Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Evolution is a myth? Please explain:

Not that it has any bearing on the validity of emergent properties, but Ilya Prigogine was kind of a flaming a-hole.

Nobody has claimed that entropy doesn't occur within an open system.....

You don't have to believe it. The functioning of your computer - for just one example - is greater than the sum of its parts. The collection of parts in the right order, apply energy and you get marvelous information processing activity that has never existed before computers....and before you invoke a designer, there is a difference between natural systems and obviously constructed systems.

A for the radiometric argument:

Answers to Creationist Attacks on Carbon-14 Dating

''Radiocarbon dating can easily establish that humans have been on the earth for over twenty thousand years, at least twice as long as creationists are willing to allow. Therefore it should come as no surprise that creationists at the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) have been trying desperately to discredit this method for years. They have their work cut out for them, however, because radiocarbon (C-14) dating is one of the most reliable of all the radiometric dating methods.

This article will answer several of the most common creationist attacks on carbon-14 dating, using the question-answer format that has proved so useful to lecturers and debaters.

Question: How does carbon-14 dating work?

Answer: Cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere are constantly converting the isotope nitrogen-14 (N-14) into carbon-14 (C-14 or radiocarbon). Living organisms are constantly incorporating this C-14 into their bodies along with other carbon isotopes. When the organisms die, they stop incorporating new C-14, and the old C-14 starts to decay back into N-14 by emitting beta particles. The older an organism's remains are, the less beta radiation it emits because its C-14 is steadily dwindling at a predictable rate. So, if we measure the rate of beta decay in an organic sample, we can calculate how old the sample is. C-14 decays with a half-life of 5,730 years.

Question: Kieth and Anderson radiocarbon-dated the shell of a living freshwater mussel and obtained an age of over two thousand years. ICR creationists claim that this discredits C-14 dating. How do you reply?

Answer: It does discredit the C-14 dating of freshwater mussels, but that's about all. Kieth and Anderson show considerable evidence that the mussels acquired much of their carbon from the limestone of the waters they lived in and from some very old humus as well. Carbon from these sources is very low in C-14 because these sources are so old and have not been mixed with fresh carbon from the air. Thus, a freshly killed mussel has far less C-14 than a freshly killed something else, which is why the C-14 dating method makes freshwater mussels seem older than they really are. When dating wood there is no such problem because wood gets its carbon straight from the air, complete with a full dose of C-14. The creationists who quote Kieth and Anderson never tell you this, however.

Question: A sample that is more than fifty thousand years old shouldn't have any measurable C-14. Coal, oil, and natural gas are supposed to be millions of years old; yet creationists say that some of them contain measurable amounts of C-14, enough to give them C-14 ages in the tens of thousands of years. How do you explain this?

Answer: Very simply. Radiocarbon dating doesn't work well on objects much older than twenty thousand years, because such objects have so little C-14 left that their beta radiation is swamped out by the background radiation of cosmic rays and potassium-40 (K-40) decay. Younger objects can easily be dated, because they still emit plenty of beta radiation, enough to be measured after the background radiation has been subtracted out of the total beta radiation. However, in either case, the background beta radiation has to be compensated for, and, in the older objects, the amount of C-14 they have left is less than the margin of error in measuring background radiation. As Hurley points out:

Without rather special developmental work, it is not generally practicable to measure ages in excess of about twenty thousand years, because the radioactivity of the carbon becomes so slight that it is difficult to get an accurate measurement above background radiation. (p. 108)

Cosmic rays form beta radiation all the time; this is the radiation that turns N-14 to C-14 in the first place. K-40 decay also forms plenty of beta radiation. Stearns, Carroll, and Clark point out that ". . . this isotope [K-40] accounts for a large part of the normal background radiation that can be detected on the earth's surface" (p. 84). This radiation cannot be totally eliminated from the laboratory, so one could probably get a "radiocarbon" date of fifty thousand years from a pure carbon-free piece of tin. However, you now know why this fact doesn't at all invalidate radiocarbon dates of objects younger than twenty thousand years and is certainly no evidence for the notion that coals and oils might be no older than fifty thousand years.

Question: Creationists such as Cook (1966) claim that cosmic radiation is now forming C-14 in the atmosphere about one and one-third times faster than it is decaying. If we extrapolate backwards in time with the proper equations, we find that the earlier the historical period, the less C-14 the atmosphere had. If we extrapolate



as far back as ten thousand years ago, we find the atmosphere would not have had any C-14 in it at all. If they are right, this means all C-14 ages greater than two or three thousand years need to be lowered drastically and that the earth can be no older than ten thousand years. How do you reply?

Answer: Yes, Cook is right that C-14 is forming today faster than it's decaying. However, the amount of C-14 has not been rising steadily as Cook maintains; instead, it has fluctuated up and down over the past ten thousand years. How do we know this? From radiocarbon dates taken from bristlecone pines.

There are two ways of dating wood from bristlecone pines: one can count rings or one can radiocarbon-date the wood. Since the tree ring counts have reliably dated some specimens of wood all the way back to 6200 BC, one can check out the C-14 dates against the tree-ring-count dates. Admittedly, this old wood comes from trees that have been dead for hundreds of years, but you don't have to have an 8,200-year-old bristlecone pine tree alive today to validly determine that sort of date. It is easy to correlate the inner rings of a younger living tree with the outer rings of an older dead tree. The correlation is possible because, in the Southwest region of the United States, the widths of tree rings vary from year to year with the rainfall, and trees all over the Southwest have the same pattern of variations.

