There is not enough erosion of the continents for them to be many 10s of millions of years old.

[Subduction Zone]

Subduction honestly...grow some brains. I cited references from authoritative sources...the dates are scholarly accepted dates even from publications such as wikipedia and britannica.

You need to actually read references provided to you...it is very clear from quite a number of responses from you that you do not read any references anyone cites. What you are doing is demonstrating the habits of an individual with little or no formal academic training or experience. An individual with such training, would not continue with this kind of stupidity. You do not appear to be a stupid individual to me, so i suggest you stop being lazy, regurdgitating yesterdays food, and start actively engaging in the debate in a manner that others can learn from.

No, you cited no references. You have no links. You have no quotes.


Do you even know what the phrase "Citation needed" means? That is a demand for quotes and a link to that source. Those were lacking from your post.

As to whether Moses was real you should have read Wikipedia as you mentioned. Scroll down to "Historicity ":

Moses - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Polymath257]

First 5 books of the bible are the oldest - Torah(Hebrew)/Pentateuch(Greek) recorded by Moses more than 1000 years B.C

First of all, this is irrelevant to what I said. I pointed out that the Bible as we know it wasn't brought together until centuries after Peter wrote
those lines you quoted. Also, what was and was not 'scripture' was still very much debated.

Yes, the Torah was accepted as scripture at that point, as were a number of other writings, some of which are NOT considered scripture today.

Second, your date for when the Torah was written is off. The Torah was written and re-written over the course of centuries with no single author. It was brought into final form during the Persian period, well after 600BC.

Second oldest - Nevi'im which would have been collated sometime during the Maccabean period of 400 years to Christ as we know that Christ read from the Isaiah scrolls in the temple and we have a copy of this scroll dated at least 100 B.C despite Isaiah having lived at least 100 years before Babylonian captivity.

And this was still being debated as scripture during this time.

Third oldest - Ketavim which, given it includes the book of Daniel, would have been completed after the Persian captivity commenced because Daniel died during the Medo Persia captivity.

Then we have the Tanakh - all three combined.

Now whilst you may debate its formal cannonical date, that is irrelevant as that has no bearing on when the writings of the Old Testament cannon were original recorded by their respective scribes!

But it does have bearing on what Peter was saying was 'scripture'.

You stated"the bible didnt even exist when Peter wrote this " [his epistles]...

We know that the Apostle Peter referenced the Old Testament writings as did Christ (the isaiah scroll was quoted by Christ directly in the Temple...so your claim there is ignoring and opposed to some very well known facts to the contrary.

And again, the New Testament would certainly NOT have been considered to be scripture at this time (parts were not even written).

Next, you make the claim "he was certainly NOT more of an expert on the Bible than Augustine"

The Apostle Peter was the first leader of the Christian church...do you not recall Christ making the statement "upon this rock will i found my church"?

Yes, the old Catholic line. But, again, the Bible as a collection of writings, was not set at the time of Peter. In fact, it had been decided which writings were canonical not long before Augustine. So, yes, I maintain Augustine was more of an authority *on the Bible* than Peter.

Matthew 16

15...Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”​

16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”​

​

17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!b For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”​

Peter himself states

16For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”c 18And we ourselves heard this voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.​

19We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation. 21For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.​

​

So when you make the claim St Augustine is more authoritative than a bible writer [in this case Peter] Augustine read the scriptures...he didnt write them. As for the assumed interpretation part of your comment, that too is debunct by Peters statement in vs 20!

Irrelevant to the point I was making.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological fraud in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. Although there were doubts about its authenticity virtually from the beginning (in 1912), the remains were still broadly accepted for many years, and the falsity of the hoax was only definitively demonstrated in 1953.

Does it really matter if i said 40 years or 50? That fact is, the fraud was run by secularism for more than 4 decades. This is not a YEC fraud...it was a naturalism one.

It was a fraud. It wasn't committed by scientists. It was committed on scientists. It was not fully accepted in science. It was determined to be a fraud by scientists.

It is ancient history and does not alter the facts of evolution as you, and so many poorly informed creationists, have tried desperately to do by these poor attempts to keep it relevant.

We should not forget our friend Eugene Dubois who also defrauded us all in his hiding the Java man fossil for over 30 years. It was claimed to be the missing link but the truth is it is not.

