Posted on 08/28/2012 11:53:12 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Bill Nye used to be “The Science Guy” on PBS. Now he’s just a godless hater.
The former host of the “educational” TV show targeted to preteens, which aired from 1993 to 1998, said this week that those of us who believe that God created man and woman are idiots. And that we ought not pass along that belief to our children.
“I say to the grownups,” Nye condescended, “if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, your world that’s inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it.”
Because, said Nye, who places his faith in Darwin, rather than God, “We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.”
As I considered Nye’s remarks, I wondered if he passed along his thoughts on evolution to Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, who presided over The Science Guy’s quicky marriage back in 2006 (which lasted a mere seven weeks before ending in a decidedly weird, decidedly ugly breakup).
What does it say about Nye’s integrity that he stood before a pastor who absolutely believes the creation story set forth in the Book of Genesis; that he exchanged marriage vows with his seven-week bride before a God in Whom he doesn’t believe?
Yet, he presumes to tell the rest of us what we should teach our children.
And while Nye may be scientifically “literate,” notwithstanding that he has no formal scientific education, he is not nearly as infallible as he makes himself out to be.
Just last year, in fact, The Science Guy demonstrated his scientific shortcomings when he appeared on CNN to discuss damage sustained by a Japanese nuclear plant in the wake of a devastating earthquake and tsunami.
Nye stated, incorrectly, that cesium is used to “slow and control” the nuclear reaction. But as any nuclear scientist would tell him, cesium is a nuclear fission product, not a control rod material.
Nye also stated, incorrectly, that the nuclear reactor involved in the Three Mile Island accident was still online.
And The Science Guy erred in telling CNN viewers that use of boron to slow the nuclear reaction is uncommon, when, in fact, boron-10 is commonly used in control rods and is circulated in the coolant of most, if not all, reactors in this country.
Now, the average CNN viewer could not be expected to know these things. But Nye, the so-called Science Guy, should have known better. Especially if he was going to discuss the subject on national TV.
It obviously doesn’t occur to Nye that, if he was dead wrong on nuclear energy, he could be just as wrong on evolution.
Otherwise the former Science Guy wouldn’t be so contemptuous of those of who are not scientific illiterates; who simply find less believable the science-fiction that ape transmogrified into man, than the Bible’s explanation that all-powerful God created man.
You aren’t asserting that a classification construct like a biological taxonomy is actually evidence that humans developed from apes through some sort of evolutionary process no one can quite put their figure on.
I don't pretend to be able to explain everything in existence. I do however have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and I would be showing a grave contempt for my Maker to deny my need for Him and the sacrifice on the cross that was born to save me from my sins.
The thing I find most distasteful about those who push macro evolution is the arrogance and unwillingness to even acknowledge the problems with what still remains a THEORY.
Educational institutions have been successfully “Alinskied” from what I can tell. The very places that purport to embrace diversity and the espousal of unpopular viewpoints very often will punish or fire any scientist on staff that dares to even question what still remains only a theory.
The effect is that any scientist who concludes that intelligent design is a good explanation for the world around us is reluctant (at best) to ever voice such an opinion. The academic environment surrounding this issue has become toxic and has essentially shut down any meaningful debate.
Children are taught that they are highly evolved animals at young ages then people are surprised when they act like animals. It's actually pretty sad that there can't even be an honest debate on this issue. And it really has become pointless to argue about it with them.
Historical science - aka science attempting to re-create history.
Maybe you should re-visit the scientific method. How are you able to repeat experimentally what evolution claims has happened in thousands, millions, and billions of years? NOT gonna happen - ever.
Also where is one allowed to ignore and discard data that contradicts a favored theory. There’s bias and then there’s just plain prejudice!
Finally if you could follow the money then you could begin to see the vast amount of money that has compromised evolutionary science. ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’ and from all my research I’d have to conclude the dinosaurs most likely went extinct during the ice age that immediately followed Noah’s flood. 99.9% of all life forms that ever roamed the Earth are now extinct and a high percentage of those most likely could not adapt quickly enough to the extreme conditions that followed a global flood.
But, of course, your mileage may vary depending upon what you read and who you choose to believe esp if you choose to only research one side of any given argument...
Well stated.
