Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

[Baggins]

However, it does a far better job explaining the reality on the ground (like the thick worldwide band of coal, oil, and natural gas underneath miles of sedimentary rock, among many other phenomena) than uniformitarian theory.

Can you explain why you think this is the case? Bear in my mind that there isn't a world wide band of coal, there are thousands of coal horizons throughout the geological record. There is also no thick layer of oil and gas around the world either or oil wouldn't be $150 a barrel and I wouldn't have a job searching for it.

I can explain the events that form these hydrocarbon deposits quite easily using uniformitarian geology, I am guessing that beyond saying your model explains this you wouldn't have a clue how to go about explaining these phenomena at all.

Prove me wrong.

The idea that the continents have been creeping along at an inch or so per year just makes no sense to me.

The idea that someone can ignore the very basic and simple evidence that shows this to be the case makes no sense to me.

Ignoring reality in favour of your own intellectual hubris seems very odd.

Evidence of the Flood is hidden in plain sight.

And for 200 years no geologist has found it, what a dull lot we must be, good job there are lawyers and engineers who can set us straight

 

[thaumaturgy]

Even if you define "natural" to living organism, and even if we accept your conclusion that metabolism of aspirin is linear [it makes sense that it would be linear if the body is saturated with the stuff]

But all I needed to do was find a natural process (ie non-supernatural) that was a "linear decay" to prove your statement:

But every natural process decays on a decaying non-linear curve.

to be in error. Which I have done. This is what is called falsifiability in the sciences. I should think as a lawyer you would understand this concept.

You make a "universal claim", I find one exception, your universal claim is rendered false.

QED.

, you've not addressed the foundational point of my earlier post. Non-linearity of natural process makes the age-of-the-earth question difficult.

Why does it make the age of the earth question difficult? May you don't understand math enough to understand non-linear curve fitting equations, but some people do.

 

[thaumaturgy]

To be honest, I'm not sure I accept the idea of continental drift at all

Nor should you! "Continental Drift" was Wegners first hypothesis. It didn't quite explain reality fully. About 40 or 50 years ago people started thinking in terms of PLATE TECTONICS .

I suppose that you are free to "disbelieve" those things you don't fully understand. So far you've shown a lack of understanding in chemistry so I can see why it is now attractive to run over to geology.

Unfortunately there are a number of geologists on this board (myself being one of them) who will be more than glad to help you with this topic as well.

I know from spending a lot of time around my dad (a land surveyor) that pretty much all land everywhere shifts around slightly. Without a uniform, unmoving frame of reference, it will be virtually impossible to measure an entire continent moving by an inch.

Is that how you "know" about Plate Tectonics?

but I'm not convinced they are moving today.

Please, come out to my home in California! We've got plenty of reason to believe it. If you like you can check out maps like THIS to see the effects nearly weekly of plate tectonics.

Oh, and, please tell our friends in Northridge, CA that plate tectonics is no longer happening.

Catastrophic movement seems very reasonable.

And what do you think causes those "catastrophic movement"?

I've been poking around online trying to find surveying data, to no avail. Without good evidence, I conclude that the continents are basically no longer moving.

Are you serious? You are looking for surveying data and that is the only data you think is going to provide information on the movement of tectonic plates? Really? Maybe you should hit a library. There are plenty of intro geology books around that explicitly lay out the facts that underlie the development of plate tectonic theory.

Here's some background (LINKY)...or do you think plates stopped moving in the early 1970's?

 

[thaumaturgy]

it does a far better job explaining the reality on the ground (like the thick worldwide band of coal, oil, and natural gas underneath miles of sedimentary rock,

Oh my.

You're serious here, right? What "world-wide band of coal and oil" are you talking about?

I'll let Baggins thoroughly decimate the oil stuff, but if you have any questions about how coal is formed, please ask me. My PhD was in coal chemistry. I'd be glad to help you out on that. In addition I spent a year working correlating coal beds in the mid-continent for Peabody Coal.

