Article 4171 of talk.origins: The source of theinformation on colleges and universities i
Article 4171 of talk.origins:
The source of theinformation on colleges and universities is from
"Bear's Guide to Earning Non-Traditional College Degrees," 10th Ed. Where
used below, the word "Accreditation" refers to accreditation by one of the
recognized Regional Accrediting Agencies, OR by the (legitimate) American
Association of Bible Colleges. California has a three tier system: At the
low end are "Authorized" schools. More highly scrutinized are "Approved"
schools. "Accredited" schools are accredited by the regional Accrediting
Agency.
Dr. Carl Baugh, a fundamentalist Missouri Baptist minister with no
scientific background, claims to be an archaeologist. He also claims
to have a Ph.D. from the California Graduate School of Theology in
Glendale. When a local skeptic checked with the primary organization
responsible for accreditation (The Western Association of Schools and
Colleges), he was informed that this "graduate school" has not been
accredited. Reverend Baugh claims to have found "human" footprints
that measure nearly forty inches from heel to toe.
California Graduate School of Theology is "Approved" by the state of
California (A step up from "Authorized.") but is not accredited. All degrees
are in theology. Credit is given for "experiential learning."
Dr. Richard Bliss, a member of the ICR staff, has claimed to have a
D.Ed. from the University of Sarasota located in Florida. In the 1984
spring issue of "Scientific Integrity", William V. Mayer pointed out
that this university has been characterized by the "Philadelphia
Inquirer" as a diploma mill in a Florida motel (see Lovejoy's College
Catalog). Bliss has accused evolutionary scientists of "intellectual
dishonesty". He also claims to be "a recognized expert in the field of
science education" and is co-author of a "two-model" book that is being
pushed for use in the public school system.
Bear lists the "University of Sarasota" as a "short residency" (total
residency may be as short as six weeks) school. The school is the equivalent
of California "Approved," but is not accredited.
Dr. Clifford Burdick of the CSRC (Creation Science Research Center)
is a "flood" geologist who has spent forty years trying to prove that
giant humans once roamed the earth and even mingled with the dinosaurs.
Burdick has displayed a copy of his Ph.D. from the University of
Physical Sciences (Phoenix, Arizona) in the Glen Rose Creation Evidence
Museum. However, the State of Arizona Board of Regents, the University
of Arizona Department of Geology, and the Arizona State Bureau of
Geology and Mineral Technology have never heard of this "university."
Bear hasn't heard of this school either. There appears to be a "University of
Psychic Sciences," in National City, California.
Dr. Kelly Segraves, director of the CSRC, listed himself as M.A.
and D.Sc. on the 1975 CSRC letterhead. After having it called into
question, Segraves dropped the D.Sc. in 1981 and now lists "D.R.E." in
its place. Segraves has claimed that his D.Sc. is honorary from
Christian University, yet a computer search indicated that the only
university with that name is located in Jakarta, Indonesia. The next
closest match is a Bible College called Indiana Christian University
(see below). Segraves claims to have received his M.A. from Sequoia
University in 1972 but Bette Chambers discovered that there is no such
place. The closest name match is a Sequoia College in California,
which only offers two year associate degrees and has no record of any
student named Kelly Segraves. Note that "D.R.E." is a doctorate of
religious education and does not qualify as a scientific degree.
There are or were several "National Christian University," in Richardson,
(Texas), Dallas, and apparently Oklahoma City and/or Missouri. Bear can
offer no other information, except that "National Christian" appears on a
European list of degree mills. There is a "Christian International
University" in Phoenix, Arizona (which was established in Texas in 1967, and
moved to Arizona in 1977 when "the Lord provided a central home"). The only
staff member listed as having a Doctorate is the President, whose degree is
from...National Christian University. CIU is the the equivalent of California
"Authorized," but not Accredited.
Sequoia University did exist, in California and Oklahoma, but a judge in Los
Angeles, in 1984, issued a permanent injunction to cease operations "until it
complies with the state education laws." The "university" offered degrees in
osteopathic medicine, religious studies, hydrotherapy, and physical sciences.
Dr. Harold S. Slusher of the ICR claims to have an honorary D.Sc.
from Indiana Christian University and a Ph.D. from Columbia Pacific
University. Robert J. Schadewald recently discovered that Indiana
Christian University is a Bible College with only a 1/2 man graduate
science department, and Columbia Pacific University is nonaccredited.
"Indiana Christian University" is unknown to Bear. Columbia Pacific University,
in San Rafael, California, is California "Approved," but not Accredited.
Of listed faculty, 23% have their own Doctorate from ... Columbia Pacific
University.
Incidentally, ICR lost it approval to grant graduate science degree last year.
(1988) The school has appealed but is expected to lose its reapproval appeal.
Article 4173 of talk.origins:
Topics:
}There are gaps in fossil record
} Oldest living things
}Man and dinosaurs coexisted.
}The suddenness with which major changes
}Many extinctions lack obvious reasons.
}"carcasses deposited in icy mucky dumps"
}evidence of rapid removal and deposition of soil, forest in arctic.
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}- There are gaps in fossil record where you'd expect intermediate forms.
There are more fossils than Creationists will admit. Many intermediate forms
are known--for example, the development of the mammal skull characteristics
from the therapsida of Permian time.
What gaps remain can be explained by erosion, lack of proper conditions
for fossilization, the punctuated equilibrium model, or simply not looking in
the right places yet.
} - Oldest living things, bristlecone pines, are younger than 5000 years.
Sure. In fact, if you go for grove instead of individual tree and match
similiar growth rigns (similiar events in overlapping lifespans) it goes
well over 11,000 years.
}- Man and dinosaurs coexisted.
(Creationist Institute of California).
Refuted. Institute discredited and licence (to grant science
degrees) recently revoked.
BTW: Those "footprints" in the Paluxy river bed are NOT human. A simple
observation of the tracks reveal that while an arch is present forward of
the heel, there are only three toes. If a track is observed which is
uneroded, webbing is visible between the toes. A special on NOVA allowed
these tracks to be visible to millions.
Dr. Walter Brown, now director of the Center for Scientific Creation in Phoenix,
AZ.
Brown, may fall back on a rather novel technique that he has employed in the
past -- denying having ever supported the idea. Brown first used
this tactic not long after the Paluxy River tracks were shown conclusively
to be either dinosaur tracks or erosion marks. When asked for his opinion,
Brown claimed that he had NEVER supported the Paluxy River tracks.
However, he was forced to 'fess up when shown the transcript of
a local Ontario TV program, "Speaking Out," when he stated that Paluxy
River was very good evidence for creationism.
}1) The suddenness with which major changes in pattern occurred and the
} virtual absence of any fossil remains from the period in which they
} were alleged to be evolving.
This can be explained by punctuated evolution, in this regard
it is important to note that not all suggested lineages in the fossil record
have such abrupt changes and gaps. There are several fossil sucessions
that record critical evolutionary steps and at a fine taxinomic resolution.
The development of the modern horse is a fairly complete sucession, as
is the development of mammal skull characteristics from the therapsida
of Permean time. Other examples of pretty gradual evolution?
Instantaneous changes of taxa, on a geologic time scale, between
long periods of stability does not pose insurmountable problems for
neo-evolution since it is genetic equillibrium that allows long stable
periods and stressing the gene pool into metastable states that allows
for punctuated evolution.
}- Many extinctions lack obvious reasons.
The "obvious reasons" are obvious to him, and do not necessarily have anything
to do with reality (i.e. 'cause he don't see it don't make it gone)
This may be a problem for compiling a history of life, but the
existence of extinctions at all poses problems for anyone claiming life
has teleology. If a divine creator is calling the shots then finding
extinctions casts doubt on the perfection of his plan, or even the
existance of a plan.
As for finding causes for extinctions, this is going to be
an area of some debate for years to come. The ideas that have been
advanced find some common collapse of habitat that is consistant with
evolutionary biology. The suddeness, or seeming catastrophe of proposed
events do not really threaten uniformatarianism because they are changes
of rate, but not of process.
The "Lack of Obvious Reasons", may overstate the problem, for
a series of events such as asteriod impact, continental colissions,
destruction of barriers between habitats, all have been advanced and
all point to the destruction of habitat and with it mass extinctions.
} - "carcasses deposited in icy mucky dumps"
} - evidence of rapid removal and deposition of soil, forest in arctic.
}No, the evidence plainly points to the removal of large areas of soil and
}forest along with their rapid deposition and freezing in the artic... now
}what besides a tidal surge of immense proportions would do that... and if
}such a surge wiped the face of Asia and Alaska, why is it unlikely to extend
}it to Mesopotania, where it would have depositied it's debris in the vicinity
}of Ararat!
Severe temperature changes are known to be responsible for great
catastrophic mortalities. Such mortalities are typically associated
with unusually cold spells or severe winters. Severe storms are
also responsible for catastrophic kills and quick seimentary deposition.
During hurricanes and other severe stormes, bottom sediment can be
stirred up to a considerable depth and easily bury animals.
There is absolutely no question that modern day catastrophes are
constantly occuring and that many of these can result in catastrophic
kills and rapid deposition of sediment. In short, fossils and fossil
graveyards are being formed today. You may be correct in assuming that
the evidence of rapid deposition you cite is generally evidence for
some catastrophic mode of formation, but you are incorrect in
assuming that only the Genesis Flood can account for such deposits.
Especially in the face of the great amount of other evidence in
direct conflict with the Genesis Flood hypothesis, evidence of slow
deposition, evidence in coral reef formations, evaporite deposits,
fossil lake deposits, glacial deposits, and desert deposits. When
we look at the sedimentary rock record we find some deposits that bear
evidence of having been formed by moving water and could have been formed
in flood water, but by no means are all rocks like that, in fact there
are a considerable number of formations that could not have formed in
surging flood waters at all.
Article 4174 of talk.origins:
} the evidence from the fossil record to support evolution is largely
} missing and that critical gaps indicate a single creation of life
} as it is today.
}The fossil record is incomplete and there are no transitions evident
Such a prediction by creationists is rare. The implication of this
is that if gaps in the fossil record are ever filled, creationism
is falsified.
Those outside professional paleontology often find it difficult to
access what the fossil record does and does not show. As someone who
works within the field of human paleontology and human evolution, I
often find it odd when I am told that the number of human fossils is
much too meager to allow the sort of extrapolation claimed by
biologists for human ancestry. This may have been true 20 years ago,
but it certain is not the case now.
This might lead one to wonder if the fossil record is not also underrated
in the are of other organisms as well. An article in the book _Science
and Creationism_, edited by Ashley Montague, addresses this point. The
article is by noted paleontologist Roger J. Cuffey, one of the witnesses
called to testify in the now famous Arkansas creation science case in
1982. Allow me to quote form the article, entitled "Paleontological
Evidence and Organic Evolution,":
"If we read the paleontologic literature (especially if with the
background of professional paleontologic training and experience)
we find that the fossil record contains many examples of such
transitional fossils. These connect both low-rank taxa (like
different species) and high-rank taxa (like different classes),
inspite of the records imperfections and in spite of the
relatively small number of practicing paleontologists. Because
of the critical role which transitional fossils played in
convincing scientists of the occurrence of organic evolution,
paleontologists have been appalled that many otherwise well-
informed persons have repeated the grossly misinformed assertion
that transitional fossils do not exist."
Cuffey the goes on to list no fewer than 185 references in the paleontologic
literature documenting such transitional forms. One of my favorites is
the fossil Therapsid, Diarthognathus. In the fossil record, reptiles are
distinguished from mammals by the number of bones that form the lower jaw.
This is not a trival distinction, since the musculature of the reptilian
jaw is different from that of mammals and would require such a re-design.
Essential, reptiles have a lower jaw made of three bones (dentary, articular
and quadrate) while mammals have only a single bone (the dentary), with the
articular and quadrate relocated to the middle-ear (reptiles have only one
ear ossicle, mammals have three. The relocation of this bones is observable
embryologically in modern mammals).
Therapsids are "mammal-like reptiles" and have a number of traits that
put them midway between mammals and reptiles. The skull is larely reptilian
but the dentary is much larger than in modern reptiles and other fossil
reptil groups. Also, the therapsids have heterdont teeth (different shapes
for different functions as in mammals) and limbs located underneath the body,
rather than out to the side (not as far underneath as in mammals, however).
Diarthrognathus is a therapsid with both a mammalian and reptilian jaw joint.
Both are functional, but the mammal-like joint seems to have been the most
functional. The quadrate and articular bones are very reduced. The animal
is literally hafe-way between a mammal and a reptile.
