Questions about/problems with YEC

Willtor · Mar 3, 2006

Well, I said he was a geologist, not a mathematician. All that aside, I agree with him. Even if I allow for all of your calculations (and I have no idea where you got your numbers), and even if I agree that long-lived animals could diverge so quickly (I don't; you can ask me about the reasons for this, if you like), and even if I agreed that 269 boxcars would be sufficient for the food alone (on very meager rations, to be sure), and even if I thought that space could be used that efficiently (there is no engineering project in existence, to date, that does), and even if I allowed that a ship of those dimensions in the shape required to allow that kind of efficiency could float on a large body of water (it couldn't), there are still weaknesses: 1. There were 7 (possibly 7 pairs) of each clean animal. 2. What about dinosaurs? 2a. Did they still exist? 2b. If not, how did they all die before the flood? 3. How did the animals distribute themselves across the (now) divided globe in that time frame?

KerrMetric · Mar 3, 2006

RightWingGirl said:
Please remember that the total known species of vertebrae on planet earth is only 50,000.
What we need is the number of animals the Ark had the capacity to house, and the number required to house every kind of land animal on the earth. First, only two representatives from each kind was required. The easiest example of a kind would be the dog kind, which would only need two representatives to account for all of the dog/wolf breeds. A biblical "kind" would have been a "genus" or maybe even a "family". (Since the flood, each "kind" has undergone variation through both natural selection and artificial selection into various species. This is Micro-Evolution, where no new information appears, but the old information is sorted or lost) All of which to say, not all of the animals we see today would need to be represented on the ark, only as possible variants in the genes of the animals on the ark..
Various studies have placed the number of animals that needed to be housed on the ark as between 16,000 and 18,000 individual animals which had to be aboard. Let us, however, calculate 32,000 animals. A generous average size for a land animal is the size of a sheep. Most animals are smaller than the sheep, but it is a good medium. Therefore, we need housing for 32,000 animals the size of sheep. (The animals chosen were probably juvenile pairs)
Most scholars believe the cubit to have been no less than 18 inches long. This means that the ark would have been at least 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high with three stories.The floor space on the ark would have been over 100,000 square feet, The total cubic volume would have been 1,518,000 cubic feet--that would be equal to the capacity of 569 modern railroad stock cars.
The average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, caculating living space also, 288 cars would have ample space to carry the 32,000 animals. Even a million insect species had to be on board as well, it would not be a problem, because they require little space. If each pair was kept in cages of four inches per side, or 1,000 cm3, all the insect species would occupy a total volume of only 1,000 m3, or another 12 cars. This would leave 269 cars each for food, Noahs family and range for the animals, for leeway, and for air space.

I wish you were joking but I fear you are not. Politely, that is complete biological and logistical garbage.

rmwilliamsll · Mar 3, 2006

random_guy said:
I thought that was an excellent point. If I said evolution was impossible, then, let's say, used evolution to explain how Noah's 8000 kinds hyperevolved into the millions of species we have today, then I would be making a huge fallacy.

Of course, who actually does do that?

this issue of bio-geography is important to discrediting YECism. not only hyper evolution several orders of magnitude faster than any scientists would dare propose, but the whole problem of getting them to islands without leaving any descendents along the way.

just the sheer problems of getting all the honeycreepers to Hawaii without leaving any fossils or any living descendents from Mt Ararat seems to destroy a global flood completely.

but i'm curious.
i see YECs and AIG say that science is wrong, that the method is materialistic, yet someone with a YECist view builds all this stuff with math and the ark. why? why try to establish things mathematically or pseudo-scientifically if the whole process is wrong?
what gives? why this contradiction? why bother analysising insect cage sizes if the greater, even enormous scientific data is discredited for using the very same technics because the technics are not godly.
curious contradiction, the tools are ok and good when i use them, but evilutionist when they do.

PaladinValer · Mar 3, 2006

Lion of God said:
Here is a page listing scientifically verifiable evidence of a worlwide flood.

http://www.layevangelism.com/advtxbk/sections/sect-10/sec10-5.htm

No ring, no Deluge. That's fact.

PaladinValer · Mar 3, 2006

Incidentally, using the exact dimentions the Bible literally gives for Noah's ark, it is mathematically impossible to fit all the pairs of both clean and unclean animals in the ark.

And, mind you, according to the YECs interpretation, Noah would have to fit all other life in there too, since a Deluge like that would destroy pretty much all fresh water as well as land plants and fungi.

