Can the standard "Young Earth Creationist" model be falsified by genetics alone?

Hi, jbozz! Welcome! That can be countered by my question: why should I trust an old Hebrew myth to be accurate, when it's obviously swiped from an older Sumerian myth? Sure, the Sumerian one has guys living to be 34,000 years old - but the Hebrew one has 'em up to 969. Does that make the latter more factual?And consider: the studies cited upthread would need some sort of reason to be deliberately inaccurate, untruthful, or biased. I'll bet that nothing about Noah even entered any of the researchers' minds - and if it did, why would you think they would be motivated to deceive? Tools of the Devil, perhaps? Statistically, I'd say at least occasional churchgoers, instead, assuming they were in the US.

Hi mindspawn. This post is easy to understand, and gives you one of many good reasons to give up on your irrational belief in Jewish mythology. Message 8

"You would probably need to be able to do some self verification."
(I am not sure how to do the quote thing)Like I said, I do not understand all of the science portrayed in the studies, and many people do not either. I don't have the money nor the time to go out and take a bunch of DNA and study it for myself. Most people will not either. Unless there were multiple studies reproducing the same study done by some trusted and unbiased sources then I would not be inclined to accept this data. I would venture to say that many other creationists, especially the uneducated in science or even genetics ones, would not be inclined to believe it either. Many studies have been done in the past that have been non- reproducible. two connecting studies is not enough to really prove or disprove anything on this point let alone the entire bible.To say that these studies prove the bible false is a very Hasty Generalization.

I can do that but I cannot do that for every claim, I don't have that kind of time, and nobody does. plus not everyone can do that for themselves especially those that do not have nor need any higher than a high school education. So you cannot realistically expect everyone to believe you. That would take a lot of trust which frankly people like you have not earned with your attacking the bible and all. So do not expect those that have had their lives changed for the better by following the teachings of the bible to actually want to trade in their firm moral upbringing for a sterilized amoral environment where anything goes all because some "scientist" did some "study" somewhere, unless they are that gullible and disconnected from what really matters.Experience matters a lot more to me and most people, than what someone said on the internet about some study that was supposedly done somewhere. I think I would much rather question the "experts" than trade in what I know through experience for something that means something to no one and nothing to everyone, and does nothing more than destroy the moral fiber of our whole society. (but that is a topic for a new thread)

Thank you Coragyps, good question, but I cannot comment on the "obvious" part about it supposedly being swiped from an older Sumerian myth. I do not think that can be proven, I don't even know how you can support that in your mind considering the Sumerian tablets are "dated to around 1600 BC during the first Babylonian dynasty," much later than 4350 BC, in which time the flood actually took place.Sumerian creation myth - WikipediaI believe the Sumerian flood "myth" and all the other flood "myths" really only support the Bible. But I digress.When it comes to support for the Bible most people don't even believe in the Bible for physical, tangible or scientific reasons. We believe in the Bible by moral and spiritual experiences with the teachings of the Bible which can all be proven to be true by simple practice. Just like you can go outside and touch sand if you want to know that it is real not believe in someone else telling you it is real, you actually experience it using your senses. (ie. if you want to know if prayer works, you can actually pray and when you receive an answer then you have evidence that it actually works,and you don't stop there you keep trying the experiment watching it work over and over again. Plus you hear the experiences of many people all over the world who's results had been reproducible in your own life....etc...etc...) That is an experiment that is much more reliable to me in my opinion than someone taking DNA and putting through some chemicals and saying "yup, the apes are your cousins..." by some scientist whom I have no idea what motives lie behind their desires to disprove the claims of the Bible, nor whether they are acting out of bias or whether their claims are actually legitimate. Who's experiment's are not reproducible to me. It would be very very Hasty of me to discount the Bible because of someone elses claims especially not knowing their motives or verifying what they say. Which makes me wonder why so many of you are so Hasty to discount the Bible. If you have tested the bible on it's own claims about how to live your life then you would know that the principles work and bring greater happiness. No man-made system can nor does do that perfectly like the Bible can. That, Coragyps is why you should trust the old Hebrew "myth".

