Bird flu, evolution and creationism ...

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]I told you it was deductively factual (as opposed to inductively). I'll demonstrate:

1) Given something that will vary (i.e. an organism)
2) Given a selective pressure which can determine which variation is best (i.e. natural selection)
3) From 1) and 2) macroevolution will occur.

At this point my balloon analogy pops your factual bubble. he fossil evidence is so inconclusive, if not downright in contradiction with the TOE.[/b]

Your baloon analogy is flawed.

We know that axiom 1 in your analogy requires a specifier (i.e. that a balloon can only be blown up so far before it bursts). No specifier is required in the evolution axioms though. If specifiers are required, you'll have to prove them, there is currently no evidence of them whatsoever.

If we breed flies for long enough, then it should be possible to get specific breeds and, ultimately, species, as will undoubtably happen with dogs. Already, the chances of a chihuahua and a great dane reproducing to have viable offspring are very small. Given another few dozen generations I would not be suprised if they diverge fully.

Fossils provide evidence, facts, but not unequivocal proof. However, no fossil has ever been found that disavows evolutionary theory. Nothing has ever been able to make a serious dent in evolutionary theory, and it currently remains the only scientific explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Disbelieve it if you will, but you are in effect disbelieving in the very bedrock of science, the theory. Without theories, your world would be significantly different, run by rules you neither understand nor could comprehend. Your life would be run by superstition and in fear instead of with logic and reason.

[edit; fossil evidence DOES NOT and HAS NEVER contradicted evolutionary theory. I would appreciate if you'd restrict your comments to the truth rather than lies; it does your side no favours. Sure, evolutionary theory has been refined over the last 150 years, but that only makes it stronger; the central tennents have never been changed, because they've never been disproven.]

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]I told you it was deductively factual (as opposed to inductively). I'll demonstrate:

1) Given something that will vary (i.e. an organism)
2) Given a selective pressure which can determine which variation is best (i.e. natural selection)
3) From 1) and 2) macroevolution will occur.

At this point my balloon analogy pops your factual bubble. ...[text shortened]... he fossil evidence is so inconclusive, if not downright in contradiction with the TOE.[/b]

Refer to what scottishinnz said. I think he makes a good replacement for whatever inept science teacher you must have had.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Your baloon analogy is flawed.

We know that axiom 1 in your analogy requires a specifier (i.e. that a balloon can only be blown up so far before it bursts). No specifier is required in the evolution axioms though. If specifiers are required, you'll have to prove them, there is currently no evidence of them whatsoever.

If we breed flies for long ...[text shortened]... tronger; the central tennents have never been changed, because they've never been disproven.]

Would you say the TOE is falsifiable?

Originally posted by dj2becker
Would you say the TOE is falsifiable?

Absolutely. One bunny in the pre-Cambrian will manage that. Strangely, one have never been found.

A more interesting question is "Is ID / creationism falsifiable?"

Originally posted by scottishinnz

A more interesting question is "Is ID / creationism falsifiable?"

Yes, but would it matter if they were flasified?

Originally posted by Conrau K
Yes, but would it matter if they were flasified?

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner...

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Absolutely. One bunny in the pre-Cambrian will manage that. Strangely, one have never been found.

A more interesting question is "Is ID / creationism falsifiable?"

Strangley enough, each time a bunny is found, it is 'swept under the carpet', and the theory is 'modified'.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Strangley enough, each time a bunny is found, it is 'swept under the carpet', and the theory is 'modified'.

dj2becker.

No rabbit has EVER been found to have existed pre-500 million years ago. Do you even know what "pre-Cambrian" means?

Really. I wouldn't mind if you'd actually get your arguments right for the situation.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Strangley enough, each time a bunny is found, it is 'swept under the carpet', and the theory is 'modified'.

But thats science. Its constantly being modified. Its not some big conspiracy
or concealed front against the advance of religion. Its just science. It seems to me that whatever criticisms you make on evolution, the logic behind them can be construed as an attack on all science. Which is just absurd.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Strangley enough, each time a bunny is found, it is 'swept under the carpet', and the theory is 'modified'.

Why the comma after "found"? It's not necessary.

Why is "modified" in apostrophes? What DO you think we mean by modified? If a rule fits all the data except one piece, sure, we'll modify the model to fit all the data - provided it's not breaking any other rules (such as thermodynamics). Science doesn't claim to always get things right first time, all the time. We're malleable to the data - the opposite of religion it seems, which crowbars the data to fit the predetermined rules.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
dj2becker.

No rabbit has EVER been found to have existed pre-500 million years ago. Do you even know what "pre-Cambrian" means?

Really. I wouldn't mind if you'd actually get your arguments right for the situation.