Please, just ask me. I think I can help you understand coal. It might require a bit of simple chemistry, but I think we can push through that.

 

[thaumaturgy]

The idea that the continents have been creeping along at an inch or so per year just makes no sense to me.

This seems to be one of your favorite logic fallacies. Argument from Personal Incredulity.

Did this one work in Law School? Or is it a guilty pleasure you indulge in now that you are a lawyer?

I think where True_Blue's debate is going off the rails repeatedly is that he is poking around hoping to find topics we are not familiar with. So far his various claims have been largely deflated by resort to actual facts.

We started off with abiogenesis and pure random statistics. Unfortunately there are many chemists on board to show how statistics and probability work in chemistry, so now we are moving over to geology, which, again, there are many geologists on the board to show how plate tectonics works and how coal and oil is formed, etc.

So what I fear is that True_Blue's real skills lie in the ability to use "rhetoric" to convince the uneducated in a certain area that his "gut feelings" are correct. I don't believe he is in any way wanting to mislead anyone about anything, I think he is honestly uneducated in these topics and simply wants to get his point out there.

Unfortunately as we all learn, it is more important to learn than merely hold your own counsel and keep on with it.

True_Blue, please do keep in mind that the more you speak the more likely people are going to attempt to correct any errors. This isn't a "bad" thing (maybe your pride gets a bit bruised, that's OK, it happens to each and every one of us), but please do remember, that for every grand claim you make, we'll be here to help you either confirm or correct it.

It's how science works. We do it to each other as well. Not just you.

 

[Naraoia]

Even if you define "natural" to living organism, and even if we accept your conclusion that metabolism of aspirin is linear [it makes sense that it would be linear if the body is saturated with the stuff], you've not addressed the foundational point of my earlier post. Non-linearity of natural process makes the age-of-the-earth question difficult.

The thing with the magnetic field is that, as far as I'm aware, both palaeomagnetic evidence and the most popular models imply pole reversals. Now I'm admittedly not a physicist or anything, but from what I've read a magnetic field reversal involves a disappearance and subsequent reappearance of at least the main dipole. To me this means that the magnetic field doesn't gain or lose strength forever, rather it has to show some kind of (damped) oscillation. Which means that the current trends can't say all that much about things before the last pole reversal.

But that's just my layperson's understanding and I'm pretty sure the real physics involved is way too complex for me to grasp.

 

[sfs]

The idea that the continents have been creeping along at an inch or so per year just makes no sense to me.

Here's an example of plate tectonics that I like for its clarity

The Hawaiian Islands, along with a chain of islands and seamounts to their west, are thought to be the product of a hot spot of magma underlying the earth's crust, strung out across the surface as the Pacific plate slowly slides above the hotspot. According to GPS data, the Pacific plate is currently moving WNW at about 3 inches per year. If the Pacific plate has really been moving at about that rate for a long time, there should be a clear relationship between the age of the islands (as determined from radiometric dating) and the distance of the island/seamount along the chain. This is a testable prediction, and one that has in fact been tested. If you plot the estimated age of the islands against their distance from Hawaii, you see this:

The plate motion you would infer, just from looking at the graph, is 3.4 inches per year, in excellent agreement with the GPS data. It has obviously been going on for many millions of years without a lot of change. This looks like pretty strong evidence to me.

 

[True_Blue]

And yes, I'm well aware that friction is not, in general, linear. Friction has to taken into account when you're designing pipe networks to move chemicals from one part of a plant to another. If you ignore it, you get burnt out pump and less than desired flow rates.

I think we're in agreement on this issue.

 

[True_Blue]

Can you explain why you think this is the case? Bear in my mind that there isn't a world wide band of coal, there are thousands of coal horizons throughout the geological record. There is also no thick layer of oil and gas around the world either or oil wouldn't be $150 a barrel and I wouldn't have a job searching for it.

