lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick) (10/16/84)
[Evolutionists preaching religion; creationists preaching science]
This article is mainly devoted to responses; a parallel article sets
forth the scientific creation model, with some implications and
comparision with the evolution model. A separate one deals with "theory."
Tom Knotts' quotation from the Bay Area Skeptics reminds me of the same
lack of understanding displayed by the BAS representative who has been
on KGO several times. The man simply WOULD NOT distinguish between
matters of faith and matters of science. BAS is wilfully perpetuating
the media myth that just because creation scientists believe certain
things as a matter of religion, they are trying to incorporate them
into science. BALDERDASH!! If so, then evolution is the introduction of
racism/atheism/Marxism/Fascism/Nazism into the schools. (BTW, Mooney,
Hitler himself said he was NOT a Christian.) *Scientific* creation does
NOT look to the Bible for its support, but rather MUST depend on
SCIENTIFIC evidence. Basically put: "We have this evidence (same
evidence as available for evolution) and a model that explains the
evidence at least as well as (if not better than) evolution."
I tried to explain this to the BAS representative. He refused to deal
with the SCIENTIFIC aspects; rather, he ran and hid behind statements
like "Morris and Gish believe thus-and-so." He did not state that they
believed such things (such as a *6-day* creation) as a matter of FAITH -
I have YET to hear any creation scientist state that he believes in a
*6-day* creation as a matter of SCIENCE (that the earth was created is
one thing; stating that stars were created one day after the plants is
something altogether different).
Yet what do Tom Knotts and others do:
"But there isn't a shred of evidence that backs up the Biblical
creation 'theory' as far as I can tell."
We aren't discussing *Biblical* creation. The creation model, although
it does not contradict the Biblical story, does NOT depend on the Bible.
To answer Rich Yampell's question, saying that the Creator is the Judeo-
Christian God is goes beyond *scientific* creation, and into *faith*.
Ethan Vishniac makes a good point that Dick Dunn had made earlier:
1. Life originated by natural processes once in the distant past.
All living organisms are the descendants of the original life form.
...
Model 1 is the preferred scientific model for evolution today....
The religious elements of these models are superfluous
additions to model #1.
I have said before that theistic evolution is a bad brother to both
evolution and creation. Vishniac and Dunn apparently agree.
BTW, for those who keep insisting that school children should be taught
the current scientific theory, why has Gould's "punctuated equilibria"
been dominating the science realm while the kids are still being taught
Modern Synthesis/gradualism? More evolutionist hypocrisy.
If Ethan thinks his model 9 is scientific creation, he is <censored>:
9. God created the universe 6000 years ago. All indications to
the contrary are just his idea of a joke. No group of organisms
on Earth has evolved into a different group.
...
Scientific creationism, as discussed in this group, consists of
model 9.
The young age hypothesis (dealt with later) is not a mandatory part of
the Scientific Creation model. Scientific Creation *allows* a young
earth (which evolution does not) but does not *demand* it. The "indica-
tions" to the contrary are evolutionary INTERPRETATIONS of the data to
fit their desired goals (as I noted in my last series of articles).
Another of Ethan's points, this one for falsifiability, is "outrageous
anachronisms in the fossil record would constitute disproof of
evolution." HAH! Evolutionists don't give up that easily; they merely
add some more secondary assumptions onto their basic model. "Living
fossils" are one such anachronism - completely absent from the fossil
record for millions (sometimes E8) of years, such that any rock
containing a fossil of them would immediately have an ancient date, yet
they are still quite alive! (Ethan's arguments fail, for how do we know
that we are a recent product, and not just something that was rare and
unsuccessful for a long time?) Both "Lucy" and the findings of Richard
Leakey have caused revamping of the evolutionary timetable. Leakey's
discovery gave him thorough fits: "...it simply eliminates everything
we have been taught about evolution, and I have nothing to offer in
its place." We can also note the treatment given to the dinosaur and man
footprints in Glen Rose, Texas. Evolutionists will fight tooth-and-nail
rather than let their pretty little system get blown to bits. (BTW,
*ancient* human bones have recently been found there, *in situ*.)
Actually, Ethan and the others trying to submit ideas for falsifiability
do so in vain, inasmuch as much more advanced scientists in the
evolution camp have flat-out admitted that "our theory of evolution has
become ... one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations."
On to two subjects which are not necessarily parts of the basic creation
model - the age of the earth and the nature of the catastrophes? Phil
Polli asked questions in both of these areas, apparently because my
earlier articles did not get to all sites (not even to Ray Miller!).
Radiometric dating of rocks is like asking your accountant "how much do
these figures add up to?" The answer is, of course "How much do you want
them to add up to?" So it is with radiometric - many assumptions, even
on the half-lives of the elements involved (more so with Rb/Sr),
assumptions which may not be true, including:
invariability of decay rates under extreme conditions;
that there was no daughter element present at Time=0; etc.
