The earth is only 6000 years old (II)

[Philipp]

Miracles have nothing to do that argument.
Notice how those miracles have helped Christians believe: They are not tricks if we count them as true.
Do fossils help us believe in God? No. They’re just there.
A. If we count fossils as actual evidence that the earth is billions of years old, then YEC doesn’t make sense.
B. If we count fossils as just being put there 6000 years ago as YEC states, then God is messing around with us.

My point is this: God doesn’t just mess around with us. So only A makes sense.

It’s not God who is messing with us. It is man’s pride in his effort to prove descent from a common ancestor. Main stream scientists either ignore the evidence of the past 20 years or simply use ad hominum attacks on everyone that attempts to challenge the “Sacred Cow” of scientism. Any hard data against the “Sacred Cow” is called Creationism and the discoverer a Creationist; ergo, a religious argument and not scientific. Thus all main stream scientists appear to be afraid to check the data by repeating the experiments or doing the necessary field work.less they also be attacked. Bretz of the Montana megaflood was ignored for forty years because what he discovered might be used by “Creationists” to claim it was part of Noah’s flood. Been there heard that a 1000 times. Case in point:

blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/italy-science-a.html#more and from that report near the bottom of the page is this attack:

Among the biologists voicing dismay, zoologist Ferdinando Boero of University of Lecce wrote an open letter to Maiani questioning de Mattei’s fitness for vice-president of CNR. “It is not acceptable that something has been published with the label and money of CNR without any previous control from CNR itself and without going through any peer review evaluation,” Boero tells ScienceInsider. “We are in front of the paradox that, while the Vatican {Pontifical] Academy of Science endorses evolutionism, the VP of the biggest scientific institution in Italy denies it.”

PARAPHRASING THE ABOVE: Better fire this Mattei guy; he didn’t get our permission. But how did the zoo boy know that the papers on sedimentology, physics, genetics, chronology dating of dinosaur bones, and critique of radiometric dating were not peer reviewed? By any other name it is still censorship and the movie “intelligence not allowed,” I think it was called, quite accurate.

The PAS is an scientific advisory group to the Pope on various subjects including origins. But no one of the 80 some so-called academicians have defended the Catholic faith by scientists who are waiting to give their data opposing that hypothesis. I hope that Pope Benedict will appoint an independent committee to see why only there is no one who is avialable to give data that is critical of the “Sacred Cow” of scientism. The PAS and other committees are nothing more than rubber stamps for a bankrupt hypothesis.

You see Caritas— we have all been so brainwashed that you don’t even know that much of catastrophism discovered primarily since the 1970’s and the huge graveyards of fossils of sll sorts could have been deposted during a major world-wide flood noted in scripture and by the founder of our faith. Do you want to see the scripture quotes?

 

[StAnastasia]

It’s not God who is messing with us. It is man’s pride in his effort to prove descent from a common ancestor.

Philipp, who is trying to prove common descent? Can you give us some examples?

 

[StAnastasia]

No, what we have here is a God who can do nothing unless humans can prove it scientifically, as I’ve tried to point out.God bless,Ed

Ed, you have to learn how science works. “Proof” is not the aim of science; rather, it aims to falsify hypotheses.

 

[grannymh]

I don’t think you’re understanding my point or the argument from deception.
The argument I laid out is against the YEC viewpoint.

First, to answer your questions:
YECs assume 1 to be true.
God doesn’t have any motivation (according to Catholic Doctrine) to make the earth look older than it is. Our reason naturally directs itself toward God (although I think it was either St. Paul or St. Anselm who said that only “with much time and with the admixture of many errors”) but reason is perfected through revelation. Faith and reason work like two wings flying us to God.

Secondly, the argument I presented is not at all profane. I was showing that if you assume the first numbered statements as true, then it doesn’t make any sense. The argument shows that (as the opening post of this thread suggested) it is absurd to say that “God created the earth 6000 years ago because the Bible says, but science is wrong because God could have made the earth in a way which is deceptive to the human intellect.”

Please note that when I write something out or ask a question, I don’t necessarily concede with that statement, I’m just making a point.

Pardon me. I noticed that you did not respond to all the questions. That is quite all right since I have not heard any YEC person claim that God is a trickster who deceives. So far it is only people who are against YEC, etc., who are using poor theology.