Sorry, but it doesn't compute.

RightWingGirl · Mar 3, 2006

Dannager said:
Hahahahahaha. You're kidding, right? You bothered to go through so much bad-mouthing of TalkOrigins and then you don't even check your math?

glaudys' post said "The geologic record includes roughly 8 x 1024 grams of lava flows and igneous intrusions." 8 x 10^24 grams. Note that this is to the 24th power. The 24th power has three fewer zeros than the 27th power. The mass of the earth is 5.98 x 10^27 grams. There are three more zeros in the mass of the earth. That's not "nearly 1000 times more than the complete mass of the earth". That's nearly 1,000 times less than the complete mass of the earth. You got your powers backwards.

Please double-check your math before railing on a reputable website like that. You leaped without looking and you've come out looking rather foolish.

EDIT: For reference, I'm going to show you exactly what each looks like.

The mass of the lava flows and igneous intrusions:
8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grams

The mass of the earth:
5,980,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grams

See how those don't line up quite right?

Wow. Your must admit my blundering has a quality all of it's own!
They say it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. All I need to remove now is one foot.
Maybe it would be better if I did not try to debate while I have the flu.

Dannager · Mar 3, 2006

RightWingGirl said:
Wow. Your must admit my blundering has a quality all of it's own!
They say it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. All I need to remove now is one foot.
Maybe it would be better if I did not try to debate while I have the flu.

Hehe, no harm done. I'm glad that we were able to clear the misunderstanding up. I do ask, though, that you re-examine why you view TalkOrigins as a "notorious prevaricator". Most of the people calling them such have arguments that TalkOrigins refutes. Of course they'll call the refutation a lie - when someone is too stubborn to admit a mistake, this is the expected response. I have always found, from an objective standpoint, TalkOrigins to be pretty balanced in terms of its coverage. It doesn't engage in quote-mining and it always backs it claims with source reference documents. The scientific commnity holds a lot of respect for the work done there.

Robert the Pilegrim · Mar 3, 2006

oldwiseguy said:
How can I be sure that the information that you recommend won't change tomorrow? This from a lengthy article about chalk:

Recently in the UK, Prof. Mortimore of Brighton University has reviewed the geological subdivisions of the UK Chalk.
His new practical subdivision uses a combination of lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy and has replaced the older biostratigraphic subdivision of the Chalk used by the British Geological Survey. This zonation tended to be biased towards the use of fossils such as Ammonites.
I realize that this is small potatoes, but there are many such changes taking place all the time. Unless you're plugged in to them you have no way of keeping up.

Reading a basic college textbook gives one the foundation to understand a subject, an understanding of the basic theories, a sampling of the data used to test those theories.

Reading such a book puts into context those changes that do occur.

There is a reason people spend years earning PhDs and are paid a good chunk of change for their work. They maintain a good general knowledge and an amazing specific knowledge.

This takes work!

The way understanding is developed within geology or physics or ... is that lots of people work very hard figuring out the best way to examine/catagorize/explain/predict whatever they are studying, often disagreeing with each other, not infrequently making mistakes and going in the wrong direction before reality smacks them upside the head.

Sometimes they figure it out on their own, sometimes somebody else lends reality a helping hand.

Adios

OldWiseGuy · Mar 3, 2006

Willtor said:
As promised:

And in a follow-up, 2 minutes later:

My question was limited to flood strata, which includes all sediments formed while the earth was inundated by flood water, for any length of time. You answered questions that I didn't ask.

OldWiseGuy · Mar 3, 2006

PaladinValer said:
1. Most scientists are not Atheists actually. That's a lie.
2. Just because someone doesn't take the Bible as literally as you seem to do doesn't mean they don't believe anything in it.
3. Scientists don't exist to disprove the Bible but to answer questions about the universe and how things work. If by chance some literalist interpretation of the Bible is shot down in the process, oh well.
4. Fallacy of Appealing to Authority. Just because you say it happened doesn't mean it happened.

The Romans corrupted Greek philosophy, which explored how and why God did things, by removing the God from their (corpus of) knowledge. Paul condemns them for that in Romans 1. Today's scientists do the same thing, as we are the hiers of that Roman system. Science cannot be fully understood without revelation.

OldWiseGuy · Mar 3, 2006

Dannager said:
Smooth, man. Real smooth. The pinnacle of Christian fellowship, you are.

