamonds to be 1.5 billion years old- therefore the diamonds are not 1.5 billion years old.” This is scientific because it is completely based on observation and inductive reasoning. Your argument was more along the lines of the argument from incredibility, “C14 would mean the diamonds would be far too young which is incredible therefore unobserved contamination must have happened!”.

Nope. C14 anomolies in diamonds are just that currently, and you are refusing to accept that a viable hypothesis is contamination.

Actually by definition Science is, “systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.” (Webster’s). By definition your explanations only have to explain the physical and natural world, the conclusions and explanations themselves do not have to be natural. So I disagree. Naturalism is not the only true science. Believing it is the only true science, is a great way to exclude possible answers to the big questions before you have examined all the evidence. So you are more just pulling a bait and switch with the words science and naturalism. Science has always been and always will be the effort to make true statements about physical reality. The truthfulness of these statements is in no way dependent upon whether they are naturalistic or super-naturalistic.

Are you saying that any serious scientist would include the possibility of there discipline being able to identify a supernatural cause to a natural effect? If you are then I would respectfully question your credentials as a scientist

[Statler Waldorf]

Yeah, I figured you were going to come back with this bullshit.

Way to twist around my meaning.

I never said or implied that scientific facts are determined by the majority. However, when 99.5% of scientists agree on something (such as the age of the Earth) and they can support their contention with solid evidence, I'm inclined to believe their conclusion. In contrast, when a very small minority wants to claim that the 99.5% are off by a factor of over 400,000, and they have no evidence to support this notion,

You keep doing the very thing you are claiming to know not to do. I will say it again, scientific fact has never been and never will be based on consensus. It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans what any percentage of the scientists believe and don’t believe. You’d be the guy in the early 20th century saying, “General relativity is a load of crap because only one crank named Albert believes in it and the vast majority of scientists don’t!”
The majority of scientists have been wrong time and time again. Then you go on to say that the evidence says the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Evidence doesn’t “say” anything. One interpretation of some of the evidence says the earth is that old. However, another interpretation of the evidence says it is very very young.

This would be like scientists measuring the distance from NY to LA and concluding it's 3,000 miles. Then people like you come along and want to insist that the measuring instruments are unreliable, and the actual distance from NY to LA is only 35 FEET!

It is not like saying that. Measuring the distance from NY to LA is done by direct observation. You cannot directly observe the age of the earth. Horrible analogy. Rather it would be like one group saying, “Todd grew one inch this year, he is 72 inches tall, therefore he must be 72 years old.”
While a second group says, “No no, we believe that Todd has not grown at a constant rate for his entire life, and probably was not born zero inches tall, therefore we feel Todd is way younger than 72 years.” Of course you’d laugh at this second group and call them a bunch of cranks, but you’d be just as wrong as you are now.

Yeah, sign me up for your camp.

Sweet! Will do. Obviously you need to learn a thing or two about the difference between operational sciences and historical sciences and a thing or two about the nature of evidence.

Really? Dozens, huh? Since you have "dozens", give me two dozen.

