Age of the Earth 2

[artsylady]

Well, it would have been diluted at any rate.

Not by a great deal actually.

Wait a sec. If there was a global flood, shouldn't we be looking at saltwater fish adapting to fresh-water, not vice versa?

I think you'd probably be surprised then, by how susceptable freshwater fish can be to saline. Your analogy with rust is not too useful, since the rusting process will actually have purified the water of any remaining salt, rather than added to it.

Well, maybe I should add some salt to the aquarium, just for fun. Dare me??

I think you've underestimated what species are, and just how much genetic change must occur to create them. I also think you've underestimated just how different species are from each other within a genus.

Okay, I looked up some info and found that they estimate there are between 3 and 100 million species on the planet. That's quite a huge difference isn't it? 3 and 100 million??? They really have no idea do they? And scientists have named only 1.7 million. Hmmm. It's this all kind of strange? How do they know that the millions they have not found are not the ones they say are extinct? And they find 13,000 new ones each year? How do they know these species aren't being produced rapidly??? Sounds like they may very well be. Anyway, basically, how do they know what they don't know? They sure seem to know what they don't know, though, don't they? lol.

It's much harder to prove it. I've posted up several threads on dating methods - and I'd be happy to hear responses. In fact, this is just such a thread - you might even want to go an read the very first post, and comment on it.

I posted a response from AIG that you felt was beneath you to respond to, so I guess that's that.

QUOTE 

How do they date sand? This is what you proposed.

No idea - you've have to ask them.

So do you want to drop the assertion that they have found this very, very old civilization? It seems rather absurd that they're dating sand, doesn't it?

QUOTE 

So these names were just made up and then used by real people?

They may have been made up - but they could also have been taken from names of regional tribes, or even stories about tribes further afield.

But the tribes could not have been actual people? Is that what you're saying?

QUOTE 

And beavers too! But they're not our relatives.

actually, they are - all animals are.

But you're trying to prove that gorillas are close relatives. Your example is what they do with their habitat? Birds do the same thing as well but they're not close. We're all one big happy family, right? So, your point that because Gorillas use what they find to make their habitats means that they are closely related is unproven, when other animals not closely related also do this.

QUOTE 

Then again, parrots can talk and communicate like humans, but ooops, they're not as close to us as apes.

Whales and dolphins communicate with each other and form complex social groups with heirarchy, they're not as close to us as apes either. What of it?

Again, you are trying to tell us that because a Gorilla can now communicate through sign language, it proves that they are closely related. Well, dolphins are not closely related, yet their communication may be better than those of gorillas so your point has not been made.

Do you remember the point you were trying to make regarding gorilla's language and working with their habitat? It's like you're arguing with yourself. I'm confused.

[artsylady]

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglib...020126.ch43.htm

I wasn't talking about the amino acid content in human milk versus goat milk or ape milk, i was talking about it's basic chemistry. Couldn't find a single chart like this one that had the chemistry of a great ape..... hmmmmm. And I wondered why this one didn't include the great ape.. hmmm

[artsylady]

What's the problem with fossil graveyards (esp. the Karoo Formation) and evolution? There are still ways of dating these fossils, and they do actually date to the dates we expect...

No problem with fossil graveyards at all. They have a bunch of fossils buried together, NOT in any particular order as you suggest. And how do you suppose they got that way? Why not go with the obvious and say flooding?

In other words, fossils are not always found in strata - one above another. However, that isn't what we mean by "order" - what we actually mean is chronological order.

But that's not the case either.

QUOTE

Extinction is not enough pressure? Hmmm.

Evolution can only work so fast - it is limited by the rate of adaptional change thrown up by mutation and sexual recombination.

Yes, it is limited. I'll agree with that wholeheartedly.

As we have found out, that change can be pretty slow - in fact, it can take ten and hundreds of thousands of years - hundreds and thousands of generations.

Well time is the ingredient here that you need to make this work, of course. Now evolution can make an ape from a single celled organism, but when that ape is threatened from extinction, it's useless. And it's all about survival of the fittest.

[artsylady]

http://colossus.chem.umass.edu/chandler/ch...ther_branch.htm

Here you go. Before you accuse me of taking the quotes out of context click on the above to see the whole thing - NOT from a creationist site. From the NY Times, March 5th.

Sorry for posting these quotes again - NOT. I just love them so much and was able to find the entire article so you can all check it out. I think I'll print these out and have them framed or something like that.

QUOTE 

"The material is so fragmentary," he said, "that we really can't know, and so our differences often are a reflection of different philosophies and experience in research."

LOL. An admission.

QUOTE 

Dr. Alan Walker, an anatomist at Pennsylvania State University who specializes in hominid research but was not involved in the kadabba analysis, said that too few fossils had been discovered to justify either interpretation. He noted that it was easy to be misled by variations that are normal within the fossil collections of any single species.