Despite Dubois's argument, few accepted that Java Man was a transitional form between apes and humans.[1] Some dismissed the fossils as apes and others as modern humans, whereas many scientists considered Java Man as a primitive side branch of evolution not related to modern humans at all. Java Man - Wikipedia​

I could go on with more of that mans lies if you like...theres plenty more of them.

Finally, lets not forget, Dubois was not even a trained paleontologist...the man has no formal training in any kind of geology either and yet, he is viewed by naturalism as being one of their shining lights on the human ancestory fossil record! Strangely enough, the "shining light award" appears to have been credited to him in recent times as

he died embittered in 1940.[7] He was buried in unconsecrated ground on 16 December 1940 in Venlo, "Algemene Begraafplaats", grave number NH2\26\-\BR. Eugène Dubois - Wikipedia​

​

embittered

1. very angry about unfair things that have happened to you: 2. very angry…

dictionary.cambridge.org

embittered
adjective
very angry about unfair things that have happened to you:
They ignored all her pleas and she became very embittered.
He died a disillusioned and embittered old man.

More of the same rinse and repeat.

Dubois wasn't a fraud and Java man turns out to be something important in the hominid fossil record after all. Science doing what it is supposed to do and coming to conclusions based on the evidence. Dubois did like most creationists do. They have a conclusion and force all the data to fit the conclusion instead of the other way round. Later scientists followed the evidence and it turns out that Java Man is another member of the our genus.

I'm sure you could go on and on and on and on and on and likely will. But if it is more of the same rinse and repeat that doesn't change anything, why bother? Seems to me that you are on a path to suffer Dubois' fate that you have so keenly defined in closing.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That is true, however, in the case of the Piltown Man it wasnt honest was it?

Of course not. Is it honest to use it as evidence against science and the theory of evolution given what is known about it?

Nor was it honest that Dubois withheld the Java man from close examination for almost 30 years so that he could ensure that his earlier "missing link" fossil claim would not be challenged under scrutiny of the latter fossil. The only reason he suddenly started publishing about the Java man 30 years later was to try to debunct those later claims of similar fossils found by others that would discredit his original "missing link find"!

That wasn't strictly dishonesty so much as clinging to a weak notion based on what Dubois wanted the conclusion to be. I see that here all the time. It is a logical fallacy and many people cling to them as if they are solid.

BTW another problem... overlap between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens. If the latter evolved from the earlier, why the 500,000 year overlap? That kind of overlap doesnt fit the survival of the fittest evolutionary model at all.

Overlapping of species isn't a problem. There is nothing demanding that an ancestral species disappear as soon as a descendant species evolves. I see this sort of thinking repeated often. All it tells me is that those repeating it are very ignorant of the science that is readily available for review and personal education.

Did your family die the minute you were born? It's that simple.

Next we have the problem of Kow Swamp...which is likely Homo Erectus and not Homo Sapien.

What is the problem. Enlighten us.

Then lets look at the Cossack skull 2000 miles away from Kow swamp and almost 3000 miles away from the Java Solo people. The Cossack skull has a maximum age of 6500 years and a minimum age of a few hundred years and yet its clearly not Homo Sapien...its Homo Erectus!

No. The upper limit of its age is 6500 years based on geomorphological dating. You have it backwards.

Freedman and Lofgren (1979) identify it as evidence of an ancestral Australian Aboriginal population. "The specimen is important as indicating the widespread nature and probable recency of a large, robust Australian Aboriginal population demonstrably different to recent populations.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0047248479900939

There's nothing suggesting it isn't H. sapiens.

Freedman, L. & M. Lofgren. 1979. Human skeletal remains from Cossack, Western Australia. J. Human Evol. 8(2: 283-299.

The Cossack skull is evidence that Homo Erectus might very well have walked the earth as late as the 18th century...around the time of the colinisation of the eastern part of the Australian continent in 1788!

It doesn't appear to be evidence of Homo erectus. From what I'm reading, it doesn't indicate a presence more recent than 6,500 years ago.

The point is, more scientists are now suggesting, indeed even demanding that Homo Erectus is not morphologically distinct enough to have its own classification as it does not represent a true evolutionary ancestory in the timeline. There are at least 78 examples where this species dates in complete contrast to the evolutionary model!

