Conference back40::soapbox

Ancient Egypt is supposed to be one of the first civilizations, but the
sophistication of its achievements has long perplexed scientists.  The
mathematical precision involved in constructing the pyramids is but one such
achievement.  It was long believed that man had not developed mathematics to the
degree that would allow Egyptians to build such structures.  And the enigma of
the pyramids pales in comparison to other archaeological discoveries.

According to Dr. Colin Fink of the electro-chemistry department at Columbia
University, the ancient Egyptians copper-coated many artefacts using a form of
electro-chemical exchange (William Corliss, "Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling
Artifacts," The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Maryland, 1978, p. 443).  This
involved a mixture of chemical elements which, when an object was immersed,
caused an electro-chemical charge that deposited the copper permanently on the
object.

A "Scientific American" publication referred to this technique as "a secret
later lost and not rediscovered until the last century by Faraday" (ibid).  By
Cleopatra's day, the Parthians had even developed a primitive electric battery
(Harry M. Schwalb, "Electric Batteries of 2,000 years ago," Science Digest, vol.
41 no. 4, April 1957, p. 17-19.  See also Creation, vol. 16, no. 2, March-May
1994, p. 10-13).  The battery used a thin copper disc at the base of a small
10cm (4 inch) cylinder and was used to gold-plate jewelry.  "Science Digest"
called this "man's first industrial use of electricity" (ibid).

More recent was the discovery of what some believe to be an ancient Egyptian
model glider found in a 2000-year-old tomb (Corliss, p. 454-455).  Former NASA
contractee William Corliss calls the scale model "a very advanced form of what
is called a push-glider" (ibid).  Corliss says the "plane" would have glided on
the air much like modern gliders, and would have required immense aeronautical
and mathematical precision.  Scientists who have studied the model suggest that
its proportions and design would indeed have enabled it to fly.

In neighboring Greece, the Greeks even had an extremely sophisticated device
that possibly computed planetary motions.  Some scientists have called it an
early "computer," while others suggested it was a form of clock.  But all concur
that the object displayed mechanics supposedly far ahead of its time (Derek J.
de Solla Price, "Unworldly Mechanics," Natural History, vol. 71 no. 3, March
1962, p. 8-17).

What does the Bible say about advanced civilizations?  Skeptics and many secular
scientists have long sought to refute the historicity of the Bible.  Under this
conditioning, many Christians assume that Babel was the beginning of
civilization and that Noah and his family, before the Flood, merely lived in an
area dominated by primitive tribal communities.  This view cannot be reconciled
with the Bible.  The technological complexity of building a vessel such as the
Ark may seem a problem, but a larger problem is how Noah could have built an Ark
(with a deck area the size of 36 lawn-tennis courts) with the limited resources
available to such communities.  A larger and more advanced civilization is
required.

Worldwide Array of Civilizations
--------------------------------
The Apostle Peter clearly believed that the Flood covered the whole world (cf.
2 Peter 3:5-7).  Moreover, population studies have shown that the earth could
easily have been populated by at least 1 billion people in the 1,700 years or so
from Adam to Noah (John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, "The Genesis Flood,"
Presbyterian and Reformed, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1961, p. 25-27.  At the
time of the Flood there could have been more than 3 billion people around the
globe, assuming a population growth of only 1.3% per year.  The current average
is 1.8%.  Population studies are a big problem for old-earth advocates.  There
are simply not enough catastrophes in history to keep man's population growth
low enough to allow for 100,000 years or more).  This surely suggests a
worldwide array of civilizations.

It is not surprising that science cannot find direct evidence of antediluvian
civilizations, because the Bible says the whole ancient world was destroyed by
the Flood.  Peter even compares the destruction to that which will come when the
earth is destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:5-7).  The Flood annihilated virtually all
the remains of ancient man.  Only scant traces, if any, can be found, and these
would be swept under the rug as insignificant anomalies.  Yet these anomalies
indicate that ancient civilizations might have been even more advanced than some
later civilizations.

In Florida, workers discovered the remains of an ancient city while digging a
canal between Lake Dora and Lake Eustis.  The city exists far below sea level
and was reported in "Scientific American" (Corliss, p. 83-84).  Another example
is the remains of a large city buried off the Arctic coast (Froelich G. Rainey,
"Mystery People of the Arctic," Natural History, vol. 47 no. 3, March 1941, p.
148-155).  Today this region is scarcely populated, except by scattered
Eskimos, because of the Arctic's hostile living conditions.  Yet archaeologists
speculate that the city housed a minimum of 4,000 people (ibid).  The size of
the city "amazes modern investigators" (ibid, p. 148).

Many other examples exist.  Indeed, entire volumes have been written on similar
"anomalies."  Most evolutionists have disregarded anything that threatens their
evolutionary time-scale, but ignoring the evidence is simply another way of
ignoring the truth.  These civilizations did indeed exist, and archaeologists
have discovered many curious artefacts that point to a high degree of scientific
achievement.  Perhaps the most peculiar of these consists of a strange cylinder
found *embedded* in a solid rock from ages ago.  This cylinder appears, from all
known studies, to be a mechanical apparatus with possible electrical properties,
as is evidenced by coiled copper.  Some researchers even equated it with the
modern-day spark plug, although it doubtless had a different purpose (A.L.
Rawson, "Transactions of the New York Academy of Science," vol. 11, p. 26-29, as
cited by J.R. Jochmans, "Strange Relics From the Depths of the Earth," Forgotten
Ages Research Society.  Reprinted with permission from the Bible-Science
Association, Minneapolis, 1979, p. 17).

Such evidence cannot be swept under the rug to suit Bible critics.  Man did not
need to wait for his intelligence to evolve before he could build advanced
civilizations.  He already was advanced.

Technology Unable to Save
-------------------------
In Genesis 11:6-9 God stated that mankind was to be divided by languages at
Babel or else "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to
do."  It seems that man is finally reaching the point where civilization and
communication between cultures are reaching their zenith.  Nevertheless,
technology will not save us.  Noah's generation was well advanced, but could not
ward off the wrath of God.

Peter warned the early church that "For this they willingly are ignorant of,
that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of
the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed
with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same
word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men" (2 Peter 3:5-7).  Rather than denigrating ancient man
(our ancestors), we ought to humble ourselves and learn a lesson from history
before our civilization becomes obscure relics in the ground.  What we build
will become as dust, but the Kingdom that Christ establishes will last forever.

{David Criswell, "Ancient Civilizations and Modern Man: Were Ancient Cultures
More Advanced Than Many Evolutionists Believe?" Creation, vol. 17 no. 2,
March-may 1995}

    According to a recent summary of modern biological knowledge on human
    racial characteristics, the difference in human genes linked to "race"
    is only .012%.  Humans all have the cellular machinery to make them
    very white or very black.  What colour you are reflects only trivial
    genetic differences.  In transplant surgery, an organ from a white
    donor can make a more acceptable match for a black patient, and vice
    versa.
    
    {"Discover", November 1994, p. 72-73}
    
    This confronts the evolutionary belief that the races have been
    evolving separately for 10's of 1,000's of years.  Such genetic
    closeness is, however, a direct prediction from the Bible's claim that
    all people are closely related - first via Adam and Eve, and second
    through Noah's family.
    
    Mike

    In 1984, scientists measured the amount of salt accumulated in
    Australia's largest salt lake - Lake Eyre in South Australia.  They
    found that it would have taken about 73,000 years to accumulate,
    assuming a flood occurred every 50 years (R.H Gunn and P.M. Fleming,
    "Australian Journal of Soil Research," vol. 22, 1984, p. 119-134). 
    However, the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service in
    1991 stated that "almost all its area is covered on average once in 8
    years" ("Parkabout," National Parks and Wildlife Service of South
    Australia, vol. 1 no. 6, Winter 1991).  This reduces the time period
    for accumulation to only 12,000 years.  This has to be a maximum time
    because the fossil evidence suggests that inland Australia was much
    wetter in the past, being covered in rainforest during the Tertiary
    Period when the lake was supposedly formed.  With flooding every year,
    as could have occurred in the past, the minimum time for accumulation
    would be 1,500 years.
    
    Evolutionists date the Tertiary between 2 and 65 million years ago. 
    Even if Lake Eyre formed 2M years ago, and we assume floods every 8
    years, 99.4% of the expected salt is missing.  If we assume it is
    older, and take into account the wetter climate of the past, the
    problem becomes even greater, with up to 99.99% of the expected salt
    missing.  
    
    The scientists who did the work were puzzled by this discrepancy and
    could find no explanation for where the salt could have gone.  However,
    if only several thousand years have elapsed since the Flood of Noah's
    time, as the Bible implies, then maybe all the salt is still there.
    
    {Alexander R. Williams, B.SC., M.SC, MAI Biol., Th.C. Dip.C.S.,
    "World's Oldest Salt Lake - Only a few thousand years old," Creation,
    vol. 17 no. 2, p. 51).

    In the early 1950's, a worker at Australia's Jenolan Caves in New South
    Wales placed this lemonade bottle in one of the area's many beautiful
    limestone caves.  The bottle sat beneath a continually active
    stalactite in what is known as the "Temple of Baal."  In the decades
    that followed, the "bottle stalagmite" became a public testimony to the
    fact that stalactites and stalagmites don't take 10's of 1,000's of
    years or more to form.
    
    In fact, by the early 1980's, a coating of calcite about 3mm thick had
    already formed on the bottle.  That's about 1mm thickness per decade. 
    But the rate of stalactite formation may have been even faster in the
    past.  Caves and their formations in tropical areas develop much faster
    than those in more termperate regions because of higher annual
    rainfall, and there are other factors too which influence growth rate.  
    
    The spectacular formations in the world's limestone caves could have
    formed in just a few thousand years - a time framework consistent with
    the view that they were formed during the closing stanges, and after,
    the worldwide Flood of Noah's time.
    
    {"Creation" journal, vol. 17, no. 2, March 1995}

    Great minds of the past had no difficulty with the concept of a young
    earth shaped and reshaped by catastrophic forces, especailly the
    upheavals associated with Noah's Flood.  Today, we have been so
    thoroughly saturated with the "slow and gradual" philosophy that when
    we look at vast cliffs, landscapes and boulders we tend to immediately
    associate them with very long ages.
    
    The pictures in this article are of Surtsey, an island which was born
    in only days from a huge undersea volcanic eruption off Iceland in the
    North Atlantic in 1963.  It shows features which most people would
    think take much, much longer to form.  Of course, there never has been
    any logical (as opposed to psychological) barrier to the idea that
    large forces can do enormous amounts of geological work in a short time
    (The Bible's description of the breaking up of the "fountains of the
    great deep" implies substantial volcanic activity associated with the
    largely subterranean sources of water for Noah's Flood).  
    
    The following quote is from the official Icelandic geologist Sigurdur
    Thorarinsson writing in 1964:
    
    	"An Icelander who has studied geology and geomorphology at foreign
    	universities is later taught by experience in his own homeland that the
    	time scale he had been trained to attach to geological developments is
    	misleading when assessments are made of the forces - constructive and
    	destructive - which have molded and are still molding the face of
    	Iceland.  What elsewhere may take 1,000's of years may be accomplished
    	here in one century.  All the same he is amazed whenever he comes to
    	Surtsey, because the same development may take a few weeks or even days
    	here.  
    
    	On Surtsey, only a few months sufficed for a landscape to be created
    	which was so varied and mature that it was almost beyond belief. 
    	During the summer of 1964 and the following winter we not only had a
    	lava dome with a glowing lava lake in a summit crater and red-hot lava
    	flows rushing down the slopes, increasing the height of the dome and
    	transforming the configuration of the island from one day to another. 
    	Here we could also see wide sandy beaches and precipitous crags lashed
    	by the breakers of the sea.  There were gravel banks and lagoons,
    	impressive cliffs...  There were hollows, glens, and soft undulating
    	land.  There were fractures and faultscarps, channels and screes... 
    	You might come to a beach covered with flowing lava on its way to the
    	sea with white balls of smoke rising high up in the air.  Three weeks
    	later you might come back to the same place and be literally confounded
    	by what met your eye.  Now there were precipitous lava cliffs of
    	considerable height, and below them you would see boulders worn by the
    	surf, some of which were almost round, on an abrasion platform cut into
    	the cliff, and further out there was a sandy beach where you could walk
    	at low tide without getting wet." (Sigurdur Thorarinsson, "Surtsey: The
    	New Island in the North Atlantic," Viking Press, English translation
    	from 1967).   
    
    In a later, more popular account in "National Geographic,"
    Thorarinsson wrote:
    
    	"...in 1 week's time we witness changes that elsewhere might take
     	decades or even centuries... Despite the extreme youth of the growing
    	island, we now encounter a landscape so varied that it is almost beyond
    	belief." (Sigurdur Thorarinsson, "Sursey, island born of fire,"
    	National Geographic, vol. 127, no. 5, 1965, p. 726.)
    
    Note the repeated incredulity in the author's tone, as the observations
    of the real world conflict with deeply instilled dogma.  If you didn't
    know otherwise, how long would you think Surtsey's rounded basalt
    boulders, shown above, would take to form?  Hundreds, maybe thousands,
    of years rolling in the surf?  
    
    "Surtsey reality" shows that even much harder rock would have had ample
    time, in the thousands of post-Flood years, to exhibit all the
    erosional features we see today - especially considering that in the
    early stages of its formation, rock may still be softer and less
    consildated.
    
    {Dr. Carl Wieland, M.B., B.S., "Surtsey: The Young Island that 'Looks 
    Old'," Creation, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 10-12}

    Thumper Index now stands at 3.8

Why does this all sound so much like Erik von Daaniken (sp?) ?

Creation Science: Contradiction in terms.

"The Heavens Declare..." - Astronomy/Physics Professor Donald B. DeYoung talks
with Dr. Carl Wieland.

Dr. Donald B. DeYoung (Ph.D., M.Div.) is a Chairman of the Physical Sciences
Department at Grace College, Winnona Lake, Indiana.  He teaches physics,
astronomy, electronics, and mathematics, and is a member of the Indiana Academy
of Science, Physics Teachers' Association, and the Creation Research Society
Directors Boards.  He is the author of "Astronomy and the Bible" and "Weather
and the Bible."

CW: Dr. DeYoung, could you tell me about your professional background?
DDY: My training is in physics, with a side interest in astronomy.  My career
has been in teaching physics, and has also included considerable astronomy
observation.  I also teach astronomy.

CW: You have a Master of Divinity theological qualification.  Do you think it is
possible for the Bible to be made to fit such cosmic evolutionary ideas as the
"big bang"?
DDY: No.  I think there is a basic conflict between supernatural and natural
explanations.  Once you start that kind of science compromise with Genesis,
which is clearly meant as a literal presentation, you're in trouble - you don't
know where to stop.

CW: What about the popular "big bang" idea, scientifically?
DDY: I have been in science long enough to notice that these origin theories
have a short lifetime.  Before the "big bang" there was the "steady state"
theory.  After the "big bang" we're going to have a "plasma theory," or whatever
is next in line.  And so I would be very cautious about accepting the "big bang"
and trying to fit it into the the book of Genesis.  I think it's dangerous to
read changing science into an unchanging Bible.

CW: What about the background temperature "ripples" discovered by COBE,
allegedly the "seeds" of star formation?
DDY: The "big bang" has a number of fundamental problems that we don't often
hear about.  One basic problem is how stars and galaxies could have originated.
Astronomers look for evidence of structure or lumpiness in the early universe,
to indicate possible star formation.  Although there was a lot of publicity when
the satellite COBE found evidence in that direction, actually the "big bang"
theory/model is so poorly defined - it's so general - that almost any data can
be made to fit it.

CW: I read recently that these tiny irregularities in temperature, these "seeds"
called "proof" of the "big bang" are actually too small to explain the
large-scale lumpiness of the real universe.
DDY: It depends on which version of the "big bang" is being considered.  The
measured temperature deviation was just a few parts in 100,000.  But since they
had found a deviation for the first time, some called it the "Holy Grail" and
said they had found something very important.  But, again, the "big bang" is
such a general idea that a measurement 10 times smaller or 10 times larger would
have had the same publicity.

CW: So they can simply "turn the knobs" on their model to change the end result?
DDY: That's exactly true.  Such a model is sometimes called "robust."  This
really means that it's not well defined, and so almost any data can be made to
fit the picture.

CW: Are you familiar with Dr. Russell Humphreys' new cosmological concepts,
showing how distant starlight could have reached us in a young universe?
DDY: Yes.  I know Russell and I think his material is very interesting.  The
concept needs to be explored, and he certainly has the expertise to do that.  I
would mention a caution, however.  I think that the entire Creation Week,
especially including the 4th day, was miraculous, that is supernatural.
Therefore we should be careful about using the natural laws - whether gravity or
relativity - to analyze the Creation Week itself.

CW: Nevertheless, it seems to show those who say that this is an unanswerable
scientific problem for the creationist, that in principle - using their own
accepted equations of general relativity and so on - there is a very feasible
answer.  And this is without necessarily accepting all of Dr. Humphreys'
suggestions concerning the details of Creation Week, which include supernatural
activity as well.
DDY: Yes.  That's correct.  I see relativistic cosmology as one of a growing
number of options to solve this distance-time problem, which is a basic issue.
Which approach is correct?  Well, perhaps time will tell.  With relativity you
do have different time-frames in deep space, compared with the earth.  As you
say, this is a credible explanation for light travel time.

CW: Every time comets swing around the sun they lose some of their mass.  How
long would it take before there wouldn't be any short-period comets left?
DDY: It's impossible to put an exact date on this because comets are perturbed
by planets.  Comets move around, and their orbits change.  But certainly on a
time-scale of the solar system of 5 billion years, it's very surprising that
there still would be comets.  I think comets continue to be an argument for
recent creation.

CW: What is the evolutionary response?
DDY: They like to talk about an invisible "Oort" comet cloud.  It is said to be
100,000 AU's out, far beyond Pluto, completely beyond sight and detection.  Once
in a while one or several of these comets sweep in towards the sun to keep up
the supply.  It's similar to the hidden mass idea; it is one more complication
that the long-age view requires.  There may or may not be a comet cloud - it's
optional for the creation view.

CW: Do you have any favorite astronomical evidence supporting the Bible?
DDY: Well, one basic point is the slow recession of the moon outward from the
earth.  Due to tidal friction (which would have been even greater in the past)
the moon is leaving us at the rate of 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) a year.  And if you
follow this backward in time you find that the moon would have been in direct,
catastrophic contact with earth in about a quarter of the time that
evolutionists require the moon and earth to have existed.  This is a fundamental
time problem for which astronomers have come up with no explanation.

CW: Could they argue that the moon was separately captured?
DDY: From the physics, capture simply doesn't work.  If a stray moon wandered
close to earth even today, it might be destroyed, it might disintegrate, but it
would not be captured - in fact it would gain speed.  The space probes we send
close to other planets don't get captured - unless we somehow put the brakes on,
they leave the planets quickly as in a "crack the whip" process.  In 1994 we
learned that Jupiter can capture comets, but this is because of its much
stronger gravity.

CW: Anything else about the moon?
DDY: A 5 billion-year-old object the size of the moon should be cold and dead -
and yet it's not.  There are unexpected detections of occasional vapors coming
out of the moon, and also lava flows.  There are still moonquakes that are
measured.  The moon appears to be rather youthful in many ways.

CW: How are your comments on this received?
DDY: I have found that when talking to groups, whether students, or scientists,
if I tell them I believe in a supernatural creation and I take the book of
Genesis seriously (so miracles are part of my science view) - they're willing to
listen.  And there's often good interest, because this is not part of the world
view of many people.  They seem to respect the idea and are intrigued by it.
When you're talking to practicing scientists, they usually realize the
uncertainty and the philosophy that goes into their own views and they can
appreciate the creation alternative.

CW: Have you seen anybody change their mind at all or become a Christian through
your ministry?
DDY: On the level of college students I can certainly say yes.  I continually
find individuals in my audience who are excited to find out that you can support
and defend a creation view of origins and of history.  That's what encourages me
in my science career - showing people that the creation view is not outdated -
it's still for today, it's good science.  And I find people who are becoming
committed to Christianity - after the Lord first does work in their hearts.

CW: Thank you very much.

{Creation, vol. 17 no. 2, March-May 1995}

The book mentioned in this interview by Dr. Russell Humphreys is "Starlight and
Time," Master Books, Colorado Springs, 1994.

    I think I saw a book once titled "Witchcraft, Spiritualism, Satanism
    Mysticism and Creation Science". Interesting I'll bet. :-)
    
    ...Tom

    
    or 
    " ... and Brewing".

    
    How about a list of prominent physicists, artists, historians
    archeologists, geologists, mathematicians etc, who subscribe
    to creationism?

    Oh goody, goody, goody another religious tangent note.  We haven't had
    one of those in quite awhile.  It must be at least 4 base notes or so. 
    Mike you should have waited until tomorrow.  You are a day early for
    Make up a fact Friday.
    
    Brian

RE: 444.9 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> CW: Every time comets swing around the sun they lose some of their mass.  How
> long would it take before there wouldn't be any short-period comets left?
> DDY: It's impossible to put an exact date on this because comets are perturbed
> by planets.  Comets move around, and their orbits change.  But certainly on a
> time-scale of the solar system of 5 billion years, it's very surprising that
> there still would be comets.  I think comets continue to be an argument for
> recent creation.

> CW: What is the evolutionary response?
> DDY: They like to talk about an invisible "Oort" comet cloud.  It is said 
> to be 100,000 AU's out, far beyond Pluto, completely beyond sight and 
> detection.  Once in a while one or several of these comets sweep in towards 
> the sun to keep up the supply.  ... There may or may not be a comet cloud - 
> it's optional for the creation view.

We observe comets coming from far beyond Pluto.  To give you an idea of how
much space there is beyond Pluto,  try to do a scale drawing with the Sun
in one corner of a piece of paper,  any nearby star in the other corner,  and
then draw Pluto's orbit.  Regardless of where these comets are coming from,  
they are coming from beyond the solar system.

And as for "beyond detection",  the inner part of the Oort cloud is observable 
by Hubble.  Read the news recently?


> DDY: Well, one basic point is the slow recession of the moon outward from the
> earth.  Due to tidal friction (which would have been even greater in the past)
> the moon is leaving us at the rate of 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) a year.  And if you
> follow this backward in time you find that the moon would have been in direct,
> catastrophic contact with earth in about a quarter of the time that
> evolutionists require the moon and earth to have existed.  This is a 
> fundamental time problem for which astronomers have come up with no 
> explanation.

Moon Math Returns!  Let's see the calculation.


> From the physics, capture simply doesn't work.  

This is correct.  Capture (and separate accretion) theories don't work:  not
only do they fail to predict the chemical composition of both the Earth and
the Moon,  but they also require very unreasonable events to happen.  The 
leading theory to explain the origin of the Moon is a collision between a 
Mars-sized body and an Earth-sized body that formed both the Earth and the
Moon.  


Phil

ZZ    Oh goody, goody, goody another religious tangent note.  We haven't
ZZ    had one of those in quite awhile.  It must be at least 4 base notes or
ZZ    so. Mike you should have waited until tomorrow.  You are a day early
ZZ    for Make up a fact Friday.
    
