Is it possible for religion and evolution to coexist?

[Grumpy]

Below is an open letter which has been signed by over 7500 clergy and pastors attesting to the compatibility of scientific discoveries with the tenets of religious thought.

An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

Wisdom indeed!!!

Your thoughts???

Grumpy 8)

[steen]

What do you mean with "evolved from nothing" that certainly is not what the Scientific Theory of Evolution states, so could you clarify what it is you are talking about?

This was nothing more than a metaphore, two theories exist, one is that we evolved from bacteria. the other is we are relatives of dumn chimps and monkeys.

Are you sure? Certainly, two contradictory Scientific Theories don't exist side-by-side. So could you clarify further?

Please cease your MISREPRESENTATION about Christians being against Evolution. Only a minor number of uneducated, fundie Christians have spoken out against evolution. The rest of us Christians have no problem with Evolution at all.

So please be careful about your claims. You can rapidly be branded as dishonest if you are not sure that what you claim is actually true.

No wait YOU dont generalize when you say that christians havent refuted the evolution theory.

That is NOT what I said. I am saying that Chbristians are as likely as not to accept the Science.

i know this from what i see, almost all christians argue that the evolution theory is in direct contradiction to what the bible preaches about how adam and eve were created in the perfect form and no human evolution took place up till today.

Your claim is false. "almost all Christains are NOT saying this.

again there can only be one way we came into existence.

And? An allegory can certainly be indicative without contradicting science.

Science doesn't claim that we evolved from chimps. At least KNOW what it is you are talking about before making such claims. What you are saying now is pure nonsense and indicative of serious ignorance of the subject.

"We don't have that particular fossil that represents the population that was ancestral to chimps on the one hand and humans on the other." from http://www.newsandevents.utoronto.ca/bios/askus4.htm

Yes? Did you read what it said? It certainly didn't say that humans evolved from Chimps. Rather (not mentioned there, but it is the general finding) chimps and humans BOTH EVOLVED FROM a species known as Proconsul.

wat i said is god created evolution but once again we present day humans have not evolved from any mammal/bacteria.

Ah, because you say so?

really? And the evidence is...?

I gave a direct link to the article that discussed this, had u been any smarter u would have read that article before replying giberish.

Rather, the article didn't provide any evidence.

So the evidence for the Quran is the Quran itself? Nice example of circular logic there.

once again if u have read that article then u wouldn't have talked more giberish.

What a lame attempt at diverting attention from you trying for circular logic when previously condemning just that.

[Sender]

The population of the earth today is about six billion. Using the formula employed by demographers it can readily be shown that it would take just about 5,000 years to reach this figure beginning with Noah's family and assuming only 2.4 children per family. Historically, the rate of increase has been far greater than 2.4 but war, famine, plague etc would effectively and reasonably reduce the rate to 2.4 children. The evolutionary appeal to a million years for mankind on the other hand, demands impossibly low rates of increase to reach today's world population. In recognition of this, textbooks explain away the problem by speaking of there having been great periods of "population stability.

The billions of years claimed today are based almost exclusively upon the radiometric dating techniques. Very briefly, these depend upon unstable isotopes of certain elements that break down spontaneously at known rates to become stable elements. By measuring the ratio of unstable (radioactive) element to stable element (daughter product) and knowing the rate of decay, the age can be determined. Except for Carbon 14 that gives ages of less than about 50,000 years, all the other radiometric methods give ages in millions of years. With all the assumptions and uncertainty of these methods and the inability to calibrate, it might well be suspected that the only reason these methods are employed at all is because they provide the long ages expected! Among the difficulties is the fact that the rates of decay have been measured since about 1927 and, while they seem to have been constant since that time, it is assumed that these rates have been constant for billions of years. This is extrapolation on the truly grand scale. Supernova explosions for example, are known to affect the rates of decay. It is also assumed that the initial conditions included no daughter products; how can we know? Finally, no scientific measurement is possible without some means of calibration against samples of known age. This can be done in the case of the Carbon 14 method for the past three thousand years using say, dated wooden casket lids. The method goes badly off beyond this range of calibration. However, for the other radiometric methods there is nothing of known age beyond a few thousand years so that there can be no calibration. Textbooks will often lead readers to believe that science has established the age of every rock stratum and fossil radiometrically. The fact is, the radiometric dates must conform to the fossil dates before being accepted while the fossil dates are based upon assumptions made in the 19th century about sedimentation rates. Those same textbooks fail to mention all the assumptions or the calibration problem.

The "living fossil" is often an embarrassment to the evolutionary faith and is usually wreathed in controversy when discovered. Some examples are: The paleotragus, a giraffid thought to have become extinct 25 million years ago, that was found as living herds in 1906 and is now named Okapi johnsoni. The Coelacanth, a lobe-finned fish thought to have become extinct 75 million years ago and was discovered alive and well in a deep trench off the west coast of Madagascar in 1938. More recently, more Coelacanths have been discovered in Indonesia. The plesiosaur, a sea-dwelling dinosaur believed to have become extinct at the time of the demise of all the other dinosaurs about 60 million years ago, was discovered as a rotting corpse in the south Pacific by a Japanese trawler in April 1977. A zoologist aboard the vessel recognized it, took fin samples, photographs, counted vertebrae etc. then, under captain's orders, had to dump it back in the ocean. The Japanese government celebrated the discovery with a 50 yen postage stamp as the "discovery of the century." The western scientific press ignored the discovery. Perhaps it came too close to undermining the faith in the 60 million years, a matter absolutely essential to the belief in evolution.

TFE Publishing, 33 Ontario St., Suite 112, Kingston, ON. K7L 5E3

[Grumpy]

Sender

Another load of rubish, I see.

The population of the earth today is about six billion. Using ....

I'll let a fellow Christian explane why this is crap

First, the population argument assumes what it is supposed to prove.