That's so very dramatic. Demanding are they. How daunting.

What Day (1990) is pointing out is that, at the time, what was once viewed as a stable taxonomy, has seen the addition of new evidence raising questions that need answering. If you were doing more than quote mining, you'd note this is a book review and that the conclusion of it is that the book in review is an authoritative, rather dry, account of the state of human ancestral taxonomy of the time. The author of the book concludes that H. erectus is a valid species. Though, according to the evidence reviewed, H. erectus may be a cousin and not a direct ancestor. So what. The evidence continues to support the theory. New questions and controversy within science do not magically displace facts and theory with the opinion and beliefs of some dude.
https://www.nature.com/articles/348688a0.pdf

Day, M. 1990. Homo turmoil. Nature. 348(6303): 688-688.

Michael Day writes...
"Of the three stages we know of the evolution of man (the australopithecine ape-men, Homo erectus the first true men, and early Homo Sapiens our own species) Homo erectus of the Middle Pleistene would have seemed the most clearly understood and the most taxonomically stable of them all a relatively few years ago - not anymore. Important new finds as well as new ways of thinking about hominid taxonom have thrown this species into the same turmoil as all of the others." ("Homo turmoil", Nature 348 (20/27 December 1990): 688.

Yes, scientists doing what scientists are supposed to do. Nothing thwarting the theory of evolution. Just discussing the evolution of humans and coming to new questions.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

Is it honest to use it as evidence against science and the theory of evolution given what is known about it?

I dont think that the aim is to use it against science...my personal view is that these kinds of revelations highlight that it is not the science that is the problem, its the way in which it is used and interpreted.

I recall the Lindy Chamberlain "dingo took my baby case" a lot of the legal community had this idea that the science proved she was guilty. It turns out that the way in which the science was used and interpreted was very very wrong. It wasnt flawed science that caused the original conviction...it was the way in which it was interpreted.

Now what i find interesting about how you finish what you wrote in the above quote..."the theory of evolution"

a theory is not fact. The entire reason it is theory is because it is not proven...otherwise it wouldnt be called "a theory".

What happens next is one seeks to find evidence that supports said theory. One isnt interested in the evidence that doesnt support the theory, its the evidence that does support it that is collated. Then is just becomes a numbers game...nothing more.

Now the reason that Christians take a different approach to these things is because, whether or not anyone is wiling to admit it, the historical narrative of the bible has a huge amount of external evidence that positively supports its claims. Even Bart Erhman a popular non christian these days has emphatically concluded Jesus Christ really existed...he is a world expert on Christ and the New Testament.

For me as a YEC, if one is to follow the bible given the large amount of external evidence that supports it, one must believe the whole book...not just the convenient bits of it!

 

[Polymath257]

I dont think that the aim is to use it against science...my personal view is that these kinds of revelations highlight that it is not the science that is the problem, its the way in which it is used and interpreted.

I recall the Lindy Chamberlain "dingo took my baby case" a lot of the legal community had this idea that the science proved she was guilty. It turns out that the way in which the science was used and interpreted was very very wrong. It wasnt flawed science that caused the original conviction...it was the way in which it was interpreted.

But your examples show that science actually works: it finds and corrects its mistakes. And, in the Piltdown case, it was the fact that the fraud didn't align with the *other* evidence for evolution that lead to it being discovered. So the overall result was that evolutionary theory was strengthened, not weakened, by this affair.

A bad interpretation *is* bad science. This is often what happens with lawyers and lay people.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

But your examples show that science actually works: it finds and corrects its mistakes. And, in the Piltdown case, it was the fact that the fraud didn't align with the *other* evidence for evolution that lead to it being discovered. So the overall result was that evolutionary theory was strengthened, not weakened, by this affair.

A bad interpretation *is* bad science.

I do not agree with that last statement...there is no such thing as bad science. Science isnt good or bad, it is simply a tool for learning. It does not matter whether or not what is learned is right or wrong...that is merely a matter of opinion based on numbers.

If one intends to state morality is scientific and then uses that to claim those who follow a literal reading of scripture and choose to record scientific data that supports that literal reading of scripture is lying and therefore immoral...that is an absurd argument to make from a naturalism viewpoint!

