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Author Topic:   101 evidences for a young age...
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 19 of 135 (510951)
06-05-2009 12:29 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Lysimachus
06-04-2009 2:35 PM


OFF-TOPIC
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic blather.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Subtitle.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Lysimachus, posted 06-04-2009 2:35 PM Lysimachus has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 26 of 135 (511048)
06-05-2009 10:01 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by dwise1
06-05-2009 2:59 AM


Re: The "Leap Second" Claim yet again, only stealthed up
Is it OK if I convert this into a SkepticWiki article? I feel that it deserves a wider audience.
I can post it in your name if you like. Or credit you on the talk page. Or set you up an account ...
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 28 of 135 (511066)
06-06-2009 12:33 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by dwise1
06-05-2009 2:59 AM


Re: The "Leap Second" Claim yet again, only stealthed up
I've been doing a bit more research on this, I think I see how they got muddled. Here's a piece on tidal braking from NASA:
Currently the secular change in the rotation rate increases the length of day by some 2.3 milliseconds per day per century.
To see what that means, consider this example: suppose the rotating earth is our clock and it's been 100 years since that clock's "standard second" was set to correspond to an atomic clock's second (which is actually almost the case, notwithstanding that atomic clocks weren't around until 1955). Then after 1000 days our earth clock loses about 2.3 seconds, falling further behind the atomic clock. This long-term slowing of the rotation is a primary reason for periodically inserting leap seconds into our timekeeping.
In short, the reason for the leap seconds is tidal braking. But the effect of tidal braking is not that the Earth slows by 2.3 seconds every thousand days, but that it has slowed by 2.3 milliseconds over the last hundred years. The 2.3 seconds per 1000 days is not the Earth slowing down, it is the Earth running slow, as compared to a standard clock.
Muddling these two concepts means that creationist figures for how the Earth is slowing are off by a factor of 30000. Considering that their figure for the age of the Universe is off by a factor of 2000000, this is not bad ... for creationists.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 31 of 135 (511162)
06-07-2009 6:57 AM


Much of the bibble in the geology section seems to confuse the proposition that something was formed millions of years ago with the proposition that it took millions of years to form.
This is why creationists come out with gibberish like this:
Observed examples of rapid island formation and maturation, such as Surtsey, which confound the notion that such islands take long periods of time to form.
A monment's thought, of course, would tell them that no geologist in the world has the notion that islands such as Surtsey take a long time to form --- but thought is not common among creationists.
There's also the usual gibberish about polystrate fossils. This is based on an almost unbelievable blunder --- creationists think that geologists think that the bedding planes in sedimentary rocks represent intervals of millions of years. Have these people never opened a geology textbook.
Then, of course, there are the flat lies, such as this one:
Water gaps. These are gorges cut through mountain ranges where rivers run. They occur worldwide and are part of what evolutionary geologists call discordant drainage systems. They are discordant because they don’t fit the deep time belief system.
No, that is not what "discordant" means.
And then there's just the outright bizarre:
Lack of plant fossils in many formations containing abundant animal / herbivore fossils. E.g., the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) in Montana. See Origins 21(1):51—56, 1994. Also the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon has many track-ways (animals), but is almost devoid of plants. Implication: these rocks are not ecosystems of an era buried in situ over eons of time as evolutionists claim.
Yeah, either that or under normal conditions plants don't preserve so well as the hard parts of animals. But a grasp of the bleedin' obvious is not a prerequisite for being a creationist.
Damn, but these guys are dumb.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 50 of 135 (514112)
07-03-2009 8:30 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by wirkkalaj
07-03-2009 3:44 PM


I like to point out that there are hundreds of ancient artifacts, cave drawings and other relics that have depictions of dinosaurs on them.
But this is not actually true.
There are, on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of modern artifacts depicting dinosaurs.
Here's one.
Look, it even has a picture of a human and an elephant standing next to the dinosaurs.
Does this prove that humans and elephants are cohabiting the Earth with dinosaurs? Or is it, you know, a picture?
It does show how blindly wrong the evolutionists are in their conclusions that the dinosaurs died off millions of years ago.
If they can be that wrong about the dinosaurs and not willing to concede that they did indeed live along side humans throughtout the ages, then why should I believe them in anything else concerning ages?
The notion that dinosaurs are extinct has nothing to do with "evolutionists" and everything to do with the fact that no-one can find a living dinosaur. If "evolutionists" could find a colony of surviving dinosaurs tomorrow, then they would throw one hell of a party --- and of course this discovery would not cast the least doubt on the dates ascribed to the fossils. (You do not explain how, in your fantasy world, such a discovery would invalidate dating methods. It would not. How could it?)
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 60 of 135 (514221)
07-05-2009 1:39 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by greentwiga
07-04-2009 5:38 PM


