Hi, I'm taking a Philosophy class.....

[reconciliation]

Hey, I'm all for a non-literal interpretation, just to say that everything in the bible is literal is indeed not what the bible meant. Just like that whole 6 literal day thing, and god zapping everything into exsistion are not meant to be literal, the bible could be interpreted diffrently on these issues as well.

I think you are now ignoring the context. First, there is nothing in the Book of Genesis (or anywhere in the Bible) that would make us think the Creation week as non-literal. The word "day" in the first chapter of the Bible means one literal day; any specialist of Hebrew language couldn't imply anything else for any linguistic reason. There are also words for long periods of time in Hebrew and none of them was used in Genesis 1.

Second, this is closely related to the very foundation of Christian faith. This creation-fall-restoration-thing should be radically reinterpreted if there was suffering before the Fall. No apostle ever did it and Jesus didn't say anything that could be interpreted to support that kind of non-literal explanation. I think we are losing something very essential if we accept death, diseases and other consequences of sin before the Fall. We have no logical or scientific reason to do it.

Everything in the Bible isn't literal but the context reveals which things are and which are not.

 

[reconciliation]

By the way, I am a scientist (I'm a postgrad geneticist), and I work across three well known institutions in Britain and I have never met a geneticist who did not buy evolution.

http://aig.gospelcom.net/creation/v17/i3/genetics.asp

 

[h2whoa]

http://aig.gospelcom.net/creation/v17/i3/genetics.asp

OK, I concede that you have found one. In Poland. However, I have never met and doubt I ever will meet a geneticist who believes in creationism.

I haven't had to time to browse through the link yet but I will.

Here's an interesting little factoid. I searched through a database of publications that I have access to. It is more complete than PubMed. I found that the Good Professor has authored 30 papers. Then I did another check. I searched for any of his papers which had "evolution" or "creation" anywhere in the Title/Abstract/Keywords.

Do you know how many papers that little search returned?

0.
Nada.
Nix.

The good Professor obviously has nothing to substantiate his claims beyond the laymen level. I mean if such an esteemed academic could disprove ToE he would be onto a winner.

And yet he has published nothing except in a creationist magazine affiliated with a website that frequently and demonstrably distorts science. Hmmmm.

Well, as I say I haven't read it yet, but rest assured I will. Just a shame he obviously hasn't been able to substantiate in scientific journals. As you would expect. From a Professor.

h2

P.S. you said that there was a growing number of scientists, in relevant fields. You have named one geneticist. I suppose your claim is true then but a growth from none to one is hardly a major shift in the scientific community.

 

[Randall McNally]

I think you are now ignoring the context. First, there is nothing in the Book of Genesis (or anywhere in the Bible) that would make us think the Creation week as non-literal. The word "day" in the first chapter of the Bible means one literal day; any specialist of Hebrew language couldn't imply anything else for any linguistic reason. There are also words for long periods of time in Hebrew and none of them was used in Genesis 1.

Better, then, that Genesis is treated as metaphorical. Otherwise, you have the odd situation of God deciding the day-length - before even creating the sun and earth system which actually define the day - then arbitrarily taking six of them to create everything.

So don't pretend like a literal Genesis makes any sense, other than to assuage those who are terrified that non-literalism will destroy their faith completely.

Second, this is closely related to the very foundation of Christian faith. This creation-fall-restoration-thing should be radically reinterpreted if there was suffering before the Fall. No apostle ever did it and Jesus didn't say anything that could be interpreted to support that kind of non-literal explanation. I think we are losing something very essential if we accept death, diseases and other consequences of sin before the Fall. We have no logical or scientific reason to do it.

Again, you have a tough-to-swallow situation in which the sin of two people creates a metaphysical shock wave that imprints a sinful nature on all subsequent individuals.

Much more satisfying is the notion that Adam and Eve represent the flaws inherent in each individual.

Everything in the Bible isn't literal but the context reveals which things are and which are not.

One would think.

 

[Jet Black]

I haven't had to time to browse through the link yet but I will.

It;'s pretty poor. I expected a lot more than pesticides and the peppered moth from a professor.

 

[Ondoher]

We have no logical or scientific reason to do it.

Other than the fact that young earth creationism was long disproven and an old earth and evolution are scientific facts. But other than that, you might be right.

 

[reconciliation]

Better, then, that Genesis is treated as metaphorical. Otherwise, you have the odd situation of God deciding the day-length - before even creating the sun and earth system which actually define the day - then arbitrarily taking six of them to create everything.

