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Author Topic:   Discussing the evidence that support creationism
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 142 of 301 (435822)
11-23-2007 7:26 AM
Reply to: Message 131 by theLimmitt
11-22-2007 3:44 PM


Hi Limmitt,
There were a couple important pieces of information about the merry-go-round example that were only briefly mentioned. One was by Ringo, and that's that when the children fly off the merry-go-round they won't be spinning unless they were already spinning when they were on the merry-go-round. Assuming the children were standing on the merry-go-round and holding onto one of the poles or were riding one of the horses, then they were absolutely spinning at the rate of one rotation per rotation of the merry-go-round. So when they fly off, assuming their last grasp of the pole or the horse didn't impart some additional rotational force, they will continue spinning at the same rate.
I forgot who mentioned the other one, but that's that the objects we see spinning today did not exist at the time of the Big Bang. Not even atoms existed at the beginning of the Big Bang. Stable atoms did not begin forming until a couple hundred thousand years later. It was hundreds of millions of years later before the first stars and galaxies began to form, and it was billions of years later that our own sun and solar system formed. Any relationship between the spin of the Big Bang and the spin of individual stars, planets and galaxies today was lost long, long ago. Arguing that they should all have the same spin today would be like arguing that the great grandchildren of the children who flew off the merry-go-round should all have the same spin.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by theLimmitt, posted 11-22-2007 3:44 PM theLimmitt has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 175 of 301 (442800)
12-22-2007 5:27 PM
Reply to: Message 174 by Aquilegia753
12-22-2007 5:19 PM


Re: We do not argue with links
That's just an expression of incredulity. Why do you think a few billion years isn't long enough for descent with modification through natural selection to produce the diversity of life we see today?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Aquilegia753, posted 12-22-2007 5:19 PM Aquilegia753 has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 212 of 301 (443313)
12-24-2007 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 211 by Buzsaw
12-24-2007 11:03 AM


Re: Evolutionism Definition
This definition of evolutionism is from Wikipedia:
Wikipedia on evolutionism writes:
Evolutionism, from the accusative of the Latin evolutio, "unrolling" + the Greek -‘‘, "suffix of action or state", is generally used by creationists as a pejorative label for the scientific theory of evolution.
I think that about sums it up. It's just a more specific form of the word scientism, this also from that entry at Wikipedia:
Wikipedia on scientism writes:
  1. The term is often used as a pejorative to indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims. In this sense, the charge of scientism often is used as a counter-argument to appeals to scientific authority in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.
  2. The term is also used to pejoratively refer to "the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry," with a concomitant "elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience". It thus expresses a position critical of (at least the more extreme expressions of) positivism. (Compare: scientific imperialism.)
Wikipedia goes on to explain the objection to use of evolutionism fairly clearly:
Wikipedia on evolutionism writes:
Scientists object to the terms evolutionism and evolutionist because the -ism and -ist suffixes accentuate belief rather than scientific study. Conversely, creationists use those same two terms partly because the terms accentuate belief, and partly perhaps because they provide a way to package their opposition into one group, seemingly atheist and materialist, designations which are irrelevant to science.
What you're telling us is that you're going to insist on referring to evolution in pejorative terms. One of the reasons threads involving Randman had such difficulty maintaining civility was because of his insistence on referring to other side in pejorative terms. Your chosen course of action seems ill-advised, not to mention inconsistent with rule 10 of the Forum Guidelines.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Formatting.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 211 by Buzsaw, posted 12-24-2007 11:03 AM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 213 by Buzsaw, posted 12-24-2007 7:24 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 214 of 301 (443408)
12-24-2007 9:25 PM
Reply to: Message 213 by Buzsaw
12-24-2007 7:24 PM


