RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Theology] >> Science & Origins



Message

unclemonkey -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/7/2008 10:30:20 PM)

ORIGINAL:Nothingman
quote:

No it means your interpretation of the Bible is wrong.

Could be that your interpretation of the Bible is wrong.

“Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” – Exodus 20:9-11

“And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,” – Matthew 19:4

“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” – Mark 10:6

“For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” – John 5:46

Unless you are claiming that man has been around for billions of years I don’t see how you can fit these verses into an interpretation of billions years for the age of the earth.



unclemonkey -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/7/2008 10:36:44 PM)

ORIGINAL:cow451
quote:

YEC is "easier to believe" because it removes the unpleasantness of having to think about ambiguities.

What it removes is the notion that man's reasoning ability is superior to God's written word.



drj11 -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/7/2008 11:36:24 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PromiseLander

As I am no scientist, I took these from some random website...

#1) The Sun is shrinking at the rate of 5 ft/hr. The Earth is 93 million miles away from the Sun. In less than 20 million years, the Sun would have been so large that it would touch the surface of the Earth. Further, if the Sun had more mass, the gravity pull would be much larger and the Earth would have been sucked into the Sun long before 20 million years.

#2) Short-period comets, like the Haley Comet in our solar system, whose life expectancy is only 10,000 years old, would have been blown apart by the solar winds years ago if they were older.

further points...


I think most of these arguments are the handy work of Hovind (who's actually serving a prison term at the moment). This guy is really out there, and has even been disowned by most of the other creationists. His arguments were that bad.

I found a nice rebuttal to each one of these points. Its a bit to wordy to paste, but have a look at the link.



drj11 -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 12:12:50 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL:drj11
quote:

Rules: The Bible doesn't count as evidence for this discussion,

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” – Psalms 14:1a


We already know the how tragically wrong the portion of the creationist camp is that decides to take literal interpretation as their scientific proof for creation, and then tries to cherry pick scientific evidence later to make it seem scientifically credible..

I've seen a couple on this board claim that they looked at the science first, and decided it agreed with literal genesis. I'm really looking for them to chime in and thats why I framed the discussion this way.



cow451 -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 9:45:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL:MandaMoo
quote:

Well if I wasn't confused before I sure am now

The only way to resolve the confusion is to decide whom to believe, God or man.



YEC is one way to deal with ambiguity.



DanJames -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 10:25:47 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: drj11

quote:

ORIGINAL: PromiseLander

As I am no scientist, I took these from some random website...

#1) The Sun is shrinking at the rate of 5 ft/hr. The Earth is 93 million miles away from the Sun. In less than 20 million years, the Sun would have been so large that it would touch the surface of the Earth. Further, if the Sun had more mass, the gravity pull would be much larger and the Earth would have been sucked into the Sun long before 20 million years.

#2) Short-period comets, like the Haley Comet in our solar system, whose life expectancy is only 10,000 years old, would have been blown apart by the solar winds years ago if they were older.

further points...


I think most of these arguments are the handy work of Hovind (who's actually serving a prison term at the moment). This guy is really out there, and has even been disowned by most of the other creationists. His arguments were that bad.

I found a nice rebuttal to each one of these points. Its a bit to wordy to paste, but have a look at the link.


You know, for someone who doesn't want us taking pot shots at evolution, you sure like to bring up the fact that Dr. Hovind is serving a prison sentence a lot. What do you say you cut the guy a break?

As for evidence of a young earth, I suppose that's what this whole section of the forum is all about. We already discussed stasis of fossil species in another thread. The case was made that the fossil record gives the appearance that things stayed the same since they arrived 500+ years ago and stayed the same all the way up until now. This, in my opinion is evidence that things were buried in a worldwide flood as the Bible claims. They are the same as things today because they are the things that we have today. Natural selection has only been working on these kinds since the disembarkment 4400 years ago. You can believe that, or you can believe punctuated equilibrium, whatever suites your fancy.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 11:42:01 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanJames

As for evidence of a young earth, I suppose that's what this whole section of the forum is all about. We already discussed stasis of fossil species in another thread. The case was made that the fossil record gives the appearance that things stayed the same since they arrived 500+ years ago and stayed the same all the way up until now.