That's about ANY SINGLE SPECIES!

QUOTE 

"People who believe in a bushy family tree will look for bushiness in their fossils, and those who don't won't," Dr. Walker said in an interview. "We are generalizing far too much, with not very many fossils spread over a long period of time."

Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions.

This is TYPICAL of what happens when a new fossil is found but there are a lot of interesting admissions here.

[Bread_of_Life]

artsylady

Wait a sec. If there was a global flood, shouldn't we be looking at saltwater fish adapting to fresh-water, not vice versa?

No. If the flood waters covered up to the highest mountain, and even if the added water was completely fresh (free from saline), and assuming no salinisation from volcanic or geological activity, the composite water would still have been heavily saline.

Well, maybe I should add some salt to the aquarium, just for fun. Dare me??

It'd be pretty cruel to the fish, but you can if you want. If you want instructions about how much salt to add per litre to make it like sea water, you'll find them easily on the internet, or just ask me.

Okay, I looked up some info and found that they estimate there are between 3 and 100 million species on the planet. That's quite a huge difference isn't it? 3 and 100 million??? They really have no idea do they? And scientists have named only 1.7 million. Hmmm. It's this all kind of strange?

I don't think it's that strange at all when dealing with the unknown, that there may be different estimates. 100 million is the highest estimate that's ever been made, most scientists think the real number is between 10 and 30 million.

Essentially, scientists take the rate of discovery in a year, and estimate the total land mass thoroughly searchs and surveyed, and the total yet to be surveyed, and try to estimate given assumptions about biodiversity how many have yet to be found. Of course, this is going to give a rough idea. However, the 1.7 million already discovered are still far too many to be explained by Noah's ark.

And they find 13,000 new ones each year? How do they know these species aren't being produced rapidly??? Sounds like they may very well be.

Produced rapidly by what, pray tell? A species producing machine in the jungles of the amazon basin?

Evolution doesn't work on the scale of a year - it works of thousands of generations - so if 13,000 species are produced in a year, it's not evolution. So what is it? God constantly specially creating more species for us to find in undiscovered areas?

I posted a response from AIG that you felt was beneath you to respond to, so I guess that's that.

Said it elsewhere, I'll say it again, this is a lie. I have never refused to respond because I claimed that it was "below me", or any such nonsense.

If I have missed a question of yours, or missed a post, then link me in, or PM me, but don't tell lies about what I have and havn't said.

So do you want to drop the assertion that they have found this very, very old civilization? It seems rather absurd that they're dating sand, doesn't it?

No, I don't wish to "drop" this assumption at all. I can certainly try to find out the dating method used in this case - but the study was in Nature, so it's unlikely to have been voodoo eh?

But the tribes could not have been actual people? Is that what you're saying?

They may have been, but they also may have been mythical tribal leaders, or simply mythical characters invented to explain the appearance of different tribes.

But you're trying to prove that gorillas are close relatives.

No, you're trying to prove they're not. I never used habitat or tool usage as proof that Gorillas and us are close relatives.

Again, you are trying to tell us that because a Gorilla can now communicate through sign language, it proves that they are closely related.

No, I didn't. I don't know where you got this idea from. You're the one that brought up the subject that we were the only intelligent animal around in the first place, and I thought I'd stand up for other animals. But I never claimed that Gorilla's intelligence proved that they were closely related to us, it doesn't.

I wasn't talking about the amino acid content in human milk versus goat milk or ape milk, i was talking about it's basic chemistry. Couldn't find a single chart like this one that had the chemistry of a great ape..... hmmmmm. And I wondered why this one didn't include the great ape.. hmmm

Erm, so, hang on, where did you find this "fact" out from in the first place, if this is the only source you can find, and it doesn't have the chemistry of ape milk?

Also, have you actually looked at how close goat milk is to ours? Not very, in many cases. Goat milk has:

168% more protein

14% more fat

72% of the carbs

and 77% more minerals

than human milk. Perhaps you were simply claiming that goat milk was very similar to humans without having any evidence that this was the case?

Sorry for posting these quotes again - NOT.

You may want to post them again, but I don't want to respond to them again, not doing twice the work for no gain. If you want my comments on this, go and look at what I posted previously the last time you posted this up.

But that's not the case either.

Presumably you have evidence of this?

Well time is the ingredient here that you need to make this work, of course. Now evolution can make an ape from a single celled organism, but when that ape is threatened from extinction, it's useless.

No, it's not useless, but it depends on how quickly the extinction is happening, and what is causing it.