Just for your info:

The part of the column in which no fossils of complex structure have been found (the Pre Cambrian) is indeed dated by radiometric dating. It’s dates are therefore totally speculative and unreliable. That the scientists themselves recognize this unreliability can be seen from the statement by William Stansfield: - “It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by millions of years).” And also from Frederick Jeuneman: - “There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio decay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago but, rather, within the age and memory of man”.

The events, which brought the Mesozoic to a close, are supposed to have brought the extinction of dinosaurs. Jeuneman is here suggesting that they are within the memory of man, in other words man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. There seems to be a good deal of evidence that to support this possibility, there is even evidence that they may have exterminated by man because they were dangerous and a nuisance. But be that as it may, he is giving clear recognition that radiometric dating methods are invalid. It seems inconsistent, to say the least, to accept radiometric ages for the Pre-Cambrian part of the geological column when they are known to be valueless for the more recent section.

The part of the column containing readily recognizable fossils, the Cambrian and the later, is not dated by radiometric methods, it is dated with fossils. O.H. Schindewolf pointed out the basis for this when he said – “The only chronometric scale applicable in geological history for stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geological events is furnished by the fossils. Owing to the irreversibility of evolution, they are an unambiguous time scale for relative age determinations and for world-wide correlation of rocks.”

It is the interpretation of the fossil record in terms of the uniformity principle and the theory of evolution, which gives the time scale.

But the theory of evolution relies on this very interpretation in the first place! This cane be seen in the admission of Carl Dumbar – “fossils provide the only historical documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler or more complex forms.”

There are strong grounds for suspecting that this evidence is highly dubious. The theory of evolution is on very shaky ground from many points of view.

Charles Darwin said that the fossil record is “the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory”.

So if you stubbornly wish to believe a theory, which is obviously false, I will not stand in your way.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Just for your info:

The part of the column in which no fossils of complex structure have been found (the Pre Cambrian) is indeed dated by radiometric dating. It’s dates are therefore totally speculative and unreliable. That the scientists themselves recognize this unreliability can be seen from the statement by William Stansfield: - “It is obvious that ...[text shortened]... you stubbornly wish to believe a theory, which is obviously false, I will not stand in your way.

Paragraph 1 is obviously bull. Radiodating is not unreliable. Read the Zhang article I cited. There are tens of thousands of corroborative reports.

Para 2; If humans killed off the dinosaurs, why are there no fossils of humans in the same strata as dinosaurs? Where is your evidence of this nonsense? Fossils in the Cambrian onwards are also radiometrically dated. Evidence, or shut up.

The rest is crap. No fossil evidence has ever disproved evolutionary theory.

Christs sake man, go out and read a non-fiction book for once in your pitiful existance.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Paragraph 1 is obviously bull. Radiodating is not unreliable. Read the Zhang article I cited. There are tens of thousands of corroborative reports.

Para 2; If humans killed off the dinosaurs, why are there no fossils of humans in the same strata as dinosaurs? Where is your evidence of this nonsense? Fossils in the Cambrian onwards are also radi ...[text shortened]... ory.

Christs sake man, go out and read a non-fiction book for once in your pitiful existance.

Paragraph 1 is obviously bull. Radiodating is not unreliable. Read the Zhang article I cited. There are tens of thousands of corroborative reports.

I did btw.

Radiometric dating methods don’t actually “date” anything and so they cannot give absolute dates of millions of years. A radiometric “date” is only an inference obtained by comparing the ratio of two types of atom left in a sample (parent and daughter isotopes). Evolutionists use unscientific assumptions of constant decay rates and no global catastrophes. However, leaching of parent and/or daughter elements into and out of a rock sample is very easy and is very common, especially if there was ever ground water flowing in that region.

All of these methods are accurate only back to the last global catastrophe (i.e. the global Flood of 2,348 BC) as global catastrophes reset all the radiometric / atomic “clocks” by invalidating the evolutionist’s main dating assumption that there have never been any global catastrophes. The assumptions are similar to the assumptions used in carbon dating.

These radiometric dating methods also have many anomalies : volcanic lava flows in the 1800s from Hawaii were “dated” by the Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) method as having flowed 3 billion years ago. Lava flows in 1954 from Mt Ngauruahoe in New Zealand were “dated” by the K-Ar method as having flowed 250,000 to 3 million years ago. Radiometric dating methods are not used to date fossils or “dinosaurs” :

“[Radiometric dating] is an exceedingly crude instrument with which to measure our strata and I can think of no occasion where it has been put to an immediate practical use. Apart from very ‘modern’ examples, which are really archaeology, I can think of no cases of radioactive decay being used to date fossils.”

