Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

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Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #1

Post by John Bauer »

In the thread "Genetics and Adam and Eve," DrNoGods claimed that the creation narrative in Genesis describes Adam and Eve as the first humans. He said that
  • Adam and Eve have an "explicit role in the biblical creation myth as being the first humans."
  • "Their explicit role as the first humans [is] described in Genesis."
  • "According to the biblical creation myth there was (...) only two" people originally.
  • "Genesis very clearly does describe Adam and Eve as the first humans that this God created."
I would appreciate DrNoGods substantiating this claim of his, for I don't agree that Genesis says this. I would like to see this explored further.

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #91

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #84]
I don't know what you are referring to with all the avatar and simulation comments (maybe a reference to some video game?
I do not know that an AVATAR is also. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IN THE WORLD AN AVATAR IS!!! PLANT, ANIMAL OR MINERAL!!

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #92

Post by DavidLeon »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 4:21 pm [Replying to DrNoGods in post #84]
I don't know what you are referring to with all the avatar and simulation comments (maybe a reference to some video game?
I do not know that an AVATAR is also. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IN THE WORLD AN AVATAR IS!!! PLANT, ANIMAL OR MINERAL!!
I wondered that myself. So I looked it up. From Webster's: "Avatar derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "descent," and when it first appeared in English in the late 18th century, it referred to the descent of a deity to the earth—typically, the incarnation in earthly form of Vishnu or another Hindu deity. It later came to refer to any incarnation in human form, and then to any embodiment (such as that of a concept or philosophy), whether or not in the form of a person. In the age of technology, avatar has developed another sense—it can now be used for the image that a person chooses as his or her "embodiment" in an electronic medium."
I no longer post here

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #93

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #88]
You're cherry-picking. Support for evolution does not just come from genetics or implications from subtopics like inferred mutation rates. In court, it would be called a preponderance of the evidence, and there is so much evidence for not just human evolution, but evolution in general, that it has become the theory that it is and accepted by the majority of scientists and laypeople who don't have their objective analysis capabilities clouded by religious beliefs.
Great! We agree that the genetic implication at least is in favor of a young earth. Now on to the next item in the "Preponderance of evidence".
There are many members of the genus Homo, and we have an extensive fossil record that can be dated (eg. see the Wikipedia link I posted in post 84).
It is said by most geologists that diamonds take 1-4 Billion, yes that is with a B, billion years to form. If anyone sees a problem with this raise your hand. :wave:

So if diamonds are really 1-4 billion years old then ALL of the carbon-14 should be decayed long ago. But is that what we find?
Confirmation that there is in situ carbon-14 in diamonds has now been reported in the conventional literature.3 R.E. Taylor of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California–Riverside and of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California–Los Angeles teamed with J. Southon at the Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory of the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California–Irvine to analyze nine natural diamonds from Brazil. All nine diamonds are conventionally regarded as being at least of early Paleozoic age, that is, at least several hundred million years old. So, if they really are that old they should not have any intrinsic carbon-14 in them. Eight of the diamonds yielded radiocarbon “ages” of 64,900 years to 80,000 years. The ninth diamond was cut into six equal fragments, which were each analyzed. They yield essentially identical radiocarbon “ages” ranging from 69,400 years to 70,600 years. This suggests the carbon-14 was evenly distributed through this diamond, which is consistent with it being intrinsic carbon-14, and not contamination. Interestingly, samples of Ceylon graphite from Precambrian metamorphic rock (conventionally around 1 billion years old) were analyzed at the same time and yielded radiocarbon “ages” of from 58,400 years to 70,100 years.
R.E. Taylor and J. Southon, “Use of Natural Diamonds to Monitor 14C AMS Instrument Backgrounds,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 259 (2007): 282–287.
The authors summarize their findings in the abstract of their paper as follows,

The results … show species-specific contamination that reproduces over several individual shells and foraminifera from several sediment cores. Different cleaning attempts have proven ineffective, and even stronger measures such as progressive hydrolyzation or leaching of the samples prior to routine preparation did not give any indication of the source of contamination.

In their conclusion they state,

The apparent ages of biogenic samples seem species-related and can be reproduced by measuring different individuals for larger shells or even different sediment cores for foraminifera. Although tests showed some surface contamination, it was not possible to reach lower 14C levels through cleaning, indicating the contamination to be intrinsic to the sample.

They continue,

So far, no theory explaining the results has survived all the tests. No connection between surface structure and apparent ages could be established.
Nadeau, M. -J., P. M. Grootes, A. Voelker, F. Bruhn, A. Duhr, and A. Oriwall. 2001. Carbonate 14C background: Does it have multiple personalities? Radiocarbon 43 no. 2A:169–176.
Can anyone here know what the observation is on both diamonds and fossils that are "millions" of years old? :wave:

The observation is that they all have a measurable amount of carbon-14 when they should not. The focus of both papers was an attempt to rid the samples of this "contamination" but everything no matter how "old" the sample is supposed to be always produces a reading of carbon-14. Just like the RATE project discovered. After the RATE project published its results, it was discovered that all samples measured had the same contamination problem.
Now, one may make a “hypothesis” that states the carbon-14 that is being detected is contamination but with no obvious source, this hypothesis is lacking in evidence. Because a circular argument is being made as evidence for this hypothesis. The circular argument goes like this. There cannot be any carbon 14 in the sample because the sample is too old to have carbon – 14 in it. Therefore, the carbon-14 found must be contamination because the sample is too old to have carbon -14 in it.

The same circular argument is made with dinosaur soft tissue. Dinosaur fossils could not possibly be young enough to have soft tissue so an iron compound has to be able to preserve dinosaur soft tissue for millions of years because dinosaur fossils are not young enough to have soft tissue. Even though the complex molecules preserved contain way too much internal energy to be preserved for millions of years.
Excuse me for saying so but it does not seem like the ponderous of evidence is on the side of an Earth that is billions of years old.
We can see how brain size and other aspects changed over time from very chip-like animals like Homo habilis with small brains (but larger than chimps), to modern Homo sapiens. We can analyze artifacts left by these various members of genus Homo (tools, ornaments, grave goods and markers, dwelling structures, etc.) and get information on their capabilities, and see how that changed over time as a measure of general intelligence.
Really, is that the way it went?
That old evolutionary cartoon, while popular with the general public, keeps getting proven wrong and too simple, said Bill Kimbel, who praised the latest findings.

He is science director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and wasn't involved in the research team.

"The more we know, the more complex the story gets," he said.

Scientists used to think H. sapiens evolved from Neanderthals, a closely related species, he said, but now know that both species lived during the same time period and that we did not come from Neanderthals.

Now a similar discovery applies further back in time. https://www.foxnews.com/story/skull-sug ... -same-time

But those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years, Leakey and colleagues report in a paper published in Thursday's journal Nature.

In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period.

That makes it unlikely that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis, researchers said.

