Who Is Banning Books Now?

Hal Lindsey Oracle ^ | 2/2/04 | Hal Lindsey

[Androcles]

I agree with your position but just thought I'd add that the other articles on this mentioned the store refused to allow sale of a book by eminent scientists refuting the other book point by point. Personally, I don't really care what people read as long as there's a choice for competing viewpoints...

[VadeRetro]

Then there's the gorge of the Colorado...

Which is the Grand Canyon. Was going for "The Gorge of the Arkansas" there. (Pretty to drive through.)

[rustbucket]

Morse found that the Evolutionist’s explanation of the ‘river cones’ could never work. Evolutionists contend that the ‘river cones’ were etched into the ocean floor by slow moving currents that etched them out over ‘millions of years’.

First of all, it would be geologists who are most concerned with the formation of canyons off the current mouths of rivers.

There is quite an established science concerning the rise and fall of ocean levels over geologic time. When the ocean levels fall (due to ice ages), large coastal planes are exposed and rivers cut channels through those planes. Those are the so-called river 'cones' the article refers to.

You can see the repeated bands of shale and sandstone deposited during sea level changes quite clearly out in the Book Cliffs of East Central Utah.

[rustbucket]

planes = plains

Argh

[Daphne]

Note the word 'most' in my last post.

As far as i know, gravity and orbital mechanics aren't theories. And yes, i have heard of the atom bomb, but thanks for the reminder.

But you're right. There are lots of scientists out there who are 'cranks', along with their theories. i happen to think evolution, along with the Big Bang theory, are bull.

Could i be wrong? Yes. But so could the scientists. The post i was respoding to expressed a general criticism of the way scientists base their theories when it comes to things like evolution, and i agreed.

If you can give me any proof at all of the Big Bang Theory (i think that's the most ridiculous), i have to say i might be willing to change that opinion

[Doctor Stochastic]

If these were formed by slow moving currents over millions of years, why has this not taken place in other places where the rivers are about the same age?

So Lindsey is ignorant of geography too? A trip through the Barranca del Cobre is educational and would have helped prevent Lindsey from making such statements.

Of course, I can look out my back window and see another such erosional feature (although much younger.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

When Mt. St. Helen's erupted it formed a huge canyon down stream in one day, the canyon has sedimentry layers and looks like it took a billion years of evolution to create, when all it took was 24 hours.

Actually, they look like they only took 24 hours. The erosion is quite different from that found in the Grand Canyon.

[Ichneumon]

Bookmark for later.

[old-ager]

> So if God created the Earth "mature", he did this to fool us? Was it some kind of faith test?

What kind of dating method would ever indicate that any physical object had zero age? I don't think any method would ever come up with that conclusion.

[old-ager]

> The erosion is quite different from that found in the Grand Canyon.

In what significant and definitive ways?

[old-ager]

>> I stopped believing most science stuff like that awhile ago. Too many of their theories contradict themselves.

This refers to religion and philosophy packaged as "science".

> Yet you have no problem using the fruits of science, such as computers, the internet, microwave ovens, tvs, vaccines etc.

This refers to actual verifiable science.

[John H K]

When Mt. St. Helen's erupted it formed a huge canyon down stream in one day, the canyon has sedimentry layers and looks like it took a billion years of evolution to create, when all it took was 24 hours.

Boy, this is so rampant with silliness I don't know where to start. (The use of an apostrophe for a plural was a good one for you, though.)

1) "Evolution" per se, isn't a geological concept, it's biological, though each field informs and enriches each other.

2) That volcanoes can form extremely deep mudflow, ash, or lava deposits VERY quickly has been known to Geologists for many decades. Nothing about about the St. Helens eruption was much of a surprise to geologists other than the lateral (not vertical) blast as up until St. Helens only one, from a Russian volcano on Kamchatka, was known.

3) Any competent geologist can very easily distingush between a volcanic deposit and a sedimentary deposit formed by non-volcanic running water, or precipitation from water, VERY easily.

[old-ager]

> hard sciences out there that deserve the respect most people have in them. Evolution is one of those.

Bullcrap, you blowhard. Macroevolution is a belief system and completely, absolutely unprovable, therefore not science -- by definition.

[John H K]

Macroevolution is a belief system and completely, absolutely unprovable, therefore not science -- by definition.

The problem with Creationidiots is that since they actually don't know anything about evolution, they project their own beliefs on to evolution. That is, I get the sense that creationidiots believe evolution consists of students sitting around having The Origin of Species read to them in a classroom.

If macroevolution did not occur some deity went tremendously out of their way to make it LOOK like macroevolution HAS occured.

And any deity whose main activity is to deceive isn't worth worshipping.