I apologize for that comment. I was out of line. 8^(

gluadys · Mar 3, 2006

Maddi777 said:
ok, I know I'm gettin' in over my head in this thread, but.....

Probably.

don't you guy's know most sciencetist are atheist's.

No, I don't know that. Please provide the research to back up this claim.

... why ya think they tried for year's to disprove the Bible!

Click to expand...

Then there must be dozens of scientific papers on this subject. Could you please provide links to at least three?

OldWiseGuy · Mar 3, 2006

Willtor said:
As promised:

Quote

Originally Posted by: Willtor's Brother

Oh, and it would have taken direct divine intervention to fit two of each species of land animal on a boat of that size. It would, however, be possible to take two of each species unique to the area occupied by humans at that time.

You make a common mistake when you call the ark a boat. An ark is a box, or chest, not a boat, ship, or barge. It didn't look like a boat, and no one exceept Noah and possibly his family, had any reason to think it was a boat.

I have seen houses floating down a flooded river but I never heard anyone call them boats. (I'm having fun with this, as you can see.)

People didn't stand around laughing at Noah's boat, because they didn't think it was a boat. They had no idea what it's purpose was. They may have thought it was going to be a new Walmart superstore.

I go on and on because I want to make the point that in order to criticize the bible you should know what you are criticizing. You said boat, not ark. A boat would have certain features not found in the ark. It would never have been built that large; would have had a rudder; probably a set of sails, ballast, anchor, an experienced crew. It would have been built near navigable water, certainly near a major trading port, etc, etc. (This is as much fun for me as when scientists go on and on about how little well meaning but uninformed believers know science.)

Noah had no way to control the direction of the arks travel, and he wound up on a mountaintop. If it had been a boat he surely would have parked it in a better spot.

Well enough of this. I have studied the flood story extensively and can say, and prove as above, that most people, including most christians have almost no clue what the flood story actually says, even though they pass their eyes over the text a hundred times.

To prove this just ask any christian, child or adult, to draw a picture of the ark. Most will draw you a picture of a large boat. 8^)

You are correct, it was divine intervention.

Gen 6:20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

God brought them to the ark, Noah took them inside.

We have no way of knowing how many, or few, varieties of critters were extant in Noah's day. Regards redistribution after the flood: God gathered them, he could have returned them to where he got them. Also, trading occurred to the far corners of the earth as soon as populations were reestablished. Trade always included animals, birds, plants, seeds, etc. Bugs, rodents, etc. were always hitchhiking as well. Also, animals can reproduce, and relocate, with amazing speed.

The flood was a supernatural event. God did some things; Noah had his instructions. Everything that Noah was told to do could easily be done today (except finding enough tall trees, of course). Trying to prove or disprove the event is fruitless. However, it is fun.

Gwenyfur · Mar 3, 2006

PaladinValer said:
4. Fallacy of Appealing to Authority. Just because you say it happened doesn't mean it happened.

Which is exactly what every person does TO OEC YEC when they cite research...

fallacy of appealing to authority...

You cite soemone else's research as your proving point instead of doing your own...
interesting that it's a double edged sword when looked at logically...

I'm guessing taht 90% of the TE's on this board spend very little time in the lab testing their theories...they just spend time reading up on the research being done by others...who are more specialized and knowledgeable in their fields of study...

but when a creationist uses the Bible, or a research that differs from theirs it's Fallacy of appealing to authortiy...

Willtor · Mar 3, 2006

oldwiseguy said:
My question was limited to flood strata, which includes all sediments formed while the earth was inundated by flood water, for any length of time. You answered questions that I didn't ask.

Actually, I didn't answer any questions. However, your question was answered (though, not the way you would have liked, I think). The answer is that there is flood strata, but no global flood strata. All floods, in the history of Earth, to the best of geology's ability to tell, have been localized.

oldwiseguy said:
I go on and on because I want to make the point that in order to criticize the bible you should know what you are criticizing. You said boat, not ark. A boat would have certain features not found in the ark. It would never have been built that large; would have had a rudder; probably a set of sails, ballast, anchor, an experienced crew. It would have been built near navigable water, certainly near a major trading port, etc, etc.

And yet, you still hold the impression that we are criticizing the Bible. Actually, we are merely criticizing your interpretation of the Bible because we find it inadequate. Boat or no, it would not have fit the animals.

Dannager · Mar 4, 2006

Gwenyfur said:
Which is exactly what every person does TO OEC YEC when they cite research...

fallacy of appealing to authority...