It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter, said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London. https://www.foxnews.com/story/skull-sug ... -same-time
So modern humans did not evolve from homo habilis they existed at the same time.
With regards to brain size, the Neanderthal’s brain was larger than the modern human brain so does that make Neanderthal man smarter than we are today. There are modern humans today with a brain size of 700 cc the size of homo hibilis’s brain. The science of creation classifies homo hibilis as a modern human one of the first
The preponderance of this evidence, combined with genetics work, shows that modern humans did indeed evolve from a great ape ancestor. [\quote]

Well, besides the problem with genetics that indicates that the split between modern man and chimpys had to occur before chimpys evolved. The line of evolution that you seem to think is so crystal is not what the rock record indicates. Far from being ponderous of evidence this chimpy story is nothing more than a fishy fairytale. Kind of like the one fairy tale that describes a multiverse with an infinite number of EarthScienceGuy’s in it. I wonder if eventually, we will be able to hold a convention or something like that now wouldn’t that be a sight, but that is nothing more than a fairy tale or a movie script to entertain children.
Cherry picking and/or misinterpreting some aspect of molecular clocks don't negate the mountains of corroborating evidence in support of evolution.
How can stating facts or observations be “cherry-picking”? Now you are correct in saying that you do not have to agree with my interpretation of an observation that I am stating. But for you to have a convincing argument you would have to describe how your interpretation of the observations are better than mine. Simply stating that I am “cherry-picking and/or misinterpreting” something simply means you do not like my interpretation but you have no idea of how to refute what I am saying.
You object to it purely because it contradicts a religious creation myth, not because there is any scientific justification for discarding evolution. If there were, it would have been put onto the trash heap of failed science long ago ... but it hasn't.
That is incorrect. Aristotle's ideas of the Earth being flat and all matter was made of air, fire, water, and earth were believed for thousands of years. Even though other Greek's described matter in terms of atoms and even calculated the circumference of the earth very accurately.

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #94

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #93]
Great! We agree that the genetic implication at least is in favor of a young earth. Now on to the next item in the "Preponderance of evidence".
How did you reach that conclusion from what I posted? I made no comments to suggest that I agree that genetic implications favor a young earth. Just the opposite. My point was that genetics isn't the only resource for answering questions on when certain events happened ... it is just one of many and it does not favor a young earth.
It is said by most geologists that diamonds take 1-4 Billion, yes that is with a B, billion years to form. If anyone sees a problem with this raise your hand. :wave:
So if diamonds are really 1-4 billion years old then ALL of the carbon-14 should be decayed long ago. But is that what we find?


Wow ... you really flubbed that one. I'm not sure that "most" geologists say that diamonds take 1-4 billion years to form, but this is completely irrelevant. The amount of 14-C that might be in a diamond has nothing whatsoever to do with carbon dating of things that were once alive such as bones, trees, etc.! It is apples and oranges. The whole concept behind 14-C dating of once living things is that the amount of 14-C in the living thing equaled that in the air, water, food, etc. that these living things consumed. This equilibrium stays intact when the living thing is living because it continuously takes in air, water, food, nutrients from the environment, etc.. But when it dies it is no longer breathing, eating, or interacting with the environment. So after death the 14-C and 12-C equilibrium with the environment cannot be maintained, and the amount of 14-C decreases over time (halving about every 5,730 years which is the half live of 14-C) while the 12-C content stays the same as it was in the living state. The source of the 14-C is from cosmic rays creating it from N2 in the atmosphere, making it available throughout the environment.

A diamond was never living, and so never interacted with the environment the way a living thing does. 14-C dating cannot be used with something like diamond because the ratio of 14-C to 12-C never transitions to a "dead" state where 14-C decays while 12-C does not, and there is no way to know precisely what the 14-C to 12-C ratio was when the diamond formed (a key point), or when it formed. Just measuring some amount of 14-C in a diamond says nothing at all about the accuracy of 14-C dating, which relies on the change in 14-C over time relative to 12-C. "Most geoligists say" doesn't carry any weight without some references. Synthetic diamonds can be formed in just a few days under high pressures and temperatures. It could very well be that the diamonds found with measureable 14-C (if there actually are any, and not some instrument artifact or baseline) could have formed just a few tens of thousands of years ago. 14-C does decay radioactively and this is a fact. So if there are diamonds with 14-C in them, there has to be some other explanation (eg. they formed more recently, or some other explanation) for it being there besides whatever you are suggesting ... which isn't clear because on the one hand you are claiming that it takes diamonds 1-4 billion years to form (the only support for that being that "most geologists say so"), and then apparently claiming that such old ages can't be possible because the earth is only 6000 years old.

Finally, 14-C dating is no good for things older than about 8-10 14-C half lives because there isn't enough 14-C left to measure accurately. If you do stick something much older than 50,000 years into a radiocarbon dating instrument you'll just get whatever the baseline is (usually from background radiation of cosmic rays and potassium-40 (K-40) decay). Creationists do this sort of thing all the time ... mistake a background/baseline measurement with an actual date to try and discredit the technique. There are lots of articles debunking 14-C complaints by creationists. Here is just one example:

https://ncse.ngo/answers-creationist-at ... -14-dating

Creationist arguments to claim a young earth from 14-C arguments have all been thoroughly debunked ... just do a Google search to find plenty of rebuttals of this nonsense.

EDIT 10/6: The discussion in the link below (may need to expand some sections) is a pretty good one on the creationist's 14-C claims and why they are wrong. When I posted the URL directly below it embedded part of the article into the post, so just paste the link below in the URL field of a browser and add https:// in front (if it doesn't work as is) if you're interested in the dialog.

www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/commen ... on_debate/
The same circular argument is made with dinosaur soft tissue. Dinosaur fossils could not possibly be young enough to have soft tissue so an iron compound has to be able to preserve dinosaur soft tissue for millions of years because dinosaur fossils are not young enough to have soft tissue. Even though the complex molecules preserved contain way too much internal energy to be preserved for millions of years.
This one has been discussed here several times, and even the author of the main paper (Mary Schweitzer) tried to throw cold water on the creationist craziness when they latched onto a wrong interpretation. This article is useful, but there are plenty of others showing that the creationist's misinterpreted things:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 115306469/

Here is a quote from it:

"Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.”"
Excuse me for saying so but it does not seem like the ponderous of evidence is on the side of an Earth that is billions of years old.
You certainly didn't present anything to refute a 4.6 billion year old earth. Just gross misinterpretations and well-debunked and worn out arguments that creationists always dredge up to try and support their young earth ideas. The 14-C in diamonds is irrelevant to this issue, and the dinosaur soft tissue is an intentional misinterpretation. You really need to find some new material.
So modern humans did not evolve from homo habilis they existed at the same time.
More nonsense. Modern Homo sapiens did not exist 2+ million years ago.
With regards to brain size, the Neanderthal’s brain was larger than the modern human brain so does that make Neanderthal man smarter than we are today. There are modern humans today with a brain size of 700 cc the size of homo hibilis’s brain. The science of creation classifies homo hibilis as a modern human one of the first.
Brain size is not the only factor determining "smartness". Brain structure is also a big factor. How much of a Neanderthal's brain was neocortex compared to ours? How do you know how smart they actually were compared to the Homo sapiens alive at the same time? And what on earth do you mean with the phrase "the science of creation"? Creationism is not science by any stretch of the definition of the word. It is the exact opposite of science as it takes ancient myth as a given, then attempts to make science fit it by ignoring, or intentionally misinterpreting, any aspect of real science that contradicts the givens. You accept the conclusions before they are shown to be correct, then deny the science that proves they are incorrect. That is the opposite of how real science works.
But for you to have a convincing argument you would have to describe how your interpretation of the observations are better than mine. Simply stating that I am “cherry-picking and/or misinterpreting” something simply means you do not like my interpretation but you have no idea of how to refute what I am saying.
It is not "my" interpretation of observations. There is an entire body of science developed over many centuries that I can reference to support any argument against creationism and a young earth. What you are saying has been refuted by that entire body of science, which is exactly why creationism is not taken seriously by the scientific community and never will be. It has been shown, conclusively, to be wrong and there is nothing that can be done to salvage it.
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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #95