The biggest problem for evolutionists is not creation science, it is simple basic mathematics. Mathematicians who study evolution overwhelming conclude that not billions [nor even trillions] of years are sufficient for these ridiculous claims to have a chance of ever happening.
Not too mention how they now omit the abiogenesis of life. DNA does not write itself - even a one-celled organism is more complex than any system of computer code. And the chances of a good mutation are far out-weighed by an accumulation of bad mutations that will kill any/all life forms before they can ever begin to macro-evolve. Current DNA research pegs this at 20,000 years tops before all life forms go extinct.
From creation.com - top ten natural clocks...
” Biological evidence for a young age of the earth
1. DNA in “ancient” fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.
2. Lazarus bacteria—bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, suggest the salt is not millions of years old. See also Salty saga.
3. The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the interview with the author in Creation 30(4):45–47,September 2008. This has been confirmed by realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J., Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel’s Accountant: A biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program, SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007.
4. The data for “mitochondrial Eve” are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago.
5. Very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromosome around the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands not millions of years.
6. Many fossil bones “dated” at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized, if at all. This contradicts the widely believed old age of the earth. See, for example, Dinosaur bones just how old are they really?
7. Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (hemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen) are not consistent with their supposed age, but make more sense if the remains are young.
8. Lack of 50:50 racemization of amino acids in fossils “dated” at millions of years old, whereas complete racemization would occur in thousands of years.
9. Living fossils—jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites, Wollemi pine and hundreds more. That many hundreds of species could remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being real.
10. Discontinuous fossil sequences. E.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi pine and various “index” fossils, which are present in supposedly ancient strata, missing in strata representing many millions of years since, but still living today. Such discontinuities speak against the interpretation of the rock formations as vast geological ages—how could Coelacanths have avoided being fossilized for 65 million years, for example? See The “Lazarus effect”: rodent “resurrection”!”
But wait. I thought all of the creatures on Earth died in the flood except the ones on the arc. And if that is the case then how come there has never been a human skeleton found with a dinosaur skeleton. Seems to me if the dinosaurs died in the flood and were alive at the same time as men then we would find fossils of both together.
Yea you and I both know that but it has nothing to do with the fact that the evolutionist will just resort to the old “every scientist agrees that evolution is a fact and anyone who disagrees is an idiot.”
It’s like having an argument with a 5 year old that has a bit of a more developed vocabulary. I quit arguing with people about this years ago. It is a religion for most of these people. To abandon that belief would force them to deal with very serious eternal consequences of their present lives.
You going by what other people say about the Bible, or what you’ve read yourself of it?
So that’s your best argument against creation and for evolution? Really?! Please consider how much current animal populations and eco-systems are uniquely arranged with most any species typically avoiding man other than a few domesticated animals. There are plenty of answers in the links I provided in prior posts.
From creationscience.com...
” Liquefaction: The Origin of Strata and Layered Fossils
SUMMARY: Liquefaction—associated with quicksand, earthquakes, and wave action—played a major role in rapidly sorting sediments, plants, and animals during the flood. Indeed, the worldwide presence of sorted fossils and sedimentary layers shows that a gigantic global flood occurred. Massive liquefaction also left other diagnostic features such as cross-bedded sandstone, plumes, mounds, and fossilized footprints.
Sedimentary rocks are distinguished by sharply-defined layers, called strata. Fossils almost always lie within such layers. Fossils and strata, seen globally, have many unusual characteristics. A little-known and poorly-understood phenomenon called liquefaction explains these characteristics. It also explains why we do not see fossils and strata forming on a large scale today...
Quicksand. Quicksand is a simple example of liquefaction. Spring-fed water flowing up through sand creates quicksand. The upward flowing water lifts the sand grains very slightly, surrounding each grain with a thin film of water. This cushioning gives quicksand, and other liquefied sediments, a spongy, fluidlike texture.3
Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood films, a person or animal stepping into deep quicksand will not sink out of sight forever. They will quickly sink in—but only so far. Then they will be lifted, or buoyed up, by a force equal to the weight of the sand and water displaced. The more they sink in, the greater the lifting force. Buoyancy forces also lift a person floating in a swimming pool. However, quicksand’s buoyancy is almost twice that of water, because the weight of the displaced sand and water is almost twice that of water alone. As we will see, fluidlike sediments produced a buoyancy that largely explains why fossils show a degree of vertical sorting and why sedimentary rocks all over the world are typically so sharply layered.
