Posted on 08/27/2020 8:04:41 AM PDT by Heartlander
Editor’s note: We have been pleased to present a series adapted from biologist Michael Denton’s book, Fire-Maker: How Humans Were Designed to Harness Fire and Transform Our Planet, from Discovery Institute Press. Find the whole series here. Dr. Denton’s forthcoming book, The Miracle of the Cell, will be published in September.
In the argument I have made in this series, pointing to the remarkable fitness of nature for fire-making, two caveats must be noted. First, the evidence that the cosmos is uniquely fit for beings of our biology and for our mastery of fire is not to argue that the fitness is specifically for our particular species on our particular planet (the third rock from the Sun). There may be billions of Earth-like planets in the cosmos, although the search to date by Kepler has not yielded a single planet closely resembling the Earth.1 Second, the unique fitness of nature for life on Earth is a scientific fact, whatever its ultimate causation finally proves to be. The unique fitness of nature for carbon-based life and intelligent beings of our biology is an empirical discovery, no matter how many cogent arguments a skeptic might introduce to counter any claim that the fitness is the result of design. Fitness is a fact whether it is manifest only on Earth or on a myriad of planets throughout the universe, and whether it is the result of design or not!
Whatever the ultimate causation may eventually prove to be, as it stands, the evidence of fitness is at least consistent with the notion that the fine-tuning for life as it exists on Earth is the result of design.
Of all the discoveries made on mankind’s long march to civilization, there was one primal discovery that made the realization of all else possible.
The ability to tame fire led to the invention of the art of cooking, and much more.
The importance of metals, particularly iron, and the importance of the discovery of metallurgy can hardly be exaggerated.
The combustion of wood or coal may seem so familiar as to be unworthy of any comment.
As we have seen so far in this series, fire was an absolutely crucial component in humanity’s rise to civilization and technology.
James Lovelock has pointed out that atmospheric levels of oxygen much above about 25 percent, let alone 30 percent, would cause raging conflagrations today.
Self-evidently, the gravity on the surface of a planet limits the maximum size of large terrestrial organisms.
It is very doubtful that any beings in the universe could develop a civilization remotely comparable with our own without the use of metals.
If the conductivity of copper were ten times less, wires would have to be ten times the cross-sectional area to provide the same conductivity.
There is another aspect of the Earth’s environment that is absolutely crucial in allowing the utilization of fire for metal-based technologies.
Without lignin, there would be no woody plants, no wood, no coal, no charcoal, no fire, no pottery, and certainly no iron or metallurgy.
Clearly, unless water can be drawn several meters up the conduits in their tree trunks, large woody trees would be impossible.
The mechanism represents a unique and stunningly brilliant solution to the problem of raising water to the top of large trees.
Without this ensemble of fitness in nature, there would be no wood, no fire, no metallurgy, no modern technology.
Being terrestrial is one obvious requirement. No fully aquatic species could master fire and thus develop metallurgy.
Only an organism of our dimensions and android design — 1.5 to 2 meters in height with arms about 1 meter-long ending in manipulative tools — can handle fire.
How is it that an ant appears proportionately so much stronger than a trained human weight lifter?
It is likely that no further improvement in muscle power can be achieved by increasing the density of packing of the myosin motors.
As every medical student comes to learn when first dissecting the human body at medical school, our limbs are almost entirely composed of muscles.
One area where very fast nerve conduction is vital is vision, more specifically, in keeping the eyes fixed on some object in the field of vision while in motion.
Surely there could not be an equivalent ensemble of fitness in nature for some other type of life.
The unique fitness of nature for carbon-based life and intelligent beings of our biology is an empirical discovery.
VIDEO: Fire-Maker: How Humans Were Designed to Harness Fire & Transform Our Planet
“the fine-tuning for life as it exists on Earth is the result of design. “
I have a few improvement suggestions.
“A mere 200 generations since the first metal tool was manufactured, technology has reached the stage when its accomplishments increasingly resemble what would have seemed to our ancestors a form of magic.”