The distance to the stars was a topic covered by the Optical Society of
America some 25 years, and discussed later by Dr. Thomas Barnes,
formerly at UTEP. OSA was pondering the possibility of light (EMR is a
strange beast as it is) travelling - not in Euclidean space - but in
*Riemannian* space, putting the Andromeda Galaxy many orders of
magnitude closer than is believed. I have heard of any followups to
this. Barnes has been doing work with relativity, and has found other
models placing the stars a lot closer. Just last weekend, I was able to
browse through John Moore's _How to Teach Origins (Without ACLU Inter-
ference)_, where he discusses astronomical measurement - and assumptions
- more fully.
On the other hand, in _The Case for Scientific Creation_, Morris
presents 41 separate reasons for disputing the 4.5E9 years hypothesis of
evolution, among them:
Decay of earth's magnetic field (10E4 years max)
Influx of radiocarbon into earth system (10E4 years max)
Efflux of He-4 into atmosphere (1750-175000 years)
Decay lines of galaxies (10E6 years max)
Expanding interstellar gas (60E6 years max)
On the nature of the catastrophe, the basic creation model makes no
statements. Yet from observation of the data, global flooding combined
with major geologic upheavals would account for the evidence. Given the
evidence of the biosphere, about 5000 years ago is a possible time.
"Where did the water come from/go to? What happened to the dinosaurs?"
entails a study of pre-cataclysmic conditions. One suggestion (which
bears evidence at the poles of former tropical climates) is that the
pre-catastrophe world had a high-humidity environment, essentially
creating a greenhouse effect over the entire earth. Such an environment
would provide both the lush tropical vegetation that brontosaurs et al.
would thrive in and the hospitable environment for their massive
physiologies. Now to ponder the result of that humidity turning to rain,
and either causing/being caused by/accompanied by geologic upheavals (I
tend to favor the middle, as it provides the particles necessary for
rain to form). The whole face of the earth gets rearranged, the waters
drain into what become the oceans, and the dinosaurs (what few survived)
find themselves in a very inhospitable environment that they cannot
adjust to. So they bid this world fare-well.
--
The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
{amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab
You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (10/23/84)
> Actually, Ethan and the others trying to submit ideas for falsifiability > do so in vain, inasmuch as much more advanced scientists in the > evolution camp have flat-out admitted that "our theory of evolution has > become ... one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations." In general, appeals to authority are intrinsically weak, but given the Creationist habit of quoting out of context, that is especially so on this issue. I don't know why Larry failed to give the source of the above quotation. If I were paranoid I might think that it is because he doesn't want people to look up the context for themselves. In reality, I suppose, Larry himself has never read the original article, but simply lifted the quote from a handy Creationist tract. The quotation is indeed taken out of context. The first word of the quote, "our", gives away the show. Isn't that a peculiar word to use? "Our theory of evolution". Not "The theory of evolution". Hmmm. Well, if you go back to the original reference (L. C. Birch and P. R. Ehrlich, *NATURE*, Vol. 212, p. 349-352) you will find that the authors are making a technical objection to the way some ecologists draw conclusions from a supposed evolutionary history of particular species. They are *NOT* claiming that evolution *itself* is unfalsifiable, and in fact do not discuss evolution at all except as it relates to the particular problems of ecology they are interested in. To give a longer quote from the same article, "We do not deny at all that the closely related species of birds have come by the properties they possess as a result of an evolutionary history, though we are less convinced than Lack as to what that history is. What we deny is that we need to know the evolutionary history before we can understand the ecology of two related species that happen to occupy the same island today. If ecological studies were to depend on a knowledge of the evolutionary history of the species, as Lack seems to want, then most ecological studies would be halted, for this information is denied us for most species." This is quite different from claiming, as Larry does, that evolution itself is unfalsifiable. Indeed, if Larry really believes that evolution is infalsifiable, why does he attempt to produce "evidence" that if true, would falsify it? As an example, I refer to his paragraph immediately preceeding the one quoted above, which ends: > We can also note the treatment given to the dinosaur and man > footprints in Glen Rose, Texas. Evolutionists will fight tooth-and-nail > rather than let their pretty little system get blown to bits. (BTW, > *ancient* human bones have recently been found there, *in situ*.) The "bones" that Larry refers to are in reality silicified limestone nodules. I posted an article on that about two months ago. But that is beside the point. -- "One good horselaugh is worth a thousand syllogisms" Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp) bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)
ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) (10/23/84)
[]
I'm very busy these days, so I'll be responding to Larry Bickford's
articles piecemeal as I find the time. The following is a paragraph
from the second of his recent articles.