Earthquakes. Liquefaction is frequently seen during, and even minutes after, earthquakes. During the Alaskan Good Friday earthquake of 1964, liquefaction caused most of the destruction within Anchorage, Alaska. Much of the damage during the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 resulted from liquefaction. Although geologists can describe the consequences of liquefaction, few seem to understand why it happens. Levin describes it as follows:
Often during earthquakes, fine-grained water-saturated sediments may lose their former strength and form into a thick mobile mudlike material. The process is called liquefaction. The liquefied sediment not only moves about beneath the surface but may also rise through fissures and “erupt” as mud boils and mud “volcanoes.” 4
Liquefaction was captured on film after the 9.0 Japanese earthquake on 11 March 2011. In a city park built over a landfill in what was part of Tokyo Bay, subsurface water that had been trapped in the sediment’s pore spaces is seen erupting through cracks produced by the swelling of the land.[See www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3hJK1BoRak, and www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x_kS3Bm6fA&feature=related.]
Strahler says that in a severe earthquake:
... the ground shaking reduces the strength of earth material on which heavy structures rest. Parts of many major cities, particularly port cities, have been built on naturally occurring bodies of soft, unconsolidated clay-rich sediment (such as the delta deposits of a river) or on filled areas in which large amounts of loose earth materials have been dumped to build up the land level. These water-saturated deposits often experience a change in property known as liquefaction when shaken by an earthquake. The material loses strength to the degree that it becomes a highly fluid mud, incapable of supporting buildings, which show severe tilting or collapse.5
These are accurate descriptions of liquefaction, but they do not explain why it occurs. When we understand the mechanics of liquefaction, we will see that liquefaction occurred globally—for weeks or months during the flood.
Visualize a box filled with many rocks. If the box were so full that you could not quite close its lid, you would shake the box, so the rocks settled into a denser packing arrangement. Now repeat this thought experiment, only this time all space between the rocks is filled with water. As you shake the box and the rocks settle into a denser packing arrangement, water will be forced up to the top by the “falling” rocks. If the box is tall, many rocks will settle, so the force of the rising water will increase. The tall column of rocks will also provide great resistance to the upward flow, increasing the water’s pressure even more. Water pressure will exert a lifting force on the rocks for as long as the upward flow continues.6
This is similar to an earthquake in a region having loose, water-saturated sediments. Once upward-flowing water lifts the topmost sediments, weight is removed from the sediments below. The upward flow can then lift the second level of sediments. This, in turn, unburdens the particles beneath them, etc. The particles are no longer in solid-to-solid contact, but are suspended in and lubricated by water, so they can easily slip by each other.
Wave-Loading—A Small Example. You are barefoot, walking along the beach. As each wave comes in, water rises from the bottom of your feet to your knees. When the wave returns to the sea, the sand beneath your feet becomes loose and mushy. As your feet sink in, walking becomes difficult. This temporarily mushy sand, familiar to most of us, is a small example of liquefaction.
Why does this happen? Below each wave, water is forced down into the sand. As the wave returns to the sea, the water forced into the sand gushes back out. In doing so, it lifts the topmost sand particles, forming the mushy mixture.