Not all species exhibit stasis. Even if I stipulate that horseshoe crabs were born yesterday, the many other examples of non-stasis cannot be shoehorned into a young earth. At best, this is evidence that some (but not all) species are young. Other species are old, and it takes an old earth to accomodate their age.



cow451 -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 12:02:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanJames


You know, for someone who doesn't want us taking pot shots at evolution, you sure like to bring up the fact that Dr. Hovind is serving a prison sentence a lot. What do you say you cut the guy a break?



Convicted felons and cheats don't get too much credibility.



drj11 -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 12:12:50 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanJames
You know, for someone who doesn't want us taking pot shots at evolution, you sure like to bring up the fact that Dr. Hovind is serving a prison sentence a lot. What do you say you cut the guy a break?


I wanted that as a rule to make a place where the scientific case for creationism stands on its own, instead of tying it to the insufficiency of evolution. As for Hovind, I was merely pointing out that other creationists have disavowed his arguments as wrong, so he's probably not the best source to use when building a case.



DanJames -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 12:21:22 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanJames

As for evidence of a young earth, I suppose that's what this whole section of the forum is all about. We already discussed stasis of fossil species in another thread. The case was made that the fossil record gives the appearance that things stayed the same since they arrived 500+ years ago and stayed the same all the way up until now.


Not all species exhibit stasis. Even if I stipulate that horseshoe crabs were born yesterday, the many other examples of non-stasis cannot be shoehorned into a young earth. At best, this is evidence that some (but not all) species are young. Other species are old, and it takes an old earth to accomodate their age.


Well, you can stand up and make a broad brush stroke statement in defense of evolution against stasis here, but where was your defense while the debate was going on in the other thread? You see, this is why debates are useless. At the end of the debate, people take from it what they want. Capitalizing on the things that pleased them, or if nothing about it pleased them, "Well, sour grapes. It's no problem for evolution/creation anyway." If you want to try to refute stasis, take it to that thread. As it stands, the debate was lost by the uniformitarians. It is therefore evidence that a young earth and a flood may be the explanation for the fossil record.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 1:12:06 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanJames
quote:

Not all species exhibit stasis.


Well, you can stand up and make a broad brush stroke statement in defense of evolution against stasis here, but where was your defense while the debate was going on in the other thread?


Here:
"These evidences of [stasis] don't annihilate the positive evidence [for evolution in other species]. The wealth of positive evidence remains."

I don't think anyone in that thread claimed that all species show stasis. The fact that some species do show stasis is, I admit, a challenge for evolution. But other species don't.

quote:

As it stands, the debate was lost by the uniformitarians.

The topic of the debate was whether stasis was a challenge to evolution. I never disputed that. However, this thread is not about challenges to evolution, but positive evidence of a young earth.

If the topic of that other thread was "All species show stasis", then I would dispute that since it's clearly false.



DanJames -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 1:16:50 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

quote:

ORIGINAL: DanJames
quote:

Not all species exhibit stasis.


Well, you can stand up and make a broad brush stroke statement in defense of evolution against stasis here, but where was your defense while the debate was going on in the other thread?


Here:
"These evidences of [stasis] don't annihilate the positive evidence [for evolution in other species]. The wealth of positive evidence remains."

I don't think anyone in that thread claimed that all species show stasis. The fact that some species do show stasis is, I admit, a challenge for evolution. But other species don't.

quote:

As it stands, the debate was lost by the uniformitarians.

The topic of the debate was whether stasis was a challenge to evolution. I never disputed that. However, this thread is not about challenges to evolution, but positive evidence of a young earth.

If the topic of that other thread was "All species show stasis", then I would dispute that since it's clearly false.


Naturally any evidence in favor of creation is a challenge to evolution. It would be next to impossible to give a creationist argument without using the phrase, "Evolution can't explain..." or, "Evolution claims that... but..." So I've attempted to word my argument as "Stasis is evidence for..." So there you go, that's one piece of evidence for a young earth.



