"Soft Tissue" again

@Sandy_Combs

I’m not sure I understand your objection. If C-14’s scope of reliability is dramatically shorter than a million years … then if you test a very old bone, it will produce the results of under a million years. And then all the Creationists of the world will throw a party! … Because Now . . .Now … they believe in tests.

Why don’t you want to test old bones with test methods designed for really old bones?

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If there ever were dinosaurs that live up to let’s say 50,000 years ago, how would you ever know with the current approach. Considering the massive number of historical records that describe in detail dinosaur looking creatures all over the world, it is hard to believe that everyone is hallucinating or describing a known species living today. Science may not consider these records as evidence but most other people do, and if your wrong and even 1 of those historical records is describing a dinosaur then your whole hypothesis is wrong. If radiometric dating takes so much massaging to confirm the expected results then how accurate is it really? The records I’m taking about can be found in Carl Sagan’s book “The Dragon’s of Eden”.

Have you considered the possibility that people have been finding fossils for a lot longer than the past couple hundred years? If you found a big dinosaur bone and had no idea what it was, it would be hard to resist making up a story about it!

And the answer to how we would know if there were dinosaurs up to 50,000 years ago is we would find some of them on top of the iridium layer, or in the presence of large mammal bones. So far we haven’t found any. As cool as it would be to find dinos and humans living together, that’s firmly in the realm of fantasy for now.

Should you consider WHY science doesn’t consider an anecdotal report to be evidence?

Does what “other people do” decide these issues? I don’t understand why I should want “what other people do” to play any role in determining what happened. I find people think and do all sorts of crazy things which make zero sense.

So, the hypotheticals continue:

(1) IF you are wrong, and
(1) IF “one of those ‘historical records’ is describing a dinosaur”…

THEN:

You are wrong and that historical record was describing a dinosaur.

Are you certain that that is how logical thinking works? I don’t understand the appeal of that.

Furthermore, by your logic, I should assume that because a LOT of people down through history have told stories about leprechauns, surely at least ONE of those reports of leprechauns must be true. After all, you could be wrong for denying those stories. Same with gold at the end of rainbows. And Paul Bunyon. And magic beans.

Moreover, is a story which reports seeing a really big animal evidence of a dinosaur? Why? Aren’t there many types of large animals, even large animals which look like actual dinosaurs? Consider the Komodo dragon. In the wilds of some of the Indonesian islands, they get very large. To me they look a lot like a dinosaur. Of course, to a trained vertebrate anatomist, they don’t look at all like dinosaurs. Does it matter whether the person providing the report knows what they are looking at?

Furthermore, people have been digging up dinosaur fossils for centuries now. If you dug up a protoceratop fossil, wouldn’t you assume that it was the skeleton of a dead animal? I know folklore scholars who consider that the explanation for the dragon stories of the European Middle Ages. I don’t know any scholars who thinks that such stories require observing live dragons, let alone dinosaurs.

Of course, EVEN IF a dinosaur was found living on some remote animal today, that wouldn’t tell us whether all dragon stories have a basis in someone’s observation of a living dinosaurs. (And for those who worry about such things, finding a living dinosaur wouldn’t do anything to debunk the Theory of Evolution—but that’s a whole 'nother topic.)

I’ve heard that radio interview. As I recall, Horner explained why he didn’t want anything to do with it. He said that he didn’t want his name associated with pseudoscience and that he knew from experience that it was “a setup”. He realized that they wanted to use his name and prestige along with propaganda spin to promote something he doesn’t want to support: pseudoscience.

Does that reasoning sound at all like the playground taunt of “You’re just a big scare-dee-cat!”

Think about it. The radio host knew that any reputable laboratory would refuse to be associated with pseudoscience and had already turned down such pranks from other non-scientists. So the radio host was asking Dr. Horner to conspire to circumvent the rules which radiometric labs have established to avoid misrepresentation of the methodologies and to avoid dragging the labs good name into the mud. Why would Dr. Horner want to be a party to such behavior? What does he have to gain? What does he have to lose?

Sandy, are you sure you know Dr. Horner’s motivations? And because he has often made clear his position on this topic, you are calling him a liar. Do you think that is fair?

Also, do you seriously believe that a world-famous, well regarded scientist is going to be “afraid” of a radio host? (I actually do. Horner was afraid that the radio host will create a public uproar and hassles for Horner that he doesn’t need. His academic colleagues will be asking him, “Why would you want to give a prankster ammunition for misleading the public?”)