I can explain the events that form these hydrocarbon deposits quite easily using uniformitarian geology, I am guessing that beyond saying your model explains this you wouldn't have a clue how to go about explaining these phenomena at all.

Prove me wrong.

The idea that someone can ignore the very basic and simple evidence that shows this to be the case makes no sense to me.

Ignoring reality in favour of your own intellectual hubris seems very odd.

And for 200 years no geologist has found it, what a dull lot we must be, good job there are lawyers and engineers who can set us straight

In a Biblical pre-Flood paradise, followed by a catastrophic flood, I would expect to see fossil fuel deposits all over the world, including underneath land and sea. I would expect that the fossil fuel deposits would be agglomerated together with water sweeping the foliage in huge piles. I would expect to see vast sediment on top of the piles. I would expect to see fossil fuel deposits in all latitudes of the world, including the north and south poles (so that Adam could walk around naked on the North Pole).

In a uniformitarian view, I would for the most part expect no coal or oil deposits at all, since the formation of fossil fuels requires sudden and intense heat/pressure. Any coal or oil that would form would be from localized disturbances, and be relatively trivial with an identifiable source of sediment (nearby volcano, asteroid impact, etc). I would expect to see hundreds of layers of coal rather than a few or just one. I would expect to see no fossil fuels in the polar areas, or else any fossil fuels would have a triangular shape that shows the movement of the continent slowly over time.

 

[True_Blue]

Nor should you! "Continental Drift" was Wegners first hypothesis. It didn't quite explain reality fully.

Excellent, then we're in agreement. Plate tectonics is settled science. The disagreement is over the past. I'm of the mind that the overall instability of the crust has asymptotically decayed toward zero, and that at some time 5000 years ago, either coterminous with the Flood or shortly thereafter (Genesis 10:25), the earth's crust broke like an egg-shell to a degree scarcely imaginable today.

http://www.yuricareport.com/Science/HydroplateTheoryReviewedSelbrede.pdf

 

[True_Blue]

You make a "universal claim", I find one exception, your universal claim is rendered false.

I'm not Jesus, Thaumaturgy.

 

[pgp_protector]

Excellent, then we're in agreement. Plate tectonics is settled science. The disagreement is over the past. I'm of the mind that the overall instability of the crust has asymptotically decayed toward zero, and that at some time 5000 years ago, either coterminous with the Flood or shortly thereafter (Genesis 10:25), the earth's crust broke like an egg-shell to a degree scarcely imaginable today.

http://www.yuricareport.com/Science/HydroplateTheoryReviewedSelbrede.pdf

POE ?

 

[True_Blue]

We started off with abiogenesis and pure random statistics.

As I said in Post #1, my model is generalized and not specifically related to chemistry, though the principle of applying probability to chemistry for the purposes of predicting abiogenesis from molecular interaction is perfectly apt. You are free to show the opposite using your knowledge of chemistry anytime.

 

[True_Blue]

The thing with the magnetic field is that, as far as I'm aware, both palaeomagnetic evidence and the most popular models imply pole reversals. Now I'm admittedly not a physicist or anything, but from what I've read a magnetic field reversal involves a disappearance and subsequent reappearance of at least the main dipole. To me this means that the magnetic field doesn't gain or lose strength forever, rather it has to show some kind of (damped) oscillation. Which means that the current trends can't say all that much about things before the last pole reversal.

But that's just my layperson's understanding and I'm pretty sure the real physics involved is way too complex for me to grasp.

The relative strengths of the dipole and the non-dipole components isn't so important--it's the summation of the components to arrive at the total strength of the field or the underlying force generating the field (which should be measured in joules). Absent an extraterrestrial source of energy, polarity reversals will not operate to increase the overall strength of the field. Polarity just measures which component of the field is relatively stronger than the others.