    Congratulations Brian, you just confirmed my point.  Your statement
    above shows that it is natural for people to simply not want to explore
    all the options, but would prefer to maintain a tunnel vision lest you
    leave your comfort zone.   I believe it was the religious elitists
    that almost put Galileo to death because of his heresies.  How dare he
    state that the world was not flat.  How dare he!!!!! 
    
    Mike, I congratulate you for keeping all notes to a scientific
    perspective for the most part...be it true or false, you cited what
    scientists have found.  Brian, shame on you for falling into the
    whining category...Shame on you!!!! :-)
    
    -Jack
    The entries in this basenote 

    No Jack, If I was whining it would have been: (must be read while
    holding your nose to get the full nasal effect)
    
    Oh nooooooo, you are offenndinng meeeee by violating my riiiiight to
    not be subjected to mooooooore of this triiiiipe.  
    
    A real quick directory search shows we have an evolution topic which
    has been effectively rat-holed and tangentialized (I just made that up)
    that these little theories would fit in quite nicely.  
    
    Please spare me the tunnel vision b.s. Jack.  It works both ways.  BTW,
    I am willing to believe or accept that the universe was created.  I am
    unwilling to accept it was created 12,000, 20,000 or even 100,000 years
    ago or whatever recent time period ascribed by current creationism
    beliefs.  
    
    Brian

    
    The universe could also be just one day old. 
    What evidence is there, apart from your memories ?
     

RE: 444.17 by HBFDT1::SCHARNBERG "Senior Kodierwurst" 

> The universe could also be just one day old. 
> What evidence is there, apart from your memories ?

And what if you were created with memories?


Phil

    If I were created with memories then my past is an illusion.

    � And what if you were created with memories?
     That was my point.
    
    
    to the basenote:
    
    Why is it so surprising that there were excellent scientist and
    engineers in Greece and Egypt ? 

    <--- Because, look how run down their countries are now. ;')

    
    .9 says it all - you cannot get Genesis to work "naturally", it would
    have to be "supernatural", because it requires the suspension of
    natural laws.  Now, it is often interesting to hypothesize something
    fictional.  Consider, for example, the "not-computable" functions.
    After their existence was demonstrated, devotees of the non-computable
    went further in their classifications, dividing into "those that could
    be computed given an Oracle function" and "those that would still be
    non-computable even with an Oracle".  This is useful logically, and it
    is surprising how often "fictional" constructs turn out later to have
    practical application, like non-Euclidean geometry.
    
     The scientific endeavor is based on certain assumptions, which may be
    wrong.  In science, you are required to go with the data, and to
    choose the simplest among sufficient explanations.  Thus, Genesis is
    not scientific.  However, a more severe problem is that Genesis is not
    internally consistent, ie Cain's wife.  Thus, if I were going to go
    with a magical hypothesis, the Genesis story seems a poor choice.
    
     The problem Preofessor DeYoung attempts to confront has no solution.
    He cannot serve two masters.  You cannot obey two absolutes unless
    they are redundant, because otherwise there always will be a paradox
    when they conflict, as they must.  If you believe in the Genesis story,
    you cannot really be a scientist.
    
     Many of us as Christians totally reject DeYoung's contention that you
    cannot be really Christian without reconciling Genesis with science.
    Since ours is also the position of the Catholic Church, it is the
    majority view among Christians, leaving DeYoung &c on the fringe.  He
    is pointlessly tilting at windmills - you can never prove/disprove the
    occurrence of the supernatural in the distant past, and the majority,
    both Christian and not, will disbelieve any such explanations which
    conflict with their own senses.
    
     For many years, the Catholic Church contended that the Bible was
    indeed Holy Writ, and true from God, but that it was not suitable
    for interpretation by the layity.  Thus the church hierarchy
    discouraged the translation and general ownership of bibles, because
    misinterpretation would lead the unsophisticated astray.  Reading .9,
    I tend to see the wisdom of their view.
    
     bb

    Oh No! Existentialism.
    
    I thought this was going to be a Hegelian discussion.
    
    Colin
    
    PS - the langoliers ate yesterday, so there's no proof.
    
    

RE: 444.23 by GAAS::BRAUCHER

Is internal consistency a requirement of magic?  If so,  why?


Phil

    Before Silva slips in:
    
    (Topic) 444 is exactly 66.6... percent of 666.
    
    :-)

    
    .24
    
    Which is what "hegelian" referred to.  The notion that every thesis has
    an antithesis and come together in synthesis.  Creationists accept no
    antithesis. The coming together of creationism and evolution could be
    that evolution may be dead.  This is a point made by some scientists
    who accept evolution as a fact, but wonder how it applies to an
    organism that can:
    
    	a. exert increasing control over its own environment.
    
    	b. enable non-viable individuals to survive
    
    Basically, man is thwarting natural selection as Darwin describes it.
    5 billion people can't be wrong.
    
    Colin
    
    

      It seems to be kind of a bummer that science has to invalidate
      creation.  After all, what if there was/is a Creator???
    
      Just a couple quickies.
    
      One regarding apparent age of things.  I think God let the 
      cat out of the bag when He created Adam and Eve with apparent
      age.  I mean if you think of it, if God is infinite, and given
      that things were created with an age (i.e. an apparent beginning
      of existence such that it looks like it really aged for some time),
      the extent of age is irrelevent.  Be it 2 nanoseconds or 2 trilion
      years.  Who cares?
    
      I figure if He gave us stars partly so as to give us their light,
      He created them in such a way that the light was already seen from
      earth.  And we could calculate how far away they are and figure that
      they'd have to be at least that old!!!
    
      If I was God, I'd have had light from stars hitting earth right away.
    
      The only other things is I have heard of biochemists who have looked
      into how certain molecules must be arranged in order to produce the
      kind of arrangements that have life as we know it.
    
      It just doesn't happen naturally.  Try as they might, they simply 
      cannot get the needed reactions to occur.  Too many other ones want
      to (and will) occur.  This is really a huge point to me.
    
      Finally, I have never witnessed life come from no life.  There is
      no data.
    
      Its all theories and I don't see the scientific method as being able
      to support any theory of beginnings (which is what genesis means).
      There's no data.  Its all hypothesis.  
    
      How did things start?  How did life happen?
    
      I don't believe the scientific method can be applied to such
      questions.
    
      The scientific method requires data and there is no data for this
      kind of thing.
    
    						Tony

>    Before Silva slips in:
    
oo-er missus.  Are you allowed to make that sort of insinuation in
a family conference?

Chris.

                     ___   ~----._
            _______     ~~---.__  `-.
        --~~       ~~-----.__   `-.  \
        _,--------------._   ~---. \  `.
      '~  _,------------. ~~-     `.\  |
     _,--~      _____    `        _____|_
         _,---~~          -----         `-.            /##
      ,-~   __,---~~--.       `._____,',--.`.        ,'##/
    ,' _,--~  __,----.          `  () '' ()' :    _,-' `#'
     ,~   _,-'   ,' ,--          `---' \ `.__,)--'     ,'
       ,-'      -  (                                _,'
     .'   _-~ ,'    `--                          ,-'
    /  ,-'  ,'  __                        ___,--'    _______________
     ,'  ,'~ ,-~     /            ___.ooo88o  |    ,'               `.
    /  ,' ,-'    /               ' 8888888888,'   _|                 |
      /  /    /                 '  `888888888.`.  \        TONY!!!!  |
     /  /  /      /            '    `888888888 |   |                 |
       '      /     /         '       `888888','   `._______________,'
         /                   '           ~~~,'
        /   /  /            '            ,-'
         /           /                 ,'         

    Creation Science... Wow maan! Isnt that where the get some mad
    sicentist dude who makes wierd creatures that swallow cities? Attacks
    large lizards like Godzilla? Weeooo!! Sounds tooo rad to me maaaan!:)
    

    
    >  Finally, I have never witnessed life come from no life.  There is
    >  no data.
    
    That used to be the official position of the Church.  Maggots
    sprang from nothing in rotten meat, mice simply appeared in
    heaps of old dirty linen.
    
    Science only posits that it may be possible to create life at
    some time in the future.  Recombinent DNA is already possible.
    
    If you assume that life only exists on a certain planet on the outer
    rim of an uninteresting galaxy, then the peculiar arrangement of
    molecules does seem to defy chance.  However, if you agree to 
    the possibility of billions of planets throught the universe
    across a timescale of billions of years then it's possible that the
    random events occured several times in several different places.
    
    Colin
    
    
    	"God does not play dice"  Neils Bohr
    	"Stop telling God what to do"  Albert Einstein
    
    
    

    
    .34
    
    On the other hand, why hasn't millions of years of evolution
    developed better teeth & knees in Man?  Look at sharks.
    Rows of gnashers and no knees.  

    Some sharks.  Nurse sharks have square teeth for crushing and grinding
    as they prefer conch.  Whale sharks have no teeth but baleen for
    sifting plankton ala whales and rays.  

    Ok OK, but no knees, right?

>                          -< no knees is good knees >-

I'm quite attached to my knees, thank you very much, knobbles and all.

Chris.

    Yes, kno knees on sharks.  

    No knees, no elbo's!!:)

    A joint effort? 

>    	"God does not play dice"  Neils Bohr
>    	"Stop telling God what to do"  Albert Einstein
 
    I think you have your quotes reversed, haven't you?   
    

    SETUP:

SNARF!!!

    invalid snarf, de-create it....

444.45 by CSSREG::BROWN "Just Visiting This Planet"

> invalid snarf

ANST.

    > invalid snarf

    There's a PBS special currently airing (produced in Chicago) that deals
    with the creation vs. evolution controversy in public schools.  It is
    definitely biased toward evolution, but still interesting.
    
    Mike

    The only way it couldn't be biased toward creation or evolution would
    be to have a third bias.

    Again, this article is interesting speculation, but the information
    about quantized red-shifts doesn't appear to be speculation.  See the
    section about Tifft!
    
{from Chuck Missler's Personal Update - "Is Light Slowing Down?", Mar 1995}

In earlier articles, we discussed the nature of time and the fallacy of linear
and absolute time concepts.  We now know that time is a *physical* property and
varies with respect to mass, acceleration, and gravity.  Time is tied to our
concepts of the curvature of space-time, and the velocity of light.  The
velocity of light is, in fact, a parameter which appears to affect almost every
aspect of both cosmological physics on the large scale, as well as quantum
physics in the particle scale.  It is, of course, considered to be the
fundamental *constant* of physics.

Historical Perspective
----------------------
The early Greek philosophers generally followed Aristotle's belief that the
speed of light was infinite (exceptions: Empedocles of Acragas [c. 450 B.C.];
also Moslem scientists Aviecenna and Alhazen [1000 A.D.] both believed in a
finite speed for light; Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon [1600 A.D.] both believed
in a finite speed of light).  As late as 1600 A.D., Johannes Kepler, one of the
fathers of modern astronomy, maintained the majority view that light was
instantaneous in its travels.  Rene Descartes, the highly influential scientist,
mathematician and philosopher (who died in 1650), also strongly held to the
belief in the instantaneous propagation of light.  He strongly influenced the
scientists of that period and those who followed.

Speed of Light Measured
-----------------------
In 1677 Olaf Roemer, the Danish astronomer, noted that the time elapsed between
eclipses of Jupiter with its moons became shorter as the Earth moved closer to
Jupiter and became longer as the Earth and Jupiter drew farther apart.  This
anomalous behavior could be accounted for by a *finite* speed of light.
Initially, Roemer's suggestion was hooted at.  It took another half century for
the notion to be accepted.  In 1729 the British astronomer James Bradley's
independent confirmation of Roemer's measurements finally ended the opposition
to a finite value for the speed of light.  Roemer's work, which had split the
scientific community for 53 years, was finally vindicated.

Over the past 300 years, the velocity of light has been measured 163 times by
16 different methods.  (As a Naval Academy graduate, I must point out that
Albert Michelson, Class of 1873, measured the speed of light at the Academy.  In
1881 he measured it as 299,853 km/s.  In 1907 he was the first American to
receive the Nobel Prize in the sciences.  In 1923 he measured it as 299,798
km/s.  In 1933, at Irvine, CA, as 299,774 km/s.)

Recent Discovery
----------------
Australian physicist Barry Setterfield and mathematician Trevor Norman examined
all of the available experimental measurements to date and have announced a
discover: the speed of light appears to have been slowing down over the years!
They all are approximately 186,000 miles/s; or about 1 foot/nanosecond (a
dynamical second is defined as 1/31,556,925.9747 of the earth's orbital period
and was a standard until 1967.  Atomic time is defined in terms of one
revolution of an electron in the ground state orbit of the hydrogen atom).

Year     Who         Method             Speed of Light     Error Margin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1657     Roemer      Io eclipse         307,600            � 5400 km/s
1875     Harvard      "    "            299,921            � 13 km/s
1983     NBS         laser              299,792.4856       � .0003 km/s

While the margin of error improved over the years, the mean value has noticeably
decreased.  In fact, the bands of uncertainty hardly overlap.  As you would
expect, these findings are highly controversial, especially to the more
traditional physicists.  However, many who scoffed at the idea initially have
subsequently begun to take a closer look at the possibilities.  Alan Montgomery,
the Canadian mathematician, has also analyzed the data statistically and has
concluded that the decay of c, the velocity of light, has followed a CSC�
curve with a correlation coefficient of better than 99%.

A New Perspective
-----------------
This curve would imply that the speed of light may have been 10-30% faster in
the time of Christ; twice as fast in the days of Solomon; and four times as fast
in the days of Abraham.  It would imply that the velocity of light was more than
10 million times faster prior to 3000 B.C.  This possibility would also totally
alter our concepts of time and the age of the universe.  The universe might
actually be less than 10,000 years old!

Other Implications
------------------
The key properties of the vacuum of free space include electrical permittivity,
magnetic permeability, zero-point energy, and intrinsic impedance.  If any of
these properties change isotopically, then both atomic behavior and the speed of
light would *vary* throughout the universe.  The product of magnetic
permittivity is the reciprocal of c�.  The permittivity of free space has not
changed, but permeability has.  It is related to the "stretching out" of free
space at the time of creation.  The "stretching" of the heavens is mentioned
many times in the Bible (Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:27, 45:12, 51:13, Jeremiah
10:12, 51:15, Zechariah 12:1, the heavens as a 'scroll': Isaiah 34:4, Revelation
6:14).  Setterfield has analyzed 164 measurements of c, the velocity of light,
gathered over the past 320 years, which reveal a statistically significant decay
in c.  When coupled with associated c-dependent "constants," the data includes
some 639 values measured by 25 different methods.  A comparison of dates in
orbital time from history, archaeology, tree rings, etc., with atomic dates from
a variety of radioactive isotopes has provided some 1228 data points over 4550
years.  Relaxation, or release, has set in, perhaps after the fall in Genesis 3.
The shrinkage of free space could be the cause for the observed slowing down of
the velocity of light.  The "Redshift" may be caused by a decay of c.  In fact,
the universe may be contracting, not expanding.

A Tiff about Tifft
------------------
William Tifft, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, has been collecting
data for about 20 years on redshifts, and it now appears that the universe might
*not* be expanding.  In the 1970's, Tifft noted that the redshift seemed to
depend upon the type of galaxy that was emitting the light.  Spiral galaxies
tended to have higher redshifts than elliptical galaxies in the same cluster.
Dimmer galaxies, higher redshifts than brighter ones.  Even more disturbing,
Tifft has discovered that some clusters and pairs of galaxies exhibit only
certain *discrete* values, rather than the more random distribution one would
expect if the shifts were distance related.  These redshifts appear in discrete
quantum levels, similar to the energy states of subatomic particles in quantum
physics (Dava Sobel, "Man Stops Universe, Maybe" Discover, April 1993).

These findings are not popular with astronomers or cosmologists and emotions,
even in physics, run deep.  If the redshift is not a simple measure of velocity,
then the conjectures about the Big Bang, and its derivative issues such as
"dark" matter, etc., tend to fall apart.  The elaborate theoretical models of
the Big Bang traditions may be headed for the scrap heap.  There is also
disturbing evidence that the redshifts *change* over time.  There seems to be
some basic physics involved that has yet to be understood.  These changes
could be due to basic life cycles of galaxies, the nature of space or light
itself, or other possibilities.

There have been a number of attempts to refute Tifft's observations.  One recent
one by Bruce Guthrie and William Napier, at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh,
measured the redshifts of 89 spiral galaxies.  The results surprised the
skeptics by uncovering data that *supports* the case for quantized redshifts.
If Setterfield proves correct, then this might also explain the quantization of
the redshifts.  Specific values of c govern the quantization of the emitted
wavelengths, and quantized redshifts could result (in a varying c scenario,
emitted energy flux remains unchanged, upholding the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Power is thereby conserved.  High c values result in lower photon energies at
emission, and a consequent redshifting of light from distant astronomical
sources).

Radioactive Dating
------------------
Radioactive Decay rates have changed.  The decay of c affects the speed of
nucleons in the atom, and the alpha particle escape frequency.  Thus, all
radioactive decay rates have decreased in proportion to c throughout the recent
history of the universe.  For many other reasons, the radio dating methods,
carbon-14, potassium-argon, or any other atomic clock method, are unreliable for
very large ages.

Entropy
-------
The Second Law of Thermodynamics indicates that in a closed system, as time
flows forward, energy in the universe is becoming less and less available.
"Entropy" is the measure of the state of "energy unavailability" in an
energy-containing system.  Entropy always *increases*.  Orderly systems of
molecules represent low entropy systems.  Orderly systems tend, on their own,
to become disorderly and chaotic through the processes of decay and
disintegration.  With passage of time the normal tendency of things is for such
system to become disorderly, chaotic, and randomized.  Their "entropy"
increases.

We experience this in our daily routine: we spend effort to organize our
desk top, our garage, our school locker.  Soon, however, as "random" events take
their toll, everything tends toward randomness - the entropy increases.  To
bring order out of chaos, we must put in outside energy or information:
instructions, codes, blueprints, and effort.  Order comes from chaos *only* if
someone *makes it happen*.  Time plus chance always leads toward chaos - not
order - without the intervention of outside intelligence.

Genesis
-------
In the beginning, there apparently was a close connection between the spiritual
and physical realms, until the fall of man in Genesis 3.  The universe was
pronounced "good" - free or defects - by the Creator.  A high degree of order
originally existed; that is, there was very low entropy.  But then Adam fell and
the curse of sin began.  Disorder and entropy began to increase.  Could the
slowing down of the speed of light have begun with the increase of entropy and,
thus, both be a result of the curse brought about by sin?  The subsequent death,
dying, decaying, and destroying processes affected not only man, but nature as
well (Romans 8:19-23).

Caveat
------
The possibility that the speed of light is not a "constant" after all and has
been slowing down is highly controversial and conjectural.  Yet, some of the
most dramatic changes in scientific perspective come only after much debate,
vigorous opposition, and the like.  The entire field of physics is presently in
a state of upheaval.  The particle physicists have decided there is no
casualty, and that the universe has at least 10 dimensions.  The red shift has
been discovered to be quantized and that may shatter previous conceptions of our
universe.  Particle physics has totally altered our concepts of reality.  Many
of today's scientific orthodoxies, however, originated from yesterday's
unpopular heresies.  The apparent decay in the velocity of light may be another
of these controversial "heresies" looming on the horizon of modern physics.
Only time will tell.  But the Bible changes not.  It doesn't need to.

The Reality of Eternity
-----------------------
There is a part of you that is not physical, and, therefore, has no time: it is
eternal.  Our Creator has provided a destiny for us that is so fantastic that it
is entirely beyond our own eligibility, or ability to earn it.  That is why God
has provided for our eligibility through His Son.  His plan of redemption is
available for the asking.  But it's up to us to accept it.  Throughout eternity
you will either be in the presence of God, or separated from Him.  What will it
be for you?

Bibliography
------------
Dolphin, L., and Montgomery, A., "Is the Velocity of Light Constant in Time?"
Galilean Electrodynamics, 1993.

Setterfield, B., The Speed of Light and the Red-Shift, pre-publication paper
received by private communications.  (Box 318, Blackwood, South Australia,
5051).

Setterfield, B., and Norman, T., The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time, Invited
Research Paper, SRI, August 1987.

Troitskii, V.S., "Physical Constants and the Evolution of the Universe,"
Astrophysics and Space Science, vol 139, pp. 389-411, Dec. 1987.

    the follow is from the Mailbag section of Chuck Missler's November 1994
    newsletter:
    
    Dear Chuck,
    
    I am a forensic scientist with a heavy background in cell and molecular
    biology (I currently am the supervisor of a DNA biotechnology company
    in Seattle) and I relish the Bible being presented from a scientific
    viewpoint.
    
    I wanted to pass along a tidbit of information regarding DNA that you
    could chase down.  DNA, when in a superhelical state, just prior to the
    beginning of its replication cycle in the cell nucleus, forms a cross!
    
    "It is not at all clear why a cruciform structure should arise in DNA
    if it can easily transform itself into a regular double helix,"
    "Unraveling DNA," by Maxim D. Frank-Kamenetskii, p. 107.

    Here's an interesting comparison of science and the Bible.  You can
    really see the imprint of God now that we know the truth!
    
    Earth is Round
    --------------
    For centuries, people believe the earth was flat.  Obviously these
    people ignored God's Word.
    
    Isaiah 40:22  "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
    inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens 
    as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:"
    
    Earth hangs in Space
    --------------------
    'State-of-the-art' thinking in ancient times seem to agree with the
    myths from the Islamic Koran and Hindu Veda about the earth riding on 
    the back of the turtle. 
    
    Job 26:7  "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth 
    the earth upon nothing."
    
    Stars are Innumerable
    ---------------------
    It wasn't until within the last 20 years or so that astronomers have
    finally realized that the stars are innumerable, and use the volume of
    sand on seashores as a model.  In ancient times, astronomers would catalog 
    stars that they've counted.  For quite some time, they believed there 
    were only 1,200 stars!
    
    Genesis 15:5 "And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward 
    heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said 
    unto him, So shall thy seed be."
    
    Nuclear Fusion
    --------------
    For years, Bible critics used to use this passage as proof that the
    Bible was false.  The reasoning was that nothing of this magnitude
    could destroy the earth this way.  Now we know better.  The Hebrew word
    for "dissolve" ("destroyed" in some versions) literally means to
    "untie."  This is exactly what happens when splitting atoms.  Untying
    them is what causes the great releases of energy.
    
    2 Peter 3:10-12 "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the
    night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and 
    the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works 
    that are therein shall be.  Seeing then that all these things shall be
    dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation 
    and godliness,  Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of
    God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the 
    elements shall melt with fervent heat?"  
    
    Oceans' Floor
    -------------
    For centuries, man believed the floor of the seas were smooth and
    gently sloping.  Now we know otherwise.  The infamous Marianas Trench
    is 7 miles deep.  You could put Mt. Everest inside of it and still have
    over 1 mile of water over it!
    
    Job 38:16 "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou
    walked in the search of the depth?"
    
    Jonah 2:5-6 "The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth 
    closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.  I went
    down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me 
    for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my
    God."
    