The length of a day is today defined by "the sun and earth system", but why should that have been the original way to determine the day? And I don't find God deciding the length of a day odd at all. Who should have decided it if not God? Of course God could have created everything within six seconds, six weeks, six billion years or no time at all. But now he chose six days.

So don't pretend like a literal Genesis makes any sense, other than to assuage those who are terrified that non-literalism will destroy their faith completely.
Again, you have a tough-to-swallow situation in which the sin of two people creates a metaphysical shock wave that imprints a sinful nature on all subsequent individuals.

It makes perfectly sense to everyone who isn't blinded by so called "science", that's evolution and it's atheistic implications. Ignorance prevents people from believing the truth. When Adam sinned, he was disconnected from God and without God none is able to live on the level we are meant to live.

 

[h2whoa]

evolution and it's atheistic implications.

It's time for h2whoa's wrong-bell again

DING-DING.

Ignorance prevents people from believing the truth.

Indeed it does, which is why you need to step away from the wilful ignorance that is YECism.

h2

 

[reconciliation]

Other than the fact that young earth creationism was long disproven and an old earth and evolution are scientific facts. But other than that, you might be right.

Evidence is against an old earth and evolution would be impossible without outside influence which would cause mutations to form new information. But then they wouldn't be random as ToE implies they are. If we found a tiny coded signal with any information coming from the space, we would know that there is life outside this planet, according to scientists. Now we know that cells include such amount of coded information that it would fill many encyclopaedias. So we logically know that there has to be intelligence behind cells and life on Earth.

 

[caravelair]

Evidence is against an old earth and evolution

what evidence would this be?

would be impossible without outside influence which would cause mutations to form new information. But then they wouldn't be random as ToE implies they are.

random mutations can indeed add information to the genome. this has been observed.

If we found a tiny coded signal with any information coming from the space, we would know that there is life outside this planet, according to scientists.

we would know this if we ever got a signal that was unlike anything created by natural processes.

Now we know that cells include such amount of coded information that it would fill many encyclopaedias. So we logically know that there has to be intelligence behind cells and life on Earth.

unless of course, there is some natural process which can create this information, and there is.

 

[Randall McNally]

The length of a day is today defined by "the sun and earth system", but why should that have been the original way to determine the day?

That's a very good question - one you should be asking yourself.

And I don't find God deciding the length of a day odd at all. Who should have decided it if not God? Of course God could have created everything within six seconds, six weeks, six billion years or no time at all. But now he chose six days.

So have you figured out how long one of the "original" days was?

It makes perfectly sense to everyone who isn't blinded by so called "science", that's evolution and it's atheistic implications.

Don't let the millions of theistic evolutionists hear you say that.

Ignorance prevents people from believing the truth. When Adam sinned, he was disconnected from God and without God none is able to live on the level we are meant to live.

In this case, what prevents people from believing "the truth" - by which I assume you mean young-earth creationism - is that God did his level best to make the earth look old, and to make living things appear to be related via common descent.

 

[Ondoher]

Evidence is against an old earth

You are mistaken. Scientists, many of whom happened to be christian, left the notion of a young earth behind more than two centuries ago. There is no evidence consistent with a young earth, while all dating methods consistently provide us with an age of 4.55 billion years.

and evolution would be impossible without outside influence which would cause mutations to form new information. But then they wouldn't be random as ToE implies they are.

Evolution doesn't require outside infuence to create new information, it happens as a matter of course. Here is one way to create new information from mutations: a->aa->ab. Duplicate a gene, and then have it undergo further mutation. This is known as duplication and divergence, and leads to such things as gene families.

If we found a tiny coded signal with any information coming from the space, we would know that there is life outside this planet, according to scientists. Now we know that cells include such amount of coded information that it would fill many encyclopaedias. So we logically know that there has to be intelligence behind cells and life on Earth.

If we found signals that were similar to the kinds of signals that we know humans would send, then we would suspect that something that thought like us may have sent them. We'd then set about trying to test that hypothesis.

Unfortunately for you, DNA does not look like anything we know humans make, so there is no analogy. The notion that it is designed cannot be tested, and it just so happens we have a perfectly good natural explanation for it already, called the modern synthesis.

 

[caravelair]

It makes perfectly sense to everyone who isn't blinded by so called "science",

do you reject science simply because it disagrees with you? what about science's remarkable track record of success? for example, how do you think that computer in front of you was designed?

... that's evolution and it's atheistic implications.

evolution does not have atheistic implications. evolution says nothing whatsoever about the existence of god, just like all other scientific theories.

Ignorance prevents people from believing the truth.

indeed. so, how much do you know about evolution?

