Hilbert's Hotel

Diskussionsforum zur Unendlichkeit: Theismus, Atheismus, Primzahlen, Unsterblichkeit, das Universum...
Discussing Infinity: theism and atheism, prime numbers, immortality, cosmology, philosophy...

Gamestudio Links
Zorro Links
Newest Posts
Blobsculptor tools and objects download here
by NeoDumont. 03/28/24 03:01
Issue with Multi-Core WFO Training
by aliswee. 03/24/24 20:20
Why Zorro supports up to 72 cores?
by Edgar_Herrera. 03/23/24 21:41
Zorro Trader GPT
by TipmyPip. 03/06/24 09:27
VSCode instead of SED
by 3run. 03/01/24 19:06
AUM Magazine
Latest Screens
The Bible Game
A psychological thriller game
SHADOW (2014)
DEAD TASTE
Who's Online Now
5 registered members (AndrewAMD, monk12, TipmyPip, Quad, aliswee), 1,029 guests, and 6 spiders.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
sakolin, rajesh7827, juergen_wue, NITRO_FOREVER, jack0roses
19043 Registered Users
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rating: 5
Page 22 of 54 1 2 20 21 22 23 24 53 54
Re: Science and Creation [Re: PHeMoX] #68981
04/25/06 21:23
04/25/06 21:23
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer Offline
User
Irish_Farmer  Offline
User

Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Quote:

Seriously - if you now begin to claim that all physicists, geologists, archeologists, palaeontologists are totally wrong in the age of earth and only you're right, you're really leaving the scope of a serious discussion.




Argumentum ad numerum? In the case of this debate, I would ask that you (since you have such an incredible team on your side) then use this wealth of knowledge to refute me, not try and impress me with all of the people that agree with you.

Quote:

At least it's then up to you to let us know some arguments for those wild claims. How old do you think is the earth?




I have, and you chose to respond to my claims by saying I'm wrong simply because professionals have all agreed to something that's contrary to what I believe. I think that by now its up to you to show how dating methods stand up to scrutiny.

I don't think the earth could be more than maybe 20,000 years old. I don't know for sure. The idea never really entered my mind to care about exactly how old the earth is. What's important is that I know the earth isn't anywhere near millions of years old, and it certainly isn't old enough for evolution to take place from molecules to everything we see on earth.

Quote:

That animals have lived millions of years ago is not a "presupposition." We know to a very high degree of certainty, fact even, that this is the case. There is a mountain of physical evidence and scientific data to support this theory.




I think its unscientific to say we know for certain, or for a fact, what happened so long ago. No one is that arrogant. Or maybe they are.

More on that later. For now, I'd rather pick apart that thing you quoted.

The constant name-calling in that source you references is just as bad as that Kent Hovand guy calling evolutionists cultists. Its typically a sign of feeling threatened, or the inability to effectively defend your beliefs.

Quote:

They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world.




Nor do we. Both creationists and evolutionists are dealing with the same evidence. By evidence I mean modern, current observable fact. Its the suppositions and viewpoints and bias that differ.

Quote:

Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds -- have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous.




Straw man.

Quote:

Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah's flood.




The flood doesn't account for all of the fossils. There are other ways fossils can form, but I won't get into that because its unimportant.

Quote:

How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained.




Are you sure you even quoted scientists? Animals have been able to live in a sort of 'harmony' for quite some time now. How do elephants, and zebras, and girraffs and lions all live together? Is it really important. Unless you claim that man couldn't have coexisted with dinosaurs? Most of them (I'm assuming the larger ones that required more sustinance) probably died out shortly after creation was cursed. That hypothesis is about as scientific as slapping arbitrary dates on fossils based on how old I THINK they are. Of course, man has coexisted with predators before, I'm sure that dinosaurs wouldn't have been that big of a problem. Unless fictional movies are now scientific evidence?

Quote:

Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow 'drowned' by the flood.




A flood would probably upset the food chain, causing many animals to go extinct. The ones that we find fossilized were probably buried in the huge amounts of sediment disturbance.

