Harsh Truth: If Intelligent Design is Untestable . . .

[outhouse]

I'm sure Genesis got it right,though and math and science are probably just conspiracies.

How dare you use logic and reason on these poor people

 

[David M]

I think the fantasy is the billions of years you guys were advocating without any proof at all. If you can explain it to me how the parent isotopes started clocking or decaying some billions of years ago into the daughter isotopes, then you can convince me that a frozen mammoths is really a 39,000 year old.

Nothing "started clocking or decaying", radioactive decay is a result of the fundamental nature of matter itself and the only things that can alter those decay rates (and only some types of decay in any case) involve forces never found on our planet.

Its really not worth anyone's effort trying to explain the mechanics to you as you will either deny the facts or ignore them and keep spouting lies you copy from your creationist websites.

 

[David M]

Scientists have shown that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although
measurable distance from the earth every year. If you do the math, you
can calculate that 85 million years ago the moon was orbiting the
earth at a distance of about 35 feet.
This would explain the death of the dinosaurs...
the tallest ones, anyway.

Not really, if anyone does the math (I have) then, taking the rate of recession as a constant, the moon was about half its current distance from the earth at just over 4 billion years ago. Creationists have to lie about the maths (as they do on so many other things).

Found a link to someone else who did the maths:
Twenty-Four Young Earth Arguments Refuted

 

[Sapiens]

It fascinates me how the YECs can flatly reject uniformitarianism when it comes applies to some appropriate parts of geology like sedimentation and layering and yet embrace it inappropriately in others like the growth of Everest.

 

[Sapiens]

Nothing "started clocking or decaying", radioactive decay is a result of the fundamental nature of matter itself and the only things that can alter those decay rates (and only some types of decay in any case) involve forces never found on our planet.

Its really not worth anyone's effort trying to explain the mechanics to you as you will either deny the facts or ignore them and keep spouting lies you copy from your creationist websites.

Actually there is "starting" and "decaying," that is key:

Wiki on C14:

Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon, with a half-life of 5,730 years,[24][25] which is very short compared with the above isotopes. In other radiometric dating methods, the heavy parent isotopes were produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas, meaning that any parent isotope with a short half-life should be extinct by now. Carbon-14, though, is continuously created through collisions of neutrons generated by cosmic rays with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere and thus remains at a near-constant level on Earth. The carbon-14 ends up as a trace component in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

An organism acquires carbon during its lifetime. Plants acquire it through photosynthesis, and animals acquire it from consumption of plants and other animals. When an organism dies, it ceases to take in new carbon-14, and the existing isotope decays with a characteristic half-life (5730 years). The proportion of carbon-14 left when the remains of the organism are examined provides an indication of the time elapsed since its death. The carbon-14 dating limit lies around 58,000 to 62,000 years.[26]

The rate of creation of carbon-14 appears to be roughly constant, as cross-checks of carbon-14 dating with other dating methods show it gives consistent results. However, local eruptions of volcanoes or other events that give off large amounts of carbon dioxide can reduce local concentrations of carbon-14 and give inaccurate dates. The releases of carbon dioxide into the biosphere as a consequence of industrialization have also depressed the proportion of carbon-14 by a few percent; conversely, the amount of carbon-14 was increased by above-ground nuclear bomb tests that were conducted into the early 1960s. Also, an increase in the solar wind or the Earth's magnetic field above the current value would depress the amount of carbon-14 created in the atmosphere. These effects are corrected for by the calibration of the radiocarbon dating scale.[27]

Wiki on Uranium/Lead:

The uranium-lead radiometric dating scheme has been refined to the point that the error margin in dates of rocks can be as low as less than two million years in two-and-a-half billion years.[13][18] An error margin of 2–5% has been achieved on younger Mesozoic rocks.[19]