This is what the original OP said: “The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.” This talks about evidence meaning nothing. Regardless of his thoughts, the OP did not call God names in public.

Also, I did not ask about God’s motivation. Who am I to question God? I asked about Divine Revelation in the Catholic Deposit of Faith. When I think about it, I should have asked about the motivation among Christian religions and branches other than Catholicism. Again, no answer is quite all right with me.

It is all right with me if other people have different ideas about profanity. I am sure that all the people before you who liked the “trickster” idea were also just making a point.

Finally, I did understand that this argument was against YEC which is why I wrote “Using the ‘trickster’ argument against God in order to win points in the young earth debate is deceptively clever in its profanity.”

I am happy to agree to disagree.

Blessings,
granny

Isaiah 55

 

[pismopal]

It makes a great deal of difference as you can see here.

First, if you accept the idea that the Bible is not a science text then it should not be treated as if it is.

Second, there is politics involved. More than a few individuals here wish to stamp out a few ideas they dislike. One has stated that “we” (whoever that is) will not vote for a YEC again.

Third, at least one poster here wants to the turn the father of all human beings into a myth in direct contradiction to Church teaching.

God bless,
Ed

The puzzle for me is why would someone claim to take the Bible literally and then reject the Catholic position on Holy Communion and the Real Presence. One cannot have it both ways but some try.

 

[grannymh]

Philipp, who is trying to prove common descent? Can you give us some examples?

You.

 

[StAnastasia]

You.

No, Granny, I’m not. You need to learn how science works.

 

[itinerant1]

I had to wait for this next string to get past Buffalo’s flood. What was up with that?

So, creationists don’t like being told that the YEC God is a trickster. But that’s not my problem. I don’t imagine a God who confounds human reason with a trick Creation. I just call it as I see it, and I won’t change my argument merely because creationists find it offensive. As Aristotle said “Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”

I lived near Mt. St. Helens during one of its recent eruptions and that situation started me thinking about the history of Mt. St. Helens volcanic activity. Geologists have identified stages in this history. The early eruptive stages are known as
1. the “Ape Canyon Stage” (around 40–35,000 years ago),
2. the “Cougar Stage” (ca. 20–18,000 years ago), and
3. the “Swift Creek Stage” (approx. 13–8,000 years ago).

[The modern period, since about 2500 BC, is called the “Spirit Lake Stage”.]

Basic facts:
1. St. Helens started its growth in the Pleistocene, 37,600 years ago, during the Ape Canyon stage, with dacite and andesite eruptions of hot pumice and ash. 36,000 years ago a large mudflow cascaded down the volcano.

2. The Ape Canyon eruptive period ended around 35,000 years ago and was followed by 17,000 years of relative quiet.

3. The second eruptive period, the Cougar Stage, started 20,000 years ago and lasted for 2,000 years. Pyroclastic flows of hot pumice and ash along with dome growth occurred during this period. Another 5,000 years of dormancy followed, only to be upset by the beginning of the Swift Creek eruptive period, typified by pyroclastic flows, dome growth and blanketing of the countryside with tephra. Swift Creek ended 8,000 years ago.

4. A dormancy of about 4,000 years was broken around 2500 BC with the start of the Smith Creek eruptive period, when eruptions of large amounts of ash and yellowish-brown pumice covered thousands of square miles. An eruption in 1900 BC was the largest known eruption from St. Helens during the Holocene epoch, judged by the volume of one of the tephra layers from that period. This eruptive period lasted until about 1600 BC and left 18 inches deep deposits of material 50 miles distant in what is now Mt. Rainier National Park.

(The geological data is fairly standard so I grabbed it from online sources, primarily Wiki)

Now, clearly, according to a general consensus of geologists, the terrain of St. Helens testifies to significant eruptive activities prior to the “Spirit Lake Stage”.

But then according to some YECs, the geologists are all wrong. There must be something wrong with their dating methods and everything else they do to determine the nature of the volcanic activity and the time period in which the volcano erupted because the earth is only 6-10,000 years old. (Oh my!)

Other YECs will contend that God created the Earth to appear old, and that is why geologists can say eruptive activity began 36,000 years ago. (Hmmm!)