One more thing. I think it unfair to list Denton with other respected
biologists. Denton is not a biologists and, while not religious either,
had his own philosophical axe to grind against what he felt are the
dehumanizing implications of evolution. A recent review of Denton's
book appears in the July-August Issue of the NCSE Reports (published by
the national center for science education ). The review, by biologists
William M. Thwaites, points out the numerous errors, misintepretations
and misrepresentations in Denton's book. Denton, as do many religious
creationists, relies on outdated material often quoted out of context,
and does not seem to understand the implications of the examples he
uses, especially those using biochemical evidence. Thwaite concludes:
"...Denton's book is just another typical anti-evolution tract. It
shows that Dento is motivated, not by a desire to understand the
workings of nature, but by apparent fear of "agnostic," "materialistic,"
and "skeptical outlook of the twentieth centure."
}The fossil record is incomplete and there are no transitions evident
The fossil record will never be complete, but it is certainly more complete
than it was in Darwin's day. Darwin`s prediction that the "holes" would be
filled has come true. Transitional fossils now exist for all vertebrate
groups. Transitional forms also exist for most major invertebrate groups
and for most groups of plants.
For those of you without the fortitude to wade through the paleontological
literature, a wonder source of information is an article by Roger J. Cuffey
in the book _Science and Creationism_ (edited by Ashley Montague). This
book should be fairly easy to obtain. In the article, entitled "Paleontologic
Evidence and Organic Evolution" Cuffey lists no less than 220 references from
various scientific journals documenting these transitional fossils. These
transitions include connections between low rank taxa (like species) as well
as high-rank taxa (like classes).
It is interesting that much is made of the "evolution should not be
treated as a fact" when the same people often talk about a lack of
transitional forms between various taxa. Taxonomic groups are not
facts. Taxonomy is an order imposed on the living world by scientists
to make the diversity of life easier to deal with. Nonetheless,
creationists and fellow travellers refer to it like it is written in
in stone.
>From stassen@netcom.UUCP (Chris Stassen):
For those interested in evaluating "intermediate forms", I'd recommend
Chris McGowan's _In The Beginning_ (Prometheus). It's a "good place to
start" for the layman (but by no means sufficient all by itself). He
devotes two chapters (pp. 110-141) on detailed study of Archaeopteryx
and the Cynodonts, comparing their features to those of the two groups
which they fall between.
While Archaeopteryx appears too late to itself be the transitional form
between reptiles and birds, it does fall between the two categories. The
Creationists contend that it is a bird - but a detailed study of features
shows that it has less in common with birds (feathers, wishbone) than it
does with Theropod dinosaurs (pubic peduncle, bony tail, no pygostyle, no
bony sternum, three well-developed fingers, three well-developed metacarpal
bones, metacarpal bones unfused, metatarsal bones separate, no hypotarsus,
abdominal ribs). The first specimen found was accidentally classified as
a reptile because the feather impressions were too faint to discern (until
the fossil was specifically examined for them).
I'll deal with Cynodonts more briefly, but when evaluated in 14 main areas
where reptiles and mammals differ skeletally, they are clearly intermediates.
They share five of the features with reptiles, five with mammals, and are
somewhere in between on the other four. Since they appear in the fossil
record at the proper time, and are connected by many other "transitional"
fossils in a very detailed sequence, they represent one of the most
well-documented transitional forms. (It should be no surprise that more
recent transitions are better documented. More fossils are available,
and more complex creatures probably change more slowly.)
Article 4175 of talk.origins:
Topics:
}Creationism deserves equal time
}Evolutionists themselves admit they have no proof
}evolutionists themselves have admitted to flaws in their arguement.
}some scientists don't agree
}Evolution isn't a science
}Life is too complex to have happened by chance.
}Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
}Methods of dating the earth are inaccurate.
}Radioactive dating can't be calibrated.
}radioactive decay rates did not remain constant
}the creation of matter or energy is not now taking place,
_______________________________________________________________________
}- Creationism deserves equal time because evolution is only a theory.
But a theory in the scientific sense of the word, meaning that it explains
a wide range of phenomena and that there's lots of data to back it up.
Creationism, on the other hand, isn't even a theory; it's an assertion.
"Equal time" in what? In schools in general, or in science classes?
Science classes are suppose to teach science. There are two criteria
for this:
1. It must be falsifiable i.e. there must be some way to show that the
theory is incorrect. The theory must be testable. Evolution is,
in that there can be things specified which, if they can be verified,
would disprove evolution. Creationism allows no such test.
2. It must be able to make predictions i.e. it must be able to tell
you how something WILL occur (and then you must be able to verify
the accuracy of the prediction). The theories which compose
evolution are useful in this regard in that they have made predictions
concerning population densities, physiologies, chemistries, fossil
find forecasts,... Creationism does none of this. At best, its
"predictions" are either in the past (already happened) or
unverifiable.
}- Evolutionists themselves admit they have no proof.
That is because science doesn't "prove": it shows possibilities and disproves
things and makes predictions.
Science doesn't deal in proof. It deals in evidence. Evolution has LOTS of
evidence.
} Twenty objections admitted: evolutionists themselves have admitted
} to flaws in their arguement.
Isn't it nice to have a system that you can critize and test?
The only system which has no flaws is one in which those flaws are either
defined away or ignored. We call this "dogma". The presence of these
flaws reveils the presence of active investigation into the limits.
We call this "science".
} Scientists condemn evolution: some scientists don't agree etc. ....
Then the same argument disproves Creationism, too, since many (most?)
theologians don't agree with it.
What else has 100% concurrence? Gravity is not 100% concurred with, either.
}- Evolution isn't a science because you can't observe things that happened
} millions of years ago.
Buy you can observe the RESULTS of things that happened millions of years
ago. And then, by using basic scientific knowledge, extrapolate back.
And by observing trends within the period you can derive general rules
which may then be used for predictions into the future.
Just the historical observation is not evolution.
}Evolution is not so much a science as it is a philosophy or an attitude
}of mind... it is manifestly impossible to prove they (evolutionary
}changes of the past) actually did take place.
I suppose that, if he saw a open square in the wall and pieces of glass
by it and a rock sitting amongst the glass that he could draw no conclusions
about the possible presence in the past of a window...
}- Life is too complex to have happened by chance.
Another is the "randomness argument". What is "random",
anyway? We are never told. It says that self organization cannot
occur because the process is "blind" and "random" that is supposed to
drive it. Never mind that the system has a finite number of states it
can occupy and its history can constrain its future states. This
borrows from the thermodynamic argument the confusion over entropy and
open system states.
The theory of evolution doesn't say it did happen by chance. This argument
completely ignores natural selection.
Please read:
Life in Darwin's Universe
G. Bylinsky, Omni Sept 79
The Evolution of Ecological Systems
May, Scientific American, Sept 1978
Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life
Dickerson, Scientific American, Sept 1978
The Evolution of the Earliest Cells
Schopf, Scientific American, Sept 1978
The Evolution of Multicellular Plants and Animals
Valentine, Scientific American, Sept 1978
It is easy to get VERY complicated systems
containing a tremendous amount of information starting from very simple,
low information systems. Two methods:
1. fractal structures - start with a very simple rule and repeat it over
and over and over. The resulting structure can be (usually is) VERY
complicated, but the formation equations can be very, very simple. And
the universe has had a long time to do so. Example: Look at a snowflake.
2. chaos - You can get very, very complicated systems if you use nonlinearities
in the progression. That is why weather forecasting doesn't work.
Complexity does not imply design. Recursion or nonlinearity work quite well.
And the word is recursive and very non-linear.
}- Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Not true. The 2nd law of thermodynamics applies only to closed systems. The
Earth is not a closed system.
That if thermo could somehow forbid evolution, then it would also
forbid babies from growing to be adults, and parents from having children.
In fact, we are agents of entropy: we organize our bodies at the expense
of the organization of our environment, which we digest and burn.
Creationists often (ab)use
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, apparently not realizing that it explicitly
states, "...in a closed system...". By definition, a closed system cannot
contain anything external to itself. A Creator who is entirely bounded by
His own creation seems non-sensical, and I can't imagine that many creationists
would accept such a limited God anyway. Thus, God and Thermodynamics are
mutually exclusive; to invoke the Second Law is to claim that God left!!!!!
A subsequent portion of the outline again invokes entropy, stating that
"all species are degenerating, since disorder must increase".
Ignoring the Theological arguments for the moment, we reiterate,
"...in a CLOSED system...". Earth is hardly a closed system. To find a
*LARGE* source of negative entropy, one need only look upward on a clear day.
The sun delivers approximately 1 horse-power per square meter (sorry for the
mixed units, I don't recall the conversion factor to joules/sec)
of free energy to the biosphere. Likewise, meteors shower us with several
tonnes per day of extra mass, some of it in pre-biotic form - i.e. complex
carbon molecules such as formaldehyde and others. Larger objects such as
comets and Icarus class asteroid strikes transfer huge amounts of mass,
energy, and momentum to the earth. Orbital perturbations and decay, friction
from the moon's gravity, and radioactive decay, all add to the total.
Sorry, entropy as a disproof of cosmological and biological evolution simply
won't wash. Spread the word.
[It appears that, more recently, the creationists have been hammered enough
with the inapplicability of the Second Law of Theormdynamics that they
have modified it slightly -- the reference is now to a closed *universe*,
not a closed Earth; the rest of the argument remains essentially
unchanged.]
Creationists say that systems cannot self-organize because that would violate
the second law of thermodynamics, never mind that such systems are not at
equillibrium and are open systems.
}- Methods of dating the earth are inaccurate.
Exactly what is meant by "inaccurate" leaves much to be desired.
Please see the August 1989 Scientific American article on the Age
of the Earth. (page 90, by Lawrence Badash, "The Age-of-the-Earth
Debate")
} - Radioactive dating can't be calibrated.
You are in this case Dead Wrong. Dating of ancient rocks by
radiometric methods (e.g., Uranium-Lead, Potassium-Argon, Rubidium-
Strontium) does NOT, repeat NOT depend upon our having available a sample
of known age to calibrate the method. Indeed, this is PRECISELY WHY these
methods are so useful. The only calibration required is the measurement
of decay rates, which can be done IN THE LABORATORY. Furthermore, these
methods can be used in ways that do NOT, repeat NOT depend on any
assumptions about the initial amounts of the various isotopes involved.
Please read the section in Chapter 17 of Strahler's book, _Science and
Earth History_.
It is true that Carbon-14 dates must be calibrated for variations in the
amount of 14C produced in the atmosphere; however, the corrections are
small (~10%) and affect only recent ages (~50,000 years). This method is
not used to date rocks.
- The guy who thought that radioactive dating required knowing the
initial amount of lead. He apparently had never heard of isotopes,
either. He made a big thing about a science he was a master of: he wrote
its name on the blackboard: "numerical analysis". He indicated how this
allowed him to "proved" that radiodating was wildly inaccurate. No
mention of the fact that the earth was still real old. He encouraged
people to go buy a book on numerical analysis: he gave its name. He
didn't bother to encourage people to buy a book on dating, perhaps
because he hadn't read one himself ?
} radioactive decay rates did not remain constant, so you can't
}accurately date things
If radioactive decay rates were to change, the structure of stars
would be affected. But even very distant stars (whose light has been
travelling towards us for very long times) have the structure that is
predicted by theory assuming present decay rates. They do not have
the structure that would be predicted for them if the decay rates
were many orders of magnitude larger.
There are two major kinds of radioactive decay, alpha decay and beta
decay. They are due to different physical processes and are governed
by different natural constants. If the decay rates were to change in
time, this would produce discrepant dates in rocks that can be dated
independently by several different decay series. These discrepancies
are not observed.
If the decay rates were large enough to produce 4.5 billion years' of
apparent ageing in only 6000 years of wall-clock time, the decay
rates would have had to have been millions to billions of times as
large when Adam and Eve were around as now. The heat generated would
have melted the earth, which would still be molten. Furthermore, the
earth would have been too radioactive to support life then. Adam and
Eve would have glowed for other reasons than their nearness to God.
}These laws affirm the fact that the creation of matter or energy is not
}know taking place, and, in fact, that the available energy of the universe
}as a whole is continually running down rather than building up.
Point of fact, matter IS being created currently. Also destroyed.
See "virtual particles". And the "available energy of the universe
as a whole" says nothing about localities within it...
Article 4176 of talk.origins:
Topics:
} - Helmholtz's contraction theory says the sun is < 20,000,000 years.
} - Sun is shrinking by ~5 feet per hour.
} - Lunar dust--only 1 to 3 inches, not 54 feet.
} - Deterioration of earth's magnetic field
} - Atmospheric helium should have built up
} - Receding moon would have been touching earth
} - All comets would have disintegrated after 10,000 years.
} - galaxy formation.
) - biblical cosmology
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} - Helmholtz's contraction theory says the sun is < 20,000,000 years.
This (suns energy comes from contraction) is decades old and discarded soon
after the discovery of radioactivity. See the Scientific American article
from August 1989. The German physicst Hermann von Helmholtz formulated
this concept around 1869. It has been soundly rebuffed in the last
100 years.