Now, according to the chronology of Hales, based on the Septuagint text, 5077 years have elapsed since the flood, and 5177 years since the ancestors of mankind numbered only two, Noah and his wife. By dividing 5177 by 30.75, we find it requires an average of 168.3 years for the human race to double its numbers, in order to make the present population. This is a reasonable average length of time.

[End quote]

By this calculation, Williams has coupled his rate of increase to his specific timetable, the timetable that the argument is supposed to validate. If the population argument were to mean something, the rate of increase would be derived from independent information, not from the information that is at issue. It should surprise no one that Williams is able to show precise concordance of current population with a timetable since The Flood, since that is how he cooked the numbers to begin with.

Second, all such arguments yield absurd values for population sizes at historical times. I will first demonstrate that Williams utilizes his numbers to derive intermediate population sizes.

The testimony of all the experts in the present Scopes trial in Tennessee (who escaped cross-examination) was to the effect that evolution was in harmony with some facts and therefore possibly true. The above mathematical calculations prove that the evolution of man was certainly not true. They fail to make their case even if we grant their claims. These figures prove the Bible story, and scrap every guess of the great age and the brute origin of man. It will be observed that the above calculations point to the unity of the race in the days of Noah, 5,177 years ago, rather than in the days of Adam 7,333 years ago, according to Hales' chronology. If the race increased at the Jewish rate, not over 16,384 perished by the Flood, fewer than by many a modern catastrophe. This most merciful providence of God started the race anew with a righteous head.
Now, if there had been not flood to destroy the human race, then the descendants of Adam, in the 7333 years, would have been 16,384 times the 1,804,187,000 or 29,559,799,808,000; or computed at the Jewish rate of net increase for 7333 years since Adam, the population have been still greater, or 35,184,372,088,832. These calculations are in perfect accord with the Scripture story of the special creation of man, and the destruction of the race by a flood. Had it not been for the flood, the earth could not have sustained the descendants of Adam. Is not his demonstration decisive and final?

[End quote]

Now that we have verified that making inferences as to intermediate population values is an activity engaged in by even those people who forward these arguments, we can proceed to showing what the population argument implies about the human population size at various points in history. The following follows from Williams set of population parameters: 5,177 years prior to 1925 for an initial population of 2, and a doubling time of 168.3 years.

World Population Date Event

17 2566 BC Construction of Great Pyramid
2,729 1332 BC Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten dies
5,000 1185 BC Trojan War
~1200 BC Hebrew exodus, # of males = 603,550 (excluding Levites)
32,971 776 BC First Olympic games
87,507 490 BC Greek wars with Persia
133,744 387 BC Brennus' Sack of Rome
586,678 28 BC Augustus' census of Rome (70 to 100 million counted)
655,683 1 AD Nice date
While I worked from Williams' example, any similar argument will produce a similar set of counter-factual intermediate values. What the real values tell us is that human population does not always increase exponentially, and thus current population cannot tell us an initial population time.

Third, the argument ignores what is known about population dynamics from other species. Various other species can be observed to sometimes reproduce exponentially, but we observe that such populations fluctuate, stabilize, or crash. In no case do exponentially reproducing populations "take over the world" as SciCre'ists assure us would be the case if evolution were true. In recent times, human population growth has been exponential, but this does not mean that the human population has been growing exponentially for all its residence time. Just as the number of E. coli present in your gut will not tell us your birthday or the time of your last use of an antibiotic, so human population size is decoupled from when Homo sapiens arose, or even when a bottleneck may have occurred.

Fourth, final population size is an unreliable indicator of initial population time. This is really a reiteration of the last point. There is no general means of inferring a history of population sizes from a current population size. Attempting to do so coupled with the claim that such attempts disprove evolution shows both ignorance and hubris.

I will add a fifth point, really a corollary to the first point. The SciCre argument is self-contained, and deliberately ignores all other sources of information. Human history does not record a global flood. Human history is continuous through the times proposed for a global flood. Geological evidence shows no sign of a global flood. Fossil evidence indicates that mankind is far more ancient than SciCre'ists would admit. None of this evidence goes away or is addressed by the population argument.

In short, the SciCre population argument fails on many different criteria. Honest creationists should eschew its use.

http://www.antievolution.org/people/wre ... ulate.html

The billions of years claimed today are based almost...

Radiometric dating is very establish and accurate science

Radiometric dating--the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements--has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the Earth was created a very long time ago. Further evidence comes from the complete agreement between radiometric dates and other dating methods such as counting tree rings or glacier ice core layers. Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating.

This paper describes in relatively simple terms how a number of the dating techniques work, how accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one another. In the process the paper refutes a number of misconceptions prevalent among Christians today. This paper is available on the web via the American Scientific Affiliation and related sites to promote greater understanding and wisdom on this issue, particularly within the Christian community.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

The "living fossil" is often an embarrassment to the evolutionary faith and

Oh, you mean like the shark, ray, crocodile, scorpion, tarantula, ferns, evergreens, blue-green algae....

Nothing in the theory of evolution indicates an organism MUST evolve, in fact if it fits it's environment well it is unlikely to change, having no evolutionary reason to do so. There are many "survivor" species which have changed very little for many millions of years. Why should a shark or croc change when they are already nearly perfect killing machines??? That's why we have found fully developed bird fossils in the stomach of Archeoptrix fossils. Archie didn't change much while other branches of the dinosaur to bird evolution moved on. Rather than being an embarrasment this shows just what we expect in the history of evolution of life on Earth, it is much more complicated than the idiotic oversimple picture painted by creationists who haven't a clue of how evolution works.

By the way your story of a plesiosaur carcass being dredged up are a complete fabrication, the carcass was of a basking or whale shark, which is why it was not reported outside the area where it was caught.

Please read a book on the subject you are trying to attack, this is too much like shooting fish in a barrel, no challenge at all.