But here’s the rub. The YEC position implies that the volcanic activity never actually occurred 36,000 years ago because the Earth was created 6,000 years ago in an advanced stage. So, geologists are studying something that never really happened. It just exhibits every imaginable bit of reliable physical evidence that it did happen 36,000 years ago; but all of that data is just so much illusion. The numerous layers of diverse compositions did not take place naturally over long periods of time. They just “appear” as if they did as a result of some divine trick. God is an all-powerful, miracle-working magician, and he has succeeded in fooling all of the geologists. Oh, such a surreal world we live in.

On the other hand, biologist Kenneth Miller makes the same point I am trying to make, but in reference to the fossil record. So, I will quote from his Finding Darwin’s God:

“In the final analysis, God is not a magician who works cheap tricks. Rather His magic lies in the fabric of the universe itself. The fossil record is not a series of sequential tricks fabricated for no purpose other than to mislead. The fossil record represents, with all of its imperfections, an epic of evolutionary change, the history of life on this planet grand in its range and diversity and magnificent in its detail. It is the record of the historical process that led to us. It is the real thing and so are we.”

 

[larkin31]

The PAS is an scientific advisory group to the Pope on various subjects including origins. But no one of the 80 some so-called academicians have defended the Catholic faith by scientists who are waiting to give their data opposing that hypothesis. I hope that Pope Benedict will appoint an independent committee to see why only there is no one who is avialable to give data that is critical of the “Sacred Cow” of scientism. The PAS and other committees are nothing more than rubber stamps for a bankrupt hypothesis.

Makes one wonder, indeed.

You see Caritas— we have all been so brainwashed that you don’t even know that much of catastrophism discovered primarily since the 1970’s and the huge graveyards of fossils of sll sorts could have been deposted during a major world-wide flood noted in scripture and by the founder of our faith. Do you want to see the scripture quotes?

Oh, no. “World-wide flood”? Good grief.

 

[Caritasregat]

Pardon me. I noticed that you did not respond to all the questions. That is quite all right since I have not heard any YEC person claim that God is a trickster who deceives. So far it is only people who are against YEC, etc., who are using poor theology.

This is what the original OP said: “The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.” This talks about evidence meaning nothing. Regardless of his thoughts, the OP did not call God names in public.

Also, I did not ask about God’s motivation. Who am I to question God? I asked about Divine Revelation in the Catholic Deposit of Faith. When I think about it, I should have asked about the motivation among Christian religions and branches other than Catholicism. Again, no answer is quite all right with me.

It is all right with me if other people have different ideas about profanity. I am sure that all the people before you who liked the “trickster” idea were also just making a point.

Finally, I did understand that this argument was against YEC which is why I wrote “Using the ‘trickster’ argument against God in order to win points in the young earth debate is deceptively clever in its profanity.”

I am happy to agree to disagree.

Blessings,
granny

Isaiah 55

If you look at the Summa Theologiae, by St. Thomas Aquinas, you will see a format that looks something like this:​

Obj. 1 - It would seem that God is not good, for why would there be evil in creation?
Obj. 2 - It would seem that God is not good, for vengefulness and jealousy are not good qualities, but the Bible says “Vengeance alone is God’s” and “our God is a jealous God”

I respond,

1. In God’s goodness He gave us free will and we used it to choose evil.
2. The passages quoted represent the way we look at God in a metaphorical way.

---

Please know that I am by no means calling God names. However, profanity is only when one is being irreverent. I do not question out of irreverence or a lack of faith, but I am merely posing hypothetical questions so as to get to know God more. But I agree with another post, the “deceiver” or “trickster” concept doesn’t fly: Once you set forth the argument, the other assumptions are merely denied.

 

[grannymh]

If you look at the Summa Theologiae, by St. Thomas Aquinas, you will see a format that looks something like this:​

Obj. 1 - It would seem that God is not good, for why would there be evil in creation?
Obj. 2 - It would seem that God is not good, for vengefulness and jealousy are not good qualities, but the Bible says “Vengeance alone is God’s” and “our God is a jealous God”

I respond,

1. In God’s goodness He gave us free will and we used it to choose evil.
2. The passages quoted represent the way we look at God in a metaphorical way.