 

[reconciliation]

what evidence would this be?

90 % of the methods used to estimate the age of this planet point to an age far less than billions of years which would be necessary for evolution if it wasn't still impossible (it would be). Some evidence: lack of erosion between rock layers supposed to be many millions of years old; lack of disturbance of rock strata by worms, roots and so on; lack of soil layers; polystrate fossils which traverse several rock layers vertically (they cannot have been buried during millions of years); unfossilized dinosaur bones with red blood cells and hemoglobin; the amount of helium in the atmosphere (it should be 2000 times greater if the atmosphere was really billions of years old); helium in rocks (it hasn't still had much enough time to escape, surely not billions of years); lack of old supernova remnants; the amount of salt in the sea; no source of coal has been found that completely lacks carbon-14, so coal cannot be older than 50 000 years; the decay of the Earth's magnetic field; magnetic fields on "cold" planets and many other.

random mutations can indeed add information to the genome. this has been observed.

About 50 % of mutations cause decrease in information, and other 50 % are neutral. The total influence which mutations cause is that information decreases.

unless of course, there is some natural process which can create this information, and there is.

Such natural process isn't known that could ever explain evolution from microbe to man. The reason is simple: there is no such process.

 

[reconciliation]

Unfortunately for you, DNA does not look like anything we know humans make, so there is no analogy.

DNA is far more complex. So it would be a lot easier to believe that those things made by humans, for example computers, could have originated without ID than to believe that designers of the computers originated that way. Btw, there is analogy between DNA and computer, the second one just uses a little simpler system in order to code information.

 

[yossarian]

About 50 % of mutations cause decrease in information, and other 50 % are neutral. The total influence which mutations cause is that information decreases.

50% of statistics are made up on the spot (closer to 100% where creationists are concerned)

 

[reconciliation]

do you reject science simply because it disagrees with you? what about science's remarkable track record of success?

Do you reject science only because it disagrees with evolution and atheism? There is a vast difference between operational science which is based on experiments and historical science which is based on suppositions.

 

[reconciliation]

50% of statistics are made up on the spot

I don't know about your statistics but what I presented about informational decrease and mutations is a fact whether one is creationist or not.

 

[Project2501]

90 % of the methods used to estimate the age of this planet point to an age far less than billions of years which would be necessary for evolution if it wasn't still impossible (it would be). Some evidence: lack of erosion between rock layers supposed to be many millions of years old;

citation? also not all areas have undergone erosion, so what is your point?

lack of disturbance of rock strata by worms, roots and so on;

do worms live everywhere? Are you taking into account the bioturbidity that does indeed point to great age?

lack of soil layers; polystrate fossils which traverse several rock layers vertically (they cannot have been buried during millions of years);

strawman. polystrate fossils have been understood for over a hundred years.

unfossilized dinosaur bones with red blood cells and hemoglobin;

There were no actual red blood cells found, just traces of haem. again, you should look at the original scientific references.

the amount of helium in the atmosphere (it should be 2000 times greater if the atmosphere was really billions of years old);

Helium is extracted at the poles, and the outflow rates and influx/production rates are equal. again old data.

helium in rocks (it hasn't still had much enough time to escape, surely not billions of years);

helium is produced in rocks.

lack of old supernova remnants;

bit more complicated, here is your answer.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/#BM10

the amount of salt in the sea;

which salt? if you are talking lead salts, then the earth is only a few hundred years old, other salts, such as sodium chloride are being removed from the oceans.

no source of coal has been found that completely lacks carbon-14, so coal cannot be older than 50 000 years;

It is impossible to tell if it lacks C14 because all detectors will detect background radiation. so your argument is nonsense.

the decay of the Earth's magnetic field;

the typical YEC arguments are based on the faulty assumption that the earth's magnetic field can be modelled as a hollow conducting sphere; it cannot. Heat is being generated in the core, either from crystallisation releasing the latent heat of fusion or alternatively nuclear fission, this heat drives a dynamo which keeps the earth's magnetic field functioning. It is decaying, but over a much much longer timescale than thousands of years.

magnetic fields on "cold" planets and many other.

such as?

About 50 % of mutations cause decrease in information, and other 50 % are neutral. The total influence which mutations cause is that information decreases.

can you provide an academic citation for that, and also the definition of information that you are using?

Such natural process isn't known that could ever explain evolution from microbe to man. The reason is simple: there is no such process.

so you say.

so far all your points are all long refuted points, and some of them were falsified decades ago.

