Use of Science to Support Creationism

Uh, what JonF said up there.Take the bit of "real" evidence that you like best. Post it in the appropriate thread (in Dates and Dating) I assume. And watch what happens.We have been referred to AIG an number of times. Some individuals here are almost certainly more knowledgable about what they say than you are. No one has yet found anything there that can stand up to any scrutiny. Show me what you've got.

I have a tree in my back yard. I've had it there for a decade and notice that it drops a thick layer of leaves every fall. Some layers are deeper than others depending on the summers weather but each year there is a layer of leaves. Each spring it drops a bunch of seed pods and they make a thin layer. This has gone on for 10 years.One year I dig a rather deep hole for a new fish pond. It cuts down vertically under the tree on one edge. When I'm done I realize that I can see the layers the tree has dropped for the recent 10 years. The leaves make a compact layer with no clear pieces. The spring layer however, shows up as having lots of bits in it the stems and pods that held seeds.When I'm finished digging I count the alternating layers of spring and fall traces and find that there are over 80 clearly marked layers. Near the bottom they start to fade out with less and less deposited. I conclude that sometime over 80 years ago the tree grew big enough to drop leaves over where I have dug and was big enough to leave a clear layer.Have I interpreted what I have found? Yes. Was I there for the whole 80 years? No. Would I be considered foolish to draw the conclusions I have? Well, maybe. Have I considered any other alternative explanation? Do I have any independent way of checking?I then core the tree and find that the tree rings give an age of 93 years and there seems to be some correlation with thicker rings and deeper fall layers. Do I have a better reason for believing that I understand what has happened in the decades before I got here?What do you think?We have the same thing with a variety of dating methods. But we have not a couple of different ways of counting "layers" we have many. We have historiacl markers placed in what we are counting. (It's like someone carved a heart into the tree with a year in it and we can slice a bit out of the tree, read the year and see what layers grew over it.)Under these circumstances we are "interpreting" the data. But you would look foolish indeed if you disagreed with me while not having any alternative explanation yourself that could explain everything I can see.What would you conclude?The age determinations have much, much more reason to be accepted than my simple little example. We may not have the exact, precise, spot-on number of years for the age of the earth. But we are only out a few percent.For 6,000 years to be correct we have to be out by 10's of MILLIONs of percent. It is a fact that we are not out that much.The half-assed attempts to tackle the measurements are about as foolish as someone saying that a tree down the street from mine didn't produce any seeds for two years in a row. Therefor my count may be wrong and the tree is only 12 years old not 80+. And I mean this as an analogy that is no more stupid than the AIG and others answers for dating methodolgies.Have you read over the threads in Dates and Dating? Especially the one discussion correlations? Do you understand what it is saying?The AIG material can't stand up to reasonably simple scrutiny. The age of the earth has been through a simply huge amount of scrutiny and stands up very well, thank you very much.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-10-2004 11:53 PM

The oldest living tree is about 4,700 years old.

I find the distinction between creationists nad clavinists useful. I have been guilty of taring all with the same black brush.We have had a number of thinking creationists here and I'm glad we do. We also, of course, get a steady stream of clavinists.I like it a lot!(added by edit)Can we split the "evolutionists" too?There are those who are interested in the controversy and don't have much interest in matters of faith other than the direct effect of it. I include the believers that aren't creationists there too.Then there are a few who seem more interested in attacking religion itself independent of the creationism issue. They are Dawkinists.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-13-2004 11:27 AM

Have you ever watched the TV show "Cheers"? Cliff is one of the patrons of the bar. You'd probably have to watch a few to understand the reference.Cliff thinks he knows it all. His every word demonstrates that he doesn't.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-13-2004 01:54 PM

I think that just commenting on the real place of "proof" in the mathematical sense doesn't adequately cover this kind of case.What are facts (in as close a way has we are going to get for anything at all complex) are the fossils, their differences and similarities to humans and their place in the geology of where they were laid down.When these 100,s of specimens are examined we note that they suggest a change from more ape like to less ape like and to fully human over the time frame involved. Since the suggestion is so very strong for this and no one has suggested a reasonable alternative explanation we start to treat this apparent linkage as a "fact" as well. When we are not being pedantic about the language involved then it seems perfectly reasonable to say: "That humans have evolved from earlier forms is a fact." If we are being more pedantic then "The available evidence strongely supports the theory that humans have evolved from somewhat ape like forms." is a perfectly good statment too.The problem is using the second one sounds, to the untrained ear, like we aren't very sure of this conclusion. However, it is really just the cautious scientific way of saying that humans have evolved as a matter of fact.Here is a famous example of this kind of cautious understatement in Watson and Crick's famous 1953 paper:

quote:

---

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

---