>Another of Ethan's points, this one for falsifiability, is "outrageous
>anachronisms in the fossil record would constitute disproof of
>evolution." HAH! Evolutionists don't give up that easily; they merely
>add some more secondary assumptions onto their basic model. "Living
>fossils" are one such anachronism - completely absent from the fossil
>record for millions (sometimes E8) of years, such that any rock
>containing a fossil of them would immediately have an ancient date, yet
>they are still quite alive! (Ethan's arguments fail, for how do we know
>that we are a recent product, and not just something that was rare and
>unsuccessful for a long time?) Both "Lucy" and the findings of Richard
>Leakey have caused revamping of the evolutionary timetable. Leakey's
>discovery gave him thorough fits: "...it simply eliminates everything
>we have been taught about evolution, and I have nothing to offer in
>its place." We can also note the treatment given to the dinosaur and man
>footprints in Glen Rose, Texas. Evolutionists will fight tooth-and-nail
>rather than let their pretty little system get blown to bits. (BTW,
>*ancient* human bones have recently been found there, *in situ*.)
First, "living fossils" (I still hate the term) are anachronisms
in an evolutionary sense. After a species has appeared in the fossil
record its subsequent fossil record depends on the success of the
species, the likelihood that the environment in which it lives are
conducive to fossil formation, and element of luck involved in its
discovery. An true anachronism would be the discovery of a fossil
of great age with characteristics that belong to a group that evolved
much later. To more specific, about 26 million years back we start
finding fossils of large primates with characteristics reminiscent
of the great apes and of humans. These specimens also resemble lower
primates in many ways and so can be seen as an intermediate link.
It is therefore inconceivable, from an evolutionary viewpoint, that
creatures that were recognizably more like the great apes or humans
would appear in the fossil record from significantly earlier times.
It would represent a massive discrepancy with an otherwise reasonable
progression in the evolution of primates. The Leakey quote is both
(probably) accurate and completely bogus. I believe that he said that,
but he was obviously speaking about the details of *human* evolution.
Humans are an example of a line which has been poorly preserved in
the fossil record. The line from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens is
very well understood. The connections to be made back from that
are tentative with the precise relationships between different
specimens sometimes uncertain. It is being deliberately obtuse
to confuse that with the question of whether or not human beings
evolved.
As for the alleged human remains ....
The following is taken from the "Creation/Evolution Newsletter",
Volume 4, No. 3 (May-June 1984). It has been posted to the net
before, but quite a while ago. The article in question is a report
on the 1984 National Bible-Science Conference. It's too long for me
to type in, so I will confine myself to the part relevant to
Mr. Bickford's comment. The rest reports on various talks on
geocentricity and other topics. (To be fair, the report also notes
that the large number of speakers on geocentricity seems out of
proportion to their importance in the creationist movement.)
**************
"Hugh G. Miller and Rev. Carl Baugh reported on excavations
at the Paluxey River site. They are still finding "human footprints"
of course, and recently someone discovered two travertine skulls,
apparently washed out of the 120 million year old rock of the
riverbed. They displayed the skulls, which had been sawed in half
to show their internal structure. Baugh identified one as a cat, and
the other as either a human infant or some sort of primate. He claimed
the cat skull still showed enamel on the teeth. Since primates and
cats evolved much less than 120 million years ago, Baugh claims these
fossils contradict evolution.
After the presentation, Frank Zindler, hurried up to the pulpit
to examine the "skulls". He came back much amused.
"They were silicified nodules of limestone weathered so that the
surface was irregular and bore a vague resemblance to skulls," he says.
"In the cross-section, no internal structures could be found which
could be related to surface features. If, for example, the surface
were made of bone, one would expect bony structure to be detectable
on the cross-section. However, no structures at all were visible
except for a few randomly distributed solution solution cavities of
small size."
And what about the "teeth" the creationists detected in the alleged
cat fossil? "There were a few very fine needle-like silica spurs,"
says Zindler.
Thus, Baugh's paleontology is on a par with his taxonomy (he named
his alleged new species of man "humanus bauanthropus"."
************
I think this says enough about Baugh's credibility as a scientist.
My personal opinion is that if he assured me, to my face, that my
hair is brown, I would assume he had made a lucky guess.
"I can't help it if my Ethan Vishniac
knee jerks" {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
Department of Astronomy
University of Texas
Austin, Texas 78712ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) (10/24/84)
[]
I should add to my last note that a good, if slightly
contentious, review of recent developments in our understanding
of human evolution is contained in the book "Lucy" by Johanson
(Sp?) and someone else (who I think was a ghost writer).
The book predates the flood of information about the
biochemical similarities between closely related species and
so is a little weak on our relationship to the great apes, but
discusses the fossil record very nicely.ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) (10/26/84)
[]
Another quick note in response to Larry Bickford's article.
First, I note that Larry comments on how lazy those who disagree
with him are, and how they're obviously not reading his notes.