[old-ager]

> If macroevolution did not occur some deity went tremendously out of their way to make it LOOK like macroevolution HAS occured.
> And any deity whose main activity is to deceive isn't worth worshipping.

Philosophy.

[old-ager]

Much of the controversy between evolutionists and creationists concerns the age of the earth and its fossils. Evolution, depending as it does on pure chance, requires an immense amount of time to stumble upon anything remotely approaching the complexity we see in even the simplest living things. For over 100 years, geologists have attempted to devise methods for determining the age of the earth that would be consistent with evolutionary dogma. At the time Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published the earth was "scientifically" determined to be 100 million years old. By 1932, it was found to be 1.6 billion years old. In 1947, geologists firmly established that the earth was 3.4 billion years old. Finally in 1976, they discovered that the earth is "really" 4.6 billion years old. These dates indicate that for 100 years, the age of the earth doubled every 20 years. If this trend were to continue, the earth would be 700 thousand-trillion-trillion-trillion years old by the year 4000 AD. This "prediction," however, is based on selected data and certain assumptions that might not be true. As we will see, selected data and unprovable assumptions are a problem with all methods for determining the age of the earth, as well as for dating its fossils and rocks. It has all become something of a "dating game" in which only the evolutionarily-correct are allowed to play.

The most widely-used method for determining the age of fossils is to date them by the "known age" of the rock strata in which they are found. On the other hand, the most widely-used method for determining the age of the rock strata is to date them by the "known age" of the fossils they contain. This is an outrageous case of circular reasoning, and geologists are well aware of the problem. J.E. O'Rourke, for example, concedes:

"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling the explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results" (American Journal of Science, 1976, 276:51).

In this "circular dating" method, all ages are based on evolutionary assumptions about the date and order in which fossilized plants and animals are believed to have evolved.

Most people are surprised to learn that there is, in fact, no way to directly determine the age of any fossil or rock. The so called "absolute" methods of dating (radiometric methods) actually only measure the present ratios of radioactive isotopes and their decay products in suitable specimens -- not their age. These measured ratios are then extrapolated to an "age" determination. This extrapolation is based on the fact that an unstable (radioactive) chemical element, called the parent isotope, breaks down at a presently known rate to form a more stable daughter isotope. In the case of radiocarbon dating, an unstable isotope of carbon (C14) decays to a more stable form of carbon (C12). This currently occurs at a rate which would be expected to reduce the quantity of the parent C14 by half every 5,730 years (the half-life). In other words, the less of the parent isotope (and the more of the daughter isotope) we measure in a specimen, the older we assume it to be.

Radiocarbon dating is actually of little use to evolutionists. There are several reasons for this. First, no rocks and very few fossils contain measurable quantities of carbon of any kind. Second, because of the short half-life of C14, the radiocarbon method can only date specimens up to about 40,000 years of age. Essentially nothing of evolutionary significance is believed to have occurred in this "short" time frame. The most commonly used radiometric methods for "dating" geological specimens are potassium-argon, uranium-thorium-lead, and strontium-rubidium. All three of these decay processes have half-lives measured in billions of years. None of these methods can be used on fossils or the sedimentary rock in which fossils are found. All radiometric dating (with the exception of carbon dating) must be done on igneous rocks (rocks solidified from a molten state such as lava). These radiometric "clocks" begin keeping time when the molten rock solidifies. Since fossils are never found in igneous rocks, one can only date lava flows that are occasionally found between layers of sedimentary rock.

The problem with all radiometric "clocks" is that their accuracy critically depends on several starting assumptions which are largely unknowable. To date a specimen by radiometric means, one must first know the starting amount of the parent isotope at the beginning of the specimen's existence. Second, one must be certain that there were no daughter isotopes in the beginning. Third, one must be certain that neither parent nor daughter isotopes have ever been added or removed from the specimen. And fourth, one must be certain that the decay rate of parent isotope to daughter isotope has always been the same. That one or more of these assumptions are often invalid is obvious from the published radiometric "dates" (to say nothing of unpublished dates) found in the literature.

One of the most obvious problems is that several samples from the same location often give widely-divergent ages. Apollo moon samples, for example, were dated by both uranium-thorium-lead and potassium-argon methods, giving results which varied from 2 million to 28 billion years. Lava flows from volcanoes on the north rim of the Grand Canyon (which erupted after its formation) show potassium-argon dates a billion years "older" than the most ancient basement rocks at the bottom of the canyon. Lava from underwater volcanoes near Hawaii (that are known to have erupted in 1801 AD) have been "dated" by the potassium-argon method with results varying from 160 million to nearly 3 billion years. No wonder the laboratories that "date" rocks insist on knowing in advance the "evolutionary age" of the strata from which the samples were taken -- this way, they know which dates to accept as "reasonable" and which to ignore. Of one thing you may be sure: whenever "absolute" radiometric dates are in substantial disagreement with evolutionary assumptions about the age of associated fossils, the fossils always prevail.