Grumpy 8)

[Rob]

For those who care to take the time to understand the truth, which refutes the many Creationist falsehoods, half-truths, and outright misleading statements posted by Sender above, the following information and sources will prove fruitful.

The dating of the earth is intimately tied to the dating of our solar system, for our earth was created at the same time and from the same mass as our solar system. The history of how science determined the age of the earth makes for an interesting story. Based on different methods scientists have proposed ages for the earth ranging from a few m.y. old to 8,000 m.y. old. For example, in 1921 H. N. Russell proposed an upper and lower age for the earth of between 2,000 - 8,000 m.y. old based on the decay of U to Pb in the crust. In 1927 in his book The Age of the Earth: An Introduction to Geological Ideas, Homes revised Russell's calculation and came up with an age of just over 3,000 m.y. for the earth. Around the period of the 1930s, we can see, the question of the age of the earth was a work in progress so to say.

Much that we know about the origin and evolution of our solar system and the age of the earth was learned by studying the rock samples brought back from the moon or meteorites. The reason these source are important is because they are not subject to the same tectonic forces that have churned the surface of the earth to the point that the oldest rocks going back to the origin have long since been lost. Since the moon and meteorites are not subject to these forces, they are more accurate measures of the origin of our solar system, and hence the age of the earth too. Scientists from all over the world have studied these rocks; it was the dating of these rocks that largely confirmed the 4.5 Ga (billion) age of the earth.

It is my assessment that the age of the earth would be considered known information as of the 1953 date below, despite the fact that scientists were still debating the issue and working out the exact methods that would give them the most reliable approximation for the age of the earth during the 1930s and 1940s. The scientist/historian Steven G. Brush shows in Transmuted Past when the number of 4.5 m.y. was formally established as the most reliable estimate and made public.

While reading Transmuted Past, by Stephen G. Brush (1996), I came across the following on page 82:

Although some scientists pointed out that the available data did not exclude a value for the age of the Earth as high as 5000 m.y. the Holmes-Houtermans value of 3000 to 3400 m.y. was generally accepted until 1953. In that year a group of scientists at the University of Chicago and the California Institute of Technology reported that the abundances of the radiogenic lead isotopes in some meteoritic material were significantly lower than the figures previously considered "primeval" in estimating the age of the Earth. The ratio for the four isotopes was found to be 1 : 9.4 : 10.3 : 29.2. Moreover, the ratio of uranium to lead in these meteorites was extremely low, so little if any of the present abundance of 206Pb and 207Pb could be attributed to decay or uranium since the formation of the meteorite. It seemed reasonable to suppose that this material was much less affected by chemical differentiation processes than minerals found in the Earth's crust, so that these values were the most appropriate ones to use for the abundances at the time of formation of the Earth.

Results based on these data were announced in September 1953 by C. C. Patterson (1953): The minimum age of the Earth is "about 4.5 billion years and is probably somewhat older." Friedrich Houtermans (1953) published a similar result based on the same data soon after:

Age of the Earth = 4500 +- 300 m.y.

By 1956 Patterson thought enough data were available to clinch the argument for the 4500 m.y. age. (Brush 1996, vol 2: 82-3)

In footnote 33 on page 82, Brush states:

Patterson's original publication appeared in a volume that was not widely available and hence is either not cited at all or cited in a rather confusing way by later workers. The abstract of a paper presented by Patterson, Tilton, and Inghram at the GSA meeting in Toronto, November 9-11, 1953, mentions ages "greater than 4 billion years" (Patterson et al. 1953b); the headline of a report in Chemical and Engineering News (1953) boldly asserts: "Earth's age: 4.6 Billion Years."

In the definitive book on the history of how we know what we know regarding the age of the earth, appropriately titlted "The Age of the Earth," written by G. Brent Dalrymple, one of the scientists who participated in the scientific discovery of the actual age of the earth, states the following regarding as to why he wrote the book:

A few years ago I mentioned to a colleague that I was considering writing a book on the age of the Earth. He gave me a strange look, then remarked that it would be a short book, because the answer could be expressed by a single, well-known number. But he had missed the point. The purpose of this volume is not to reveal Earth's age, for as my friend noted, the age of the Earth has been widely known for nearly three decades [four decades now]. What I had in mind was a book that explained in a simple and straightforward way the evidence and logic that have led scientists to conclude that the Earth and the other parts of the solar system are four and one-half billion years old.

(....) The creationist' "scientific" arguments for a young Earth are absurd, I and other authors have dealt with them at length elsewhere, and they do not merit further attention here. The purpose of this book is ot explain how scientists have deduced the age of the Earth. It is a fascinating story, but not so simple as a single measurement. Our universe is a large, old, and complicated place. Earth and the other bodies in the Solar System have endured a long and sometimes violent history, the events of which have frequently obscured the record that we seek to descipher. Although in detail the journey into Earth's past requires considerable scientific skill, knowlege, and imagination, the story is not so complicated that it cannot be explained to someone who wants to know and understand teh basic evidence.

(....) Some of the key evidence for the age of the Earth comes from bodies in the Solar System that are not so highly evolved as the Earth. These bodies, the Moon and meteorites, provide a record of the time of some of the earliest events in the Solar System. Because the Earth formed as an integral part of the Solar System, the ages of the oldest meteorites and lunar samples ... provide estimates of the age of the Earth. (Dalrymple 1991: vii-xi)

And he goes on to explain:

[T]he oldest well-studied rocks on Earth are metamorphosed supracrustal rocks that are intruded and enveloped by only slightly younger granitoids. The oldest of these are found at Isua in western Greenland, where two sedimentary units and a mafic intrusive body have been dated ... at 3.7 -- 3.8 Ga.