Uranium-lead dating is often performed on the mineral zircon (ZrSiO4), though it can be used on other materials, such as baddeleyite.[20] Zircon and baddeleyite incorporate uranium atoms into their crystalline structure as substitutes for zirconium, but strongly reject lead. Zircon has a very high closure temperature, is resistant to mechanical weathering and is very chemically inert. Zircon also forms multiple crystal layers during metamorphic events, which each may record an isotopic age of the event. In situ micro-beam analysis can be achieved via laser ICP-MS or SIMS techniques.[21]

One of its great advantages is that any sample provides two clocks, one based on uranium-235's decay to lead-207 with a half-life of about 700 million years, and one based on uranium-238's decay to lead-206 with a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, providing a built-in crosscheck that allows accurate determination of the age of the sample even if some of the lead has been lost. This can be seen in the concordia diagram, where the samples plot along an errorchron (straight line) which intersects the concordia curve at the age of the sample.

 

[David M]

Actually there is "starting" and "decaying," that is key:

I disagree, none of the examples you give encompass "starting decaying" or "starting clocking".

Decay is an inherent characteristic of certain isotopes, its not something that starts or stops it is an ongoing process. In the same way clocking does not start or stop, its another ongoing process that can, under certain conditions, attract markers that allow us to treat the clock as if it has "reset" which gives us a baseline to work from to determine timescales. For example the out-gassing of Argon from molten rock before it hardens after an eruption for example produces a state that is akin to a clock resetting which allows us to make calculations.

 

[Sapiens]

I disagree, none of the examples you give encompass "starting decaying" or "starting clocking".

Decay is an inherent characteristic of certain isotopes, its not something that starts or stops it is an ongoing process. In the same way clocking does not start or stop, its another ongoing process that can, under certain conditions, attract markers that allow us to treat the clock as if it has "reset" which gives us a baseline to work from to determine timescales. For example the out-gassing of Argon from molten rock before it hardens after an eruption for example produces a state that is akin to a clock resetting which allows us to make calculations.

You have a better case for Uranium/Lead there our discussion is basically semantic, but in the case of C14, "clocking" starts when the organism stops taking up Carbon.

 

[Bunyip]

You think that’s impossible?

No, I gave it as an example because it is factual.

Sushi bars in Manhattan, NY deep freeze their tuna for years before they serve them. 39,000 years? How did they measure the years again?

There are many different dating methods - all of which can be cross checked.

 

[Bunyip]

I think the fantasy is the billions of years you guys were advocating without any proof at all.

I honestly don't understand why you feel so free to tell such silly lies. There are many different dating methods, we know the age of the universe to six decimal places. Conversely YOUR shamelessly absurd dating method was to look at a contaminating biofilm on a 60 million year old fossil and rather laughably attempt to cantilever that into the claim that the universe is younger than beer. A shockingly silly and blunt attempt at fraud.

If you can explain it to me how the parent isotopes started clocking or decaying some billions of years ago into the daughter isotopes, then you can convince me that a frozen mammoths is really a 39,000 year old.

What point convincing you? You have made it clear that you will not approach the subject with any regard for truth or honesty - so who cares if you wish to pretend not to understand?

 

[JM2C]

It's been done numerous times now, not least of which includes my original post to you.




Ah yes, Genesis, that great bastion of Historical Accuracy and Scientific Teaching...

I mean, where else could we learn about the biology of talking reptiles, people living to be 1,000 years old, or the aeronautics of Enoch's levitation? Where else could we learn of the botanical magic of olive trees that grow to maturity in 7 days? Where else can learn the best possible way to commit genocide? Or the currently unknown ability of people to turn into salt blocks...

How about Lucy, your ancestor, can you tell me something about her? You can’t? Try Ancestry.com, maybe they have records, it’s only about 3.2 million years ago, they should have records of her and some of the other billions of supposedly missing links.

From 1 A.D. the estimated population was about 200 million to where we at right now at over 7 billion modern people. Just use your daily common sense, if we have over 7 billion modern people today in just over 2,000 years, where are the others from 3.2 million years ago that are supposedly the transitional form or the missing links BURIED? We should be drowning today with evidences from these billions of missing links.

“Why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” –Darwin

They’ve found a few of them like the “Piltdown Man” believed to be 500,000 to 1,000,000 year old missing link.