If you submerged yourself face down under breaking waves but just above the seafloor, you would see sand particles rise slightly above the floor as each wave trough approached. Water just above the sand floor also moves back and forth horizontally with each wave cycle. Fortunately, the current moves toward the beach as liquefaction lifts sand particles above the floor. So, sand particles are continually nudged upslope, toward the beach. If this did not happen, beaches would not be sandy.7
Wave-Loading—Medium-Sized Examples. During a storm, as large waves pass over pipes buried offshore, water pressure increases above them. This forces more water into the porous sediments surrounding the pipes. As the wave peaks pass and the wave troughs approach, pressure over the pipes drops, and the stored, high-pressure water in the sediments flows upward. This lifts the sediments and causes liquefaction. The buried pipes, “floating” upward, sometimes break.8
Wave-Loading—A Large Example. On 18 November 1929, an earthquake struck the continental slope off the coast of Newfoundland. Minutes later, transatlantic phone cables began breaking sequentially, farther and farther downslope, away from the epicenter. Twelve cables were snapped in a total of 28 places. Exact times and locations were recorded for each break. Investigators suggested that a 60-mile-per-hour current of muddy water swept 400 miles down the continental slope from the earthquake’s epicenter, snapping the cables.9
This event intrigued geologists. If thick muddy flows could travel that fast and far, they could erode long submarine canyons and do other geological work. Such hypothetical flows, called turbidity currents, now constitute a large field of study within geology. However, there are several problems with this 60-mile-per-hour, turbidity-current explanation:
water resistance prevents even conventional nuclear-powered submarines from traveling nearly that fast,
the ocean floor in that area off the coast of Newfoundland slopes less than 2 degrees,
some broken cables were upslope from the earthquake’s epicenter, and
nothing approaching a 400-mile landslide has ever been observed—let alone on only a 2-degree slope or underwater.
Instead, a large wave, a tsunami,10 would have rapidly radiated out from the earthquake’s epicenter. Below the expanding wave, sediments on the seafloor would have partially liquefied, allowing them to flow downhill.11 This relatively slow flow of liquefied sediments loaded and eventually snapped only those cable segments that were perpendicular to the downhill flow. Other details support this explanation.
We can now see that liquefaction occurs whenever water is forced up through loose sediments with enough pressure to lift the topmost sedimentary particles. Now let’s look at a gigantic example of liquefaction, caused by many weeks of global wave-loading.”
I think denying evolution helps neither Christians nor conservatives. It’s been proven that change in species (including humans) happens; but that fact in no way negates belief in God, Jesus, limited government, The Second Amendment, the Constitution, etc. See Pope John Paul II, a devout Christian and enemy of communism who acknowledged evolution.
I understand the concept of liquefaction. But there is a very important context that you are dropping. That is the Age of the strata. We can date them using carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 dating can and has been validated as a means of establishing the age of materials such as rocks. By validated I mean shown time and again to be accurate as a measuring method.
I have already stated clearly that The theory of Evolution does not have all the answers but we don’t have to know everything about how life formed and changed to know that what we do know so far is true.
These facts are sufficient to invalidate the bible account of the creation, in my opinion.
Now I have no problem with the concepts of creationism being taught right along side The theory of evolution so long as students are taught facts. The only fact you can teach about creationism is that many people believe it and that the only evidence that can be cited is the organization of the universe. The bible can not be taught as fact in my opinion. Teach the full context of the knowledge that we know so far and let people decide for themselves. I don’t see teaching scientific facts as an attempt to turn people against religion unless that religion doesn’t stand to reason.
Your ‘facts’ though are not necessarily so. It’s not so much an indictment of what you were taught or even how thoroughly, rather what facts were discarded, explained away or belittled as unimportant.
As Paul Harvey loved to tell - ‘the rest of the story’ - this is something the liberal main stream press does all the time. So what makes anyone think the highly regarded degreed university professors don’t practice this same deceptive art - much of the time not even consciously aware they are doing so b/c those other pesky facts just don’t fit in their worldview. A worldview that more often than not that completely disregards the Holy Bible.
Carbon dating only goes back 50,000 years or so, for older dates science relies on radioactive isotope dating methods - neither method is free of assumptions [namely uniform decay rates, starting conditions and unknown and/or untestable conditions that would adversely affect the uniform decay rates] - these are some very key assumptions!
A blind radio isotope test from Mt. St. Helens 1980 eruption showed some very intriguing results where they thought the magma heated rock would cause a natural clock to be reset for the ratios of father and daughter elements but the blind test produced some ages in the millions of years.
Furthermore, the age of the strata is approximated by ‘index’ fossils and the ‘index’ fossils i.e dinosaurs supposedly tell them the approximate age of the strata - I do hope you see the problem here - they’re using circular logic.
Or google plutonium halos.
Also Dr. Walt Brown provides a carbon dating graph that explains what can happen to skew the carbon dating results when science overlooks a key event whereby almost 100% of the carbon-based life forms are buried in situ with a catastrophic global event i.e. Noah’s Flood.
