Age of the Earth 2

[artsylady]

It's likely that man did live with dinosaurs. Too many legends of this creature, (most often referred to as 'dragon' or 'sea monster') There are even memoirs from Alexander the Great and Christopher Columbus that make mention of these creatures. There are also mentions from the OT.

[truseek]

The writer of Genesis sure seems to go out of his way to make sure we think 'day' means a 24-hour period. Light he called day, darkness night, there was evening and morning the first day- read it again.

As well, in Genesis 5, it mentions how long Adam lived. He lived to be 939.

"And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died."

Now, Adam was created on the 6TH day. Then the writer mentions the 7th day, THEN the writer mentions Adams age. He lived through the 6th day or period. If the sixth day was really a million years, then in Genesis 5, Adam's age would have been 1,000,939, which it was not.

That is a reasonable hypothesis, artsylady, in fact, I hold to it. However, suppose the forst 5 days were in fact 1 million years each? Can you offer any definitive evidence for this not being the case?

In Christ

Truseek

[artsylady]

Can you offer any definitive evidence for this not being the case

No, because you can't prove a negative.

[artsylady]

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Correct. I may not be able to remember them all, but if I forget I would just have to go on Pubmed, or nature, and find out who it was, where it was, and find peer review, criticism and comment.

So you don't believe in an artifact not so much because of WHO found it, but on the peer reviews, right?

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Lol. So, did you find out their addresses as well and write to them too? 

I have written to some scientists yes, having read their papers. And yes, papers do usually list addresses, contact details etc etc. That's because they're describing real people and real finds, not folklore about women somewhere find some skull encased in coal. 

No, we're talking about the people who FIND the artifacts, remember? You had problems because the particular site posted didn't give their names. That was the problem you had then, wasn't it?

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They contain pictures, photos, graphs, analysis, and importantly the location of the find so that it can be examined by other scientists. In other words, scientific papers reference the author and the find and the time and date of the find etc etc because they're describing real finds, not made up ones.

Well, maybe scientists who hear about findings that aren't in line with evolution just ignore them and don't bother to do any peer review on them. If I called the university and told them I found an archeopteryx fossil, they'd be at my door in minutes to check it out and review it. If I said I found a battery encased in coal, they'd probably tell me to call the creationists. lol.

Did you take a look at the other thread, with the news story on that creature they call a 'spotted rat fish"? Does it look like a spotted rat fish to you at all? I'd like to know what you think about that, if you don't mind.

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One continent and salt water with salt water fish in it. Then for the first time it RAINS FRESHWATER. So, we should be looking at salt water fish

adapting to fresh water - not fresh water fish adapting to salt water.

No, because the majority of water on earth is salt-water, which may have been diluted by freshwater falling for the flood, but the water would still have been heavily saline.

Okay...... I'll say this differently. Maybe there were no freshwater fish. Maybe all of the fish had adapted from saltwater. In the case of the flood, this could likely be the scenario.

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Extinct or still living - both are possibilities - yes. Thank you. Or maybe they just died out 100 years ago, right? We don't know what we don't know and the presumptions being made are ridiculous!

Take dinosaurs. They were common in the fossil record for over 150 million years. Then, suddenly, they disappear. So do 80% of all lifeforms.

Well maybe they did go through a period where a lot of them DID die. We call it the flood! Even if you don't believe that, don't you think there can be catastrophic events that kill off many animals, while other animals of the same species continue to live. You're saying that because we know for a fact that some died 'here', then they all must have died 'here'.

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2 possibilities can explain this:

1. They have become extinct through a cataclysmic event

Yes. Or just SOME Of them died from such an event, which is a THIRD possibility.

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2. Their population has been lowered by a massive event to the extent that there are too few of them so they don't leave fossils.

Yeah sure. Maybe they did just have their population lowered for awhile. Or the FOURTH possibility - maybe their population diminished for awhile and then heightened again and they thrived again and maybe there are a few of these creatures left today! In the world of evolution, ANYTHING is possible, so certainly my THIRD and FOURTH are possible too. Now don't go and dismiss these possibilities just because they fit with the creation account. Please, for your own sake.

Now, clearly 2 is a possibility. However, add another fact:

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They're not been found in the fossil record for the last 66 million years. None of them. The 80% of forms that disappeared, not a ***single one*** of them is found in the fossil record ever again, or has been found alive today.

But some of these fossils have been found. The coelacanth. The larger version of the trilobite. I'll post some more. There's a whole book on the subject of living fossils. I can find out more if you'd like to learn more about this.

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Now, you claim that because we've only surveyed 20% of all life on earth, that we can't know what we'll find in the remaining 80%. Well, that's not quite true either. 20% is a huge huge survey, it's about 2 million creatures. Out of that massive survey, we've not found a single one that we thought went extinct at the K-T boundary. Not one. Not a sausage. 

So what? We have 80 percent not yet discovered yet. That's the bottom line. just because they stopped fossilizing doesn't mean they stopped living! Do you think the animals that are dying today are fossilized?

Tell me what percentage of animals that have lived and died in the last thousand years are becoming fossilized? What percentage would YOU estimate?