“The scientific community celebrated Dawson's discovery as the long-awaited "missing link" between ape and man and the confirmation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. As the decades passed and new information came to light, however, it became clear that the Piltdown Man was not what he seemed.”

New dating technology based on fluorine testing emerged in 1939, but the Piltdown remains had been locked away after Dawson’s death in 1916 and were not extensively tested until a decade later. At that time, fluorine testing revealed that the remains were a good deal younger than had previously been claimed, closer to 50,000 than 500,000 years old. (Later, carbon-dating technology showed that the skull was actually no more than 600 years old.)

“But that wasn’t all: Upon closer examination of the Piltdown Man, scientists found that the presumed hominid’s skull and jaw actually originated from two different species, a human and an ape (possibly an orangutan). A microscope revealed that the teeth within the jaw had been filed down to make them look more human, and that many of the remains from the Piltdown site appeared to have been stained to match each other as well as the gravel where they were supposedly found. In November 1953, authorities of the British Natural History Museum announced these findings and publicly called Piltdown Man a fraud.”

There goes your theory of billions of years of evolution down the drain with the “Piltdown Man” and Darwin

 

[ImmortalFlame]

From 1 A.D. the estimated population was about 200 million to where we at right now at over 7 billion modern people. Just use your daily common sense, if we have over 7 billion modern people today in just over 2,000 years, where are the others from 3.2 million years ago that are supposedly the transitional form or the missing links BURIED? We should be drowning today with evidences from these billions of missing links.

Fossilization is extremely rare, and if there were only 200 million people total two thousand years ago, what makes you think that there would be BILLIONS of hominid ancestors? That maths doesn't quite work out. The fact is that not every living thing leaves behind fossils that can be found millions of years later, but in spite of that fact we have found thousands of hominid fossils. Wikipedia has a helpful list of some of the more significant ones, with pictures and further sources:

List of human evolution fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” –Darwin

The accurate quote, the context of which you appear to have accidentally missed out, is this:

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?It will be more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been imperfectly made, and only at long intervals of time."
- Origin of Species, chapter VI

They’ve found a few of them like the “Piltdown Man” believed to be 500,000 to 1,000,000 year old missing link.

“The scientific community celebrated Dawson's discovery as the long-awaited "missing link" between ape and man and the confirmation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. As the decades passed and new information came to light, however, it became clear that the Piltdown Man was not what he seemed.”

New dating technology based on fluorine testing emerged in 1939, but the Piltdown remains had been locked away after Dawson’s death in 1916 and were not extensively tested until a decade later. At that time, fluorine testing revealed that the remains were a good deal younger than had previously been claimed, closer to 50,000 than 500,000 years old. (Later, carbon-dating technology showed that the skull was actually no more than 600 years old.)

“But that wasn’t all: Upon closer examination of the Piltdown Man, scientists found that the presumed hominid’s skull and jaw actually originated from two different species, a human and an ape (possibly an orangutan). A microscope revealed that the teeth within the jaw had been filed down to make them look more human, and that many of the remains from the Piltdown site appeared to have been stained to match each other as well as the gravel where they were supposedly found. In November 1953, authorities of the British Natural History Museum announced these findings and publicly called Piltdown Man a fraud.”

There goes your theory of billions of years of evolution down the drain with the “Piltdown Man”

One fraud - which was only discovered to be a fraud by the very evolutionary scientists you are insisting are behind it - does note refute the thousands of genuine fossils we have found throughout the geological strata.

 

[JM2C]

Scientists have shown that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although

measurable distance from the earth every year. If you do the math, you

can calculate that 85 million years ago the moon was orbiting the

earth at a distance of about 35 feet.

This would explain the death of the dinosaurs...

the tallest ones, anyway.

You mean man started observing this from 85 million years ago, Or the moon was there already when God created the Heavens and man just started observing this today? Have you ever thought of that?

