'pends on what flood your talking about. Noah's flood is much younger, the Utnapishtim is older than Noahs flood. Ramayana is set much before both, (no flood in Ramayana) but they all be myths.
How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?
by hawkaw 18 Replies latest jw friends
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AlanF
The basic premise of the creationists' "Mississippi delta sediment accumulation rate proves a young earth" idea is grossly wrong. Seven miles in 30,000 years amounts to more than one foot of sediment per year throughout the delta. It's pretty obvious today that the Mississippi is depositing nowhere near that amount of sediment. If it were, the delta, because of dikes and so forth that prevent normal sedimentation in the delta as a whole, would be building seaward at an astounding rate. The fact that we don't see this is proof that the YEC claims are false.
The basic premise itself is self-inconsistent. Since Noah's Flood, according to YEC's, occurred about 4,500 years ago, it's logically inconsistent for them to use any arguments about anything older than that. But these people, like JW leaders, are so sublimely stupid about reality that they don't see the massive inconsistencies in their arguments.
AlanF
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OICU8it2
See this month's Scientific American on age and expansion of the universe. In short, light will not travel faster than usual but space can expand faster than the light that is travelling toward you without violating the special or general relativity principle. That is how an object can be billions of light years away and at the same time be only billions of years old. If they started out in a big bang-i.e. close to you, how is it you are seeing billion year old light from billions of light years away. As the light travelled to you, space expanded away from you very fast and over time, the light finally caught up with you. This results in an ever-growing horizon of what you will see. It also means the most distant 14 billion light year objects are actually now 46 billion light years away. This article is : "Misconceptions about the Big Bang" by Charles H Lineweaver and Tamara M. Davis from the Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra, Australia. If I could have figured out how to include the illustrations it would be more clear. Things are very old indeed.
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Navigator
I understand that a recent discovery has shown the the rate of expansion of the universe is actually increasing rather than decreasing as one would expect Eventually the sky will be completely dark as the bodies will be so far away that light cannot reach us at all.
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hawkaw
Well said Alan!
hawk
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LittleToe
The basis premise seems to be that if God wanted to artificially age everything, He could.
At best it seems a bit deceptive, to me... -
hawkaw
The scientific method or process is fundamental to the scientific investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon physical evidence. Scientists propose new assertions about our world in the form of theories: observations, hypotheses, and deductions. Predictions from these theories are tested by experiment. If a prediction turns out to be correct, the theory survives. Any theory which is cogent enough to make falsifiable predictions can then be tested reproducibly in this way. The method is commonly taken as the underlying logic of scientific practice. The scientific method is essentially an extremely cautious means of building a supportable, evidenced understanding of our world.
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hawkaw
The terms "hypothesis", "model", "theory" and "law" have different meanings in science than in colloquial speech. Scientists use the term model to mean a description of something, specifically one which can be used to make predictions which can be tested by experiment or observation. A hypothesis is a contention that has not (yet) been either well supported nor ruled out by experiment. A physical law or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations.
Most non-scientists are unaware that what scientists call "theories" are what most people call "facts". The general public uses the word theory to refer to ideas that have no firm proof or support; in contrast, scientists usually use this word to refer only to ideas that have repeatedly withstood testing. Thus, when scientists refer to the theories of biological evolution, electromagnetism, and relativity, they are referring to ideas that have survived considerable experimental testing. But there are exceptions, such as string theory, which seems to be a promising model but as yet has no empirical evidence to give it precedence over competing models.
Especially fruitful theories that have withstood the test of time are considered to be "proven" in the scientific sense ? that it is true and factual but of course can still be falsified. This includes many theories, such as universally accepted ones such as heliocentric theory and controversial ones such as evolution, which are backed by many observations and experimental data. Theories are always open to revision if new evidence is provided or directly contradicts predictions or other evidence. As scientists do not claim absolute knowledge, even the most basic and fundamental theories may turn out to be incorrect if new data and observations contradict older ones.
Newton's law of gravitation is a famous example of a law falsified by experiments regarding motions at high speeds and in close proximity to strong gravitational fields. Outside of those conditions, Newton's Laws remain excellent accounts of motion and gravity. Because general relativity accounts for all of the phenomena that Newton's Laws do, and more, general relativity is currently regarded as our best account of gravitation.