- The guy who thought that we were detecting 0 (zero) solar neutrinos,
thus proving his theory that the sun was shining due to the
gravitational energy released as it shrank.
(they are there, and have been detected)
} - Sun is shrinking by ~5 feet per hour.
}i.e losing 0.01% per year. 6,000 creation = ~6% shrinkage, but 20,000,000
}years ago the sun touched the earth and 100,000 years ago the sun was twice
}as large (making life impossible).
I am interested in how you decide that this is a steady-state system?
A "Sun" that large could not possibly have this solar system.
A brief discussion of this is found in "Looking Inside the Sun", ASTRONOMY,
March 1989.
Analysis of historical records of eclipses and transits give varying
numbers. One result gives 2.25 arcseconds per century, similar to the
above figure. Another result gives an upper limit of 0.3 arcsecond per
century, but is also consistent with no shrinkage. Two more historical
analyses indicate that the sun was a bit larger a century ago than
today. Current measurements indicate that the sun is not now shrinking.
The long term stability of the size of the sun remains unknown.
} - Lunar dust--only 1 to 3 inches, not 54 feet.
The calculation you refer to is given by Henry Morris on pp.
151-153 of _Scientific Creationism_. It is based on a grossly erroneous
figure of 14 million tons of meteoritic dust per year, quoted by Petterson
in 1960. Morris misinterpreted Petterson's article. Petterson published a
figure of 15 (not 14) million tons per year as an _upper limit_. In
other words, Petterson said that the value is _not more than_ 15 million
tons per year. He was not able to measure an actual value. Morris
erroneously chose to interpret it to mean it was _equal_ to 14
million tons per year. Accurate values were measured in the late
1960's. The actual value is much lower than 15 million tons per year.
Dalrymple gives the value of 22,000 tons per year, nearly 700 times
smaller than your figure. That changes your 54 foot figure into about
2 cm, which is quite consistent with the amount of surface soil the
astronauts found on the Moon (it was considerably more than 1-2 mm).
My copy of "Everyman's Astronomy" indicates that the earth collects
about 9000 kg per day from meteors of visual magnitude 5.0 or brighter.
Assuming a typical rock density of 3 g/cc, this corresponds to an
accumulation rate of one inch per 10 billion years. Unfortunately no
data is presented for fainter meteors. I wouldn't be surprised to find
that the actual rate is one or two orders of magnitude higher, but "1
inch in 8000 years" is off by six orders of magnitude.
A dust accumulation rate of "one inch per 8000 years" should should
create a spectacular yearround meteor shower, and cause severe pitting
of the space shuttle windshields in just a single orbit. My quick estimates
give values far higher than have been actually observed.
} - Deterioration of earth's magnetic field, at present rates, implies an
} excessive field 10,000 years ago.
> Decay of Earth's Magnetic Field - Result of research by Thomas Barnes
> during his tenure as Physics Professor at UTEP. Published in _Origin and
> Destiny of Earth's Magnetic Field_, 1973. Barnes notes the measured
> values over the last 150 years and models according to uniformitarian
> principles.
The decay is not a steady state. In fact, there is considerable evidence
for reversals. The atlantic ocean floor as it spreads shown the weakening
- reversing - strengthening recorded in its stone as the contenents
spread from the mid-atlantic ridge.
The field is expected to reverse sometime in the next few thousand
years. A time scale on page 78 shows the reversals over the past 170
million years, as deduced from the magnetic patterns in oceanic crust.
I counted about 200 reversals on the chart.
Briefly, Barnes took approximately 150 years of data on the Earth's
dipole magnetic field and extrapolated it backwards to about 10000
years Before Present (B.P.). He stated that the field 10,000 years ago
would, on this calculation, have been as strong as that of a magnetic
star, and stated (correctly) that this was absurd. However, there
are four fatal flaws in his analysis.
In the first place, Barnes studied only the *dipole* component of the
Earth's magnetic field, In fact, the very same data that Barnes used
show that the *nondipole* component of the field *increased* during
the same period of time, almost exactly cancelling the decrease in
the dipole field that Barnes calculated (D. Brent Dalrymple, U. S.
Geological Survey, Menlo Park CA, in *Reviews of 31 Creationist Books*).
This alone is sufficient to destroy the basis of his work.
The second failure of Barnes' study was the idea that one can take data
from a short period of time and simply extrapolate it backwards to obtain
a reliable estimate at a time remotely removed from the data. Anyone
competent in analyzing scientific data knows that extrapolations are good
only for a relatively short period of time, if at all, and that the further
away from the actual data one goes, the less reliable it becomes. Barnes
extrapolated 150 years' worth of data back 10,000 years! In real life,
one would be surprised if extrapolation of these data more than a few
hundred years back were accurate.
The third failure of Barnes' study was the mathematical model he
chose. He decided to fit the data to an exponential. The data fit
a straight line just as well (see Figure 1 of Stephen G. Brush's
article in *Scientists Confront Creationism*), but a straight line
would have given a much older age for the Earth than the 10,000 years
that Barnes, because of his Biblical literalism, wishes to promote.
The fourth failure of Barnes' study was his failure to consider any other
evidence than the 150 years worth of data from geomagnetic observatories
that he used. There exists, in paleomagnetic data, a long record of
the Earth's magnetic dipole strength (extending backwards for millions
of years). The data are in agreement with the observatory data Barnes
used over their common intersection, but they differ drastically from
Barnes' extrapolation when one goes further back in time.
} - Atmospheric helium should have built up more from U decay.
This statement is false. It falls precisely within predicted limits.
Please read:
Calculations on the Composition of the terrestrial Planets
Reynolds & Summers, Journal of Geophysical Research vol 74, no 10
May 15, 1969 p 2494
The formation of the Earth from Planetesimals
Wetherill, Scientific American June 1981
Cloud, Preston E., Jr., "Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Evolution on
the Primitive Earth", Science 160, (17 May 1968), pp 729 - 736
Mart, Michael H, "The Effect of a Planet's Size on the Evolution of
its Atmosphere", published in some conference or another; I
got a copy from the author. (ave Allen )
Our Evolving Atmosphere
Is Anyone There? by Isacc Asimov
The Evolution of the Atmosphere of the Earth
Hart, Icarus, 33, 23-39, 1978
Evolution of the Atmosphere and Oceans
Holland, Lazar & McCaffery, Nature vol 320, 6 mar 1986
Heat and Helium in the Earth
O'Nions & Oxburgh, Nature, vol 306, 1 Dec 1983
The Atmosphere
Ingersoll, Scientific American, Sept 1983
} - Receding moon would have been touching earth 2 billion years ago.
Check up on your orbital dynamics...
Assumes a steady rate of recession. Assumes the moon wasn't captured less
than 2 billion years ago.
} - All comets would have disintegrated after 10,000 years.
Jupiter and Saturn wreak havoc to the comet orbits. Some long-period
comets are perturbed into short period orbits, others are permanently
ejected. Comets are believed to have a short lifetime after being
perturbed to short periods.
Actually, the Oort cometary cloud hypothesis (published by Jan H. Oort in
1950) was originally proposed in order to explain "the rate of appearance
of long-period comets" (i.e. there are a lot of them). It really didn't
have anything to do with the age of short-period comets (which the note
above refers to). [Long-period > 200 yrs, short-period < 200 yrs.]
The problem that is referred to by the creationist here is that the short-
period comets *have not occupied their present orbits* for very long (in
astronomical terms). Each time a comet passes close to the sun, some of
its matter is driven off into space by the sun's energy (forming its "tail").
"Short-period" comets are believed by astronomers to have a lifetime of
only a few thousand years, because after that all of their "tail-producing"
matter would be used up (indeed, astronomers have noted comets to "vanish";
the remaining material only makes its presence known upon entering the
Earth's atmosphere; this is likely the origin of meteoroid swarms.)
However, the fact that a comet cannot have occupied its present orbit for
very long does not automatically imply that it is young. The Oort hypothesis
does explain this problem as well, in that long-period comets -- if frequent
enough -- will be moved into short-period orbits by a relatively near approach
to a planet (comet loses momentum, planet gains it, comet is now in a vastly
shorter orbit, planet is now in a very slightly longer orbit).
In fact, of the short-period comets, roughly half orbit pretty much between
the sun and jupiter, leading astronomers to belive that jupiter "captured"
them into their current orbits. (Statistically, we would expect the largest
planet -- the best "capturer" -- to have captured the most short-period
comets).
Finally, nobody really knows about the Oort cloud. Astronomers like the
way it explains the frequency of long-period comets, and there is much
support for it amongst them. It apparently also explains the youth of the
short-period comets, quite nicely. However, until we see a comet get sucked
into a short-period orbit (apparently this must happen every 100 years or
so), or until we send something out to 10,000 A.U., Oort's proposal remains
a hypothesis. (Conclusion: it was *not* cooked up to explain young short-
period comets; this is something of a "fringe benefit". But we aren't very
sure that it's true, either.)
[From Strahler, "Science and Earth History", New York:Prometheus, 1987; p. 143]
}An important element in the argument against the evolutionary universe
}is the failure of conventional cosomology to solve the problem of
}galaxy formation.
With the development of GUT, we see galaxy formation is no longer a problem
at all but simply one more natural phenomenon with a perfectly natural
explaination.
James S. Trefil
_The Moment of Creation_
) - biblical cosmology
And in several places in the Bible, the sky is referred to as
a vault, with the stars stuck on it. Genesis 1 refers to water above
this vault (an idea no doubt borrowed from the Babylonian cosmology,
which pictured the Earth as a flat disk inside a cosmic bubble in a
cosmic sea). The Book of Revelation states that the stars will someday
fall out of the sky like figs from a tree. The Bible says little about
the shape of the Earth, referring in one place to the "circle" of the
Earth (a disk shape), and in another place to the "four corners" of
the Earth (a rectangular surface shape). In one of the Gospels, the
Devil tempted Jesus by taking him up a mountain where he could see
"all the kingdoms of the world" (no further info on this remarkable
mountain). This would only be possible if the Earth was flat.
The Bible does indicate more clearly, however, that the Earth
is motionless. Witness Joshua's telling the Sun (and not the Earth) to
stop just so he could win one of his battles, and some of the Psalms
that state that the Earth is motionless. The Joshua story can be used
to find a Biblical estimate of the distances of the Sun and the Moon
from the Earth. Since we are told that the Sun was stopped to
illuminate the Valley of Gibeon, and the Moon to illuminate the Valley
of Aijalon, we conclude that either one of them would have been
insufficient for both -- and that requires that the Sun be low when
viewed from the Moon's valley, as it were, and vice versa. This
implies that the distances to the Sun and the Moon are comparable to
the distance between the Valleys of Gibeon and Aijalon, which is about
10 mi.
In all fairness to the writers of the Bible, none of this
cosmology is any worse than the cosmological pictures developed by
surrounding peoples, with one exception. Ancient Greek
proto-scientists (if that is the proper word) were, without any modern
technology, able to establish that the Earth was approximately
spherical, and were able to work out the approximate size of the Earth
and the distance to the Moon. The distance to the Sun was more
difficult, and almost all were agreed that the Sun moved around the
Earth. But this knowledge was gained only after the Old Testament was
written, though some of the writers of the New Testament may have
learned of Aristotle's demonstration of the approximate sphericity of
the Earth three centuries ago. The Greeks had data which anyone else
living before modern times could collect, but they put the pieces
together in the right fashion, and, for some reason, there is no hint
of that in the Bible.
Article 4188 of talk.origins:
Topics:
}rift between mathematicians & biologists
}exponential population growth
}Various conceivable patterns fail to emerge
}Complexity from Simplicity
> Here's an interesting story... (I think)... In 1967, a few
> mathematicians and biologists were chatting over a picnic lunch
> organised by Victor Weisskopf, prof. of physics at MIT. A "weird"
> discussion took place as the conversation turned to the subject of
> evolution by natural selection. The mathematicians were stunned by
> the optimism of the evolutionists about what could be achieved by
> chance. The wide rift between the participants led them to organise a
> conference on "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Theory of
> Evolution"...(skip to the conference)... which opened with a paper by
> Murray Eden, Prof. of Electrical Engineering at MIT, entitled "The
> Inadequacy of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory". Eden
> showed that if it required a mere six mutations to bring about an
> adaptive change, this would occur by chance only once in a billion
> years --while, if two dozen genes were involved, it would require
> 10,000,000,000 years, which is much longer than the age of the earth.
> (See Gordon R. Taylor's "The Great Evolution Mystery"). "Since
> evolution does occur and has occured, something more than chance
> mutation must be involved."
> Von Neumann & complexity
It's hard to see how the described "wide rift" between biologists and
mathematicians could exist, since most of the population geneticists
I know *are* mathematicians--like my thesis advisor, a PhD in Statistics.