When experts compare the tree-ring dates with the C-14 dates, they find that radiocarbon ages before 1000 BC are really too young—not too old as Cook maintains. For example, pieces of wood that date at about 6200 BC by tree-ring counts date at only 5400 BC by regular C-14 dating and 3900 BC by Cook's creationist revision of C-14 dating (as we see in the article, "Dating, Relative and Absolute," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica). So, despite creationist claims, C-14 before three thousand years ago was decaying faster than it was being formed and C-14 dating errs on the side of making objects from before 1000 BC look too young, not too old.''

WOW..... this reminds me......I gotta pump the septic tank.

I usually pump it on the anniversary of Princes Di's death............but, I am making an exception.

Lol love the spelling "total maroon."
Apparently that's the term used when you can't take an alternate viewpoint any more or recognize the inherent flaws in Darwinism.

Haw LAMO

yes, but sure put out some good thinking

thought it was a quote from "Who framed Roger Rabbit"

as an aside on Bristlecone pines, the pollen contains large amount of phyto and regular testosterone. why do plants use test. and progesterone? ----- genetic changes.


some of these trees show an unusual "spiraling" in the bark possibility of the plant experimenting.

Some of you posts are foolish and some are even more foolish. This one is right at the top of more foolish. You are obfuscating when changing the conversation to the sum of its parts from the effect cannot be equal to or greater than its cause. The idea that natural systems and constructed systems, if you are speaking of living things, is the difference in New York city and a dirt clod. And yet natural systems run down and eventually die. Even go extinct. As much as folks try to get around entropy real life and lab experiments show things go from order to disorder. So yes, even natural systems need The Designer.

The computer example is an excellent example of the concept of entropy combined with the concept of information theory.

the order to disorder thingie your hung up is only reflective of some types complex non linear systems. thats why the current trend is a combination of thermo, quantum, and information theory.

other than physical size, the clod and the city share far more properties, than not. Your comparison is a hard set, of similar characteristics, classical Set Theory, and makes no allowances for similar membership functions.

Ironically all theological explanations are talking about forces from a far, attributes of that force, from the entropy of the observer.

God talk is no different than field theory talk, they are both human constructs.

From Carl Jung, science is the extrovert in man, and religion is the introvert.

Nope,

Wrong rabbit:

Awww yes. these were the originals. Thanks,

All of the current knowledge of science is the result of actual evidence. We observe something, make a theory of what caused it, figure out some other prediction that that theorry must predicts, and then see if that other thing happens. If so, the theory is correct, or largely so.

There are no prior beliefs in science. The term "settled science" is not a scientific term. It's a political term. Scientists are still doing experiments to see if Einstein's relativity, which dates from 1905, is totally correct or is only an approximation.

So we believe in evolution because there is evidence that evolution happens. Evolution explains the evidence. We do not look for new evidence to confirm evolution, but instead change our theories if new evidence is discovered.

All the books of the Bible were written by people who already believed in them. They were not based on evidence.
Belief is not evidence.

Is there any evidence, outside of the Bible, that the events described in it actually occurred? Specifically with regard to Genesis, the answer is "No." Later books of the old Testament are partially confirmed by historical or archeological evidence.

As for Jesus, there is some circumstantial evidence outside of the Bible. The rapid spread of Christianity after his death was obviously due to his followers believing very strongly in the Resurrection. Whatever they saw, the followers of other "holy men"--and there were many others--did not carry on after their "holy man" died.

Until new evidence comes along, if it does, there is no reason to doubt evolution. There is no evidence whatsoever, however, for the creation story in Genesis, the flood, etc., or creationism, and also no need for them to explain what we see.

The purpose of religion is not to foolishly combat scientific discoveries. Catholicism tried that 500 years ago and the Pope has since aplologized for it. The purpose of religion is to give us a moral anchor of how to behave. Otherwise, there would be nothing but moral relativism, and the only bar to mayhem would be a fear of superior force. I don't believe you can have a civilization without believing in some higher power.

I think you could have a civilization without any god.

But, yes, you would still need the higher power of a strict government.

The majority of people can not choose a selfless life. For many, the only thing which keeps them from victimizing other people is fear of discipline, getting punched in the nose, going to jail, going to Hell. Heck, I am in favor of public caning for vandalism, or petit theft.

The problem remains, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power is a very dangerous thing whether it is held in the hands of a Judge, an administrator, a policeman, a Priest, or even the Pope.

So what is the answer? We know it is not pure democracy. That just equates to two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. We know it is not a theocracy. That inevitably leads to The Inquisition or Sharia Law.

I suppose mankind will have to continue as he has for the last 20 to 30 thousand years, balancing the oppressive hand of chosen governments against the oppressive hand of chosen religions.

Perhaps that is the genius of our founding fathers. Not that they embraced religion when they wrote our Constitution, but that they found a balance of power between oppressive government and oppressive religion.

You are confusing the idea of God talk with field theory. Without God there no humans to consider anything including "field theory". The Bible informs us man worships the creation instead of the Creator. Believing in something from nothing should fall in the category of insanity. An Infinite Intelligent Energy has no beginning or bounds. Otherwise Infinite has no meaning.

your Argument from Authority is not accepted

Truth is often rejected in favor of what the majority likes.

"Because I said so" worked for Mom.

It doesn't work in the above case?

Geno