Well, if you don't understand the research, and you don't think it's important enough to find the time to attempt to understand it, why on earth have you decided to find the time to post on this thread and waste other people's time?* [size=1]*Consider that rhetorical. Please don't reply.[/size=1]

So your argument is simply that you are too uneducated to understand the evidence and that there are lots of uneducated people so that's okay? But there are not just multiple studies that have shown that the Biblical Flood never happened and that the earth is old and that modern humans have been around since long before Adam, there are literally hundreds of thousands in the last 150 years or so. So back to the uneducated defense. Got it. That is about like saying that the Jungle Book or Alice in Wonderland are false.Fiction and false are not synonymous.

I don't get it: you can't be bothered to do any accademic work in this area and you don't trust the people who have.Madness.

Hi, Jbozz. My question for you is why should you trust yourself to be accurate and unbiased when you freely admit that you have no clue about genetics?Do you really think it's likely that people who publish papers on genetics are a worse source of information on genetics than you are?

I never said I was a source of genetics information.

What if the Bible says that sand is made of cheese bits, but upon testing the sand you find it is made of quartz. What then? Do we ignore all of the evidence and insist that sand really is made of cheese, and anyone who disagrees just has bad motives and biases? Of course you can reproduce their data. All you need is the proper training and schooling. The very fact that you consider your ignorance an indication of bias in others is quite telling.

I was a missionary kid, and grew up surrounded by that myth. I got over it, though."Pray in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first."Edited by Coragyps, : No reason given.

Perhaps jbozz21 is simply saying that the kind of evidence that he can or will consider must be approachable with the kind of knowledge he currently has. Given that we are talking about displacing a strongly held belief, maybe he's just being honest about his frame of mine.IF your goal were to convince him, rather than to berate him, would you use different evidence, or would you attempt to bridge the gap by some means other than requiring him to go to grad school?

There's a lot going on behind this question and there's several answers to it.Firstly, although the studies have been used here to show that the biblical flood could not have happened when creationists say it did, the studies themselves were not done for that reason. The work was done simply to extend our knowledge in the normal scientific way. Scientists do not have any motive to deceive and they have a very high motivation not to. This is because anything they do can be and will be checked and reproduced by other scientists and mistakes and deceits are always found. If a scientist is found to be deliberately making up his findings he would have his research funding removed.Secondly, because of their beliefs, creationists often feel that science is in a conspiracy to overturn them. In fact, there are millions of scientists in multiple disciplines of all beliefs and and very few, if any, would give a second thought to what you believe - there is no conspiracy - they're just doing a job.Thirdly, the piece of evidence you are presented with here, is just one of many bits of science that contradicts your beliefs. If you stay here long enough, you'll find that pretty much all branches of the natural sciences prove beyond doubt that there was no recent flood and that the earth is very old, not young. To believe otherwise requires you to reject almost all modern science from genetics and biology, through physics, geology and archaeology.But you only doubt science when it contradicts a personal belief; I assume you are not sceptical when its work in those same areas does not directly touch a nerve? Biology only makes sense because of the fact of evolution, geology only makes sense because the earth is old, most of physics is utterly impenetrable to most people but without it you wouldn't have what you're using to read this.If you can accept all the science that underlies everything in our modern society from medicine to space travel, why do you suddenly reject it when it proves that a story in a book written several thousand years ago is shown to be just that, a story?

Nice thread Bluegenes. Due to my lack of knowledge about genetics, I would like to ask you some questions:
1) Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first study focussed on only two Chinese individuals, surely this is not enough to be representative of standard mutation rates across world populations?
2) Isn't it true that sun exposure has an effect on mutations? If so the "Middle East" biblical theory would necessitate a higher mutation rate for all ancestry, and yet slowing down in recent times for northern hemisphere populations of high latitudes (including the Chinese).
3) Does the second study focus only on base substitutions as per the first study? ie are we comparing apples with apples between the two studies?
4) If the y-chromosome evolved, is it possible that the base substitutions found therein are representative of millions of years of mutations since the y-chromosome's alleged introduction over 200 million years ago? ie doesn't the small number of mutations found put doubt on evolution, rather than the large number of mutations disproving creation?Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.