---

Please know that I am by no means calling God names. However, profanity is only when one is being irreverent. I do not question out of irreverence or a lack of faith, but I am merely posing hypothetical questions so as to get to know God more. But I agree with another post, the “deceiver” or “trickster” concept doesn’t fly: Once you set forth the argument, the other assumptions are merely denied.

Quick clarification. There was no intention that you were calling anyone names. I had hoped I was clear that I have heard that argument from others previously.

Profane can also refer to the nonreligious in subject matter, form, or use; secular. Definition 2, American College Dictionary In my humble opinion, trickster is placing the Creator on the same level as the secular. In that sense, it is irreverent.

Of course, you may agree to disagree. And that is all right with me. I very much like to read your posts. Thank you.

Oooops. I see that itinerant1 knows more YEC people than I do. I stand corrected. My apology. I guess there are lots and lots of rude people.

Blessings,
granny

Spring is a gift of faith in the future.

 

[buffalo]

I had to wait for this next string to get past Buffalo’s flood. What was up with that?

So, creationists don’t like being told that the YEC God is a trickster. But that’s not my problem. I don’t imagine a God who confounds human reason with a trick Creation. I just call it as I see it, and I won’t change my argument merely because creationists find it offensive. As Aristotle said “Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”

I lived near Mt. St. Helens during one of its recent eruptions and that situation started me thinking about the history of Mt. St. Helens volcanic activity. Geologists have identified stages in this history. The early eruptive stages are known as
1. the “Ape Canyon Stage” (around 40–35,000 years ago),
2. the “Cougar Stage” (ca. 20–18,000 years ago), and
3. the “Swift Creek Stage” (approx. 13–8,000 years ago).

[The modern period, since about 2500 BC, is called the “Spirit Lake Stage”.]

Basic facts:
1. St. Helens started its growth in the Pleistocene, 37,600 years ago, during the Ape Canyon stage, with dacite and andesite eruptions of hot pumice and ash. 36,000 years ago a large mudflow cascaded down the volcano.

2. The Ape Canyon eruptive period ended around 35,000 years ago and was followed by 17,000 years of relative quiet.

3. The second eruptive period, the Cougar Stage, started 20,000 years ago and lasted for 2,000 years. Pyroclastic flows of hot pumice and ash along with dome growth occurred during this period. Another 5,000 years of dormancy followed, only to be upset by the beginning of the Swift Creek eruptive period, typified by pyroclastic flows, dome growth and blanketing of the countryside with tephra. Swift Creek ended 8,000 years ago.

4. A dormancy of about 4,000 years was broken around 2500 BC with the start of the Smith Creek eruptive period, when eruptions of large amounts of ash and yellowish-brown pumice covered thousands of square miles. An eruption in 1900 BC was the largest known eruption from St. Helens during the Holocene epoch, judged by the volume of one of the tephra layers from that period. This eruptive period lasted until about 1600 BC and left 18 inches deep deposits of material 50 miles distant in what is now Mt. Rainier National Park.

(The geological data is fairly standard so I grabbed it from online sources, primarily Wiki)

Now, clearly, according to a general consensus of geologists, the terrain of St. Helens testifies to significant eruptive activities prior to the “Spirit Lake Stage”.

But then according to some YECs, the geologists are all wrong. There must be something wrong with their dating methods and everything else they do to determine the nature of the volcanic activity and the time period in which the volcano erupted because the earth is only 6-10,000 years old. (Oh my!)

Other YECs will contend that God created the Earth to appear old, and that is why geologists can say eruptive activity began 36,000 years ago. (Hmmm!)

But here’s the rub. The YEC position implies that the volcanic activity never actually occurred 36,000 years ago because the Earth was created 6,000 years ago in an advanced stage. So, geologists are studying something that never really happened. It just exhibits every imaginable bit of reliable physical evidence that it did happen 36,000 years ago; but all of that data is just so much illusion. The numerous layers of diverse compositions did not take place naturally over long periods of time. They just “appear” as if they did as a result of some divine trick. God is an all-powerful, miracle-working magician, and he has succeeded in fooling all of the geologists. Oh, such a surreal world we live in.