Re: Ancient paleontology
I also thought it interesting that dinosaur and other thigh bone fossils look very similar to human thigh bones. Could this be the source of the giant myths?
The first dinosaur bone we know of being described by a Western scholar dates from 1677, when the lower part of a femur was described by Robert Plot. From his description belonged to Megalosaurus or something similar. (The fragment has been lost, but we have his description and this drawing).
Of course, by that time there were already legends of giants, so this does not demonstrate the origin of the legend: but it does show that your conjecture is not implausible.
Another interesting case is the "Klagenfurt Dragon". The people of Klagenfurt found a skull, identified it as that of a dragon, and were so impressed that in 1590 they put up a big statue of it. They kept the skull, which turned out to be that of a woolly rhinoceros. Again, it's not the origin of dragon myths, but it does suggest that they might have got started in this way.
(I've got a whole file of these things, I keep meaning to write an article on them.)
Notice also the myths about things turning other things to stone. (gorgons, basilisks) Could this be in response to finding bones turned to stone?
Another interesting conjecture. Do you know the legend of St Patrick and the snakes? According to Irish legend, when he drove all the snakes out of Ireland (which is indeed snake-free) they curled up and turned into ammonites. There are similar less well-known myths about other saints from other parts of the British Isles.
There used to be a cottage industry carving snake heads on ammonites to make them look more snake-y, to sell to tourists.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by greentwiga, posted 07-04-2009 5:38 PM greentwiga has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 62 of 135 (514227)
07-05-2009 3:35 AM
Reply to: Message 61 by greentwiga
07-05-2009 2:22 AM


Re: Ancient paleontology
You are referring to more recent and better documented cases of fossils. They are good examples of how people use the fossils to make up myths.
But they aren't --- they're examples of people using fossils to confirm myths that they already had, as I emphasized. It is hard to find cases where we can definitely say that a fossil find was the origin of a myth.
Do you have anything on ancient Greeks or Chinese finding these fossils. I believe that the island of Samos? is known for having fossils appear after erosive events and it is theorized that it was a source for the Greek temple fossils. Possibly even the drawing on the vase. Wasn't Crete a source of mammoth bones and that is why the Oddessey locates the cyclops there? Have you documented those sources?
They weren't mammoths (as RAZD said) but pygmy elephants.
No, sadly, there are no Greek sources that give us enough information to definitely say that the cyclopeans were based on elephant skulls or griffins on Protoceratops.
If you look on Google, you will find people saying that there are such sources --- for example, the name of Empedocles seems to have gotten attached to the elephant-cyclops link. In the same way, you find people saying that the Greek authors reported griffins in the Gobi (where Protoceratops fossils are found) on the say-so of the Scythians (whose territory may have extended to the Gobi depending on what you mean by "Scythians"). But this all seems to be the purest rubbish, produced by people playing the game that Americans call "Telephone" and I would call "Chinese Whispers". I have been able to find no Classical sources that would make these conjectures more than just interesting conjectures.
In the case of the griffins, the Greek sources agree that the Scythians said that there were griffins in the extreme north of Europe, and not in the Gobi desert as the griffin-Protoceratops hypothesis would require. To that extent the Classical sources actually cast doubt on the hypothesis.
---
As for the Chinese, we can certainly find them identifying what we now know as dinosaur bones as being "dragon bones", but which came first, the bones or the Chinese dragon myth? A definite answer is lost, like so much else, in the mists of antiquity.
---
I had better write that article. It seems it will have at least one interested reader.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 65 by RAZD, posted 07-05-2009 3:20 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 68 of 135 (514302)
07-06-2009 1:19 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by RAZD
07-05-2009 3:20 PM


Re: Ancient paleontology - quibbles
Curiously, one of the beliefs associated with Griffins is that they hoarded gold, and Mayor has a map on page 28 showing the juxtapositions of gold digs and protoceratops\dinosaur bones found lying on the ground, along ancient trade routes, so "purest rubbish" seems to be supported by some actual evidence.
What I describe as "purest rubbish" is people saying that the Greek authors give us solid testimony for the griffin-Protocertops connection.
Curiously you seem to now imply that the range of the Scythians extended into northern europe ...
No, that's not what I mean to imply. Just because the Scythians reported that there were griffins up there doesn't mean that the Scythians lived up there. According to Herodotus:
Of these too, then, we have knowledge; but as for what is north of them, it is from the Issedones that the tale comes of the one-eyed men and the griffins that guard gold; this is told by the Skythians, who have heard it from them; and we have taken it as true from the Skythians.
So you see, according to the Greeks the Scythians weren't claiming to have griffins in their territory, but to have heard about them from their neighbors the Issedones, who didn't claim to have griffins in their territory.
Was this to the east or the north? Well, again according to Herodotus:
But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspoi steal it from griffins.
So he's clearly locating the griffins in the north of Europe, which is one of the many places where the Gobi desert isn't --- and outside Scythian territory.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 77 of 135 (518157)
08-04-2009 9:59 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by wirkkalaj
08-04-2009 7:20 AM


Re: How likely?
I'm not sure of your point here? I would say that it would be very unlikely, which is why I say. I highly doubt that ancient people had an Archeology team that went out and dug up bones and reassembled them as we do. So how could they have drawings, statues and other artifacts that (in many cases) look just like dinosaurs if they never saw them?
Sure. Before nineteenth century Europeans, no-one owned a shovel and everyone was a freakin' idiot. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 78 of 135 (518158)
08-04-2009 10:01 AM
Reply to: Message 74 by wirkkalaj
08-04-2009 7:48 AM


Re: Saddle up yer Tricerotops Pardner
Which of these are meant to be dinosaurs, and which ones?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by wirkkalaj, posted 08-04-2009 7:48 AM wirkkalaj has not replied

  
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