    Sea Currents
    ------------
    Interesting background on this one.  The man who went on to chart all
    the major shipping lanes in all the oceans, and is the founder of the
    Annapolis Academy, was ministered by this passage.  He was ill at the 
    time and his son was reading Psalm 8 to him.  When the boy read verse 8, 
    the Holy Spirit ministered to Matthew Fontaine Maury.  He jumped up and 
    said, "Well if God's Word says so, they must be there!"  His statue at 
    Annapolis shows him with the navigator's tool in one hand, a Bible in the 
    other.  Also note the Hebrew word for "paths" literally means a 
    well-trodden path or caravan route.  
    
    Psalm 8:8 "The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever
    passeth through the paths of the seas."
    
    Hydrological Cycle
    ------------------
    Amos, a mere fig picker, had the Lord reveal to him the hydrological
    cycle.  Likewise for Isaiah.  'State-of-the-art' thinking in ancient 
    times seem to agree with the myths from the Islamic Koran and Hindu Veda 
    about a giant frog causing rainfall.  You can see how much more advanced 
    the Word of God is.
    
    Amos 9:6 "It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath 
    founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, 
    and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name."
    
    Isaiah 55:10 "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and
    returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth 
    and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:"
    
    Wind Currents
    -------------
    In addition to the hydrological cycle, God reveals the wind currents to
    Solomon.
    
    Ecclesiastes 1:6-7 "The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about 
    unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth 
    again according to his circuits.  All the rivers run into the sea; yet 
    the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither 
    they return again."

    "The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the
    evidence of the Divine origin of the Bible, the Grand Juror and
    sublimity of God's remedy for fallen man are more appreciated, and the
    future is illumined with hope and joy." - Samuel F.B. Morse
    
    "There are 2 books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into
    error: first, the volume of Scriptures, which reveal the will of God;
    then the volume of the Creature, which express his power." - Francis
    Bacon (author of the scientific method)
    
    "We may not have all the answers yet, but I have never found anything
    to make me doubt the truth of God's Word, the Bible." - Dr. Duane Gish,
    vice president of the Institute for Creation Research
    
    {Dr. Henry Morris, "Men of Science," Master Books, Colorado Springs, CO} 
    
    "If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry,
    and biochemistry on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot
    understand how the thought of those minds should have any more
    significance than the sound of the wind." - C.S. Lewis

    Just a nit, but doesn't Genesis read that god said "let there be light"
    a few days prior to creating the sun, moon and stars?? 

.15>    Mike, I congratulate you for keeping all notes to a scientific
.15>    perspective for the most part...be it true or false, you cited what
.15>    scientists have found.

Slight correction there, Jack. Mike has brought forth what thumper scientists
have found, not the larger body of science in its entirety. For each thumper
scientist who proposes any of this, you can find more than one non-thumper
scientist who refutes it, so what's been gained?

In general, regarding the discussion, what's to be gained by espousing
Scientific Creationism, other than the same old "We're Right! We're Right!"
BS? You like it? Fine. If you want to "push" it, though, you just tend
to piss folks off. What's gained?

    Jack:
    
    I fail to see why you would be pissed off though!  If your atheistic
    view is really deep rooted in your life, then anything that is said
    here would be the words of the misguided few, and should be of no
    threat to anybody!
    
    Of course the views would be forth by thumpers.  Since non thumpers
    view thumping as ridiculous anyway.  What disturbs me is that the non
    thumpers have set up a paradigm to totally disqualify thumper
    scientists as psychopaths.
    
    -Jack

    .52
    
    > I wanted to pass along a tidbit of information regarding DNA that you
    > could chase down.  DNA, when in a superhelical state, just prior to the
    > beginning of its replication cycle in the cell nucleus, forms a cross!
    
    > "It is not at all clear why a cruciform structure should arise in DNA
    
    I wanted to pass along a tidbit of information regarding me that you
    could chase down.  I, when in a freshly awakened state, just prior to
    the beginning of my arising from bed, form a cross!
    
    It is not at all clear why a cruciform structure should arise in me.

  sometimes when i'm playing Scrabble, the first two words
  form a cross.  kinda scary, ain't it?

    re:.8
    
    I am awed by this amazing rebuttle filled with facts and evidences.  
    
    Would you prefer a title of  "scientific evidence that contradicts
    current accepted theories"?  (I don't think all that would fit in the
    title space)

    Difficult to nail that one down Di.

RE: 444.61 by CSOA1::LEECH

Rebuttal.  Evidence.

RE: 444.9 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> DDY: Well, one basic point is the slow recession of the moon outward from the
> earth.  Due to tidal friction (which would have been even greater in the past)
> the moon is leaving us at the rate of 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) a year.  And if you
> follow this backward in time you find that the moon would have been in direct,
> catastrophic contact with earth in about a quarter of the time that
> evolutionists require the moon and earth to have existed.  This is a 
> fundamental time problem for which astronomers have come up with no 
> explanation.

Let me help you a little.  The age of the Earth and the Moon,  as shown 
by radioactive dating (physics,  not evolution) of rocks is a little over 
4 billion years.  A quarter of this age would be a billion years:  Let's 
do a calculation for one and a third billion years (1,300,000,000):


3 inches per year * 1.33 billion years = 4 billion inchs

4 billion inchs / 12 inches per foot = 333 million feet

333 million feet/ 5280 feet per mile = 63 thousand miles.

Question for the student:  Current distance to the moon is _____________?
(Hint:  not 63 thousand miles)


Phil

    
    
    .35
    
   >   On the other hand, why hasn't millions of years of evolution
   >     developed better teeth & knees in Man?  Look at sharks.
   >     Rows of gnashers and no knees.
    
    Evolution only requires that you live long enough to successfully
    breed and raise young. Teeth and knees that last longer than that
    is like having a car radidator that out lives the span of the car
    by ten years; Over-designed and useless.
    
              

>>    	So how far from the earth *is* the moon?

	when?

It depends on the height of the mooner and where he's mooning from.

    
    
    a mile anahalf

    .65
    
    > So how far from the earth *is* the moon?
    
    1,904,000,000,000,000 nanofurlongs, on average.

    <--- You're a cruel man, but fair.

    .42 
    
    Absolutely reversed

The Moon isn't very far away at all,  about 0.00000003 light-years.  

Oh,  and nit:  Earth is a place name,  like Colorado Springs,  as is the
Moon,  and should be capitalized.


Phil

         CREATION SCIENCE    The ultimate oxymoron!
    
         Regarding all those great scientists in ancient civilizations: If
    they were so far advanced, then mankind sure lost a lot during the
    dark ages when superstition reigned supreme. 
    
    	Mike

>  <<< Note 444.57 by BOXORN::HAYS "I think we are toast. Remember the jam?" >>>
>Let me help you a little.  The age of the Earth and the Moon,  as shown 
>by radioactive dating (physics,  not evolution) of rocks is a little over 
>4 billion years.  A quarter of this age would be a billion years:  Let's 
>do a calculation for one and a third billion years (1,300,000,000):
    
    I have no idea how he/they calculate it, but using your math model,
    let's try tracing it backwards to the entire 4 billion years.

3 inches per year * 4 billion years = 12 billion inchs = 189,393.939 miles

>Question for the student:  Current distance to the moon is _____________?
>(Hint:  not 63 thousand miles)

    The mean surface-to-surface distance is 233,810 miles.

    The difference, by your model, is 44,416 miles.  Now you have the
    problem of gravitational forces between the 2 bodies to deal with.  You
    already stated that capture isn't an alternative.  At this distance,
    the moon would experience the "crack like a whip" and be tossed further
    out than it probably is now.
    
    Mike

    
    It's turtles all the way down.
    

 Z           Regarding all those great scientists in ancient civilizations:
 Z   If    they were so far advanced, then mankind sure lost a lot during the
 Z       dark ages when superstition reigned supreme. 
    
    Consider the Roman Empire worshipped Ceaser amongst many other gods. 
    The Greeks were very much into mythology yet these two powers laid alot
    of the foundation for what we are today!
    
    -jack

    RE: .61, Steve
    
        >I am awed by this amazing rebuttle filled with facts and evidences.
    
    Tou mean facts and evidences like DNA forming the shape of a cross?!
    
    ...Tom

    Tom, it's just interesting speculation, maybe even coincidence, but
    it's odd that this happens considering all the possible shapes.
    
    Mike

re:         <<< Note 444.58 by MKOTS3::JMARTIN "You-Had-Forty-Years!!!" >>>

Actually, I didn't say I was pissed off by the Scientific Creationists,
Jack, but that, their net effect is to piss people off. It's just like
many of the notes I respond to in here - I find them mildly disturbing
due to the apparent lack of thought that goes into them, and the totally
absurd ideas they put forth. It's certainly no threat.

>    it's odd that this happens considering all the possible shapes.

Well, just keep in mind that neither the Christians, nor the Jews, nor
the Romans had any sort of copyright on the concept of two straight
line segments intersecting perpendicularly.

    .74
    
    > At this distance,
    > the moon would experience the "crack like a whip" and be tossed further
    > out than it probably is now.
    
    No, it wouldn't.  At a rather greater distance than 44,000 miles the
    Moon would experience such great tidal forces that it would be
    shattered, and the Earth would have rings like those around all four of
    the Solar System's gas giants.  But for that to happen, the moon would
    have to have been in a "stable" orbit around the Earth, which most
    assuredly was not the case, given that the two bodies were probably
    created by the collision of two other planet'sized bodies during the
    formative stage of the Solar System.

re last several:

I believe the recession rate of the moon from the earth is approximately
1 cm/year, not 3-4 inches.  Will look it up tonight.

>               <<< Note 444.74 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!" >>>
>                                 -< moon math >-

Er, um, I don't know whether you missed it, but .14 contains the current
scientific explanation of where the Moon came from.

There's a lot more to account for than just the Moon's distance and tidal
recession. The current theory explains it all pretty well.

BTW, extending tidal recession backwards indefinitely is moot - if the Moon
gets inside a certain distance from Earth known as the "Roche limit", it gets
pulled apart by tidal forces. Since we have a Moon, not a ring like Saturn,
the Moon was never that close in its present form.

RE: 444.74 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> The difference, by your model, is 44,416 miles.  Now you have the problem 
> of gravitational forces between the 2 bodies to deal with.

Don't you understand that gravitational forces are why bodies orbit?


> At this distance,  the moon would experience the "crack like a whip" and 
> be tossed further out than it probably is now.

Wow.  Why doesn't the space shuttle 'experience the "crack like a whip" 
and be tossed further out'?  It's even closer to the Earth...

It's not a question of distance.  It's a question of energy and angular
momentum.


Phil

    
    > It's turtles all the way down.
    
    From where did that statement come?  I have a vague memory that Stepen
    Hawking used it in his book.

    RE: Roche limit
    
    yes I recall this now from astronomy classes.
    
    This brings up another question though in regards to the collision
    theory.  Why didn't the Roche limit take effect before the collision
    and shatter both bodies?  Is it because it only applies to stable
    orbits?  If so, at what point did all of these planets/bodies suddenly 
    decide to adopt stable orbits and inherit Roche limits?
    
    Add to this that there's only 1 planet in our system that can sustain
    life (including climate) and I get real suspicious about accidental
    creation.
    
    Asking me to believe this all occurred out of an explosion requires
    more faith from me than what is needed to believe in God.
    
    Mike

>Wow.  Why doesn't the space shuttle 'experience the "crack like a whip" 
>and be tossed further out'?  It's even closer to the Earth...
    
    not enough pull.  It's happened to our early satellites sent to other
    planets.  Jupiter had enough pull to grab a comet.
    
    Mike

    
    .85:
    
    It's from a joke I heard, probably in this conference, although it
    *may* have been in `A Brief History Of Time'.
    

    Dr. Seuss's "Yertle the Turtle"
    
    NNTTM
    

    .86
    
    > Why didn't the Roche limit take effect before the collision
    > and shatter both bodies?
    
    Maybe it did.  Bear in mind that inertia would tend to keep the
    fragments moving in essentially the same direction as the bodies were
    moving before violating Roche's limit.  These were not explosions, they
    were just breakings-up.  So the actual collision may have been between
    two large collections of small chunks - the amount of energy released
    would be essentially the same, and the resultant scattering of chunks
    could have produced the Earth, the Moon, and dozens/thousands/millions
    of smaller bodies that went off in various directions.

RE: 444.86 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> This brings up another question though in regards to the collision
> theory.  Why didn't the Roche limit take effect before the collision
> and shatter both bodies?  

Probably did.  The net effect would be rather the same.  


Phil

    Does anyone know of a source that explains the Hebrew Mazzeroth or any
    type of zodiac that pre-dates the Babylonian Zodiac?  I'm looking for
    ancient names of the constellations.
    
    From what little I've been able to gather on the Hebrew Mazzeroth,
    the names allegedly came from Adam and Seth and may be recorded in one 
    of Enoch's writings.  The 12 constellations are said to represent the
    12 tribes of Israel.  Tracing the Sun through the constellations along
    the eliptic yields a whole new meaning to Psalm 19:1.
    
Psalms 19:1
THE heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

    thanks,
    Mike

>               <<< Note 444.87 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!" >>>
>    not enough pull.  It's happened to our early satellites sent to other
>    planets.  Jupiter had enough pull to grab a comet.

So you say this "crack like a whip" would happen to the Moon but not the
Space Shuttle?

So... why not? Galileo proved gravity's pull is the same regardless of the
mass of the body being pulled.

Maybe you should elaborate on this whip thing.

>               <<< Note 444.92 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!" >>>
>    of Enoch's writings.  The 12 constellations are said to represent the
>    12 tribes of Israel.  Tracing the Sun through the constellations along
>    the eliptic yields a whole new meaning to Psalm 19:1.
          ^
         ecliptic
    
Good trick, a Zodiac that pre-dates Babylon but mentions the 12 tribes.

    .94
    
    > Good trick, a Zodiac that pre-dates Babylon but mentions the 12 tribes.
    
    God did it.

    He's like that.

>    Asking me to believe this all occurred out of an explosion requires
>    more faith from me than what is needed to believe in God.

And asking others of us to believe in magical spontaneous creations
by a mythical being whose existance can be proven even less, and for which
there is less physical evidence than the natural surroundings and the
reasonable therories which have been devised as part of a scientific
process, is also a task which requires a type of faith we'd prefer not
to pursue. So what difference does any of this make?

You see a belief in anything BUT Creationism to be difficult. Many others
are on the flip side. Your faith isn't going to change any minds.

    No trickery needed or desired.  The Persians also have a set of
    constellation names that pre-dates Babylon.
    
    It's a shame "expert" astronomers don't even know the constellations'
    real names.
    
    Mike

re .92:

>    The 12 constellations are said to represent the
>    12 tribes of Israel.  Tracing the Sun through the constellations along
>    the eliptic yields a whole new meaning to Psalm 19:1.

Actually if you trace the Sun along the ecliptic you'll find it passes
through 13 constellations.  Maybe 14, I forget if it nicks Cetus or not.
It spends more time in Ophiuchus than some of the other zodiac constellations.

re .61:

Your proposed subject would at least be somewhat accurate.

If people want to believe God created the world in 6 days there's nothing
wrong with that.  Just don't call it science, because it isn't.  Science
is a particular method of observation, coming up with theories, testing
the theories, refining (or even discarding) the theories, testing the new
theories etc.  Nowhere is there allowance for a leap of faith.

Creationists generally use scientific evidence as "proof" of their theory when
it fits and either ignore or attempt to refute similar evidence when it hurts
their cause.  This isn't science.  Science accepts opposing evidence as proof
a theory is incorrect or needs refinement.

The subjects Mike Heiser brings up in his early notes is typical of this.
Nowhere does he mention a variety of evidence that state the earth is old,
such as radioisotope dating.

Second, the evidence Creationists use (if accepted as fact) only point out
potential problems with the idea the earth formed billions of years ago. 
Nothing in them indicates any evidence of any sort of supernatural Creator
actually creating Earth pretty much as we know it in 6 days.  A leap of faith
"The earth isn't billions of years old, therefore God created it in 6 days" is
not science. 

    Back to .40, there are knees on whales, sometimes! (A known phenomena
    in which whales occasionally grow hind legs due to genetic
    throwback...)

    .102
    
    Yup.  Roughly 1 in every 1,000 sperm whales grows hind legs.  It's an
    atavistic trait similar to extraordinary hairiness in humans, which is
    at present known in a family in Mexico, whose males are as hairy as the
    werewolf in the old horror films.  The females are less hairy; their
    hair grows in patches instead of being a pretty much all-over covering
    above the waist.

    Re: .101
>                    -< My sign is Ophiuchus. What's yours? >-
    
    The Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
    
>wrong with that.  Just don't call it science, because it isn't.  Science
>is a particular method of observation, coming up with theories, testing
>the theories, refining (or even discarding) the theories, testing the new
>theories etc.  Nowhere is there allowance for a leap of faith.
    
    ...and an accurate model attempts to address all the possibilities and
    deal with all the questions raised by the evidence.

>Creationists generally use scientific evidence as "proof" of their theory when
>it fits and either ignore or attempt to refute similar evidence when it hurts
>their cause.  This isn't science.  Science accepts opposing evidence as proof
>a theory is incorrect or needs refinement.

    This only happens in a perfect world.  We all have our biases.  I have
    always believed that scientists on both sides aren't able to deal with
    this issue with 100% integrity because of their biases.
    
>The subjects Mike Heiser brings up in his early notes is typical of this.
>Nowhere does he mention a variety of evidence that state the earth is old,
>such as radioisotope dating.
    
    That wasn't the intention of the topic.  The intent was to show the
    other side of the story.  We've already had your side of the story
    forced down our throats in public schools.  There are evidences and
    questions on both sides that demand attention, but we're only getting
    half the story.  This topic is to post articles from scientists showing
    evidence that evolution is not the final answer.

>Second, the evidence Creationists use (if accepted as fact) only point out
>potential problems with the idea the earth formed billions of years ago. 
>Nothing in them indicates any evidence of any sort of supernatural Creator
>actually creating Earth pretty much as we know it in 6 days.  A leap of faith
>"The earth isn't billions of years old, therefore God created it in 6 days" is
>not science. 

    The articles so far have been about an old earth problem.  However,
    skepticism isn't the only way to address divine intervention.  We'll
    get to this issue in due time.
    
    Mike

RE: 444.104 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> every story has 2 sides 

Only two?  After all,  there are thousands of creation stories from
cultures all around the world.  


> We've already had your side of the story forced down our throats in 
> public schools.  

We do try to teach some real math in public schools.  What's your problem 
with that?

Oh,  it makes Moon Math harder to believe.  I see.


Phil

RE: 444.106 by CAPNET::ROSCH

> I think the turtles quote is either ...

I think it's older than that.  I recall a reference to it from the later
1800's...

> Creationism is unfalsifiable

That's another way of saying that creationism isn't science.  A scientific
theory must be testable:  That is,  there must be possible measurements,
experiments or observations that can disprove the theory.  A good
scientific theory has been tested by many different means and has predicted
all of the observed outcomes.  Evolution and gravity are examples of good
theories.


Phil

    RE: Note 444.106 by CAPNET::ROSCH
    
    Your such a cynic, and I like it! :)
    
    ..Tom

>>    I think the turtles quote is either from a Hawking lecture or Fenneyman
>>    (sp?)

    you mean Feynman?

>               <<< Note 444.99 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!" >>>
>    No trickery needed or desired.  The Persians also have a set of
>    constellation names that pre-dates Babylon.
>    It's a shame "expert" astronomers don't even know the constellations'
>    real names.

So what's in a name? - an arbitrary label for an arbitrary grouping of random
stars.  Not even that, really - the current definition of "constellation" is
simply a patch of sky within borders drawn on a latitude/longitude type grid
defined by the orientation of Earth's axis at the start of the year 1875.
The borders roughly correspond to the traditional constellation outlines.

Most of our current constellation names come from the Greeks, except
for down south where they couldn't see. Many of the names of the stars
themselves are Arabic, with varying degrees of distortion. So what's the
point, other than humans like to label things? I don't believe in astrology.

re turtles:

I think a few cultures actually did describe the world as
riding on the back of some cosmic turtle.  Some American Indian
culture I believe.  Don't know what they beleived this turtle was
on (of course 'turtles all the way down' is certainly a joke)

re constellations:

Different constellations had different names in different cultures
until the Greek names spread.  Not only that, these cultures saw different
objects described by the stars, and often the constellations had entirely
different boundaries from the ones we use now.

    Who cares about this garbage anyway ???? I was born on pluto and
    kidnapped by zappoidings 23,200,392 years ago. Since my arrival on
    Earth, only 140 years ago, I have been in 2 world wars, and watched
    England stuff Germany in the 1966 world cup final.
    
    That's the truth and if you don't believe me, I don't care.

> Don't know what they beleived this turtle was

it's the Great A'Tuin, of course.  It supports the Earth on the
back of 4 elephants.  Don't go too close to the edge, though...

Chris.

    Astronomy uses the constellation names too, not just astrology.  If the
    names aren't important, they shouldn't teach them to you in astronomy
    classes.
    
    Mike

> If the names aren't important, they shouldn't teach them to you in astronomy
> classes.

Would you rather they call them "XZ-574.9" and "Ralph"? Referring to them by
their clasical names provides something easier to remember and makes
astronomers appear to be more well rounded individuals. If you try to ascribe
any more significance than that, you err.

YBYSAIA

    ZUBENELGENUBI - the dimmest of the navigable stars

    Few Back...quoting Terry Prachett.
    
    And the gods buried giant bones in the ground to confuse people.
    
    I view creation vs evolution like the saying; there are more
    old drunks than there are old doctors.
     
    

re .114:

>    Astronomy uses the constellation names too, not just astrology.  If the
>    names aren't important, they shouldn't teach them to you in astronomy
>    classes.

Astronomy only uses constellation names as a gross reference to the portion of
the sky an object is in, particularly when relating something to the general
public.  It's much more quickly obvious to say something lies within Cancer
rather than stating RA xxxx DEC yyyy, although the latter is more accurate and
will be used to actually specify the position more accurately.
Much the same way a geologist may say he found an interesting rock specimen
in South Nashua, NH along Spitbrook Rd rather than say it was at 42�42'29" N
71� 27' 30" W, although to a geologist Nashua and New Hampshire are simply
arbitrary man-made divisions and have no physical meaning to the earth.

The astronomical constellations are actually just regions of sky rather than
the traditional constellations themselves, much like the divisions of land into
states and counties, although the traditional constellations lie within the
astronomical ones.

RE: 444.2 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> According to a recent summary of modern biological knowledge on human
> racial characteristics, the difference in human genes linked to "race"
> is only .012%.  

You know,  .012% sounds kinda small,  until you remember that there are a
lot of bits ("base pairs" = two bits of information) in the human genetic 
code.  A small percentage of a lot of bits can still be a lot of bits.  Just 
how many base pairs is .012% of the total human genetic code?

At the observed rate of mutation (was posted in the OJ topic by edp),  
how many generations would it take to get this number of mutations? 

At roughly 20 years per generation,  how many years is that?