Jews didn't evolutionarily adapt to the holocaust, because it happened over a period of 15 years - which is less than 1 generation, and evolution can take hundreds and thousands of generations. Similarly, gorillas are having trouble adapting to humankind and it's influence, since that has only really taken its toll in the technological age (in the last 300 - 500 years) - which is only about 25 generations.

Since our last common ancestor with a gorilla, it's been about 600,000 generations (300,000 in each lineage approx). Think about that.

[Guest mscoville]

So what is the answer, I think I missed it. Has macro evolution ever been observed? Did you say basically that it's unlikely we'd have seen it occur because we haven't been watching long enough? It seems strange to me, but I might just not understand how long an interval could be expected before we'd observe a change in a known species. Also aren't we talking about a large change in an animal? How large a change might we be talking about? Also, how long before we can expect to see a major obvious change in an animal that would confirm macro evolution? If by a certain time we haven't seen a change, would that confirm that it's unlikely that it ever will or did occur?

Thanks,

Martin

[Bread_of_Life]

Has macro evolution ever been observed? Did you say basically that it's unlikely we'd have seen it occur because we haven't been watching long enough?

Well, really, the answer is "it depends on what you mean by macroevolution". How macro is macro in other words? Do you mean speciation, or do you mean some more obscure meaning of the word?

If you mean speciation, then ring species are an excellent example of speciation happening right now because of geographical isolation. If you mean something else then I'd advise you to define your terms carefully, since macroevolution is not a word that is strictly scientifically defined.

Also, how long before we can expect to see a major obvious change in an animal that would confirm macro evolution? If by a certain time we haven't seen a change, would that confirm that it's unlikely that it ever will or did occur?

It depends on whether or not there is a selection pressure, how quickly mutations arise in that lineage, and how likely those mutations are to arise.

For example, there are creatures that have not changed in millions of years (we find exactly the same, or very similar, creatures in the fossil record. These are very uncommon - but they do exist, proving that evolutionary stasis can occur for a long time (probably because of the lack of a selection pressure, rather than the unavailability of mutation, or some sort of embryological barrier).

In other words, it's very hard to give a definitive timescale. However, if you think that modern humans and apes are seperated from their common ancestor by 5 million years, that should give you some idea of the scale of evolutionary change that can happen within that timescale - although it can occur faster or slower or not at all depending on the conditions (and prevailing wind )

[His son]

The age of the earth is written in The Bible, and the evolutionists are so desperate to be right that they have tried to mary evolution to The Bible. What a joke. Why? because they have nothing, zilch, nada, zero to support their rediculous theory, which is all evolution is. It is an unprovable theory. And real scientists have on the other hand proven creation.

[Guest mscoville]

(and prevailing wind  )

Ha, good one.

The age of the earth is written in The Bible, and the evolutionists are so desperate to be right that they have tried to mary evolution to The Bible. What a joke. Why? because they have nothing, zilch, nada, zero to support their rediculous theory, which is all evolution is. It is an unprovable theory. And real scientists have on the other hand proven creation.

OH man I can hear SA drooling. I agree with you my brother, except they sure do think they have a lot of proof.

If you mean speciation, then ring species are an excellent example of speciation happening right now because of geographical isolation. If you mean something else then I'd advise you to define your terms carefully, since macroevolution is not a word that is strictly scientifically defined.

Well you'll have to give me a hand. Define speciation for me. I've heard that term often as well as macro-evolution. Both I assume meaning a noticeable physical change in a creature. Some new attribute or appendage. Macro-Evolution as Creationists say usually should involve a serious net increase in information. Where as speciation doesn't.

God Bless,

Martin

[Cerran]

The age of the earth is written in The Bible, and the evolutionists are so desperate to be right that they have tried to mary evolution to The Bible. What a joke. Why? because they have nothing, zilch, nada, zero to support their rediculous theory, which is all evolution is. It is an unprovable theory. And real scientists have on the other hand proven creation.

His son, you keep saying "real" scientists have proved creation yet I haven't seen any links or refernces to said information. If it's true there where is the information?

Why? because they have nothing, zilch, nada, zero to support their rediculous theory, which is all evolution is. It is an unprovable theory.

There actually is plenty of evidence to support the theory, whether the theory is right or wrong will depend on the passage of time and what new information shows up. As for being an unprovable theory, if it was 100% provable then it wouldn't be a theory, it would be a fact now wouldn't it?

I have a question for you His Son, if the age of the earth is young, why would God leave so much evidence to the contrary? Please do use the excuse that we are interpreting the evidence wrong, because the chance that at least 10 different fields of scientific study would be wrong at the same time is so small it's not worth mentioning.

In summary why would God make everything "old" ?

Why do creationists find evolution so threatening? Evolution has nothing to do with disproving God. While some athiests do use it in this way, they wrongly do so.