You cite soemone else's research as your proving point instead of doing your own...
interesting that it's a double edged sword when looked at logically...

I'm guessing taht 90% of the TE's on this board spend very little time in the lab testing their theories...they just spend time reading up on the research being done by others...who are more specialized and knowledgeable in their fields of study...

but when a creationist uses the Bible, or a research that differs from theirs it's Fallacy of appealing to authortiy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority. An argument-from-authority (or appeal-to-authority) fallacy only occurs when the authority appealed to does not have the qualifications necessary to evaluate the claim. Scientists we cite have relevant authority, having conducted the work themselves. Biblical testimony is not capable of having relevant authority in the biological sciences.

Wikipedia.org said:
An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy: authorities can be wrong, both in their own field and in other fields; therefore referencing authority does not automatically imply truth. However, referencing authority may carry a high enough probability of truth that it would be correct to base decisions on it.

Emphasis mine.

Gwenyfur · Mar 4, 2006

By that argument Darwin's theory then holds not water...
he held a degree in theology NOT science

KerrMetric · Mar 4, 2006

Gwenyfur said:
By that argument Darwin's theory then holds not water...
he held a degree in theology NOT science

But since 150 years have passed it's really not his theory. His work was the initial idea plus observations.

shernren · Mar 4, 2006

http://www.1729.com/lists/ErrorsInRefutationsOfCreationism.html

Highly confusing bull! Let's go ...

Talk.Origins: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA002.html
Dodgy refutation begins: The talk.origins response talks about the naturalistic fallacy (confusing what is with what ought to be), and about cooperation and treating other people well. None of which really refutes the claim. Probably because the claim isn't wrong. That is, might is right.

Gee, is a Christian supposed to support a site which says that might is indeed right? Is this a Christian site? Anyway. The site goes on to give a dissection of atheistic evolutionist origins of morals. They completely forget to deal with the case of theistic evolution. And they make a very common error:

The religious view, and in particular the Christian view, is that morality is a set of rules provided by God, and applied in judgement by God, and the only issue for the people is to decide whether or not to obey the rules.

The religious view maybe, but not the Christian view. In the Christian view morality isn't even about what God commands but about who God is. We as the image of God are obligated to emulate God's character ... no matter how God formed us as God's image. In particular, murder is wrong and life is sacred, not because life has any intrinsic value but because the right to give life and take life is God's alone - there is therefore no conflict between God using death to create us, and then forbidding us to take life, because in both cases God is simply exercising His divine right.

Thus within a theistic framework - any theistic framework, evolutionary or not - morality is contingent upon the character of God. This would be no different whether God created in thousands of years or in billions.

Talk.Origins: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA602.html
Dodgy refutation begins: Well, yes and no. The talk.origins response emphasises the existence of religious people (even Christians) who believe in God and in evolution.
Unfortunately, the co-existence between religion and science is not so relaxed as some people want it to be:

It goes on to describe an accurate and wonderful refutation of the God-of-the-gaps formulation of religion - in other words that everything God does must be "magic", and since evolution removes "magic" then evolution removes God. This is an excellent piece of work to show the consequences of God-of-the-gaps beliefs. Instead of believing that God only works where science cannot understand, then, isn't it logical to believe that God works both through supra-scientific and scientific events? That fully alleviates the dodgy rebuttal: evolution merely moves the origin of biodiversity from supra-scientific to scientific, and never out of the domain of God's responsibility.

And surprisingly, the rest of the answers are stronger refutations of the creationist claims, not weaker ones or anti-refutations. Lion of God, are you sure you wanted us to read this?

http://www.alternativescience.com/faq_or_fiction.htm

This coming from a site which denies relativity, supports psychic "science", and doesn't mention God even once?

How about some real evidence against naturalism?

http://www.re-discovery.org/

Dannager · Mar 4, 2006

Gwenyfur said:
By that argument Darwin's theory then holds not water...
he held a degree in theology NOT science

No, I don't think you quite understand the fallacy. In addition, it doesn't matter what degree Darwin held at the time. He pioneered a field in science. There were no evolutionary biology degrees back then. He was the first evolutionary biologist.

EDIT: Actually, you just used another fallacy: the ad hominem. You are implying that because Darwin doesn't hold a degree in science his theory doesn't hold water. Whether or not he has a degree doesn't matter as long as the theory is sound. You should probably do some reading up on logical fallacies.

Questions about/problems with YEC

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