Re: Wikipedia Liberal Anti-Creationist Bias
Buz, I think we're all just a bit tired of your incessant accusations of bias. The topic of this thread is the evidence supporting Creationism. If creationism is science then it must have supporting evidence. But if creationism is Genesis stripped of Biblical references then that explains the lack of supporting evidence, and you can't blame that on evolution. I think we'd all appreciate it if you'd get on topic and talk about the evidence for creationism.
If creationism were truly science with a more accurate view of the real world than traditional science then its primary advocates, fundamentalist Christians, would be be producing the results of that better science at centers of study like Liberty University and Indiana Wesleyan, but scientific advances don't emerge from such places. They don't come from the Discovery Institute, either. If evolution were wrong then the best advances in biology would be coming out of places that understand it is wrong, but we don't see this from fundamentalist institutions.
The way creationism is going to convince science of its views is by doing the science and presenting the evidence. Your focus is on things for which there is no evidence, such as a global flood or different physical laws before 4000 years ago. No one ignorant of Genesis and just looking at the real-world evidence would conclude such things.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by Buzsaw, posted 12-24-2007 7:24 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 215 by Buzsaw, posted 12-24-2007 10:39 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 225 of 301 (443490)
12-25-2007 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 222 by Buzsaw
12-25-2007 9:30 AM


A plea for substantive, constructive, on-topic discussion
Buz, this thread has less than 80 posts to go. Three consecutive content-free posts after earlier pleas to get on topic is hard to fathom. As a moderator you shouldn't let other posters act as enablers of your tendency to go off-topic.
To everyone: This thread hasn't got much more time. Please don't help other posters go off-topic. I think that posts in this thread should discuss the evidence for creationism, and that those that don't shouldn't be posted.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by Buzsaw, posted 12-25-2007 9:30 AM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 226 by Buzsaw, posted 12-25-2007 12:17 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 228 of 301 (443508)
12-25-2007 1:13 PM
Reply to: Message 224 by Buzsaw
12-25-2007 10:05 AM


Re: Human Population Factor
Hi Buz,
First you have to check the figures from that website, Evidence For Creation, under point 4, Population Statistics.
It estimates the annual growth rate at 1% with approximately 1/3 of the population wiped out every 82 years (these figures are extremely questionable, but I'm just going to apply the math). Plugging in the numbers and starting with 8 individuals 4500 years ago (2500 BC) yields a world population today of 49 billion. Would you say that's just a little off, since the estimate of the world population in 2005 was 6.454 billion?
Even worse, applying their figures yields a world human population at the time of Christ of 1.7 million. That was probably the population of just Rome alone in the year 1. The estimated world population at the time of Christ is around 200 million.
World population growth rates have increased dramatically over the past few hundred years because of the advent of modern agriculture and medicine. Simplistically taking the recent world population growth rate and cutting it in half is just a guestimate. Applying guestimates across millennium is bound to generate significant errors. They attempt to compensate for this guestimate by adding yet another guestimate, an 82-year period between episodes causing the demise of 1/3 of the world population, despite that there were no wars, diseases, famines, etc, that would have affected the entire world at even roughly the same time, so this is more a fudge factor than a guestimate, and obviously they didn't go to the trouble to actually do the math (I wrote a simple Perl program) or they would have found they weren't even close.
Wikipedia has a table of estimated world populations at Wikipedia Population Figures, see the table titled, "Estimated world population at various dates, in thousands". The modern rate of annual population growth from 1750 to today, a period when the population grew from .791 billion to 6.454 billion, is 0.83%, far below your website's estimate of recent growth at 2%, and below their 1% figure that they applied over the past 4500 years. In other words, they applied a higher growth rate than the one after the advent of modern agriculture and medicine. Even the annual world population growth rate since 1900 has only been 1.3%. Higher growth rates have only manifested themselves extremely recently. For example, the annual world population growth rate since 1980 has been 1.5%, but nothing approaching your website's claim of recent growth of 2%.
Okay, so I've shown the figures from your website are wrong and likely made up, and that if you actually apply their figures anyway that you get a modern world population of 49 billion, off by a factor of about 7, and that it also doesn't yield accurate population figures for the past, such as at the time of the birth of Christ. But is there any truth at all to the claim that the world population of humans should have increased continuously, except for occasional setbacks, since the species first evolved, say, 100,000 years ago.
The answer is no. Human populations cannot grow beyond the resources they can extract from the local environment. Improving technology increases the size of a population a region can sustain. Stone age technology could not sustain a world population of 6.454 billion, not even close. The current world population is not 6.454 billion simply because of the passage of time, but because of the contributions of modern technology, primarily in the form of improved agriculture and medicine.
A good example of an old technology that cannot sustain large populations that is still practiced in some parts of the world such as South America is slash-and-burn. At one time it was widely practiced, and it can sustain only low population densities. Another example of a technology that cannot sustain large populations is hunter/gatherer.
Technology advanced very little during the middle ages, and if we look at the rate of population growth during the period from 1000 to 1750 we see that it has an annual rate of increase of .13%, an incredibly small figure. That's a growth only slightly larger than a 10th of a percent a year! And between year 1 and year 1000, a good part of that the heart of Middle Ages, the annual growth rate was .04%!!!
Let's look at it another way. If we assume that Wikipedia's figure of a world human population of 200 million in the year 1 is accurate, and if we assume that your website's claim that the total world population 4500 years ago was 8, then that's an average annual percentage increase of .7%, far above what was historically typical of the period.
In sum, your website uses made up figures that aren't even consistent with its own claims, let alone the record of history, and it for some reason seems completely ignorant of the obvious fact that population growth rates are greatly influenced by the available technology. Population figures throughout history support what we know about the factors that allow population increases.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 224 by Buzsaw, posted 12-25-2007 10:05 AM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 229 by jar, posted 12-25-2007 1:28 PM Percy has replied
 Message 233 by Buzsaw, posted 12-25-2007 9:55 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 230 of 301 (443514)
12-25-2007 1:44 PM
Reply to: Message 229 by jar
12-25-2007 1:28 PM