On the other hand, biologist Kenneth Miller makes the same point I am trying to make, but in reference to the fossil record. So, I will quote from his Finding Darwin’s God:

“In the final analysis, God is not a magician who works cheap tricks. Rather His magic lies in the fabric of the universe itself. The fossil record is not a series of sequential tricks fabricated for no purpose other than to mislead. The fossil record represents, with all of its imperfections, an epic of evolutionary change, the history of life on this planet grand in its range and diversity and magnificent in its detail. It is the record of the historical process that led to us. It is the real thing and so are we.”

I would really like your reflection on the St Augustine posts.

I posted a few paragraphs that about time and creation.

 

[Philipp]

Ed, you have to learn how science works. “Proof” is not the aim of science; rather, it aims to falsify hypotheses.

That being so then what you repeat in all your posts (1) has been falsified, together and separately, by the sciences of sedimentology, physics, population genetics, mathematics, chemistry, paleontology and the queen of sciences, theology (Christ, the church fathers, and the magisterium of the church) namely:

(1) "Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism." ~ Communion and Stewardship (2002)

Therefore may I suggest that you write the chairman of the Communion and Stewardship committee conference held in Rome in 2002, unless he has fled back to his “Planet of the Apes,” and advise him that another conference held in Rome on February 23, 2009 has falsified his committee’s hypothesis? Ref: National Research Council of Italy, published in book form and released November 9, 2009 entitled,** Evolutionism: The decline of an Hypothesis.**

(1) has been replaced with a more realistic hypothesis # (2) that is in agreement with Christ and his church as proposed by a humble Buffalo on this thread, namely:​

(2) ***Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth have the same core, it is virtually certain that living organisms have been thought of AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator endowed with the super language we know as DNA that switched on the formation of the various kinds, the cattle, the swimming creatures, the flying creatures, etc… in a pristine harmonious state and superb adaptability and responsiveness to their environment for the purpose of populating the earth that became subject to the ravages of corruption by the sin of one man (deleterious mutations). ******

*No tail - but your “core” has the information and capability to grow one, but because Adam and Eve didn’t have one to start neither do you.

This is consistent with my idea of IDvolution. *[Agrees with devolution or degeneration
as in the book Genetic Entropy by Dr. John Sanford of Cornell University].
Moses sizzles while Darwin fizzles

 

[larkin31]

That being so then what you repeat in all your posts (1) has been falsified, together and separately, by the sciences of sedimentology, physics, population genetics, mathematics, chemistry, paleontology and the queen of sciences, theology (Christ, the church fathers, and the magisterium of the church) namely:

(1) "Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism." ~ Communion and Stewardship (2002)…

The qualifying phrase here is “virtually certain.” Sounds pretty much right, according to the evidence that keeps accumulating.

 

[StAnastasia]

That being so then what you repeat in all your posts (1) has been falsified, together and separately, by the sciences of sedimentology, physics, population genetics, mathematics, chemistry, paleontology and the queen of sciences, theology (Christ, the church fathers, and the magisterium of the church) namely:

No, all the sciences you mention have merely strengthened the evolutionary perspective on the world. Evolution is more coherent and global in its explanatory power than it was in 1859 – that’s why working biologists and geologists use it!

 

[grannymh]

Philipp, who is trying to prove common descent? Can you give us some examples?

I answered “You”

No, Granny, I’m not. You need to learn how science works.

Ed, you have to learn how science works. “Proof” is not the aim of science; rather, it aims to falsify hypotheses.

In the old days, my high school biology teacher taught what scientists before me had learned. In a rather primitive setting, our lab experiments repeated what previous scientists had learned so that we learned for ourselves about the wonders of life. We were interested in the positive results of scientific dissection not in falsifying. Consequently, the excitement of discovery in that room encouraged many to continue their exploration of the natural science world.

Instead of gaining new knowledge from one’s own efforts…you are telling me what?
Yes, I see the quotation marks around your word “proof” which is a fancy way of sliding by the uncomfortable concept that science is limited when it comes to human nature and its origin.

