okie dokie,
Well i read the answer in genesis site, i had a long time ago subscribed to the newsletter, i particularly like the one about proposing that T-REX could have been fire breathing! Anyway...
Okay well Mike oard, made some interesting claims with with no references at all. So the self titled Mr Ice Age needs to produce some facts to back his claims up. so here i will listed some reference books which are quoted a number of site although the entire text is not available
SO i will take his claims one by one and provide science peer review personal or publication to back my statements, and where possible direct quote and link.
Mr Ice Age says: They are essentially a hairy elephant
This a misleading statement, Mammoths closest relative is an Asian elephant and these branches broke away from their common ancestors which eventually became the African elephant 6-7 mya. Now the spilt from the the what would become the asian elephant happened about 5.5mya. There were a number distinct differences to the elephants we see today, those wishing to read more about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_Mammoth
EDIT/ADDITION: i cam across this today which makes my dating out, so here is the link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6913934.stm
Mike Oard explained. “They are not found in isolation, but with a wide variety of other mammals, large and small, many of which were grazers. Indeed, there have been many hundreds of thousands of large mammoths found in Siberia, and many millions of bones.”
I have searched and search for any references to back this claims of hundreds of thousands have been found, if he is referring to fossil bones of mammoths then maybe, although i would still Ike to find some reference. And in a complete kick or irony i will reference an answer given by AIG own site spokesman " First, six million mammoths is hugely exaggerated. There are fewer than 50 known woolly mammoth carcasses, only about a half-dozen of which were complete. An estimated 50,000 tusks have been found, although there may have been a million mammoths living at one time. " link http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i4/mammoth.asp SO they are contradicting themselves on the same issue.
“But”, says Oard, “there are many perplexing questions relating to the Siberian mammoth finds. Why would they want to live in Siberia anyway?” The point is that they need a grassland environment with a long growing season, mild winters and very little permafrost—quite different from the climate in the region today.
For starter it is accepted by the science community that Mammoth were suited for a cold environment. The body makeup shows this clearly. SO the question is weather there was the diets requirement around where they inhabited. well today's Siberian steppes area could not support the mammoths in any large qualities assume they eating similar to our modern elephants. However during our last ice age this areas WAS NOT covered by ice at all, and the ground was not frozen,
Carroll, A. V., 1984, Glaciology and the Ice Age: Journal of Geological Education, v. 32,
Ruddiman, W. F., 1984, Ice-age thermal and climatic role of the surface Atlantic Ocean, 40 degrees N to 63 degrees N: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 95,
Most perplexing of all, how did they die and how were the carcasses frozen? “To freeze like that, and for the tusks and bones to be well preserved, quick burial is necessary,” Mike said. “There needs to be a plausible explanation for how all those mammoths ended up in the rock-hard permafrost.”
What about the amazing preservation of their stomach contents? Was an asteroid involved? Where does Noah’s Flood fit in?
OK taking the last 2 points at the same time , again with references unlike Mike.
I actually thought his link was rather apt as it is taking the claims from the WTS own book. this link contains again scien journal references
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC361_2.html
- he reports of frozen mammoths with well-preserved flesh are greatly exaggerated. Parts of cadavers have been well preserved, but in all cases, the internal organs were rotted, or the body was partly eaten by scavengers, or both, before the animal became frozen. The Berezovka mammoth, perhaps the most famous example, showed evidence of very slow decay and was putrefied to the point that the excavators found its stench unbearable (Weber 1980). The best preserved mammoth, Dima, was an infant; its small size and starved condition permitted quicker freezing, and even it had a little decomposition (Guthrie 1990, 7).
There are probably several different causes of the deaths of frozen mammoths and other animals, including the following:
- Sinking in muddy silt (Guthrie 1990, 7-24).
- Drowning/burial in flash floods carrying a heavy load of silt.
- Predation, followed by winter freezing, followed by burial in silt carried by snowmelt (Guthrie 1990, 81-113).