Sure! I’ll give you the ones we have already discussed first…

1. Soft tissue in dinosaur fossils
2. C14 in coal and diamonds.
3. Observed genetic entropy rates in the human genome indicate it can only be a few thousand years old.
4. Very small variation in Y chromosome differences around the world indicates mans origin was only a few thousand years ago.
5. Racemization of amino acids not reaching 50/50 in bones that are supposedly millions of years old. 50/50 racemization occurs in only a few thousand years.
6. Large amounts of strata are tightly bent but unbroken, indicating they were laid down in short periods of time like we observed with Mt. St. Helens, rather than millions of years.
7. Polystratic fossils. Fossilized trees spanning layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old, yet there is not more decay in the areas of the tree that would have remained unburied for all that time indicating the trees were buried quickly not slowly.
8. Labs mimicking natural conditions have shown that black coal can naturally form in months, not millions of years like previously thought. (same thing is observed with oil.)
9. Complete lack of bioturbation in layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old.
10. Observed formation of canyons in very short periods of time suggests that canyons we didn’t observe form but believe to be very old could be very young.
11. Horizontal and vertical erosion on coast lines happens far to quickly for the continents to be very old.
12. Discordant drainage systems found worldwide do not fit the deep time model.
13. Observed erosion rates at Niagara Falls match a time scale of a few thousand years, not its assumed age of millions of years.
14. Even ignoring the affects of a biblical flood, observed saline net input rates into the oceans indicate they are 1/50 the age the old earth crowd believes they are.
15. Also, even ignoring the affects of a global flood, the accumulation rates of sediments on the ocean floors indicates they are very young.
16. Iron-manganese nodules on the sea floor form at a rate that indicates they are only a few thousand years old. Not millions like previously believed.
17. Exponential decay in the Earth’s magnetic field indicates it is far younger than even 20,000 years.
18. The amounts of helium in zircon crystals indicate only 6000 years of radioactive decay has actually occurred.
19. Evidence of recent volcanic activity on the earth’s moon indicates it is far younger than it’s assume age of over a billion years.
20. The moon receding from the earth due to tidal friction indicates that the two would have been touching long before their assumed ages. (Note, this recession rate is slowing down, not speeding up).
21. The fact that the planet mercury has a very significant magnetic field indicates it cannot be its assumed age of billions of years, but rather much younger.
22. The faint young sun paradox.
23. No observed method for comet creation, despite their observed decay rates would mean they could only last for 10,000 years max.
24. 0.5 % p.a. growth for humans (far smaller than today’s rate) from six people 4,500 years ago would yield today’s population.
25. I’ll even spot you one in the spirit of Christian charity lol… lack of nearly enough “stone age” skeletons and artifacts for the assumed ages of human history.


Well that was easy!

No, it's not a non-sequitor. My point is that there is just as much support for a flat Earth in the scientific community as there is for a young Earth.

Back to not understanding what establishes a scientific fact and how evidence works again I see.

I see... so you want to use C-14 for your purposes even though you say "it was not calibrated correctly". Ya got a source to back up that statement, by the way?

“The amount of 14C produced in the atmosphere varies with the sun’s solar activity and fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field. This means that the radiocarbon clock can race ahead or seemingly stop for up to 5 centuries. As a result, raw radiocarbon dates sometimes diverge from real calendar years by hundreds or even thousands of years. Thus researchers must calibrate the clock to account for these fluctuations, and that can be a challenge.”

- “Radiocarbon Dating’s Final Frontier”, Science Vol. 313.

That’s even ignoring the initial erroneous assumptions (atmospheric equilibrium and Egyptian chronology) the method was calibrated with. It could be off by many thousands of years very easily.

Can you provide a scientific source that reached this conclusion? Because I'll bet you can't.

Only because you define “scientific source” as one that believes the earth is 4.5 billion years old, which of course is a logical fallacy.

And how can you be confident "the maximum" is valid when you said that it's "not calibrated correctly"?

Because the calibration has to do with the ratios not with the observed decay rates.

Try this analogy:

An autograph of Abraham Lincoln surfaces. Experts examine it and declare that the paper it is written on wasn't manufactured until 1920.

Would you now consider the autograph to be a forgery? Or would you think this is proof that Abraham Lincoln was alive in 1920?

Not proof that Abraham lived in 1920 considering his death was observed to happen long before that. Nobody has observed the earth to be 4.5 billion years old so this analogy fails.

Wrong. My reasoning is based upon logic, not observation. No matter how you want to twist it to match your argument.

That explains a lot considering science is based on both logic and observation. Hide in a dark box where your senses cannot pick up anything and see how much knowledge about the physical world you gain in there haha.

Isn't the fact that DNA is information that rose by natural means, enough proof that information can rise by natural means?

Saying DNA arose by natural means is evidence that DNA can arise by natural means is circular reasoning. We have never observed any information to arise by natural means, so to say DNA can is a matter of blind faith, not scientific.