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #94]
How did you reach that conclusion from what I posted? I made no comments to suggest that I agree that genetic implications favor a young earth. Just the opposite. My point was that genetics isn't the only resource for answering questions on when certain events happened ... it is just one of many and it does not favor a young earth.
Because science is based on OBSERVATION you did not offer any OBSERVATION when presented with the OBSERVATION that genetics makes it impossible for man to come from apes because of differences in the genetic makeup.
Wow ... you really flubbed that one. I'm not sure that "most" geologists say that diamonds take 1-4 billion years to form, but this is completely irrelevant. The amount of 14-C that might be in a diamond has nothing whatsoever to do with carbon dating of things that were once alive such as bones, trees, etc.! It is apples and oranges. The whole concept behind 14-C dating of once living things is that the amount of 14-C in the living thing equaled that in the air, water, food, etc. that these living things consumed. This equilibrium stays intact when the living thing is living because it continuously takes in air, water, food, nutrients from the environment, etc.. But when it dies it is no longer breathing, eating, or interacting with the environment. So after death the 14-C and 12-C equilibrium with the environment cannot be maintained, and the amount of 14-C decreases over time (halving about every 5,730 years which is the half live of 14-C) while the 12-C content stays the same as it was in the living state. The source of the 14-C is from cosmic rays creating it from N2 in the atmosphere, making it available throughout the environment.

A diamond was never living, and so never interacted with the environment the way a living thing does. 14-C dating cannot be used with something like diamond because the ratio of 14-C to 12-C never transitions to a "dead" state where 14-C decays while 12-C does not, and there is no way to know precisely what the 14-C to 12-C ratio was when the diamond formed (a key point), or when it formed. Just measuring some amount of 14-C in a diamond says nothing at all about the accuracy of 14-C dating, which relies on the change in 14-C over time relative to 12-C. "Most geoligists say" doesn't carry any weight without some references. Synthetic diamonds can be formed in just a few days under high pressures and temperatures. It could very well be that the diamonds found with measureable 14-C (if there actually are any, and not some instrument artifact or baseline) could have formed just a few tens of thousands of years ago. 14-C does decay radioactively and this is a fact. So if there are diamonds with 14-C in them, there has to be some other explanation (eg. they formed more recently, or some other explanation) for it being there besides whatever you are suggesting ... which isn't clear because on the one hand you are claiming that it takes diamonds 1-4 billion years to form (the only support for that being that "most geologists say so"), and then apparently claiming that such old ages can't be possible because the earth is only 6000 years old.

Finally, 14-C dating is no good for things older than about 8-10 14-C half lives because there isn't enough 14-C left to measure accurately. If you do stick something much older than 50,000 years into a radiocarbon dating instrument you'll just get whatever the baseline is (usually from background radiation of cosmic rays and potassium-40 (K-40) decay). Creationists do this sort of thing all the time ... mistake a background/baseline measurement with an actual date to try and discredit the technique. There are lots of articles debunking 14-C complaints by creationists. Here is just one example:

https://ncse.ngo/answers-creationist-at ... -14-dating
Diamonds are on the extreme edge of detection and produce dates of older than 50,000 years according to those that believe in an old Earth. But the fact that they have any carbon -14 at all is the problem. But diamonds are not the only place that carbon-14 is found it is also found in fossils and coal that is supposed to be millions of years old and these dates fall well below the 50000-year threshold according to those that believe the Earth is old.

There are two standard answers for this the first is contamination. But when blanks (items that do not have carbon in them) no carbon-14 is detected. So contamination only happens when with samples containing carbon. That is not really convincing.

The second is traces of uranium causes trace amounts of nitrogen to change to carbon-14. But this but trace amounts of uranium could not produce the levels of carbon-14 that are being observed
The volume rate of 14C production in turn is the product of the
volume density of 14N atoms, the thermal neutron cross section σ,
and the thermal neutron flux Φ. If we seek the steady state 14C/C ratio
in which the rate of 14C production equals the rate of 14C decay and
normalize by the number of C atoms per unit volume, we get the relation
(
14C/C)abs = 14N/C σ Φτb
, where τb
is the lifetime of 14C. The measured
thermal neutron cross section for this reaction is 1.8 barns = 1.8 × 10-28 m2
[Stehn et al., 1964], and τb
for 14C is 5730/ln 2 = 8267 years. If we assume
a 14N concentration of 0.1% = 0.001 or 1000 ppm, which is well above
the 200 ppm average for peridotitic diamonds and 300 ppm average for
eclogitic diamonds [Dienes et al., 1993; Cartigny, 2005], we obtain an
616 J. R. Baumgardner
absolute steady state 14C/C ratio of 1.1 × 10-19. If we then convert this
to percent modern carbon (pMC) by dividing by the modern 14C/C
ratio of 1.2 × 10-12 and multiplying by 100, we get the steady state value
14C/C = 9 × 10-6 pMC. This is more than 13,000 times smaller than the
mean value of 0.12±0.01 pMC we measured for our first six diamond
samples and is far below the AMS detection threshold. We therefore
conclude that in situ production of 14C by thermal neutrons at presently
observed levels is unable, by several orders of magnitude, to account
for the 14C levels we measure in our diamond samples. On the other
hand, a recent episode of accelerated nuclear decay corresponding
to, say, 500 million years worth of U decay, would generate on the
order of 5 × 108
/τb times the steady state 14C/C ratio, or 6 × 104
times
9 × 10-6 pMC, or 0.5 pMC, which is close to what we measured in our
diamond samples. Moreover, given that the local concentration of U in
crustal rocks as well as the N concentration in organic materials are
both highly variable, it is not implausible that much if not most of the
14C variability observed in C samples that ought to be 14C dead can be
accounted for in this manner also.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf
Creationist arguments to claim a young earth from 14-C arguments have all been thoroughly debunked ... just do a Google search to find plenty of rebuttals of this nonsense.
Well, just to to the paper I cited above and you can read all about how those arguments are rubbish.

"Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.”"
She made an OBSERVATION. How can an OBSERVATION be hijacked? Scientists can have different inferences from a single observation and that is how EXPERIMENTS ARE FORMED. Organic molecules are large molecules with lots of internal energy so it is highly unlikely that they would not break down over millions of years in any environment.