> This confronts the evolutionary belief that the races have been
> evolving separately for 10's of 1,000's of years.  

Oh?  Perhaps doing the math before making this claim might be in order.


Phil

    
      And anyways, I think this is all moon-math.  I can take a 100,000
     line C program and make a VERY unrelated program out of it with
     just a few edits.  It's not the difference in the source code, but
     the difference in the output, that matters.  Nor the extent of the
     differences give any real hint to how long ago the programs diverged,
     or whether they even have a common descent.
    
      bb

RE: 444.122 by GAAS::BRAUCHER

> And anyways, I think this is all moon-math.

In more ways than one.


Phil

      I suppose it might not be scientific, but I can tell if things
      are man made.  You can see DESIGN.  I can discern a calculator
      from a stone.
    
      Likewise, I can discern a human body from a stone or a tree
      from mud.
    
      I can see design, hence a Designer.
    
      And I can appreciate (and accept) that this may not appeal to 
      science, but chaos leads me to believe that science will not
      really find any answers and so science will have to leave the
      'problem of beginnings' unsolved.  There's a lot on chaos
      actually.  For every 'ordered' reaction that comes along that
      might have helped make for life, a zillion disordered reactions
      take place that overwhelmingly destroy the ordered impact
      of that one ordered phenomenon.
    
      Thats a bit of a wrench.  Its scientifically unsolvable, but 
      it still happened nevertheless.
    
      If there is a God, there must be some liability in 100% regard
      to the scientific method since it (seems to) disregard God.
    
    						Tony

>>      I suppose it might not be scientific, but I can tell if things
>>      are man made.  You can see DESIGN.

	apparently, you haven't seen some of the code i have to work on.

    Tony, ever hear of chaos theory? (asked in my best Jeff Goldblum voice)
    

>      Thats a bit of a wrench.  Its scientifically unsolvable, but 
>      it still happened nevertheless.
    
That's a bit of a reach there, isn't it? :*)

>      If there is a God, there must be some liability in 100% regard
>      to the scientific method since it (seems to) disregard God.
>    
>    						Tony

Where did this notion that science and God caint coexist? At least Tony
put the "seems to" in the statement. I think what we have here is the
leap of faith that anyone who doesn't believe the Genesis version
literally is godless.

TTom

    .124
    
    > I can see design, hence a Designer.
    
    If I put a quantity of identical spheres into a container, it's an
    odds-on bet that as they fill it they will fall into layers, in which
    each layer is organized haxagonally, and in which the overlap is such
    that spheres above fill the hollows between the speheres below them. 
    This is a high degree of organization.  Who designed it?  Or did it
    just happen?
    
    If we postulate that all matter is made of quarks (accepted by most
    physicists) and that there are six types of quarks (also accepted), it
    is inevitable that quantities of quarks will join into certain
    organized patterns.
    
    An electron is an organized assemblage of quarks, and all electrons are
    the same except for the energy they contain.  Similarly with protons
    and neutrons, so it is inevitable that quantities of these particles
    will join into certain organized patterns.
    
    And so on.
    
    Now it is certainly possible that there was an ultimate designer who
    figured out how to make quarks so this would all happen, and I think
    you will find that most scientists are ready to admit of such a
    possibility, even if they don't personally believe that it is true. 
    (Such is the scientific mind.)  So you see, God and science are not
    mutually exclusive.

    Phil, I thought a generation was 40-50 years?

      re: last few
    
        I'm not disputing the possibility of some coexistence of 
        scientific method and God, I was trying to be extra 'nice'
        by letting several noters here be right in terms of their
        posture of scientific method necessarily rejecting Divinity!
    
      re: .129
    
        Blind Watchmaker.
    
        Let me guess!  Someone came accross a watch that told real
        accurate time and he proved that it was not made by any
        intelligence!
    
        I'd love to see that watch!
    
      re: Binder and quarks
     
        Actually, I think chemistry gets quite fancy at the level of
        carbon with its ability to have so many different molecular
        arrangements; some of which just don't seem to be able to be
        shown to occur by accident.  I neccesarily see a Designer there,
        but I sure won't refute seeing a Designer in the existence of
        stone, mud, or quarks!!!                            
    
    							Tony

RE: 444.130 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

Fine by me if you care to do the calculation with twice as large of
generation.  But don't forget to do the calculation.

Few children are born of parents 40 to 50 years old.  


> I thought a generation was 40-50 years?

Care to explain?
  

Phil

    .131
    
    > carbon with its ability to have so many different molecular
    > arrangements; some of which just don't seem to be able to be
    > shown to occur by accident
    
    Ah, you must be talking about buckyballs and other fullerenes.  If they
    don't occur by accident, then obviously they occur because of design. 
    I would have to guess that we humans showed God how to make them,
    however, because now that they are known they have been shown to appear
    in nature.  We should be proud of the fact that we are better designers
    than God, shouldn't we?

    Phil, I don't recall where I read or heard it, but I think the 40-50
    years is from the average international age of a generation.  I don't
    think the generation gap is used to determine the length.
    
    And no I'm not interested in doing your math for you.  However, I plan
    on trying to track down Dr. DeYoung's book and see if he addresses
    "moon math."  I curious as to how they arrive at their conclusions.
    
    Mike

20 years has been the standard generation for as long as I can remember.

    sounds like a delta figure to me.

    Just 'cause there's a designer doesn't mean he/she/it cares one whit
    about my sex life.
    
    Corollary:  if we accept that there's a Designer, then we can accept
    the first sentence of Genesis I.  Doesn't say a thing about the
    veracity of the rest of the book!
    
    --j
    

    > How long ago was the Pepsi Generation?
    
    I thought this was the Pepsi generation. Of course I live in a time
    warp. :)
    
    ...Tom

re .135:

>    Phil, I don't recall where I read or heard it, but I think the 40-50
>    years is from the average international age of a generation.  I don't
>    think the generation gap is used to determine the length.

Unlikely.  Women are often past menopause by the time they're 50.
Also the life expectancy for people didn't reach this age until 
comparatively recently.   Even today in many areas of the world
people look at a 30 year old woman who's not married with a brood
of kids as a spinster.

From the American Heritage Dictionary for Windows, last of four definitions
of "generation", the other three of which don't discuss any time interval

4. The average time interval between the birth of parents and the birth of
   their offspring.

Can we now agree that "20" is a "whole lot" more reasonable than "40-50",
or do we require a formal refutation with references?

RE: 444.135 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> And no I'm not interested in doing your math for you.  

My math?  Oh no,  I've done my math.  Don't you understand?  The argument
you presented will only make sense if you _DON'T_ do the math.  


Phil

RE: 444.2 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> According to a recent summary of modern biological knowledge on human
> racial characteristics, the difference in human genes linked to "race"
> is only .012%.

There are about 3,000,000,000 base pairs in the human genetic code.  

The number of base pairs differing would be about 360,000.

The number of generations needed to produce this difference is about
30,000.  (Two parents per child,  two different lineages,  about three 
mutations per germ cell)

The number of years needed is about 600,000.

This calculation surely does not confront "the evolutionary belief that 
the races have been evolving separately for 10's of 1,000's of years."

And again,  what about other species of animals?  Humans have much lower 
genetic diversity than average.  How old are species like cats, rats and
elephants?


Phil

> How old are species like cats, rats and elephants?

You forgot "as sure as  you're born", Phil.

:^)

    re: .133
    
      "you must be talking about..."
    
      Well, no actually.  Make a presumption and come to a wrong
      conclusion.
    
      Not a good practice.
    
    						Tony

    Re .144:
    
    > The number of base pairs differing would be about 360,000.
    > 
    > The number of generations needed to produce this difference is about
    > 30,000.  (Two parents per child,  two different lineages,  about three 
    > mutations per germ cell)
    
    Suppose evolution is racing flat-out as fast as it can go.  Alice and
    Bob each contribute germ cells with 3 mutations to their child, Cindy.
    Cindy is born with 6 changes and adds another 3 to her germ cells,
    which she mixes with Doug, also from her generation.  Thus Cindy's 9
    changes and Doug's 9 changes make 18.  Each generation, the number
    doubles and 3 is added.  Thus we have the recurrence:
    
    	m(i+1) = 2*m(i)+3, and m(0) = 0.
    
    The solution to this recurrence is m(i) = 3*2^i - 3.  After 17
    generations, we have m(17) = 393,213.  At 20 years per generation,
    that's 340 years.
    
    Of course, this would require a very diverse breeding pattern and large
    initial population.  The true mutation rate for a species would be
    somewhere between this value and yours.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Today's paper is reporting observation of the formation new star by the
    Hubble telescope.  Does this validate or invalidate Creation Science? 
    Weren't the heavens formed on the third or fourth day?  Why is the
    heaven construction work still ongoing after is was finished?  Or maybe
    Hubble has made a false observation.
    
    -- Jim

It's been a long day.

    The in the beginning stuff was just a divine jump start that got the
    celestial ball rolling.  Since watches and calendars were invented much
    later, they had a real hard time gauging time.  Even though billions of
    years passed, there was so much fun going on that it seemed to be real
    short, therefore the discrepancies in reporting how long folks lived,
    the number of days and nights of the flood etc.  
    
    Brian

RE: 444.147 by RUSURE::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey."

    Re .144:
    
>    Suppose evolution is racing flat-out as fast as it can go.  Alice and
>    Bob each contribute germ cells with 3 mutations to their child, Cindy.
>    Cindy is born with 6 changes and adds another 3 to her germ cells,
>    which she mixes with Doug, also from her generation.  Thus Cindy's 9
>    changes and Doug's 9 changes make 18.  Each generation, the number
>    doubles and 3 is added.  Thus we have the recurrence:
>    
>    	m(i+1) = 2*m(i)+3, and m(0) = 0.
>    
>    The solution to this recurrence is m(i) = 3*2^i - 3.  After 17
>    generations, we have m(17) = 393,213.  At 20 years per generation,
>    that's 340 years.

I agree that my calculation was too simple.

Yours,  while more complex,  isn't better.  You are making an assumption
that each mutation is independent.  Genes are not independent:  they come 
in packages.  If Alice's and Bob's mutations were both on the same package
(or chromosome),  then Cindy could only pass one set of mutations to a
given offspring (Bob's or Alice's,  and not both).  That's six changes, and 
not nine.  Three plus three,  and not double plus three,  If the number of 
packages (chromosomes) was much larger than 360,000,  then your calculation 
would be correct.  As it's 10,000 smaller than that,  mine is much closer.

As you point out,  the answer is between our calculations.

A more correct calculation would need to take each chromosome as a unit, 
calculate the mutation rate on each chromosome based on it's size,  deal
with population size,  breeding patterns,  selection,  and a whole bunch 
of other factors.  


Phil

    Joe O. and I are both mutants. I got it from my dad, where did you get
    it from Joe??  :)
    
    ...Tom

    it is easy to see that Tom is a mutant, notice the lack of nasal
    definintion in his smiley face.  

    :&)
    
    How's this?  Actually I still like :) better.
    
    ...Tom

    
    :)  makes me uncomfortable.  It reminds me of the South American kid
    I saw on 60 Minutes who was born with the middle of his face missing.
    

    You mean no nose. I can sympathize.  :)
    
    ...Tom

    Phil's 600,000-year figure and edp's 340-year figure are neatly split
    by the figures proposed by several scientists, i.e., that the common
    ancestor of all living humans was a woman who lived in Africa about
    200,000 years ago.  This is based on mitochondrial DNA, which does not
    suffer the accelerated corruptive effects of breeding because it is not
    part of the chromosome package.  It is passed from a woman to her
    offspring changed only by mutation.

    Better no face than the litle girl that was born with the face of
    Lassie.  I Saw the other day at the checkout counter so it must be
    true.

RE: 444.157 by SMURF::BINDER "Father, Son, and Holy Spigot"

> Phil's 600,000-year figure and edp's 340-year figure are neatly split
> by the figures proposed by several scientists, i.e., that the common
> ancestor of all living humans was a woman who lived in Africa about
> 200,000 years ago.  

Mitochondrial DNA is passed only along the maternal line.  As a result,  the 
calculations are rather simpler and more robust.  Mitochondrial DNA also
has a higher mutation rate,  making it easier to date.  However,  note that 
this brings up only one of many common ancestors of all humans,  one per
chromosome.  In this case,  mDNA points to the common ancestor on the purely 
maternal line.  The Y chromosome,  passed only from father to son,  is 
another simple case.  The common ancestor on the purely paternal line is 
probably more recent,  roughly 100,000 years ago.  I'll see if I can find 
one of several recent papers on this.

So Adam and Eve never knew each other,  in Biblical (or any other) sense.  :-)

Other chromosomes are rather older.  Genes on chromosomes that encode immune 
system functions,  for which there is a positive advantage to being different, 
show dates in the 10's of millions of years.


Phil

    
    Och mon, wouldna any wee gurl hae the face o' a lassie?
    
    

        Watch it Taff.
        
        Andy
            
    

    re:  dog-faced baby girl  (She was right cute in her bonnet.)
    
    My son and I saw that one last week and burst out laughing.  Kept
    walking back to the check-out to take another look-see.
    
    The _Weekly_World_News_ is the reporter of absolute truth.  They
    broke the 500-foot-tall-Jesus-at-the-UN story, too.
    

    "We'll keep our two headed baby" proud father says.  

    Phil, your calculations don't factor in the longer lifespans in the
    antediluvian period where the genetic code experienced little
    degradation.  Abraham was almost 100 when Issac was born.
    
    Mike

>    Phil, your calculations don't factor in the longer lifespans in the
>    antediluvian period where the genetic code experienced little
>    degradation.  Abraham was almost 100 when Issac was born.

Can't say I've been following this string, but Abraham was hardly antediluvian.
It was considered remarkable that Isaac was born when Sarah was 90 and Abraham
was 100 (see Genesis 18:11-12).

>   The _Weekly_World_News_ is the reporter of absolute truth.  They
>   broke the 500-foot-tall-Jesus-at-the-UN story, too.

These guys are really great journalists, e.g., finding JFK when no one else can,
first on the scene for UFO encounters, etc. It's amazing how they always scoop
the NY Times on all of these stories.

    sorry Gerald, my mistake.  The antedeluvian period did contain many
    older first-time parents as well.
    
    Mike

RE: 444.166 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"

> Phil, your calculations don't factor in the longer lifespans in the 
> atediluvian period where the genetic code experienced little
> degradation.  

If lifespans (more correctly,  age at reproduction) were longer in the past,  
then the 600,000 produced by my back of envelope calculation is too short. 

If the genetic code was changing slower,  then the 600,000 years produced
by my BOE is too short.


Phil

    
    
    
    .166 You might look in GIDDAY::BIOLOGY for information on
         Genetic trace back to 'eve'.
    
    	 It explains the theory and research also the critics
    	 views.
    
         DIR/TITLE=EVE found it for me.

So Moon Math still doesn't balance,  and Adam never bonked Eve,  and both
Adam and Eve lived rather before 4004BC,  so what's next?

RE: 444.3 by OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!" 

> World's Oldest Salt Lake Only a Few Thousand Years Old

I see exactly zero evidence that Lake Eyre is the World's Oldest Salt Lake.
Care to present some?


> This has to be a maximum time because the fossil evidence suggests that 
> inland Australia was much wetter in the past,  being covered in rainforest 
> during the Tertiary Period when the lake was supposedly formed.

Parts of Australia was wetter a lot more recent than the Tertiary.  COHMAP 
shows that most of the midlatitude deserts were smaller in extant in the
very recent past.  Enough rain for long enough,  and a salt lake becomes a 
fresh water lake,  with the salt flowing downstream to the sea.  See 
"Climatic Changes of the Last 18,000 Years:  Observations and Model 
Simulations"  Science 26-Aug-1998 pages 1043 to 1052.


Phil

    Something I should've put in here sooner...
    
    There are publications available that are produced by Creation Science
    Ministries and the Creation Research Institute.  They contain articles
    from and interviews with the most well-known creation scientists around
    today.  One is called "Creation," and for the more technically-inclined
    there is the "Creation Journal."
    
    BTW - Another telling fact about bias is that none of them were 
    interviewed in the PBS special.
    
    For those in Colorado Springs, you should know that Creation Science 
    Ministries is also there.  They have several high quality books
    and videos that you can get a free catalog of.
    
    Creation Science Ministries
    PO Box 26225
    Colorado Springs, CO 80936
    (800) 778-3390
    (719) 591-0800
    
    For information about CSM's "Creation" or "Creation Journal" call
    (addresses available upon request):
    
    U.S.A. - (606) 647-2900
    Australia (main headquarters) - (07) 273 7650
    U.K. & Europe - (01793) 512 268
    New Zealand - (09) 534 8914
    Other Countries - (International + 617 273 7650) 
    
    Mike (who has no affiliation with either organization)

>    BTW - Another telling fact about bias is that none of them were 
>    interviewed in the PBS special.

So Mike, you know fer a fack that they weren't asked to participate and
declined?

When I see some of this "science" in scientific journals I'll be more
impressed.

BTW, I've read a lot about how creation science lampoons science, but
exactly what evidence or data has been given to support the very young
universe required by creation science?

TTom

    Hi Tom!  Try reading the first few replies in this topic.

    Perhaps someone should start up Creation Evidence Ministries.

Read 'em.

They cast aside science with sweeping charges aluding to isolated
incidents that when viewed narrowly tend to disrupt other scientific
opinions. In the meanwhile, they make no attempt to make their own case.

What I'm looking for is something along the lines of physical evidence
supporting a young universe not inuuendos attempting to disprove not a
young universe.

And so far, I don't think any of what's been posted even suggests any
evidence of their supposition (not really a theory).

TTom

    Another good source from a non-Christian's perspective is "Genesis and
    the Big Bang" by Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder on Bantam Books, ISBN
    0-553-35413-2.  Dr. Schroeder is an MIT grad and former U.S. DOD 
    physicist (for 35 years) who now lives in Jerusalem.
    
    It presents plenty of scientific evidence.
    
    Mike

    Sounds like grounds for a ministry.

> grounds for a ministry.

I thought that was "Chock Full o' Clerics", the Heavenly Coffee.

    Oh no, I sense a pun war brewing.

Do you take me for some sort of drip? 

On second thought, I suppose I don't carafe you do.

    
    Youall are full of beans tonight, I see.

    Well, you've certainly perked up Jack.

Got tired of the discussion about pot. It's often difficult to
properly espresso myself on that matter. Hard to filter out
the noise from the signal as well.

Anyway, I just finished my laundry. Folgers?

    My Taste's Choice would be to go to the Maxwell House.  Sanka very
    much.
    
    Mike

    Java try something else?

    
    {tsk} and boxers are supposed to be the cream of the crop.
    

Creamora reasonable facsimile thereof, anyway.

    Debra, it's nice you see you espresso yourself in this way.

    ya'll have lost it!

    Careful Martin, you might get mugged.

    He's a regular mountain-grown bean, he is!

Au lait off.

    quit pouring out the bad puns guys.

Suited us to a tea, I thought.

    this instant?

It may very well be time to put the caffeine the barn on this.

Burma Shave.

                          (__)
                          (oo)
                   /-------\/ 
                  / |     ||  
                 *  ||W---||  
                    ~~    ~~  

Udderly better.

    Stop milking the subject.. Sheesh...now I guess we'll have moooore
    terrible puns.

    You gotta beef Martin?

    It's very rare, but well done for asking.

    As long as you're not cheesed off.

Some times things just go pasteurise.


Chele

    
    That is, without a doubt, the most precious little cow drawing I've
    ever seen.
    
    Sorry for horning in on the punfest.  Please continue.

    Was it a Homogenized, Holstein or a Black Angus?  

 Well, if its from the town I live in, it would be a Derry cow.



 Jim

    As in Cow Hampshire?

 Watch it, bub

    This conf. is chock full o' nuts, it is.

    Great topic, Mike!

    I think we should change this topic to "Origin technology". It just
    sounds more 90"s and could eventually become a good PC term.  :)
    
    ...Tom

RE: 444.201 by POLAR::RICHARDSON "Repetitive Fan Club Napping"

Offering up a little bull?

    Take a closer look.

The bull has two?

    
    Perhaps those are his testicles?

Then the long line?

"Look at the two schmucks on the camel!"

    
    The long line is his tummy!
    
    Perhaps he's a very small-penised bull.

"It's not what you got,  it's what you do with what you got."

  rrrright...

    
    	Yeah, I've always wondered why I've never heard a woman say
    	that ... it's always a man.
    
    	Strange, isn't it?
    

	maybe he just got out of the ocean.

I never said that.  Notice the quote marks "".

Rather odd placement for testicles, recollecting any bull I've ever seen.

    You should try another hobby instead of watching mountain oysters.

    How about some lamb fries, yum yum.
    
    ...Tom

ftp://ngdc1.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/lakelevels/oxford

           <<< BACK40::BACK40$DKA500:[NOTES$LIBRARY]SOAPBOX.NOTE;1 >>>
                          -< Soapbox.  Just Soapbox. >-
================================================================================
Note 56.1726                    Gay Issues Topic                    1726 of 1731
OUTSRC::HEISER "National Atheists Day - April 1"      8 lines  28-JUN-1995 17:09
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mike's thesis is that gays and scientists are immoral. I can accept that
>you didn't see that as bashing.
    
    I never entered that here.  I implied scientists and politicians are
    dishonest.  Tom, I've even told you offline before that some creation
    scientists aren't exactly honest because of their presentations.
    
    Mike

    
    
    What the hell you looking for Phil???.. a notarized confession???
    
    I can see it now...
    
    
    Notes>NEXT UNSEEN
    Notes>NEXT UNSEEN
    Notes>NEXT UNSEEN
    Notes>NEXT UNSEEN
    Notes>DIR AUTHOR=ANY_THUMPER *.*  
    
    Aha!!!!!!! Now I got em!!!
    

    .234
    
    Maybe Phil is looking for a little honesty combined with use of an
    actual brain cell.

    
    
    Ahhh... I see Dick....
    
    So Phil's "Only some?  Only "aren't exactly honest"?" was just a
    friendly little prod... good naturedly so to speak, and not because he
    thought some ignorant thumper was being overly deceitful...

    Of course, Andy.  Everything here in the box is intended to be good
    natured.

    Mars - where the idea must have come from

    
    
    Mars Corp. espouses Creation Science???????
    
    
     Boy!!! If this gets out, sales will really drop!!!!!!
    
    
    Alert the picketers!!!! Pay them off!!! Load them on the buses!!! Off
    to Mars Corp.!!!!!!
    

RE: 444.235 by SMURF::BINDER "Father, Son, and Holy Spigot"

Add "functioning" after "actual" and you are correct.  


Phil

    
    He says good naturedly...
    

    Phil, I've said before in here (maybe it was the old version of the
    box) that this controversy is a religious one with biased scientists on
    each side.
    
    Mike

> this controversy is a religious one with biased scientists on each side.

Unfortunately, it's only on one of the sides that their bias has anything
to do with science.

RE: 44.244 by OUTSRC::HEISER "National Atheists Day - April 1"

> Phil, I've said before in here (maybe it was the old version of the
> box) that this controversy is a religious one with biased scientists on
> each side.