- Fall in a landslide, as a thawed riverbank gives way under the animal's weight. The landslide and subsequent soil creep can bury and preserve the animal (Kurtén 1986, chap. 9).
The food found with the mammoths were arctic species. Some mammoth deaths would have been sudden, but there is no evidence of sudden climate change. - Frozen mammoths are not common. As of 1961, only thirty-nine have been found with some flesh preserved, and only four of those were more or less intact (Farrand 1961).
References:
- Farrand, William R., 1961. Frozen mammoths and modern geology. Science 133: 729-735.
- Guthrie, R. D., 1990. (see below)
- Kurtén, B., 1986. (see below)
- Weber, C. G., 1980. (see below)
As regards the flesh and vegetation still being in an editable state.
E. W. Pfizenmayer was one of the scientist who recovered and studied the Berezovka mammoth: borrowing a quote from the book that was publish online
Baron E. Von Toll, the well-known geological explore of Arctic Siberia, who perished while leading the Russian expedition in 1903, had covered in 1890 most of the sites of previous finds of mammoth and rhinoceros bodies in carrying out his professional investigations. In doing so he had established that the mammoth found by Adams in 1799 buried at the mouth of the Lena in a crevice of a cliff from 200 to 260 feet high, and sent by him to St. Petersburg, had been frozen in a bank of diluvial ice on the slope of the river. This ice bank was not (as Adams believed and stated in his description of the site of the find) the remains of the old drift-ice whose crevices had been filled with mud. The fissures in the bank of diluvial ice on the Lena, which was far bigger than ours, had, according to Toll's findings, gradually filled with earth from the top downwards, and its upper surface covered with alluvial soil to such an extent that a fair number of the tundra plants were able to take root on it.
"Toll concluded that this particular Siberian ice was in no case recent, but was the remains of diluvial inland ice, which once covered the whole world, and then was gradually overlaid with earth, surviving to this day in the Arctic regions in ice-banks of varying extent.
"Our investigations confirmed his opinion. They proved that the animal had been preserved in the same way as Adams's mammoth, according to Toll, had been. In both cases the bodies had been embedded in fissures of the diluvial inland ice. Then when the temperature fell the mud disappeared and the ice in which they were fast frozen had kept them, complete with their soft parts, in a state a preservation through the ages.
"Before I arrived at the site, Herz had partially dug away the hill of earth round the body, and so both the forefeet and the hind feet were exposed. These lay under the body so that it rested on them. When one looked at the body one had the impression that it must have suddenly fallen into an unexpected fissure in the ice, which it probably came across in its wanderings, and which may have been covered with a layer of plant-bearing mould. After its fall the unlucky animal must have tried to get out of its hopeless position, for the right forefoot was doubled up and the left stretched forward as if it had struggled to rise. But its strength had apparently not been up to it, for when we dug it out still farther we found that in its fall it had not only broken several bones, but had been almost completely buried by the falls of earth which tumbled in on it, so that it had suffocated.
"Its death must have occurred very quickly after its fall, for we found half-chewed food still in its mouth, between the back teeth and on its tongue, which was in good preservation. The food consisted of leaves and grasses, some of the later carrying seeds. We could tell from these that the mammoth must have come to its miserable end in the autumn."
In contracts i see the AIG site shows no references and rather just claims from these self titles Mr Ice Age, and of course the Dr. Dino ( Kent hovind). But all face the same problem, they publish no science journals of their claims they publish direct to the public and play for the emotion/faith vote. The question is why do they not publish their work, the reason is their is no work.
Even the infamous Dr. Behe has never published a science journal of his claims of IC, but has published on non- ID related topics. When these so called scientists deliberately avoid a system which is set up to reduce the amount of fraudulent idea being adopted, you have question their motives. Yes the peer review isn't perfect. But i was was sent this picture, whihc i think is appreciate.
Regards
steve