More nonsense. Modern Homo sapiens did not exist 2+ million years ago.

Never said they did. It is your belief system that states that. But the articles I quoted were not from creation scientists.

With regards to brain size, the Neanderthal’s brain was larger than the modern human brain so does that make Neanderthal man smarter than we are today. There are modern humans today with a brain size of 700 cc the size of homo hibilis’s brain. The science of creation classifies homo hibilis as a modern human one of the first.
Brain size is not the only factor determining "smartness". Brain structure is also a big factor. How much of a Neanderthal's brain was neocortex compared to ours? How do you know how smart they actually were compared to the Homo sapiens alive at the same time?
You are the one that mentioned brain size as evidence of evolution. If you want to take that off the table as evidence of evolution that is fine with me.
And what on earth do you mean with the phrase "the science of creation"? Creationism is not science by any stretch of the definition of the word. It is the exact opposite of science as it takes ancient myth as a given, then attempts to make science fit it by ignoring, or intentionally misinterpreting, any aspect of real science that contradicts the givens. You accept the conclusions before they are shown to be correct, then deny the science that proves they are incorrect. That is the opposite of how real science works.
Are you saying that they did not earn the Doctorates that they have from schools that I am sure that you respect? You may not like the way that they interpret observations. But that does not mean that they did not work for the degrees that they hold.
It is not "my" interpretation of observations. There is an entire body of science developed over many centuries that I can reference to support any argument against creationism and a young earth. What you are saying has been refuted by that entire body of science, which is exactly why creationism is not taken seriously by the scientific community and never will be. It has been shown, conclusively, to be wrong and there is nothing that can be done to salvage it.
Evidently, not all scientists hold to your position and there is a growing community of scientists that do believe in a young Earth as put forward in the Bible.

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #96

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #95]
Evidently, not all scientists hold to your position and there is a growing community of scientists that do believe in a young Earth as put forward in the Bible.
I won't comment on the other points because they are the same things that have been hashed out here many times before, and standard creationist attempts to try and suggest that science supports a young earth when it very clearly does not. If a handful of scientists believe in a young earth that only says that they therefore don't believe in science and they should take their scientist hats off, or follow the path of people like Russell Humphreys and go to work for a creationist organization and call themselves creation "scientists."

There is far too much observational data and genuinely sound science available that supports a 4.6 billion year old earth, and virtually every discipline of science that is relevant to the topic shows that the earth is many orders of magnitude (~6) older than the roughly 6000 year age implied by the bible myths. The young earth idea is as ridiculous as the idea that the earth is flat, and nearly as easily disproved by simple observations. There are religious people who believe in the Genesis creation event, but believe it is compatible with an old earth scenario. Here is an older example of one such description:

https://chem.tufts.edu/science/Geology/ ... es-YEC.htm

While I don't believe in gods or any sort of Genesis creation event myself, at least people like the person who wrote the above article see that a young earth scenario is not plausible or consistent with modern science, and they don't try to twist science to ridiculous levels to try and make it say something it doesn't. They can easily see that the young earth arguments are not compatible with real science, and instead they attempt to interpret the Genesis story to make it compatible with modern science, rather than the other way around. They still have a big hill to climb, but not nearly as big as the (unsurmountable) YEC hill.
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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #97

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #96]
While I don't believe in gods or any sort of Genesis creation event myself, at least people like the person who wrote the above article see that a young earth scenario is not plausible or consistent with modern science, and they don't try to twist science to ridiculous levels to try and make it say something it doesn't. They can easily see that the young earth arguments are not compatible with real science, and instead they attempt to interpret the Genesis story to make it compatible with modern science, rather than the other way around. They still have a big hill to climb, but not nearly as big as the (unsurmountable) YEC hill.
I wasn't going to comment anymore but I was bored so I decided to make a comment.

But you do believe in some sort of miracle event for the creation of the universe and life. Both of these events are beyond any hope of possibility naturally as science looks at these events today and this is where we are at 10.20.2020 that is our time. You may want to BELIEVE that science will someday come up with a plausible theory of how everything came into being but as of now, that is simply not the case. So at this point in time your BELIEF that the universe and life just miraculously came into being is simply that a belief that you have not based on fact but on your belief that the universe did not just one miracle but a whole host of miracles to bring about the universe and life. So please you are knee-deep in the belief of miracles yourself. You just like to clothe your miracles in some sort of probability calculation of it happening and yet you do not even believe your own probability calculation that indicates that life and this universe are an impossibility according to the physics of the day.

Modern science does have a lot to say on this issue of the age of the earth and it is not in favor of your belief that that the Earth is billions of years old.
Literally hundreds of dating methods could be used to attempt an estimate of the earth’s age, and the vast majority of them point to a much younger earth than the 4.5 billion years claimed by secularists. The following series of articles presents what Answers in Genesis researchers picked as the ten best scientific evidences that contradict billions of years and confirm a relatively young earth and universe.

Despite this wealth of evidence, it is important to understand that, from the perspective of observational science, no one can prove absolutely how young (or old) the universe is. Only one dating method is absolutely reliable — a witness who doesn’t lie, who has all evidence, and who can reveal to us when the universe began!

And we do have such a witness — the God of the Bible! He has given us a specific history, beginning with the six days of creation and followed by detailed genealogies that allow us to determine when the universe began. Based on this history, the beginning was only about six thousand years ago (about four thousand years from creation to Christ).

In the rush to examine all these amazing scientific “evidences,” it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Such a mountain of scientific evidence, accumulated by researchers, seems to obviously contradict the supposed billions of years, so why don’t more people rush to accept the truth of a young earth based on the Bible?

The problem is, as we consider the topic of origins, all so-called “evidences” must be interpreted. Facts don’t speak for themselves. Interpreting the facts of the present becomes especially difficult when reconstructing the historical events that produced those present-day facts, because no humans have always been present to observe all the evidence and to record how all the evidence was produced.

Forensic scientists must make multiple assumptions about things they cannot observe. How was the original setting different? Were different processes in play? Was the scene later contaminated? Just one wrong assumption or one tiny piece of missing evidence could totally change how they reconstruct the past events that led to the present-day evidence.

When discussing the age of the earth, Christians must be ready to explain the importance of starting points. The Bible is the right starting point. This is the revealed Word of the almighty, faithful, and true Creator, who was present to observe all events of earth history and who gave mankind an infallible record of key events in the past.

The Bible, God’s revelation to us, gives us the foundation that enables us to begin to build the right worldview to correctly understand how the present and past are connected. All other documents written by man are fallible, unlike the “God-breathed” infallible Word (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible clearly and unmistakably describes the creation of the universe, the solar system, and the earth around six thousand years ago. We know that it’s true based on the authority of God’s own character. “Because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself” (Hebrews 6:13).

In one sense, God’s testimony is all we need; but God Himself tells us to give reasons for what we believe (1 Peter 3:15). So it is also important to conduct scientific research (that is part of taking dominion of the earth, as Adam was told to do in Genesis 1:28). With this research we can challenge those who reject God’s clear Word and defend the biblical worldview.