We can agree on a few things.  The Creationist side is religious. 
The Creationist side is "biased" aka dishonest.

The science side of the argument doesn't depend on or deny religion,  other
than of course Religions that make claims disprovable by verifiable fact.  
The science side of the argument is honest as it is based on verifiable and
verified facts.


Phil

    See Dick's discussion of "honest" examples like Piltdown Man or Lucy.

    .247
    
    Piltdown Man, yes.  Lucy, no.  There is as yet no evidence suggesting
    that Lucy is anything other than what she was originally purported to
    be.

What about Ricky?

    Little Ricky is a Christian now.  he plays in a rock group called
    "David & The Giants."

    The Piltdown hoax had little to do with furthering the cause
    of evolution.  Evidence was mounting that man originated in
    Africa, or some other backward nation.  Some Victorians couldn't
    stomach the idea that intelligent man hadn't originated in
    a `civilized' country.  More to do with elitism.
    
    Somewhere in my parent's house is a history book that dates
    from the 20's, when Piltdown man was still believed to be
    real evidence that intelligence developed far north of the
    equator.
    
    Colin
    
    

Has it already been mentioned that this topic number is 2/3 of a beastie? :^)



Oh. Sorry.

Since I brought it up in another topic, I thought it might be interesting to
pursue something here.

Being the fine, upstanding atheist that I am, and seeing as how I've proposed
that the best solution to this depraved world of ours might be for all of
mankind to gather together to blow each other to smithereens so we could
start over from a clean petri dish, it comes to mind that there are some
interesting questions around creationism and god as related thereto.

Were I ever to become a believer, I would need to retain certain intellectual
rights of belief. Among them being -
   o This piddly little clump of dirt which happens to be ordinally 3rd
     from the closest star could hardly be the only damn place in the
     entire universe which ended up with intelligent life. I've heard all
     of the probability theories and whatnot, but no one can rationally
     present any proof to me that this is the only stronghold of intelligent
     life throughout the sagans of solar systems in the sagans of galaxies
     which exist in a universe which can't even be measured reliably.
   o The next corollary I arrive at is that since there are probably other
     worlds with rational intelligent life around the universe, if they were
     all created by a single god, I wonder what sort of mythology exists
     in their cultures regarding "only sons" and whatnot. 'Tis a puzzlement
     as to how this resolves itself.
   o The conclusion I next come to is that since the "only son" can't wash
     in the universal model that has to support the "one god and creator"
     concept, perhaps the "only son" concept is a local variant for our
     purposes here. Other concepts may well serve elsewhere, or maybe
     "He" tries to pull the same game in all of the parlors, but with different
     conditions. I can see him sort of sitting there observing the goings-on,
     millenia after millenia throughout the universe. "Well, I'll be damned!
     Look at that! Did you see what they just did to fry their own sorry butts?
     That's the third time that that's happened in this quadrant of the
     universe in the past 89-billion years. Maybe next time I should try
     putting the hemp into the picture a few thousand generations earlier."

Creation science? Faith? God?

Um - tell you what - when you have a model that explains the rest of the
universe, I'll listen in again. In the mean time, "young unique Earth"
seems pretty presumtuous. Why the hell would an omniscient omnipotent
benificent being waste all of that energy on a universe which was totally
barren except for the prideful believers he had coralled up here? Not any
sort of a creator I'd want to put any faith in. (Heck - there'd have to
be better ones to look for, right?)

Oops - I forgot the other observation I'd come to -
   Most of Creation Science that I've seen seems to boil down to
   "Here's the staunch position of faith that _HAS_TO_BE_ maintained
    in order to prevent folks from getting sidetracked by the simple
    facts that they would normally be led to by their own rational
    thought processes."

        <<< Note 444.253 by MOLAR::DELBALSO "I (spade) my (dogface)" >>>

>Oops - I forgot the other observation I'd come to -
>   Most of Creation Science that I've seen seems to boil down to
>   "Here's the staunch position of faith that _HAS_TO_BE_ maintained
>    in order to prevent folks from getting sidetracked by the simple
>    facts that they would normally be led to by their own rational
>    thought processes."


	That's not an observation. It's a summation. And a darn
	good one.

Jim

    
    
    I don't know about that.  I know of many scientists who are believers. 
    They have seen the evolutionary theories and evidence and have no
    problem with reconciling them with their faith in a God.  I don't
    proclaim to be one of these people nor do I proclaim to know the answers, 
    I only know what works for me.  One of the things foremost in my
    beliefs is that, if I believe in God and He/She being a superior being,
    how am I supposed to be able to figure out the reasoning behind His/Her
    creations?  All I can do is tell folks what I believe and why.  It
    isn't my job to try and convert anyone nor shove my beliefs down
    anyone's throat.  I've got friends who are believers and nonbelievers
    who are upstanding people.  
    
    FWIW (hint:prolly not much),
    
    Mike  
    

    I don't have any problem reconciling my faith with the evolutionary
    model.  The book of Genesis never was intended to be a scientifically
    accurate treatment of the beginning of the Universe, simply because
    science was not of concern to the people for whom it was written, while
    faith was very much of concern.  It was, and remains, a myth, that can
    serve as a surprisingly accurate allegory.
    
    Recent research into primordial carbon indicates that there were stars
    before there were galaxies.  The Big Bang apparently produced mongo big
    stars that burned through their nuclear fuel very quickly and novaed;
    the released heat reheated the Universe to a temperature at which stars
    could not form, and clouds of gas and debris of galaxy-sized mass just
    coalesced and gradually cooled until stars could form in them.  I'd
    like to see the Creation Science dismissal of this information.

    
    Dismissal?  Or rebuttal?   ;^)
    

    How does one rebut the existence of red-shifted carbon lines in a
    photograph of a spectrum?

    
    Exactly.   But they *can* dismiss it, as they frequently do.
    

    >facts that they would normally be led to by their own rational
    >thought processes.
    
    Rational thought, what a concept. The problem is this doesn't seem to be 
    NORMAL!
    
    ...Tom

    "Not only do the facts of science not contradict the Bible, but they
    strongly support a recent creation and go very strongly against the
    idea of billions of years that the theistic evolutionists uphold.  So,
    both science and the Bible are on the same side and they are on the
    side of the young-earth creationist."
    
    Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, physicist at the prestigious Sandia National
    Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico and author of the new book
    "Starlight and Time."

>                               -< works for me >-

Why?

Because he said it and you think he's a reliable source and because it
fits with what you want to hear?

How about the thousands of other reputable scientists that have other
things to say with which you don't agree? BS artists?

There's far less logic in his statement than most of what I've read in
this damn conference, let alone anything from scientists who've presented
reasonable viewpoints to the contrary of what this guy says.

    Dr. Humphreys must be the Sandia Labs' resident colonic therapist,
    because imho the only "physics" he practices are the kind you bend over
    to receive.
    
    Guy sounds like a mental midget ta me.  And dat's da troof.
    

    .263
    
    Define "reputable".
    
    .264
    
    Real intelligent answer.  Real scientific proofing there.
    
    

    So sue me, peabrain.
    

>    Define "reputable".

How about 'Anyone else who has the same academic credentials (or better)
than the idiot who made the statement". Is that sufficiently non-threatening
to you?

    .262
    
    A clear demonstration that even an eminent physicist can have his head
    where the sun don't shine.

    Who sez the guy is eminent?
    

    I say he's eminent.  He sticks out like a sore thumb.

    re: last few
    
    So, he's crazy since he doesn't go along with modern scientific dogma? 
    That's a nice open attitude, it is.
    
    And if he is right about a younger earth?  I seem to recall a few
    scientists in the past that got reamed from the scientific community
    due to their failure to accept modern (at the time) theories.  We are
    much better off that they didn't follow along blindly.
    
    Not saying that the Earth is young, just that we needn't attack
    everyone who disagrees with modern theories- especially theories that
    have so many unfilled holes as of yet.
    
    
    -steve

    .271
    
    He's not crazy, just stupid.  There is a cumulative body of evidence
    that has been acquired over the past two centuries, even though its
    import has not always been understood at the time of its acquisition,
    that points clearly and unequivocally to an old universe.
    
    The young-universe argument, at least in its biblical guise, presents
    us with the conundrum that in order for the universe to be young, God
    must be a liar.  That paradox can be resolved, for a Christian, only
    such that God is not a liar - hence, the universe really is old and the
    Bible's Creation account is, as it was clearly intended, an allegory
    rather than a scientific treatise.

Well, I for one would like to see what Dr. Humphreys defines as "recent"
in the phrase "recent creation".

The is some legitimate discussion of the varying estimates of the age of
the universe. The concept/belief that it's all less than 10,000 years old
is indefensible barring continuing chicanery by the creator but it's not
settled exactly how old it is.

My pet peeve in all this is that the biblical proponents of creationism
always mention evolution in this discussion. The physical data and
evidence of the age of the universe, such as currently being recorded and
measured by the Hubble experiments, have nothing at all to do with
evolution but I've never heard any arguments against billions of years
with bringing it up.

As the quote after the footnotes says, this is the tactic of
irrelevancies.

TTom
evolution

    
    .267
    
    19.154, but no longer ordering rat-on-a-stick.  Got tired of it.
    
    BTW, I wasn't threatened. Even physicists are entitled to their
    beliefs, whatever they may be.  It seems you were the one that
    was threatened.
    
    My belief is this : Genesis 1:1 & 1:2 "In the beginning, God created
    the heavens and the earth" (i.e. "the beginning", get it ? Old earth.)
    "And the earth was without form, and void."  Does this speak of a 
    possibly destroyed planet ? Perhaps by a comet ?  Old earth, NEW
    creation.
    

    .275
    
    > "And the earth was without form, and void."  Does this speak of a
    > possibly destroyed planet ?  Perhaps by a comet ?  Old earth, NEW
    > creation.
    
    In the sense that NEW is 4x10e9 years, I'll buy that.  Scientists are
    pretty well agreed that the present solar system is only about that
    old, but that that the Universe is anything from twice to four times
    that age.  The Sun is considered to be a second-generation star, formed
    out of the stuff of other stars that had previously sprayed themselves
    across the nearer regions of the cosmos.
    
    But there are rocks known to be more than 3.5x10e9 years old, and there
    is no evidence of a later cataclysm such as you posit.

    .276
    
    Not the point I was trying to make. Same old earth, with a new creation
    deposited upon it. I meant destroyed in the sense that old life-forms
    were destroyed. New creation because there is a lack of transitional
    species in the chain of "evolution", something the creation scientists
    are the first to point out.

    .279
    
    > lack of transitional
    > species in the chain of "evolution"
    
    You're new at this, aren't you?  THe "no transitional species" argument
    was rather thoroughly whipped about the head and shoulders in the
    previous incarnation of the box.
    
    What is Hesperornis, if not a "transitional" species?  Or Mononykus? 
    Or, for that matter, the venerable Archaeopteryx?  The simple factual
    truth is that there are hundreds of species that show CLEAR transition
    between families.  The reason there are no "transitional" fossils is
    that SciCre people keep redefining the word "transitional" to exclude
    each new transitional species that is found.
    
    Of all the creatures that have lived on this planet, a tiny fraction -
    far fewer than one percent - have been fossilized, because it takes
    some very special sets of circumstances to make a fossil.  And of all
    the ones that HAVE been fossilized, only a tiny fraction have been
    found.  It is this dearth of hands-on evidence that is responsible for
    the "holes" in the chain.  SciCre types jump on this because they have
    no way to refute the evidence we do ahve, other than by misdirection.

>    species in the chain of "evolution", something the creation scientists
>   are the first to point out.

The lack of transitional fossils is one of the really good examples of
how the creation scientists are more concerned with being religiously
correct than scientifically accurate.

In fack, a great many transitional fossils have been found and annotated.
These include transitional forms from fish to amphibians, amphibians to
reptiles, reptiles to mammals, etc.

TTom

    .281
    
    >                   -< how bout some Moon math? >-
    
    Isn't that question Phil Hays' property?

Moon math (tm).

I think there's a bigger point here, one that I've been trying to
research myself. To date, I have not read any presentation of anything
resembling evidence for the very early age, say within 10,000 years,
which is longer than the 'derived' age. I figger if'n you can make a case
that it's all 10,000 years old and showed some evidence I'd listen to it.

What fills the pages are accusations such as no transitional fossils and
very long and torturous attacks on dating methodology. Of course,
alternative methods for dating are not proposed.

I haven't read the latest source, _Starlight and Time_ but look forward
to doing so.

TTom

    How do you know they are transitional fossils (assuming human evolution
    from primate to what we are today)?  Why can't they be simply another
    extict species?  Why must they be related to humans?  
    
    At some point, someone needs to quit trying to fit the pieces all under
    one grand theory and say, just maybe, that these "transitional" fossils
    are unrelated to homo sapiens.  It is a possibility- though one that no
    mainstream scientist seems to be willing to admit publically.  
    
    The creation science people rightly argue that new fossils found by
    mainstream scientists are simply cut and pasted into a preconceived
    model that MAY not be accurate.  Just because a bone looks somewhat
    similar in nature to a modern homo sapien's does not automatically mean 
    that it is related- only similar.
    
    I guess this is what I object to more than anything with regards to the
    so-called transitional fossils.  That, and the fact that anyone who 
    suggest something outside the norm is scoffed at.
    
    
    -steve 

OK, don't believe in tranisitional fossils. Who evolved from whom or
what is irrelevant to the primary issue.

Don't believe in physics or chemistiry. Don't believe in geology. 

Now, show some evidence that it's <10,000 years old. 

TTom

    .284
    
    > Why can't they be simply another
    > extict species?
    
    They are simply another extinct species.  Lots of them, actually.  Homo
    neandertalensis, Homo erectus (ooh er), Homo habilis, Homo
    zinjanthropus, Homo pithecanthropus, Australopithecus afarensis...
    
    But as for why they must be related to humans, I suppose you'd want to
    deny that a tiger is related to a lion is related to a puma is relate
    to an ocelot is related to a jaguar is related to a domestic tabby. 
    The fact is that all these species of cats show clear morphological and
    behavioral evidence of being related.  They also show equally clear
    evidence of being related to the famous extinct saber-toothed cat,
    Smilodon.  But because Smilodon is extinct, you would lobby for its
    being unrelated to modern cats.
    
    "Never mind irrefutable scientific evidence, we have the Bible!"

> It seems you were the one that was threatened.

Er, hardly. As a non-organized and independent atheist there isn't
too much that I find threatening from pseudo-science.

    re: .283
    
    If you want to read about evidence for a young earth, there are a lot
    of books out there that attempt to do just that.  Problem is, since
    they go agaist mainstream, and/or are written by a person of faith,
    they get tagged "religious" and are only found in religious sections of
    bookstores or at a religious bookstore (like Borean).
    
    I've read books from religious people that state a 16B year universe,
    saying it does not contradict with the Bible.  I've also read books
    that state that the universe is 20,000 years or younger, each state
    their scientific research.
    
    I'm afraid you'll have to dig a bit to find the "young earth" research.
    
    
    -steve

    .288
    
    I repeat.  Any book or other publication saying that the Universe is
    20,000 years old or younger is also saying that God is a liar.  I
    choose not to believe this latter statement; hence, I also disbelieve
    the former.

    God is not a liar, he's just trying to keep us on our toes.

    If he doesn't, I'm in trouble and grievously so.

Note 444.286      
        
>    But as for why they must be related to humans, I suppose you'd want to
>    deny that a tiger is related to a lion is related to a puma is relate
>    to an ocelot is related to a jaguar is related to a domestic tabby. 
>    The fact is that all these species of cats show clear morphological and
>    behavioral evidence of being related.  
    
    And such relation does not necessarily mean evolution from a single
    genetic "parent" either, does it?  It is possible, but not a fact.  All
    could have been a distict, but related, species from the onset.  The
    simple fact is, we don't know, so excuse me if I don't
    swallow everything that is spoon fed to me via the scientists. 
    
    As far as the modern cats go, at least we can visually study their
    behaviors, in addition to their appearance, etc. before we make
    conclusions.
     
>    They also show equally clear
>    evidence of being related to the famous extinct saber-toothed cat,
>    Smilodon.  
    
    They show a similar bone structure (and appearance, from what they can
    piece together).
    
>    But because Smilodon is extinct, you would lobby for its
>    being unrelated to modern cats.
 
    Not at all.  Neither do I accept blindly that they do. 
      
>    "Never mind irrefutable scientific evidence, we have the Bible!"
    
    Define 'irrefutable scientific evidence', and apply it to the the current
    discussion, please.  At best, scientists are guessing based on the
    similarities they find in the bone structure.  They do not KNOW.  Their
    determinations, currently, seem to fit the evidence (all based on their
    evolutionary model, of course).  
    
    I'm not trying to dispute anything here.  I'm stating my doubts.
    There can be no "transitional fossils" (primate to human)
    without having a model to place them in.  If the model is not correct,
    then the whole house of cards falls apart.  Currently, the model SEEMS
    to fit the data, though I have my doubts as to how the data is being
    interpreted.  I feel that there is a chance that circular reasoning is
    being used to interpret the findings.  
    
    
    Of course, none of this current string bugs me nearly as much as the
    "life from no life" evolution theory.  We at least stay within scientific 
    rules until we come to this one. 
    
    
    -steve

    Without great leaps of faith, the Genesis account is a wonderful house
    of cards.

    re: .289
    
    In your opinion.  There are simply too many things that we don't know
    to be dogmatic on either a young or old earth scenario.
    
    Current science points in one direction.  This does not mean that the
    next major discovery will not contradict this conclusion.  We assume
    quite a lot about creation, assumptions which are taken as fact in
    dating techniques.  Of course, it is the best we can do, currently, and
    maybe it is accurate within an acceptable range.  But there is the
    possiblility that it isn't.
    
    Don't be dogmatic on scientific theory.  It is not the Gospel.  Of
    course, the Gospel is not scientific theory, either.  8^)
    
    
    
    -steve 

Chemistry and Physics are not necessarily violated by "life from no
life".

Certainly, anyone can perform a simple experiment to show how entropy
drives the formation of cellular walls. Take a pan of water. Pour some
vegetable oil into, stir it up if'n you're so inclined. Come back later
and you will see how entropy drives the oil into a single collection.

A lot of people say that since we have entropy, nothing more ordered can
develop or evolvefrom something less ordered. The above disproves this.

TTom

    re: .295
    
    Ah, but the Bible is a book of faith, not science (as has been pointed
    out so often within this forum).
    
    
    
    -steve

Maybe, just maybe evolution does not explain the current life
on earth as well as Creationism.  Personally, from my study, both
of biology and the Bible (and other religions), I find nothing to 
refute evolution and much to support it.

But let us ignore evolution for the moment.  Let us look at other
societies.

Supposedly (from Creationism) the Earth is less than 10,000 year old
(I believe it is around 7700 or so).  But, if it is only that old,
how are the following explained.

Radioactivity is a well understood phenomenon.  The decay rates for
radioactive cardon are well known and have been varified a number of
times.  These techniques are so good, that only a few milligrams of
organic matter is usually all that is needed to date the object.

Using these techniques, man made items up to 50,000 years old have been
identified, and dated.  These datings are cooraborated in many other
ways.  Other radioactive dating techniques have been used to date rocks
back over 4 billion years old.  Note that these techniques have been
studied and perfected over many years.  These are not black magic items.

In the Gobi Desert there lives a plant that is extremely slow growing
and long lived.  It grows out from the center of its roots in an ever 
increasing circle.  Its age can be found by the size of the circle and
measurements of the plant itself.  There is one plant that is believed
to be over 10,000 years old.

The Antartic has been accumulating snow for hundreds of thousands of years.
Each year a small amount of snow falls in the winter, and the top lay melts
a little during the summer.  This produces a distintive line in the snow.
These lines can be counted to determine how many years have passed
since that snow had fallen.  Core samples from both northern Greenland
and Antartica have recoved snow from over 20,000 years ago.

Astronomers can accurately measure (using triangulation) out several
thousand lightyears.  They have then come up with a chart that 
relates star color to brightness.  Using that, they can then determine
the distance of any star in the galaxy.  From that it was easy to
determine the distance to nearby galaxies.  From this easy, straight
forward method (not relying on Hubble's Constant and dobbler shifting
at all) it has been determined that the nearest galaxies are on the order
of millions of lightyears away.  This means that the light from those
galaxies has been traveling for millions of years to get here.

Plate tectonics is well understood.  Seafloor spreading in the Atlantic
has been measured with great accuracy.  (If you don't think so, think of
the problems the people laying the transalantic cable had to solve).
From this (and tons of other evidence) it is clear that the Alantic has
been growing for over 100,000,000 years.

There is evidence of large ice packs all across North America, Europe,
and Asia.  The last ice age started to retreat over 20,000 years ago.
In its wake was left rocks, dirt, and bolders from areas 1000's of miles
to the north.

Many many layers of seashells are found in the mountains of central Europe.
It is obvious from looking at the fossile record that central Europe 
was once the sea floor.  And no, don't even think of talking the
Flood of Noah's time.  That receded way to fast to cause layers and
layers of sea shells and sediment to settle on the mountain tops and
then solidify into stone.  Looking at erosion patterns, radioactive dating,
and other techniques, it is clear that these mountains were pushed up
from the ocean flour many tens of millions of years ago.

This is just a small, truncated list of all of the items not explained
by Creationism.  Saying "God created it that way" is not good enough.  If
Creationism wants to be taken seriously as a science, it must apply 
scientific proofs, experimentation, hypothisis and re-evaluation.  Prove,
for example, that the grand canyon is only 7,000 years old.  Get the 
research that proves these theories.  Find the world wide watermarks from
the great flood.  Find Noah's Ark.  Explain Austrialia's wildlife.  Actually
explain how any wildlife got from the Ark to other continents.  Use fossile
records to trace the migration from the drop-off point.  Use genetic 
engineering to show how each species comes from one set of parents.

In short, apply the scientific method, or do not claim to be a science.

Sorry for the major ramblings.

	Skip

	.298  mostly when it's been convenient to do so.

    re: .298
    
    Jes, hi know.

    re: .297
    
    And if the earth was about 20 billion years old, the odds of amino
    acids forming on their own just went from near zilch to almost within 
    reason.
    
    Now, the next step is a bit more complex... 
    
    
    Physics and chemistry are not violated because it is a biological law. 
    8^)
    
    
    
    -steve

    .294
    
    > And such relation does not necessarily mean evolution from a single
    > genetic "parent" either, does it?  It is possible, but not a fact.
    
    Your "not a fact" is the fallacy.  Speciation HAS BEEN OBSERVED.  It is
    FACT.  Even Darwin, whom so many SciCre types like to take potshots at,
    wrote to a friend some SIXTEEN YEARS before publishing _On the Origin
    of Species_ that he had been dragged kicking and screaming to a point
    where he had no choice, as a rational person, to deny the fact of
    evolution.
    