This is a timeline that the creationist camp and the evolution camp can basically agree on, but let’s move it farther back to the mastery of fire, since that’s the main subject.
Evolution says that man, or his proximate ancestors, mastered fire somewhere upwards of 100,000 years ago. So let’s call that 4,000 generations ago.
Young Earth Creationists would place firemaking much more recently, perhaps only a few generations before metal working and other more complicated innovations arose.
Now this discrepancy doesn’t just hold true for the time from mastering fire to mastering metalworking. Evolution posits the same 95,000 year+ gap of no innovation in just about every area of technology. No pottery for 95,000 more years. No brick-making for 95,000 more years. No bow & arrow for 95,000 more years. No domesticating plants for 95,000 more years. Somehow, we learned to make fire, flint blades, and a spear thrower, and this didn’t lead to any further technological revolution, but instead, the most amazing period of absolute stasis in human history.
Creationists reckon we learned to use fire, and then within a few generations also figured out how to use that fire to bake clay into pottery, or distill alcohol, or work metals. There’s no aeons long gap where we have to imagine that generation after generation of fully modern humans, with modern human brains, couldn’t create a single new innovation, even though the most distinguishing feature of humans is that they constantly innovate.
One of these models just doesn’t add up.
As I understand you reasoning, man did not have pottery till 5000 years ago.
Perhaps that is the source of your error.
Well, traditionally, the earliest evidence for pottery is from Ubaid Mesopotamia, about 5000 years ago.
Yes, there have been more recent claims to date other finds earlier than that by carbon dating, but I don’t believe the totality of the evidence actually supports an earlier dating.
For example, carbon dating of pottery fragments from Japan may say “15000” years old but we know the Japanese culture was backwards compared to the Chinese until very recently, so it’s simply preposterous to think that:
a) this backwards culture independently invented pottery before their more advanced, literate neighbors
and
b) this backwards culture invented pottery and somehow it wasn’t transmitted to China despite constant contact between the two cultures.
That doesn’t make any sense. Therefore, the more likely explanation is that the carbon dating is wrong.
“For example, carbon dating of pottery fragments from Japan may say “15000” years old but we know the Japanese culture was backwards compared to the Chinese until very recently, so it’s simply preposterous to think that:”
Chinese pottery dated to 20,000 years ago.
“Chinese pottery dated to 20,000 years ago.”
Of course it actually wasn’t, since you can’t carbon date pottery, since clay is not an organic, carbon-based material.
So they found a pottery shard in a cave with bones and charcoal and said the bones and charcoal are 20,000 years old. That doesn’t mean the pottery is 20,000 years old.
Now, if they had found this pottery in a ruined settlement, and we can date the settlement layer to 20,000 years old, then we might say the date is pretty solid. But of course there are no 20,000 year old settlements, nor 20,000 year old pottery kilns in these non-existent 20,000 year old settlements, nor 20,000 year old pottery fragments made by non-existent 20,000 year old kilns in these non-existent 20,000 year old settlements.
“since you can’t carbon date pottery”
False.
Really? You think you can carbon date clay?!?
“Really? You think you can carbon date clay?!?”
I really know you aren’t up to date on pottery dating.
Darwin's Black Box:
The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
by Michael J. Behe
hardcover
online supplementThe Battle of Beginnings:
Why Neither Side Is Winning
the Creation-Evolution Debate
by Delvin Lee "Del" Ratzsch
Says the guy purporting that you can carbon-date inorganic minerals!
‘Says the guy purporting that you can carbon-date inorganic minerals!”
You are really consistent with making up stuff.
Oldest kiln is 8,000 years ago. Odds are there were kilns before that.
AND, early pottery was fired in pits, not kilns.
There is a way to radiocarbon-date pottery but it is not comprehensive and it is tricky.
Sure, if you find pottery with organic filler inclusions, you could try to date the inclusions, but that’s not how they dated the Chinese pottery. I’m also skeptical they are taking into account how you might need to recalibrate the tests for material that has been subjected to sustained temperatures of up to 1000 degrees fahrenheit.
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