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BUT it happens. And since we are aware of only one PERCENT Of species, it seems bizarre to say for sure that so many of these species are definitely extinct!

Firstly, you've taken the biggest estimate of species alive today. 100 million is quite an old estimate, most scientists agree that a more realistic number would be 10 - 20 million creatures. We've catalogued about 2 million of them.

Well, 100 million I thought was a bit way off, but that would be better for your argument. In any case, the unknowns are FAR greater than the knowns when it comes to living species.

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Would 4 thousand years not enough to produce significant enough changes between a wolf and a dog

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With a very large population, and heavy artificial selection and cross breeding it could be. But we're not talking about a wolf turning into a dog through artificial selection. We're talking about 10,000 creatures turning into 10-20 million, through natural selection.

but what if dog was man's best friend over the past 4 thousand years and man was manipulating them as far back as 4 thousand years ago. What's so difficult about that? We know the Egyptians had cats as pets. But no to dogs? Why?

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It only takes one generation to have the necessary mutation, right?

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It's not a single mutation that seperates Parrots from Macaws, or Lions from Tigers. It's many many mutations, cumulatively selected over tens or hundreds of thousands of generations, not one.

How many mutations do you estimate it is, and how many years would those mutations take?

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Yes. The writings in Genesis are older than the names of these places.

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But not older than the names of the tribes that the places were named after. Could it be that moses named the characters after tribes, and then the places later on were named after tribes...

So you think they could have been real men now? Or is it real tribes, but not real mens names?

[Bread_of_Life]

Artsylady,

I'm sorry, but I have already answered some of this stuff:

So you don't believe in an artifact not so much because of WHO found it, but on the peer reviews, right?

No - the existence of these artifact, even without peer review on the exact nature of them, would not be in question if the author gave any evidence that they existed at all. But he doesn't. They're all "someone found", or "a woman discovered" - without any other evidence that they existed, no links to any scientific paper written by someone who examined them, no nothing. That sounds to me like an urban legend - it certainly isn't scientific, or rigorous.

No, we're talking about the people who FIND the artifacts, remember? You had problems because the particular site posted didn't give their names. That was the problem you had then, wasn't it?

It didn't give anything. It didn't have any pictures, didn't link to a paper, didn't give names or dates or site details/plans addresses nothing, nada, nothing that would convince me that these finds were real.

A scientific paper will give all of these things. It'll give the author's name, the circumstances that the find was discovered (including who discovered it), it'll give photo and pictorial representations of the find, detailed technical drawings of the site of the find, scientific analaysis of the age of the find and the material it is made of etc etc etc.

This site did none of the above.

If I called the university and told them I found an archeopteryx fossil, they'd be at my door in minutes to check it out and review it. If I said I found a battery encased in coal, they'd probably tell me to call the creationists. lol.

That simply isn't so, why don't you try it? Also, why don't the creationist have an analysis of the find - they are equally capable of performing petrochemical analysis, of detailing the circumstances of the find, the materials used, the people's names, taking photographs etc etc etc.

Did you take a look at the other thread, with the news story on that creature they call a 'spotted rat fish"? Does it look like a spotted rat fish to you at all? I'd like to know what you think about that, if you don't mind.

Sorry, no, I didn't post the link up here.

Maybe there were no freshwater fish. Maybe all of the fish had adapted from saltwater. In the case of the flood, this could likely be the scenario.

So, let me get this, you're saying that all the freshwater fish alive today (apart from the few species that can survive in salt water) have evolved in the last 4,000 years from saltwater ancestors?

Even if you don't believe that, don't you think there can be catastrophic events that kill off many animals, while other animals of the same species continue to live. You're saying that because we know for a fact that some died 'here', then they all must have died 'here'.

No, what I'm saying is that a lot of them died there - and that if some survived, then they've had 66 million years to re-establish a population, start leaving fossils again etc - which is more than enough time. But they havn't, not even one species of dinosaur has ever re-established a population in the last 66 million years big enough to leave one single fossil.

Or the FOURTH possibility - maybe their population diminished for awhile and then heightened again and they thrived again

Then, given that they thrived again, why don't we find any more fossils of them past 66 million years ago? If their population recovered from the K-T event, then why don't they start to leave fossils again?

But some of these fossils have been found. The coelacanth.

This isn't a dinosaur, nor is it a creature that we believed went extinct at the K-T boundary. It's just a creature that hasn't changed much from the fossil record. We didn't think it'd gone extinct at the K-T.

The "larger trilobyte" isn't a trilobyte at all, but it is a member of the same order descended from trilobytes. It shares a similar bauplan, but it is by no means a trilobyte.

So what? We have 80 percent not yet discovered yet. That's the bottom line.

The bottom line is, we've taken a massive survey of the creatures on this earth and not found a single one that we believe went extinct at the K-T. Not one. Not a single creature. If, say 50 species of dinosaur survived the K-T to this day, then our survey should have found around 10 species. But we've not found one. Not a sausage.

We've also not found a single fossil for the last 66 million years, not one.

just because they stopped fossilizing doesn't mean they stopped living!