Last, you can disparage the Bible all you want but it is a very unique book with many unique claims that only God could assemble [behind the scenes of course] where Jewish prophets were inspired to record these Holy Words. Besides the prophetic nature, and the scientific facts described by the Bible [see my links page] it is also the only history book in the world where archeological finds that intersect with it’s history are 100% in agreement.
We can go as deep as you want on any of these topics with creationscience.com which references hundreds of other researchers and authors of some very compelling facts - unfortunately I fear you really and truly do not want [so I post anyway for the lurkers and smirkers to investigate the other side of the story.
Correction polonium halos not plutonium...
from creationscience.com [reference numbers 57 through 73 removed to improve readability - although the online books provides a much better presentation - this is just ot whet ones appetite.]
Isolated Polonium Halos. We can think of the eight alpha decays from 238U to 206Pb as the spaces between nine rungs on a generational ladder. Each alpha decay leads to the radioisotope on the ladder’s next lower rung. The last three alpha decays are of the chemical element polonium (Po): 218Po, 214Po, and 210Po. Their half-lives are extremely short: 3.1 minutes, 0.000164 second, and 138 days, respectively.
However, polonium radiohalos are often found without their parents or any other prior generation! How could that be? Didn’t they have parents? Radon-222 (222Rn) is on the rung immediately above the three polonium isotopes, but the 222Rn halo is missing. Because 222Rn decays with a half-life of only 3.8 days, its halo should be found with the polonium halos. Or should it?
Dr. Robert V. Gentry, the world’s leading researcher on radiohalos, has proposed the following explanation for this mystery. He notes that halos cannot form in a liquid, so they could not have formed while the rock was solidifying from a molten state. Furthermore, any polonium in the molten rock would have decayed long before the liquid could cool enough to solidify. Therefore, those rocks did not cool and solidify over eons, as is commonly taught! Gentry believes that a solid rock containing polonium must have been created instantly—on Day 1 of the creation; within days, the polonium decayed and formed isolated (parentless) halos.
Gentry’s explanation has four problems. First, to form a distinct 218Po halo, about a billion 218Po atoms, concentrated near a point, must undergo heat-releasing alpha decays, half of which would occur within 3.1 minutes. The great heat generated in such a tiny volume in just 3.1 minutes would have easily melted and erased that entire halo. Not only did melting not occur, had the temperature of the halo ever exceeded 300°F (150°C) the alpha tracks would have been erased (annealed). Obviously, an efficient heat removal mechanism, which will soon be explained, had to have acted.
Second, polonium has 33 known radioisotopes, but only three (218Po, 214Po, and 210Po) account for almost all the isolated polonium halos. Those three are produced only by the 238U decay series, and 238U is often found near isolated polonium halos. Why would only those three isotopes be created instantly on Day 1? This seems unlikely. Instead, something produced by only the 238U decay series (which, as you will see, turns out to be 222Rn) accounts for the isolated polonium halos.
Third, Henderson and Sparks, while doing their pioneering work on isolated polonium halos in 1939, made an important discovery: they found that the centers of those halos, at least those in the biotite “books” they examined, were usually concentrated in certain “sheets” inside the biotite. (Biotite, like other micas, consists of thin “sheets” that children enjoy peeling off as if the layers were sheets in a book.)
In most cases it appears that they [the centers of the isolated halos] are concentrated in planes parallel to the plane of cleavage. When a book of biotite is split into thin leaves, most of the latter will be blank until a certain depth is reached, when signs of halos become manifest. A number of halos will then be found in a central section in a single leaf, while the leaves on either side of it show off-centre sections of the same halos. The same mode of occurrence is often found at intervals within the book.
This implies that polonium atoms or their 222Rn parent flowed between sheets and frequently lodged in channel walls as those mineral sheets were growing. In other words, the polonium was not created inside solid rock.
Fourth, isolated polonium halos are sometimes found in intrusions—injections of magma (now solidified) that cut up through layered strata, even layers containing fossils. These strata were laid down during the flood, long after the creation. Sometime later, the magma cut through the layers, then slowly cooled and solidified. Only then could polonium halos form. Halos could not have formed minutes or days after the creation.