Population genetics is an intrinsically mathematical subject, as
my students found with great dismay about 2 weeks into the course
I TA'ed on the subject.....
I get a little angry when people seem to be implying that evolution is
casually refutable and was refuted (by a professor of electrical engineering?)
decades ago. Do they really think that two decades of bright,
dedicated biologists would stick to a theory that this kind of argument
could refute?
Adaptive change by mutation has been shown in the laboratory and is
not in question. It is quite easy to demonstrate in bacteria, and
advantageous forms which were generated by the co-occurance of multiple
mutations are quite possible. Three points are usually being missed
by people who make Prof. Eden's mistake:
1. Disadvantageous forms can persist in the population for a long time;
2. Multiple ways to the same end (multiple mutations giving the same
result) are not only possible but common;
3. Intermediate steps often have an inobvious advantage in themselves,
making them targets of natural selection.
Seriously, there is something badly wrong with the mathematician's
models if this story is true. In the first place, there isn't really
a necessity for each mutation to occur from a blank slate - virtually all
species have a fair amount of diversity. In the second place, there is
a considerable amount of recombination - even with base pairs on the
same chromosome (crossover) (or maybe the mathematician has never heard
of sex :-). Thirdly, the rate of mutations can be measured and is
significantly higher than what appears to be implied by the fixing of 6
mutations in 1 billion years. Fourthly, if any intermediate forms have
any slight advantage (due to partial implementation of the feature),
then those forms will be selected -- and selection is NOT a random process.
Fifthly, many single point mutations have similar/identical effect (that is,
it wouldn't be necessary for 6 specific mutations to occur but one from
each of 6 different sets, a much easier problem).
All I can figure is that the model assumes a population of a single
homozygous individual whose progeny never exchange any genetic material
and in which the mutated genes never recombine by crossover during mitosis.
In other words, sort of like analyzing the aerodynamics of racehorses by
assuming a spherical horse
Sounds like he's talking about six simultaneous mutations, which may
very well be statistically phenomenal. Not required they be simultaneous
by evolution however, and once one mutation is replicating throughout
a group of related organisms, the odds then go up that one of them might
develop another significant mutation in addition to the one they are now
carrying.
} - exponential population growth
And by the same exponential growth law we are up to our armpits in roaches.
This does obviously not happen, therefore there are other constraints.
What leads Creationists to conclude that the exponential growth constants for
a 50 year sample apply to 5000 years? This is known as "extrapolating beyond
region of known fit".
The growth curve is exponential. The population origin can
be extended back much further in time, and the recent doublings
are bunched together.
I love exponential growth when used by those unaware of the basics for the
derivation. You can use the same system to show that we are up to our
armpits in fruit flies every 3 years or so...
According to U.N. figures, the world population in 1650 was 508 million,
up from 200-300 million in 1 AD. This corresponds to a growth rate of
0.032 to 0.057% per year during much of recorded history, far lower than
the "sickly 0.5%" used here.
5000 years of growth at 0.057% would increase the population by a factor
of 17, much less than the 7*10^10 implied by a rate of 0.5%.
}- Various conceivable patterns fail to emerge, despite an overwhelming
} tendency to diversify.
There is always luck. If the mutation does not occur, you cannot select
for it. Evolution is not aimed. That's a deity's job. Evolution handles
the current entity, not some future not-yet-conceived entity for some
not-yet environment.
} Complexity from Simplicity
There was no primordial chaos before the big bang - not really. Instead,
everything was neatly concentrated in one location. Then it scattered,
and is still scattering, a disorderliness far exceeding the structural
order of galaxies, stars, planets, and life forms which have appeared in
the course of the process.
Poul Anderson
"Science & Creation"
Analog, Sept 1983
ref the information example. It is easy to get VERY complicated systems
containing a tremendous amount of information starting from very simple,
low information systems. Two methods:
1. fractal structures - start with a very simple rule and repeat it over
and over and over. The resulting structure can be (usually is) VERY
complicated, but the formation equations can be very, very simple. And
the universe has had a long time to do so. Example: Look at a snowflake.
2. chaos - You can get very, very complicated systems if you use nonlinearities
in the progression. That is why weather forecasting doesn't work.
Complexity does not imply design. Recursion or nonlinearity work quite well.
And the world is recursive and very non-linear.
I went and got "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata" by Von Neumann.
You know that it was done in 1966 before most of the chaos & fractal work?
As an initial look, I see how this is NOT applicable to life as
Micha tried to do in <10541@dasys1.UUCP>. Looking at section 5.3.2
"Self-Reproducing automata" we find that, under his constraints, the
secondary (initially quiescent) automaton is identical to the parent,
except that the constructing automaton is larger, and in a sense more
complex, because the construction automaton contains the complete
plan and a unit which interprets and executes this plan. This should
NOT apply to biological forms as discussed here because:
The plan IS the unit that executes itself. In Mary's term, the life is
the language.
and, what I consider more relevant
The constructed automaton IS NOT A DUPLICATE of the constructing automaton.
No parent unit that I am aware of (excluding fission reproduction, in which
the parent unit cannot be identified afterwards) is the child a
duplication of the parent. In every case that I am aware of the constructed
unit is a simpler and much smaller unit, which grows OF ITSELF into a
near-copy of the original. Since the complexity is added AFTER the
reproduction process, the reproduction process should not be a limiting
factor. Proof: watch almost ANYTHING grow up.
Therefore, while the descent is INITIALLY simpler than the parent, its
final state can be more complex. Therefore, the argument that information
theory proves that life could not have come from non-life is invalid.
BTW: New systems of cooperating parts have evolved, and they are not even
biological. See "The Evolution of Cooperation", in particular the
computer simulations in which the routines "decide" ON THEIR OWN that
cooperation is "better".
}simulations cannot produce effects
>> And I am as sure of
>>the statement "Selection can change the frequencies of variants",
>>since I've done computer simulation to test it. That's most
>>of evolutionary theory right there.
>
>Mary, that is very interesting. Could you describe how you modeled selection
>pressure. Any thing that I have seen (i.e., non techinical info) is so
>vague about what selection is that I have no idea how to model it.
>Examples like the light vs dark moths seems too simplistic to me. It shows
>how the number of species (or the amount of variation) can decrease but it
>gives me no hint as to how the number of species can increase.
Directional selection (selection "for" or "against" something) in a static
environment will lose variation. To get a more interesting result, you
can look at either of two things:
1. Selection which is not directional. Here are some examples:
Frequency dependent selection. Forms which are rare are at an advantage.
There are several decent real-world examples of this; female fruit flies
prefer males who look "different", and animals which have immune system
genes different from their neighbors' seem less likely to get
diseases from them.
Heterozygote advantage. The organism with two different forms of the gene
has an advantage over others. The classical example is sickle-cell
anemia in humans, where the person with one sickle and one normal allele
is protected from malaria.
Two kinds of selection pulling in different directions. For example,
females may prefer brightly colored males, but so may predators. Some
values for the parameters here will give a balance of different
forms in the population.
2. Non-static environments. This is much harder to model, but interesting.
You can easily get frequency-dependent selection out of an environment
with two food sources, both subject to overexploitation. Environments
which change over time either randomly or in a cycle can also maintain
variability.
***
The simplest model I know in which something like speciation can be seen
to happen is one that contains two factors:
There is a gene with two variants, and the heterozygote is worse than
either homozygote.
There is the possibility for evolving reproductive isolation based on the
first gene.
Reproductive isolation could be modeled in several ways. You could
explicitly add a gene that controls mate recognition. You could arrange
your simulated organisms on a grid and restrict most mating to near
neighbors, and see if two populations seperated from an initial mixture.
Don't forget that if you use random rather than strictly proportional
selection (that is, if you use a random number to see who lives
and who dies), population size makes a huge difference. It is almost
impossible to maintain high variability in a tiny population, even
with strong selection.
> Von Neumann clearly chown that more complicated systems cannot come
> from less complicated systems. Information gets downgraded
I got the Scientific American article (September 1964, vol 211) on interlibrary
loan (too early for local holdings) to read Mathematics in the Biological
Sciences. The lead in is:
"Biologists use mathematics, but the complex systems they study resist
mathematical description. The kind of description that might someday
be helpful is suggested by the abstract analysis of self-reproduction."
Note that this was before most of the developments in Chaos Theory, which
does what they are talking about. Most of the examples in the article are
concerned with modeling specific systems (neurons primarily), cellular
automaton (see newsgroup comp.theory.cell-automata) and a couple of other
systems. The relevance to evolution is not brought up until the last
column on the last page. The applicability of the approach at all is
questioned by the author, though the specifics are said to probably be
possible. The last sentence:
"Nobody has yet done the engineering design work required to build such a
machine, but I think it will someday be built."
Not exactly the posture of one "disproving" the concept, is it?
I checked out the Von Neumann book _Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata_
and am currently reading ther fth lecture "Re-evalutation of the Problems
of Complicated Automata - Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution". The third
lecture: "Statistical Theories of Information" brings in the thermodynamics
issues as it related entrophy, enthalpy, and information. A worthwhile
note is that Von Neumann points out that no local system is closed, and that
local increases are easily accomodated by decreases elsewhere.
A major disagreement that I have so far is the difference between the
automata discussed and actual systems.
1. The cellular automata discussed are assumed to be in their final state.
No further increases in complexity are apparently allowed. This is
blatently false in actual systems which continuously grow.
2. The descendants are perfect copies of the parents. In fact, this is one
of Von Neumann's criteria in self-reproduction. In reality, (with the
exception of very few EXTREMELY simple systems) the "child" is nowhere near
as complex as the parent. As a major difference, the child is not capable
of reproduction. Therefore, actual biological systems do not fit within
the Von Neumann's definitions for self-reproducing automata.
These two differences alone can account for evolutionary change without
the need for a parent to produce (directly) a more complex child. The
parent simply produces a LESS complicatd child, which is NOT a replication
of the parent, which then grows to a more complicated system than the
parent. This can be observed happening when a tree produces seeds
(which as-is are incapable of reproduction and are plainly NOT a duplicate
of the tree) which in turn develop of themselves into a grove, which is
more complicated (see Von Neumann's book on how he measures complexity -
the editors introduction covers it in one place with examples as opposed to
across numerous lectures for those in a hurry).
Did you bother to read _Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata_? The
fifth lecture is entitled "Re-Evaluation of the Problems of
Complicated Automata - Problems of Hierarchy and Evolution". After
a good bit of evaluation & discussion Von Neumann writes:
"There is thus this completely decisive property of complexity, that
there exists a critical size below which the process of synthesis
is degenerative, but above which the phenomenon of synthesis, if
properly arranged, can become explosive, in other words, where
synthesis of automata can proceed in such a manner that each automaton
will produce other automata which are more complex and of higher
potentialities than itself."
Further down this same page he discusses why a system of "less than
a dozen kinds of elements are needed.".
That system could come into being other than being constructed by
a system designed to do so. Luck, for instance.
A close comparison with Turing's machine is done on the next page.
And one page further we get what appears to be an analogy to Mary's
definition of life: "it might be quite complicated to construct a
machine which will copy an automata that is given it, and that is preferable
to proceed, not from original to copy, but from verbal description
to copy." This "description" almost appears to be Mary's "language".
Therefore, this entire string is fallous.
First, Von Neumann was not talking about the development of systems like
those we observe (he said that was the case early in the quoted chapter),
and those differences make the development trivial. And it turns out that
EVEN WITH THESE AUTOMATA evolution (once past the simplest stage) is
possible.
Article 4194 of talk.origins:
Topics:
}No new species (alternately, "kinds") are evolving today.
}Slight variation can't turn one kind into another.
}Just because two animals LOOK similiar does not mean there is "common ancestor
}Mendelian inheritance says that recessive characters reappear
}Hybrids are infertile, so a newly evolved individual couldn't breed.
}The animals couldn't have distributed themselves all over the globe.
}"impossible gulfs"
}The failure of some organisms to evolve at all.
}No new phyla, classes, or orders have appeared.
}The occurrence of parallel evolution, in which similiar structures evolve
}Many species have remained absolutely fixed throughout geologic time.
}A great many modern species are very evident degenerate
}All the great phyla appear quite suddenly in the fossil record.
}Selection cannot change the frequency of variants
----------------------------------------------------------------------
}- No new species (alternately, "kinds") are evolving today.
"Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the
United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within
a few decades their populaltions expanded and began to encounter one another
in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied
interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in
the late Fourties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman,
Washington. Although the new species were similliar in appearance to the
hybrids, they pproduced fertile offspring. The evollutionary proces
had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with
the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved."
The article is on page 22 of the February, 1989 issue of
_Scientific_American_. It's called "A Breed Apart."
It tells about studies conducted on a fruit fly,
Rhagoletis pomonella, that is a parasite of the hawthorn
tree and its fruit, which is commonly called the thorn
apple. About 150 years ago, some of these flies began
infesting apple trees, as well. The flies feed an breed
on either apples or thorn apples, but not both.