It is known from other evidence to be discussed that the Earth's age is most probably between 4.5 and 4.6 Ga, yet the oldest rocks found on Earth are only about 3.8 -- 3.9 Ga. What happened to the rocks that represent the first two-thirds to three-fourths of a billion years of Earth's history? The answer to this question is not really known?there are only speculations and possibilities. One possibility is that during that period of Earth�fs history not only was the first continental crust forming, it was also being vigorously recycled and regenerated. Thus, the earliest crustal rocks may have been consumed by recycling into the primitive mantle almost as fast as they were generated. A second possibility arises from the observation that the Moon and, by inference, the Earth were subjected to intense bombardment by large meteorites from the time of their initial formation to about 3.8 Ga. This bombardment occurred because the planets were still sweeping up huge masses of material from their orbital paths. Perhaps the bombardment was sufficiently intense to obliterate the first crustal rocks. A third possibility is that the record of the Earth�fs early history exists somewhere but has not been found. The discovery of zircon grains 4.0 -- 4.3 Ga old in sedimentary rocks from Earth�fs earliest history may yet be discovered. The correct reason for the absence of the most ancient rocks may well be some combination of the above.

The absence of known rocks that represent the first two-thirds to three- fourths of a billion years of Earth�fs history is probably due to destruction owing to vigorous crustal recycling, intense meteoritic bombardment, lack of discovery, or some combination thereof. But whatever the reason for the missing record on Earth may be, we can learn much about the history and age of the Earth by examining the evidence from more primitive bodies in the Solar System, in particular the Moon and meteorites. (Dalrymple 1991: 190-192)

The trips to the Moon by the Apollo astronauts were surely the greatest feats of engineering and exploration in the history of humankind. In addition to their technical and spiritual benefits, the manned lunar missions had significant scientific worth, for they gave scientists, for the first time, an exciting opportunity to study rock samples collected from another planet. (Dalrymple 1991: 193)

One of the most significant scientific benefits of the Apollo program was the return of samples of rock and soil for study by Earth-bound scientists. Nine missions, six from the United States and three from the USSR, returned a total of nearly 382 kg of samples. This priceless material consists of crystalline rocks, breccias, and soil, the later in the form of both scooped samples and cores, from a variety of geological environments. (Dalrymple 1991: 212)

Moon rocks are not exactly like Earth rocks and much has been made of the differences. Although these differences are important, the overall similarity of Earth and Moon rocks is equally worthy of note. Contrary to the impression conveyed by many pre-Apollo films and television series, there are no totally new or weird types of rocks in the lunar sample collection. The lunar rocks include both crystalline igneous rocks and impact breccias. Virtually all of the lunar rock types have their terrestrial analogs, albeit not necessarily in the same abundances. (Dalrymple 1991: 213)

The radiometric data, including both rock and model ages, show clearly that the moon is at least 4.5 Ga in age. (Dalrymple 1991: 256)

References:

1. Dalymple, Brent G. (1994) The Age of the Earth. Stanford University Press.

2. Brush, Stephen G. (1996) A History of Modern Planetary Physics. Vol. 1-3. Transmuted Past: The Age of the Earth and the Evolution of the Elements from Lyell to Patterson. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3. Lewis, Cherry (2000) The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth. Cambridge University Press.

4. Burchfield, Joe D. (1990) Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth. University of Chicago Press.

[Rob]

The following is a statement loaded with half-truths, falsehoods, and outright distortions of truth and fact; a real disservice to both religion and science.

The billions of years claimed today are based almost exclusively upon the radiometric dating techniques. Very briefly, these depend upon unstable isotopes of certain elements that break down spontaneously at known rates to become stable elements. By measuring the ratio of unstable (radioactive) element to stable element (daughter product) and knowing the rate of decay, the age can be determined. Except for Carbon 14 that gives ages of less than about 50,000 years, all the other radiometric methods give ages in millions of years. With all the assumptions and uncertainty of these methods and the inability to calibrate, it might well be suspected that the only reason these methods are employed at all is because they provide the long ages expected! Among the difficulties is the fact that the rates of decay have been measured since about 1927 and, while they seem to have been constant since that time, it is assumed that these rates have been constant for billions of years. This is extrapolation on the truly grand scale. Supernova explosions for example, are known to affect the rates of decay. It is also assumed that the initial conditions included no daughter products; how can we know? Finally, no scientific measurement is possible without some means of calibration against samples of known age. This can be done in the case of the Carbon 14 method for the past three thousand years using say, dated wooden casket lids. The method goes badly off beyond this range of calibration. However, for the other radiometric methods there is nothing of known age beyond a few thousand years so that there can be no calibration. Textbooks will often lead readers to believe that science has established the age of every rock stratum and fossil radiometrically. The fact is, the radiometric dates must conform to the fossil dates before being accepted while the fossil dates are based upon assumptions made in the 19th century about sedimentation rates. Those same textbooks fail to mention all the assumptions or the calibration problem.

-- TFE Publishing, 33 Ontario St., Suite 112, Kingston, ON. K7L 5E3

1. Except for Carbon 14 that gives ages of less than about 50,000 years, all the other radiometric methods give ages in millions of years.

False. Dr. Roger C. Wiens states “beryllium-7 is not used for dating rocks, as it has a half-life of only 54 days.” See “Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective.”

See http://www.asa3.org/asa/resources/wiens.html

2. With all the assumptions and uncertainty of these methods and the inability to calibrate, it might well be suspected that the only reason these methods are employed at all is because they provide the long ages expected!

False. There are many reliable methods to calibrate the decay rates, contrary to the Creationist claims.

See http://www.asa3.org/asa/resources/wiens.html

3. Among the difficulties is the fact that the rates of decay have been measured since about 1927 and, while they seem to have been constant since that time, it is assumed that these rates have been constant for billions of years. This is extrapolation on the truly grand scale. Supernova explosions for example, are known to affect the rates of decay.