    And as for "related ... from the onset," that is laughably easy to
    dismiss.  If we were all here from th outset, why does the fossil
    record not show anything of the kind?  Why does it show simpler species
    at the beginning, followed by increasingly complex new species that
    suppland the older ones, throughout the entire time of the earth's
    existence?  (The oldest known fossil life is more than 3x10e9 years
    old.)  The "all at once" theory is pretty - in fact it is far more
    elegant than the evolutionary model.  But pretty isn't the criterion
    for reality.

Actually the odds of amino acids forming "on there own" is 1:1. They've
been observed way out there, almost all by they lonesomes. 

Please try again.

TTom

    
    What's all this I hear about "mean old assets"?
    

    > Speciation HAS BEEN OBSERVED.
    
    If you will reread my first comment, you'll see that I'm not
    necessarily disagreeing.  I do have my doubts as to taking speciation
    to its logical conclusion, however.
    
    
    -steve

    re: .304
    
    You refer to lab experiments where circumstances are perfect and the
    balance of proper chemicals are present.
    
    I don't call scientifically assisted amino-acid creation as being a
    good pointer, especially if the conditions of the earth were as bad as
    scientists themselves say they were in this distant part of geological
    history.
    
    
    -steve

I aint talkin about no lab.

I'm talking about out there, in the near void. There is a great variety
of chemicals in space. The spectrum is very wide and includes molecules
and not just atoms.

Now, there have been some experiments in the lab where models of
primordial goop have been sparked and amino acids formed and I think this
doesn't mean much for either side.

TTom

>                  [This might engender a discussion to ban access to the
>    WWW; I understand they've already banned beer...]
    
I thought beer was banned from all notesfiles.  It messes up the disk drives.

    
    <--- 2) fits well.  Suppose "in the beginning, God created the Heavens
            and the earth".  Did he perpetuate life on it ? Probably, based
            on the fossil record.  Did that particular species population
            have relevance  to the Word ? Well, in reading
            the Word, it doesn't have a whole lot to say about dinosaurs.
            Scientific speculation these days points to the comet theory,
            which LIKELY destroyed all life on earth. That's probably
            the reference in Genesis 1:2, "...and the earth was without
            form and void".
            

I know this is a little late, but hey, I just got here.

>OUTSRC::HEISER "Maranatha!"
>    According to a recent summary of modern biological knowledge on human
>    racial characteristics, the difference in human genes linked to "race"
>    is only .012%. 

That is still one heck of a lot of genes.

But, let us compare that with some others.  There is roughly a 1%
difference between Homo Sapians and Chimps genetically.  There is less
than 25% difference between humans and pigs (of course in some, the
link is much close).  The Baboon is so close to the human, that a
baboon heart was once used in a human transplant.

>    This confronts the evolutionary belief that the races have been
>    evolving separately for 10's of 1,000's of years.

No, it just identifies the rate of change (which is slow).  In fact,
the current theory is that modern man developed from a small group in
south or south-central Africa about 50,000 years ago.  Given the
.012% number, this yields a genetic rate of change of .00000024% per
year.  Now, taking that number and the 1% genetic shift between Chimps
and Humans indicates that the two branches diverged about 4-4.6 million
years ago.

It's funny, but that same number came up from the fossile records long
before there was the genetic engineering around to confirm it.

Note also, there is no where in the Bible that would indicate the
close genetic relation between Man and various simians.

>    Such genetic
>    closeness is, however, a direct prediction from the Bible's claim that
>    all people are closely related - first via Adam and Eve, and second
>    through Noah's family.

Sorry, but this is just plain incorrect.  For this to be correct,
the genetic alteration would have to be at least 10 times faster
than it currently is.  Yet, the DNA evidence does not support this
more rapid rate.  In fact, DNA tests done on mummified remains 
supports the .00000024%  rate.

	Skip

    
    On the question of old life forms.  I recall reading an article many
    years ago that talked about bacteria that lived in rocklike structures
    (stromatolites?).  The "rocks" were made from minerals excreted by the
    bacteria and it is possible to extrapolate the age of a colony
    from the size of the rocks.  Anyone heard of these?  Isn't there
    evidence that the colonies have been around for more than 5000
    years?
    
    Colin
    

    >On the question of old life forms.
    
    If you have questions about old life forms, go to the source...
    
    
    Dick Binder!!!!    :)
    
    ...Tom

    
    Dick is much maligned!  For a CoF he plays a mean game of softball
    in sweltering temperatures.

    >                      <<< Note 444.315 by SMURF::WALTERS >>>
    >                              -< biological clock >-
    >
    >
    >On the question of old life forms.  I recall reading an article many
    >years ago that talked about bacteria that lived in rocklike structures
    >(stromatolites?).  The "rocks" were made from minerals excreted by the
    >bacteria and it is possible to extrapolate the age of a colony from the
    >size of the rocks.  Anyone heard of these?  Isn't there evidence that
    >the colonies have been around for more than 5000 years?

    That is correct.  I believe they are located in the South Pacific. 
    Note also that coral reefs can also be aged (roughly) on size and type
    of coral.  The Great Barrier Reef is estimated at many millions of
    years old.  It was the travels of Darwin on the HMS Beagle to a variety
    of islands (both tropical and not) and observations of the various
    marine and island life that caused him to develop the theory of
    Evolution.  Note that his theories on Coral Reef formation have stood
    the tests of time even though he did not have any modern equipment for
    drilling and measurements.  He was an impressive scientist.

    	Skip

Dating techniques that stand the test of time! I like it.

Of course, a great many geological issues are usually not addressed by
creationism. They seem to wanna dwell on fossils which means evolution
which leads life from no life.

In addition to reefs, rocks, coal, oil, plate techtonics, etc., are also
mostly ignored. We do get the get a_occasional mention of the Grand
Canyon forming in 3 weeks and the like.

TTom

    Thanks.   What triggered this question was a recent radio news
    story about scientists discovering new forms of bacteria
    living deep in the earth.  Interesting stuff.
    
    Colin
    

RE: 444.262 by OUTSRC::HEISER "watchman on the wall"

First,  where is "Dr. D. Russell Humphreys" degree from?

Next,  does he have a PHd in Physics,  as implied by saying "Dr. D. Russell 
Humphreys,  physicist?"  Or some different degree?  If so,  what? 

Last,  exactly which "facts of science" supports the idea of a "recent 
creation"?


Phil

>Dating techniques that stand the test of time! I like it.
    
    My wife liked mine so much she just had to marry me.
    

    Phil, feel free to write to Sandia Labs and ask the good doctor.

RE: OUTSRC::HEISER "watchman on the wall"

First,  where is "Dr. D. Russell Humphreys" degree from?

Doesn't the book say?


Next,  does he have a PHd in Physics,  as implied by saying "Dr. D. Russell
Humphreys,  physicist?"  Or some different degree?  If so,  what?

Doesn't the book say?


Last,  exactly which "facts of science" supports the idea of a "recent
creation"?

Isn't that the point of the book?


Phil

RE: 444.324 by OUTSRC::HEISER "watchman on the wall"

I strongly suspect the letter would come back:

"No such person at this address"


Phil

#1 daughter was over last evening and wanted to watch Fantasia. The
segment inspired by New World Symphony caught my eye for a change.

Was there any controversy when Walt Disney presented this interpretation
50 or so years ago?

The biggest controversy of Fantasia was the music.

Disney offered Igor Stravinsky some money to use his music. Igor refused.
Disney supposedly sent him the check with a note saying if'n Igor didn't
like it he could sue.

Further Disney went on to actually rewrite some of the music to more
closely match his apparently limited cartooning skills. I mean don't they
usuall just draw it to match the real music?

This is one of many Disney stories showing the kinda wholesome and family
values kinda guy he was.

TTom

    Apparently nice old Walt was an SOB to work for.

No facial hair allowed for Disney employees.  Except Walt, of course.

Rumors persist that he's on ice waiting for the technology to catch up.

In any case, I'm a little surprised that Disney didn't make a cartoon of
early Genesis, replete with actual dates. 'Twould be appropriate for
creationism.

TTom

    .328
    
    > Further Disney went on to actually rewrite some of the music...
    
    Er, ummm,  I don't think so.  The conductor chosen, Leopold Stokowski,
    was already well known as an arranger; among his credits to that time
    were an orchestral version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor and a
    bang-up version of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain - and whaddya
    know, both of those arrangements were used in Fantasia.  Transcriptions
    and rearrangements are not all that uncommon even among name composers.
    Liszt transcribed the Beethoven symphonies; the best-known version of
    Night on Bald Mountain was orchestrated by Ravel; the final version of
    Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov was finished and reorchestrated by
    Prokofiev; and so on.

So, my question remains - where were all of the scientific creationists
when Disney released Fantasia?

    
    God hadn't made them yet.

    Back in those days, there were only believers and heathen. Now we have
    a plethora of categories.

Well, actually I was thinking something along those lines myself. I'd
be willing to bet that this whole scientific creationism concept didn't
even gel until sometime within the past 30 years or so. Even given the
historical evidence of The Monkey Trial (when was that? The 20's?),
I doubt that the SC's were able to get their act together quick enough
to build their platform and raise their "congregation" before sometime
in the 60's or so. Their relatively late arrival on the scene in and
of itself makes their position somewhat more humorous.

    .336
    
    The John Scopes "Monkey" Trial was held in 1925.  Prosecuting attorney
    was William Jennings Bryan, defense attorney was Clarence Darrow.
    
    The play _Inherit the Wind_ dramatized the affair for the stage and,
    later, screen.

    
    re: .326
    
    >I strongly suspect the letter would come back:
    
    Instead of "strongly suspecting"... why don't you try and then you'd
    know for sure...
    
     Isn't that the sign of a succesful, scientific experiment.. knowing
    for sure??

    
    The "Monkey Trial" was the start of a rapid decline in Creationism. 
    The advent of things like planes and radios started people thinking
    that science was the answer to all problems.  This hit its extreme in
    the early '60s with the space/arms race.
    
    The dawning of the age of Aquarius brought a new level of spirituality
    to a lot of people.  Combine that with the anti-establishment movement
    of the late '60s and early '70s and the stage was set for the rejection
    of science.  Add to that the job loss due to robots and electronics, as
    well as high tech polution from 3 Mile Island, and people turned their
    backs on science and technology.  The resurrence on the Religious Right
    during Regan's terms in office brought back Creationism to levels that
    probably have not been seen since the Renaissance.
    
    It is just to bad that people like Galileo, whose work has been
    verified innumerable times must come back from the dead and do it all
    over again.
    
    	Skip

    
    Minor nit:
    
    > well as high tech polution from 3 Mile Island, and people turned their
    
    Question: What polution has been verified as having come from 3 Mile
    Island?  What kinds of amounts are we talking about?
    
    Dan
    P.S. maybe this belongs in the 1-800 topic; Mods, feel free to move it.
    

    >Doesn't the book say?
    
    I don't have his book yet.  this quote was in the latest "Creation"
    journal.

    
    Minor nit:
    
    >> well as high tech polution from 3 Mile Island, and people turned
    >> their
    
    > Question: What polution has been verified as having come from 3 Mile
    > Island?  What kinds of amounts are we talking about?
    
    Well, there was some hydrogen gas and a small amount of radiation.
    Actually, most of the polution was generated by the media.
    
    The point I was trying to make was that from the late 1800's through
    about 1965 or so, science and technology was considered a major boon
    and could solve almost all problems.  That feeling was countered during
    the '60s and '70s, with the comments that technology was the CAUSE of
    most of the problems, not the solution.  Many anti-technologists were
    jumping up and down in ecstacy when 3 mile island had its problems. 
    They were now - in their minds at least - vindicated.
    
    Many wanted the "simpler" life of the past.  With this desire for a
    simpler, less technologically oriented life, comes the desire for a
    simpler, less technologically oriented religion.  Thus, using religion
    to prove modern science is wrong has a strong appeal.  Hence the
    rebirth of Creationism.
    
    But, then again, there are still many people that believe the earth is,
    in fact, a flat disk.  The north pole is the center of this disk and
    Antartica is the edge.
    
    	Skip

> Many wanted the "simpler" life of the past.  With this desire for a
> simpler, less technologically oriented life, comes the desire for a

Sure, I remember the "split wood, not atoms" bumper stickers. About the 
dirtiest form of heating one's house there is. 

    >Many wanted the "simpler" life of the past
    
    Yes, the simpler times, washing clothes in the river, cutting wood for
    heat and cooking, fueling up the old horse, reading Huck Finn by the
    light of a kerosene lantern, dirt floors and that once a month bath. One 
    can only dream.   :-)
    
    
    ...Tom

    
    Hey, I don't consider them better times.  I like not getting smallpox.

    Smallpox vaccine is EVYL.  It is the product of science.  Science is
    EVYL because scientists actually THINK instead of taking it on faith
    that disease is God's punishment for wickedness.

Isn't that the belief of Christian Scientists and not scientific
creationsists?

TTom

    The "because" part is different.

>RE: OUTSRC::HEISER "watchman on the wall"

>First,  where is "Dr. D. Russell Humphreys" degree from?

>Doesn't the book say?


>Next,  does he have a PHd in Physics,  as implied by saying "Dr. D. Russell
>Humphreys,  physicist?"  Or some different degree?  If so,  what?

>Doesn't the book say?

	Couldn't find the book in Barnes and Noble.

	I went and surfed thru some of the major physics journals and the 
	citation index and couldn't find a single publication by a D. Russel 
	Humphreys (or a D.R. Humphreys) back to 1975.

	Next I surfed over to his college's web page.  He teaches at, what
	is essentially, a divinity school, not a liberal arts institution.

	Now, none of these *negative* findings prove that Humphrey is trading
	on his Divinity PhD, but IMHO I would be surprised if this fellow
	had any relevant academic credentials.

	He's a thumper, c'mon!

/mtp

    Answers in Genesis, a Creation Science ministry, is now available at
    
    http://www.christianswers.net
    
    The web site includes info to assist Christians with Biblical answers
    in Creation evangelism efforts.
    
    Mike

>    in Creation evangelism efforts.
    
Creation Evangelism? cripes does that mean we get folks knocking on our doors
on Saturday mornings pushing creation? Sort of like the Mormons the 
adventists? I'm gonna have to put a "take a number" machine at the end of the 
driveway.

Amos

    
    	Or a sign that says, "I have a gun, so don't piss me off".
    
    	8^)
    

   <<< Note 444.355 by BUSY::SLABOUNTY "I'll kiss the dirt and walk away" >>>

    
>    	Or a sign that says, "I have a gun, so don't piss me off".
 
	My wife has a button that says "WARNING! I have PMS and I'm Armed".

	;-)

Jim

    Jim,
    
    She should try the one I have.  "I have a gun and I just don't care
    anymore"  
    

    
    My SO's T-shirt states:
    
    I have PMS and a gun.... Any questions??
    

    You would be surprised at the growing revival, and the number of people
    coming to salvation in Christ, because of taking the evolution blinders
    off.
    
    Mike

    > You would be surprised at the growing revival, and the number of
    > people coming to salvation in Christ, [sic] because of taking the
    > evolution blinders off.
    
    no, actually I wouldn't.  Times of change tend to frighten many people,
    and they often seek refuge and comfort in traditional cultural
    practises, hoping for a return to simpler times.  And given that our
    successful human adaptabilities have ensured the survival of so many
    whom nature would have weeded out of the gene pool in more primitive
    times, it is only natural that more and more people who can't cope 
    with the pace of change are surviving anyway, to choose such illogical
    traditions for their comfort.  Doesn't really work- the pace of change
    continues to accelerate regardless of how many people wishfully oppose
    it- but the  attempt to find such comfort is only human, and certainly
    not all that surprising.  One might almost wish that evolution itself
    put a higher price on mental capacities, to ensure survival- then we
    wouldn't have to wait so long for such dogmatic nonsenses as
    'creationism' to wither away.  People are actually teaching it to their
    kids, that's what I'd be surprised at.  
    
    DougO

>			One might almost wish that evolution itself
>    put a higher price on mental capacities, to ensure survival- then we
>    wouldn't have to wait so long for such dogmatic nonsenses as
>    'creationism' to wither away.


I think that it [evolution] actually does, DougO.

    
    I feel much better now, DougOd.

    
    re: .360
    
    Obviously, thoughts from one of "Those that count"...
    

    re: .360
    
    Just a nit, but you seem to put all of "creationism" in one tidy little
    box.  Creationism can be anything from simply saying "God created the
    universe" (divine creation), to the more inclusive scientific 
    creationism- which is more geared at countering the dogma of the 
    evolutionary model.
    
    Both take faith to believe in, as neither are provable.  
    
    Some take elements of both, believing that the evolutionary model does
    not necessarily conflict with the Biblical account- or with their
    belief that God was responsible for the creation of the universe.
    
    I'd recommend not trying to make this a purely black and white issue,
    as not everyone fits into your tidy little boxes.
    
    
    -steve

    The condescending attitude of evolutionists seems to have been very 
    common for quite some time.  
    
    "What inclines me now to think you may be right in regarding
    [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of
    falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments
    against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders."
    
    - C.S. Lewis in a letter to Capt. Bernard Acworth, of England's
    Evolution Protest Movement

    .365
    
    And who, pray tell, has declared C. S. Lewis' writings inerrant?

    Give it a couple of thousand years and they will be.

    
    >One might almost wish that evolution itself put a higher price on
    >mental capacities, to ensure survival- then we wouldn't have to wait so
    >long for such dogmatic nonsenses as 'creationism' to wither away.
    
    It is be interesting to determine what evolutionary path the human
    race may be on.
    
    When looking at a biological system and its potential evolutionary path
    into the future, one must look at that species' mortality rates. 
    Evolution (or selection of the fittest) is determined by two things -
    One, which of the groups reproduce the most (The survivors).  And two,
    which of the groups reproduce the least or not at all (those the species
    is evolving away from).
    
    If there is an environmental element that causes a particular trait or
    group of traits to survive to have more offspring, that trait will grow
    and become more prevelant.  For example - if there are two moths that
    are identical in every way except one is white and one is black, there
    would not be any "stressor" to select one over the other.  If, all of a
    sudden, polution is introduced into the environment covering everything
    with a dark soot, the white moth would stand out more, and be more
    likely to be eaten than the dark moth.  Eventually, the white moth
    would disappear and only the dark would remain.  (This actually
    happened to a breed of moth in East Germany.  It is now almost
    impossible to find the white version of this moth.)
    
    Using this, let us look at human society, in particular that of the
    USA.  There has always been the assumption that humankind was heading
    for greater and greater intelligence.  But, would the evolutionary
    trend support that assumption?  In order for that to be true,
    intelligence must be a selection criteria in having offspring.  Yet, a
    study done on the 1980 census showed potentially different results. 
    Those with a college degree (which is not always a gauge of
    intelligence, but it is the only one I have) averaged something like
    30% fewer childer then those with 1 year or less of college.  If we can
    corrolate intelligence with education level (again, I agree it is not a
    complete corrolation, but there is some corrolation), then the trend is
    that the less intelligent have more children.  Thus, we are definitely
    NOT evolving towards higher intelligence.
    
    So, the next step is to look at what might be an environmental stressor
    on the human population.  The most active one is the one that has the
    highest mortality rate of people before they have children.  There are
    a large number of things that still effect children in the 0-4 year
    range, so I will ignore those (especially since they are all roughly
    equal in mortality levels).  But let us look at the single largest
    cause of death in the 5-24 age group.  This item will put the most
    stress on the gene pool, and determine what traits are the most
    desirable for future generations.  Especially if that stressor is much
    larger than any other.
    
    It turns out that there is one environmental item that is 2-3 times
    more deadly for the 5-24 age group than any other item.  It is not so
    deadly that it will cause rapid change in the basic human traits.  But
    it is deadly enough, that if given enough time, the traits being
    selected will be significantly improved from those before this
    environmental stress was introduced to the human species.  I would
    predict about 10 generations before a significant difference can be
    noticed, but since 3-4 generations have already been effected by this
    environmental stress mechanism, there probably is some effect already.
    
    The environmental factor which will be pivitol for future evolutionary
    trends (untill the next one comes along) is driving.  More people under
    25 die in automobiles than from any other cause.  When adjusted for
    people without children, 2-3 times more childless people die from auto
    accidents then the next highest mortality item.  Now, I have no idea
    what traits are being selected - it could be reflexes, concentration,
    ability to decide not to drive while drunk, or the ability to stay in
    control while drunk.  But whatever it is, that is the major
    environmental stress on at least the industrialized world (especially
    the USA).
    
    We are evolving into a race of drivers.
    
    Okay, I donned my fire fighting equipment.  Set the flame throwers on
    high.
    
    		Skip
    

    Ok Skip, I'll jump into the middle of this one.

    Population statistics are interesting (at least to me they are).  Let's
    assume for argument sake that all of my descendents take my relative
    path through life; that is, go to college, start a career, and wait
    until about 30 to drop two kids.

    Let's further assume for argument sake that my younger sister's
    descendents follow her relative path through life:  marry a high-school
    drop out and drop two kids by age of 20.

    When I die at 80, how many people on this planet call my ancestor?  5.
    When my sister dies at 80, how many people on this planet call her
    ancestor?  30.

    Who's more likely to live at or below the poverty line?

    It's bad enough that college educated people are having fewer children
    (by your statistics), but compounding the problem is that they are
    waiting longer before having children.

    -- Dave

    Ants rule the planet.

    If you'd known my Aunt Sarah, you would never EVER doubt that.
    

plants rule the internet

... and if you want to get the chain with which to hang a potted plant in your 
office, who do you call?

... why, plant engineering, of course.

    
    > plants rule the internet

    I thought that was a fungus....silly me
    

    > plants rule the internet
        
    >I thought that was a fungus....silly me
    
    ACtually, isn't it worms and viruses?

Wasn't that THE song for '84 - "Feed the Worms"?

\C

    
    	"We Are the World", perhaps?
    
    	But there was a satire called "We Are the Worms".
    

We are the Warts,
We are the chilblains



(Actually, Sir Bob doing his thing with "We Are the World" was the 
last thing I heard on the radio this morning - I blame Dave Barry)

    This troubles me.

Oh No!

This blights my whole day.


Oh Woe!


\C

    
    	RE: \c
    
    	BTW, there was a song called "Feed the World" done around that
    	time ... by Band Aid.
    

    So, is this topic about evolution and all that?  I usually "KP," it,
    but this seems like a good place for this TTWA:
    
    Does every part of the country get the exact same magazine ads?
    More specifically, does the Bible Belt (and other "regions" that
    may not be thrilled with evolutionary theory) get the same issue
    of Family PC that I got the other day, with the same ad for one
    of Microsoft's products (probably Encarta, I forget)?
    
    This two-page ad on pages 12-13 of the January issue of Family PC
    is all about evolution, of all things.  On the right side, the
    name "DARWIN" appears vertically in huge letters that go from the
    top of the page to the bottom.  On the left side of the page are
    a bunch of questions that a kid might ask, like (approximately
    remembered from dim memory) "Is evolution the same as growing up?",
    "Grandpa, can you feel yourself evolving?", and the more eyebrow-
    raising "Why do some people get so upset at the idea that we were
    like monkeys once?", along with others.  The whole idea seemed to
    be "Use Encarta to have your kids learn all about Darwinian stuff."
    