There's enough evidence to convince the scientific
investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action.
Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that
speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them
otherwise.
How can you say that no new species have arisen when dozens of previously
undiscovered species are found each year in Costa Rica alone?
Also, isn't the latest evidence that maize evolved about 4000 years ago?
}- Slight variation can't turn one kind into another. "One lion may be fitter
} than another lion, but ... all his offspring will still be lions."
What is a "kind"?
}Just because two animals LOOK similiar does not mean there is "common
} ancestory"
The interesting point is that, when checked, there IS.
Genetic comparisons reveal (objectively) a kinship where it was before
predicted on evolutionary grounds.
I believe the error rate is less than 1%. What is facinating
about the comparisons of the numbers of genes shared between
species is that when you draw a genetic tree of what species
are related to what, it looks almost identical to the tree
drawn by anthropologists who make their tree based on comparisons
of morphology (humans look more like chimps than turtles therefore
chimps are more closely related). This is the beauty of science that
a hypothesis (relatedness of species) is shown by two completely
differing mechanisms just as the age of artifacts can be
determined by rock layers (those on top are newer) and carbon
and other radioactive dating techniques.
How is this done?
In brief: DNA similarity is measured by mixing fragments of DNA from
the two species and measuring the thermal stability of the resulting
hybrid molecules, which is proportional to the degree of matching.
It can be calibrated by using DNAs of known composition, for example
the genomes of completely sequenced viruses. Accuracy is limited by
the ability to measure the melting temperature and by the slight
difference in stability between A-T base pairs and C-G ones. There
has been heavy theoretical debate (ending in an amazing shouting
match at a meeting last summer, alas--I was there, and it was embarrasing)
about whether the method is accurate enough to resolve the chimp/
human/gorilla trichotomy.
DNA similarity does measure overall composition, and two organisms
could be very different morphologically while still having high DNA
similarity (indeed, chimps and humans are much more dissimilar than
most pairs with the same DNA distance). However, overall composition
is probably a better guide to relatedness than specific genes, which
are likely to be under different selection in humans and chimps.
What is the noise, and what is the signal? "Junk" DNA is the most
useful for determining phylogeny, because it is more likely to
evolve in a gradual time-dependent fashion. Coding and controlling
regions are interesting in that they tell us about the differences.
}- Mendelian inheritance says that recessive characters reappear, and thus we
} should expect humans with characteristics of apes.
They do. Tails, for instance.
And other "ape" traits that happen to also be "human traits".
Like toes, body hair,...
This disregards the basic mechenisms of natural selection and
genetics. It makes the wrong assumption that ape-like
characters are recessive and that all of the traits in the
ancestor population are present but usually unexpressed in the
supposed descendant population. Neither idea is true.
}- Hybrids are infertile, so a newly evolved individual couldn't breed.
Hybrids are often not fertile or robust. They may be desirable to
man if man amde, but they may not succeed in an evolutionary
sense.
The premise is incorrect. First, what is meant by "hybrid" is unclear
in this context - is it a hybrid only if it is infertile? And even in
those cases in which the offspring is usually infertile, that is not
always the case. As witnessed the horse and the donkey.
}- There exist "impossible gulfs" between animal/vegetable,
} invertebrate/vertibrate, marine animals/amphibians, amphibians/reptiles,
} reptiles/birds, reptiles/mammals, mammals/humans.
} Eight impossible gulfs:
Impossible to find gulfs.
} 1) Between the living and non-living or dead matter;
This is the abiogenesis debate.
The rest is a taxinomy of man with the similarity argument turned
into the gaps argument. Is the glass half empty or half full?
What is this gulf? I have yet (despite looking and asking many) found it at all,
let alone found it to be an impossible gulf.
The spectrum between clearly living and singular elementary particles
is wide, and not linear (few things really are) but it appears to be
continuous.
}} 2) Between the vegetable and the animal kingdoms;
Animal cells have some similarity with plant cells, and indeed there
are forms, euglena, with cloroplasts and flagellae, that look like
intermediates. Cells from both kingdoms are eukeryots that are distinct from other cell types belonging to at least three other kingdoms.
There are quite a few plant/animals in the same creature. Most microscopic
because a plant doesn't collect enough energy to be mobile in large scale.
But there are plenty of small ones.
What is a euglena? And where do protista & viri fit in here?
} 3) Between the invertebrates and the vertebrates;
The vetebrates are biochemically closest to the echinodermata, and
urochordates. The free swimming soft chord animals are similar to
the sessile forms.
See also sharks and squids.
} 4) Between marine animals and amphibians;
A steady change from fish to lobefined air breathing fish to amphibians with fish like larval stages can be observed in extant species
and in the fossil record.
See also mudpuppies and frogs. An amphibian that never leaves the water is a
marine animal. This gulf is not only impossible, it is non-existant.
} 5) Between amphibians and reptiles;
Amphibians predate reptiles in the fossil record. The development
of the amneonic egg, with shell and the difference in the skin of
extant reptiles and amphibians suggests that the reptilian characters
were adaptaions developed on amphibian ancestors. The time in
the fossil record when the reptiles became important was one when
amphibian habitats were being reduced and when reptiles could have
succeeded on drier continents.
What is this gulf, and what was a dinosaur? (warning: trick question!
Specifically what is the impossible gulf between, for instance, a salmander
and a chamelion?
} 6) Between reptiles and birds;
The ornithischia, with bird-like pelvises appeared before the modern
birds, whch began to appear in Cretaceous time. Intermediates are
known.
} 7) Between reptiles and mammals;
The therapsida in permean time, Mammal-like reptiles appear before
the first mammals, but intermediate forms are known, and a fairly
complete record of the changes in the facial bones between these
reptiles and true mammals is known from Permean time. Does anyone
know if mammalian dentition is documented into this time. Did the
Therapsida have differentialted dentition?
} 8) Between mammals and the human body;
Man is classified, based on his dentition, with the Primates. All
the primates have the same teeth. The fossils that relate to our
origins are well understood and dated. The controverseries about
the detailed lineages are minor compared with the general phylogeny
they document.
}12) The failure of some organisms to evolve at all.
If it passes the selection filter, no change required. These
organisms are excellently adapted to their particular niche in their
environment. (like sharks: the "perfect eating machine", right?)
Like the brachiopod Lingula, and the cockroach, identifiable through
most of the phanerazoic and still with us. If an organism is well adapted
to a niche it can readily occupy, then why should it evolve?
}- No new phyla, classes, or orders have appeared.
Subsequently to what?
Trees of descent for organisms are drawn by grouping organisms together
based on common features. Twigs which are close together are organisms
which differ only in few and minor respects. Main branches, down at
the bottom of the tree, are groups of organisms that differ in many and
major respects. One of the main premises of evolution is that this
tree is (more or less) proportional to time.
Asking for a phylum to appear today is asking for
a major branch to be up at the tip of the tree--it makes no sense,
considering the way such trees are drawn!
It is perfectly possible that in several million years there will
be recognizable phyla which were just differentiating today, but
there is no way to recognize a "new phylum" in the bud. For example,
modern plants use two different photosynthesis reactions. It is
quite possible that those two groups will eventually be so different
that we will call them seperate phyla, because the two reactions
probably favor different evolutionary pathways. But how can we
know in advance whether or not this will happen? That's what you're
asking for when you want to see a new phylum arise today.
This is just not true. while most of the phyla present today
were present at the beginning of the Cambrian, and their origin is shrouded,
there is enough of a fossil record from the so-called eo-cambrain to suggest
that some of the animals found in Australia are different phyla that became
extinct by the time fossils became abundant. The affinities of several
Cambrian groups is by no means clear, and they might be separate phyla,
such as the archeocyathids. Our phylum, Vetebrata (Chordata), appears
no earlier than Ordovician, and then only the cartilagenous and jawless
fish are known. All the other classes appear later than that.
Vascular plants, and all more advanced plant phyla appear no
earlier than Silurian time.
There are now five kingdoms known, based on their biochemistry and
there are enough precambrain microfossils to document their appearence.
The geochemistry of sediments in Precambrain rocks is understood well enough
to establish when the oxygen level of the biosphere was high enough to
support modern plants and animals, that comprize two of the five kingdoms.
Before this date it can be infered that the Plant and Animal kingdoms did
not exist. I am not faliliar with Precambrain events to fix this date,
1.8 billion years B.P. ?, or to document the micro fossils that might
bear this out.
}- The occurrence of parallel evolution, in which similiar structures evolve
} in quite different circumstances.
If you start with the same ancestor, they can only vary so much. Also, what
he thinks are "different circumstances" are not necessarily so. Physics
has an interesting set of constraints...
}Many species have remained absolutely fixed throughout geologic time.
So? When you are adapted to the specific ecological slot, why change?
}A great many modern species are very evident degenerate, rather than
}higher, forms of those found as fossils.
What is a "degenerate form"? And is it less, or more, adapted to its
environment?
}All the great phyla appear quite suddenly in the fossil record.
Marvelous. As long as he gets to pick which ones he wants, they do.
Collect the data to support you conclusion. Keep throwing out the
outliers (97% discarded?) till it fits.
}Selection cannot change the frequency of variants
>> And I am as sure of
>>the statement "Selection can change the frequencies of variants",
>>since I've done computer simulation to test it. That's most
>>of evolutionary theory right there.
>
>Mary, that is very interesting. Could you describe how you modeled selection
>pressure. Any thing that I have seen (i.e., non techinical info) is so
>vague about what selection is that I have no idea how to model it.
>Examples like the light vs dark moths seems too simplistic to me. It shows
>how the number of species (or the amount of variation) can decrease but it
>gives me no hint as to how the number of species can increase.
Directional selection (selection "for" or "against" something) in a static
environment will lose variation. To get a more interesting result, you
can look at either of two things:
1. Selection which is not directional. Here are some examples:
Frequency dependent selection. Forms which are rare are at an advantage.
There are several decent real-world examples of this; female fruit flies
prefer males who look "different", and animals which have immune system
genes different from their neighbors' seem less likely to get
diseases from them.
Heterozygote advantage. The organism with two different forms of the gene
has an advantage over others. The classical example is sickle-cell
anemia in humans, where the person with one sickle and one normal allele
is protected from malaria.
Two kinds of selection pulling in different directions. For example,
females may prefer brightly colored males, but so may predators. Some
values for the parameters here will give a balance of different
forms in the population.
2. Non-static environments. This is much harder to model, but interesting.
You can easily get frequency-dependent selection out of an environment
with two food sources, both subject to overexploitation. Environments
which change over time either randomly or in a cycle can also maintain
variability.
***
The simplest model I know in which something like speciation can be seen
to happen is one that contains two factors:
There is a gene with two variants, and the heterozygote is worse than
either homozygote.
There is the possibility for evolving reproductive isolation based on the
first gene.
Reproductive isolation could be modeled in several ways. You could
explicitly add a gene that controls mate recognition. You could arrange
your simulated organisms on a grid and restrict most mating to near
neighbors, and see if two populations seperated from an initial mixture.
Don't forget that if you use random rather than strictly proportional
selection (that is, if you use a random number to see who lives
and who dies), population size makes a huge difference. It is almost
impossible to maintain high variability in a tiny population, even
with strong selection.
Article 4199 of talk.origins:
Topics:
}Creationism deserves equal time because evolution is only a theory.
}The doctrine of evolution is atheistic and therefore immoral.
}Competition for survival implies "strife, hatred, war, and death."
}The great complexity of nature shows it was designed.
}The Bible says so.
}The Bible is accurate on other points, so it must be accurate on creation.
}(referring to a genesis "day")
}Later Biblical characters (Moses & Paul) refer to the fact of creation
}Even Jesus Christ believed in the Genesis record of creation.
}It is imposssible to believe the Bible and to believe in evolution.
}it is almost impossible to believe in God if one believes in evolution.
}many evil social doctrines it has spawned.
}Fall of man: Records say civilization was man's original condition.
}Place of man's origin: Evidence confirms origin in one locality.
}Order of events in creation matches what an observer would have seen:
}Earth is unsupported (Job 26:7)
}Earth is round (Isaiah 40:22)
}Water cycle is described (Eccl. 1:7)
}History is accurate.
}The Bible is harmonious throughout.
}Numerous prophecies fulfilled.
}Religion's views on creationism:
}The Bible Has Two Creation Stories
}bible is always right
}- Creationism deserves equal time because evolution is only a theory.
But a theory in the scientific sense of the word, meaning that it explains
a wide range of phenomena and that there's lots of data to back it up.
Creationism, on the other hand, isn't even a theory; it's an assertion.
"Equal time" in what? In schools in general, or in science classes?
Science classes are suppose to teach science. There are two criteria
for this:
1. It must be falsifiable i.e. there must be some way to show that the
theory is incorrect. The theory must be testable. Evolution is,
in that there can be things specified which, if they can be verified,
would disprove evolution. Creationism allows no such test.