Quote:

The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time




To a limited degree. While it is possible that some method (whether it be time, or a sorting by animal environments) sorted out animals from 'simple' to 'complex', its more likely that we'll find overlapping, or fossils being found out-of-bounds, etc. Which is what we continue to find.

Quote:

radioactive decay happens




Ok.

Quote:

and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity.




Oh yeah, of course. This happens 100% of the time, because when the dates conflict one another, the date or dates that don't fit the supposition are discarded.

Fact is that dates conflict one another. So the 'normal' would be the supposition of what the date should be. Any method that doesn't agree with this is somehow contaminated. Its hard to argue with someone who won't listen to anything except what agrees with him.

Quote:

Although it may be important to you to believe that The Bible and everything in it is a factual account of reality from God, to everyone else it is as factual and scientific as a tomb of fairy stories.




Is this even an argument? Good for them, by the way. Trying to bully me into feeling bad for believing what I believe is a sign of weakness.

Quote:

Many creationists still think that there are scientific arguments in favor of creationism and bible belief is unrequired.




Good for them, if any of them want to enter the debate I'll set them straight. Until then, that's irrelevant.

Quote:

like radioactive decay




The problem isn't that radioactive decay happens. No one disputes that. Its the specific details. I'm not going to keep repeating my points ad nauseum just because you insist on ignoring them in favor of telling me about a FSM. I've already said why I believe dating methods to be fallacious, you can defend it or not.

As far as your perfect series of fossils, as predicted by IDers, the fossil series is starting to blur or fall apart altogether. If you want sources, just ask. They're all scientific discoveries that are starting to throw the series into question. Of course, some animals simply will never be buried at the same level as others. Trilobites, living in lower parts would probably never be found above a t. rex. That's just common sense and has nothing to do with evolution or a flood. Other fossils are starting to be found outside their timeline, and its happening constantly. It seems the more science discovers, the better off we crazies are.

Its a good time to be a creationist actually, because the same people who believe in evolution regardless of the evidence, are starting to find a lot of evidence against their beliefs. At this rate of discovery, it won't be long now before evolution itself is a fossil. The only thing holding us back now is the fear of having to find an alternative. But that'll pass in time.


"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
Re: Science and Creation [Re: Irish_Farmer] #68982
04/25/06 21:35
04/25/06 21:35
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
M
Marco_Grubert Offline
Expert
Marco_Grubert  Offline
Expert
M

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
Quote:

Oh yeah, of course. This happens 100% of the time, because when the dates conflict one another, the date or dates that don't fit the supposition are discarded.


More conspiracy theories ?

Quote:

Its a good time to be a creationist actually, because the same people who believe in evolution regardless of the evidence, are starting to find a lot of evidence against their beliefs.


Sources ?


Re: Science and Creation [Re: Irish_Farmer] #68983
04/26/06 09:11
04/26/06 09:11
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,977
Frankfurt
jcl Offline OP

Chief Engineer
jcl  Offline OP

Chief Engineer

Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,977
Frankfurt
Quote:

Argumentum ad numerum? In the case of this debate, I would ask that you (since you have such an incredible team on your side) then use this wealth of knowledge to refute me, not try and impress me with all of the people that agree with you.




Fair enough. But you haven't given me anything to refute. Please substantiate your claim that all scientists are wrong. If you give some sort of reason other than "I was told so in church", it will be my pleasure to refute you.

Quote:

I don't think the earth could be more than maybe 20,000 years old. I don't know for sure. The idea never really entered my mind to care about exactly how old the earth is.




Hmm... At least, you're honest. Is it only the earth or do you also think the whole universe is 20,000 years old?

Quote:

The problem isn't that radioactive decay happens. No one disputes that. Its the specific details. I'm not going to keep repeating my points ad nauseum just because you insist on ignoring them in favor of telling me about a FSM. I've already said why I believe dating methods to be fallacious




No, you haven't. Just let us know what's wrong with "specific details" of radioactive decay.