We have atheists running around schools trying to stop christian studies during school hours calling it indoctrination and evil. What a load of ****e...since when is any study of philosophy considered evil? It seems to me that there is this fear of being convinced and then converted because it may just be right!

If someone is running around crying wolf for fear of indoctrination of their flock, then ones own world view is clearly not well founded is it? I think that increasingly over the last 20 years or so, the findings in YEC research have shown the accepted evolutionary model to be deeply flawed and not at all well founded.

 

[Whateverist]

That sounds like someone's offhand opinion. Should anyone else agree with you? What are the criteria by which you reach such a conclusion?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I dont think that the aim is to use it against science...my personal view is that these kinds of revelations highlight that it is not the science that is the problem, its the way in which it is used and interpreted.

You are using against science. Other creationists use it against science. I've seen it literally rehashed 100's constantly over the years to be used against science.

It is never the case of same evidence different interpretation. I have never seen evidence matter to a creationist.

I recall the Lindy Chamberlain "dingo took my baby case" a lot of the legal community had this idea that the science proved she was guilty. It turns out that the way in which the science was used and interpreted was very very wrong. It wasnt flawed science that caused the original conviction...it was the way in which it was interpreted.

It was lot of things, including poor methodology by a technician.

Now what i find interesting about how you finish what you wrote in the above quote..."the theory of evolution"

a theory is not fact.

No one is claiming it is. I didn't.

The entire reason it is theory is because it is not proven...otherwise it wouldnt be called "a theory".

A theory is an explanation for the evidence.

What happens next is one seeks to find evidence that supports said theory. One isnt interested in the evidence that doesnt support the theory, its the evidence that does support it that is collated. Then is just becomes a numbers game...nothing more.

That pick and choose mentality is a creationist mentality, not a science mentality. You don't ignore evidence if it doesn't fit the theory. You find out why it doesn't fit.

Now the reason that Christians take a different approach to these things is because, whether or not anyone is wiling to admit it, the historical narrative of the bible has a huge amount of external evidence that positively supports its claims. Even Bart Erhman a popular non christian these days has emphatically concluded Jesus Christ really existed...he is a world expert on Christ and the New Testament.

There is archaeological evidence and evidence from historical documents that establish that some of the setting mentioned in the Bible actually existed, but for most of the claims of the Bible, there is literally no evidence. As Christian, I take it on faith, but I don't have any evidence of bodies rising from the dead or food falling from the heavens for instance.

For me as a YEC, if one is to follow the bible given the large amount of external evidence that supports it, one must believe the whole book...not just the convenient bits of it!

There isn't that sort of evidence you are claiming for it. The historical existence of Christ is not evidence for the claims of miracles, etc.

Then there are the claims that go against the evidence.

I don't think there is a need to believe the book is a literal history and science text.

I think that demanding it be seen as a true and literal account is deification of the Bible and serves no purpose except those of people that find it convenient.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I do not agree with that last statement...there is no such thing as bad science. Science isnt good or bad, it is simply a tool for learning. It does not matter whether or not what is learned is right or wrong...that is merely a matter of opinion based on numbers.

If one intends to state morality is scientific and then uses that to claim those who follow a literal reading of scripture and choose to record scientific data that supports that literal reading of scripture is lying and therefore immoral...that is an absurd argument to make from a naturalism viewpoint!

We have atheists running around schools trying to stop christian studies during school hours calling it indoctrination and evil. What a load of ****e...since when is any study of philosophy considered evil? It seems to me that there is this fear of being convinced and then converted because it may just be right!

If someone is running around crying wolf for fear of indoctrination of their flock, then ones own world view is clearly not well founded is it? I think that increasingly over the last 20 years or so, the findings in YEC research have shown the accepted evolutionary model to be deeply flawed and not at all well founded.

I don't agree with your first paragraph. The rest is a rant that isn't worth further comment and seems to me more like ad hoc propaganda over a perceived persecution that isn't there.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I do not agree with that last statement...there is no such thing as bad science. Science isnt good or bad, it is simply a tool for learning. It does not matter whether or not what is learned is right or wrong...that is merely a matter of opinion based on numbers.