On 23 October 1987, after giving a lecture at Waterloo University near Toronto, Ontario, I was approached by amateur geologist J. Richard Wakefield, who offered to show me a similar intrusion. The site was inside a mine, about 150 miles to the northeast near Bancroft, Ontario, where Bob Gentry had obtained some samples of isolated polonium halos. I accepted and called my friend Bob Gentry to invite him to join us. Several days later, he flew in from Tennessee and, along with an impartial geologist who specialized in that region of Ontario, we went to the mine. Although we could not gain access into the mine, we all agreed that the intrusion cut up through the sedimentary layers.
Gentry concluded (while we were there and in later writings66) that the sedimentary layers with solid intrusions must have been created supernaturally with 218Po, 214Po, and 210Po already present (but no other polonium isotopes present). Then the 218Po, 214Po, and 210Po decayed minutes or days later. Unfortunately, I had to disagree with my friend; the heat generated would have melted the entire halo. Besides, I am convinced that those sedimentary layers were laid down during the flood, so the intrusions came long after the creation. [See “Liquefaction: The Origin of Strata and Layered Fossils” on pages 186–197.] Since 1987, isolated polonium halos have been reported in other flood deposits.
Dr. Lorence G. Collins has a different explanation for the polonium mystery. He first made several perceptive observations. The most important was that strange wormlike patterns were in “all of the granites in which Gentry found polonium halos.” Those microscopic patterns, each about 1 millimeter long, resembled almost parallel “underground ant tunnels” and were typically filled with two minerals common in granite: quartz and plagioclase [PLA-jee-uh-clase] feldspars, specifically sodium feldspars. The granite had not melted, nor had magma been present. The rock that contains these wormlike patterns is called myrmekite [MUR-muh-kite]. Myrmekites have intrigued geologists and mineralogists since 1875. Collins admits that he does not know why myrmekite is associated with isolated polonium halos in granites. You soon will.
Collins notes that those halos, in addition to being near uranium deposits, tend to be in two minerals (biotite and fluorite) in granitic pegmatites [PEG-muh-tites] and in biotite in granite when myrmekites are present. (Pegmatites will soon be described. Biotite, fluorite, and pegmatites form out of hot water solutions in cracks in rocks.) Collins also knows that radon (Rn) inside the earth’s crust is a gas; under such high pressures, it readily dissolves in hot water. Because radon is inert, it can move freely through solid cracks without combining chemically with minerals lining the walls of those cracks.
Collins correctly concludes that “voluminous” amounts of hot, 222Rn-rich water must have surged up through sheared and fractured rocks. When 222Rn decayed, 218Po formed. Collins insights end there, but they raise six questions.
a. What was the source of all that hot, flowing water, and how could it flow so rapidly up through rock?
b. Why was the water 222Rn rich?
c. Because halos are found in different geologic periods, did all this remarkable activity occur repeatedly, but at intervals of millions of years? If so, how?
d. What concentrated a billion or so 218Po atoms at each microscopic speck that became the center of an isolated polonium halo? Why wasn’t the 218Po dispersed?
e. Today’s extremely slow decay of 238U (with a half-life of 4.5 billion years) means that its daughters, granddaughters, etc. today form slowly. Were these microscopic specks the favored resting places for 218Po for billions of years, or did the decay rate of 238U somehow spike just before all that hot water flowed? Remember, 218Po decays today with a half-life of only 3.1 minutes.
f. Why are isolated polonium halos associated with parallel and aligned myrmekite that resembles tiny ant tunnels?
Later, the answers, based on the hydroplate theory, will be given.
I agree with your post. The proven change in species is referred to as natural adaptation [sometimes called micro-evolution]. What is often over-looked [besides the sheer complexities of DNA/rNA] is that most likely these micro-changes had to be pre-programmed into the DNA too. In other words each life form has certain traits and characteristics that can be turned off and back on as changing conditions require.
These are fairly important concepts because not only do they indicate an intelligent designer they also indicate a designer who could anticipate these changing needs ahead of time or rather outside of time itself. Almost as if just maybe this Designer, or God if you will, - gasp - created not only these complex inter-dependent life forms but the physical natures of space and time too - ex nihilo or out of nothing! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
I have been thinking about your post all day. I found your article very interesting. I note that the person drawing the conclusions believes that the fossil layers were laid down in the great flood so he is biased. I don’t know whether these conclusions are valid or not. I don’t have time to read every article and study out there however I don’t need to.