Suppose an obscure White Supremacist radio host offered Barack Obama $20,000 to submit to genetic testing to prove that he has no European ancestry. Would Obama turn him down? After all, what does Obama have to lose? Obama knows the truth, so it’s easy money! Or is Obama afraid that the genetic testing would prove that he’s been lying and he actually has no European ancestry? Which sounds reasonable to you, Sandy?

Yes, Obama must be afraid. That’s the only possibility, right?

Think about it, Sandy. Horner already said that Young Earth Creationist who come up with such publicity schemes misrepresent the science and already have a poor track history in terms of honesty. Also, do you seriously think that that radio host will go on the air and say, “I sure did make a fool of myself. The science showed that I was wrong!” No, it is all part of a ruse to take advantage of the gullibility of the uninformed general public that doesn’t understand how radiometric analysis works and why labs refuse to do tests which violate sound methodologies.

Sandy, if I told you that I was going to weigh a car battery using a truck scale at a cement plant, would you say that that is reasonable? The LED panel of the scale is going to give an answer of either 0000000 or 00000100 pounds. Both would be wrong and misleading answers.

What if I offered to pay you good money to take the car battery to get weighed and sign your name to the report? What if you somehow got the cement plant to weigh the battery and give you the printout of the weight? Would you want me to tell the public that “Sandy has confirmed using a professional grade scale that car batteries are devoid or any weight!” and “Sandy help me to prove that cement plant scales are worthless! They give erroneous weights! This car car battery weighs zero pounds!”?

Would the cement plant want their customers to think its scale is worthless? Do you think this was a fair experiment for anybody involved? Would it be an honest test of the scale?

@Sandy_Combs, I’m very interested to know whether you still think Dr. Horner is “afraid” that such a test will prove radiometric dating to be horribly flawed.

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The old dino stories sort of remind me of Big Foot. If a future historian pulled up a stash of National Enquirer mags, no doubt they would find photos of giant hairy primates and their footprints along with eye witnesses abounding in the stories, and would conclude that Big Foot animals were common in the US in the 20th century. Doesn’t make it so.

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I often get myself in trouble with some of my Christian brethren when I evaluate the merits of an argument based upon spurious evidence or poor logic. For example, I’ve often pointed out the flaws in various “proofs of the Bible”, such as the alleged “NASA’s computer finds lost day in calculations” or “Russian oil drilling sight records shrieks from hell.” After I explain the problems with their “evidence”, I invariably get an angry reply which says, “Clearly you are an atheist troll who just can’t stand to see any evidence that the Bible is true.” So many people evaluate “evidence” based on allegiance to a “side”. They appear to think that the quality of evidence never matters when it supposed helps their cause. They don’t think about the fact that very weak evidence for their cause can easily become evidence against their cause.

This is often the case when people promote extremely illogical arguments for God. I’ve known colleagues who have said, “If that is an argument for God and that’s all you’ve got, I should be an atheist.” Clearly a lot of people that promote lame arguments for their cause are evaluating arguments on the basis of emotions, not careful thought. I don’t know if there is any effective way to reason with them. Emotions make for a very hard shell and shield.

Even so, if someone has found any effective strategies, I’d love to hear them.

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First of all I am certainly no creationist in anyway,and I am trained in science although not a scientist. Let’s be honest the fossil record is extremely fragmented at best and to say anything with 100% certainty, regarding the past, is ridiculous. The shear magnitude and diversity of the historical record leaves someone like Sagan at a loss of a serious hypothesis. The only alternative hypothesis he was unwilling to make yet it is the most likely explanation, the historical records record interactions with man and dinosaurs, even if very rare. Just because you can’t identify the fossils doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Even if you have already found them the unwillingness to test dinosaur bone with C14 testing makes it impossible to date any of them to recent times, so your hypothesis is safe. Science disregards a lot of evidence that the public does not, it is very possible that the historical record does describe dinosaurs and men living together at some point in history, and most likely the few remaining were hunted down by man, just like today.

I call Russell’s Teapot.

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@Sandy_Combs, what would you say is your most convincing “very rare” (your words) “historical record” of interactions between man and dinosaurs? You make the pick. I want you to select the very most impressive example in all of human history.