Re: Human Population Factor
jar writes:
Even more interesting is that using their figures proves that the Exodus didn't happen. Their figures show that the total population of the world was less than the claimed number of Jews leaving Egypt for the Trek the Never Happened.
Omigod! You're right! Their figures yield a world population of 1581 people in the year 1440 BC.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by jar, posted 12-25-2007 1:28 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 231 by jar, posted 12-25-2007 1:53 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 236 of 301 (443648)
12-26-2007 9:03 AM
Reply to: Message 233 by Buzsaw
12-25-2007 9:55 PM


Re: Human Population Factor
Buzsaw writes:
1. I believe you are either misreading item 4 of the link or misapplying the math. As I read item 4 it is not saying 1% with i.e. factoring in the 1/3 wiped out. It's saying after you make the estimate of 1% growth then you apply the 1/3rd being wiped out.
Here's the exact wording from point 4 of Evidence for Creation:
Point 4 of Evidence for Creation writes:
4. Population Statistics...World population growth rate in recent times is about 2% per year. Practicable application of growth rate throughout human history would be about half that number. Wars, disease, famine, etc. have wiped out approximately one third of the population on average every 82 years.
I don't see how this supports your interpretation, but adjusting the 1% growth rate by an amount equivalent to a 1/3 die-out every 82 years would yield very similar answers.
Let's focus on just one date, the date of the Exodus, 1440 BC. Starting from a world population of 8 in 2500 BC would yield a population of 1581 in 1440 BC. Even if you completely throw out the 1/3 die-out every 82 years and just apply a 1% growth rate you get a world population of only 307,657 in 1440 BC.
Also keep in mind that a 1% growth rate is far above historical growth rates in human populations prior to the advent of modern agriculture and medicine.
This shows that the figures from your website are made up and yield figures that are wildly out of whack with estimates of world population history, and even with common sense.
Your website also fails to incorporate the known fact that the size of human populations are a strong function of the technology available to take advantage of local resources. Stone age technologies, slash-and-burn technologies, hunter/gather technologies, these all only supported far, far lower population densities than modern technologies. The size of today's world population is a result of improving technology, not the passage of time. If we still had stone age technology then the world population would be mere millions, no matter how much time had passed since the beginning.
In Mythbuster terminology, I'd say this one is busted! Let's move on to your next evidence for creationism.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 233 by Buzsaw, posted 12-25-2007 9:55 PM Buzsaw has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 240 of 301 (443681)
12-26-2007 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 238 by Buzsaw
12-26-2007 11:22 AM