2. It must be able to make predictions i.e. it must be able to tell
you how something WILL occur (and then you must be able to verify
the accuracy of the prediction). The theories which compose
evolution are useful in this regard in that they have made predictions
concerning population densities, physiologies, chemistries, fossil
find forecasts,... Creationism does none of this. At best, its
"predictions" are either in the past (already happened) or
unverifiable.
As a BTW: A Creationist posting was made on talk.religion.christian,
(a moderated group) but no rebuttal was allowed from any evolutionist.
}- The doctrine of evolution is atheistic and therefore immoral.
Unlike creationism, evolution doesn't require the acceptance or rejection of
any religion. In fact, many theists believe in evolution.
The doctrine that atheism is immoral is bigotry, and therefore immoral.
Competition doesn't imply hatred or war.
} Competition for survival implies "strife, hatred, war, and death."
The Soviets did have a problem along these lines. Lysenko in particular
disbelieved in natural selection for these reasons. He got charge of the
Soviet Union's grain production. Their agricultural industry has almost
recovered...
}- The great complexity of nature shows it was designed. Laws require a
} lawmaker; organization requires an organizer.
No, it doesn't. The patterns within a kaleidoscope are very complex,
and extremely organized (in the sense of symmetrical patterning) but
are not designed.
}- The Bible says so.
In the resolution from the 67th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
acted in September 1982 to "affirm its belief in the glorious ability
of God to create in any manner," rejected "the rigid dogmatism of the
'Creationists' movement," and supported "scientists, educators, and
theologians in the search for truth in this Creation that God has given
and entrusted to us."
Addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences before its meetings on
Cosomology and Cosmogony in October 1981, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed
the statement of Pope Pius XII that the universe was created "millions
of years ago" directly contrary to creationists views. The Pope declared
that "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and
its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise..."
}- The Bible is accurate on other points, so it must be accurate on creation.
Leviticus 11:113,19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18 list fowl, and both have bats
in the list with heron, lapwing, and bat closing off the list.
The bat is not a bird.
Leviticus 11:6 has a hare chewing its cud.
Rabbits do no such thing.
Leviticus 11:21-23 lists things with four legs. Among the list are locust,
beetle (cricket in some translations), and grasshopper.
Psalms 58:8 says "as a snail melts..."
Snails do not melt.
Gen 1:20-21 has the waters bringing forth
Gen 2:19 has them coming from the ground.
Maybe some one should tell them about eggs?
Genesis 30:39 cattle looking at pilled rods conceive and bring forth
ringspeckled, speckeled and spotted calves.
changing the characteristics of a descendant by showing them a rod
just doesn't work...
Matthew 4:8 ..took upon a high mountain and shewed all the kingdoms of the
world.
1. Geology - rock simply isn't strong enough for such a megamountain.
2. astromical bodies are spherical, and you cannot see the entire exterior
surface from anyplace.
Genesis 3:14 "...and dust though shalt eat all the days of thy life."
Snakes, while built low, do not eat dirt.
}(referring to a genesis "day") it ALWAYS (Morris's stress) refers to
}a twenty-four-hour day.
So much for the appologists...
}Later Biblical characters (Moses & Paul) refer to the fact of creation, not
}the myth.
Are we to take people that we have no independent record of as authoratative
references in the only document they ARE mentioned in? This is like
Santa Claus in _The Night Before Christmas_ testifying as to the veracity
of the "visions of sugarplums".
}Even Jesus Christ believed in the Genesis record of creation.
ibid, though this is clearly an attempt at pleading from authority.
}It is thus absolutely impossible to believe in the Bible as the complete
}and literal Word of God and to believe in the theory of evolution. But,
}more than that, it is almost impossible to believe in a personal God of
}any sort if one believes in evolution.
The Pope doesn't agree with this statement. Nor do many other leading
religious figures. They will be glad that this civil engineer pointed
it out for them...
}The atheistic and satanic character of the doctrine is evidenced in the
}many evil social doctrines it has spawned.
What?!?! Talk about irrelevant mud-slinging!!!
} - Fall of man: Records say civilization was man's original condition.
Which records are these? The Old testiment? And of course. Without
the civilization you don't have the records.
So "as far back as they go" is civilization. When there isn't civilization,
the records quit going.
This one is very interesting, it reveals the core prejudice of
christian, and other, origins, that man is fallen from some primordial grace.
The evolutionary evaluations of origins avoids the opposite prejudice as well,
that evolution is always progressive. It says that the idea of progress in
the condition of a lineage is misleading; change is reflected in adaptation
and specialization which may be by turns sucessful or lethal.
} - Place of man's origin: Evidence confirms origin in one locality.
Observing population distributions takes divine inspiration? One successful
group spread and killed off the less successful ones. Supports evolution, too.
OK Bible scholors, where does Moses say man came from? The claim here of
proof of God's inspiration is wrong, even if Moses got it right. Man came
from Africa, despite years of searching for human ancestors in Europe and Asia.
Evidence says Man came from Africa, despite years of searching for human
ancestors in Europe and Asia.
} - Order of events in creation matches what an observer would have seen:
} 1: Beginning, 2: an earth in darkness, 3: light, 4: atmosphere, 5: dry
} land, 6: plants, 7: discernable sun, moon, stars, 8: sea and air
} creatures, 9: beasts, 10: man.
The actual order should be more like 1: beginning, 2: light, 3: sun, stars,
4: atmosphere, 5: earth, 6: dry land, 7: sea creatures, 8: moon, 9: beasts
(amphibians and reptiles), 10: fruiting plants (which is what Genesis
specifies), 11: air creatures, more beasts, 12: man. I'm not sure the order
is exact (the moon may have come earlier, for example), but it is more
accurate than the Genesis version.
} - Earth is unsupported (Job 26:7)
Job 38:4 says Earth has a foundation. Job 26:11 says heaven is supported by
pillars.
} - Earth is round (Isaiah 40:22)
Matthew 4:8 ..took upon a high mountain and shewed all the kingdoms of the
Not on a round surface he didn't...
} - Water cycle is described (Eccl. 1:7)
Job 38:22 says that snow and hail are kept in storehouses.
} - Good sanitation practices are given (Deut 23:13, Num. 19:11-22, etc.)
People aren't stupid. They could have figured these out without divine aid.
} - History is accurate.
Not unsurprising. It was written while the history was current events.
} - The authors admit their human failings (Deut 32:50, Acts 19:20, etc.)
This is true of lots of writings, even some USENET articles. Besides, does
it make sense to claim that a book is infallible because its authors admit
that they are fallible?
} - The Bible is harmonious throughout.
Given the amount of editing it went through, you would expect it to be
reasonably harmonious, but it still contains contradictions. For example,
Matt. 27:5-8 vs. Acts 11:18-19 and Matt. 1:16 vs. Luke 3:23.
} - Numerous prophecies fulfilled.
Prophecies weren't meant to predict the future. The word originally meant
"divinely inspired speech." Not until 1300 did it come to mean "predicting
future events." [Oxford English Dictionary]
Besides, there are lots of mundane ways to predict the future:
(a) Make the wording sufficiently vague that, with proper interpretation,
it could apply to practically anything.
(b) Predict something which has already happened.
(c) Rewrite history to say that your prediction was actually fulfilled.
(d) Give no time limit for the prediction.
(e) Predict something which is extremely likely to occur.
(f) Make so many predictions one of them is bound to occur. Later, edit
out those that failed.
(g) Predict something that you yourself can cause to happen.
All of the predictions below can be fit into one or more of these categories.
Religion's views on creationism:
================================
In the resolution from the 67th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
acted in September 1982 to "affirm its belief in the glorious ability
of God to create in any manner," rejected "the rigid dogmatism of the
'Creationists' movement," and supported "scientists, educators, and
theologians in the search for truth in this Creation that God has given
and entrusted to us."
Addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences before its meetings on
Cosomology and Cosmogony in October 1981, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed
the statement of Pope Pius XII that the universe was created "millions
of years ago" (in european millions is american billions.
directly contrary to creationists views. The Pope declared
that "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and
its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise..."
>From _Theology Today_, October 1982, 39(3):249-59
"Creationists have set themselves apart from other Christians by intimately
interweaving their story of the "who" of creation with the "how" of
creation. For them, it is the flat earth problem all over again.
Creationists have taken a theory of creation which is testable and tied it to
an inherently untestable story about God. In the process, they have
declared a testable theory to be also inherently untestable."
...
"Creationists follow a predictable pattern as they find it easier to deny
physical evidence than to deny God. Physical evidence, no matter how
overwhelming, can be dismissed as the work of the devil."
(writer is a Presbyterian layman who has organized conferences on Genesis
and Geology held at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico)
"Christianity and Crisis" (April 26, 1982) 42:108-15
(referrring to the absure (widely held opinion) Arkansaw law)
The authors of the rkansaw law sought to separate the Creator implied
by Creation-Science from the notion of "religion". This is an
approach to the "first and worst" Christian heresy - the denial of monotheism.
...
Clever - if it is a religion, it is not a science and should not be treated
as one. If it is a science and not a religion would be a Christian
heresy. If they use the Bible to support their "science", by the
words of their Bible they shall burn.
By Fasther Bruce Vawter, a Roman Catholic read this paper at the
Conference on Creationism inAmerican Culture and Theology held
at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago on October 9, 1982.
(extracts summarized - you go read the whole thing if you want)
His objections are:
1. creationism seriously misconstrues the meaning and purpose of the Bible,
both in part and in whole.
2. creationism introduces a false dichotomy between religion and science by
assuming that belief in a Creator God is incompatable with an
acceptance of the scientific hypothesis that existing life-forms
came into being through an evolutionary process.
3. So called creationism or creation science is a concept both theologically
and philosophically unsound, derived from bad premises.
He then proceeds to preach on these points. Some relevant points:
a. "Biblical inerrancy" - definitely not one of the authentic heritages
of mainline Christianity
b. Creationists appear to be as unqualified to talk about science as
Scientists are to talk about religion (to wit, almost none)
by Nahum M. Sarna. Was teacher at University of London, the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York, and since 1967 has been Dora Golding
Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University.
extracted from his "UNDERSTANDING GENESIS"
The first biblical account of creation may be found in Genesis 1:1-2:4a.
Within the literary framework are described the divine activities within a
seven-day period
The second biblical account of creation (2:4b-24) opens with "When the
Lord God made ..." and goes through how the entire surface of the earth
was watered by a flow that owuld well up through subterranean springs.
The main topic of this account is the formation of man and his placement
in the garden of Eaden.
(my note: -2- accounts.)
"Biblical man, despite his undoubted intellectual and spiritual endowments,
did not base his views of the universe and its laws on the critical use
of empirical data
(my aside - ie.e not scientific method)
Rather, his thinking was imaginative, and his expressions of thought
were concrete, pictorial, emotional, and poetic
(my aside - get thee behind me, literalists!)
Hence, it is a naive and futile exercise to attempt to reconcile the
biblical accounts of creation with the findings of modern science. Any
correspondence which can be discovered or ingeniously established
between the two must surely be nothing more than mere coincidence."
#> the Creationist young-earth agenda does great damage to
#> Christianity itself, because it makes Christianity seem ridiculous to
#> many intelligent and informed people.
"Another possible danger is that in presenting the gospel to
the lost and in defending God's truth we ourselves will seem
to be false. It is time for Christian people to recognize
that the defense of this modern, young-Earth, Flood-geology
creationism is simply not truthful. It is simply not in
accord with the facts that God has given. Creationism must
be abandoned by Christians before harm is done. The
persistent attempt of the creationist movement to get their
points of view established in educational institutions can
only bring harm to the Christian cause. Can we seriously
expect non-Christian educational leaders to develop a
respect for Christianity if we insist on teaching the brand
of science that creationism brings with it? Will not the
forcing of modern creationism on the public simply lend
credence to the idea already entertained by so many
intellectual leaders that Christianity, at least in its
modern form, is sheer anti-intellectual obscurantism? I fear
that it will."
[_Christianitiy and the Age of the Earth_, by Davis Young,
Zondervan 1982. p. 163.]
#> When I made my comment about "anybody" being able to interpret Scripture
#> in his own way, I was stating a fact of life. In our society, thank God,
#> we have a First Amendment that gives Joe, me, you, and everyone the
#> _right_ to interpret Scripture in any way that conscience dictates, no
#> matter how foolish or inconsistent it might seem to others.
#
#And the right to "engage in Science" no matter how foolish or inconsistent
#it might seem to others? Absolutely .... but that don't make it science
#does it, nor absolve Dr. Gish from being labeled a cretan here.