As far as the plausibility of evolution is concerned, it really doesn't make any difference if the earth is 10 billion years old or 10 thousand years old. Indeed, if the whole of evolution were reduced to nothing more than the chance production of a single copy of any one biologically useful protein, there would be insufficient time and material in the known universe to make this even remotely likely. Time by itself simply does not make the hopeless evolutionary scenario of chance and natural selection more reasonable. Imagine if a child were to claim that he alone could build a Boeing 747 airplane from raw material in 10 seconds, and another were to claim he could do it in 10 days. Would we consider the later less foolish then the former, simply because he proposed spending nearly a million times more time at the task? Our Creator tells that "the fool has said in his heart, there is no God."

(c) 1997, David Menton Ph.D., professor emeritus, Washington University

[old-ager]

Climbing the "Ladder of Life" in the Grand Canyon

The walls of the 270-mile-long Grand Canyon in Arizona (photo, right) reveal 21 distinct layers of mostly sedimentary rock-the so-called geologic column. Presumably, or so an evolutionist would say, this pillar of succeeding layers, and the fossils contained therein, should reveal the progressive steps of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. But consider these facts:
- Some of the lower (and thus, evolutionists would assume, far older) layers of the column contain marine invertebrates commonly found today: oysters, clams, corals, worms, etc. In not a single case is there fossil evidence-either in these layers or in anything below them-to show what these creatures' presumed ancestors looked like; they appear all at once and fully formed.
- in the next two layers, going up, are found simple organisms (foraminifers, among others) thought to pre-date the more complex oysters, clams, etc., found below them. What are these simple, one-celled organisms doing in this higher stratum in the geologic column? So far, this "ladder of life," supposedly constructed over untold eons, would seem to be a one-rung affair.

- An amazing point: No one has ever found a single fossilized bone of any kind in the canyon. While the footprints of more than 20 species of amphibians and reptiles appear in the Supai, Hermit and Coconino layers of the column, there are no fossilized feet! No fossilized bones at all. One has to go to higher strata-and then not canyon strata at all but strata located several miles from the canyon-to find the bones of the tetrapods (four-legged animals) that could have made these prints.

Those who believe in Noah's Flood might suggest that the common occurrence of footprints in strata below those bearing the bodies themselves says something about how long those tetrapods could climb and tread water before drowning!

- Even more amazing: Those footprints are, in the main, heading hi the same direction-toward higher ground to the north! Are we to believe that for, say, 10 million years, the amphibians and reptiles inhabiting the canyon all walked in the same direction?

- The Kaibab Limestone layer, at the very top of the column, shows the only evidence to be found in the canyon of fossilized sponges! This is embarrassing to evolutionists, because sponges are believed to be the first multicellular organisms to have evolved on earth. If anything, they should be at the bottom, not the top, of things.

In a word, there is no evidence of evolutionary progress in the fossils of the Grand Canyon's geologic column (or any other column, for that matter). Evolutionists are well aware of this fact, though you would never guess it from the evolutionary indoctrination presented in public schools, zoos, museums, science centers and in the popular media.

David Menton Ph.D., professor emeritus, Washington University

[Dimensio]

Perhaps you could explain the difference between "religion and philosophy" masqurading as science and "actual verifiable science", though I predict that the former is "stuff that you don't want to believe" and that the latter is "stuff that you don't mind believing".

[RadioAstronomer]

As far as i know, gravity and orbital mechanics aren't theories. And yes, i have heard of the atom bomb, but thanks for the reminder.

Gravity is a theory. Orbital mechanics is an application of that theory.

But you're right. There are lots of scientists out there who are 'cranks', along with their theories. i happen to think evolution, along with the Big Bang theory, are bull.

How many years have you studied those subjects? You seem to know enough to dismiss them out of hand.

Could i be wrong? Yes. But so could the scientists. The post i was respoding to expressed a general criticism of the way scientists base their theories when it comes to things like evolution, and i agreed.

Evolution is the best model we have to date that describes the diversity of life on this planet.

If you can give me any proof at all of the Big Bang Theory (i think that's the most ridiculous), i have to say i might be willing to change that opinion

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a good start. See here:

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bbtest3.html

[old-ager]

> explain the difference between "religion and philosophy" masquerading as science and "actual verifiable science"

Only things that can be tested by a physical experiment are science. Learn what the scientific method is.