Indeed, God’s testimony must have such a central role in our thinking that it seems demeaning even to call it the “best” evidence of a young earth. It is, in truth, the only foundation upon which all other evidences can be correctly understood!

Following are the ten best evidences from science that confirm a young earth and creation.

#1: Very Little Sediment on the Seafloor
If sediments have been accumulating on the seafloor for three billion years, the seafloor should be choked with sediments many miles deep.

Every year, water and wind erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock debris from the continents and deposit them on the seafloor1 (figure 1). Most of this material accumulates as loose sediments near the continents. Yet the average thickness of all these sediments globally over the whole seafloor is not even 1,300 feet (400 m).2

Some sediments appear to be removed as tectonic plates slide slowly (an inch or two per year) beneath continents. An estimated 1 billion tons of sediments are removed this way each year.3 The net gain is thus 19 billion tons per year. At this rate, 1,300 feet of sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years, not billions of years.

“Figure+
Figure 1. Every year, 20 billion tons of dirt and rock debris wash into the ocean and accumulate on the seafloor. Only 1 billion tons (5 percent) are removed by tectonic plates. At this rate, the current thickness of the seafloor sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years. Such sediments are easily explained by water draining off the continents toward the end of the Flood.

This evidence makes sense within the context of the Genesis Flood cataclysm, not the idea of slow and gradual geologic evolution. In the latter stages of the year-long global Flood, water swiftly drained off the emerging land, dumping its sediment-chocked loads offshore. Thus most seafloor sediments accumulated rapidly about 4,350 years ago.4

Rescuing Devices
Those who advocate an old earth insist that the seafloor sediments must have accumulated at a much slower rate in the past. But this rescuing device doesn’t “stack up”! Like the sediment layers on the continents, the sediments on the continental shelves and margins (the majority of the seafloor sediments) have features that unequivocally indicate they were deposited much faster than today’s rates. For example, the layering and patterns of various grain sizes in these sediments are the same as those produced by undersea landslides, when dense debris-laden currents (called turbidity currents) flow rapidly across the continental shelves and the sediments then settle in thick layers over vast areas. An additional problem for the old-earth view is that no evidence exists of much sediment being subducted and mixed into the mantle.

#2: Bent Rock Layers
In many mountainous areas, rock layers thousands of feet thick have been bent and folded without fracturing. How can that happen if they were laid down separately over hundreds of millions of years and already hardened?

Hardened rock layers are brittle. Try bending a slab of concrete sometime to see what happens! But if concrete is still wet, it can easily be shaped and molded before the cement sets. The same principle applies to sedimentary rock layers. They can be bent and folded soon after the sediment is deposited, before the natural cements have a chance to bind the particles together into hard, brittle rocks.5

“Figure+
Figure 2. The Grand Canyon now cuts through many rock layers. Previously, all these layers were raised to their current elevation (a raised, flat region known as the Kaibab Plateau). Somehow this whole sequence was bent and folded without fracturing. That’s impossible if the first layer, the Tapeats Sandstone, was deposited over North America 460 million years before being folded. But all the layers would still be relatively soft and pliable if it all happened during the recent, global Flood.

The region around Grand Canyon is a great example showing how most of the earth’s fossil-bearing layers were laid down quickly and many were folded while still wet. Exposed in the canyon’s walls are about 4,500 feet (1,370 m) of fossil-bearing layers, conventionally labeled Cambrian to Permian.6 They were supposedly deposited over a period lasting from 520 to 250 million years ago. Then, amazingly, this whole sequence of layers rose over a mile, around 60 million years ago. The plateau through which Grand Canyon runs is now 7,000–8,000 feet (2,150–3,450 m) above sea level.

Think about it. The time between the first deposits at Grand Canyon (520 million years ago) and their bending (60 million years ago) was 460 million years!

Look at the photos on the following page of some of these layers at the edge of the plateau, just east of the Grand Canyon. The whole sequence of these hardened sedimentary rock layers has been bent and folded, but without fracturing (figure 2).7 At the bottom of this sequence is the Tapeats Sandstone, which is 100–325 feet (30–100 meters) thick. It is bent and folded 90° (photo 1). The Muav Limestone above it has similarly been bent (photo 2).

“Photo+
Photo 1. The whole sequence of sedimentary layers through which Grand Canyon cuts has been bent and folded without fracturing. This includes the Tapeats Sandstone, located at the bottom of the sequence. (A 90° fold in the eastern Grand Canyon is pictured here.) (Photo courtesy of Andrew Snelling)

“Photo+
Photo 2. Photo 2. All the layers through which Grand Canyon cuts — including the Muav Limestone shown here — have been bent without fracturing.) (Photo courtesy of Andrew Snelling)

“Figure+
Figure 3. This phenomenon was not regional. The Tapeats Sandstone spans the continent, and other layers span much of the globe.

However, it supposedly took 270 million years to deposit these particular layers. Surely in that time the Tapeats Sandstone at the bottom would have dried out and the sand grains cemented together, especially with 4,000 feet (1,220 m) of rock layers piled on top of it and pressing down on it. The only viable scientific explanation is that the whole sequence was deposited very quickly — the creation model indicates that it took less than a year, during the global Flood cataclysm. So the 520 million years never happened, and the earth is young.

Rescuing Devices
What solution do old-earth advocates suggest? Heat and pressure can make hard rock layers pliable, so they claim this effect must be what happened in the eastern Grand Canyon, as the sequence of many layers above pressed down and heated up these rocks. Just one problem. The heat and pressure would have transformed these layers into quartzite, marble, and other metamorphic rocks. Yet Tapeats Sandstone is still sandstone, a sedimentary rock!

But this quandary is even worse for those who deny God’s recent creation and the Flood. The Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents can be traced right across North America (figure 3)8 and beyond to right across northern Africa to southern Israel.9 Indeed, the whole Grand Canyon sedimentary sequence is an integral part of six megasequences that cover North America.10 Only a global Flood cataclysm could carry the sediments to deposit thick layers across several continents one after the other in rapid succession in one event.11

#3 Soft Tissue in Fossils
Ask the average layperson how he or she knows that the earth is millions or billions of years old, and that person will probably mention the dinosaurs, which nearly everybody “knows” died off 65 million years ago. A recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, however, has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question this assumption.

Bone slices from the fossilized thigh bone (femur) of a Tyrannosaurus rex found in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana were studied under the microscope by Schweitzer. To her amazement, the bone showed what appeared to be blood vessels of the type seen in bone and marrow, and these contained what appeared to be red blood cells with nuclei, typical of reptiles and birds (but not mammals). The vessels even appeared to be lined with specialized endothelial cells found in all blood vessels.