Art would be "This is artificial so a intelligent being must have done it" while DNA is "This is Natural so nature must've built it", and art is subjective while dna is objective, also the argument of complexity has been rebuked quite perfectly by the [url=http://www.stonemakerargument.com/1.html]Stonemaker Argument

More circular reasoning, if at first you do not know people created the art then how do you know it is artificial? So you can’t use the fact it is artificial to say you know people created it because we only call things artificial because we know people created them. Rather you would say, “This piece of art contains information, therefore it arose from a mental source.”

So archaeology and anthropology would be destroyed by the existence of another sapient lifeforms, there's a clear distinction between the artificial and the natural, Nature never gave us the Why's it always gave us the How's

It would destroy the two because you could never distinguish between the man-made and the natural. Nature does not always give us the “hows”, it doesn’t tell us how cars were built, or houses, or computers.

Don't remember it was a documentary that gone a long time ago

So you only know they are that old because a TV show told you they were that old?

The real question is why you can't accept evolutionary theory as THE best explanation of 100's of thousands facts evidenced from a very wide range of disciplines. You have provided NO EVIDENCE for creationism at all:

Dodged my question, nice. I can’t accept evolutionary theory because I realize that scientific fact is not established by consensus and information theory has demonstrated that common descent is impossible.

- Coelocanths in the present day do not evidence animals being magic'd into existence and are even consistent with evolution

Actually they are not consistent with evolution; evolutionists thought that finding one was impossible until we found one. It would be impossible for one animal like the Coelacanth to not change any in millions of years while all the other animals around it experienced the same selective pressures and all went extinct or change drastically. It’s a fairy tale.

- C14 in coal is an unexplained phenomona under research. What is in no doubt is that these sediments take a long time to petrify and attest to the fossilised remains of plants no longer seen on the earth. Plants that have never been seen in the relatively recent past (000's of thouands of years) with quaternary deposits of pollens and seeds. Even if true, which I remain skeptical of, it does not evidence a being issuing an incantaion to spontaneously create plant life.

So finding Coelacanths today is evidence for evolution, but not finding certain plant life today is evidence for evolution? Now that is having your cake and eating it too. Actually many plants we see today such as maple trees and oak trees are found in pre-historic layers of strata, let me guess, this is evidence for evolution too? Lol.

C14 in coal and diamonds is evidence these materials are very young which is evidence that confirms the biblical account of creation.

- Soft tissues within dinosaur bones are evidence of the extreme and variable conditions in which petrification occurs. So how does this prove that a large immaterial hand descnded through the clouds and zapped them into existence.

Again, they demonstrate that the dinosaurs died off within a few thousand years, which confirms the biblical account of creation.

I don't apply 'my world view' to these facts to deny YEC, I just apply a skeptical mind and do not OVER-ATTRIBUTE relatively peripheral findings against a mountain of facts which are best explained by ToE...and still are.

Being skeptical of evidence for creation is obviously part of your worldview, so you are applying your worldview.

To convince me you need to state the model under which the YEC would form a coherent theory. Then explain why that better explains the facts. Then provide a mechanism by which we can test its efficacy. That would be the scientific method. You are a scientist aren't you?
-

Pretty simple model, Creation occurred around 6000 years ago. A global flood occurred around 4,500 years ago. This model is completely confirmed by the evidence. You just won’t accept it because you interpret the evidence using a worldview that already assumes this model is false.

You are creating a straw man. You are not arguing supernatural against natural, you are arguing evolution against YEC. You have restated the terms of the debate to suit your argument. Evolution is the best natural explaination, but it isn't necessarily the only natural explanation. As for supernaturalism, there are a very large number (almost finite) of possible theories one of which is YEC. It is a bifurcation and disproving evolution does not demonstrate that YEC nor Yahweh did it. Or are you going to argue that if evolution was found to be false tomorrow, that Yahweh or YEC or whatever is stronger explanation than Lord Vishnu, Woden or even extra-terrestial causes?