Dr. Gish also has the RIGHT to submit his scientific ideas for
publication in refereed journals. He chooses not to do so. Joe
Applegate (and Snake Handlers, and you, and I) also have the RIGHT
to submit our ideas on Biblical interpretation for publication in
scholarly journals.
These journals have the RIGHT to reject articles that do not
measure up to the standards of the field. I certainly agree with
you that scholars have standards that they apply in their fields.
Not any interpretation of Scripture would be acceptable to a
scholarly journal. But the point is, scholars do not and should
not dictate people's personal beliefs about religion.
#The lesson may be to clearly indicate that the basis for your position when
#unsupported by sufficent evidence is one which is arrived at through certain
#metaphysical and philosophical assumptions (faith). You may then specify
#why you believe that your assumptions (faith) are reasonable .... you may
#not preceed your statements with, "We know ..... ". When evolutionary
#scientists (at least many of the ones I've read or encountered) master
#this discipline perhaps then ....
Science has nothing to do with "faith." Science makes no claim
that the conclusions that it arrives at are "true," NO MATTER HOW
STRONG THE EVIDENCE MAY BE. On the contrary, it ASSUMES that they
may not be true and has invented a procedure to test these
conclusions, the only possible results of which will either be to
show that they are NOT true or to determine that "further research
is required." If someone says that science has "proved" that such-
and-such is true, then that is indeed "faith," but it has nothing
to do with science.
Religious aspects of the Creation/Evolution controversy are
appropriately directed to this group, I believe. I've no interest
in debating this issue, but only want to suggest some reading for
those who are interested in pursuing the topic. Relatively few
books discuss the religious (rather than the scientific) side of
the controversy, and I believe that this short list includes the
best of them.
_Is God a Creationist?_, edited by Roland Mushat Frye (New
York: Scribners, 1983), is a collection of essays by
people of various religious persuasions: Conservative
(Davis Young, mentioned by Rob Day), Roman Catholic
(Pope John Paul II), Middle-of-the-Road (Conrad Hyers)
and others. Although none of the contributors takes the
young-Earth Creationist side, it is a relatively well-
balanced book on the whole. The editor is Schelling
Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania
and a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry at
Princeton.
_The Meaning of Creation_, by Conrad Hyers (Atlanta: John
Knox Press, 1984). Hyers is a middle-of-the-road
theologian who argues that Creationism is not only bad
science, but also poor theology. I found it provocative
reading. The author is Professor and Chair of the
Department of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College,
Minnesota.
_Science and Earth History_, by Arthur Strahler (Buffalo:
Prometheus 1987) is probably the most authoritative and
complete discussion of all aspects of the C/E
controversy. Although most of the book is devoted to
scientific issues, the first 80 pages or so discuss
philosophical and religious aspects. This book has an
excellent index and exhaustive references, and is the
book I recommend to those who only want to read one book
on the subject. Strahler is Professor Emeritus of
Geology, and former Chair of the Department of Geology,
Columbia University.
_Evolution and the Christian Doctrine of Creation: A
Whiteheadian Interpretation_, by Richard H. Overman
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967). This you may
have to look for. I found it in the university library.
Liberal theology.
Finally, I want to second Rob Day's recommendation that Christians
who are concerned about the effects of Creationism on Christianity
ponder what Davis Young says in his book, _Christianity and the
Age of the Earth_. Mysteriously allowed to go out of print by its
publisher (the religious house Zondervan) soon after it came out,
the book is now available again from Artisan Sales, PO Box 2497,
Thousand Oaks CA 91360 for only $8.50 postpaid. Young is a
knowledgeable geologist who, although doubting evolution itself on
religious grounds, nevertheless firmly opposes young-Earth
Creationism as scientifically invalid.
}The Bible Has Two Creation Stories
A close reading of the first few chapters of the Bible reveals
not one, but two different -- and contradictory -- stories of
creation. These are from two of the (at least) four traditions that
are interweaved in the first books of the Bible, the Priestly and
Yahvist traditions, out of the set that includes the Elohist and
Deuteronomist traditions. This conclusion is reached by consideration
of stylistic elements (for example, the Priestly tradition is heavy on
statistics, the Yahvist and Elohist traditions refer to the Deity as
"Yahweh" and "Elohim", respectively, and the Deuteronomist tradition
is found in the Book of Deuteronomy), and is generally accepted by
non-literalist Biblical scholars (for a good introduction to the
historical background behind the Bible, see _Asimov's Guide to the
Bible_, both volumes).
Here is the order in the first (Genesis 1), the Priestly tradition:
Day 1: Sky, Earth, light
Day 2: Water, both in ocean basins and above the sky(!)
Day 3: Plants
Day 4: Sun, Moon, stars (as calendrical and navigational aids)
Day 5: Sea monsters (whales), fish, birds, land animals,
creepy-crawlies (reptiles, insects, etc.)
Day 6: Humans (apparently both sexes at the same time)
Day 7: Nothing (the Gods took the first day off anyone ever did)
Note that there are "days", "evenings", and "mornings" before
the Sun was created. Here, the Deity is referred to as "Elohim", which
is a plural, thus the literal translation, "the Gods". In this tale,
the Gods seem satisfied with what they have done, saying after each
step that "it was good".
The second one (Genesis 2), the Yahwist tradition, goes:
Earth and heavens (misty)
Adam, the first man (on a desolate Earth)
Plants
Animals
Eve, the first woman (from Adam's rib)
Then, there follows the story of the serpent leading Eve, and
Adam, to eat that (unspecified) fruit, and get expelled from the
Garden of Eden, whereupon that serpent was ordered to crawl on its
belly (no mention of how it moved about before that). The Deity is
referred to as "Yahweh" here, and creates plants, animals, and finally
Eve for a lonely Adam. Yahweh seems to be trying to fix his creation
as he goes, with not too satisfactory results -- his prime interest
commits a big no-no (why not simply create a psychological inhibition
to eating forbidden fruit? It would probably be more reliable).
Neither tale, it must be said, has much resemblance to the
geological record, but in all fairness to the inventors of these
tales, the geological record only became clear in the nineteenth
century. I am not denying that one can come up with a Bible
interpretation that somehow harmonizes these two tales, but such an
interpretation would require rejection of the dogma of the literal
truth of the Bible -- two contradictory statements cannot be true at
the same time.
The first of the two stories is sometimes claimed to be a good
match; "Let there be light" supposedly means the Big Bang. But the Big
Bang happened well before the Earth even existed. There are other
discrepancies. The Sun is almost certainly slightly older than the
Earth, and the Moon is as old as the Earth, or a bit younger (from
current theories of planetary formation; the time differences are ~100
million years out of 4.6 billion years). The stars have no single
age, but have been forming ever since the galaxies came into existence
(or even before!); some are older than the Earth, some younger. The
order of appearance of various is terribly mixed up. Though blue-green
algae are much older than any multicelled animal, the first land
plants appear ~400 m.y. ago, as opposed to the first sea animals ~600
m.y. ago. Flowering plants (the most common land plants) appeared
about ~120-150 m.y. ago, well after the first land animals appeared,
appox 400 m.y. ago. Also, flying animals appear after closely related land
animals appear; flying insects after early wingless ones, pterodactyls
after proto-dinosaurs, birds after certain small carnivorous
dinosaurs, and bats after early placental mammals. Some sea animals
are descendants of land animals; consider (partially aquatic) otters,
seals and sea lions and walruses, penguins, alligators and crocodiles,
and sea turtles and (completely aquatic) whales and dolphins, sea
snakes, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs.
The second of the two stated that humanity originated in the
Garden of Eden or a garden in Eden (depending on which translation you
read). "Eden" turns out to be some marshland near where the Tigris and
the Euphrates Rivers flow into the Persian Gulf. And where did
humanity actually originate? Charles Darwin proposed Africa because
that's where our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and
gorillas, live. This hypothesis turns out to be correct for nearly all
of the hominid species, including _Homo sapiens_. All the earlier
hominid species, the Australopithecines and earliest _Homo_, are found
only in Africa; later species, like _Homo erectus_ and _Homo sapiens_,
seem to have originated in Africa and spread to other parts of the
world.
And from the "Master Blaster":
I have received the response to my article on the two creation
stories in the Bible that one can somehow fit the Adam-and-Eve story
into the Sixth Day of the first story. But I believe that this fit
cannot be made. Why? Look again at the orders of creation:
The Six-Day Story:
Day 3: Plants
Day 5: Sea animals and flying animals
Day 6: Land animals, then humanity (both sexes)
The Adam-and-Eve Story:
The first man (Adam)
Plants
Animals (both land and air)
The first woman (Eve)
The contradiction between the orders of creation between the
two stories is rather glaring. There are other contradictions. As I
mentioned earlier, in the first story, God creates according to a
carefully laid-out plan, one set of entities at a time. He says after
Article 4200 of talk.origins:
Topics:
}There are gaps in fossil record
}Methods of dating the earth are inaccurate.
}K-Ar dating of Hawaiian lava is wildly inaccurate.
}Erosion should've dumped at least 30 times more sediment in the sea.
}Top soil
}Mississippi delta would have formed in 5000 years.
}Niagara Falls-the rim is wearing back
}Deterioration of earth's magnetic field
}Not enough dissolved minerals in oceans.
}Other "geological clocks" that suggest a "young" earth
}Polonium halos
}The animals couldn't have distributed themselves all over the globe.
}Lewis Overthrust, Northern Montana, Glacier Nat'l Monument.
}Heart Mountain, north of Cody WY
}Unexplained by uniformitarian model on which the evolutionary model is based
}A near planetary collision
}Shifting the poles rapidly over Hapgood's waveguide zone
}"carcasses deposited in icy mucky dumps"
}evidence of rapid removal and deposition of soil, forest in arctic.
} the are no layers which require more than 6000 years to build up
}no more fossils being made
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
}- There are gaps in fossil record where you'd expect intermediate forms.
There are more fossils than Creationists will admit. Many intermediate forms
are known--for example, the development of the mammal skull characteristics
from the therapsida of Permian time.
What gaps remain can be explained by erosion, lack of proper conditions
for fossilization, the punctuated equilibrium model, or simply not looking in
the right places yet.
}- Methods of dating the earth are inaccurate.
Exactly what is meant by "inaccurate" leaves much to be desired.
Please see the August 1989 Scientific American article on the Age
of the Earth. (page 90, by Lawrence Badash, "The Age-of-the-Earth
Debate")
In an abstract from _Nature_, Vol. 341, p. 518 (12 October 1987).
"Direct dating of Phanerozoic sediments by the 238U-206Pb
method," by Patrick E. Smith & Ronald M. Farquhar, Geophysics
Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Toronto,
Ontario, Toronto, Canada M5S 1A7
"Direct radiometric age determination of Phanerozoic carbonates
has been a long-standing problem in geochronology. Rb-Sr and
K-Ar dating schemes, commonly used to constrain the chronology
of Phanerozoic sediments, have so far proved to be unsuccessful
in dating these rocks because of their poor enrichment in radiogenic
87Sr and 40Ar and also because of analytical difficulties. Recent
studies have demonstrated that large amounts of radiogenic Pb
exist in some carbonates and that they could be dated by the
Pb-Pb method. However, the precision of this method is severely
limited to samples having very high uranium to lead ratios because
by the beginning of the Phanerozoic (~590 Myr ago) 98% of 235U
originally present in the Earth had decayed to 207Pb. Here we
report the first isochron age of carbonates using the 238U-206Pb
method on corals. This method, which gives good accuracy even
for low U concentrations, has great potential for the direct dating
of sedimentary sequences and should be valuable for refining the
Phanerozoic timescale."
} - K-Ar dating of Hawaiian lava is wildly inaccurate.
That's why geologists don't pay much attention to analyses of rock
samples unless their geological context is well understood. Since
Hawaii is built on oceanic crust that is about 80-100 million years old
(the age is known more precisely than this; I don't have the references
handy), it was immediately obvious that the observed isotopic ratios
didn't represent the ages of the rocks.
Our confidence in radiometric dating techniques comes from years of
careful comparisons to other radiometric techniques and to relative
age determinations from biostratigraphy (fossils in layered rocks).
In some cases, there are multiple isotope systems that may be analyzed
in the same sample. Since these different systems react differently
to the processes that disturb age recording, if the systems disagree
with one another the age significance of the data is suspect.
Geoscientists try to use all available tools in combination to make
sure that they're not fooled by a single spurious analysis. In
some journals, analytical results aren't publishable unless they're
backed up by field relations and/or by other analytical methods.
The particular case of young Hawaiian volcanic rocks is interesting for
reasons other than the absurd age interpretations. Since these rocks
are very poor in the potassium from which radiogenic argon decays,
their argon content is determined largely by the composition of the
argon in the rocks from which the Hawaii lavas were derived. The data
tell us something about the composition of the mantle down to
about 150 kilometers below the surface, where earthquake data tell us
the lavas originate.
