Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 / QGSI 2.0; site qubix.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!godot!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!qubix!lab From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Earth-age estimates & some replies Message-ID: <1526@qubix.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Nov-84 00:58:12 EST Article-I.D.: qubix.1526 Posted: Fri Nov 9 00:58:12 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Nov-84 06:38:37 EST Distribution: net Organization: Quadratix ... Quartix Lines: 160 [One of two articles. Due to its size, it does not respond to all of Wyant's points. Article 2 is a reprint from the San Jose Mercury-News (not exactly a bastion of creationism).] Ethan: > I note that Larry comments on how lazy those who disagree with him are % grep lazy * % > I'm not particularly interested in spending time reading the > creationist literature. I'm spending enough time on this as it is. And perhaps I shouldn't bother reading the evolutionist literature? In his classic Christian apologetic _Therefore Stand_, Wilbur Smith addressed this very succinctly: After a young man has been through four years of college, and heard his teachers in psychology, and philosophy, and biology deny the very existence of God, day after day, week after week, and has been open to every conceivable device of collegiate life to crush the faith of that person's hear, NO TWENTY-PAGE PAMPHLET WILL BE ABLE TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS WHICH ARE IN THIS YOUNG MAN'S MIND. [Emphasis in original] BTW, I don't exactly have an abundance of time, either. The time and attention to Usenet in general and this in particular are beginning to affect other areas. I'm not looking for sympathy - just a warning in case I'm forced to cut back and cannot respond as soon and as fully as I'd like. > If Larry were to convince me that a valid case could be made for > creationism, I'd find the time. Honestly, I'd suggest that reading something like A.E.Wilder-Smith's _The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution_, Bolton Davidheiser's _Evolution and Christian Faith_, or _The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories_ (the book referenced in the parallel article) would do much more in much less time than net.origins. If you prefer something from non-creationists, try Pierre Grasse's _L'Evolution du Vivant_ (The Evolution of Life). Dobzhansky's review in _Evolution_ noted that it was "a frontal attack on all kinds of 'Darwinism.' ... Now one can disagree with Grasse' but not ignore him. [Dobzhansky proceeds to recognize Grasse's grounds for authority.]" BTW, != "skeptic." Closer to "con artist for setting up a straw man" - the classic is to use something from Biblical creation and call it "scientific creation." *Scientific* Creationism does not force a 6000-year-old earth. (Biblical creationism can purport that for time since the Fall.) > I found it interesting that Larry Bickford chose to ignore [theistic > evolution]... Dick Dunn and others have pointed out that if evolution accomplishes it, who needs deity? [On continental movement] > ...he suggested that if they were [moving persistently] then the > continents would move in a straight line across the globe i.e. not > colliding "repeatedly" but exactly once. Apparently I wasn't clear - if the continents have been moving for such long, and in such a manner that collisions have resulted, why are the continents still so far apart? The age-estimates for the earth mentioned in an earlier article are those resulting from applying the same assumptions used to calculate the age of the earth for the evolutionist model. That these should show such a distinct difference *should* be cause for notice in the scientific community. That they are not indicates a *philosophical* problem shown by accepting what fits and not mentioning what doesn't. [And the evolutionists accuse the creationists of this?] Decay of Earth's Magnetic Field - Result of research by Thomas Barnes during his tenure as Physics Professor at UTEP. Published in _Origin and Destiny of Earth's Magnetic Field_, 1973. Barnes notes the measured values over the last 150 years and models according to uniformitarian principles. Influx of Radiocarbon into earth system - research by Melvin Cook (PhD. physical chemistry, Yale), formerly professor of Metallurgy at Utah. Published in Creation Research Society Quarterly 10/68. Some figures noted in _Scientific Creationism_ (p.165) include the 18.4 atoms/gram/ minute formation rate and 13.3 a/g/m decay rate. Further evidence from Libby (who founded the radiocarbon technique), also Lingenfelter, Suess, and Switzer. Efflux of He-4 into atmosphere - Cook, published in Nature (1/26/57 p213). SC gives some details (p.151) of 3E9 gm/yr generation and current atmospheric content of 3.5E15 gm. It is only the time span forced by the assumption of evolution that gives rise to the belief that He4 is leaving the exosphere. In _Nuclear Geology_, Henry Faul calculated base rates 100 times those that Cook used, which would indicate an earth 1/100th the age. Decay lines of Galaxies - Halton Arp in _Science_ Vol. 174 (12/17/71 pp. 1189-1200). Expanding Interstellar Gas - Hughes and Routledge in Astronomical Journal, Vol. 77 #3 (1972) pp.210-214. I am in the process of checking up on many of Morris's and Gish's references (including from Acts&Facts). The San Jose library has had some; hopefully I can get to San Jose State for the others (although I doubt they will have Barnes' or Cook's work). Ray Mooney: > I am still waiting for a creationist to address the problem of their > complicated ontology and answer the question "Who created the Creator > and where is he/she?" "Complicated ontology"? Creation is by far the simpler ontology. The latter question will be answer when "science" answers the issue of First Cause. Alternatively, one can ask where the material for the Big Bang (or the Inflationary Universe) came from. Pat Wyant: > If the creationism-evolution controversy were a matter of science, it > would be readily resolved. Evolutionists and creationists have argued > as if the issues were scientific ones, resolvable by appeal to the data. > Since creationism predates evolutionism, and the debate goes on, the > cause of the conflict must lie elsewhere. Davidheiser's last sentence in _Evolution and Christian Faith_ (yes, I'm plugging it): "It is not a matter of refusing to xamine facts. It is a matter of substituting one faith for another." [Davidheiser takes some heavy shots at evolutionism. Besides showing that evolution needs a faith of its own, he goes down the criteria usually cited to support evolution one by one.] Except perhaps for G.A.Kerkut (whom I quoted at length in an earlier article), few evolutionists are willing to admit their own philosophical biases when approaching this subject. It does make it to the surface at times, however - and it does not go unnoticed by creationists. Besides, if data was all, why hasn't the gradualist/PE dispute been resolved? Or why are evolutionists disdaining the fossil record (Mark Ridley in New Scientist) or putting forth models that relegate natural selection and competition to very minor roles (Roger Lewin's review of Brooks and Wiley in _Science_)? This reminds of Danson's letter to _New Scientist_: "...Can there be any other area of science, for instance, in which a concept as intellectually barren as embryonic recapitulation could be used as evidence for a theory?" Or is it more as Ridley also stated, that evolution is held because there is "no coherent alternative"? This is nothing new, for in 1929(!), the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science said evolution was "a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Watson went one step further than Ridley's remark. Ridley looked for a coherent alternative - Watson viewed what he already had as not having coherent evidence! -- The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford {amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.