Quote:

Its a good time to be a creationist actually, because the same people who believe in evolution regardless of the evidence, are starting to find a lot of evidence against their beliefs. At this rate of discovery, it won't be long now before evolution itself is a fossil.




It's interesting that even today creationists still claim that the acknowledgement of creationism by science is "just around the corner". I'm afraid that's far out of touch with reality. Creationism played a large role in science in the 19th century, a small role at the beginning of the 20th century, and no role at all since the 1980s. Since then we can compare DNA sequences of living species and know directly which species evolved from which one.

I think creationism is meanwhile so utterly refuted, so apparently wrong, and so discredited by its lies and propaganda that there is not the slightest chance anymore to be taken seriously by science. Even if there had been a chance in the past, all the new discoveries of transient fossils and DNA evidence in the last 20 years have reduced it to zero.

For similar reasons, creationism is also losing influence in Christianity. A world religion can not afford to reject basic science as in the Middle Ages. Protestantism and Catholizism have meanwhile accepted evolution - this also happened within the last 20 years. The last creationism resorts remaining today are US fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism.

If the trend continues as it does today, in about 50 years only historians will know about creationism.

Re: Science and Creation [Re: jcl] #68984
04/26/06 12:34
04/26/06 12:34
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer Offline
User
Irish_Farmer  Offline
User

Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Quote:

More conspiracy theories ?




Its not a conspiracy. What's happening is what I'd like to call, "Working within a frame." Working within a frame is a good idea, it saves you from wasting time and resources. The only problem is when that frame is wrong, incorrect, whatever.

For example, if I believe that dating methods are correct, why should I question their accuracy every time they're used. If they're right once, then they're right always. Of course, recent discoveries have cast doubt on dating methods. In this case, the frame is bad because scientists aren't going to let their dating methods go without a fight. It doesn't need to be that way. Any true scientist, upon hearing that experimentation could lead to more knowledge, would jump on the chance. We don't see this happen in this case.

Quote:

Sources ?




That will take a short bit of time. At least, since I'm dealing with internet sources, because finding a reliable, non-creationist, pool of references isn't quick. Some of them will require me to refute evolutionists arguments against them immediately. Like say, the dating of recent lava flow (only about 30 years old) as millions of years old. Of course, evolutionists have a way to misdirect the argument away from the evidence, so I'll have to straighten that out before posting details.

Quote:

Hmm... At least, you're honest. Is it only the earth or do you also think the whole universe is 20,000 years old?




My beliefs stem from the bible, which is fairly fuzzy on the subject of the age of the universe. However, I didn't say I thought the earth was 20,000 years old, I just don't think it could be much older than about that age. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the earth was about 6,000 years old. Why you find that less agreeable, I won't know since both 20,000 and 6,000 are pretty much the same amounts of time on the evolutionary timeline. My immediate guess might be that its because its based on the idea that the bible is infallible.

I also don't think the universe could be much older than 20,000. I know, red shift puts a damper on that. However, there are a lot of problems with red shift that I'd love to get into later.

Quote:

No, you haven't. Just let us know what's wrong with "specific details" of radioactive decay.




Ok. Number one is a dead end. 14C in coal. Since we know its there, all we're waiting on is a way for scientists to find some form of contamination. For now, there is no known source of contamination (just guesses). So based on current evidence, we're able to find inaccurate ratios of elements in material that is 'known' to be too old to have that material.

Number two, conflicting dates between different methods.

Number three, old-age dating of material that isn't more than a few decades old. The 1980s eruption of Mt. St. Helens by example. Now, I'm not going to refute the typical evolutionist counter argument to this one just yet, because its laughably illogical and designed simply to steer the argument away from the problem. I'll wait for your response. However, dating methods giving accounts of relatively large amounts of 'decayed' elements is a problem which leads into...

Number four. We assume that we can know the starting ratio of elements. No evolution-scientist has bothered to experiment against this idea because they believe they have no reason to assume dating methods are false. Creation-scientists have 'tricked' evolutionists into testing this hypothesis, and therefore we've found problems with excess Argon in 'young' material. This calls into question the entire validity of the dating methods, since it shows we can't arrogantly assume we know what the starting ratio was. And if we don't know what the starting ratio was then we may as well not even bother with dating since starting ratios are a HUGE variable in the equation and it means any age is worthless.

