Well however thorough you think your understanding of “secular beliefs about ‘deep time’” are, your facts are not straight about what scientists actually do when they study deep time. First:
This claim is untrue. Or at least, it’s a misleading half-truth, and as they say, a half truth is a whole lie.
Fossils are used to date sedimentary rocks. Igneous rocks are used to date fossils. There’s nothing circular about that whatsoever.
Again, this claim is untrue. Radiometric dating does not make the assumptions that young earthists claim that it makes.I covered this point here:
We can cross-check measurement techniques whose assumptions are independent of each other, and we can make precise numerical testable predictions. These are sufficient to confirm to us that the measurement techniques work as described and are fit for purpose.
It is claiming that techniques for figuring things out do not exist when in actual fact they do that is a betrayal of a real lack of understanding of what science can and can’t do.
So without getting bogged down in the semantics of the term ‘complex specified information’ that you rightly attribute to William Dembski, we can change the words to simply be ‘coded information’, it makes no difference, the question still stands.
Regarding your article, I do not agree that there is evidence for common ancestry, what I see are common design features for existence and reproduction and built in variation within a Biblical kind within strict limits that ensure a dog stays a dog and a cat stays a cat etc. because they were made by the same designer (God) for all life that He created to live in the diverse range of similar environments that are here on Earth i.e., to respire, digest nutrients, reproduce and thrive, thus there should be similarities that only go so far and that is precisely what we find.
The tired old myth of the alleged 1% difference between the genomes of Chimpanzees and Humans has been categorically shown to be false. The difference between the genomes of Chimpanzees and Humans is more like 70%.
A Banana is 50% similar, so does that mean that Banana’s have common ancestry with humans? Of course not, we simply live on the same planet, were created by the same Creator and exist using metabolic processes in the same environment, i.e., the atmosphere constituents of Oxygen, Nitrogen, Water Vapour etc…
Although it is an old article it is still relevant except the the Chimpanzee to Human difference has continued to increase in percentage difference since 2007. The article is at:
AND
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Also, the tired old argument of evolutionary ‘Vestigial Organs’ and the so-called 'Junk DNA’ are now known to both be completely false beliefs of the past that were used to prop up evolution and bash creationists over the head with. It is likely that there are no Vestigial Organs and also likely that there is no Junk DNA as vitally important control functions for non protein coding repeating sections of DNA are becoming known and published in the literature.
They are gone now, and yet we don’t hearof any reassessment of whether evolution is a real phenomena or not, the faithful evolutionist just takes the loss of a couple of evolution’s prized ‘so called proofs’ of two decades ago in their stride.
And it is as if those proofs never existed,we will just conveniently forget about that.
But importantly, the belief in evolution is never questioned, it is accepted as fact, no matter what is discovered, an inconvenient truth arises and a convenient story is made up to accommodate it. That’s what I have observed over the past fifty or more years and I don’t expect things will change any time soon.
It is because of this that evolution is effectively unfalsifiable and therefore does not qualify to be called a scientific theory. It is a religion, a philosophy but it is most definitely not rigorous empirical science.
It’s not circular: fossils are used for correlation of layers, and rocks can be used to date those fossils in independent ways. As a specific example: based on the fossils, it is obvious to anyone studying them that the “lower James City”, Waccamaw, Nashua, and Caloosahatchee Formations are equivalent, they share a bunch of species that are found in no other layers, and none contain index fossils for other layers. Corals in the Caloosahatchee absorbed enough uranium that they can be dated with U-He dating to about 2.4±0.1 million years at the bottom of the layer and 1.8±0.1 million years at the top.
Can you give some specific examples?
What controls radiometric decay rates? Fundamental constants that if changed would prevent atoms from existing.
Again, given that I can list a dozen or so without doing any looking up at all, suggests otherwise.
Do you want me to post pictures of the dozen counter examples that I have collected myself?
They hit something that worked, and kept working for a very long time.
That is only true if all the ones that do exist are ignored.