False. The conditions taking place inside a supernova have no relevance whatsoever to the rocks and their radioactive decay rates taken from within our Solar System. The conditions that apply within a supernova do not apply to the conditions of our Solar System. The argument is an irrelevant half-truth, the other half being no supernova reset the radioactive clock of the rocks within our Solar System. See Wiens’ below on how “Doubters Still Try” to distort the facts and truth with half-truths such as the statement above.

4. It is also assumed that the initial conditions included no daughter products; how can we know?

False. Wiens address this point specifically:

11. There is little or no way to tell how much of the decay product, that is, the daughter isotope was originally in the rock, leading to anomalously old ages.

A good part of this article is devoted to explaining how one can tell how much of a given element or isotope was originally present. Usually it involves using more than one sample from a given rock. It is done by comparing the ratios of parent and daughter isotopes relative to a stable isotope for samples with different relative amounts of the parent isotope. For example, in the rubidium-strontium method one compares rubidium-87/strontium-86 to strontium-87/strontium-86 for different minerals. From this one can determine how much of the daughter isotope would be present if there had been no parent isotope. This is the same as the initial amount (it would not change if there were no parent isotope to decay). … While this is not absolutely 100% foolproof, comparison of several dating methods will always show whether the given date is reliable.

5. [N]o scientific measurement is possible without some means of calibration against samples of known age. This can be done in the case of the Carbon 14 method for the past three thousand years using say, dated wooden casket lids. The method goes badly off beyond this range of calibration. However, for the other radiometric methods there is nothing of known age beyond a few thousand years so that there can be no calibration..

False. Same as #2 above. Wien adequately addresses this issue and shows it to once again be false and a distortion of truth via the use of half-truths and outright falsehoods.

See http://www.asa3.org/asa/resources/wiens.html

Doubters Still Try

Some doubters have tried to dismiss geologic dating with a sleight of hand by saying that no rocks are completely closed systems (that is, that no rocks are so isolated from their surroundings that they have not lost or gained some of the isotopes used for dating). Speaking from an extreme technical viewpoint this might be true--perhaps 1 atom out of 1,000,000,000,000 of a certain isotope has leaked out of nearly all rocks, but such a change would make an immeasurably small change in the result. The real question to ask is, "is the rock sufficiently close to a closed system that the results will be same as a really closed system?" Since the early 1960s many books have been written on this subject. These books detail experiments showing, for a given dating system, which minerals work all of the time, which minerals work under some certain conditions, and which minerals are likely to lose atoms and give incorrect results. Understanding these conditions is part of the science of geology. Geologists are careful to use the most reliable methods whenever possible, and as discussed above, to test for agreement between different methods.

Some people have tried to defend a young Earth position by saying that the half-lives of radionuclides can in fact be changed, and that this can be done by certain little-understood particles such as neutrinos, muons, or cosmic rays. This is stretching it. While certain particles can cause nuclear changes, they do not change the half-lives. The nuclear changes are well understood and are nearly always very minor in rocks. In fact the main nuclear changes in rocks are the very radioactive decays we are talking about.

There are only three quite technical instances where a half-life changes, and these do not affect the dating methods we have discussed.

1. Only one technical exception occurs under terrestrial conditions, and this is not for an isotope used for dating. According to theory, electron-capture is the most likely type of decay to show changes with pressure or chemical combination, and this should be most pronounced for very light elements. The artificially-produced isotope, beryllium-7 has been shown to change by up to 1.5%, depending on its chemical environment (Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 171, 325-328, 1999; see also Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 195, 131-139, 2002). In another experiment, a half-life change of a small fraction of a percent was detected when beryllium-7 was subjected to 270,000 atmospheres of pressure, equivalent to depths greater than 450 miles inside the Earth (Science 181, 1163-1164, 1973). All known rocks, with the possible exception of diamonds, are from much shallower depths. In fact, beryllium-7 is not used for dating rocks, as it has a half-life of only 54 days, and heavier atoms are even less subject to these minute changes, so the dates of rocks made by electron-capture decays would only be off by at most a few hundredths of a percent.

2. Physical conditions at the center of stars or for cosmic rays differ very greatly from anything experienced in rocks on or in the Earth. Yet, self-proclaimed "experts" often confuse these conditions. Cosmic rays are very, very high-energy atomic nuclei flying through space. The electron-capture decay mentioned above does not take place in cosmic rays until they slow down. This is because the fast-moving cosmic ray nuclei do not have electrons surrounding them, which are necessary for this form of decay. Another case is material inside of stars, which is in a plasma state where electrons are not bound to atoms. In the extremely hot stellar environment, a completely different kind of decay can occur. ' Bound-state beta decay' occurs when the nucleus emits an electron into a bound electronic state close to the nucleus. This has been observed for dysprosium-163 and rhenium-187 under very specialized conditions simulating the interior of stars (Phys. Rev. Lett., 69, 2164-2167; Phys. Rev. Lett., 77, 5190-5193, 1996). All normal matter, such as everything on Earth, the Moon, meteorites, etc. has electrons in normal positions, so these instances never apply to rocks, or anything colder than several hundred thousand degrees.

As an example of incorrect application of these conditions to dating, one young-Earth proponent suggested that God used plasma conditions when He created the Earth a few thousand years ago. This writer suggested that the rapid decay rate of rhenium under extreme plasma conditions might explain why rocks give very old ages instead of a young-Earth age. This writer neglected a number of things, including: a) plasmas only affect a few of the dating methods. More importantly, b) rocks and hot gaseous plasmas are completely incompatible forms of matter! The material would have to revert back from the plasma state before it could form rocks. In such a scenario, as the rocks cooled and hardened, their ages would be completely reset to zero as described in previous sections. If this person's scenario were correct, instead of showing old ages, all the rocks should show a uniform ~4,000 year age of creation. That is obviously not what is observed.

3. The last case also involves very fast-moving matter. It has been demonstrated by atomic clocks in very fast spacecraft. These atomic clocks slow down very slightly (only a second or so per year) as predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. No rocks in our solar system are going fast enough to make a noticeable change in their dates.