Number five. We assume that decay rates are constant and that there is no natural process that can speed them up or slow them down. Frankly, I'll have to research this one myself a bit more, but its still an issue. Don't get me wrong here, I'm sure that the half-life rates are more or less as accurate as it gets. My argument isn't that half-life rates change on a whim, but that there may be processes that change the rates.

Now, that's the last time (albeit only the second time) I'm going to state my problems with the dating methods. If you have a counter argument, great, but if you claim that I have not stated any potential problems with it then I'm done. Third time is not the charm in this case.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 04/26/06 12:38.

"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
Re: Science and Creation [Re: Irish_Farmer] #68985
04/26/06 13:06
04/26/06 13:06
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,977
Frankfurt
jcl Offline OP

Chief Engineer
jcl  Offline OP

Chief Engineer

Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,977
Frankfurt
Quote:

My beliefs stem from the bible, which is fairly fuzzy on the subject of the age of the universe. However, I didn't say I thought the earth was 20,000 years old, I just don't think it could be much older than about that age. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the earth was about 6,000 years old. Why you find that less agreeable, I won't know since both 20,000 and 6,000 are pretty much the same amounts of time on the evolutionary timeline. My immediate guess might be that its because its based on the idea that the bible is infallible.




There is nothing mentioned in the bible about the age of the earth or universe - neither 6000 years nor 20,000 years.

Quote:

I also don't think the universe could be much older than 20,000. I know, red shift puts a damper on that. However, there are a lot of problems with red shift that I'd love to get into later.




Not only the red shift. The first thing that apparently puts "a damper on it" is the fact that we're seeing stars at night.

Most stars are much further away than 20,000 light years. And you don't even need red shift to prove that - astronomy has more than 30 other methods to determine the distance of a star.

Quote:

Ok. Number one is a dead end. 14C in coal.




Yes, it's certainly a dead end as you can not use 14C to determine the age of the earth. There was no coal at that time.

You're normally using U238->Pb206, which determines the earth age at 4.55 (+/- 0.02) billion years. However there are many other dating methods, all with the result of 4.55 billion years within their error margins.

Quote:

Number two, conflicting dates between different methods.




Such as?

Quote:

Number three, old-age dating of material that isn't more than a few decades old. The 1980s eruption of Mt. St. Helens by example. Now, I'm not going to refute the typical evolutionist counter argument to this one just yet, because its laughably illogical and designed simply to steer the argument away from the problem. I'll wait for your response.




Response on what? I an not aware of problems dating the Mount Helens eruption.

Quote:

Number four. We assume that we can know the starting ratio of elements. No evolution-scientist has bothered to experiment against this idea because they believe they have no reason to assume dating methods are false. Creation-scientists have 'tricked' evolutionists into testing this hypothesis, and therefore we've found problems with excess Argon in 'young' material.




"Excess Argon" is one of the long-refuted creationist myths. I'm surprised that some still believe in it today.

http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie024.html

Quote:

Number five. We assume that decay rates are constant and that there is no natural process that can speed them up or slow them down. Frankly, I'll have to research this one myself a bit more, but its still an issue. Don't get me wrong here, I'm sure that the half-life rates are more or less as accurate as it gets. My argument isn't that half-life rates change on a whim, but that there may be processes that change the rates.




You should be glad that half-life rates don't change. Because if they did, God-believers lose one of their basic arguments: The fine-tuning of the universe. Apart from the fact that there weren't any God believers in that case.

If the nature constants determining nuclear reactions had been only slightly different - by only 1% - there were no long-lived suns in our universe, and thus no life.

Re: Science and Creation [Re: Irish_Farmer] #68986
04/26/06 22:06
04/26/06 22:06
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
M
Marco_Grubert Offline
Expert
Marco_Grubert  Offline
Expert
M

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
Quote:

For example, if I believe that dating methods are correct, why should I question their accuracy every time they're used. If they're right once, then they're right always.