I am going to come at this from an epistemological viewpoint. So for argument’s sake I’ll concede that these findings are true. And that even if these conclusions are true they could not and would not invalidate the conclusions that the Earth is billions of years old for this reason: Any knowledge that has been validated by logic, that is integrated into our preceding knowledge without contradiction, is true. It is an absolute within that context. Within that context we can be certain of the truth of our conclusions. We may make discoveries that broaden the context of our knowledge but these new data can not invalidate this previously validated knowledge. This is not my opinion, this is a law of existence. The base of reason and logic is the axiom that existence exists. A is A. Contrary to popular opinion each new discovery does not wipe out all previous knowledge. By the nature of existence a contradiction can not exist.
The Earth is ancient. It is around 4.5 billion years old. This has been verified with multiple methods and they all point to this conclusion. The age of the universe and the Earth have been validated through radiometric measurements, the speed of light, and the expansion of the universe. We have also drilled into Ice caps in Antarctica and we know that the ice caps are at least 740,000 years old because we can count the layers laid down each winter. Because the half lives of radioactive elements are known and validated by multiple means, the speed of light is known and validated, The Doppler effect is known and verified, we can be certain of the age of the Earth to within a 100 billion years or so. It’s old. We can date these layers of rock very accurately and they were not laid down all at once in a great flood. They were not created in a day or even a year.
So if these Polonium halos appear to contradict this previous knowledge then that means that we are missing some knowledge to explain the phenomenon but it does not invalidate the previous measurements of the age of the Earth.
It is just not arguable, in my opinion, that the Earth is not in the range of 4.5 billion years old.
We know that the Earth is older, much older, than the story of Genesis claims. Some argue that the story in Genesis is allegorical but The lives of Adam and all his descendants are given, to the day, so we can calculate it. There is nothing in Genesis to suggest that god days are longer than a human days. It is very specific in stating that there was a morning and an evening each day. So we know there is already one element of the story which is untrue.
But that is not all. The fossil record also gives us a chronology of the appearance of different forms of animals which also contradicts The story in Genesis. So the two parts of the story which can be tested are false. Add to that the fact that there are two different versions of the creation that are different.
I hold that a book that claims to be the divine revelation of the word of God would not contain one word that wasn’t true. Period. And it does.
But even if I am wrong and the Earth really isn’t that old and it turns out the animals appeared precisely as it is told in Genesis there are more problems. The claims of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, the garden of Eden, the serpent, the flaming sword and Noah’s arc are completely arbitrary and cannot be validated through reason. They properly, in logic, should not even be considered. They are outside the realm of cognition. They are unfalsifiable. They can not be validated by logic and must be accepted on faith. The central premises of the entire religion are based on such arbitrary claims.
Unlike the claims of the Bible the logically verified scientific claims can be taken backwards step by step through the hierarchy of knowledge all the way back to the fundamental axiom that existence exists and that A is A. You can claim that logic is not valid but not without denying existence.
Now, if you can refute my logic I would be very happy to hear it.
I originally responded to this thread because I believe that Bill Nye was right to call those who do not want Evolution taught in schools “deniers”. The notion that facts of reality should be withheld in order to protect the irrational beliefs of a religion is an abomination and a contradiction of the purpose of education.
Science only ‘knows’ what it ‘knows’ until a large enough collection of other contradictory information causes them the re-evaluate the ‘sure’ and ‘solid’ conclusions of prior generations en mass. There are no more flat earthers lurking about [to my knowledge] but that has not stopped the ‘re-arranging of deck chairs’ about the story versions, nor claimed authors and origins.
In case that last post seemed like a bit of a cop out - not at all. Just don’t have a lot of time free here and now.
If you accept an expanding universe and a defined beginning you can easily begin to see that many laws, limits and uniform decay rates could have easily been broken during extreme conditions of the creation week allowing for the appearance of a very old universe. This is especially so when evaluating starlight and radio-active elements.