Evolution is not the only natural explanation huh? That’s funny, both Darwin and Dawkins say it is. YEC is the only supernatural explanation that has been held by recent scientists (Newton, Bacon, and Kepler), so it is the best supernatural explanation. Even Darwin believed it was the only viable supernatural explanation because he used disjunctive reasoning to argue against it. Once you admit that supernatural creation had to occur we can discuss why is has to be the God of the Bible and not Woden. Your argument is illogical though, it would be like saying, “well it appears the answer has to be an even number, but I don’t know which one it has to be so I am going to pick an odd number!”.

What evidence would you accept for evolution?

Easy, show me that mutations that actually increase the information in the genome not only happen but happen more than mutations that reduce information. Next show how DNA could synthesize naturally since this is part of the General Theory of Evolution. Also show me the millions of transitional fossils we should find if evolution occurred. Also show me how your theory could be falsified. Get there and we may be looking at a plausible theory, you are not even close to there with the theory though.

In addition you assert that people like myself hold our views becuase of a particular world view. This is a circumstantial ad Hominem and a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest.

That’s the way the world works my friend. Evidence requires interpretation, the way we interpret the world around us is because of our worldview. It has nothing to do with your self interest, just an inconsistent worldview.

Nope. C14 anomolies in diamonds are just that currently, and you are refusing to accept that a viable hypothesis is contamination.

It’s impossible to contaminate a diamond due to their hardness, sorry.

Are you saying that any serious scientist would include the possibility of there discipline being able to identify a supernatural cause to a natural effect? If you are then I would respectfully question your credentials as a scientist

Oh brother, I gave you the definition of science; it says nothing about the cause being naturalistic. That’s naturalism; the two are not synonymous. If you believe they are then maybe I was right in questioning your credentials. There are many well educated and well published scientists who believe that explanations do not only have to be natural.

[Ashendant]

Saying DNA arose by natural means is evidence that DNA can arise by natural means is circular reasoning. We have never observed any information to arise by natural means, so to say DNA can is a matter of blind faith, not scientific.

No, DNA is proof that information can rise by natural means, yes it's kinda is circular logic, but it's backed by the fact that DNA is information and has a mechanism for change and reproduction so it's information that rises by natural means, arguing that DNA is not natural is arguing that Life and Biology is Artificial

More circular reasoning, if at first you do not know people created the art then how do you know it is artificial? So you can’t use the fact it is artificial to say you know people created it because we only call things artificial because we know people created them. Rather you would say, “This piece of art contains information, therefore it arose from a mental source.”

No i wouldn't say that, i know it's artificial because i know art is an a artificial object and i know that artificial objects are not objects done by nature, or to be short "This piece of art is man-made therefore it's artificial"

It would destroy the two because you could never distinguish between the man-made and the natural. Nature does not always give us the “hows”, it doesn’t tell us how cars were built, or houses, or computers.

Because cars houses and computers are artificial, still information isn't dependent on a mental source, since DNA exists it's natural and it's a fact

So you only know they are that old because a TV show told you they were that old?

No i just don't remember the exact information, just the final information

Besides you're using the watchmaker Argument to prove your point which is a non-sequitur

[Sam]

I think I will make a brief attempt to answer some of the points about subject areas I'm (relatively) informed in. Obviously this doesn't mean I accept the other points, I just don't have the time right now to do the reading to form a coherent opinion.

6. Large amounts of strata are tightly bent but unbroken, indicating they were laid down in short periods of time like we observed with Mt. St. Helens, rather than millions of years.

This simply shows a fundamental misunderstanding of geology. As well as depositional features such as stratification, graded bedding etc ... we also see post-depositonal features which are the result of processes operating after lithification has occured.

Folding sequences such as those you describe occur over long periods of time under high temperatures and/or pressures. This is usally regional in scale and often associated with orogenic activity or other large tectonic events.

