Posted on 01/08/2004 7:21:37 AM PST by Scenic Sounds
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:45:24 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
How old is the Grand Canyon? Most scientists agree with the version that rangers at Grand Canyon National Park tell visitors: that the 217-mile-long chasm in northern Arizona was carved by the Colorado River 5 million to 6 million years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
To be fair to him, we do know it's possible to convert carbon to diamonds in less than a year. In fact, I seem to recall a recent article saying that some people either are, or are very close, to fabricating gem-quality diamonds.
OTOH, I see a trainload of coal going to the local power plant every couple of days -- a process that is repeated for who knows how many coal-fired power plants. That translates to a LOT of trees. If you want to severely constrain the amount of time available for those trees to become a coal seam, a quick computation suggests that those trees would have had to grow in unsustainably dense forests. (To support the last 75 years of coal use, I got something approaching 15 billion trees, which would have had to be concentrated in the areas already mined for coal.)
ABSOLUTELY!
Will computers ever be able to think like humans?
NEVER!
Yes, you certainly have. You have completely missed how geologists have actually arrived at their conclusions about the Grand Canyon. The conclusions are based on those "evidence" and "testing" things you must have heard about.
Why would you want a computer that thinks like humans? Human minds are pretty lousy, irrational and subject to bizarre biological vectors.
Not thinking like humans is a GOOD thing.
Once again, I award you an A+ for effort. That did take some digging and research to make this argument.
Giggle, what is the Reynolds number for Carbon in a high temperature and extreme pressure chamber, before it is converted into Diamonds by man?
Compared to, say, creationists? Yes, remarkably so.
Program a computer to think like a human and it will probably become irrational.
It would probably auto-type messaged on the DU website!
At that point, wise humans would pull the plug.
An article from the December Scientific American states the following:
Our analysis yielded four different groups. When we added the labels back to see whether each individual's group assignment correlated to common, predefined labels for race or ethnicity, we saw that two of the groups consisted only of individuals from sub-Saharan Africa, with one of those two made up almost entirely of Mbuti Pygmies. The other two groups consisted only of individuals from Europe and East Asia, respectively. We found that we needed 60 Alu polymorphisms to assign individuals to their continent of origin with 90 percent accuracy. To achieve nearly 100 percent accuracy, however, we needed to use about 100 Alus.[caption] GENETIC ANALYSES can distinguish groups of people according to their geographic origin. But caution is warranted.
Other studies have produced comparable results. Noah A. Rosenberg and Jonathan K. Pritchard, geneticists formerly in the laboratory of Marcus W. Feldman of Stanford University, assayed approximately 375 polymorphisms called short tandem repeats in more than 1,000 people from 52 ethnic groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. By looking at the varying frequencies of these polymorphisms, they were able to distinguish five different groups of people whose ancestors were typically isolated by oceans, deserts or mountains: sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas; East Asians; inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia; and Native Americans. They were also able to identify subgroups within each region that usually corresponded with each member's self-reported ethnicity.
I can't speak for their Type I and Type II estimates, though if I did a search on their papers it's probably in there. I can, however, point to their claims for 90-100% accuracy.
Well, I did say it was waayyyyy off-topic. But it seemed a good opportunity to bring it up, without having to start a new thread.
I enjoy these debates and you always keep me thinking. Never forget, your thoughts and opinions are honored and respected.
Need to depart now, but today's debate were fun and interesting.
You miss the point: unless the theory of evolution excludes intelligence from the set of traits that can evolve (which it does not), then the theory of evolution would lead one to predict differences in intelligence that correspond to genetic divergence. Human intelligence is in fact theorized to have evolved.
Did you even read my post sir?
For the record you responded to:
Adaptability and change WITHIN a species is well documented. New species suddenly appearing via mutation or evolution has no documentation however. There is no contradiction here.
No new species have appeared. Existing species changed within their design parameters.
If you disagree, I would like you to point out, documented of course, a new species appearing.
We have evidence that a species "appears" in the geologic record with no links to a "transitional" animal. Hmmn. Why is that? Did the Evolution god "create" the new species with a burst of creativity? Why are there no fossils of a 'tweener? Shouldn't someone be able to produce a scrap of evidence for this notion that species don't just appear on the scene complete and fully functional? Shouldn't we be discovering the mistakes too?
BTW, frauds don't count. There are lots of so called 'hominid' fossils cobbled together from fragments scattered over many square miles. What happened? Did great-grampa ape step on a landmine? There are more pieces of interpretive plaster holding the chips together than bone fossil. Gotta love the artist rendering of how the little guy woulda looked too....
So, in the rock under which you've been living, it is admitted that evolutionism is a religious position?
Dan
So, in the rock under which you've been living, it is admitted that evolutionism is a religious position?
An obnoxiously belligerent non sequitur -- how quaint. And typical.
Try again when your manners, your maturity, and your reading comprehension all improve.
Well, there are the ring species: each subspecies can readily interbreed with its neighbors, but the two end subspecies are completely incompatible, and thus constitute separate species.
Nah. Too parallel to the mule analogy. Breeding hybrids do not constitute a new species.
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