Lets assume that the dynamo theory is correct and that the magnetic field is generated by magma rotating in a complex fashion in three dimensions from the Coriolis Effect caused by the earth's rotation. If you imagine the magma as being liquid in a glass that is being stirred rapidly, if you stick a spoon in the glass and rotate the liquid once in the opposite direction, the rotation will cause havoc with with the general direction of the fluid, but the liquid will revert back to the original direction of rotation, albeit at a slower rate. Thus, the underlying cause of the field reversals hasten the decline of the magnetic field. Now, imagine a cataclysmic event breaking the earth's crust and releasing massive amounts of water and causing the plates to slide. This results in subduction--one plate sliding under the other. The subduction interrupts the flow of magma, wrecking havoc with the polarity of the magnetic field for a period of time in conjunction with the movement of the plates. The changes in overall polarity of the fields are in conjunction with a generalized weakening of the overall field strength. It's possible that the areas of subduction continue to impede the flow of magma, causing the field to decay faster than it should. I don't think God intended our magnetic field to be as weak as it is, or to decay as fast as it is. This has significant health consequences for mankind, and it may be one of many factors related to human longevity. As an aside, I've notices that ocean-dwelling animals tend to live longer than land animals. Sea turtles, whales, and claims have vastly longer upper bound life expectancies than people, and far higher than other animals, like dogs, for example.

I have found an interdisciplinary approach to science very helpful, and I've certainly found the Bible to allow the disciplines to better fit together.

Edit: I would also like to add that the major competing scientific theory make no sense. The first is that the reversal is normal, but thermodynamically, this makes no sense. The movements of the magma will find an equilibrium and stabilize, and a destabilization requires an exogenous source. The second theory, subduction, makes sense only if the subduction is very rapid.

 

[us38]

I think we're in agreement on this issue.

That you're wrong? Yes we are in agreement about that.

p.s. Snipping out half of my post (the half that proves you wrong) does not make it go away.

 

[mpok1519]

Blue >> you have no proof of a young earth; there however is tons of evidence for an old earth theory. The proof you show is garbage that literally spits in the face of all academia.

Listen to real scientists; not a dude with a GI Bill scholarship at MIT for engineering...

 

[pgp_protector]

That you're wrong? Yes we are in agreement about that.

p.s. Snipping out half of my post (the half that proves you wrong) does not make it go away.

But lying by omission is a favorite way for some.

 

[True_Blue]

Blue >> you have no proof of a young earth; there however is tons of evidence for an old earth theory. The proof you show is garbage that literally spits in the face of all academia.

Listen to real scientists; not a dude with a GI Bill scholarship at MIT for engineering...

K, first of all, I don't care at all about this guy's PhD at MIT, and I care even less about how he financed it. I care about the strength of his ideas. I evaluate the strength of ideas based on merit of the ideas themselves, not polls, education, or character attacks. Second, even if I did evaluate based on such things, do you have a PhD in anything? Do you have a PhD from MIT? Who are you to attack his credibility? Have you read the article I linked to?

 

[us38]

As I said in Post #1, my model is generalized and not specifically related to chemistry,

Yes it is. Abiogenesis is a process of chemistry. You can not make a model of abiogenesis that ignores chemistry.

though the principle of applying probability to chemistry for the purposes of predicting abiogenesis from molecular interaction is perfectly apt. You are free to show the opposite using your knowledge of chemistry anytime.

You got it the wrong way. You are free to show that your probability model works. In fact, you have been asked to do so by Temperate, and refused to answer the challenge. Chemical reactions are not random, no matter how much you want them to be.

 

[mpok1519]

K, first of all, I don't care at all about this guy's PhD at MIT, and I care even less about how he financed it. I care about the strength of his ideas. I evaluate the strength of ideas based on merit of the ideas themselves, not polls, education, or character attacks. Second, even if I did evaluate based on such things, do you have a PhD in anything? Do you have a PhD from MIT? Who are you to attack his credibility? Have you read the article I linked to?

of course i dont have a degree at MIT; I wouldnt be so foolish as to apply there. =)

the strength of his ideas becomes nothing once the proof shatters his ideas; theres no strength in that; only foolishness.