"Evolution isn't science"

All dating methods related to the unobservable past rely on unverifiable assumptions, chief of which is the one about closed systems. Furthermore, all dating methods involve the subjective evaluation of data and results, so much so, that their veracity must seriously be questioned. Recent attempts to extend the radiocarbon (14C) dating method back in time provide an instructive example of how age determinations are manipulated.
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Dating methods are based on radioactive decay which is proven to be accurate. There is nothing subjective about this process or the way in which it is calculated.

If dating methods are wrong why is it that it is overwhelmingly consistent? Specimens of the same species are found in the same stratographic layers and date the same. There aren't any dinosaurs (other than birds) found more recently than 65 million years. If dating methods were inaccurate wouldn't you expect the same species of dinosaur to be just as likely to date 70 thousand years as 70 million? Why dont we see this pattern if dating is so wrong and unreliable?
Let's assume that the times themselves are wrong, the method is so internally consistent (and consistent with stratographic layers) that at a minimum it can be used as a chronology. If it can be used as a chronology then we come to the same conclusions that humans and dinosaurs never lived together and other such chronologic distinctions.
 
CACTUSJACKmankin said:
Dating methods are based on radioactive decay which is proven to be accurate. There is nothing subjective about this process or the way in which it is calculated.

If dating methods are wrong why is it that it is overwhelmingly consistent? Specimens of the same species are found in the same stratographic layers and date the same. There aren't any dinosaurs (other than birds) found more recently than 65 million years. If dating methods were inaccurate wouldn't you expect the same species of dinosaur to be just as likely to date 70 thousand years as 70 million? Why dont we see this pattern if dating is so wrong and unreliable?
Let's assume that the times themselves are wrong, the method is so internally consistent (and consistent with stratographic layers) that at a minimum it can be used as a chronology. If it can be used as a chronology then we come to the same conclusions that humans and dinosaurs never lived together and other such chronologic distinctions.
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Very good point. Creationists have accused scientists of employing a tautology in dating prehistoric fossils -- they know the dinosaur bones are X years old because the geological layer they were found in was X years old, and they can likewise date the geological layers by the dinosaur bones.

Scientists sometimes use tautologies like this when evidence is lacking (for instance, the early methods of calculating astronomical distances), but as long as they are internally consistent, the numbers provide a good starting point. As more is learned, the numbers become more and more precise. If the basic principle of the dating method were flawed, then you wouldn't see this pattern of greater accuracy as more evidence arises. Instead, you would see an increasing number of inconsistencies needing to be explained away. That isn't happening.
 
jesus_freak said:
Deceptive Fossil Interpretations of Evolutionists

by Harun Yahya Ph.D​
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Are you here to post propaganda or discuss this subject? You posted an earlier link that has been shown to be a pack of untruths. Could you address those before going on to others?
 
RenaissanceBiker said:
Ok, I'll lay off the Genesis until JF starts a thread on that.
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I posted this a page or two back. Since this is the Science etc. subforum, let JF hang himself on the science. Getting into pages long tangents about apologetical issues isn't going to help him get the message or help any lurkers he might have brought along with him. Nothing turns Creationists off faster in E/C/ID debates than making the discussion look like an attack on their faith.
 
JF, someone already talked about a big problem in your post about the prehistoric horses. I just wanted to add this question - if we provided information about horse evolution (which I know nothing about, so I'd have to look it up) wouldn't you dismiss it because horses are all the same 'kind'? (If so, i"m not sure what the point was in posting that item.)

I also wanted to ask this: in my post I said a few things about religion. I'd be interested to know your reaction if you wanted to give it. If you wanted to talk about religion and the Bible, you could start atopic like this one but in the religion section. (That's assuming you still are interested in having this conversation.)
 
RenaissanceBiker said:
There are trees taller than that! A person could have just climbed a tree to escape the water.
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I haven't read to the end of this thread as yet but maybe I can answer this -- is there any mention of trees in the Old Testy? I only remember bushes. So there would have been no trees to climb. ;)

Oh bugger. Just remembered the Tree of Knowledge . Was the Garden of Eden flooded or was there some "Eden Exclusion Principle"?

Inquiring minds want to know. :confused:
 
Arkan_Wolfshade said:
Let me know what you think of the review. Based on what I read there, I am interested to pick up the book.
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Wow! A lot has happened since I last checked into this thread. Did he really say the Earth used to be flat? Really? Really?