If one intends to state morality is scientific and then uses that to claim those who follow a literal reading of scripture and choose to record scientific data that supports that literal reading of scripture is lying and therefore immoral...that is an absurd argument to make from a naturalism viewpoint!

We have atheists running around schools trying to stop christian studies during school hours calling it indoctrination and evil. What a load of ****e...since when is any study of philosophy considered evil? It seems to me that there is this fear of being convinced and then converted because it may just be right!

If someone is running around crying wolf for fear of indoctrination of their flock, then ones own world view is clearly not well founded is it? I think that increasingly over the last 20 years or so, the findings in YEC research have shown the accepted evolutionary model to be deeply flawed and not at all well founded.

The scientific method is part of science, but it is not the whole of science.

It does matter if the findings are valid or not.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Same evidence, different interpretation is a bad idea promoted by those that don't like the best available explanation of the evidence, because it confounds what they want to believe is the answer.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Now what i find interesting about how you finish what you wrote in the above quote..."the theory of evolution"

a theory is not fact. The entire reason it is theory is because it is not proven...otherwise it wouldnt be called "a theory".

Okay, so you do not even know what a theory is. Or for that matter you do not understand the scientific method. Scientists do not use the word "prove" because they use a lot of math and math has absolute proofs. There is nothing outside of mathematics that can be absolutely proven. Theories are as good as it gets in the sciences. A law would actually be a demotion. The theory of evolution explains the many facts of evolution just as the theory of gravity explains the facts of gravity. Oh, and the theory of gravity is an excellent example of the superiority of theories. The theory of gravity superseded Newton's Universal Law of Gravity. It explains facts that Newton's Law cannot. Newton's Law still works. We do not go flying off into space. And even if by some miracle your refuted the current model that evolution relies upon evolution itself would still be a fact.

What happens next is one seeks to find evidence that supports said theory. One isnt interested in the evidence that doesnt support the theory, its the evidence that does support it that is collated. Then is just becomes a numbers game...nothing more.

Ooh so backwards. If a scientist wants to make a name for oneself one will often look for facts that refute a theory. And no, every piece of evidence that is found for a theory makes it that much more difficult to refute. After a while it tells a person that if one found something that one thought refuted the theory the odds are huge that that person is wrong. Eventually theories like that of evolution and gravity, get to the point where they will almost certainly never be refuted, though there will be areas where the theories can be refined a bit.

Now the reason that Christians take a different approach to these things is because, whether or not anyone is wiling to admit it, the historical narrative of the bible has a huge amount of external evidence that positively supports its claims. Even Bart Erhman a popular non christian these days has emphatically concluded Jesus Christ really existed...he is a world expert on Christ and the New Testament.

Now you are making a huge error. You are conflating creationists with Christians. Most Christians are not creationists. And the vast majority of Christian scientists accept the theory of evolution. From my experience every creationist that I run into is a science denier. None of them follow the scientific method. In fact creationist sites, such as AiG and ICR required their workers to swear that they will not follow the scientific method.

Also because creation "scientists" tend to be afraid to test their work properly they have no scientific evidence as a result In the sciences to even have evidence one first needs to have a testable hypothesis. That means that the person that wrote it has to come up with some presently unknown test that could possibly refute it. To be a scientist means actually trying one's best to refute one's ideas before publishing. The reason that they do that is to prevent embarrassment. Whenever a scientist comes up with a new idea he has to know that everyone and their lab partners will be trying to refute his work.

For me as a YEC, if one is to follow the bible given the large amount of external evidence that supports it, one must believe the whole book...not just the convenient bits of it!

You keep claiming that there is evidence, but you never present any. And it probably is not evidence. You first need a testable hypothesis. No reasonable test no evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Same evidence, different interpretation is a bad idea promoted by those that don't like the best available explanation of the evidence, because it confounds what they want to believe is the answer.

I have never seen anyone that made that claim that ever understood the concept of scientific evidence.

Just for fun:

Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis,

Scientific evidence - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In philosophy of science, evidence is understood as that which confirms or disconfirms scientific hypotheses.