Amazingly, the bone marrow contained what appeared to be flexible tissue. Initially, some skeptical scientists suggested that bacterial biofilms (dead bacteria aggregated in a slime) formed what only appear to be blood vessels and bone cells. Recently, Schweitzer and co-workers found biochemical evidence for intact fragments of the protein collagen, which is the building block of connective tissue. This is important because collagen is a highly distinctive protein not made by bacteria.12

Some evolutionists have strongly criticized Schweitzer’s conclusions because they are understandably reluctant to concede the existence of blood vessels, cells with nuclei, tissue elasticity, and intact protein fragments in a dinosaur bone dated at 68 million years old. Other evolutionists, who find Schweitzer’s evidence too compelling to ignore, simply conclude that there is some previously unrecognized form of fossilization that preserves cells and protein fragments over tens of millions of years.13 Needless to say, no evolutionist has publically considered the possibility that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old.

An obvious question arises from Schweitzer’s work: is it even remotely plausible that blood vessels, cells, and protein fragments can exist largely intact over 68 million years? While many consider such long-term preservation of tissue and cells to be very unlikely, the problem is that no human or animal remains are known with certainty to be 68 million years old (figure 4). But if creationists are right, most dinosaurs were buried in the Flood 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. So would we expect the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules of the type that Schweitzer reports for biological tissues historically known to be 3,000 to 4,000 years old?

The answer is yes. Many studies of Egyptian mummies and other humans of this old age (confirmed by historical evidence) show all the sorts of detail Schweitzer reported in her T. rex. In addition to Egyptian mummies, the Tyrolean iceman, found in the Alps in 1991 and believed to be about 5,000 years old according to long-age dating, shows such incredible preservation of DNA and other microscopic detail.

We conclude that the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules in dinosaurs is entirely consistent with a young-earth creationist perspective but is highly implausible with the evolutionist’s perspective about dinosaurs that died off millions of years ago.

“Figure+
Figure 4. A little skin: a largely intact dinosaur mummy, named Dakota, was found in the Hell Creek Formation of the western United States in 2007. Some soft tissue from the long-necked hadrosaur was quickly preserved as fossil, such as the scales from its forearm shown here.

#4: Faint Sun Paradox
Evidence now supports astronomers’ belief that the sun’s power comes from the fusion of hydrogen into helium deep in the sun’s core, but there is a huge problem. As the hydrogen fuses, it should change the composition of the sun’s core, gradually increasing the sun’s temperature. If true, this means that the earth was colder in the past. In fact, the earth would have been below freezing 3.5 billion years ago, when life supposedly evolved.

The rate of nuclear fusion depends upon the temperature. As the sun’s core temperatures increase, the sun’s energy output should also increase, causing the sun to brighten over time. Calculations show that the sun would brighten by 25 percent after 3.5 billion years. This means that an early sun would have been fainter, warming the earth 31°F (17°C) less than it does today. That’s below freezing!

But evolutionists acknowledge that there is no evidence of this in the geologic record. They even call this problem the faint young sun paradox. While this isn’t a problem over many thousands of years, it is a problem if the world is billions of years old.

Rescuing Devices
Over the years, scientists have proposed several mechanisms to explain away this problem. These suggestions require changes in the earth’s atmosphere. For instance, more greenhouse gases early in earth’s history would retain more heat, but this means that the greenhouse gases had to decrease gradually to compensate for the brightening sun.

None of these proposals can be proved, for there is no evidence. Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that a mechanism totally unrelated to the sun’s brightness could compensate for the sun’s changing emission so precisely for billions of years.

#5: Rapidly Decaying Magnetic Field
The earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that protects living things from solar radiation. Without it, life could not exist. That’s why scientists were surprised to discover that the field is quickly wearing down. At the current rate, the field and thus the earth could be no older than 20,000 years old.

Several measurements confirm this decay. Since measuring began in 1845, the total energy stored in the earth’s magnetic field has been decaying at a rate of 5 percent per century.14 Archaeological measurements show that the field was 40 percent stronger in a.d. 1000.15 Recent records of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field, the most accurate ever taken, show a net energy loss of 1.4 percent in just three decades (1970–2000).16 This means that the field’s energy has halved every 1,465 years or so.

“Figure+
Figure 5. Creationists have proposed that the earth’s magnetic field is caused by a freely decaying electric current in the earth’s core. (Old-earth scientists are forced to adopt a theoretical, self-sustaining process known as the dynamo model, which contradicts some basic laws of physics.) Reliable, accurate, published geological field data have emphatically confirmed this young-earth model.

Creationists have proposed that the earth’s magnetic field is caused by a freely decaying electric current in the earth’s core. This means that the electric current naturally loses energy, or “decays,” as it flows through the metallic core. Though it differs from the most commonly accepted conventional model, it is consistent with our knowledge of what makes up the earth’s core.17 Furthermore, based on what we know about the conductive properties of liquid iron, this freely decaying current would have started when the earth’s outer core was formed. However, if the core were more than 20,000 years old, then the starting energy would have made the earth too hot to be covered by water, as Genesis 1:2 reveals.

Reliable, accurate, published geological field data have emphatically confirmed the young-earth model: a freely decaying electric current in the outer core is generating the magnetic field.18 Although this field reversed direction several times during the Flood cataclysm when the outer core was stirred (figure 5), the field has rapidly and continuously lost total energy ever since creation (figure 6). It all points to an earth and magnetic field only about 6,000 years old.19

Rescuing Devices
Old-earth advocates maintain the earth is over 4.5 billion years old, so they believe the magnetic field must be self-sustaining. They propose a complex, theoretical process known as the dynamo model, but such a model contradicts some basic laws of physics. Furthermore, their model fails to explain the modern, measured electric current in the seafloor.20 Nor can it explain the past field reversals, computer simulations notwithstanding.21

To salvage their old earth and dynamo, some have suggested the magnetic field decay is linear rather than exponential, in spite of the historic measurements and decades of experiments confirming the exponential decay. Others have suggested that the strength of some components increases to make up for other components that are decaying. That claim results from confusion about the difference between magnetic field intensity and its energy, and has been refuted categorically by creation physicists.22

“Figure+
Figure 6. The earth’s magnetic field has rapidly and continuously lost total energy since its origin, no matter which model has been adopted to explain its magnetism. According to creationists’ dynamic decay model, the earth’s magnetic field lost more energy during the Flood, when the outer core was stirred and the field reversed direction several times.

#6: Helium in Radioactive Rocks
During the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium contained in rocks, lots of helium is produced. Because helium is the second lightest element and a noble gas — meaning it does not combine with other atoms — it readily diffuses (leaks) out and eventually escapes into the atmosphere. Helium diffuses so rapidly that all the helium should have leaked out in less than 100,000 years. So why are these rocks still full of helium atoms?

While drilling deep Precambrian (pre-Flood) granitic rocks in New Mexico, geologists extracted samples of zircon (zirconium silicate) crystals from different depths. The crystals contained not only uranium but also large amounts of helium.23 The hotter the rocks, the faster the helium should escape, so researchers were surprised to find that the deepest, and therefore hottest, zircons (at 387°F or 197°C) contained far more helium than expected. Up to 58 percent of the helium that the uranium could have ever generated was still present in the crystals.

“Figure+
Figure 7. Radioactive elements in rocks produce a lot of helium as they decay; and this gas quickly slips away into the atmosphere, especially when the rocks are hot. Yet radioactive rocks in the earth’s crust contain a lot of helium. The only possible explanation: the helium hasn’t had time to escape!