PromiseLander -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 4:55:24 PM)

Hey, sorry about that web site reference. As I said before, I'm no scientist... Getting me to explain a scientific reason for my understanding of Biblical creation would be like getting Essentialsaltes to explain the doctrine of predestination, or asking him to give a dialoge on the meaning of the 70 Weeks Prophecy in Daniel 9.

See? Without looking it up, it simply cannot be done.



EverLearning -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 7:51:39 PM)

quote:

Empirical evidence for young earth


Anyone seen the title of this thread lately. I would like some of that evidence also. If the earth is young as it is claimed then there should be literally volumes of texts describing it as such and the evidence should be flowing into this thread like water through a broken dam.



unclemonkey -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 9:25:16 PM)

ORIGINAL:drj11
quote:

What is the empirical evidence for a young earth?

Neptune’s 900MPH winds.
I am watching a program on the History channel and they just mentioned a puzzle for billions of years. Neptune is loosing heat at twice the rate it is absorbing heat from the sun yet it still contains enough heat to drive 900MPH winds.
Scientists believe the excess heat is left over from Neptune’s origin. That fits thousands of years MUCH better than billions of years.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 9:38:12 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL:drj11
quote:

What is the empirical evidence for a young earth?

Neptune’s 900MPH winds.
I am watching a program on the History channel and they just mentioned a puzzle for billions of years. Neptune is loosing heat at twice the rate it is absorbing heat from the sun yet it still contains enough heat to drive 900MPH winds.
Scientists believe the excess heat is left over from Neptune’s origin. That fits thousands of years MUCH better than billions of years.


Some gas giant planets generate heat through gravitational contraction, so the sun is not necessarily the only source of heat, though the case of Neptune is still uncertain. In any case, this is not evidence of thousands of years, unless you have some quantitative data on how fast Neptune is losing heat, how much thermal energy it has, etc.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/8/2008 10:49:22 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes
Not all species exhibit stasis. Even if I stipulate that horseshoe crabs were born yesterday, the many other examples of non-stasis cannot be shoehorned into a young earth. At best, this is evidence that some (but not all) species are young.


What many examples of non stasis? Why is it that when Jhud said

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud
Well, I have simply listed a few well documented ones. Obviously documentation of the presumed 99.9% of species would fill tomes. New cases of stasis are being discovered regularly, indeed, stasis appears to be the rule – sudden appearance, explosive diversity, and stasis. I would be interested in exceptions, because I would guess these are much rarer than what I have documented.


Post 81

You didn't present many of these examples of non - stasis?

quote:


Other species are old, and it takes an old earth to accomodate their age.


They are considered old within an OET model.



unclemonkey -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 3:10:12 AM)

ORIGINAL:essentialsaltes
quote:

Some gas giant planets generate heat through gravitational contraction, so the sun is not necessarily the only source of heat, though the case of Neptune is still uncertain. In any case, this is not evidence of thousands of years, unless you have some quantitative data on how fast Neptune is losing heat, how much thermal energy it has, etc.

Kinda makes one wonder how big Neptune must have been 4 billion years ago if it has been producing heat through gravitational contraction all that time.



DanJames -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 10:04:18 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL:essentialsaltes
quote:

Some gas giant planets generate heat through gravitational contraction, so the sun is not necessarily the only source of heat, though the case of Neptune is still uncertain. In any case, this is not evidence of thousands of years, unless you have some quantitative data on how fast Neptune is losing heat, how much thermal energy it has, etc.

Kinda makes one wonder how big Neptune must have been 4 billion years ago if it has been producing heat through gravitational contraction all that time.


No wonder Americans have been gaining weight, they don't have Neptune's gravity making them lighter. It isn't our fault after all.



DanJames -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 10:10:22 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

quote:

ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes
Not all species exhibit stasis. Even if I stipulate that horseshoe crabs were born yesterday, the many other examples of non-stasis cannot be shoehorned into a young earth. At best, this is evidence that some (but not all) species are young.


What many examples of non stasis? Why is it that when Jhud said

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud
Well, I have simply listed a few well documented ones. Obviously documentation of the presumed 99.9% of species would fill tomes. New cases of stasis are being discovered regularly, indeed, stasis appears to be the rule – sudden appearance, explosive diversity, and stasis. I would be interested in exceptions, because I would guess these are much rarer than what I have documented.