Evidence - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The testing of a hypothesis or theory that is objective and in a controlled environment.00

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE Definition & Meaning - Black's Law Dictionary

Find the legal definition of SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE from Black's Law Dictionary, 2nd Edition. The testing of a hypothesis or theory that is objective and in a controlled environment....

thelawdictionary.org

And a good primer can be found here:

What Is a Theory? A Scientific Definition | AMNH

In everyday use, it may mean a hunch, or a guess. Scientists understand the term quite differently.

www.amnh.org

 

[Polymath257]

I do not agree with that last statement...there is no such thing as bad science. Science isnt good or bad, it is simply a tool for learning. It does not matter whether or not what is learned is right or wrong...that is merely a matter of opinion based on numbers.

I wasn't claiming good or bad in the sense of morality. I was claiming correctly done as opposed to sloppily done.

If one intends to state morality is scientific and then uses that to claim those who follow a literal reading of scripture and choose to record scientific data that supports that literal reading of scripture is lying and therefore immoral...that is an absurd argument to make from a naturalism viewpoint!

You are arguing against a straw man.

We have atheists running around schools trying to stop christian studies during school hours calling it indoctrination and evil. What a load of ****e...since when is any study of philosophy considered evil? It seems to me that there is this fear of being convinced and then converted because it may just be right!

One of the problems with religion is precisely that there is no way to test it. That is why there are so many differences of opinion. And that is why it is so dangerous for a government institution to dictate one religion or another. And that is why it should not be taught in public schools outside of comparative religion or history of ideas.

I have no problem with discussing the wide variety of ideas people have believed over time. I have no problem with discussing philosophy and learning to be skeptical and hone the thought processes. I do have a problem with public schools adopting one interpretation of one specific religious text as 'truth'. Go teach that in your churches, not in the secular institutions where everyone goes.

If someone is running around crying wolf for fear of indoctrination of their flock, then ones own world view is clearly not well founded is it? I think that increasingly over the last 20 years or so, the findings in YEC research have shown the accepted evolutionary model to be deeply flawed and not at all well founded.

No, they have not. As we learn more and more, that model from 2 centuries ago has been shown to be further and further from the truth as given by the actual evidence.

 

[Polymath257]

a theory is not fact. The entire reason it is theory is because it is not proven...otherwise it wouldnt be called "a theory".

No, a theory is an explanation for the evidence we have. The best scientific theories (those that have been tested extensively) are the closest we can get to fact.

What happens next is one seeks to find evidence that supports said theory. One isnt interested in the evidence that doesnt support the theory, its the evidence that does support it that is collated. Then is just becomes a numbers game...nothing more.:

Completely wrong and not how science is done. What we search for is *tests* of the theory: things it predicts that we can go out and see if it is correct or not. if anything, we attempt to prove the theory *wrong*. We try to find what its limits are, where it can fail, and where the conclusions aren't what we thought they would be.

It is only after *extensive* testing *challenging* the theory hat it becomes accepted, always tentatively, always acknowledging that new evidence might point in another direction.

But, what we do NOT find is that old, discarded theories are adopted again without substantial reworking to align them with the newer evidence. Physics does not go back to phlogiston. Cosmology does not go back to Ptolemy. The study of atoms does not go back to Newtonian views. Those were discarded because the *evidence* showed them to be wrong.

Now the reason that Christians take a different approach to these things is because, whether or not anyone is wiling to admit it, the historical narrative of the bible has a huge amount of external evidence that positively supports its claims. Even Bart Erhman a popular non cathristian these days has emphatically concluded Jesus Christ really existed...he is a world expert on Christ and the New Testament.

Sure, the *person* Jesus existed. But Ehrman also notes that the *legendary* figure that performed miracles and was divine did not.

And this is irrelevant to the science. If Jesus performed those 'miracles', all that changes is we have new data to test our ideas about the universe.

For me as a YEC, if one is to follow the bible given the large amount of external evidence that supports it, one must believe the whole book...not just the convenient bits of it!

And *that* is precisely why you won't ever understand how science is done. Even the *best* science book can be found to be incorrect in some details. It is *always* a matter of searching for and trying to understand new evidence and taking it seriously whether it supports your current views or not.

Some people like to talk about the arrogance of scientists. I find that ironic since the essence of science is to be skeptical and demand testing of *all* ideas. The true arrogance, as I see it, is found in those thinking they have the truth in one book that can never be questioned.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That is true, however, in the case of the Piltown Man it wasnt honest was it?