 

[jonathan180iq]

From 1 A.D. the estimated population was about 200 million to where we at right now at over 7 billion modern people. Just use your daily common sense, if we have over 7 billion modern people today in just over 2,000 years, where are the others from 3.2 million years ago that are supposedly the transitional form or the missing links BURIED? We should be drowning today with evidences from these billions of missing links.

You're really bad at finding accurate data, aren't you? You're not too bad at math. But data acquisition isn't your strong suit.

Name 3 reasons why populations are so large today... Just 3.

Don't you think it's a coincidence that better healthcare systems, longer life expectancy, and less physical labor have allowed more people to make more babies, and keep everyone alive for longer periods?
Strange how that works, isn't it?
Do these same factors apply to previous centuries? What about previous millenia? What about prior to civilization?

Populations were smaller because life was harder and people didn't live as long. It's very simple.

“Why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” –Darwin

They’ve found a few of them like the “Piltdown Man” believed to be 500,000 to 1,000,000 year old missing link.

No one of any academic credibility thinks the Piltdown Man has anything at all to do with providing evidence for evolution.
And to dispel a common misconception amongst you Creationists, Darwin was not and is not the number one authority on Evolutionary Theory. He was a pioneer in the field. He was not as knowledgeable on the subject as we are today.

“The scientific community celebrated Dawson's discovery as the long-awaited "missing link" between ape and man and the confirmation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. As the decades passed and new information came to light, however, it became clear that the Piltdown Man was not what he seemed.”

You're going to argue about evolutionary biology by using a fraudulent specimen which scientists exposed nearly 100 years ago?
Really?

There goes your theory of billions of years of evolution down the drain with the “Piltdown Man”

Ok, buddy...

You tell me which of these skulls is the most human:

Good luck!

 

[Salvador]

How about Lucy, your ancestor, can you tell me something about her? You can’t? Try Ancestry.com, maybe they have records, it’s only about 3.2 million years ago, they should have records of her and some of the other billions of supposedly missing links.

" From 1 A.D. the estimated population was about 200 million to where we at right now at over 7 billion modern people. Just use your daily common sense, if we have over 7 billion modern people today in just over 2,000 years, where are the others from 3.2 million years ago that are supposedly the transitional form or the missing links BURIED? We should be drowning today with evidences from these billions of missing links." -JMC2


Coalescent theory analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism and linkage disequilibrium indicates the mean effective population size for hominid lineage is 100,000 individuals over the course of the last 30 million years. "The effective population size estimated from linkage disequilibrium is a minimum of 10,000 followed by an expansion in the last 20,000 years." ( Tenesa, Albert, Navarro, Paul, Hayes, Ben J., Duffy, David L., Clarke, Geraldine, Goodard, Mike E. and Visscher, Peter M. ) " Recent Human Effective Population Size Estimated from Linkage Disequilibrium" Genome Research 17 April 2007 Ancestral Population Genomics: The Coalescent Hidden Markov Model Approach

The overall population sizes of our hominid ancestor species were in the order of thousands rather than millions. Therefore, it wouldn't be as easy to find their remains than if they had existed in larger population sizes.

 

[Salvador]

Cretaceous bird. Click to zoom.


Katydid. Click to zoom.


Frog. Click to zoom.

"The quick answer to this question is that an animal or plant had to be very "lucky" to become a fossil, and even luckier to have its fossil remains discovered. Fossilization is an infrequent occurrence that is highly dependent on chance. In the past, like today, the remains of most organisms were eaten by animals, consumed by microorganisms, or weathered away. Only dead organisms that are buried in sediment quickly can escape these destructive natural processes and become fossils. After remains have been buried and preserved, they may still be destroyed by geological processes, or exposed and weathered away before people can find them."
"Why is the fossil record incomplete?" https://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/backyard-dinosaurs/questions-answers.cfm?know=a18

 

[gnostic]

Blaming others is another way of escaping responsibilities.


Christian like me? How about agnostic like who don’t have any principle/tenet at all. The Jesus that you know is the same as “The Word”, “and the Word was God”

JN 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

I have no problem with Jesus. My problem are with hypocrites and liars, like yourself.