Dinosaur fossils are common for 150 million years. We've found lots of species, and many examples from each. Then suddenly nothing. So what happened? Did they suddenly develop some sort of magical immunity to fossilisation?

Do you think the animals that are dying today are fossilized?

Some are, yes. Sorry, why wouldn't they be?

We've actually found part-mineralised finds from the Eygptian period, proving the mineralisation does still happen in the modern era.

Tell me what percentage of animals that have lived and died in the last thousand years are becoming fossilized? What percentage would YOU estimate?

Very few, because fossilisation is quite an unlikely process. So very very few of all animals that have every lived end up becoming fossilised. However, some do. Dinosaurs did. Many (although many doesn't mean compared to the total population) were fossilised and have been discovered.

Then, suddenly, no more fossilisation. No more fossils. Why? The simple reason is, because they died out, or most of them died out, and the population never recovered and ended up dying out later. Whatever scenario you take, one thing is true - that the dinosaur population dropped massively and never recovered to leave any fossils.

but what if dog was man's best friend over the past 4 thousand years and man was manipulating them as far back as 4 thousand years ago.

This is what I refered to as "artificial selection". Yes, in the case of dogs, artificial selection has led to different breeds (NOT species) in a relatively short time (a few thousand years). But what of it? Does this explain millions of species evolving through natural selection over the course of the last 4,000 years? No.

How many mutations do you estimate it is, and how many years would those mutations take?

Well, Chimps and ourselves share about 96 - 98% of our DNA in common. That represents about 4 million years divergence from the chimp lineage.

So you think they could have been real men now? Or is it real tribes, but not real mens names?

I've now answered this twice - it's more likely that Noah named these people after contemporary tribes in order to explain the existence of these tribes.

[Arthur Durnan]

Ah, yes, Gridley, the joie de vivre of the mega-evolutionist's inert, blind and mindless god Chance! An audacious foray indeed by the Chuck Darwins of the world into the Wonderland of one, Sweet Alice. May their tribe receive some sort of Fed aid.

Ignorance is curable, Gridley. Stupidity is forever.

http://arthurdurnan.freeyellow.com

[Guest C@TTY]

Hey there,

I believe it has already been proved that the earth cannot be more than ten thousand years old anyway. If it was any older, the earth would not exist, as we would have been burnt to cinders by the sun

This has been proved by evolutionist scientists and christian scientists.

[Trinity]

If 10,000 years old? lol i would not be supprised if lower

[Elisha]

Hello everyone. I come from the forum where Nik (Scientific Atheist) originally typed the copy/paste here (Planet Wisdom). Me and Nik don't agree on much; usually we end up arguing like two brothers. One thing we do agree on is this, though - that an old earth does, in fact, exist.

I think the scientific evidence speaks for itself. Nik as usual has done a fine job in presenting and defending it. I'm more of a biblical type of person, though. I've skimmed through the replies and noticed some vague biblical evidence against his position.

*NOTE* that I am an ex-young earth creationist. I got into it before even looking at the other position and fell into Kent Hovind's dark arguments. All it took for me was a quick weighing of the evidence to change my mind.

I don't want my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to think that I'm against them in any way. I'm very much with you. I'm just hoping to pass on what I've learned, because I used to hold the same position you hold and used to defend the same arguments you're defending.

Oh yeah... a lot of this is copy/pastes from what I've already typed at Planet Wisdom. I read accusations against Nik just because he copy/pasted something, but he typed them himself (simply during the past). Not a problem or bothering at all.

Beginning with this:

Artsylady:

Edited July 23, 2004 by Elisha

[Bread_of_Life]

By the way, here's a calculation to back up your "naming of the animals" argument:

Estimated number of animal on earth --> 10 - 30 million. Take a conservative estimate, 10 million.

1 day = 24 hours = 1440 minutes = 86,400 seconds.

10,000,000 / 86,400 = 115.7 animals per second.

In other words, every animal was named in 1/115.7 seconds, or 0.008 seconds.

Now, take into account that the animals alive today represent only a fraction of those alive in Noah's time - since all the animals in the fossil record were supposedly around at that time - every therapsid reptile, trilobyte, dinosaur etc. Even 10 million is ridiculous, add millions more and it just becomes more and more unfeasible.

Also, there is a theoretical limit on how fast we can think. Even if Noah didn't say the names out loud, and instead just thought them, he'd still have to conform to this theoretical limit. The limit is set by how fast our nerve cells can fire. Nerve cells don't use electricity - they use chemicals - and every time they fire, they release certain chemicals and take in others. Before they fire again, they have to take in the chemicals they released (mostly sodium), and pump out the chemicals they took in. This takes a certain ammount of time, called the "refractory period".

In total, from firing to refraction, nerve cells take about 2 - 2.5 milliseconds. That isn't long, it means that the same nerve cell can fire about 500 times a second. However, looking at an animal, thinking of a name, and committing it to memory takes more than one nerve cell, and therefore more than one refractory period. Therefore, forming and storing a thought is very likely to take longer than 0.008 milliseconds to do - especially if Noah had to speak them as well.