(Dr Derek Ager, evolutionist, geologist, Head of the Geology Department of the University College of Swansea and former president of the British Geological Association, 1983 [15] )

“As yet there is no radiometric method (that is, one based on radioactivity) for the direct absolute dating of dinosaurs.”

(Dr Alan Charig, evolutionist, palaeontologist and Head of the Palaeontological Laboratory at the British Natural History Museum, 1979 [16] )

“It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological ‘clock’. The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists …”

(Dr. William Stansfield, Instructor of Biology, California Polytechnic State University, 1977 [17] )

“The age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years, based on radiodecay rates of uranium and thorium. Such ‘confirmation’ may be short-lived, as nature is not to be discovered quite so easily. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radiodecay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago but, rather, within the age and memory of man.”

(Frederic Jeuneman, “Secular Catastrophism”, 1982 [18] )

· Radiometric dating methods are not used to assign dates to rocks in rock strata – they are used only to try to “verify” the unscientific 19th century evolutionist “index fossil dates” :

“Index fossils” are types of fossil (such as ammonites and coelacanths) that 19th century European evolutionists of the Victorian era claimed lived and died out many millions of years ago. The supposed age of “index fossils” is based on how long these 19th century evolutionists believed one kind of animal would take (somehow) to “evolve” into a different kind of animal. For example, if they believed it would take 200 million years for an ammonite (somehow) to turn gradually into say a dog, then all rocks containing fossil ammonites (the “index fossil&rdquo😉 would be given an “age” 200 million years older than rocks containing fossils of dogs :

“… the geological column and approximate ages of all the fossil-bearing strata were all worked out long before anyone ever heard or thought about radioactive dating … There are so many sources of possible error or misinterpretation in radiometric dating that most such dates are discarded and never used at all, notably whenever they disagree with the previously agreed-on [index fossil] dates.”

(Dr Henry Morris, creationist scientist and hydraulicist, PhD in hydrology, geology and mathematics, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Civil Engineers, former Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1974 [19] )

And when it comes to dating any individual rock today, the resulting “date” is forced to conform to predetermined evolutionist “dates” based on these imaginary 19th century index-fossil “dates”. Any radiometric dates that show a supposedly “old” rock to be young are rejected for no other reason :

“Few people realize that the index fossil dating system, despite its poor assumptions and many problems, is actually the primary dating tool for geologic time. … In other words, radiometric dating methods are actually fit into the geological column, which was set up by [index] fossil dating over 100 years ago.”

(Michael Oard, meteorologist and creationist scientist, 1984 [20] )
http://www.sloppynoodle.com/csotalk2-6.shtml

Para 2; If humans killed off the dinosaurs, why are there no fossils of humans in the same strata as dinosaurs? Where is your evidence of this nonsense? Fossils in the Cambrian onwards are also radiometrically dated. Evidence, or shut up.

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/giants.htm

The rest is crap. No fossil evidence has ever disproved evolutionary theory.

Christs sake man, go out and read a non-fiction book for once in your pitiful existance.

If you wish to stick your head in the sand, I will not stop you.

deej,

why in your copy'n'paste job in this thread do you say that fossils less than 500 million years old are not radiodated, but point out in the radioactive half-life measurement thread that they are?

Originally posted by dj2becker
[b]Paragraph 1 is obviously bull. Radiodating is not unreliable. Read the Zhang article I cited. There are tens of thousands of corroborative reports.

I did btw.

Radiometric dating methods don’t actually “date” anything and so they cannot give absolute dates of millions of years. A radiometric “date” is only an inference obtained by comparing ...[text shortened]... your pitiful existance.[/b]

If you wish to stick your head in the sand, I will not stop you.[/b]

One. If ions are being leached out of the rock, the parent isotope would have to be leached out millions of times faster than the daughter to produce a 6,000 year date. This type of leaching doesn't happen. You want to claim it? Prove it.


Two. K-Ar dating is only accurate to 100,000 years, under perfect conditions. there is no way to measure someting only 50 years ago with this technique. It's like trying to measure the diameter of a needle head with a metrestick. Just not accurate enough.

Three. Most of your quotes say that radiodating can be a few million years out. Fine. 6 billion years out? Not a chance.

Four. Your quotes just go "it might, it might, it might" Not a single grain of evidence. Provide it or shut up.

Five. your "evidence" of giant men and dinosaurs was disproven about 60 - 80 years ago. Get with the program.

Six. rocks are typically not dated based on their strata position or fossil contents. Radiodating is normally used. Your quote which stipulates that it is otherwise is nothing but an out and out lie. Not that I'd expect any more from you. Think you're going to heaven after telling all these porkies??