Second, you don't know me, and you weren't there.

I wasn't brought up with Christian background, and I had only started reading the bible (when she gave me a bible when I was 15) because my sister had converted.

The argument is that I was curious when I was teenager, and the pastor whom I befriended in college, made curious about joining his church.

That same curiosity that wanted to join his church, also led me to wanting to find out more that were outside of the church's accepted teaching.

When I asked him about why there are literature outside of the bible's canon, he got angry, and I couldn't understand why. The text in question was the Gospel of Thomas, and I was curious enough to ask him where I could find it and read it. I knew nothing about this gospel, so I was curious. I didn't know anything about heresy, because I did know anything about history of Christianity, and at that time, I didn't know the Gospel of Thomas was linked to Gnosticism. And I didn't know anything about Gnosticism at 19.

At that time, I couldn't why he was upset with me, but I persisted, so he got angry, and told me that I was "lost" and that "you are going to hell". And that when started a shouting match that I didn't understand, and we walk away from each other. Though we have seen each other at the college library, we were no longer speaking to each others.

Had the pastor explain to me about heresy and the Gnosticism, instead of stonewalling me and getting angry with me over my questions, I might have been a baptist, because we have been talking about me joining his church.

Just over a year later, looking for a church to join, were no longer a priority in my life, and stop reading the bible. I haven't touch a bible in 14 years. I never did find any translation to the Gospel of Thomas, during that time, and i actually forgot about this gospel.

It was the year 2000 before I touch the bible again. I was working on my website - Timeless Myths - and have included section on King Arthur. Because of my webpages about King Arthur and his Knights, so my research naturally led me to the Grail legend, and that naturally led me to Joseph of Arimathea. And Arimathea led me back to the bible, about Jesus' death and burial.

During my research at the state library, I did found translation to that gospel, but wasn't interested in it, till some months later. Only then, did I learn about Gnosticism. Before then, I was clueless about the Gnosticism and the content in the gospel of Thomas, or about other codices found itch this gospel at Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

So do I blame the pastor? Yes, I do. But I am also glad that I didn't join his church, because they are too conservative and backward for my taste.

Now you know what I argue about and why I didn't join any church. And you being a ******* to think I was to blame, when you don't know what happened.

There are lots of good Christians who I have befriended over the years, but my brief experience with you, clearly showed that you are not one of them - good Christian, because you are hypocrite.

 

[Salvador]

You're really bad at finding accurate data, aren't you? You're not too bad at math. But data acquisition isn't your strong suit.

Name 3 reasons why populations are so large today... Just 3.

Don't you think it's a coincidence that better healthcare systems, longer life expectancy, and less physical labor have allowed more people to make more babies, and keep everyone alive for longer periods?
Strange how that works, isn't it?
Do these same factors apply to previous centuries? What about previous millenia? What about prior to civilization?

Populations were smaller because life was harder and people didn't live as long. It's very simple.



No one of any academic credibility thinks the Piltdown Man has anything at all to do with providing evidence for evolution.
And to dispel a common misconception amongst you Creationists, Darwin was not and is not the number one authority on Evolutionary Theory. He was a pioneer in the field. He was not as knowledgeable on the subject as we are today.



You're going to argue about evolutionary biology by using a fraudulent specimen which scientists exposed nearly 100 years ago?
Really?


Ok, buddy...

You tell me which of these skulls is the most human:

Good luck!

Skull N looks to me like it's the most human. Is this right?

 

[metis]

Skull N looks to me like it's the most human. Is this right?

Take another guess-- two for the price of one today.

 

[outhouse]

God created the Heavens and man just started observing this today?

Which god that many say man has created are you talking about ?

 

[McBell]

You mean man started observing this from 85 million years ago, Or the moon was there already when God created the Heavens and man just ....

What?
You were serious?
I thought you were merely posting random math themed jokes.....

You ever think that maybe your "math" post that that was in reply to was just as stupid as the joke when taken seriously?

Ever think of that?