How can this be true when historically rock strata was sequenced according to geological processes, prior to consideration of fossils? Of course, in the present, rocks are dated by a much wider range of analysis including radiometric, magnetic, mineral formation to atmospheric variation, and a much more comprehensive catalog of layers. Index fossils allow for precise correlation and identification of dates, but ultimately they derive their dates from rock strata. You need be troubled no more - no circular reasoning is involved.
You are confusing following apologetic websites with research.
To which currently extent Cambrian species do you refer?
You are ignoring substantial replies, evidence, and corrections that people have already given on this thread. You are just skipping around all over and arguing by assertion. Why are you here?
I don’t know the answer. I can only surmise that for the carnivores perhaps there were sufficient remains of dead animals that they could scavenge and perhaps hibernate for periods until the food supply built up. With regard to the herbivores, again I do not know the answer, but perhaps some of the floating vegetation islands had sufficient plant material to sustain the animals until food was more abundant. We just don’t have all the detail and there is no way that I can think of to answer these perplexing questions.
Again, I do not pretend to know the answer, perhaps the Seals and Walruses etc rested on floating vegetation islands.
I have kept freshwater cold and tropical aquariums and salt water aquariums and do know that there are two variables that are vitally important i.e.,oxygen saturation and water temperature. Salinity concentration is less important for some species but yes in aquariums it can be touchy. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to wild environments where genetic diversity is much greater than in many cases severely inbred tropical and marine fish species. I have a river adjoining a kilometre of my property that has fish species in it that live part of their life in freshwater in the river and part of their life cycle in the ocean, so I know from first hand experience that salinity is not as big a deal as some people think it is at least for the species that I see on a daily basis.
Again I don’t know the answers and can only conjecture as to what may have occurred, perhaps the insects stayed inside logs, I know of logs that have floated on oceans for well in excess of 1 year so it’s not a stretch at all that floating vegetation islands could stay afloat for 365 days.
As for Mosquitoes, they survive on plant fluids and as far as I am aware the fact that they also prefer nutrient rich blood does not preclude them from still consuming plant fluids when blood isnot available.
I wholeheartedly disagree! The Bible is abundantly clear that the highest mountains were covered upon the whole Earth. The global flood was real enough! As for miracles, who knows what our Creator did. After all He caused mainly two of all air breathing terrestrial animals to take themselves to Noah’s Ark, so it is clear that God had a hand in the survival of the diversity of life He had created. It is not my interpretation of Genesis, it is clear that the flood occurred and it was global. Why would Noah spend an enormous amount of effort over who knows how long, perhaps a hundred years to build a ship of the enormous dimensions provided for the Ark if all he had to do was migrate out of the local area that you claim the flood occurred in if you even believe there was a flood. Why would God bring all the animals to Noah to preserve them on the Ark if the flood wasn’t a global cataclysmic event. I’m sorry but your fairy tale of a local flood or no flood at all is really where the wishful thinking is.
The reasoning you refer to is that which is conceived within the ‘deep time’ evolution paradigm.
Circular reasoning is very much a part of the problem with the ‘dating’ methods employed.
I am doing nothing of the sort.I reject your incorrect accusation!
i am not referring to any specific Cambrian specie, I was just listing reasons why belief in evolution does not fit what we see where species appear abruptly without any supposed precursors and then I mentioned ‘living fossils’. I could have probably worded it better.
But examples of 55 separate living fossils are listed at:
No I am not ignoring any replies,I simply do not agree with their premises of conclusions, they are clearly wrong, but just because someone replies with an obviously wrong objection to information that I have supplied does not in any way mean that I should change what I know from a lifetime of research to be true.
As for your nasty snipe about why am I here, in truth that doesn’t deserve a response other than: Genesis 2
2 And so the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their heavenly lights. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created.
Genesis 6
1Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
5Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
9These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. 10Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
13Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. 14Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. 15This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish. 18But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. 20Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. 21As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.” 22Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.
Genesis 7
1Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time. 2You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female; 3also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.” 5Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him.
6Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. 7Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood. 8Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground, 9there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. 10It came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth. 11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. 12The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, 14they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds. 15So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. 16Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the Lord closed it behind him.
17Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. 18The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 20The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. 21All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; 22of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. 23Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark. 24The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.
Nah, I’m not going to read anything on Creation.com, ever. It’s not a reliable source of information.
