Young Earth v. Old Earth

[jcrichton]

There may well be only one truth, but how do we decide between all of the differing versions of that one truth offered to us from various sources?

In order to decide between my local Rabbi, my local Pastor and my local Priest I need to be able to know which one is telling me the one truth, and which two are mistaken. All three are using the same (or similar) Revelation from the same God, so that does not help me a great deal. How do I decide?

rossum

Read Hebrews 11!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

Actually, the problem is that you think that is a premise of evolution. Please go learn what it’s actually about; it will save you a lot of frustration.

Sorry to disappoint… no frustration here; so what is the pemise of evolution (no I don’t mean point me to a link)?

Different premise. That one is natural selection. And I’m sure everyone would like to see the flaws.

…one: wasps and hornets can sting multiple times, have fewer numbers than bees which sting once and die, why are not all wasps and hornets, rather than wasps, hornets, and the weakly bees?

…another? Soldier ants… in the thousands, always on the go, can kill huge pray (relative to their size), can traverse moving water, do not need any particular shelter as they can create their own… why are not all ants soldier ants?

…one more?.. the platypus… not a bird, not a mammal, not a fish… was natural selection out to lunch on that one?

Different selective pressures. Humans are really good at doing that. But notice that in the wild, horses are remarkably alike. Not a lot of difference in Equus.

…so you are saying that humans have caused the horse to evolved from the bigest, to the fastest, to the tiniest not nature?

Food to be had. Seals are pretty good prey. And the evidence is that they evolved during the last glaciation, which would favor such adaptations.

…how many brown bears migrate to Alaska each year searching for seals?

–…evidence or theory?

Some did. For example, elephants tend to become dwarfed on islands. There are several examples of that. And some of the family, such as Hyraxes, got smaller and filled a different niche. Whales tend to be large because the environment favors larger animals with better heat retention. Selective pressures sometimes favor size, sometimes favor smaller sizes. Depends on the environment.

…since dwarfed elephants would require less amount of food and would be more mobile, why did nature not select these over all others? hyrax: exactly my point, they are not better at fending off predators than the elephant or rhyno or the big-horn…

The same can be said about the predators… some are inefficient and weak compare to lions and tigers… natural selection should have incorporated the best of the best into the various species…

Whales: the fact that dolphins are faster and can survive on less food should have proven whales to be an unnecessary animal since it has a great dependency on a massive supply of sustenance and is not as adaptable as dolphins…

They aren’t. Chimps are far more like us than pigs.

…according to supposedly scientific studies the pig’s organs, rib-structure and some of the organs themselves are far more similar to human than any other animals, including the primates (please understand that I am not speaking of genetic makeup):

viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w01/piglets/guardian_piglets/guard_piglets.htm

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[rossum]

…perhaps I am too pedestrian… my question should have been, how does the constancy of the speed of light determines the age of the earth?

It does not, it determines a minimum age for the universe. If we can see a quasar that is 12 billion light years away from us, and we know that the speed of light is constant then we can infer that the light from that quasar has been travelling towards us for the last 12 billion years and hence that the universe is al least 12 billion yers old.

The earth is only about 4.5 billion years old, which is determined by different methods.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Read Hebrews 11l

Whoops - I forgot that this thread was to be kept on-topic. Apologies.

rossum

 

[The_Barbarian]

Sorry to disappoint… no frustration here; so what is the pemise of evolution (no I don’t mean point me to a link)?

Change in allele frequency over time.

Barbarian observes:
Different premise. That one is natural selection. And I’m sure everyone would like to see the flaws.

…one: wasps and hornets can sting multiple times, have fewer numbers than bees which sting once and die, why are not all wasps and hornets, rather than wasps, hornets, and the weakly bees?

That is not true of all bees, only the ones that hive in great numbers. The loss of an individual is not a great thing for the hive, or even the individual, since all workers have the same genes. And losing the sting is quite advantageous to such an organism, because the sting apparatus continues to pump poison into the victim for a prolonged time.