You're comparison with Mt St Helens strata is flawed simply because of the difference in depositional environment and style. One can easily distinguish volcanic sedimentation from other forms based on lithology, texture and structure.

For your hypothesis to have any weight you would have to propose a valid mechaqnism by which beds of almost every known lithology could be both deposited and deformed in this way as we can do with the current one.

7. Polystratic fossils. Fossilized trees spanning layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old, yet there is not more decay in the areas of the tree that would have remained unburied for all that time indicating the trees were buried quickly not slowly.

I'm pretty sure this is a non-issue, to be sure I'd need the specific example but;

These features have been well known to conventional geologists since around 1800. They don't really pose any problem to the conventional interpretation system or in sequence stratigraphy.

The problem here is that people often interpret a depositional time as; ammount of accumulation/time = rate per annum. Unfortunately this is not the case and deposition can occur in rapid events such as we see today on flood plains or in can occur very slowly.

I'm actually surprised to see you cite this as evidence. Even early 'creationist' geologists established this same conclusion; see John William Dawson etc ...

9. Complete lack of bioturbation in layers of strata that are supposedly millions of years old.

I fail to see how this is an issue?

Some beds are deposited in areas conducive to burrowing animals, some are not. We don't find bioturbation in all areas regardless of the time periods involved.

11. Horizontal and vertical erosion on coast lines happens far to quickly for the continents to be very old.

This assumes that coastal erosion has always occured at the same rates and a number of other things for which there is no evidence. You'd have to be a lot more specific about that before it could even be considered as a valid point.

15. Also, even ignoring the affects of a global flood, the accumulation rates of sediments on the ocean floors indicates they are very young.

Source?

Sediment input into the ocean basins varies based on a number of factors; primarily sea-level and the availability of sediment so again there is a false assumption of continous rates here. Also most areas of sea floor are constantly being replaced by subduction-and implacement.

18. The amounts of helium in zircon crystals indicate only 6000 years of radioactive decay has actually occurred.

This claim by the RATE group has been widely criticised for severely defficient methodology and has never been repeated.

Pretty simple model, Creation occurred around 6000 years ago. A global flood occurred around 4,500 years ago. This model is completely confirmed by the evidence. You just won’t accept it because you interpret the evidence using a worldview that already assumes this model is false.

In your opinion and based on the unsupported belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God you mean?

Cheers

Sam

[Statler Waldorf]

No, DNA is proof that information can rise by natural means, yes it's kinda is circular logic, but it's backed by the fact that DNA is information and has a mechanism for change and reproduction so it's information that rises by natural means, arguing that DNA is not natural is arguing that Life and Biology is Artificial

I think we are kind missing each other on this one. I am not saying that DNA is not replicated and used in biological organisms. However, replicating DNA doesn’t increase the total amount of information present, just like photocopying a book doesn’t double the amount of information present. The original information that is encoded in DNA had to come from a mental source because there has never been an observed natural process that can produce information. Is that a bit more clear?

No i wouldn't say that, i know it's artificial because i know art is an a artificial object and i know that artificial objects are not objects done by nature, or to be short "This piece of art is man-made therefore it's artificial"

First you said you knew the art was man-made because it was artificial, now you say you know it’s artificial because it’s man-made? Still too circular. Rather you could say, “I know this art is man made because I have observed man creating art but I have never observed a natural mechanism painting art, therefore I make an inference to design and say the art is man-made and artificial.”

Because cars houses and computers are artificial, still information isn't dependent on a mental source, since DNA exists it's natural and it's a fact

Well only if DNA didn’t originate from a mental source, which is the very heart of the debate. I believe it did.

---

This simply shows a fundamental misunderstanding of geology. As well as depositional features such as stratification, graded bedding etc ... we also see post-depositonal features which are the result of processes operating after lithification has occured.

Folding sequences such as those you describe occur over long periods of time under high temperatures and/or pressures. This is usally regional in scale and often associated with orogenic activity or other large tectonic events.