These cases are very specialized, and all are well understood. None of these cases alter the dates of rocks either on Earth or other planets in the solar system. The conclusion once again is that half-lives are completely reliable in every context for the dating of rocks on Earth and even on other planets. The Earth and all creation appears to be very ancient.

The fact that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old raises no problem for enlightened religionists, regardless of the tradition (Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, etc.) they happen to belong to. Neither does the fact of evolution prove on deeper examination to be incompatible with religious faith. Organic evolution is a fact; the phylogenetic path(s) of evolution are open to modification based upon new scientific evidence from the diverse fields of paleontology, molecular biology, etc.; the causal mechanisms of evolution and source of novelty and new forms, is also open to modification based upon our enlarging understanding of such fields as molecular biology and developmental biology, which are even now uncovering new understandings of the causal mechanisms underlying the evolution of new forms in time. Neither the fact, the path(s), nor the mechanism(s) of evolution prove to be problematic for those who's primary loyalty is truth on all its levels, including those facts and truths uncovered by true science.

In their pursuit of fundamentalist ideology based upon a literalistic interpretation of the Bible apparently the truth doesn't matter much to creationists as evidenced by their arguments for a young earth. It is ironic indeed, that creationists who claim to follow Jesus, resort so frequently and easily to fallacious arguments based upon half-truths and falsehoods. Perhaps they ought to take the Master's advice and head his words that "the truth shall set you free," and try remaining loyal to truth on all its levels, scientific, philosophical, and spiritual, instead of sacrificing truth to narrow dogmatic fundamentalist anti-intellectual ideologies.

* * *

Patterson, Colin et al. (1998) Creationism and common sense. (letter to the editor) Nature, April 14, v332 n6165, p580(1).

If you wish to disagree with Darwin, it is important to know what aspect of Darwin's thinking, and more importantly of modern evolutionary theory, you are disputing. Many opponents of Darwinism seem to think that because one disagrees with, say, the role of natural selection in evolution, that one automatically disagrees with the idea of evolution itself. Creationists especially seem to slide from "disagrees with some aspect of synthetic Darwinism" to "rejects evolution". One of the more dishonest versions of this tactic lies in the use of comments made in one context (for example, Colin Patterson's talk on the relevance of cladistic methods to reconstruct evolutionary trees in the Symposia on Systematics at the American Museum of Natural History) in an entirely different context (the supposed rejection by Patterson of Darwinism in total, despite his having written a book on evolution accepting Darwinian theory [1], see Patterson Misquoted: A Tale of Two 'Cites' FAQ) [See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html].

[1] Patterson 1979 Evolution

-- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/anti-darwin.html

[Sender]

We are all adults here save for grumpy, so let's be cordial and not condescending, shall we?

Isaiah 22:11

“You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to its Maker, nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago.”

Since the days of Charles Darwin, over a century ago, naturalists have generally classified living things by their appearance. A zebra and a horse are said to be more closely related than a zebra and a whale. This has been the foundation of all those evolutionary trees that claim to show that all living things have supposedly come from older, simpler living things.

In recent years some scientists have been comparing another feature that all living things share. Today scientists are able to look for similarities and differences among the biological chemicals like hemoglobin. What they are finding does not agree with the evolutionary tree in their textbooks, according to Dr. Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History.

Among the examples Dr. Patterson offered to American evolutionary scientists was a comparison of alpha myoglobin among mammals, birds and reptiles. According to evolution, comparisons between mammals, reptiles and birds should show mammals and birds to be most distantly related. Reptiles should have more similarities to each. However, when humans were compared with crocodiles and birds, birds were closer to humans than were crocodiles, the opposite of what evolution predicts. Dr. Patterson asked, "What's going on?"

While Dr. Patterson has not become a creationist, he is dissatisfied with evolution.

References: Sunderland, Luther. 1988. Darwin's Enigma. El Cajon, CA: Master Books.

[Sender]

Genesis 1:26

“Then God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the sea”

A debate about the definition of "species" may remove Homo erectus from the human evolutionary tree.

Traditional evolutionists theorize that Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus, who evolved into Homo sapiens. Some evolutionists now want to reclassify Homo erectus as a primitive form of Homo sapiens. Those who don't want to abolish the Homo erectus classification have been supporting their position by emphasizing the differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Homo erectus has a considerably smaller brain than Homo sapiens. These creatures also had larger teeth and heavier limb bones. Scientists who want to keep the classification conclude that Homo erectus' characteristics are quite distinct from Homo sapiens'. Those who want to reclassify Homo erectus as Homo sapiens want to blur the differences that we generally use to discern between humans and apes. We need to ask, if evolutionists cannot define a species, how do they know when a new one evolves?

How different is Homo erectus? Dubois, who discovered the first fossils that are today recognized as Homo erectus, finally concluded that the fossils were only the remains of a large gibbon. Dubois had promoted the fossils as those of "ape men" for decades, before reversing his position.

The Bible leaves no room for so-called ape-men. Today's human beings are not improved ape-men, nor was Jesus Christ, Who became a man to carry our sins so that we might be forgiven and restored to God.

References: Bower, Bruce. 1992. Erectus unhinged. Science News, v. 141, June20. p. 408.

[Grumpy]

Sender

A debate about the definition of "species" may remove Homo erectus from the human evolutionary tree.

Traditional evolutionists theorize that Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus, who evolved into Homo sapiens. Some evolutionists now want to reclassify Homo erectus as a primitive form of Homo sapiens. Those who don't want to abolish the Homo erectus classification have been supporting their position by emphasizing the differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Homo erectus has a considerably smaller brain than Homo sapiens. These creatures also had larger teeth and heavier limb bones. Scientists who want to keep the classification conclude that Homo erectus' characteristics are quite distinct from Homo sapiens'. Those who want to reclassify Homo erectus as Homo sapiens want to blur the differences that we generally use to discern between humans and apes. We need to ask, if evolutionists cannot define a species, how do they know when a new one evolves?