    As for myself, I don't give two figs about this whole evolution
    business, but I was amazed that Microsoft was so bold as to needlessly
    go in-your-face with this topic and offend millions (?) of potential
    customers.  Veddy strange.  What's to be gained?  Why didn't they
    simply use any of hundreds of other possible educational topics and
    examples to demonstrate the learning benefits of their product?
    
    Or is Microsoft intentionally starting to push a political agenda
    along with their software?
    
    My cousin believes so, based on his wanderings through Microsoft's
    "Dangerous Creatures" CD (or some similar title), in which he was
    astonished to hear many examples of anti-male bias narrated in a
    sneering tone by a female reader.
    
    Chris

re<<< Note 444.382 by BUSY::SLABOUNTY "Catch you later!!" >>>

Umm, Bob Geldorf organised the song, the group, the concerts etc, that's why 
he was "Sir'ed"

It's a joke, Joyce!



Chele

    .383
    
    Many magazines have regional issues.  One magazine I know of marks its
    different regional versions with varying numbers of discreet little
    stars near the title on the cover.

    RE: .383
    
    Time Magazine has different ads in different locals. So, I presume that
    other magazines do as well.
    

    Here are some Creation Science sites for you to check out.  There are
    too many to list, but you'll find links to most of them at these sites.
    
    Answers in Genesis & Creation Science Foundation - 
    	http://www.ChristianAnswers.Net/aig/aighome.html
    
    Creation Science - 
    	http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/index.htm
    
    Lambert Dolphin - Christian Physicist
    	http://www.best.com/~dolphin/
    
    Garth Wiebe - Christian DECcie
    	http://www.ultranet.com/~wiebe/e.htm
    
    Internet Center for Creation Science -
    	http://schdist23.bc.ca/iccsnet/creation.html
    
    Creation Research Society -
    	http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/crs/crs-home.html
    
    Center for Scientific Creation -
    	http://www.creationscience.com/
    
    Creation Science Association of Atlantic Canada -
    	http://www.navnet.net/csaac/csaac.html
    
    Creation Outreach -
    	http://onramp.ior.com/~kjc/creation.html
    
    Creationism Connection -
    	http://members.aol.com/dwr51055/Creation.html
    
    Biblical Creation Society (UK) -
    	http://www.pages.org/uk/bcs/

    {from the Center for Scientific Creation's Dr. Walt Brown}
    
        How Do Evolutionists Respond to What You Say? 
    
    They generally ignore it. A few will criticize the evidences in forums
    where I cannot respond. Once every year or so, a knowledgeable 
    evolutionist will agree to an oral, strictly scientific debate. These 
    debates are usually lively, but always cordial. Unfortunately, little
    can be covered in a 2 1/2-hour debate, and the substance of the debate
    cannot be widely distributed, studied, and recalled by others as it could 
    if it were in writing. 
    
    The biggest single step that I believe could be taken to clarify the 
    creation-evolution controversy is to have a thorough, written, 
    publishable debate. Both sides would lay out their case, much as I have 
    in The Scientific Case for Creation on pages 3 - 81. Then we would respond, 
    point-by-point, to the case for the other side. Both sides would have
    the right to publish the finished exchange. I have sought such a dialogue 
    since 1980, but have not had a serious and qualified taker. Many leading 
    evolutionists know of the offer.  When I speak at universities and 
    colleges, I offer the students a $200 finder's fee, if they can find an 
    evolutionist professor who will complete such a debate. I am repeating 
    that offer here to the first student who can find such a science professor. 
    
     Several excuses are given. 
    
        1."I don't have time." 
               Response: Many do not have time, and of course, they need
               not participate.  Nevertheless, others have the time to write 
               books attacking and misrepresenting creationist positions. Many 
               are teaching what I feel are outdated evolutionary ideas and 
               refuse to place themselves in a forum where they must defend 
               what they are teaching. If you are going to teach something,
               you ought to be willing to defend it, especially if taxpayers 
               are paying your salary. 
    
        2."I don't know enough about evolution." (Carl Sagan's answer) or
          "I am only qualified in one aspect of evolution." 
               Response: A team of people could participate in the 
               evolutionist side of the debate. 
    
        3."I don't want to give a creationist a forum." 
               Response: Of the thousands of scientific controversies, the
               creation-evolution controversy is the only one I know where 
               some scientists refuse to exchange and discuss the evidence. 
               That is an unscientific, closeminded position. 
    
        4."Creation is a religious idea. It is not science." 
               Response: Creation certainly has religious implications, but
               much scientific evidence bears on the subject. Only the 
               scientific aspects would be permitted in this written debate. 
               An umpire would remove any religious, or antireligious,
               comments from the exchange. If my only comments were religious, 
               the umpire would strike them from the debate. I would have 
               nothing to say, and the evolutionist would win by default. 
               (Incidently, evolution also has religious implications.) 
    
        5."Any debate should be in refereed science journals." 
               Response: The journals you refer to are controlled by
               evolutionists. They would not provide a platform for such a 
               lengthy debate. Nor do they publish any research questioning 
               evolution and supporting creation.  The publishers of these 
               journals would be severely criticized by many of their
               clientele and advertisers if they did. (The few evolutionists 
               who participate in oral debates often admit how much they are 
               criticized by other evolutionists for participating in a 
               debate.)  In a well-publicized case, one journal, Scientific
               American, withdrew a contract to hire a very qualified 
               assistant editor when it was learned he was a creationist. 
    
    If anyone wishes to explore the written debate idea further, I would
    welcome a letter regarding the debate. But if you are going to ask a 
    qualified evolutionist to participate, watch out for the excuses. 
    
    How do evolutionists respond to the scientific case for creation? Most
    try to ignore it. As you can see from the above excuses, even qualified 
    evolutionists avoid a direct exchange dealing with the scientific evidence. 
    
     Copyright � 1995 - 1997: Center for Scientific Creation Site 
    by Falcon Interactive 

    btw - Moon math is covered at http://www.creationscience.com/ under the
    Technical section.

>    How do evolutionists respond to the scientific case for creation? Most
>    try to ignore it. As you can see from the above excuses, even qualified 
>    evolutionists avoid a direct exchange dealing with the scientific evidence. 

Maybe, but the arguments I've seen from qualified "evolutionists" are rather
devastating to creationism. Maybe that's why most of them don't waste much
time over it?

    THE CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC CREATION
    
    Dr.  Walt Brown is the Director of the Center for Scientific Creation. 
    He is a retired full colonel (Air Force) and a West Point graduate with
    a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of
    Technology.  At M.I.T.  he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. 
    Dr.  Brown has taught college courses in mathematics, physics, and
    computer science.  While in the Army, he was a paratrooper and ranger. 
    His most recent assignments during his twenty-one years of military
    service were Chief of Science and Technology Studies at the Air War
    College, tenured associate professor at the U.S.  Air Force Academy,
    and Director of Benet Research, Development, and Engineering
    Laboratories in Albany, New York.  Since retiring in 1980, Dr.  Brown
    has been actively involved in speaking, writing, and research in
    creation-science.
    
    Dr.  Brown's book In the Beginning (6th Edition), now available online,
    contains his own independent analysis of the speed of light information
    as well as a wealth of analytical information related to Biblical
    creation.
    
    -------------------------------------
    
    Director, owner, sole member.
    
    This chap has  published one vanity press book through his own
    institute.  As As usual there's a bunch of glowing tributes from looney
    nonenetities.
    
    
    Some content of this esteemed tome:
    
    -------------
    
    Archaeological Evidence Indicates That Noah's Ark Probably Exists
    
      
      98. British Scientists
    
    In about 1856, three skeptical British scientists and two Armenian
    guides climbed Mount Ararat to show that the Ark did not exist.  The
    Ark was supposedly found, but the British scientists threatened to kill
    the guides if they reported it.  Years later, one of the Armenians,
    then living in the United States, and one of the British scientists
    independently reported that they had found the Ark.
    
    103. Turkish Soldiers
    
    In 1916, five Turkish soldiers, crossing Mount Ararat, claimed to have
    seen the Ark; however, they did not report their story until 30 years
    later when they offered to guide an American expedition to the site. 
    The expedition did not materialize, and their services were not sought
    until after their deaths.
    
    
    Well, that's it then!  I'm convinced.  But it gets better in the
    explanation of frozen mammoths.
    
    
    Former Environment of Frozen Mammoths. There is a common misconception
    that the mammoth lived in areas of extreme cold. 
    .
    .
     
    The long hair on a mammoth's legs hung to its toes. 31 Had it walked in
    snow, snow and ice would have caked on its hairy "ankles".
     
   ------------
    
    And we have expert testimony on intermediate fossils:
     
   ------------
      
    If Archaeopteryx were shown to be a fraud, the result would be
    devastating for the evolution theory.
    
    Since the early 1980s, several prominent scientists have charged that
    the two Archaeopteryx fossils with clearly visible feathers are
    forgeries.  1 Allegedly, thin layers of cement were spread on two
    fossils of a chicken-size dinosaur, called Compsognathus (komp SOG nuh
    thus).  Bird feathers were then imprinted into the wet cement.
    
    -----------------------
    
    
     The reference is to the thoroughly debunked book by Fred Hoyle and N. 
    Chandra Wickramasinghe, (renowned non-experts in archaeology).
    Archaeopteryx, the Primordial Bird:  A Case of Fossil Forgery
     (Swansea, England:  Christopher Davies, Ltd., 1986).
    (http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/archaeopteryx/forgery.html)
    
    ------------------------
    
    Lots of other stuff here such as how everyone is wrong about the speed
    of light, and brilliant insight into the orogins of race:
    
    ------------------------
    
    "Adam's and Eve's skin color was not "white" or "black" but something
    in between.  The Hebrew word for Adam carries the connotation of red,
    since an almost identical Hebrew word means "red" or "to show blood." 
    It is quite likely that Adam's skin coloring was most like that of
    Native Americans."
    
    ----------------------
    
    
    I really can't work out why other debaters avoid him like the plague. 
    
    
    
    http://www.creationscience.com/
    

    oh dear. ;>   too freakin' funny.

 actually I can commiserate with poor Brown and his slow light ( I went
 to his .creationscience. homepage, clicked on technical and astronomy,
 and had myself a good bellylaugh.  I suggest he debate, say, Ace Ventura,
 Pet Detective.)

  Like creation scientists in search of a young earth, we computer guys
 suffer from slow light.  If we could just get that c term up, we'd be
 worldbeaters down here in Servers...

  bb

    The current issue of Skeptic Magazine [not the Skeptical Inquirer] has
    a fine analysis of Mr. Brown, his arguments, his errors, his refusal
    to correct his publications even after being shown (and he admits) his
    'scientific' errors and lack of understanding .
    
    The article's conclusion about Mr. Brown is sympathetic! The belief of
    the author is that Mr. Brown is just incapable of admiting to
    contradictions and errors. "He truly believes" so nothing you can tell
    him will change his beliefs. He is quoted of admiting to errors while
    in debate but never changes his publications. The author, who has
    debated Mr. Brown, concludes that he's not a deliberate liar but just
    chooses to ignore refutations of his beliefs. It's a 'true believer'
    thing rather than rational thought or deliberate lie - some would call
    it just plain ignorance. 

    thanks for the info.  What do you think of these people?
    
Dr. Steven A. Austin 
Dr. Gary E. Parker
Dr. Robert V. Gentry
Dr. Duane T. Gish
Dr. D. Russell Humphreys
Dr. Ken Ham
Dr. Henry M. Morris
    Dr. Hugh Ross

    I'd hazard a guess that they're part of a tiny fraction of percentage
    of the world's scientific community who happen to have their work
    associated with creationism.
    
    But SW.  Many eminent scientist had odd beliefs.  Newton spent
    decades seeking the philosophers stone, as did many other alchemists.
    However, their scientific findings from this fantastic quest actually
    led to the discovery of scientific truths.   It's perfectly possible to
    work in a druggco lab and be a scientist while pushing creationist
    mythology in one's spare time.
    
    The difference is that these guys blatently deny the vast body of
    other scientific knowledge that goes against their philosophical views.
    
    
    http://members.aol.com/DWR51055/Creation.html
    
    Austin, Steven A. 
    
    Steven A. Austin earned his Ph.D. in geology from Pennsylvania State
    University in 1979. He is the chairman of the Geology Department at the
    Institute for Creation Research Graduate School in Santee California.
    His book Catastrophes in Earth History, video, "Mount St. Helens:
    Explosive Evidence for Catastrophe," and computer software,
    "Catastrophe Reference Database," are significant contributions to
    creationist geology.. 
    
    Gentry, Robert V. 
    
    Dr. Gentry is a research physicist whose area of expertise is the
    geophysical phenomena of radioactive halos. He worked for thirteen
    years as a visiting scientist in the Chemistry Division of Oak Ridge
    National Laboratory. He spent several years in the defense industry and
    in college and university teaching. He has authored or coauthored over
    20 research papers many of which have been published in Science and
    Nature. Dr. Gentry courageously testified on behalf of creation science
    when the Arkansas law requiring the teaching of creation along with
    evolution in public schools was challenged by the ACLU in 1981. 
    
    Gish, Duane T. 
    
    Dr. Gish is perhaps the most outspoken modern creationist having
    participated in hundreds of creation/evolution debates on university
    campuses around the country. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry for
    the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a director of the
    Creation Research Society since 1963, served as Professor of Natural
    Sciences at Christian Heritage College, and has served as Associate
    Director and Vice President of the Institute for Creation Research
    since 1972. He worked for 18 years in biochemical and biomedical
    research at Cornell University Medical College, the Virus Laboratory of
    the University of California at Berkeley, and the Upjohn Company in
    Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has written numerous technical articles and
    books concerning the evidence for the creation of living things and the
    inadequacy of evolutionary theory.
    
    Humphreys, D. Russell 
    
    Dr. Humphreys was awarded his Ph.D. in physics from Lousiana Sate
    University in 1972, by which time he was a fully convinced creationist.
    For the next 6 years he worked in the High Voltage Laboratory of
    General Electric Company. Since 1979, he has worked for Sandia National
    Laboratories in nuclear physics, geophysics, pulsed power research,
    theoretical atomic and nuclear physics, and the Particle Beam Fusion
    Project. Dr. Humphreys is an adjunct professor of Geophysics and
    Astrophysics at the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, a
    Board member of the Creation Research Society and is president of the
    Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico. 
    
    Morris, Henry M. 
    
    Dr. Morris is considered the founder of the modern creationist
    movement. He is founder and former president of the Institute for
    Creation Research and cofounder and former president of Christian
    Heritage College. He received his Ph. D. in hydrology from the
    University of Minnesota. He served as the chairman of the Civil
    Engineering Department at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
    University for thirteen years. He is the author of numerous books and
    articles in the field of creation science and has participated in
    numerous creation/evolution debates. 

    I know who they are, just wanted to know what others thought.  Some of
    you might find Dr. Hugh Ross interesting.  He's a Christian who
    believes in the old earth theory and believes God was behind the
    evolution process.  I don't agree with his ideas, but he is a 
    controversial figure in the creationist camp.

    Do me a favour.  Find me a widely-published creationist biologist
    currently employed as a teacher in a university - and not one of those
    Southern Baptist Colleges either.
    
    The support of a few scientists doesn't mean that creationism is
    staunchly rooted in science.  Far from it. Only a tiny minority of
    scientists expound it or allow their work to be associated with it. 
    The reason I posted  the bios is so that readers will see that these
    people are mostly associated with, funded by, or privately published by
    creationist institutions.  Their work there is undebated in the wider
    scientific community and serves only to support creationist mythology. 
    That doesn't mean that they don't also have publications in reputable
    journals, but it's a far cry from describing the physics of a pulsar to
    claiming the world was 10,000 years old.  Show me an article in Nature
    in which the creationist recent-earth theory was given scientific
    credence. 
    
    The attempt to dress creationist theory in a suit of scientific
    endeavour is complete hypocrisy.  Creationists deny the vast body of
    contrary scientific evidence, but desperately parades a tiny body of
    fringe scientists as evidence that it employs scientific methods in
    search of the truth.  
    
    Creationism is not science.  It is rooted in an extreme branch of a
    religious faith. Many, many, scientists who are members of the same
    faith do NOT subscribe to creationist theory and make no secret of the
    fact. These scientists  have no problems reconciling their religious
    views with their search for and acceptance of scientific truths.  Ross
    does have such a problem to the extent that he cannot simply accept the
    overwhelming evidence that the Earth is old and the Universe is much,
    much older.
    
    The clincher is that creationism deals only in the peddling of
    certainties - which is why Ross is viewed as heretical for not toeing
    the creationist line.  Real science is not about determining absolutes,
    but about reducing uncertainty.  There can be times when the
    uncertainty is huge - such as the current debate over the age of the
    Universe.  However, there's a heck of a bigger difference between
    10,000 years and hundreds of billions of years, If Ross wasn't blinded
    by religious dogma, he'd have no problem seeing the true speed of
    light.
                                        

    A PhD does not represent much outside of the discipline the PhD was
    granted in.  I recall a math prof with great talent I spent time with.
    Eventually, I started seeing him less becuase he placed so much worth
    in the Astrology and tarot cards.  I still respect his math talents.
    
    ken
    

A PhD also does not represent much within the discipline the PhD was
awarded.  Trust me; I've spent the last five years discovering this little
fact.  A PhD shows more about one's ability to hold one's breath until the
onset of a purple pallor than it shows one's knowledge about anything.

If scientists suddenly jumped up and tried to explain nuclear physics in
the terminology of religious doctrine and scriptures, I think they would
not be taken very seriously as physicists.  It is simply a different domain
of knowledge and understanding from religion.

Similarly, I don't see how anyone would want to take religious doctrine and
attempt to shroud it in scientific terms.  It's all about faith, love and
trust (among other things).  It isn't about science, and for me, when
someone tries to mix the two, it only damages my feelings about their
credibility in both domains.

Orthogonality is your friend.

  Well, I disagree with that.  Current nuclear physics is only distinct
 from primitive polytheisms in lingo.  It is "technically correct" to say
 that the Demoness Gravity seized the ValueJet and hurled it to earth in
 anger.  The only distinction with Newton is reporting style.  How is it
 different to say there are four Demons Strong, Weak, Electromagnetic,
 and Gravity, who control all action in the world in an unseen manner ?
 Of course, this demonology has observational and experimental support.
 So had the aborigines.

  The problem with Creation Science is it DOESN'T have observational or
 experimental support.  Not that it is absolutist or mystic, both of which
 modern nuclear physics is also.

  bb

    
    	So you're saying that physicists believe in "demons"?
    
    	I don't think that'd be technically correct at all, on my planet.
    

Yes, perhaps nuclear physics was a bad choice.  Strikes me as phlogistons,
all over again.

But, the point, which I almost made, is that these phrasings of
Christianity in Scientific terms, as well as the phrasing of newage crap in
pseudo-scientific terms ("A Crystal is frozen pure white light that
eminates Energy") don't cut it, cause they don't follow any of the rules of
the domain they're trying to use.

Science, for better or worse (a lot worse, if you ask me), is fully
committed to empirical methods, and at least claims to be driven by a
search for "truth" (and I do mean to quote that), rather than having some
truth they're trying to force local evidence into fitting.  Actually, given
the way scientific discourse and research really works makes that last
sentence total hogwash.  Then again, at least part of that is driven by the
fact that you can't really get funding for research anymore unless you tell
the money people exactly what you're going to prove ahead of time, so...

    
    .402
    
    I don't think science says "there are four demons" because science
    remebers Rutherford claiming that Physics was at an end.  That's the
    crux of the difference.  The mysticist says 'this is it - there are no
    arguments'.  And mysticism constantly gets it's collective nose rubbed
    in the dirt.  Science says, this is my best guess based on the evidence
    to hand, but I'm open to rational alternatives.
    
    Sure, there is a more pragmatic and perhaps cynical approach that you
    can take which argues that science is mo more than another form of
    convenient mysticism.  But again, that's hardly less hypocritical than
    creationism.  Do you really throw a bunch of components into a box,
    call it a server and pray to God it's faster than Sun's?
    
    Nope, you follow proven scientific methodologies.  It's just another
    new-age trendiness to dismiss science as another form of mysticism.
    
    Actually, this debate would probably baffle the polymaths of the last
    century.  They had no problem with "God and science reconciled".  I
    really don't either.  It's perfectly possible to me (right now) to see
    the hand of god in the creation of the universe.  That's the way people
    like Hawking view it. It just didn't happen according to the
    creationists view.
                      

    
    Physicists don't have to believe.  They look for patterns and
    mathematical abstraction.  This the difference between how and why.
    
    The universal law of gravitation indicates that the force of attraction
    between to objects is inversely proportional to the square of the
    distance between them.  Experimentation indicates that the exponent
    in this equation is very very close to -2.  This allows the prediction
    of a lot of mechanical behaviour using the equation.  
    
    To the best of my knowledge there is no known explanation for why this
    exponent is exactly -2.
    
    I think the reason scientists tend to reject the creationist's
    viewpoint is that it is inconsistent with the common patterns found
    in nature.
    
    ken
    

  I'm pretty much agreeing with you Colin - I don't say, "The Demoness
 Gravity hurled the ValueJet to earth in anger."  But I don't laugh at
 ancient people who had other styles than we do now.  Time and again we
 find the mystical tales had an observational component.

  There are bits in Darwin that have proved prophetic.  You recall he
 predicted the earlist humanoid fossils would be African.  On the other
 hand, time has not been kind to his (or Lyell's) gradualism.  Darwin
 predicted that as the fossil record was more fully explored that the
 apparent catastrophism he saw would prove a mirage.  But on the contrary,
 his "Demon" natural selection, not to mention the tenuous sexual selection,
 are challenged by modern evolutionists.  Catastrophism is back, because
 the data has, if anything, sharpened the image of recurring catastrophes
 at intervals of many millions of years.

  The fundamental problem of creationists is they refuse to go with the
 data, and that doesn't work in religion any more than it does in science.
 If you actually survey the heavens, you determine they are old.  You can't
 get youth in our universe without making up facts.  Similarly, the trouble
 with creationist paleontology is that it disagrees with the bones.  It
 isn't even close.

  bb

    So, how fast does this guy think the speed of light originally was? 10
    times faster than it is now? 5 times? 50 times?

    In order for photons of light that now appear to be over 10 billion
    years old to be actually 5000 years old, how fast did they have to be
    traveling when god said let there be light?

    Yes, excellent point about catastrophic events - and also the recent
    theories about big spontaneous leaps in evolution.
    
    I thought you were just putting up another G.U.T.-wrenching argument.

>    To the best of my knowledge there is no known explanation for why this
>    exponent is exactly -2.

Plain old geometry, as far as I remember. Don't quote me, but just think of
the force as a sphere expanding outward from the object. The [area, volume,
whatever it is] of the sphere is proportional to the distance squared, so the
force is sort of "thinned out" by 1/D�.

    The earliest paper I've seen on c slowing was by an Australian named
    Barry Setterfield.  I have no idea if he is a creationist or not.
    
    As for the doctors, it seems to me that if any qualify, these 3 seem to
    meet the qualifications of solid credentials, work background, and 
    publications.
    