You're comparison with Mt St Helens strata is flawed simply because of the difference in depositional environment and style. One can easily distinguish volcanic sedimentation from other forms based on lithology, texture and structure.

For your hypothesis to have any weight you would have to propose a valid mechaqnism by which beds of almost every known lithology could be both deposited and deformed in this way as we can do with the current one.

---

Hey Sam,

I disagree with your analysis here. The folded strata are completely devoid of the expected signs of gradual folding or of folding after the rock had solidified. There is no evidence of fracturing and the sand particles are not elongated like would be expected. Rather it is quite clear that the sediment was still saturated with water when it folded. They actually very closely match the sediment that was layed down during the flood waters of the Mt. St. Helens event. A global flood paired with large scale geologic activity would accomplish a very similar task just on a global scale which is exactly what we observe. Many secular geologists will even admit that these are examples of catastrophic flooding, just on a regional level.

---

I'm pretty sure this is a non-issue, to be sure I'd need the specific example but;

These features have been well known to conventional geologists since around 1800. They don't really pose any problem to the conventional interpretation system or in sequence stratigraphy.

The problem here is that people often interpret a depositional time as; ammount of accumulation/time = rate per annum. Unfortunately this is not the case and deposition can occur in rapid events such as we see today on flood plains or in can occur very slowly.

I'm actually surprised to see you cite this as evidence. Even early 'creationist' geologists established this same conclusion; see John William Dawson etc ...

---

Yes, they are well known, and well ignored by many secular geologists and paleontologists alike. You will have layers of strata that are supposed to represent thousands and sometimes millions o f years of slow and gradual accumulation, but you’ll have this tree that spans up through dozens and dozens of layers. Some of these fossils will span through several layers of different kinds of rock, like shale to sandstone. Did the tree really stand up out of the ground for thousands of years while it was slowly buried? Of course not, so why think the layers all accumulated over thousands of years? Catastrophic depositing of these layers is a much better explanation.

I fail to see how this is an issue?

Some beds are deposited in areas conducive to burrowing animals, some are not. We don't find bioturbation in all areas regardless of the time periods involved.

When we examine soil layers from the last 1000 years or so we see evidence of biotubation, however when we get into the layers that are supposedly ancient we never find evidence of it. This is a good indication that these layers were laid down so quickly that the burrowing animals never had time to use them. There are also many places where we find thousands of fossils of plant eating animals but no fossils of plant life. This would also indicate that this is not evidence of an ancient ecosystem but rather evidence of a catastrophic burial.

This assumes that coastal erosion has always occured at the same rates and a number of other things for which there is no evidence. You'd have to be a lot more specific about that before it could even be considered as a valid point.

Well when we use the same uniformitarian principles that the old earth crowd loves to use we find that it doesn’t add up. So you can’t really assert here that these rates have been different in the past but then use uniformitarian assumptions else where to get billions of years. A global catastrophe is a far superior explanation for all the evidence rather than uniformitarianism which is very inconsistent with which phenomena it can explain.

Source?

Sediment input into the ocean basins varies based on a number of factors; primarily sea-level and the availability of sediment so again there is a false assumption of continous rates here. Also most areas of sea floor are constantly being replaced by subduction-and implacement.

Again I am just using the same constant rate assumptions the old earth crowd loves to use. Obviously these assumptions don’t always conclude the earth is old as many on here assert they do.

A source on the matter would be

“Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of subduction” in the Journal of Geophysical Research Vol. 93.

This claim by the RATE group has been widely criticised for severely defficient methodology and has never been repeated.

All those claims have been adequately addressed by the RATE group as well. If the secular community is so concerned with the group’s methodology and the professional labs that did the measurements maybe they should repeat the tests and get different results, rather than just screaming from the sidelines. They won’t though.

In your opinion and based on the unsupported belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God you mean?

Cheers

Sam

Nah, based on the fact that this model best explains all the evidence and provides us with the very pre-conditions of intelligibility, unlike any other model proposed.

Hope you have a happy new year's eve and day!