Ehrman has fast become one of my favorite authors. He writes clearly on a fascinating subject. I like Sagan on astronomy, Asimov on chemistry and Ehrman on Christian history (of course I don't like those three exclusively).

BTW. I haven't had a chance to look at the relevant chapter yet but if I remember correctly it wasn't the lingual accuracy of the KJV translation that was dodgy it was the authenticity of the content of the texts from which it was translated.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I haven't read to the end of this thread as yet but maybe I can answer this -- is there any mention of trees in the Old Testy? I only remember bushes. So there would have been no trees to climb. ;)

Oh bugger. Just remembered the Tree of Knowledge . Was the Garden of Eden flooded or was there some "Eden Exclusion Principle"?

Inquiring minds want to know. :confused:
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If you look at the ancient Hebrew I think you'll find it was actually the shrubbery of knowledge. Also, people were only 18 inches tall back then.
 
By "flat" he means no mountains or valleys and no ocean. This is another common creationist theme.

Before the flood, there was no rain. The earth was covered by a thick cloud cover and it was always warm and just humid enough. (This one has an enormous amount of scientific problems, but let's move on.) Most of the water was underground.

During the flood, great geysers of water came out of the ground. These geysers were positioned to alter the land exactly as if the earth were formed by millions of years of erosion by rivers, continental drift and the like. Also, it rained for the first time.

The water ended up in the oceans, and before it got there it pushed the kangaroos and koalas from Mt. Ararat to Australia.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Wow! A lot has happened since I last checked into this thread. Did he really say the Earth used to be flat? Really? Really?

Ehrman has fast become one of my favorite authors. He writes clearly on a fascinating subject. I like Sagan on astronomy, Asimov on chemistry and Ehrman on Christian history (of course I don't like those three exclusively).

BTW. I haven't had a chance to look at the relevant chapter yet but if I remember correctly it wasn't the lingual accuracy of the KJV translation that was dodgy it was the authenticity of the content of the texts from which it was translated.
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I really like Ehrman too. Former religious people who have to face the battle between desire for the truth and faith make some of the best and most fascinating skeptics, I've found.

Doesn't Jesus freak know that we don't just use carbon for radiometric dating--we have multiple atomic clocks we can use to measure and multiple other measurements--it's a combination of methods all pointing to the same time period that strengthens the case. Fundies may as well be Scientologists or Amish or Muslim Fundamentalist. Bad things happen to a brain told that faith is a good way to know the truth--and that you must believe a certain way to live happily ever after (bonus points if you can convince others)--(damnation to doubters).

I hope he/she/it doesn't spawn.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I haven't read to the end of this thread as yet but maybe I can answer this -- is there any mention of trees in the Old Testy? I only remember bushes. So there would have been no trees to climb. ;)

Oh bugger. Just remembered the Tree of Knowledge . Was the Garden of Eden flooded or was there some "Eden Exclusion Principle"?

Inquiring minds want to know. :confused:
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If there were no trees, from where came the gopher wood that Noah used to build his ark?

Old joke from the MS-DOS days: Noah saved the animals by ARCing them.
 
jesus_freak said:
If you want to start another thread on supposed Bible inaccuracies I will be more than happy to discuss it there with you but I am trying my best to keep this on evolution.
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You said the reason you believe creationism is because the bible is literally true. I show the bible can not possibly literally true, and you deem it as irrelevant. HM.

I wonder how that is any different than your approach, the majority of people here think evolution is correct because the science supports it, and you are trying to show the science is incorrect. We are taking the exact same approach, you just refuse to look at the opposite side.
 
The Origin of Species, Chapter 6: Difficulties on Theory, by Charles Darwin

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree
 
"Evolution is a fairy tale for grownups." Dr. Louis Bounoure, Director of the Zoological Museum and Director of Research at the National Center of Scientific Research in France, J. Rostand, "LaMonde et la Vie," October 1963, p. 31 from V. Long, "Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Adults," Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Vol 78 (1978), no. 7, pp. 27-32
 
There are no links of plant to animal, fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to birds and mammals. There are no links whatsoever. I am still waiting for an answer to this or are we just going to skip over it?
 
jesus_freak said:
The Origin of Species, Chapter 6: Difficulties on Theory, by Charles Darwin

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree
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To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.
 
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