Re: Driving My Population Argument Home
Why are you abandoning the scenario from the webpage you cited? It started with a population of 8 in 2500 BC and projected forward with a growth rate of a little less than 1%. As I already showed in my prior messages, the results this yields are wildly at odds with both secular and Biblical history. This is the argument you advanced, and it's the argument that's been decisively refuted.
What you're doing now is making the identical argument, just with different made-up figures. The question you're asking has already been anticipated and answered at least three times. Here's my answer from Message 228:
Percy in Message 228 writes:
But is there any truth at all to the claim that the world population of humans should have increased continuously, except for occasional setbacks, since the species first evolved, say, 100,000 years ago.
The answer is no. Human populations cannot grow beyond the resources they can extract from the local environment. Improving technology increases the size of a population a region can sustain. Stone age technology could not sustain a world population of 6.454 billion, not even close. The current world population is not 6.454 billion simply because of the passage of time, but because of the contributions of modern technology, primarily in the form of improved agriculture and medicine.
A good example of an old technology that cannot sustain large populations that is still practiced in some parts of the world such as South America is slash-and-burn. At one time it was widely practiced, and it can sustain only low population densities. Another example of a technology that cannot sustain large populations is hunter/gatherer.
Technology advanced very little during the middle ages, and if we look at the rate of population growth during the period from 1000 to 1750 we see that it has an annual rate of increase of .13%, an incredibly small figure. That's a growth only slightly larger than a 10th of a percent a year! And between year 1 and year 1000, a good part of that the heart of Middle Ages, the annual growth rate was .04%!!!
After you ignored that answer I gave it again in shorter form in Message 236:
Percy in Message 236 writes:
Your website also fails to incorporate the known fact that the size of human populations are a strong function of the technology available to take advantage of local resources. Stone age technologies, slash-and-burn technologies, hunter/gather technologies, these all only supported far, far lower population densities than modern technologies. The size of today's world population is a result of improving technology, not the passage of time. If we still had stone age technology then the world population would be mere millions, no matter how much time had passed since the beginning.
Dr. Adequate repeated this point in brief fashion in Message 237:
Dr Adequate in Message 237 writes:
One of my favorite creationist arguments.
It just debunks itself.
Obviously there are limiting factors preventing the population of the Earth from taking up more space than the entire universe. We'd run out of food, water, places to stand ...
It's patently idiotic. What it actually proves is that the creationist assumption of a constant rate of exponential growth must be false; as, of course, we know to be the case.
Ignoring this factor renders your calculations meaningless, but I'll mention anyway that your population growth rate of 0.5% for periods before modern agriculture and medicine are far too high. For example, the growth rate during the Middle Ages was around 0.04%. During the ice age prior to 10,000 years ago the growth rate could easily have been negative for sustained periods.
Think about bacteria growing in a petri dish in a lab with the bacterial population doubling every hour. Obviously in only a few years the bacteria would fill the entire solar system. Limited resources, environment, natural enemies, etc., all these things prevent such an outcome from ever happening.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 238 by Buzsaw, posted 12-26-2007 11:22 AM Buzsaw has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 242 of 301 (443684)
12-26-2007 12:17 PM
Reply to: Message 239 by cavediver
12-26-2007 11:58 AM


Re: Driving My Population Argument Home
cavediver writes:
Buzz, I'm truly speachless... have you read anything that Percy has stated? A growth rate of 0.5% for 20500 years??? You've just been told that the growth rate from 1CE to 1000CE was around 0.04%. Where the hell do you get 0.5% from?
I was way, way beyond speechless! Thanks for noticing!
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 239 by cavediver, posted 12-26-2007 11:58 AM cavediver has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 246 of 301 (443712)
12-26-2007 2:21 PM
Reply to: Message 243 by Buzsaw
12-26-2007 1:39 PM


