Posted on 10/31/2009 4:39:54 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Oct 30, 2009 — “Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida. The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.”
The team found 2,000 megafossil specimens from the Paleocene, said to be 58 million years old. This is only 5 to 8 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs according to conventional dating. “The new study provides evidence Neotropical rainforests were warmer and wetter in the late Paleocene than today but were composed of the same plant families that now thrive in rainforests.” The press release says that the fossil record from neotropical rain forests has been “almost nonexistent” – but now, it is evident that modern plant families existed then. “We have the fossils to prove this,” one said. “The foundations of the Neotropical rainforests were there 58 million years ago.”
The only difference between modern rainforests and the fossil record is more diversity now. But since identification of species can only be made to the genus level, there may be some subjectivity in that judgment. An earlier team also found the skeleton of a giant snake at the open coal pit mine – Titanoboa. “Like Titanoboa, which is clearly related to living boas and anacondas, the ancient forest of northern Colombia had similar families of plants as we see today in that ecosystem.”
In a related story, Live Science pushed the “oldest known spider web” back another 4 million years (cf. 06/23/2006). The web material, encased in amber, not only proves that spiders had the web-making equipment as far back as the fossil record shows, but that it has continued with little change for 140 million years according to the consensus dating scheme.
All right, Darwinists: you say evolution is a fact, and fossils are the evidence. Where is the evolution? 58 million years have gone by in your scheme, and we have the exact same families of plants today. There isn’t enough difference to concern the most fervent young-earth creationists (notice that ICR celebrated this find as confirming of a young earth and global flood). Surely if natural selection was acting for such a huge amount of time, we should expect to see some evolution. Remember, you believe that a cow turned into a whale in less than half that time. We love fossils and evidence, but give us a reason other than your own bluff to take your storytelling scheme seriously.
I sir am not simple minded. Take your hogwash elsewhere.
You mean Evolution and Cretinism
I’m with both of you.
geo-chronometers do not allow for old earth.
Have a blessed Sunday
Oliver is on the SC right now (Cox).
Please explain?
This is an example of the sick data creationists are putting on the web. This is sort of like the old line where the sun couldn’t be older than 6000 years because it would burn out in only a few thousand years. I think the YECers have finally dropped that one. Don’t you agree that the below is really OTTT and totally discounted by present observations and theories?
http://www.eadshome.com/Geochronometers.htm
1) Rate of cooling of the earth’s crust, heat of the interior, and temperature of space
The earth’s crust is about 12 miles thick on average. In a universe that approaches absolute zero, which is -459 degrees F. The earth has a hot core that is over 7,000 degrees F. Hot lava bursts out of the earth’s crust from volcanos all around the world on a regular basis! If the earth were billions of years old, it should have turned into an ice ball long ago, many times over.
Image that I came home from work one day and opened the freezer and found some chocolate chip cookies inside. I picked one of them up and the hot chocolate chips in the cookie got on my hand and burned me. I screamed and dropped the cookie and looked at my wife and said, “When did you make these cookies?!?!?!? They burned my hand!” And she said, “Oh, about 3 months ago!”
Now we all know that a hot cookie in a cold freezer can’t be very old. Now imagine a 7,000 degree ball [Earth] in -459 degree space. Does this argue for a young or old earth? We know the current rate of cooling of our crust and know that approximately 10,000 years ago, the earth would have had no crust based upon this known rate of cooling. The Bible says that God made the earth with land [crust], thus giving it some semblance of age. So our scientific data is consistent with the Biblical age of the earth being approximately 6,000 years.
“The Bible says that God made the earth with land [crust], thus giving it some semblance of age.”
In my last post, it had the above statement. Do you believe that God put the crust on the earth to fool us?
They absolutely do. AND they totally exclude the 6000 year old earth.
Any reasonable extrapolation of chemical or physical sources of heat would have appeared to be exhausted within a very short time.
It was the search for a potential source of energy that led to speculation about the atom being somehow the source of essentially limitless quantities of energy.
A hundred years ago and more, great effort was expended to gather information. Expeditions were mounted to track the path of solar eclipses and to photograph them, including spectral photography, which spreads the light into its constituent frequencies.
It was that effort that led to the discovery of an element in the atmosphere of the sun, that had not yet been discovered to exist on Earth, the element Helium, named after the sun (Helios).
When the notion came up that matter was essentially a form of condensed energy, and that under certain circumstances it could be made to evaporate again, into vast quantities of energy, it was a world-wide "Ahah!" moment.
That was the key. Einstein put the numbers into an equation, now familiar, E=mc2.
It has now been calculated, using this formula among others, that the amount of energy being expended by the sun in all directions, not just the one we happen to occupy, is the equivalent of four million tons of hydrogen disappearing from existence every second!
Now, if you want to contend that this is all so much hoohaw, you will have the obligation to come up with another explanation, at least equally tenable. Good Luck.
I, for one, am satisfied that this is a correct and useful explanation.
As to the cooling of the Earth, similar confusion did reign for quite a long time. You have apparently forgotten to account for the effect of disintegrating radioactive components in the Earth's core, that contribute to its apparent retention of primordial heat.
Should you doubt these numbers, it may be incumbent on you to offer an explanation for why radioactive material exists at all. A theory that the Earth and all existence came into being only six thousand years ago does not require the existence of radioactive materials, but there they are, nonetheless. (Actually, a great deal the less, for many of them have already decomposed, but you know what I mean, I hope!)
What are you talking about? Please show where I have EVER proposed that that is 'so much hoohaw'?
This is an example of the sick data creationists are putting on the web. This is sort of like the old line where the sun couldn’t be older than 6000 years because it would burn out in only a few thousand years. I think the YECers have finally dropped that one. Don’t you agree that the below is really OTTT and totally discounted by present observations and theories?
It would be nice if you posted what I said so I would have some idea what you are talking about. Not nice just to go on a rant accusing people of something false.
Please post where I ever said that. I have degrees in Nuclear Engineering a have taken graduate physics classes. I have a little understanding of the universe.
Apparently you have forgotten about tidal friction heating the earth.
These two statements of yours:
"The earth has a hot core that is over 7,000 degrees F. Hot lava bursts out of the earth’s crust from volcanos all around the world on a regular basis! If the earth were billions of years old, it should have turned into an ice ball long ago, many times over."... appear to support the notion that the Earth is not older than 6000 years. If I am wrong about that, then ascribe it to poor reading comprehension.
"So our scientific data is consistent with the Biblical age of the earth being approximately 6,000 years."
But if I am in actuality supporting your basic contentions, then why be upset about it?
They are NOT my statements. Please stop it.
It may be that I am responding to something you were quoting, that I mistook for your own words.
I regret having been mistaken, and for causing further confusion.
I am not upset.
No problem.
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