Otherwise in your comments, you’ve simply waved off all of the evidence, questions, and challenges posted above against your claims. Even in your latest post you avoid any specifics. So I want to give you every opportunity to pick your very best “historical record.” It sounds like it must be extremely impressive, even though it is an admittedly rare “record.” I look forward to read about it because I’ve done a lot of study of this topic over the years and I’m amazed how little I could find in the historical records and just how vague and ambiguous are the most mentioned examples. (A “monster” is not enough prose description to establish that someone saw a dinosaur. And “examples” from ancient art, like the infamous Ta Prohm temple stegasaurus, are laughable at best. The same “stegosauri plates” appear on other artwork at the temple without any animals appearing in the scene!)

I’m all for honesty. And considering “100% certainty”, it is probably ridiculous to make such absolute claims about anything. Even the things we are most certain about probably don’t exceed 99.99999% certainty. So your quantification makes things far more difficult.

Yet, the purpose of science is NOT to determine “absolute claims” about “100% certainty.” Science investigates the available evidence to determine the best explanation for that data.

Accordingly, for science to determine anything about the past with reasonable certainty is NOT “ridiculous”. What does seem ridiculous to me is that you are willing to reject piles and piles of peer-reviewed science—but you will accept vague and extremely questionable hearsay without much of any sense of reservation. That I do not understand. You tell us that you are trained in science, and yet it appears that you are entirely willing to reject the scientific method.

I don’t understand that.

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@Sandy Combs,

Okay, let’s agree that the fossil record is fragmented. You are correct.

But you are wrong about the certainty! And I can demonstrate that right now and right here:

There is simply No Way to explain why Australia is (supposedly) loaded with all the marsupial survivors from the Ark … and none of the placental mammal survivors from the Ark … accept for humans and dingos.

There is just no explanation for that. One might theorize that the marsupials made a bee-line for Australia because they could smell it. And Australia … being just within swimming range of Borneo and Indonesia… was reachable (yeah, sure). but then, as soon as the marsupials got on board, Australia moved into the middle of the Indian ocean!!!

In the meantime, the placental mammals Hated the Smell of Australia… and even though there were all these edible marsupials heading that way … the placental predators (like lions and tigers and bears) … just ignored them, and never tried to get onto Australia before it started its cruise into the middle of the ocean.

There is no plausible explanation from a YEC’s interpretation for how any of this happened.

But … once you realize that the earth is millions of years old… and that the marsupials in Australia descent from a population that was closer to Australia… and not reachable by the few placental mammals of the time … then all the testable hypotheses fall into place.

You are wrong. Evolutionists are correct.

Sandy has said she has [quote=“Sandy_Combs, post:32, topic:34976”]
zero theological interest in this topic,
[/quote]

And just now:

She has not advocated for the global flood, a 6,000 year old earth, or even the absence of evolution. She’s argued for a much later extinction of the dinosaurs and a general distrust of at least some dating methods (possibly all of them except C14). I disagree with both of her positions, and darkly suspect that the quality of scholarship that went into them doesn’t deserve the name, but you are behaving like a hammer thinking everything is a nail when you rebut an argument she has not advanced. At the very least when she says dinos may have survived up to 50,000 years ago it should be a clue that she isn’t talking in the traditional YEC range of 6-10,000 years. If you want to know her opinions on the age of the earth, try asking.

@Sandy_Combs

You would know by using the appropriate tests for testing things greater than 50,000 years… and greater than 50 million years… and you correlate your findings.

Using a test that can’t measure more than 50,000 years means that everything you test that is millions of years old will score 50,000 years … that’s how tests like that work…

Science isn’t about “100% certainty.”

@beaglelady

Just to be clear . . . your post quotes from @Sandy_Combs , who I was quoting in my post.

Have a great weekend!

Of course. Sorry about that.

You have a great weekend too!

Post deleted

Hi @r_speir -

So you’ve read Schweitzer’s publications and ascertained that the fossils were found in igneous rock inclusions? If so, I would love to get a quote or a link from you.

Or are you just speculating?

Thanks,

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I’ve long been frustrated that the author of this forum software doesn’t code for this kind of situation: a quotation within a quotation. Yes, it would be tricky to write but not extremely difficult.

In the meantime, to get around it, you can delete the tagging information in the brackets and just leave the [ quote ] [/quote ] part to get a quote box and label it with whoever the original poster was. I mean, if it really bothers you…