Nor was it honest that Dubois withheld the Java man from close examination for almost 30 years so that he could ensure that his earlier "missing link" fossil claim would not be challenged under scrutiny of the latter fossil. The only reason he suddenly started publishing about the Java man 30 years later was to try to debunct those later claims of similar fossils found by others that would discredit his original "missing link find"!

BTW another problem... overlap between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens. If the latter evolved from the earlier, why the 500,000 year overlap? That kind of overlap doesnt fit the survival of the fittest evolutionary model at all.

Next we have the problem of Kow Swamp...which is likely Homo Erectus and not Homo Sapien.

Then lets look at the Cossack skull 2000 miles away from Kow swamp and almost 3000 miles away from the Java Solo people. The Cossack skull has a maximum age of 6500 years and a minimum age of a few hundred years and yet its clearly not Homo Sapien...its Homo Erectus! The Cossack skull is evidence that Homo Erectus might very well have walked the earth as late as the 18th century...around the time of the colinisation of the eastern part of the Australian continent in 1788!

The point is, more scientists are now suggesting, indeed even demanding that Homo Erectus is not morphologically distinct enough to have its own classification as it does not represent a true evolutionary ancestory in the timeline. There are at least 78 examples where this species dates in complete contrast to the evolutionary model!

Michael Day writes...
"Of the three stages we know of the evolution of man (the australopithecine ape-men, Homo erectus the first true men, and early Homo Sapiens our own species) Homo erectus of the Middle Pleistene would have seemed the most clearly understood and the most taxonomically stable of them all a relatively few years ago - not anymore. Important new finds as well as new ways of thinking about hominid taxonom have thrown this species into the same turmoil as all of the others." ("Homo turmoil", Nature 348 (20/27 December 1990): 688.

Count on creationists and science deniers to be completely obsessed with a handful of fraudulent "finds", while completely ignoring literally millions of genuine ones.



Also, I don't quite get why they keep digging this one up.....
I mean, think about it..........

Piltdown man, if genuine, would have been problematic for evolutionary science to explain. It didn't fit evolutionary history as we know it.
Yet, it was found to be fraudulent, so instead of being problematic to evolution, it actually ended up showing just how solid evolutionary history as we know it actually is.... It is in fact so solid that in order to try and turn it on its head, someone had to actually fabricate a fraudulent fossil.

So really, WHAT IS THE POINT in bringing it up?

It only adds insult to injury for your case, it seems to me.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

Completely wrong and not how science is done. What we search for is *tests* of the theory: things it predicts that we can go out and see if it is correct or not. if anything, we attempt to prove the theory *wrong*. We try to find what its limits are, where it can fail, and where the conclusions aren't what we thought they would be.

It is only after *extensive* testing *challenging* the theory hat it becomes accepted, always tentatively, always acknowledging that new evidence might point in another direction.

that is a ridiculous argument...criminals have proven that crime pays despite the legal system aiming to sanction crime, it continues today nevertheless. It does not matter whether or not you see that as scientific or mathematical odds, your argument is mute. Some of the richest and most powerful individuals in the world have been in the past and continue to be today, criminals.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

Count on creationists and science deniers to be completely obsessed with a handful of fraudulent "finds", while completely ignoring literally millions of genuine ones.

i dont think you appreciate the point...Piltown man, Java man, acheulean axe, homo erectus is not an ancestor of neandertals nor modern man, the "dingo took my baby" case...this isnt about a specific fraud...its about exactly what you guys claim secularists do not do...enter into scientific investigation without philosophical aims and intentions. That is exactly why continue to press on TEists for example that philosophy comes before the search for knowledge...the Epistomological questions drive our learning.

 

[Subduction Zone]

i dont think you appreciate the point...Piltown man, Java man, acheulean axe, homo erectus is not an ancestor of neandertals nor modern man, the "dingo took my baby" case...this isnt about a specific fraud...its about exactly what you guys claim secularists do not do...enter into scientific investigation without philosophical aims and intentions. That is exactly why continue to press on TEists for example that philosophy comes before the search for knowledge...the Epistomological questions drive our learning.

How are you going to prove that Homo erectus is not a human ancestor?