Fine. Then I don’t assess your knowledge of the empirical evidence as adequate and I’m not impressed by your research. You can repeat your creationist talking points about “just so stories” all day long, it doesn’t make them true or interesting. Have fun pretending you are debating here.
The instruments used are very precise and the measurements of isotopes are very precise but that is all.
The age is inferred through a ‘deep time’ evolutionary construct framework that is calibrated for the most part from ‘deep time’ evolutionary assumptions. Those assumptions directly affect the age that is inferred from the measurement and is absolutely not scientifically verifiable, period!
Your condescending tone is disappointing. As a moderator I would have expected better.
Sadly, I was mistaken!
Pretending that Creation.com is the enemy when it should be your best friend as a Christian is also disappointing, but does tell me where it is likely Biologos is at, and unfortunately, what I have witnessed coming from this forums contributors, doesn’t impress me much at all.
All I am seeing is a one way barrage of attack against me at just about every word I type.
Such is the vehemence of the Biologos rebellion against what is clearly written in Genesis.
Any departure from your philosophy appears to incite a kind of hatred toward the messenger and an immediate branding from some of the YEC boogyman who is to be jumped on and put down at every opportunity.
I’m just telling it as I see it.
I had on my heart to reach those at Biologos, but I don’t know if any good has come from my posts,
It seems all I have done is stir up a hornets nest.
Perhaps best to leave it alone and let the Lord do His work in His way.
All you have to do is don’t take my word for it or Creation.com, just read the Bible - Genesis yourself when you have a quiet moment and pray for God to give you wisdom to understand
Whether you do or don’t is ultimately up to you and between you and God.
I am nothing, I don’t pretend to be debating, I am just stating what I believe to be true.
I try to witness the truth with gentleness and respect, though I do fall down sometimes, as I am nothing more than a worthless sinner, yet my Lord and Saviour still loves me and for that I will be forever grateful.
Praise the Lord Jesus, forever and ever!!!
So far, essentially all your references have been to apologetic sites; that is more self indoctrination than research.
How are living fossils some sort of difficulty for biology? One, there are always small differences over time. Two, you would expect that natural selection would favor retaining successful adaptations and strategies that work. That is what we find.
Anybody can read this thread and see that you have ignored replies including first hand material from dating labs and experience of collecting transitional forms. As is generally the case, @Christy had it right up front - sealioning. And posting large tracts of Bible verses everybody is already familiar with adds argument from sanctimony.
Maybe you are confused about the point of this website. It’s not our mission to impress YEC apologists with our humoring of nonsense and trolling, it’s our mission to help the church come to terms with rigorous science and make a difference in the world as scientifically informed Christians. Creation.com is diametrically opposed to our mission and openly hates our organization. It has quoted articles I have written as the enemy talking. So yeah, they aren’t my friends over there. I don’t have hatred toward you “the messenger,” I just think you believe nonsense and are engaging in bad faith online discussion. This response is classic sealion stuff. Oh look, you have been so gracious and reasonable and I am the hateful condescending one because I won’t play your silly games. I’ve seen this movie before and know how it ends. Have a nice day.
And here we go again, a just so story to accommodate an inconvenient fact that as environmental conditions have changed enormously apparently over the imagined millennia, and organisms have adapted and supposedly changed enormously at taxon levels above genus, family, order, class classifications to produce a huge range of new forms of life we are expected to swallow that dozens of plants and animals thus far recorded have barely changed at all if at all.
And the list of ‘living fossils’ is growing steadily every year, it likely won’t be too long before we have 100 examples.
Please, the rubbery goalpost moving of evolution is ridiculous, and I am perplexed that otherwise intelligent people appear to be blind to this fact.
And where are the trillions of transitional forms? Another just so story brewing no doubt to explain this inconvenient fact away so we can maintain the evolution myth another day longer.
well I'm sorry you had a bad experience with Creation.com.
The allegation you have made is very serious and not to be taken lightly.
That is not my experience, they have always been very humble and honest in my experience.
I would like to get to the bottom of the matter asap.
Perhaps you could show me the paper and quote the CMI article.