 

[Mistermystery]

I'm not going to give you a hard time because I can debunk any claim you've thrown out so far. But I would like to awnser this little thingy with a fairly extensive debunk.

lack of old supernova remnants;

http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/snimages/

Let's see what NASA has to say about 3rd stage events:

The third phase, the Snow-plow or Radiative phase, begins after the shell has cooled down to about 106 K. At this stage, electrons begin recombining with the heavier atoms (like Oxygen) so the shell can more efficiently radiate energy. This, in turn, cools the shell faster, making it shrink and become more dense. The more the shell cools, the more atoms can recombine, creating a snowball effect. Because of this snowball effect, the SNR quickly develops a thin shell and radiates most of its energy away as optical light. The velocity now decreases as 1/r3. Outward expansion stops and the SNR starts to collapse under its own gravity. This lasts a few hundreds of thousands of years. After millions of years, the SNR will be absorbed into the interstellar medium due to Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities breaking material away from the SNR's outer shell.

So over a great lenght of time this 3th stage will dissapear. This works well in theory, but it doesn't work in practice. Some of the reasons for this are:
- The ISM in which supernovae occur is rarely isotropic or of a uniform consistency and density, which leads to asymmetry and differences within the remnant (Dohm-Palmer & Jones 1996; Maciejewski & Cox 1999; Slavin et al. 2000).
- If a supernova occurs in a pre-existing bubble of interstellar material surrounded by a massive shell of gas then the Sedov phase will not necessarily occur (Wheeler et al. 1980; Franco et al. 1991; Franco 1994; Gvaramadze 2000), indeed, the SNR may not be detectable at all in this scenario unless it hits the walls of the shell (Fich 1986; Koo & Heiles 1995; Chu 1997).
- If the density of the medium in which the SNR is located is low enough, it is possible for the SNR to finish its life by merging with the ISM before cooling becomes important (Asvarov 2000).
- Different stages can occur simultaneously in different locations within a single remnant (Cioffi et al. 1988; Tenorio-Tagle et al. 1990; Franco et al. 1994; Jones et al. 1998; Asvarov 2000; Bykov et al. 2000; Reynoso & Mangum 2001).
- If the ISM is strongly magnetized, then the evolution of the SNR will differ in terms of the length of the various phases and the overall shape of the remnant (Insertis & Rees 1991).

What I'm trying to say here is that the argument that Supernovae are relativly easy to put in a box, is not as easy as it seems.

Unfortunatly the gist of the your argument is right (that there are not many snr3), observations of ongoing radioactive decay in supernova remnants can only date the very young ones. The expansion method of dating a supernova remnant similarly only works for young supernova remnants (up to about 15,000 years old).

Why? Because after that time if has disperged so much it's not possible to trace it back with the equipment we have now. Supernova remnants are relatively hard to see they would not be visible for billions of years. Fewer than 1% of SNRs last more than 100,000 years. It may be that as few as 15 to 20% of supernova events are visible at all through the interstellar matter.

There are ways to date older supernova remnants (ages > 15,000 years), however they are not very accurate. These methods involve X-ray observations which measure the temperature of these supernova remnants. From the temperature, one can estimate the speed of the shock wave, from the speed of the shock wave one can estimate the age. Using these methods, we observe supernova remnants up to abound 100,000 years old, when they fade into the interstellar medium.

However by creationist's logic it would mean that 3th stage supernovae (because they are over 6000 years old) never ever could exist. Right? Therefor, if I could find even one (1) I would have disproven them.

And what do you know? I can! The Galactic HI shell GSH 138-01-94 studied by the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS), has detirmined the expansionage of GSH 138-01-94. It's 1.3 Million years (an extreme find, others have tested it to be around 4 million years, but let's not get into that).

See the point is that many more SNRs have been found, including many stage three remnants older than 20,000 years. Look at the cygnus loop, veil nebula or Velax for instance! And the census is not over yet. If the universe is old, many supernova remnants should have reached the third, oldest stage, and eventhough there may not be many easily detectable ones, that is exactly what we see.

All supernovas and SNRs are more than 7000 light years from us. SN 1987A was 167,000 +/- 1,000 light years away. Now if the goal of this is to find the age of the universe, supernova remnants are not the objects to look at. This is simply because they become mixed up with the interstellar medium after only about 100,000 years.

The evidence contradicts a young universe though, not an old one.

Check here to see that the number of supernovae (not even counter the extargalactic ones) has been far outnumbered in 2003. Long story short: There are 3rd stage supernovae remains, which are over a couple of hunderds of thousands years old. That means that God is showing us stars that were never there.