Dinosaur Shocker (YEC say dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years)

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | May 1, 2006 | Helen Fields

[js1138]

Genocide, hatred, warfare, etc, have been around as long as we have recorded history, and probably before. Even your Bible talks about it.

Even God dabbles in genocide when it's convenient. Either directly or through His minions.

[Liberal Classic]

I saw "The Ring." It was more about an evil video tape. If you watched the tape, the ghost came and got you. The movie I was thinking about was called "White Noise" and was about people contacting the dead by turning the TV to an unused channel and listening to static to hear voices. The idea is ghosts can talk over radio signals, so if you listen hard enough to static, you'll hear words. Our brains are excellent at finding patterns. So good, in fact, that sometimes we'll perceive patterns when there aren't any. Examples might be clouds that look like animals, an image of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, a potato that looks like Elvis, or hearing ghosts talk through the TV or radio.

[Right Wing Professor]

I knew what it was, but I didn't know what it was called. Thanks!

[Quark2005]

Doesn't science frown on hand-waving?

It certainly does. That's why, in practice, several radiometric dating methods involving elements with different half-lives are used. One such example (from here):

Some of the oldest rocks on earth are found in Western Greenland. Because of their great age, they have been especially well studied. The table below gives the ages, in billions of years, from twelve different studies using five different techniques on one particular rock formation in Western Greenland, the Amitsoq gneisses.

Technique	Age Range (billion years)
uranium-lead	3.60±0.05
lead-lead	3.56±0.10
lead-lead	3.74±0.12
lead-lead	3.62±0.13
rubidium-strontium	3.64±0.06
rubidium-strontium	3.62±0.14
rubidium-strontium	3.67±0.09
rubidium-strontium	3.66±0.10
rubidium-strontium	3.61±0.22
rubidium-strontium	3.56±0.14
lutetium-hafnium	3.55±0.22
samarium-neodymium	3.56±0.20
(compiled from Dalrymple, 1991)

Note that scientists give their results with a stated uncertainty. They take into account all the possible errors and give a range within which they are 95% sure that the actual value lies. The top number, 3.60±0.05, refers to the range 3.60+0.05 to 3.60-0.05. The size of this range is every bit as important as the actual number. A number with a small uncertainty range is more accurate than a number with a larger range. For the numbers given above, one can see that all of the ranges overlap and agree between 3.62 and 3.65 billion years as the age of the rock. Several studies also showed that, because of the great ages of these rocks, they have been through several mild metamorphic heating events that disturbed the ages given by potassium-bearing minerals (not listed here). As pointed out earlier, different radiometric dating methods agree with each other most of the time, over many thousands of measurements. Other examples of agreement between a number of different measurements of the same rocks are given in the references below..

If the 'system integrity' of the rock sample had been violated in the distant past (which can indeed happen), these differing methods would show wildly disparate results, not the consistency seen here; as many of the isotopes do not have the same half-life, nor are samples taken from the same region of the rock, nor is the same experimental methodology used in each case; there is no way these differing dating methods could all erroneously collude to the exact same convergence point.

[Antonello]

You are certain that it is a fraud. Let's stipulate that it is not properly documented, at least as far as we know. How might that rock have been artificially created?

No, actually, I'm not sure it is a fraud. It is impossible to verify or debunk because it was never produced for examination. All that is available is photos taken by Don Patton, and his account of the circumstances - namely that the mean old ranchers around the site barred his reentry and wouldn't let him take the rock out:

"Access to this track is through five separate privately owned ranches. This track is about two hours from the nearest public road, at about 8,000 feet. We (Don Shocky, Dr. Baugh and myself) obtained a mining permit with a view to collecting the track for museum display. Of course, we thoroughly documented the track, by means of stereo photography, diagrams and casts. The matrix proved to be extremely hard. It wore out 13 concrete saw blades. Subsequent laboratory test indicated it was "limestone" with 30% silica.

At this point the owner of the ranch adjacent to this BLM property appeared on the scene. He was very disturbed that we were removing the track and insisted that we leave. We had an official permit but he had the shotgun and won the very brief argument. His friends own the ranches through which one must pass to access the site. He and his friends have been absolutely unyielding in their determination to make sure no one comes close.

We tried, through the intercession of another friend of his, to no avail. This intercessor was able to go to the site and photograph this track and at least four others within a few hundred feet. I personally saw a photograph that he took of a right left sequence of four tracks that looked identical to the one we tried to excavate. However, his antagonistic friend made him promise not to allow the photograph to be duplicated or published. Perhaps you can imagine our frustration, but I doubt it.

A potential breakthrough has developed recently and we have reason to believe we will be allowed back on the property this year. That's all I should say at the moment. It is not time to stir up the opposition at the moment. I do believe that time will come soon.

Now something I would be very interested in, and as far as I can find has never been substantiated, is the details on the lab tests he claims were run on samples of that rock. Interestingly enough he claims that the results showed that the rock was limestone which I believe would be the aquatic portion of the shoreline where the trackways were created. Jerry MacDonald's discoveries were not in the limestone but rather in the mudstone that was the land side of the shoreline. For good reason - the tracks on the shore were preserved by successive layers of silty tidal deposits, while any underwater tracks (such as this human-like 'aquaman' print) would never survive long enough to be preserved by additional layers. But enough about the Zapata Track. On to the rest of your post....

