There are valid criticisms of evolution

Wichita Eagle ^ | 3/9/2005 | David berlinski

[Fish Hunter]

Dear Mongeaux,

You seem to be a man of science, and I am a trained engineer, so I hope you will not dismiss me offhand when I present to you the results of a little exercise I did today.

Being a man of science you would know that light being a particle imparts a force on an object when it hits it. This is the principle behind solar sails. Doing a simple search on the internet you will find that an object with a 50% reflectivity coefficient experiences a force of 6.97E-6 N/m^2. Not very much. But multiply that by the half the Earth's surface area and divide that by the mass of the Earth you will get an acceleration of 2.95E-16 m/s^2.

Again this is not much, and explains why the Earth's orbit is not measurably effected by the force of the sun's light hitting it. But, seeing as you seem to think the Earth is at least a billion years old, I decided to test your faith, and took the liberty of integrating this tiny little bit of acceleration over 1 billion years, and found that this tiny force over a billion years would have moved the Earth's orbit 293 trillion kilometers. The Earth's is currently orbiting 150 million kilometers from the sun !

I wonder how life could of evolved from a puddle of goo when the Earth was inside the sun a billion years ago?

F H

PS: I did NOT get this off any creation website/flyer/whatever. This is my original work.

[Mongeaux]

"You seem to be a man of science, and I am a trained engineer, so I hope you will not dismiss me offhand when I present to you the results of a little exercise I did today."

Sounds good to me but I think you got the wrong guy. I am an art history major and work at a boiler factory. But I got a cool project coming up involving Hobbits and chinchillas.

[RaceBannon]

Sorry, you just showed you dont get it, and that is why you lost that point.

If you dont know what you started with, yo cant prove what you have left after some supposed decay, because all you have is what is left, not what you started with in a measured amount that was recorded over time at a constant decay rate and observed and recorded...

All you have is what is left and the ratio of one item to another, and THAT is the only thing you can prove.

And THAT is science, not the fairy tale of the millions of years pseudo-science of the evolutionist.

You should just give up, it is clear that K-AR and Ru-Str methods are not reliable.

KEYWORDS

Andesite, 1949–1975 flows, Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, potassium-argon dating, anomalous model "ages", excess 40Ar*, excess 40Ar* in rocks and minerals, upper mantle, geochemical reservoirs, mantle-crust domains, crustal mixing, magma genesis

ABSTRACT

New Zealand’s newest and most active volcano, Mt Ngauruhoe in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, produced andesite flows in 1949 and 1954, and avalanche deposits in 1975. Potassium-argon "dating" of five of these flows and deposits yielded K-Ar model "ages" from <0.27 Ma to 3.5 ± 0.2 Ma. "Dates" could not be reproduced, even from splits of the same samples from the same flow, the explanation being variations in excess 40Ar* content. A survey of anomalous K-Ar "dates" indicates they are common, particularly in basalts, xenoliths and xenocrysts such as diamonds that are regarded as coming from the upper mantle. In fact, it is now well established that there are large quantities of excess 40Ar* in the mantle, which in part represent primordial argon not produced by in situ radioactive decay of 40K and not yet outgassed. And there are mantle-crust domains between, and within, which argon circulates during global tectonic processes, magma genesis and mixing of crustal materials. This has significant implications for the validity of K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar "dating".

INTRODUCTION

http://www.icr.org/research/as/potassimargondating.html

[dirtboy]

Ah, more Institute for Creation Research refutation of science. Try again.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Good science . . . starts with facts and then crafts a premise.

I agree it is better to work by deduction where objectivity is concerned, but induction is inescapable. It has a hand in every scientific discipline whether we like it or not. One cannot divest himself of all matters attendant to prior experience, current perception, and the like, especially when placed into a universe at least a thousand times older than oneself.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Well, I guess I'll just have to log off FR, because I have to take someone else's word that as to whether it works or not.

O PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE do not log off. Take my word for it. It is working. But FR isn't exactly the geologic column, is it?

[Williams]

First, I am not a creationist. Second, science has not demonstrated that RANDOM micro mutations (yes even combined with natural selection) explain evolutionary progress. And even IF the mechanism is random mutations, that does not explain WHY life contains a mechanism that permits it to adapt to its environment, branch out into many many species, AND develop consciousness such as that displayed by scientists. WHY should amino acids "randomly" evolve into intelligent beings in response to the natural environment?

IF we are not alone in this universe, I suspect the other creatures out there likewise possess intelligence, and will continue to evolve this intelligence to higher and higher levels.

Because we and they do not remain inanimate rocks or unthinking cells, we are in a sense developing into far less powerful versions of that God the scientists are so afraid of. If we are not made in His image, then whose? These changes are not random any more than the ordering of the universe is random. Whether it's a big bang, or the laws of gravity or relativity or quantum mechanics, there are rules underlying all of this. Science doesn't want to think about that big picture because it has divorced itself from all notions of philosophy and religion. But for all your explanations based on randomness, the scientists always hit a brick wall in trying to answer the "big" questions, because they find themselves talking in metaphysical terms.