Consider:
Day 1 ~ approx 7-8 billion years of apparent age
2 ~ 3.5 to 4
3 ~ 1.75 to 2
4 ~ 0.875 to 1
5 ~ 0.437 to 0.5
6 ~ 0.218 to 0.25
Totaling 13.7 to 15.75 billion years of apparent age during creation week. So far there is not a single scientific argument referenced on these posts that has not been discussed and explained in the links supplied previously and also on my FR homepage. But that will require much time and lots of reading, researching and analyzing.
No. Science only Knows that which has been proven by logic. If future knowledge was constantly undermining previous VALIDATED Knowledge then we could know nothing. Are you saying that we can know nothing? If so you are invalidating man’s consciousness. Please explain how man’s consciousness is invalid.
You can can not do that without invalidating your own argument. Existence, Identity, Consciousness are the three most fundamental principles of all knowledge. You can not deny any one of them without accepting and using them. But try if you want to.
The reason that the flatness of the Earth was overturned is That it was never true to begin with. It could not be validated by logic.
Now refute my logic please.
No I can not. There is no evidence that any of those laws of nature can be broken during extreme conditions. That is another arbitrary claim which can not even be considered. The fact that the universe is expanding has been validated by logic. By fundamental laws of physics. Are you saying that the laws of physics are not absolutes? There is no basis in reason to believe that the age of the Earth is only apparent and not an absolute.
I accept that the universe exists, has always existed and is eternal. Existence exists and only existence exists. You can’t even consider what existed before anything existed. Existence exists and that’s that. It is self evident and you can only accept it or deny it. Existence is an irreducible primary. Existence is eternal because time is a part of existence. Time exists for all of existence, Therefore existence exists for all of time so it can not be anything other than eternal. Now the law of causality says that all actions are caused by entities but not that all entities have causes. So asking what caused existence is an improper question. It just is. Any cause for existence would have to be antecedent to or outside of existence. But we can no nothing about that which is outside of existence. Man’s consciousness is the faculty for perceiving that which exists. We can speculate all we want to but that is all it will be, Just as all of the arbitrary claims of the bible and of every other religion which has ever existed are.
Recently there was a lot of excitement among scientists because they believed they had observed neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. But, A is A and the speed of light is an absolute. The contradiction proved to be an error in the math. The speed of light and the laws of physics stand.
All of the scientific arguments posted in this thread may have been extensively discussed and explained but that does not make them valid. So please, won’t you refute the fundamental principles in my previous post and now this one?
Bill Nye is an idiot who has bought into his own PR. His choice to beat on a straw man is a good indicator of what lies beneath the surface, how paper thin his 'science' credentials are.
Attacking the religious fringe might get him lots of press but does nothing to validate his science credentials.
Real scientists, biologists, molecular biologists, Physicists, chemists and geneticists all agree that life is much more complex than random chance is capable of producing, even if we agree that earth evolution timeline is infinite, which it is not.
Aside from that, except for the koranimals worldwide, most educated, normal human beings worldwide do not believe that the earth is 6000 years old, whether deeply religious or not.
Like most secular ignoramuses, he picks on nits and ignores the big picture.
Global warming?
Sheesh!
That he has chosen to become a stooge of the most science ignorant administration in history is all that needs to be said. One illustrations should be sufficient...
There was a team of Obama people speaking to Mr. C. (engineer, automotive experience of 40+ years, and Chairman of CAR). They were explaining to Mr. C. that the auto companies needed to make a car that was electric and liquid natural gas (LNG) with enough combined fuel to go 500 miles so we wouldn't "need" so many gas stations (a whole other topic). They were quoting BTUs of LNG and battery life that they had looked up on some website.
Mr. C. explained that to do this you would need a TRUNK FULL of batteries and a LNG tank as big as the car to make that happen, and that there were problems related to the laws of physics that prevented them from...
The Obama person interrupted and said (and I am quoting here):
"These laws of physics? Whose rules are those? We need to change that."
(Some of the others wrote down the law so they could look it up later.)
"We have the congress and administration. We can repeal that law, amend it, or use an executive order to get rid of that problem. That's why we are here, to fix these sort of issues."
.......And these are the people who are going to fix healthcare.
And stop the rising oceans; and have all koranimals worldwide singing Kum-ba-ya, if only the 'Great Uniter had one more term... or three or four!
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