I have answered that a couple of times before. If you can show that a widely used method is flawed, you will get a lot of attention, which means a lot of funding, awards, prizes, etc. Therefore scientists have lots of good reasons to disprove or at least alter existing theories. According to your belief Albert Einstein would have had no reason to write papers refuting Newtonian physics since Newtonian physics was so widely accepted in the early 1900s. Instead he did show the shortcomings, got his grants, jobs and Nobel prize. Or take a look at the more recent scandal concerning fake data by that Korean biologist. Within a few months an American scientist pointed out that the results are suspicious and have since been retracted. That's the self-correction inherent in scientific research.
Therefore claiming that methods which have been used successfully for several decades are simply wrong and that nobody has an interest in falsifying them shows a large amount of ignorance concerning science. That's why I was happy to hear that you will be studying biology in which case you should get a better understanding of how science (and the politics of science) works.

Quote:

Of course, recent discoveries have cast doubt on dating methods.


Again, you make a very bold claim but no specifics. Did you know that recent discoveries have shown the Old Testament to be a forgery ?

Quote:

My beliefs stem from the bible, which is fairly fuzzy on the subject of the age of the universe. However, I didn't say I thought the earth was 20,000 years old, I just don't think it could be much older than about that age.


So you are putting your gut feeling of maybe 6000 or 20000 against objective research that's been going on for 100 years.
Quote:

Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the earth was about 6,000 years old.


The Babylonians that established their city-states 7000 years ago probably would be rather surprised by that.

Quote:

The 1980s eruption of Mt. St. Helens by example. Now, I'm not going to refute the typical evolutionist counter argument to this one just yet, because its laughably illogical and designed simply to steer the argument away from the problem.


You mean the response that a method which can only date material that's older than 2 million years will yield wrong results when used on a recent sample? Quite a surprise there I guess.
My bathroom scale has a disclaimer saying that it measures from 30 lbs to 250 lbs with an accuracy of +/- 0.1 lbs. When I put a 20 lbs weight on it it will indicate "0.0". Did I just disprove weighting technology or was I too stupid to read the disclaimer? Your pick.
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/mt_st_helens_dacite_kh.htm

Re: Science and Creation [Re: Marco_Grubert] #68987
04/26/06 22:15
04/26/06 22:15
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,010
analysis paralysis
NITRO777 Offline
Expert
NITRO777  Offline
Expert

Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,010
analysis paralysis
Quote:

The Babylonians that established their city-states 7000 years ago probably would be rather surprised by that.



Where are you getting this reference? By what method did they date babylonian civilization at 7000 years?

Re: Science and Creation [Re: NITRO777] #68988
04/26/06 22:38
04/26/06 22:38
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
M
Marco_Grubert Offline
Expert
Marco_Grubert  Offline
Expert
M

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
This was based on the Catholic Encyclopedia article:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02179b.htm

They cross-reference an incident between Snefru of Egypt (4th dynasty) and Babylonian miners in -3750. You could get the -3750 from the List of Kings, and use that as reference datum for whatever datable material (clay tablets, tools, etc.) you find near the Euphrates.

Re: Science and Creation [Re: Marco_Grubert] #68989
04/26/06 22:44
04/26/06 22:44
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,010
analysis paralysis
NITRO777 Offline
Expert
NITRO777  Offline
Expert

Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,010
analysis paralysis
Oh this is interesting, and a great reference site also. Thank you very much!

Re: Science and Creation [Re: NITRO777] #68990
04/26/06 22:55
04/26/06 22:55
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
M
Marco_Grubert Offline
Expert
Marco_Grubert  Offline
Expert
M

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
You're welcome. But keep in mind that it is a Catholic website so it should be taken with a grain (or dash) of salt.

Page 22 of 54 1 2 20 21 22 23 24 53 54

Moderated by  jcl, Lukas, old_bill, Spirit 

Kompaktes W�rterbuch des UnendlichenCompact Dictionary of the Infinite


Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.1