Somehow, I grew up with the idea that checking a thesis to see if it were capable of being falsified was part of normal research. For example, possible exceptions would be checked when using the induction method. It seems to me that we used reason or a form of logic in determining conclusions from our experiments. We did not automatically assume that what we discovered applied universally. For example, I did not assume from dissecting my rat that because its structure required it to move about on all fours, humans also had to move about on all fours. Obviously, hidden beneath the skin of both humans and rats was a different structure.

With today’s technology zooming in on genes, one still has to be careful of assuming that some genes which are found in rats or monkeys function in the identical way as similar genes in humans. Similar appearances, like four appendages, do not mean identical functions. Similarities between some genes, do not mean that all genes developed in the same way or with the same rate.

The philosophical position of science is that the nature or being of all living things is material/physical. From this base, it is a short hop to the general principle of common descent from the first material forms of life. From that point of view, this limited hypothesis excludes the spiritual aspect of human nature. Of course pride or stubbornness would tend toward denial of ideas which don’t fit into one’s box of material and physical tools.

In my humble opinion, the real difficulty in the earth age dilemma is placing the origin of Adam and Eve, the two sole parents of the human species, in humanity’s time frame. The difficulty is that none of modern scientists observed the beginning of either earth or of human beings.

Blessings,
granny

Blessings,
granny

These two websites contain TV ads about Catholicism. The first is from one of the Dioceses which is using them. The second is general information.

 

[edwest2]

What do working biologists use it for?

God bless,
Ed

 

[Philipp]

Itinerant says"
*
I lived near Mt. St. Helens during one of its recent eruptions and that situation started me thinking about the history of Mt. St. Helens volcanic activity. Geologists have identified stages in this history. The early eruptive stages are known as

1. the “Ape Canyon Stage” (around 40–35,000 years ago),
2. the “Cougar Stage” (ca. 20–18,000 years ago), and
3. the “Swift Creek Stage” (approx. 13–8,000 years ago).

[The modern period, since about 2500 BC, is called the “Spirit Lake Stage”.]*

Please provide the reference (s)

The reference I have for the explosion of Mt. St. Helens and the subsequent lava build up from 1980 to 1986 ranged from 300,000 to 2,700,000 years before the present depending on which mineral was used to date the lava by K/Ar dating. Uhm! Anomalous ages?

Explosions in New Zealand about 50 years ago were dated in the range of many 100’s of thousands years ago also by the same technique. Uhm! Anomalous ages?

**Techtites from Australia [Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre regions] called australites: **According to J. F. Lovering et al., the K/Ar dates for tektites ranged from 700,000 B.P. to 860,000 years BP. The K/Ar dating of tektites from Indonesia, Thailand, Indochina and Philippines agreed. Fission-track dating ranged from 30,000 to 800,000 BP and was interpreted as consistent with K/Ar ages. Younger ages for fission tracks were ascribed to partial annealing of fission tracks by reheating on the earth’s surface.

One of their team members, E. D. Gill, had RC dated charcoal and calcareous nodules as they were found with “australites.” Thus Lovering et al. concluded: “Although RC ages were inconsistent, field work on geology of australite occurrences favored the ‘younger’ C-14 age of charcoal believed associated with australites, as well as geologic evidence, indicated age between last glacial and 6000-7000 BP.” *

COMMENT: So techtites all over SE Asia, reportedly formed fwhen a huge asteroid impact occurred only 6000-7000 years ago NOT 800,000 years. Darwinism and Lyellian geology can lead to huge misunderstandings of our planet’s history and a very dangerous to understanding

So you see believing in long age dating methods is very dangerous to the health and welfare of our planet and its inhabitants.

• “Dating Infall of Australites,” (1970), Radiocarbon Journal 13(1), (1970) p. 8-11. Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. Also visit “age paradox” on this web site: www.earthsci.org/fossils/space/tektites/tektites.html
  “Quaternary geology, radiocarbon datings, and the age of australites,” Geol. Soc. America Spec. Paper, 84, (1965) p.415-432.
  “Dating Infall of Australites,” (1970), Radiocarbon Journal 13(1), (1970), cit., p. 8-11.
  Ibid

 

[StAnastasia]

What do working biologists use it for? God bless,Ed

Studying the historical relationships between plant and animal species.

 

[buffalo]

Studying the historical relationships between plant and animal species.

Is this a good use of taxpayer money?