The helium leakage rate has been determined in several experiments.24 All measurements are in agreement. Helium diffuses so rapidly that all the helium in these zircon crystals should have leaked out in less than 100,000 years. The fact that so much helium is still there means they cannot be 1.5 billion years old, as uranium-lead dating suggests. Indeed, using the measured rate of helium diffusion, these pre-Flood rocks have an average “diffusion age” of only 6,000 (± 2,000) years.25

These experimentally determined and repeatable results, based on the well-understood physical process of diffusion, thus emphatically demonstrate that these zircons are only a few thousand years old. The supposed 1.5-billion-year age is based on the unverifiable assumptions of radioisotope dating that are radically wrong.26

Another evidence of a young earth is the low amount of helium in the atmosphere. The leakage rate of helium gas into the atmosphere has been measured. 27 Even though some helium escapes into outer space, the amount still present is not nearly enough if the earth is over 4.5 billion years old (figure 7).28 In fact, if we assume no helium was in the original atmosphere, all the helium would have accumulated in only 1.8 million years even from an evolutionary standpoint.29 But when the catastrophic Flood upheaval is factored in, a flood which rapidly released huge amounts of helium into the atmosphere, it could have accumulated in only 6,000 years.30

Rescuing Devices
So glaring and devastating is the surprisingly large amount of helium that old-earth advocates have attempted to discredit this evidence.

One critic suggested the helium didn’t all come from uranium decay in the zircon crystals but a lot diffused into them from the surrounding minerals. But this proposal ignores measurements showing that less helium gas is in the surrounding minerals. Due to the well-established diffusion law of physics, gases always diffuse from areas of higher concentration to surrounding areas of lower concentration.31

Another critic suggested the edges of the zircon crystals must have stopped the helium from leaking out, effectively “bottling” the helium within the zircons. However, this postulation has also been easily refuted because the zircon crystals are wedged between flat mica sheets, not wrapped in them, so that helium could easily flow between the sheets unrestricted.32 All other critics have been answered.33 Thus all available evidence confirms that the true age of these zircons and their host granitic rock is only 6,000 (± 2,000) years.

#7: Carbon-14 in Fossils, Coal, and Diamonds
“Figure+
Figure 8. A sea creature, called an ammonite, was discovered near Redding, California, accompanied by fossilized wood. Both fossils are claimed by strata dating to be 112–120 million years old but yielded radiocarbon ages of only thousands of years.

Carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) is a radioactive form of carbon that scientists use to date fossils. But it decays so quickly — with a half-life of only 5,730 years — that none is expected to remain in fossils after only a few hundred thousand years. Yet carbon-14 has been detected in “ancient” fossils — supposedly up to hundreds of millions of years old — ever since the earliest days of radiocarbon dating.34

Even if every atom in the whole earth were carbon-14, they would decay so quickly that no carbon-14 would be left on earth after only 1 million years. Contrary to expectations, between 1984 and 1998 alone, the scientific literature reported carbon-14 in 70 samples that came from fossils, coal, oil, natural gas, and marble representing the fossil-bearing portion of the geologic record, supposedly spanning more than 500 million years. All contained radiocarbon.35 Further, analyses of fossilized wood and coal samples, supposedly spanning 32–350 million years in age, yielded ages between 20,000 and 50,000 years using carbon-14 dating.36 The fossilized sea creature and wood in figure 8 both yield radiocarbon ages of only thousands of years. Diamonds supposedly 1 to 3 billion years old similarly yielded carbon-14 ages of only 55,000 years.37

Even that is too old when you realize that these ages assume that the earth’s magnetic field has always been constant. But it was stronger in the past, protecting the atmosphere from solar radiation and reducing the radiocarbon production. As a result, past creatures had much less radiocarbon in their bodies, and their deaths occurred much more recently than reported!

So the radiocarbon ages of all fossils and coal should be reduced to less than 5,000 years, matching the timing of their burial during the Flood. The age of diamonds should be reduced to the approximate time of biblical creation — about 6,000 years ago.38

Rescuing Devices
Old-earth advocates repeat the same two hackneyed defenses, even though they were resoundingly demolished years ago. The first cry is, “It’s all contamination.” Yet for 30 years, AMS radiocarbon laboratories have subjected all samples, before they carbon-14 date them, to repeated brutal treatments with strong acids and bleaches to rid them of all contamination.39 And when the instruments are tested with blank samples, they yield zero radiocarbon, so there can’t be any contamination or instrument problems.

The second cry is, “New radiocarbon was formed directly in the fossils when nearby decaying uranium bombarded traces of nitrogen in the buried fossils.” Carbon-14 does form from such transformation of nitrogen, but actual calculations demonstrate conclusively this process does not produce the levels of radiocarbon that world-class laboratories have found in fossils, coal, and diamonds.40

#8: Short-Lived Comets
A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. But once each orbit, a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a beautiful tail. Comets have little mass, so each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.

Two other mechanisms can destroy comets — ejections from the solar system and collisions with planets. Ejections happen as comets pass too close to the large planets, particularly Jupiter, and the planets’ gravity kicks them out of the solar system. While ejections have been observed many times, the first observed collision was in 1994, when Comet Shoemaker-Levi IX slammed into Jupiter.

Given the loss rates, it’s easy to compute a maximum age of comets. That maximum age is only a few million years. Obviously, their prevalence makes sense if the entire solar system was created just a few thousand years ago, but not if it arose billions of years ago.

Rescuing Devices
Evolutionary astronomers have answered this problem by claiming that comets must come from two sources. They propose that a Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune hosts short-period comets (comets with orbits under 200 years), and a much larger, distant Oort cloud hosts long-period comets (comets with orbits over 200 years).

Yet there is no evidence for the supposed Oort cloud, and there likely never will be. In the past 20 years, astronomers have found thousands of asteroids orbiting beyond Neptune, and they are assumed to be the Kuiper belt. However, the large size of these asteroids (Pluto is one of the larger ones) and the difference in composition between these asteroids and comets argue against this conclusion.

#9: Very Little Salt in the Sea
“Figure+
Figure 9. Every year, the continents, atmosphere, and seafloor add 458 million tons of salt into the ocean, but only 122 million tons (27 percent) is removed. At this rate, today’s saltiness would be reached in 42 million years. But God originally created a salty ocean for sea creatures, and the Flood quickly added more salt.

If the world’s oceans have been around for three billion years as evolutionists believe, they should be filled with vastly more salt than the oceans contain today.