Re: Driving My Population Argument Home
Buzsaw writes:
What I'm trying to do is to simplify the solution to this debate since there's so much controversy over the reading of the original website and so few messages to move on from this.
There is no controversy over the original website. It is wildly wrong no matter how you interpret it, and this has already been explained in detail.
Calculate beginning with 2 persons 40000 years ago today. That allows 60000 years of advancement in the human race before we begin the calculation as per the evolutionist model. Now again for your advantage let's set the average growth rate at .01% factoring in everything. After 40000 years the population should still be:
Population in 40000 yrs (present) = 46,099,380,681,100,000
Buz, what term would you use to describe someone who continues making the same erroneous point over and over again, despite that it's been explained why it's wrong many times in different ways by multiple people? Whatever term that might be, please take that term and apply it to yourself. Thank you.
Now let's move on to another evidence for creationism.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 243 by Buzsaw, posted 12-26-2007 1:39 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 247 by jar, posted 12-26-2007 2:42 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 250 by Buzsaw, posted 12-26-2007 4:04 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 255 of 301 (443733)
12-26-2007 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by Buzsaw
12-26-2007 4:11 PM


Re: Still NO support for Biblical Creationism
Buz, this is just breathtaking, even for you. Isn't there even a hint of something nibbling at the back of your mind that perhaps you're overlooking something? Like maybe the one thing that everyone keeps mentioning? Like maybe Malthusian limits?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 252 by Buzsaw, posted 12-26-2007 4:11 PM Buzsaw has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 260 of 301 (443741)
12-26-2007 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 256 by Buzsaw
12-26-2007 4:31 PM


Re: Still NO support for Biblical Creationism
Buzsaw writes:
The low 0.1 percentage factors the unfavorable resource factor in, not to mention the 60000 head start which I gave you. How many times must I repeat that?
No more times, I hope. Once a population reaches the Malthus limit, population growth goes to 0. If climatic conditions take a turn for the worse, such as the onset of an ice age, or such as happened in Greenland to the Norse during the mini-ice age, then population growth will go negative.
Think what your mistaken approach to population growth would mean. A pair of rabbits from the ark would outreproduce humans by a long-shot. They overran Australia in just a short time after being introduced, but their population growth eventually stopped because their numbers exhausted all resources available to them. Once they hit the Malthus limit their population growth stopped. Hitting the Malthus limit doesn't mean population growth diminishes - it means it stops.
The point you've been either missing or ignoring is that for much of human history mankind has existed at subsistence levels that did not permit population growth.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 256 by Buzsaw, posted 12-26-2007 4:31 PM Buzsaw has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 261 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 12-26-2007 5:07 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 282 of 301 (443965)
12-27-2007 5:10 PM
Reply to: Message 278 by Buzsaw
12-27-2007 12:21 PM


Buzsaw writes:
My conclusion is that the Biblical flood model better suits the population data.
The Biblical model you originally provided yields a world population of 1581 during the Exodus. It is wrong. Nothing more need be said. It is time to move on. Please, you or someone, introduce the next evidence for creationism.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by Buzsaw, posted 12-27-2007 12:21 PM Buzsaw has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 290 of 301 (444141)
12-28-2007 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 286 by Buzsaw
12-27-2007 11:59 PM


My Summary
First, how does incredulity combined with a lack of understanding of evolution constitute evidence for Creationism? No one here argues, "Evolution is true because creationism requires Santa Claus, and I just can't believe Santa Claus exists." (In case this requires explanation, I'm combining an argument from incredulity with ignorance of Christianity.)
Evidence for creation would be the discovery of flood traces in the same geological strata around the globe. Evidence for creation would be the discovery of an organism genetically unrelated to all other life. Evidence for creation would be the discovery that human habitation at ancient sites all ended at the same time around 4500 years ago.
Second, I'm certainly not going to pick up discussion of those points, and I wouldn't encourage anyone else to, because I suspect, just as with the previous point about population growth, that you're quoting instead of describing them in your own words because you don't understand them. Plus there's only a dozen messages to go, so I'm going to skip ahead to my summary.
No evidence for creationism was presented in this thread, only fatally flawed and uninformed arguments against well-supported views of modern science. Creationists seem to have an innate misunderstanding of the nature of positive evidence. If evolution were shown wrong, it would only mean that we have no scientific explanation for the diversity of life on earth, but would provide no support for creationism, which itself has no positive evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 286 by Buzsaw, posted 12-27-2007 11:59 PM Buzsaw has not replied

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