I don't deny evolution for a second. But isn't it interesting that in a world teeming with life, and all the scientific study, we do not see any new life springing up any where on this vast globe? All these life forms are thriving in this environment, from elephants down to viruses, yet we don't see any inanimate chemicals coming together and forming an original life form. Indeed, scientists can't do it under controlled circumstances.

[RaceBannon]

It was nice talkng to you.

And for those who don't remember, this was the instance I was referring to when I said I wanted a clear example of casting pearls before swine.

[ValenB4]

Let me clarify. ID as science is doomed to fail. And the efforts to force ID upon the instruction of science will fail. ID as a philosophic point of view is not doomed to fail. Since evolution pertains to a physical mechanism of this materialistic and temporal world, it has no bearing on God or people's belief in God. Science can only concern itself with the world that can be perceived.

A person can, as I do, believe that God is ultimately the prime mover in all things. But when I enter the realm of science, I have to put that believe aside temporarily, as there is no means to quantify matters of faith. Matters of faith are not meant to be quantified and measured - for doing so would destroy faith.

[dirtboy]

But FR isn't exactly the geologic column, is it?

The geologic column is far more majestic than the young earth types can ever imagine. When you live in Pennsylvania and spent a couple of years in Colorado, along with taking a field geology course in the Wind River Range, the supreme expression of the Laramide Orogeny, you can visualize the sweep of events that created the geology that I see.

[Blood of Tyrants]

So you are saying that some amino acids came together and just waited around for another to come along until it was just right?

[Mongeaux]

"So you are saying that some amino acids came together and just waited around for another to come along until it was just right?"

Gee you make it sound like life started in the park at San Francisco

[Fester Chugabrew]

I wonder how life could of evolved from a puddle of goo . . .

You obviously forgot to include the effects of chaos in your calculations. You know, a little "yin" to counter your "yang" and vice versa. A little "natural selection" that needs be applied to the other particles less-embedded in the biosphere.

[Williams]

You have based your belief in a higher being, or lack thereof, on very cheap stuff. Ina world of black holes and quantum mechanics and big bangs beyond which we can't see, and string theory and theories (scientific) of other dimensions and universes, picturing a scenario in which the natural laws of physics reverse is not hard at all. The way we view the physical universe certainly bent with Einstein's General Relativity. Strange things go on around a black hole and scientists deem what goes on inside to be "unknowable." Indeed, somehow all this matter that follows thes rigid rules that give you comfort gets compressed into an infinitely small place, where the rules of matter and time break down completely. What was here ceases to be anywhere or anywhen, and the scientists are quite content with such "magical" views of reality.

The universe is an immense mystery and truly understanding it is beyond the brainpower of our greatest scientists. In the end, it all leads to either meaning or meaninglessness. My best guess is there is meaning of a kind we cannot comprehend. And that, like the pre Big Bang or the unknowable inside of a black hole, begins to take on some of the attributes of an unknowable God who controls existence and nonexistence.

[SiGeek]

We have seen hundreds of instances of speciation...We can infer thousands of instances from the fossils and DNA analysis of present forms.

Shouldn't the observed instances of speciation be fairly dramatic over recorded history to account for all the complexity, even if the earth is as old as the oldest old-earth estimate?

I'm asking you, since you sound so sure, what do you think, or how do you know, one way or the other? Ie persuade me, sans insults. (Or just point me to a link that answers the question persuasively)

[dirtboy]

Watch out! You been noticed by the Marching Morons for Jeeeeeeezus!

I'll pass on the anti-Christian bigotry, thank you.

[Fish Hunter]

Let me put it plain English for you:

I just proved the Earth could not possibly be 1 billion years old, let alone 100 million years old. I did this myself using high school physics.

You seem like a nice young man, just try to keep an open mind and learn not to trust everything the media feeds you. They have an agenda too. I was a diehard atheist when I was your age, but over time the Lord softened my heart and eventually I was able to open my eyes and see the Truth.

Peace,

F H

[xzins]

I agree that faith is not quantifiable. However, there are different means of determining the veracity of items of faith. For example, in a murder we are asked to have jurors convict the accused only on the basis of "beyond a reasonable doubt." (Doubt being the opposite of faith.) In other words, you must have an extremely strong belief in the guilt of the accused in order to convict him.

However, you cannot "view" the crime since it is a past event.

What you can do is assemble evidence that helps reassemble the events of the crime. For example, I was surprised that Scott Peterson was convicted, because they really had so little physical evidence. Apparently, what they did have removed all but the most unreasonable objections.

It was hair, phone calls, girlfriends, cement, actions, etc., that enabled the jury to reconstruct a likely scenario of what happened.

Similarly, both evolution and ID must appeal to evidence that they can assemble to support their contention. Both are striving to show that the assembled evidence best supports their case.

What is the evidence that they use is the first significant question. The second significant question is "what is the counter-evidence?"

Reasons for and reasons against.

It's how we'd convict a criminal.

[Paloma_55]

Funny.. you did't cite one.

DOH!