Every year rivers, glaciers, underground seepage, and atmospheric and volcanic dust dump large amounts of salts into the oceans (figure 9). Consider the influx of the predominant salt, sodium chloride (common table salt). Some 458 million tons of sodium mixes into ocean water each year,41 but only 122 million tons (27 percent) is removed by other natural processes.42

If seawater originally contained no sodium (salt) and the sodium accumulated at today’s rates, then today’s ocean saltiness would be reached in only 42 million years43 — only about 1/70 the three billion years evolutionists propose. But those assumptions fail to take into account the likelihood that God created a saltwater ocean for all the sea creatures He made on day 5. Also, the yearlong global Flood cataclysm must have dumped an unprecedented amount of salt into the ocean through erosion, sedimentation, and volcanism. So today’s ocean saltiness makes much better sense within the biblical time scale of about six thousand years.44

Rescuing Devices
Those who believe in a three-billion-year-old ocean say that past sodium inputs had to be less and outputs greater. However, even the most generous estimates can only stretch the accumulation time frame to 62 million years.45 Long-agers also argue that huge amounts of sodium are removed during the formation of basalts at mid-ocean ridges,46 but this ignores the fact that the sodium returns to the ocean as seafloor basalts move away from the ridges.47

#10: DNA in “Ancient” Bacteria
In 2000, scientists claimed to have “resurrected” bacteria, named Lazarus bacteria, discovered in a salt crystal conventionally dated at 250 million years old. They were shocked that the bacteria’s DNA was very similar to modern bacterial DNA. If the modern bacteria were the result of 250 million years of evolution, its DNA should be very different from the Lazarus bacteria (based on known mutation rates). In addition, the scientists were surprised to find that the DNA was still intact after the supposed 250 million years. DNA normally breaks down quickly, even in ideal conditions. Even evolutionists agree that DNA in bacterial spores (a dormant state) should not last more than a million years. Their quandary is quite substantial.

However, the discovery of Lazarus bacteria is not shocking or surprising when we base our expectations on the Bible accounts. For instance, Noah’s Flood likely deposited the salt beds that were home to the bacteria. If the Lazarus bacteria are only about 4,350 years old (the approximate number of years that have passed since the worldwide flood), their DNA is more likely to be intact and similar to modern bacteria.

Rescuing Devices
Some scientists have dismissed the finding and believe the Lazarus bacteria are contamination from modern bacteria. But the scientists who discovered the bacteria defend the rigorous procedures used to avoid contamination. They claim the old age is valid if the bacteria had longer generation times, different mutation rates, and/or similar selection pressures compared to modern bacteria. Of course these “rescuing devices” are only conjectures to make the data fit their worldview

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #98

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #97]
So please you are knee-deep in the belief of miracles yourself. You just like to clothe your miracles in some sort of probability calculation of it happening and yet you do not even believe your own probability calculation that indicates that life and this universe are an impossibility according to the physics of the day.
If science has yet to fully explain something that does not mean that any sort of miracle is necessary to explain it, or that is is due to the actions of a deity. And there is no need to believe in miracles to accept that science will eventually find a correct explanation. Science does not entertain the possibility of miracles ... those are strictly the domain of deities for which there is zero evidence of their existence. Life and this universe do, in fact, exist. A miracle explanation has no basis in reality.
Modern science does have a lot to say on this issue of the age of the earth and it is not in favor of your belief that that the Earth is billions of years old.
What you pasted in is not modern science, but a bunch of nonsense from Answers in Genesis that is overwhelmed by actual science showing that the age of the Earth is indeed billions of years (approximately 4.6 billion). Everything in the AIG list has been debunked. Just take #1. They seem happy to accept a 12 million year period of sediment buildup, despite a supposedly 6000 year old Earth and a global flood happening only 4350 years ago. Then a statement is simply thrown out that "such sediments are easily explained by water draining off the continents toward the end of the flood" with no quantitative analysis of any kind. All they say is that there were "sediment-choked loads", and from that alone conclude that "thus most seafloor sediments accumulated rapidly about 4,350 years ago." That isn't modern science ... it is weak handwaving at best.
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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #99

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]
If science has yet to fully explain something that does not mean that any sort of miracle is necessary to explain it, or that is due to the actions of a deity. And there is no need to believe in miracles to accept that science will eventually find a correct explanation. Science does not entertain the possibility of miracles ... those are strictly the domain of deities for which there is zero evidence of their existence. Life and this universe do, in fact, exist. A miracle explanation has no basis in reality.
It is a choice of what or who you put your faith or believe in. But the problem with your faith in science is that it has already failed to bring clarity to man's deepest questions of where he came from. This failure of modern thought has ushered in our new age of post-modernism. Gone is the idea of absolute truth. Everything is relative in this new age of post-modernism. And the failure of science to come up with a rational explanation for the universe and our position in it that has caused this type of thinking that will throw the human race backward not forward.

What would scientists be looking for in this age of post-modern thought? There is no absolute truth for man to discover. Absolute truth is a Biblical idea. There is no absolute truth in your statement above. There is no appeal to rational thought in your statement above. Your statement above is nothing more than a subjective thought of yours. It is not based in fact. True scientific thought is based on what we already, know, and predicting on the basis of what we already know to be true. For your statement above to be true everything that we know about physics has to be false. This is postmodernism at its finest. There is no rational linking of one thought to another in your statement above. It is simply a subjective expression that people try to pass off as rational modernist thought.

Your beginning premise that science will one day find the answer to the origin of the universe fly's in the face of our modern understanding of time, space, and energy.

A Biblical understanding does not violate any laws of nature that man has discovered. The laws of physics point to the FACT that there has to be something that has existed eternally and for anything to exist eternally then there have to be certain qualities that it must have. From these facts alone the qualities of a Biblical God can be deduced and they match perfectly with the God that is described in the Bible.

So your belief that science will one day solve this mystery of the origin of the universe is nothing more than a postmodern idealistic thought that postmodernism is known for.

Modern science does have a lot to say on this issue of the age of the earth and it is not in favor of your belief that that the Earth is billions of years old.
What you pasted in is not modern science, but a bunch of nonsense from Answers in Genesis that is overwhelmed by actual science showing that the age of the Earth is indeed billions of years (approximately 4.6 billion). Everything in the AIG list has been debunked. Just take #1. They seem happy to accept a 12 million year period of sediment buildup, despite a supposedly 6000-year-old Earth and a global flood happening only 4350 years ago. Then a statement is simply thrown out that "such sediments are easily explained by water draining off the continents toward the end of the flood" with no quantitative analysis of any kind. All they say is that there were "sediment-choked loads", and from that alone conclude that "thus most seafloor sediments accumulated rapidly about 4,350 years ago." That isn't modern science ... it is weak handwaving at best.
According to your line of thinking above, there is no need to rationally connect the dots in any theory. All anyone needs to do is say that science will one day be able to explain how this is possible. But creationists believe in absolute truth and understand that there must be a rational explanation of what we see on the surface of the Earth. This is why there have been numerous papers written on how an increase in sediment load during the flood could cause the sediment that we measure on the ocean floor.

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Re: Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

Post #100

Post by brunumb »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 2:13 pm The laws of physics point to the FACT that there has to be something that has existed eternally and for anything to exist eternally then there have to be certain qualities that it must have.
Most physicists agree that time had a beginning, and that it is measured from, and indeed came into being with, The Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago. So, hhow that squares up with 'eternally' is not clear. In any case, whatever qualities one attributes to something that has existed eternally must be pure supposition at best. Care to elaborate on those qualities and explain how they must be possessed by something eternal?
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