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From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Addition to Isolated Species note
Message-ID: <175@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Jun-85 09:54:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.175
Posted: Sun Jun  2 09:54:05 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Jun-85 04:27:58 EDT
References: <3570029@csd2.UUCP> <334@scgvaxd.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 62

> >Also, why should
> >the amount of time isolated have any correlation with the number of
> >unique species? Or, if you are a recent creationist, as Dan is, why
> >should the amount of time isolated, estimated using evidence you
> >dispute but which is independent of biology, have any correlation
> >with the number of unique species?
> >
> 
>   This is a dead-end question! The amount of time that has transpired
>   after the flood is not enough time to account for the development
>   of unique species. Unless one assumes an old age for the earth, there
>   is no correlation to speak of.
> 
Dan seeks to avoid answering Dimitri's question by denying that the
conventionally determined ages are in fact *ages*.  He cannot get off
the hook so easily.  Let us put it in terms only of the observations:

	There is a strong correlation between such things as the
	Uranium/Lead ratio in rocks, the Strontium/Rubidium ratio
	in rocks, the position of the rocks in the Geological
	Column (which, I remind everyone, was established in the
	days prior to evolution without using evolutionary assumpions),
	and the time in the past that isolated land-masses would have
	been in contact with each other if one extrapolates their
	present rate of continental drift back in time.  The correlation
	is very strong and very tight.  Conventionally scientists
	determine a number, which they call "age", and the "age"
	determined from one of these measures on a particular stratum
	agrees well with the "age" determined independently from another
	measure on that stratum.  Creationists may deny that this number
	actually measures a time in the past, but they cannot deny
	this strong correlation between these numbers determined by
	various independent means.  To avoid offending them, let us
	call the number the stratum's "level", measured in units of
	a "Gish".  Thus, we find that if a stratum's U/Pb "level"
	is 100 million "Gish"'s, then it's stratigraphic "level"
	will be, say, between 85 and 115 million "Gish"'s.

	Now the odd fact is that if you look in the fossil record
	to determine the position at which two particular groups of
	animals first appear to separate as groups, and determine the
	"level" associated with this position, we find that there is 
	a very close correlation between this number and the Hamming
	distance between the DNA sequences of genes coding for fixed
	but arbitrary proteins (e.g., alpha-Hemoglobin) in living
	relatives of those fossils.  For example, the "level" at which
	birds and reptiles seem to separate is, say, 100 million "Gish"'s,
	while that at which cats and bears seem to separate is, say, 35
	million "Gish"'s.  In this example the Hamming distance between
	the alpha-Hemoglobin DNA of contemporary relatives of those birds
	and reptiles would be about three times that between contemporary
	cats and bears.  The question for Creationists is, how do they
	explain these strong and obvious observed correlations?

-- 
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
	religious conviction."  -- Blaise Pascal

	Bill Jefferys  8-%
	Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712   (USnail)
	{allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill	(uucp)
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