How different is Homo erectus? Dubois, who discovered the first fossils that are today recognized as Homo erectus, finally concluded that the fossils were only the remains of a large gibbon. Dubois had promoted the fossils as those of "ape men" for decades, before reversing his position.

The Bible leaves no room for so-called ape-men. Today's human beings are not improved ape-men, nor was Jesus Christ, Who became a man to carry our sins so that we might be forgiven and restored to God.

References: Bower, Bruce. 1992. Erectus unhinged. Science News, v. 141, June20. p. 408.

If you knew anything about the subject you would know that the evolution of man is a continuous history of small changes as revealed by the fossil record. At whatever point we arbitrarally draw the line between species, this fact doesn't change. Scientists endlessly argue about the deviding line between different designations along the line leading to man, but the fact that man evolved from more apelike prediscessors is not in doubt by those who have studied the facts.

YOUR INTERPRETATION of scripture leaves no room for the evolution of man from common ancestors with apes. YOUR INTERPRETATION is wrong, it did happen and we have the evidence to support that statement.



http://www.onelife.com/evolve/manev.html#K

Grumpy 8)

[Rob]

Organic evolution is a fact; the phylogenetic path(s) of evolution are open to modification based upon new scientific evidence from the diverse fields of paleontology, molecular biology, etc.; the causal mechanisms of evolution and source of novelty and new forms, is also open to modification based upon our enlarging understanding of such fields as molecular biology and developmental biology, which are even now uncovering new understandings of the causal mechanisms underlying the evolution of new forms in time. Neither the fact, the path(s), nor the mechanism(s) of evolution prove to be problematic for those who's primary loyalty is truth on all its levels, including those facts and truths uncovered by true science.

And none of these changes in our understanding of either the paths or mechanisms of evolution in the least undermine or bring into doubt in the minds of those who love the truth (scientist or religionist) the fact of organic evolution.

In their pursuit of fundamentalist ideology based upon a literalistic interpretation of the Bible apparently the truth doesn't matter much to creationists as evidenced by their arguments for a young earth. It is ironic indeed, that creationists who claim to follow Jesus, resort so frequently and easily to fallacious arguments based upon half-truths and falsehoods. Perhaps they ought to take the Master's advice and head his words that "the truth shall set you free," and try remaining loyal to truth on all its levels, scientific, philosophical, and spiritual, instead of sacrificing truth to narrow dogmatic fundamentalist anti-intellectual ideologies.

And Sender's attempt below is a perfect example of the disloyalty to truth and moral and ethical principles that is so often exhibited by creationists:

In recent years some scientists have been comparing another feature that all living things share. Today scientists are able to look for similarities and differences among the biological chemicals like hemoglobin. What they are finding does not agree with the evolutionary tree in their textbooks, according to Dr. Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History.

Among the examples Dr. Patterson offered to American evolutionary scientists was a comparison of alpha myoglobin among mammals, birds and reptiles. According to evolution, comparisons between mammals, reptiles and birds should show mammals and birds to be most distantly related. Reptiles should have more similarities to each. However, when humans were compared with crocodiles and birds, birds were closer to humans than were crocodiles, the opposite of what evolution predicts. Dr. Patterson asked, "What's going on?"

While Dr. Patterson has not become a creationist, he is dissatisfied with evolution.

Yes, Sender, we are all adults, which raises the question why an adult, who claims to be a follower of Jesus, who would not condone lies and deception, carelessly perpetuates lies and deception as you do above.

It is a common tactic of creationists to take statements made by scientists out of context, and then claim that scientists themselves are in doubt about the fact of evolution, when in truth, they are simply debating the paths and mechanisms, or rates of change and are not the least bit in doubt about the fact of organic evolution.

The following is the evidence that exposes this unrighteous and deceptive and devious practice creationists pursue in their prejudiced and narrowed minded ideological fanaticism:

If you wish to disagree with Darwin, it is important to know what aspect of Darwin's thinking, and more importantly of modern evolutionary theory, you are disputing. Many opponents of Darwinism seem to think that because one disagrees with, say, the role of natural selection in evolution, that one automatically disagrees with the idea of evolution itself. Creationists especially seem to slide from "disagrees with some aspect of synthetic Darwinism" to "rejects evolution". One of the more dishonest versions of this tactic lies in the use of comments made in one context (for example, Colin Patterson's talk on the relevance of cladistic methods to reconstruct evolutionary trees in the Symposia on Systematics at the American Museum of Natural History) in an entirely different context (the supposed rejection by Patterson of Darwinism in total, despite his having written a book on evolution accepting Darwinian theory [1], see Patterson Misquoted: A Tale of Two 'Cites' FAQ) [See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html ].

[1] Patterson 1979 Evolution

-- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/anti-darwin.html

I will obtain and post at a later date the following:

Patterson, Colin et al. (1998) Creationism and common sense. (letter to the editor) Nature, April 14, v332 n6165, p580(1).

[Sender]

25 Reasons to Doubt the Theory of Evolution

(With acknowledgement to Dr. Walt Brown, Center for Scientific Creation)

1. It is an established scientific fact that life cannot originate from non-living matter (the Law of Biogenesis).

2. The chemical evolution of life is impossible. No scientist has ever advanced a testable procedure by which this could occur. The Miller-Urey experiment, still shown in many current textbooks, has been proven to be irrelevant.

3. Mendel's Laws of Genetics limit the variations in a species. Different combinations of genes are formed, but not different genes. Breeding experiments and common observations have also confirmed that genetic boundaries exist.

4. Acquired characteristics cannot be inherited. For example, the long necks of giraffes did not result from their ancestors stretching their necks to reach high leaves, nor does a man in a weight-lifting program pass his well-developed muscles on to his child. No mechanism exists whereby the altered behavior of an organism, in an attempt to adapt to its environment, will produce a genetic change in its offspring.