Post 81

You didn't present many of these examples of non - stasis?

quote:


Other species are old, and it takes an old earth to accomodate their age.


They are considered old within an OET model.


Every species that looks like something that it's buried over is assumed to be its ancestor. They would all be examples of non-stasis. Snail shells are the common example because it's what Lyell used to form the Geologic column. Bird-like dinosaurs, archaeopteryx, and modern birds is another. However, in the case of the organisms that were mentioned, this was not the case. They went from Precambrian to today without a single noticeable change. They are screaming examples of the fact that evolution should NOT be the explanation of the fossil record because almost every single phylum in the Animal kingdom has at least one example of something that showed up and stayed the same for hundreds of millions of years.



unclemonkey -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 10:56:19 AM)

ORIGINAL:essentialsaltes
quote:

Some gas giant planets generate heat through gravitational contraction, so the sun is not necessarily the only source of heat, though the case of Neptune is still uncertain. In any case, this is not evidence of thousands of years, unless you have some quantitative data on how fast Neptune is losing heat, how much thermal energy it has, etc.

You don’t think there is any merit in the fact that the history channel program admitted that the heat Neptune contains presents a puzzle for the contention that Neptune is billions of years old?



essentialsaltes -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 12:56:30 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

What many examples of non stasis? Why is it that when Jhud said ... You didn't present many of these examples of non - stasis?


As I also said, I'm not a knowledgeable biologist. That debate was mostly carried on at a level where I couldn't contribute much. And it was boring. But paleontologists have made many family trees, showing transitions from species to species, or morphological changes within species.

quote:


quote:


Other species are old, and it takes an old earth to accomodate their age.


They are considered old within an OET model.


If they are non-static, I think both OE and YE supporters agree that evolution cannot produce significant change (say, Pakicetus to Blue Whale) in thousands of years.



DanJames -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 1:14:31 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

What many examples of non stasis? Why is it that when Jhud said ... You didn't present many of these examples of non - stasis?


As I also said, I'm not a knowledgeable biologist. That debate was mostly carried on at a level where I couldn't contribute much. And it was boring. But paleontologists have made many family trees, showing transitions from species to species, or morphological changes within species.

quote:


quote:


Other species are old, and it takes an old earth to accomodate their age.


They are considered old within an OET model.


If they are non-static, I think both OE and YE supporters agree that evolution cannot produce significant change (say, Pakicetus to Blue Whale) in thousands of years.

Pakicetus to Blue whale, no. Pilohippus to horse and donkey, probably.



essentialsaltes -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 1:39:45 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: unclemonkey
Kinda makes one wonder how big Neptune must have been 4 billion years ago if it has been producing heat through gravitational contraction all that time.


Good question. The contraction energy is GM^2(1/R - 1/R0)

Let's say it started off 1% bigger than it is now. Then that equals

= about 3 * 10^32 J

We don't know exactly how much heat Neptune is producing, but it seems to be on the order of how much power it gets from the sun, which would be about 3 * 10^15 W

Dividing the two, that's enough energy to last for 10^17 seconds, which is about 3 billion years.

quote:

You don’t think there is any merit in the fact that the history channel program admitted that the heat Neptune contains presents a puzzle for the contention that Neptune is billions of years old?


The puzzle (as I understand it) is about the precise source of the energy, not the age of the planet.

(Besides, the History Channel is not necessarily a guarantee of quality. If you want your blood to boil, you should watch Terry Jones' show on the Crusades.)



robto -> RE: Empirical evidence for young earth (4/9/2008 3:56:27 PM)

Stasis of species is a rather odd argument to use for a young earth. When scientists talk about stasis, it means stasis over a period of millions of years. That's no help for young-earthers.

More fundamentally, though, stasis of species says nothing at all about the age of the earth. The earth could be young, with stable species, or old, with stable species. Maybe I'm missing something big time, but I just don't see how stability of species says anything about the age of the earth.



Page: <<   < prev  1 [2] 3 4   next >   >>



Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.5 ANSI