D. Russell Humphreys
---------------------
Dr. Humphreys was awarded his Ph.D. in physics from Lousiana Sate University in
1972, by which time he was a fully convinced creationist. For the next 6 years
he worked in the High Voltage Laboratory of General Electric Company. Since
1979, he has worked for Sandia National Laboratories in nuclear physics,
geophysics, pulsed power research, theoretical atomic and nuclear physics, and
the Particle Beam Fusion Project. Dr. Humphreys is an adjunct professor of
Geophysics and Astrophysics at the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego,
a Board member of the Creation Research Society and is president of the
Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico.  His latest book is "Starlight and
Time."

Gerald L. Schroeder
-------------------
Dr. Schroeder is an applied physicist and an applied theologian who received his
undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.  He spent 35 years working for the DOD (Atomic Energy Commission's
Nevada Nuclear Testing Site) where some of his work was in developing a method
for locating epicenters of underground nuclear explosions.  A resident of
Jerusalem and a lecturer and adviser around the world, his reseach has been
reported in "Newsweek," "The Jersualem Post," and numerous scholarly
publications.  He is also the author of "Genesis and the Big Bang."

Lambert Dolphin
---------------
Dr. Dolphin received an AB degree with high honors in physics and distinction in
mathematics from San Diego State University in June 1954. After two years of
graduate study in Physics and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University,
(1954-1956), he joined the staff of SRI International (formerly Stanford
Research Institute), in Menlo Park, California where he remained almost
continuously for the next 30 years.  He left his position at SRI as a Senior
Research Physicist in 1987 to pursue small-scale independent geophysical
consulting services and to devote the bulk of my time to Bible teaching,
writing and Christian counseling.

    Ok - so there's these 3 people who have PhD's and are well respected
    scientists who believe in Creation Science.
    
    On the other hand when you consider that they represent 0.0231% of
    the membership of the 237 major scientific academies worldwide then it's
    obvious they are in the minority. Their beliefs taken within the context
    of the entire scientific community are statistically insignificant.
    
    Note: % above is approximate
    
    

The PhDs who believe in Creation (Pseudo-)Science remind me of one thing:

There is one poster on the Usenet who often posted to Usenet groups sci.math
and sci.astro among others.  Read the guy's posts in sci.math and it's
obvious he's extremely knowledgable about math, and he is in fact a Professor
of Mathematics at a major university, with a PhD in Mathematics.

Read the same guy's posts in sci.astro, and it's obvious the guy is totally
loony-tunes.  He rants and raves how we MUST do certain things that anyone
with a minimal knowledge knows are totally impossible, such as blow up the
Moon or reorbit the planets.  The same guy.

A PhD states nothing about the holder's knowledge outside the field, or even
the holder's sanity.

               <<< Note 444.401 by BULEAN::BANKS "Saturn Sap" >>>

>If scientists suddenly jumped up and tried to explain nuclear physics in
>the terminology of religious doctrine and scriptures, I think they would
>not be taken very seriously as physicists.  It is simply a different domain
>of knowledge and understanding from religion.

    In order to believe and understand effectively there is as much faith
    in physics as religion.  At some point where understanding fails, 
    faith steps in until comprehension does.  Sometimes comprehension
    never comes... to scientists or religious scholars but they still
    understand.
    
    The only thing that science has going for it is the scientific method
    and the ability to self correct it's understanding over a period of 
    time... 
    
    Of course Religions tend to do this too, over longer periods of time 
    via activities like the Holy Inquisition, Protestant Reformation, 
    Vatican I&II, etc. (Sorry for not being knowledgeable about evolution
    of other faiths;-))
    
    Eventually common understanding surplants faith via discovery and the 
    scientific method until only the mysteries, faiths and tennents of the 
    unknown are left.  
    
    Scientifically unexplorable mysteries remain like, where did the universe 
    come from, why are we here? Should we be good to one another or does it 
    matter at all.
    
    These mysteries are matters for faith until and unless some revelation
    outside of our physical experiance helps us to understand them.
    
    To deny mankind's understanding of the physical universe is to believe
    that there a Creator that would attempt to fool and confuse with 
    conflicting evidence in the physical world.  There is very little 
    evidence to suggest that "God plays dice with the Universe".
    
    There is enough evidence to suggest that the Earth is some billions 
    of years old, more evidence that we arose as a part of a group
    of stars, expanding from a common location in space.  
    
    Details of evolution may be argued, involvement by the hand of 
    a supreme intelligence could be argued, but the facts (what few 
    facts most educated people and scientists have at their disposal)
    are clear and concise.
    
    Humans have the intellect to understand the physical universe.
    
    The physical universe is much older than 10,000 years old.
    
    Earth is part of the physical universe and is much older than
    10,000 years old.
    
    You can believe that the hand of "God" guides and influences physical 
    actions on Earth 
    
    Or 
    
    The physical nature of the universe continues as a natural progression
    from stellar evolution
    
    but only faith can comprehend the first few nanoseconds before the 
    Universe's creation, before the phrase "Let there be light!" 
    
    JMHO
    
    John W.

    

>    <<< Note 444.414 by SCASS1::WISNIEWSKI "ADEPT of the Virtual Space." >>>
    
>    Humans have the intellect to understand the physical universe.

	Especially women, who spend all their time concentrating
	on tall vs. short.

    Di,
    
    Size doesn't matter!
    
    don't let them in on the secrets
    
    :-P

While men are ogling the woman breastfeeding at the mall.

 In the Netherlands!

    doubtful in the Netherlands. Unlike the US enough women breastfeed
    beyond the 4th month that it is not something to stare at.

    Yabbut In the Netherlands, they have nekkid women sitting
    in windows.  That a breastfeeding momma can't draw
    a disapproving crowd should be no huge surprise.

    RE .414:
    
    > In order to believe and understand effectively there is as much faith
    > in physics as religion.
    
    Baloney!  Physics can be tested.
    
    > The only thing that science has going for it is the scientific method
    > and the ability to self correct [its] understanding over a period of 
    > time... 
    
    The "only thing" -- that "thing" is logic, testing, and reproducibility
    -- any one of which would kill religious mythology.
    
    > . . . only faith can comprehend . . .
    
    Faith is not comprehension.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

   >   <<< Note 444.421 by RUSURE::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey." >>>

    >RE .414:
    
    >> In order to believe and understand effectively there is as much faith
    >> in physics as religion.
    
   > Baloney!  Physics can be tested.
    
    Ok, for testing purposes reproduce the environment 10 seconds before 
    the big-bang...
    
    Or prove a mathmatical simulation of the "effects" involved
    10 seconds before the big-bang...
    
    Is the Universe cyclical, one shot or is it a steady state?  
    (be sure to show your work and only use one piece of chalk...)
    
    Prove your theories beyond a resonable doubt...
    
    There is more of faith than physics in the ultimate questions...
    
    >> The only thing that science has going for it is the scientific method
    >> and the ability to self correct [its] understanding over a period of 
    >> time... 
    
    >The "only thing" -- that "thing" is logic, testing, and reproducibility
    >-- any one of which would kill religious mythology.
    
    Logic, testing, and reproduciblity is just one path to understanding of 
    the universe but it leaves out many questions that it can never answer.
    
    Given our limited, history of experimentation, few locations in the 
    universe we experiment with, we may still see different experimental 
    results. Or maybe not, the laws of physics at cosmic and micro levels 
    have yet to be exhaustively defined. 
    
    Religion can be considered equally valid when considering the ultimate
    mysteries of life and our place in the cosmic order.  And over the 
    course of a 1000 years science and religion fall into agreement on 
    much of the same things (Earth orbiting the Sun, calculations of PI,
    and so on...) 
    
    
   > > . . . only faith can comprehend . . .
    
    >Faith is not comprehension.
    
    My mistake, I should have said "Only faith can understand..."
    
    JMHO
    
    John W.
    
    BTW You can't successfully taunt me about my previous writings about 
        women's facination with taller men... And if you continue, it'll 
        just show how small you really are;-)
    

  Yes, I was going to get around to edp's assertion here as well.  Physics
 today makes BIG unprovable assumptions.  Such as the assumption that its
 laws are everywhere the same.  Now, that's a reasonable assumption, using
 Occan's Razor.  But it isn't even provable in theory (see provability theory).

  The problem with Creation Science isn't faith - we all have some level
 of faith.  If you go when the light turns green, you demonstrate faith.
 If you buy a ticket on ValueJet, you show more.  And just about every science
 involves faith also.

  The problem with Creation Science is that it attempts to explain away
 data which glaringly contradicts it, which is quite a different problem.
 Ordinarily, "Science" is iterative - you adjust your theories so that
 they explain the data in the conceptually most convincing way.  Ordinarily,
 it is NOT "science" to salvage a theory by special pleading, such as
 adding a fudge-factor constant to keep the universe steady state, or
 hypothesizing that the speed of light was different in the past, unless
 there is fossil evidence that such an unlikely "adjustment" is warranted.

  No, the data is the data.  It's all we have, and our theories must abide
 with it, or fall, at least until such time as different data exists.

  bb

    Occam's Razor.

	But really - "there is as much faith in physics as religion"?
	I don't see how anyone can think that's not nonsense.  

>	But really - "there is as much faith in physics as religion"?
>	I don't see how anyone can think that's not nonsense.  

Anyone who doesn't know much about physics or scientific methods could easily
think that.

...which shows how well we're teaching those in our public schools.

    I think Hawking deals with this handily in his book using the example
    of black hole decay.  But, you're still ignoring the basic premise.
    Science does not and never has dealt with absolutes.  Indeed, the whole
    basis of modern physics accepts the premise that you cannot make an
    absolute determination about anything.  To talk of "proof" in
    mathematical terms is to misrepresent science.  On the other hand,
    religion does accept absolutes sight unseen.  No absolution unless you
    accept the absolute.
    
    C.

    How fast do these guys think the speed of light initially was? That's
    what I want to know. My guess is that it would have to have been
    several hundred warp factors when the universe was created and then it
    dropped out of warp.

    Dear Glen,
    
    There wasn't any light when the universe was created.
    Just a lot of heat.  It wasn't until the universe had
    cooled enough to allow the existence of photons that
    light entered the universe. Like Soapbox, really. 
    
    Some hair-splitting cynics like to point out that this
    happened within a millionth of a second, but like Eisentein
    said, "time is my relative" (I think they were distant
    cousins). So, if you only live for a billionth of a
    second, a millionth can seem like eternity.
    
    Sincerely, 
    
    Dr Science.
    
    

    TTWA:
    
     Was Eisenstein a weisenheimer?

>               <<< Note 444.430 by WAHOO::LEVESQUE "Spott Itj" >>>

>     Was Eisenstein a weisenheimer?

	Eisentein.  Please.

    My mistake. :-)

    Phillistines!  Have you never heard of the great Sergei Eisenstein?

    
    <waves frantically>
    

   8-[  he's doing it too.

    uh oh.  Nostrildamus forsees an approximate portion of humble pi in
    his future.

Why did Colin post a dear Glen note when it was Glenn who asked the question? I
like the dear part..... :-)

    Another slice of 'umble pie for me.

    
    
    The term "theory" in physics implies a proposal. It usually projects
    a pattern of behaviour which can be shown to be consistent with nature.
    Built into the term is the assumption that it will be refined or
    replaced by it's application to real systems.  Are there really any
    theories being proposed by creationists?  The propositions I have seen
    put forward by this group did not leave much room for testing to see
    if they predicted the behaviour of real systems.
    
    ken
     

    Re .422:
    
    >     Ok, for testing purposes reproduce the environment 10 seconds before 
    > the big-bang...
    
    That's like saying "make a rock so heavy it cannot be lifted".  There
    is no such thing.  Do you have any reason to believe there was any time
    before the Big Bang?  The way space and time curves, there might not be
    any such place.
    
    >     Prove your theories beyond a resonable doubt...
    
    Science doesn't prove beyond doubt.
    
    >      Logic, testing, and reproduciblity is just one path to
    > understanding of  the universe . . .
    
    Logic, testing, and reproducibility are not just one path because they
    are not one thing.  They are three very different things, and they give
    science great strength that religion will never have.
    
    > My mistake, I should have said "Only faith can understand..."
    
    Faith is not understanding.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.
    

>    Re .422:
>    
>    >     Ok, for testing purposes reproduce the environment 10 seconds before 
>    > the big-bang...
>    
>    That's like saying "make a rock so heavy it cannot be lifted".  There
>    is no such thing.  Do you have any reason to believe there was any time
>    before the Big Bang?  The way space and time curves, there might not be
>    any such place.

That's right.  The Big Bang is theorized to be an explosion OF space and time,
not an explosion IN space and time, so there would be no such thing as
"the environment 10 seconds before the big-bang."

    re: -.1
    
    One of the possiblities of the Big Bang is a cyclical universe, 
    expanding and contracting... Our universe contains  some evidence 
    that includes objects that appear older than the big bang in our 
    universe... perhaps curved space, perhaps something else has 
    let these objects survive the Big Bang, or appear older then 
    the big bang......The Big Bang was an event not a yardstick for
    our measure of space-time
    
    In our time scale what happened 10seconds before the BB?? 
    
    Just a question... 
    
    I've no doubt we can accurately describe our area of space-time
    with newtonian and einsteinian theories but we can't conclusively
    say that they are univeral "Laws" or even theories without some 
    leap of faith about conditions and locations elsewhere in our 
    universe.
    
    I'm not defending Creation science by any means but I am making the
    argument for faith in both mankind's scientific and religious
    explorations.
    
    JMHO,
    
    John W

    Re .442:
    
    > I've no doubt we can accurately describe our area of space-time
    > with newtonian and einsteinian theories but we can't conclusively
    > say that they are univeral "Laws" or even theories without some 
    > leap of faith about conditions and locations elsewhere in our 
    > universe.
    
    As written, that is true:  Without some leap of faith, scientists can't
    conclusively say what the universal laws are.  But that does not prove
    there is faith in science, because scientists DO NOT conclusively say
    what the universal laws are.
    
    Scientific theories are contingent.  Scientists know that, even if they
    don't repeat it everyday.  Faith is not necessary for science.  You do
    not need to believe on faith that physical laws are the same
    everywhere.  You do not need to believe it at all.  Scientific work can
    proceed with that as a useful assumption or as a working model.  It is
    perfectly valid to proceed with something as a model even if you know
    it may not be completely accurate, because the model may be useful, it
    may be a good approximation, it may be illuminating, and it may help
    discover more accurate models. 
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    re: -.1
    
    Then you take it on faith that your brain is actually connected
    biologically to the real universe that presents you with an 
    opportunity to employ scientific methods...
    
    Or is all this stimuli just a very complex simulation for for someones
    amusement..
    
    Or are you dreaming you're a man even though you're a butterfly???
    
    Where something is unknowable, there there is faith (or lack of it..)
    
    JMHO
    
    John W.

<------ nice snarf!

    Re .444:

    > Then you take it on faith that your brain is actually connected
    > biologically to the real universe that presents you with an 
    > opportunity to employ scientific methods...

    a) You are discussing epistemology, not science.
    
    b) It is not necessary to make any assumptions about whether
    observations are "real" or not in order to do science, or for science
    to work.  Indeed, science is occasionally confronted with two different
    models for what is "real" and may have no way of distinguishing which
    is "real" for many years.  Science finds rules that work; whether they
    work because they are "real" in some philosophical sense or whether
    they work because that's the way the "dreams" presented to the senses
    work is irrelevant.
    
    > Where something is unknowable, there there is faith (or lack of it..)
    
    You still haven't understood the critical failure of that statement. 
    Where something is unknowable AND there is belief, then there is faith. 
    But it is not necessary to believe.  Nothing forces every person to
    make a decision about every event.
    
    For example, consider the statement "There is life on exactly three
    other planets in this galaxy."  Do you believe this statement is true,
    or do you believe it is false?  I do not believe either one, and I have
    no compulsion to decide until there is more information.
    
    If I choose to believe it were true, that would be an act of faith.  If
    I choose to believe it were false, that would be an act of faith.  But
    if I choose neither, no faith is required.  Similarly, scientists have
    no need to believe any particular answers to things that are currently
    unknown -- they do not need faith, and science may proceed very well
    without it.                                                 
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

   .446   

    He is good - there's no doubt about it.

    re: -.1
    
    His faith gives him great conviction;-)

        A lot of hypotheses cannot be proven by definition.   A simple
    hypothesis like "All ravens are black."  cannot be proven by observing
    any number of black ravens since one can never be sure when the first
    pink raven will show up.  The observation of more and more black ravens
    does give one more confidence that it is likely that all ravens are
    black.  
    
    Rarely does a good yes or no test of a hypothesis arise.  One that
    comes to mind was the test of the theory of relativity when an eclipse
    of the sun allowed the observation of stars which were behind the sun.
    This was made even more impressive by its prediction before the
    eclipse actually occurred.
    
    Biological theories are usually not as cut and dry.  There should be
    no expectation that they can be proven beyond question.  Their value
    lies in being able to predict or describe behaviours in most cases. If
    this is true, then the exceptions become interesting.  Such is the case
    with the theory of evolution.
    
    ken
     

Good evening.

The last scene was interesting from the point of view of a
professional logician because it contained a number of logical
fallacies, that is, invalid propositional constructions and
syllogistic forms, of the type so often committed by my wife.

"All wood burns", states Sir Bedevere, therefore he concludes,
all that burns is wood.  This is of course, pure bullcrap.  

Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted.
All of Alma Cogen is dead, but only some of the class of dead
people are Alma Cogen.  Obvious one would think.  

However, my wife does not understand this necessary limitation of
conversion of a proposition.  Consequently, she does not
understand me.  For, how can a woman expect to appreciate a
professor of logic, if the simplest cloth-eared syllogism causes
her to flounder.  For example; given the premise all fish live
under water, and all mackerel are fish.  My wife will conclude,
not that all mackerel live under water, but that if she buys
kippers it will not rain, or that trout live in trees, or even
that I do not love her anymore.  This she calls using her
intuition, I call it crap, and it gets me very IRRITATED, because
it is not logical.

"There will be no supper tonight", she will sometimes cry, upon
my return home.  

"Why not?", I will ask.  

"Because I have been screwing the milkman all day", she will say. 
Quite oblivious of the howling error she has made.  But I will
wearily point out, even given that the activities of screwing the
milkman and getting supper are mutually exclusive, now that the
screwing is over, surely then supper may now logically be got.  

"You don't love me anymore", she will now often postulate "If you
did you would give me one now and again, so that I would not have
to rely on that rancid pakistani for my orgasms."

"I will give you one, after you have got me my supper", I now
usually scream, "but not before.", as you understand making her
bang, contingent on the arrival of my supper.  

"Good you turn me on when you're angry you ancient brute.", she
now mysteriously deduces, forcing her sweetly throbbing tongue
down my throat.

"**** supper.", I now invariably conclude, throwing logic
somewhat joyously to the forwinds, and so we thrash about on our
milk-stained floor transported by animal passion until we sink
back, exhausted, onto the cartons of yogurt.

I'm afraid I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original brief
but in a nutshell, sex is more fun than logic.  One cannot prove
this, but it is.  In the same sense that Mount Everest is, or
that Alma Cogen isn't.

Goodnight.

    Okay, who slipped Glenn the acid?

    
    <sheepish look>
    

    agagagagagagagag.  A classic.

    WoW

Programmed cell death.  A new theory that accounts
for the 'missing' steps in the evolution of irreducibly
complex systems.   What's more, it can be demonstrated
in the lab.

Cool.




 
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]

    OCRed without permission from the June 1997 issue of DISCOVER Magazine:
    
    What Paradox?
    
    Taking advantage of yeoman work by an unheralded satellite, two
    astronomers may have figured out a way to make the universe older than
    its stars.
    
    BY JEFFREY WINTERS
    
    FOR ALMOST THREE YEARS NOW astronomers have had to live with a paradox.
    In 1994 data from the Hubble Space Telescope indicated that the
    universe was younger than its oldest stars. Astronomers have floated
    all sorts of ideas to rectify the situation: some dredged up a
    cosmological fudge factor, once rejected by Einstein, that would make
    the universe a bit older; others proposed new ideas about how stars age
    in an attempt to make the oldest stars younger. Now two astronomers say
    they can resolve the conundrum. It seems everyone has been mismeasuring
    the sizeand thus the age--of the universe.
    
    The new data come from Hipparcos, a satellite launched by the European
    Space Agency eight years ago. Hipparcos compared the positions of stars
    in the nearest 1,000 light--years with objects much farther away. By
    droning away at this task, Hipparcos was able to measure the minute
    shifts that stars seem to make as Earth swings in its orbit--this
    parallax is similar to the shift your extended thumb makes when you
    look at it with one eye and then the other. Hipparcos s measurements
    have led to an accurate catalog of the distances to local stars.
    
    Astronomers use the distances to nearby stars as the basis for all
    other cosmological yardsticks. For example, once they know from
    parallax the distance to a particular type of nearby star, they can
    look for a similar star beyond the range of parallax measurements. By
    observing how much dimmer that second star seems compared with the
    nearby star, astronomers can gauge its distance.
    
    One common scale uses stars called Cepheid variables, which pulsate in
    a way directly related to their intrinsic brightness--the longer the
    pulsation, the brighter the star. While even nearby galaxies are much
    too far away to show any parallax, Cepheid variables in these galaxies
    can be seen, their pulses timed, and their apparent luminosities
    measured. From this, astronomers can calculate their distance.
    
    But all such models ultimately rest on parallax measurements, and
    before Hipparcos, no one had been able to get a useful parallax of a
    Cepheid variable in our own galaxy. Michael Feast of the University of
    Cape Town in South Africa and Robin Catchpole of the Royal Greenwich
    Observatory in England were able to use Hipparcos's measurements of the
    distances to more than 200 Cepheid variables and found that Cepheids
    are slightly farther away than astronomers had believed. With this
    correction Feast and Catchpole recalculated the distance to the Large
    Magellanic Cloud and found that it is about 10 percent farther away
    than previously thought.
    
    This result ripples in all sorts of directions. Accurate distance
    measurements are crucial to determining the age of our expanding
    universe. By measuring how light from receding galaxies gets stretched
    by the expansion, and knowing how far away the galaxies are,
    astronomers can measure the expansion rate. From that, they can
    determine how much time has passed since the universe was a single
    point.
    
    The Hubble--based age of the universe used the Large Magellanic Cloud
    as a benchmark. The new LMC distance throws these calculations off by
    about 10 percent and makes the universe not 12 but 13 billion years
    old.
    
    Even so, the most ancient stars--in globular clusters--had been pegged
    at 15 billion years old--still too old for the universe. But by
    changing the cosmic yardstick, Hipparcos affects measurements of
    globular clusters too. If these are farther away, then they must be
    intrinsically brighter. Astronomers know that younger stars are
    typically hotter and brighter than older stars. So if the clusters are
    brighter, they are at most 11 billion years old and the cosmic
    conundrum vanishes.
    
    Feast is confident but cautions that these results need to he
    independently confirmed. "If somebody shows that our results aren't
    right, it would mean that there was something fundamentally wrong with
    our assumptions," says Feast. "But of course the exciting thing is to
    look for these discrepancies."