5. Genetic mutations have never made a creature more viable than its ancestors. Mutations are almost always harmful, and many are lethal. More than 90 years of fruit fly experiments, involving 3,000 successive generations, give absolutely no basis for believing that any natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity and viability.

"A mutation is a random change of a highly organized, reasonably smoothly functioning living body. A random change in the highly integrated system of chemical processes which constitute life is almost certain to impair it - just as the random interchange of connections in a television set is not likely to improve the picture." James F. Crow ( past Professor of Genetics, University of Wisconsin)

6. Natural selection (or "survival of the fittest") actually prevents evolutionary change, it does not encourage it. Since mutations almost always contribute to a decrease in viability (survivability), the mutated animal quickly becomes part of the food chain.

7. Mutations cannot produce complex organs such as the eye, the ear, or the brain, much less the intricacy of design found in microbiological organisms. These organs are not even imaginable, much less viable in a partially developed state. The principle of "irreducible complexity" demonstrates that a wide range of component parts and technologies must be simultaneously existent for these organs to function. In a partially developed state, they would become a liability to an organism, not an advantage. Moreover, most complex organs have interdependent relationships with other complex organs which enable proper functioning. These relationships must also be simultaneously existent.

8. The most complex phenomena known to science are found in living systems. Detailed studies of various animals have also revealed physical equipment and capabilities that cannot even be copied by the world's best designers using the most sophisticated technologies. Examples include the miniature and reliable sonar systems of dolphins, porpoises and whales; the frequency-modulated radar and discrimination system of bats; the aerodynamic capabilities and efficiency of the hummingbird; the control systems, internal ballistics and combustion chamber of the bombardier beetle; the precise and redundant navigational system of the arctic tern; and the self-repair capabilities of practically all forms of life. All evidence points to "intelligent design," not random processes.

9. All living species are fully developed, and their organs are fully developed. There are no living lizards with scale-feathers, leg-wings, or 3-chambered hearts. If evolutionary processes were the norm, these intermediate forms of development should be observable throughout nature. Instead, they are non-existent.

10. All living creatures are divided into distinct types. There should be a myriad of transitional, un-classifiable creatures if evolution was the norm. There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group.

11. Species are only observed going into extinction, never coming into existence.

12. The fossil record contains no transitional forms of animals, only extinct forms. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that the alleged "gaps" or "missing links" will never be found.

13. The so-called "evolutionary tree" has no trunk. In the earliest part of the fossil record (generally the Cambrian sedimentary layer), life appears suddenly, complex, diversified and fully developed.

14. Insects have no known evolutionary ancestors.

15. Many different forms of life are completely dependent upon each other (symbiotic relationships). Even members of the honeybee family, consisting of the queen, workers, and drones, are interdependent. If one member of each interdependent group evolved first, it could not have survived. Since all members of these groups have survived, they must have come into existence simultaneously. The only possible answer for their existence is "intelligent design".

16. It is impossible to conceive of an evolutionary process that results in sexual reproduction. Complementary male and female systems must have completely and independently evolved at each stage at the exact same time and place. The millions of mechanical and chemical processes, as well as behavioral patterns and physical characteristics, would all need to be compatible. Even leading evolutionists admit they cannot explain this.

17. Human speech and languages did not evolve - in fact the best evidence is that languages "devolve". Speech is uniquely human. Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact show that speech appears to be learned only from other humans. Apparently, humans do not automatically speak. If so, the first humans must have been endowed with a speaking ability (intelligent input). There is no evidence that speech has evolved.

18. Codes and programs (DNA and the genetic code) are produced only by intelligence. No natural process has ever been observed to produce a program.

19. The existence of similarities between different forms of life implies a common designer, not a common ancestor. One would not, for example, assume that a submarine evolved into an "amphibious" seaplane, which in turn evolved into a passenger airliner. All might have common features such as propellers, internal combustion engines, and metal frameworks - but this is simply an indication of a common intelligent designer (man), not a common ancestor (the submarine).

20. Many single-celled forms of life exist, but there are no known forms of animal life with 2, 3, 4 or 5 cells, and the forms of life with 6 to 20 cells are parasites. If evolution occurred, one should find many forms of life with 2 to 20 cells as transitional forms between one-celled and many-celled organisms.

21. As an embryo develops, it does not repeat an evolutionary sequence. Although it is widely known that Ernst Haeckel, who popularized this belief, deliberately falsified his drawings, they are still used in current biology textbooks.

22. No verified form of extraterrestrial life of any kind has ever been observed. If life evolved on Earth, one would expect that at least simple forms of life, such as microbes, would have been found by the elaborate experiments sent to the moon and Mars.

23. Ape-men never existed. It is now acknowledged that "Piltdown man" was a hoax; the only evidence for "Nebraska man" turned out to be a pig's tooth; Eugene Bubois conceded forty years after he discovered "Java man" that it was just a large gibbon; the skulls of "Peking man" are now considered by many to be the remains of apes; the classification Homo erectus is considered by most experts to be a category that should never have been created.

24. The earth's sedimentary layers were deposited rapidly, not slowly over millions of years. There is no evidence of erosion between layers. The existence of fossils dictates a sudden deposition of sediments. "Polystrate" fossils (those that span multiple strata) can only be explained by rapid burial in multiple sedimentary layers that were liquefied or soft at the time. The "millions of years" assigned to the geological strata and the evolutionary tree is based entirely on unfounded assumptions.

25. Radioactive dating methods are based on a number of untestable assumptions that produce "old age" results. Past atmospheric conditions, solar activity, volcanic activity, state of the earth's magnetic field, decay rates of radioactive elements, and other factors are simply unknown. Most dating techniques actually indicate that the earth is "young", not "old".