I can't speak for other people, but I'm not particularly interested
in spending time reading the creationist literature. I spend enough
time on this as it is. If Larry were to convince me that a valid
case could be made for creationism I'd find the time. I *do* read
the articles in this newsgroup carefully, even his. I just don't
find any of the creationist submissions particularly convincing, a
possibility that Larry seems to be dismissing off hand.
>On the other hand, in _The Case for Scientific Creation_, Morris
>presents 41 separate reasons for disputing the 4.5E9 years hypothesis of
>evolution, among them:
> Decay of earth's magnetic field (10E4 years max)
> Influx of radiocarbon into earth system (10E4 years max)
> Efflux of He-4 into atmosphere (1750-175000 years)
> Decay lines of galaxies (10E6 years max)
> Expanding interstellar gas (60E6 years max)
Allow me to extend the list:
Thunderstorms (few days)
Fresh flowers (ditto)
Soap bubbles (1 minute maximum)
Now the above is, of course, facetious, but there is a serious
point involved. It is legitimate to invoke transitory phenomena
as a measure of the age of the universe (which is *not* the age
of the solar system) only if they clearly cannot recur. What is one
to make of the above list?
Decay of earth's magnetic field - The Earth's magnetic field
appears to be the natural consequence of having a hot ball of
rotating metal with convection currents running through it. Its
precise behavior is difficult to understand because it is a very
complicated system, but any planet with the above properties
should have a magnetic field with a lot of time variation. Note
also that the rocks near spreading rifts show variations in the
frozen magnetic field that vary systematically with the age of
the rocks (which is correlated with their distance from the rift).
They support the picture of a magnetic field whose strength and
direction have varied considerably.
> Influx of radiocarbon into earth system (10E4 years max)
I don't understand this comment at all. Carbon 14 is radioactive.
It is produced in the atmosphere. Since organisms absorb carbon from
the atmosphere only while they are alive this implies that the fraction
of carbon 14 left in ancient organic material is a function of how long
it has been dead. This can be checked by comparison with ancient
tree trunks and remains found in conjunction with historically dated
sites. The low level of C14 found in ancient remains is a function of
its radioactivity, not a recent increase in the C14 levels in hte
atmosphere.
> Efflux of He-4 into atmosphere (1750-175000 years)
I have no idea what he's talking about here. He-4 is
a trace component of our atmosphere because it can acquire escape
velocity at normal temperatures in the upper atmosphere. The Earth
outgasses Helium at some compensating rate. Not being a geologist,
I have no idea offhand how much of that is primordial (i.e. dating
from the origin of the Earth) and how much is the result of alpha
decay of heavy elements in the Earth's crust.
> Decay lines of galaxies (10E6 years max)
I was baffled by this at first (and I'm an astronomer!), but
someone suggested to me that he meant the spiral arms of spiral
galaxies which would tend to wrap up in about 10^8 years if
the objects that mark spiral arms move at normal orbital velocites
and continue to mark the spiral arms. This seems pointless since
the bright stars that mark spiral arms are shortlived (few million
years) and the molecular clouds associated with them are probably
transient on the same time scale. In fact, spiral arms are
understood to be a wave phenomenon in which gas density waves
propagate in the rotating disk. The spiral arms are the wave
crests where the gas density peaks creating molecular clouds, and
(subsequently) giving rise to star formation.
> Expanding interstellar gas (60E6 years max)
See above, the clouds appear to be created in the spiral arms
and to become disrupted by star formation within them.
Nevertheless astronomy does provide some indications of the
age of the universe. Three methods of estimation that I'm aware
of are
1) The universe is expanding. Extrapolate the radial velocities
of distant galaxies backwards and one finds that the
universe was *much* denser about 10^10 to 2x10^10 years
ago.
2) The oldest stars in the galaxy appear to be at least
10^10 years old. This estimate is based on noticing
that stars in globular clusters have aged so that
even stars with less mass than the sun have stopped
core hydrogen burning and become Red giants (low mass
stars age less rapidly). The time estimates are based
on our models of stellar structure (which produce reasonable
agreement with the observed distribution of stars in the
luminosity-temperature plane).
3) There is a deficiency of *extremely* cold white dwarf stars.
These are very small, but massive stars that are not
burning nuclear fuel anymore, but remain hot (presumably
from previous nuclear fusion). Extremely hot members
of this class have cooling times that are measureable.
The coolest members of this class need to have been
cooling for at least 10^10 years. At lower temperatures
there is a *complete* lack of such stars (they would need
much more than 10^10 years to cool). Presumably the
creationist explanation is that God decided that cooler
white dwarfs were unesthetic.
"I can't help it if my Ethan Vishniac
knee jerks" {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
Department of Astronomy
University of Texas
Austin, Texas 78712