Jon, I certainly appreciate the calm and respectful tone you have here, something we all need to aspire towards. But, your arguements are ones that have been repeated many times, refuted many times, and still come to the surface as AIG and Creation Ministries et al continue to publish them. It seemingly never gets old. I am reminded that it is like finding a 2010 penny in T Model Ford, and claiming the car must be 14 years old. The penny may be real, but it does not really have any explanatory power as to the origin of the car.
You have made a lot of different arguements, but the one that interested me the most was the diamond one. From the AIG website:
“All nine diamonds are conventionally regarded as being at least of early Paleozoic age, that is, at least several hundred million years old. So, if they really are that old they should not have any intrinsic carbon-14 in them. Eight of the diamonds yielded radiocarbon “ages” of 64,900 years to 80,000 years. The ninth diamond was cut into six equal fragments, which were each analyzed. They yield essentially identical radiocarbon “ages” ranging from 69,400 years to 70,600 years.”
The problem is obvious. Carbon dating is only accurate up to 55,000 years or so, and even at that level, the error bars are large. Above that, the people that do the test state it is not accurate or appropriate to use. Here is a nice little article that describes C14 dating, not particularly for you, Jon, as you seem pretty literate on all that, but for those of us like me who are not:
So, the problem is not the results of the dating. I do not doubt that the results quoted by AIG are correct. The problem is the interpretation of those results. Science and logic says that they are nonsense, the equivalent of driving semi truck on your bathroom scales and saying it weighs 250 lbs, because that is what the dial stuck on. Ultimately, the major problem I have is that of AIG presenting data that they know is meaningless and irrelevant as they know full well the limitations of the method of measurement, and presenting it to their audience as being “proof” and “evidence” of inaccuracy of the technique, when in fact it is the expected result or testing. That level of purposeful misrepresentation is disturbing coming from a Christian organization.
Of course, we now have man-made diamonds. It would be interesting to see how they test, just as a curiosity. I suspect they would test old, as they are made (I think) from methane or graphite that is itself ancient, but may well have more C14 than natural diamonds as there is a greater chance of contamination.
Sorry but “it is clear that the flood occurred” is just yours and a few other people’s interpretation of what Genesis means. An interpretation that has changed over time including well before evolution was proposed.
Do you have any problem with science telling us how the sun generates light and the Bible telling us why God created the sun? Hopefully not. Same thing applies to how life came about.
When God was speaking to the original author He was limited to what the original author knew. In a way God was using “baby talk” with the original author just as we do with our children. God also gave us a mind that let us figure out much of how nature works. So as humans matured so did our knowledge. If God was to inspire someone to write a new book today can you imagine what that book might contain?
you can believe whatever you want, but there is absolutely no way that I can read 'local' when the text in the word in Genesis states so clearly:
18 The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 20 The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. 21 All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; 22 of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. 23 Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark. 24 The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.
What mental contortions must you have to initially go through to believe that global flood means local flood???
If those floating vegetation islands could shelter and feed some seals and walruses, they could also preserve most kinds of creatures taken onto the ark. Including, of course, humans.
It’s somewhat telling that in order to imagine how the kinds of animals not on the ark could have survived the flood, one ends up with a flood quite survivable for the kinds that it was supposed to wipe out.
Or perhaps the Seals and Walruses were on the Ark and all others of their species perished.
I just don’t know but the Bible is quite clear that:
18 The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 20 The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. 21 All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; 22 of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. 23 Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark. 24 The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days
I just don’t have enough information to have an answer to every detail,but I trust the scripture.
It takes quite a contortion to see it as a global flood, when the author and his audience had no idea that the earth was globe, and would find the concept quite ridiculous. The text never says globe, it talks of “the land” or “the earth” which corresponded to that the human author considered “the earth” not what we today consider it.
I may have been remembering this AIG article, not CMI.
But I have noticed similar things on CMI. They don’t even have the journalistic integrity to cite the authors they are slamming, they just allude to them and warn people not to read them. Like here. They are always insinuating that people who write for BioLogos aren’t really Christians, are wolves in sheeps clothing, are destroying people’s faith, are enemies of the church, God’s word and TRUTH. Let’s not pretend it’s all just civil discussion as brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s not.