You are quoting an often cited portion of that Smithsonian article, but I am curious if you have ever actually read the entire thing. If so, you might have missed the paragraph immediately after the one where the reporter suggests some tracks look bearlike:

MacDonald feels there must be a plausible explanation. These may be creatures whose gaits are unknown, or an animal's back feet may have obliterated its front footprints, or a running five-toed animal may have grazed the mud with only its middle three digits, then been gobbled up on the hoof, as it were. MacDonald himself believes that there were neither birds nor bears in the Permian period (although he tries to stay open-minded about such things). He suspects, however, that conventional theories about precisely who was walking around in Permian times, and how they did so, will end up being revised, perhaps extensively, once these tracks are studied in detail.

So as much as you (and whoever originated the out of context use of that article excerpt) would like to associate MacDonald with claiming that bears and birds left those trackways, it just isn't true. He simply acknowledged the reporter's comments that those tracks were reminiscent of ones made by animals we can relate to in the modern world. In other words a comparison of reference, not one of identification.

And finally, as for the posts purported to be by MacDonald himself, I cannot even begin to come up with a way to confirm if it was really him or an impostor. I would not consider any such posts to be supportive of any claim without some way of substantiating their veracity. However, I see nothing in that thread that strengthens your claim, so I'm not sure what your point is in bringing it up.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

To think, or contemplate, is a choice in itself. There is the choice to entertain evil thoughts, instead of dismiss them. That's the first step down a dark path. You cannot make that choice and expect it not to have consequences. At first, they may not be noticeable, because the initial consequences take place within a person's heart. I call this watering weeds. As the weed grows through successive choices to water, it will eventually bare evil fruit. If we wish to protect our heart, we can not choose to delight in such thoughts. If one feels hate, and waters it through his thoughts, it will grow. The seed may not have been planted by choice, but growing it is. Christ understood this in His teachings.

Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Ephesians 2:3
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

James 4:4
You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God

Romans 8;5
5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.


If you check my about page, you'll see I'm hoping to publish a book. It's a Christian novel, and the theme is about consequences of choice. It was interesting to write, because these characters in my head became so real! I'd sit there and contemplate the thoughts going through their heads, and whether they delighted in them, or resisted. Talk about schizophrenia! My husband would walk in and try to tell me something, and I'd be like, "Hush! I'm arguing with myself!" Which, I wasn't really arguing with myself, but the conflict of my character's thought was playing out in my head. Writing it was a great experience though! It was a side of me I didn't know existed.

[Mamzelle]

What about the skull photos, and the Dreary Old List of Definitions?

[2nsdammit]

"White Noise" - Michael Keaton

http://www.whitenoisemovie.com/

[andysandmikesmom]

Thanks for the info..several months ago, I got an email, from a friend in Chicago, with an article from the local newspaper...some guy had been cutting old limbs off of the tree in front of his house, and a passerby thought he saw a picture of the Virgin Mary in the cut end of the limb...pretty soon, a little crowd had gathered...then more and more people came...soon it turned into a side show...

We used to live about 2 blocks from where this all happened...we surmised, gosh if we were stil living there, we could set up a table and sell cool drinks to the members of the crowd, who insisted on gathering to worship the tree branch on such a hot day...we figured if they were silly enough to believe in this tree limb, they would be silly enough to pay exhorbitant prices for a cool drink...

Alas, in time, like happens to all these things, the tree limb worshippers found other things to obsess about and went away,...

[GourmetDan]

If I were this ignorant about a topic I would be embarassed to try to debate it.

From your link: "If all data points lie on a straight line, this line is called an isochron. The better the fit of the data points to a line, the more reliable the resulting age estimate."

So, where the data does not meet the 'a priori' assumptions, it is *assumed* to be in error and thrown out as 'unreliable'. Truth by definition.

Take your own advice.

[mlc9852]

Both are some of my all-times favorites.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

Cool Critter!

[andysandmikesmom]

You are a rancher, miniature horse breeder, and a writer...you are one talented lady...

[ahayes]

Ahh, advice from someone who understands neither the equations nor the calculations.

[2nsdammit]

That's an excrutiatingly frightening attitude, but completely believable. There have been far more genocidal maniacs acting on the premise that "God told me to" than any other rationale.

[andysandmikesmom]

'time to run errands' placemarker

[GourmetDan]

Right, and anomalous zircon data is thrown out as 'erroneous'.

"Even a suite of samples which do not have identical ages and initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios can be fitted to isochrons, such as areal isochrons. [p. 1] ...The theoretical basis of the classical Rb-Sr isochron is being challenged and some limitations of its basic assumptions are being revealed. [p. 2] As it is impossible to distinguish a valid isochron from an apparent isochron in the light of Rb-Sr isotopic data alone, caution must be taken in explaining the Rb-Sr isochron age of any geological system." [from Abstract, p. 1]"

[Y.F. Zheng, "Influences of the Nature of the Initial Rb-Sr System on Isochron Validity," Chemical Geology, Isotope Geoscience Section, Vol. 80, No. 1 (December 20, 1989), pp. 1-16 (emphasis added).]

[webstersII]

"'Experimental facts' are *only* valid for the time period covered by the experiments. "

Not when it comes to Evos they are not.

They take an inference and call it evidence.

[higgmeister]

1.) How did the rule of law evolve w/o the Bible?

I thought every school kid learned about The Code of Hammurabi.

Circa 2000 years BC the Lawgiver Hammurabi gave Babylon, what is now part of Iraq, codified laws without the benefit of the Bible.

8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.

Even "Lothar, Chieftain of all the Hill People" could create rules for everyone
to obey. Well, maybe that is a bad example.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

What is the saying, "the more you learn, the less you know?"
I think we're all in for an awakening on how little we really know, someday.

1 Corinthians 1:25
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

I totally believe this. I'm just not sure how it will play out.