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hawkaw
The following is from another web site. This Lab experiment (that can be independently repeated) shows a new species was obtained from the crossing of two separate species - that is the definition of evolution (descent with modification). (Note here are some definitions: 1) self-incompatible - the flowers cannot fertilize themselves. 2) sib-matings - crosses between plants of the same generation. 3) back crossing - crosses between a plant and its parent or even further back. 4) hybrid - an individual derived from crossing two separate (but usually related) species. They are typically, but not always, sterile.)
"It pretty much confirms the origin of a naturally occurring species; it breaks the chromosome discontinuity barrier; it demonstrates that new organisms can find a mate in existing populations. Three birds, one stone."
hawk
Laboratory Speciation in Helianthus Evolves a Native Species
DNA examination of five species of Helianthus (H. annuus, H. petiolarus fallax, H. anomalus, H. paradoxus, and H. deserticola) suggested that H. annuus and H. petiolarus fallax are the evolutionary parents of the other three species (Rieseberg 1993, 1995, 1993).
All five species are self-incompatible and fertile. Typically, H. annuus (the ancestor of the commercial sunflower) and H. petiolarus fallax form hybrids that are almost fully sterile. However, the few fertile hybrids, when subjected to sib-matings and back crossing regimes yield a new species that is fully fertile and cannot cross with either of the parental species. This new species is virtually identical to H. anomalus. The produced species is genetically isolated from the parents by chromosomal barriers.
"Under laboratory conditions these changes are repeatable across independent experiments" (Niklas, p.64). The laboratory derived H. anomalus readily crosses with the native H. anomalus. Results indicate that H. deserticola and H. paradoxus may also have arisen via hybridization of H. annuus and H. petiolarus fallax. These two species have different synthetic capabilities from the parents and live in sandier and drier soils. Hybrid speciation may be common in plants where hybrids often form (see Gilia sp., Grant, 1966, Stebbins, 1959, Arnold, 1995), but is presumed rare in animals where hybrids are less common (however, see the minnow Gila seminuda, Bellini, 1994). Experiments to confirm the evolutionary parents of H. deserticola and H. paradoxus have not been performed.
1. Based on nuclear and chloroplast DNA analysis results, the Theory of Evolution predicts that H. annuus and H. pertiolarus fallax are evolutionary ancestors of H. anomalus, H. deserticola and H. paradoxus.
2. Hybrids of H. annuus and H. petiolarus fallax subjected to different regimes (at least 3) of back crossing and sib-matings, all converged into a new plant species with "nearly identical gene combinations" (Rieseberg) as the native species H. anomalus.
This confirms the natural evolutionary parents of H. anomalus as predicted.
References
1. Arnold, J and S.A. Hodges. 1995. Are Natural Hybrids Fit or Unfit Relative to Their Parents? Trends Ecol. Evol. 10:67-71.
2. Bullini, L. 1994. Origin and Evolution of Animals by Hybrid Animal Species. Trends Ecol. Evol. 9:422-6.
3. Futuyma, D.J. 1998. Evolutionary Biology. 3rd. Edition, Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, MA.
4. Grant, V. 1966. The Origin of a New Species of Gilia in a Hybridization Experiment. Genetics 54:1189-99.
5. Niklas, K.J. 1997. The Evolutionary Biology of Plants. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
6. Rieseberg, L.H. 1995. The Role of Hybridization in Evolution: Old Wine in New Skins. Amer. J. Bot. 82:944-53.
7. Rieseberg, L.H., and N.C. Ellstrand. 1993. What Can Molecular and Morphological Markers Tell Us About Plant Hybridization? Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 12:213-41.
8. Rieseberg, L.H., B. Sinervo, C.R. Linden, M. Ungerer and D.M. Arias. 1996. Role of Gene Interactions in Hybrid Speciation: Evidence from Ancient and Experimental Hybrids. Science 272:741-44.A
Nice, neat, repeatable and meets all scientific criteria for a definitive experiment.