The example of the Hawaii rocks is a Red Herring, as I will demonstrate
momentarily. However, the answer to your last question is very simple. If
you can date a rock by a number of different methods, involving different
decay series, and if you arrive at the SAME AGE using any of a half-dozen
different and completely independent methods, then you can be quite
confident that the age you have measured is reliable.
If you wish to dispute these ages, you have to come up with EVIDENCE that
they are unreliable. It is not sufficient to wave your hands and express
your skepticism. We all know you are skeptical, but saying "how do we
know," without EVIDENCE to suggest that there is a problem, is just
whistling past the graveyard.
And now for the Red Herring. Creationists often bring up the example of
the Hawaiian pillow basalts with anomalous K-Ar ages, but they neglect to
mention that geologists _already thought_ that rocks formed under THESE
PARTICULAR conditions would give unreliable K-Ar ages because they would
trap argon before it can escape. The studies in question were performed
to confirm this under controlled conditions, and thus to confirm to the
scientific community that THIS PARTICULAR type of rock is unsuitable for
radiometric dating. The misuse of this work by Creationists is
particularly despicable, IMHO.
} - Erosion should've dumped at least 30 times more sediment in the sea.
}and all the continents would be worn to sea
}level in just 14,000,000 years.
Ever heard of plate tectonics?
Please read:
On Volcanism and Thermal Tectonics on one-plate Planets
Solomon, Geophysical Research Letters, vol 5, no 6 June 1978
The Supercontinent Cycle
Nance, Worsley, & Moody, Scientific American, July 1988
} - Top soil--6 inches form in 5,000-20,000 years, but earth averages 7 to 8
} inches.
Or erosion.
Your county Soil Conservation Board will be happy to tell you why your
topsoil is getting shallower, and what you can do to curb the problem.
} - Mississippi delta would have formed in 5000 years.
So? You have (given a steady-state system which it is NOT) identified a
possible geographic feature less than 5k years old.
}Niagara Falls-the rim is wearing back at a known rate and taken ~5,000 years
}from its original precipice.
That's neat - and the steady-state assumptions are? And how did you get
the "original precipice" without deciding up front how old you wanted it?
The Niagara River HAS been where it is for only a few millenia (or tens of
millenia). Before that, the whole area was under glacial ice! (And it
some millenia after the ice retreated for the land to reach its present
level and the drainage paths to reach their present alignment.
I'd love to see what happens in the year the falls erode back to Lake Erie!
At the present rate of erosion, I think that's supposed to be ~100,000 AD.
} - Deterioration of earth's magnetic field, at present rates, implies an
} excessive field 10,000 years ago.
The decay is not a steady state (you love this - Morris does, too). In fact,
there is considerable evidence for reversals. The atlantic ocean floor
as it spreads shown the weakening - reversing - strengthening recorded in
its stone as the contenents spread from the mid-atlantic ridge.
The usual creationist assumption behind this extrapolation is that the
decay is exponential, which excludes the possibility of field reversals.
The limited existing measurements cannot yet distinguish between
exponential, linear, or other decay patterns.
The source of the earth's magnetic field remains uncertain. A good
summary of what is known is found in "Ancient Magnetic Reversals: Clues
to the Geodynamo", SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, May 1988, p. 76-83.
The field is expected to reverse sometime in the next few thousand
years. A time scale on page 78 shows the reversals over the past 170
million years, as deduced from the magnetic patterns in oceanic crust.
I counted about 200 reversals on the chart.
The sun reverses its magnetic field every 11 years in a 22 year cycle.
} - Not enough dissolved minerals in oceans.
dissolved minerals - the stuff moves in cycles, and as such most of the
minerals are very close to their balance levels. Remember "carbon cycle"?
The same general idea holds for everything else. Remember the space shuttle?
Except for the last time, it has been landing on salt. Like from the
oceans, remember?
}Other "geological clocks" that suggest a "young" earth-
}13-16) juvenile water (from volcanoes), oil deposit pressure, Stalactite Growth
}(limestone)
juvenile water is covered in those same computer models, and again nothing
tricky is involved at all.
oil deposites themselves require a time well over 6000 years to exist, so
try again.
stalactite growth - of some, perhaps. You are still identifying merely
temporary features
The formation of the Earth from Planetesimals
Wetherill, Scientific American June 1981
The Steady State of the Earth's crust, atmosphere and oceans
Siever, Scientific American, May 1974
The Evolution of the Atmosphere of the Earth
Hart, Icarus, 33, 23-39, 1978
Evolution of the Atmosphere and Oceans
Holland, Lazar & McCaffery, Nature vol 320, 6 mar 1986
Enhanced CO2 greenhouse to compensate for reduced solar luminosity on early
earth
Owen & Cess, Nature, vol 227, 22Feb 1979
How climate Evolved on the Terrestrial Planets
Kasting, Toon, & Pollack, Scientific American, Feb 1988
Climatic Changes of the last 18,000 years: Observations and Model Simulations
COHMAP members, Science vol 241, 26 Aug 88, p 1043-1052
} - Polonium halos indicate granite-producing magma cooled suddenly, not
} over millions of years.
Gentry's work is of particular importance because it involves actual
field and laboratory work followed up by papers appearing in refereed
scientific journals, offering some credibility to the field of
"creation research."
There is, however, a serious weakness in Gentry's work. It has been
devoted almost entirely to the physics of the polonium halos, thereby
neglecting the geological setting of the samples in which the halos are
found. Because of this neglect, Gentry makes unwarranted generalizations
about the nature of the world's Precambrian rocks.
THE BASIC PREMISE
Polonium halos are small spherical "shells" of radiation damage that
surround radioactive inclusions within certain minerals in rocks, which
Gentry has described in his book "Creation's Tiny Mystery." [1] The halos
are formed by alpha particles released during the decay of an isotope.
As an alpha particle nears the end of its path and slows, it causes
disruption of the crystal structure leaving a small damage track.
Over time, repeated decays from the parent isotope will leave
a spherical halo of discoloration. The distance that an alpha particle
travels depends upon the energy of the decay and that, in turn, is a
function of the particular nuclide that decays. Theoretically, then,
the radii of a series of halos that surround a radioactive inclusion
permit identification of the specific decaying nuclides.
Gentry has claimed that certain of these halos indicate that the
granite "basement rocks" of the earth are "the primordial Genesis rocks"
and were created instantaneously about six thousand years ago.
Essentially, Gentry has found that in certain samples of Precambrian
biotite (a mica) the inner ring halos for uranium and other nuclides
in the decay chain which should be producing Polonium 210, Po214 and
Po218 are missing; only the polonium rings for these three isotopes
are present. In addition, Gentry observed little or no uranium
in the radioactive inclusion. His conclusion is that the polonium
must have been primordial and, because of the short half-lves of
the polonium isotopes (138.4 days , 0.000164 sec. and 3.04 minutes,
respectively), the granite, therefore, must have been created in the
solid state in "only a brief period between 'nucleosynthesis' and
crystallization of the host rock." [1, p. 270]
The fact that Gentry has published in Nature, Science and Medical Opinion
and Review leads one to believe that there is a fair amount of support
for his work, but Gentry avoids making direct creationist statements
in these works -- it seems he is only cautiously trying to link the rocks
of the Precambrian to the rocks that existed right after the Earth's
formation - or creation. His book, however, leaves no doubt on his
position:
"Were tiny polonium halos God's fingerprints in Earth's primordial
rocks? Could it be that the Precambrian granites were the Genesis rocks
of our planet?" [1, p. 32]1
THE GEOLOGY
The first curiosity that Wakefield uncovered was that the sites from
which Gentry obtained his samples were not in the older Archean era of
the Precambrian, as one would expect, but in fact were in the
considerably younger (as dated radiometrically and structurally)
Proterozoic era; specifically, the Proterozoic Grenville Supergroup of
the Grenville Province, here in Ontario. This misunderstanding came
about because Gentry is annoyingly vague on exact sites in his book.
One mine, the Silver Crater Mine, is mentioned specifically, while the
remaining sites are described only as being in Madagascar, New Hampshire
and Norway. This tendency towards vagueness also occurs in his Medical
Opinion and Review article, in which he refers to "the Wolsendorf (Bavaria)
fluorite." [2]
After some research, Wakefield tracked down the three sites, all near
Bancroft in southern Ontario. Regarding the first site, the Fission Mine,
it appeared to Wakefield that this was where Gentry obtained his fluorite
samples and some of his biotite. Gentry denied this, saying they had
come from Germany, but Louis Moyd of the Mational Museum in Ottawa indicated
that samples from the Fission Mine were in fact sent to Gentry. I will
break tradition briefly and quote Wakefield exactly,
"it is clear we are dealing with intrusive calcite vein dikes (rocks
containing mostly the mineral calcite and other minerals, such as mica)
that are small in length and width and cut metasedimentary rocks which
still retain bedding planes. Radioactive minerals abound in this
locality. Percolating water from the hill the deposit occupies is strongly
radioactive and was sold in the 1920s for therapeutic purposes."
The second site, the Silver Crater mine, is related to the Fission mine
and is a calcite intrusive of the same origin. Neither of these mines are
in fact granites, a fact Gentry gets wrong. In addition, while Gentry
claims that "halos occur in many mica samples which have not undergone
metamorphism of any kind," the micas of the Silver Crater were indeed
formed during metamorphism under the load of moderate-depthed overburden,
whch has since been eroded off. Gentry's primordial biotite was in
fact metamorphically derived.
The third site, the Faraday mine, I will touch on only briefly.
Gentry emphasizes that the oddity of the halos is that there is no
uranium or thorium in the nucleus at the center of the polonium halos.
Unfortunately for him, the Faraday pegmatite was mined for uranium --
a total of some four million tons of U(3)O(8) ore were mined for a total
of 7.3 million pounds of uranium oxide until the mine's closure in 1984.
The most common radioactive mineral was uranothorite, hence lots of
uranium and thorium.
Gentry's case rests heavily on a "God-of-the-gaps"
approach to the halos; that is, it requires that there be no acceptable
naturalistic explanation for the halos. Once such an explanation is
found, Gentry's case crumbles. One paper that proposes such a
naturalistic explanation is by N. K. Chaudhuri and R. H. Iyer [3].
I make no pretense about being able to understand the model they
present; perhaps those with the necessary background will help out here.
Gentry also has problems with accuracy in his quotation of other
scientific sources. In one case, Gentry (p. 71) refers to a paper by
N. Feather [4], saying that Feather discusses "clear mica (without any
conduits)," but there is no reference to this in Feather's paper.
In another instance, Gentry quotes Steven Talbott for scientific
support and provides a copy of Talbott's article in the appendices
of his book, but Talbott himself states that he has relied on two
sources for HIS information: phone calls with Gentry and "the available
technical literature", which turns out to be based on Gentry's own articles.
What Gentry has in essence done is to reference himself and attempt
to pass this off as independent corroboration.
[1] Gentry, R.V., 1986. Creation's Tiny Mystery. Knoxville, Tenn.
Earth Science Associates.
[2] Gentry, R.V., 1967. "Cosmology and the Earth's Invisible Realm."
Medical Opinion and Review. October, p. 79.
[3] N.K. Chaudhuri and R.H. Iyer, "Origin of Unusual Radioactive Halos,"
Radiation Effects, 1980, vol. 53, pp. 1-6.
[4] N. Feather, "The unsolved problem of the Po-halos in Precambrian biotite
and other old minerals," Comm. to the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh,
no. 11, 1978.
And for a more recent:
In the 6 October 1989 issue of SCIENCE magazine (Vol 246, #1 pp 107-109),
there is a report on work with Radiation Induced Color Halos (RICHs) in
quartz, suggesting a mechanism for the "Po halos" that removes their utility
as Creation Science evidence.
The abstract and first two-and-a-half and last one paragraphs of the report,
giving a summary of the problem and the authors' conclusion:
ABSTRACT
"The radii of radiation-induced color halos (RICHs) surrounding
radioactive mineral inclusions in mica generally correspond closely to
the calculated range of common uranogenic and thorogenic alpha particles in
mica. Many exceptions are known, however, and these variants have led
investigators to some rather exotic interpretations. Three RICHs found
in quartz are identified as aluminum hole-trapping centers. Whereas the
inner radii of these RICHs closely match the predicted range of the most
energetic common alphas (39 micrometers), the color centers observed
extend to 100 micrometers. Migration of valence-band holes down
a radiation-induced charge potential might account for these enigmatic
RICHs. Such RICHs provide natural experiments in ultraslow charge diffusion.
"In 1907 Joly pointed out that microscopic color halos commonly observed
surrounding small inclusions of radioactive minerals were caused by damage
produced by alpha particles emanating from the inclusions. Shortly afterwards,
Rutherford noted a close correspondence between the radial size of halos and
the energies of the alpha particles. A number of workers have described
and measured these radiation-induced color halos (RICHs) and, fr |