…another? Soldier ants… in the thousands, always on the go, can kill huge pray (relative to their size), can traverse moving water, do not need any particular shelter as they can create their own… why are not all ants soldier ants?

They can’t live in all niches and other ants have evolved effective defenses against them.

…one more?.. the platypus… not a bird, not a mammal, not a fish… was natural selection out to lunch on that one?

It is a mammal. It has no bird apomorphies at all; the eggs are reptilian, not avian, and the “beak” is most like that of some extinct reptiles, not at all like the beak of a bird. It has no fishlike characteristics other than those found in other mammals. Exactly what you’d expect in a transitional between reptiles and mammals.

…so you are saying that humans have caused the horse to evolved from the bigest, to the fastest, to the tiniest not nature?

The extreme variations you see in Equus were induced by human intervention. There were much smaller horses in the wild millions of years ago, but they were not like the artificially dwarfed modern ones.

Barbarian, regarding polar bears:
Food to be had. Seals are pretty good prey. And the evidence is that they evolved during the last glaciation, which would favor such adaptations.

…how many brown bears migrate to Alaska each year searching for seals?

Brown bears live in Alaska now. And they take an occasional seal, when the opportunity arises. Polar bears use pretty much the same techniques.

–…evidence or theory?

Evidence. The two species diverged so recently, and are genetically so similar, that they can sometimes produce viable hybrids.

Barbarian observes:
Some did. For example, elephants tend to become dwarfed on islands. There are several examples of that. And some of the family, such as Hyraxes, got smaller and filled a different niche. Whales tend to be large because the environment favors larger animals with better heat retention. Selective pressures sometimes favor size, sometimes favor smaller sizes. Depends on the environment.

…since dwarfed elephants would require less amount of food and would be more mobile, why did nature not select these over all others?

Small elephants would be less mobile. But food supply may be why they evolve to smaller sizes on islands.

hyrax: exactly my point, they are not better at fending off predators than the elephant or rhyno or the big-horn…

Better at avoiding them, though. Fighting is not the only way.

The same can be said about the predators… some are inefficient and weak compare to lions and tigers…

Thylacines, for example. But they are now extinct. Pandas are less efficient predators, and are in considerable trouble.

natural selection should have incorporated the best of the best into the various species…

Tends to. But that means that there are winners and losers. As conditions change, new winners and losers appear.

Whales: the fact that dolphins are faster and can survive on less food should have proven whales to be an unnecessary animal since it has a great dependency on a massive supply of sustenance and is not as adaptable as dolphins…

Dolphins are unable to efficiently exploit the large numbers of krill that are available to baleen whales, or to prey on the giant squid eaten by sperm whales. Each has it’s own niche.

Barbarian observes:
They aren’t. Chimps are far more like us than pigs.

…according to supposedly scientific studies the pig’s organs, rib-structure and some of the organs themselves are far more similar to human than any other animals, including the primates (please understand that I am not speaking of genetic makeup):

viewingspace.com/genetics…rd_piglets.htm

Your link doesn’t say what you claim it does. In fact, it says that humans are more like primates than pigs.

All it says is that pigs are about the same size as humans, and that genetic manipulation to make pigs immunologically acceptable to humans might permit tissue or organ transplants.

 

[Deconi]

Genetically, we are closer to mice and pigs, and you should know this unless you’re spouting something different again.

They don’t transplant chimp ears or body parts to humans for a reason, or pursue research in that area. (Yeah, yeah, I know the ‘animal rights’ cop out is available!) What they did, is ‘grow’ a human ear on the back of a ‘rat’ to test the science because of the genetic similarity.

Pigs are used in forensic examinations of crime because of their similarities in ‘make up’ to humans, not their sizes, although a pig the same ‘size’ as the victim helps!

Nice ‘somersaults’ though.

Do you ‘do’ hoops and wash windows too?

 

[rossum]

Genetically, we are closer to mice and pigs, and you should know this unless you’re spouting something different again.

You have been misinformed by your creationist sources. Genetically we are closest to other primates, and we are closest of all to Chimpanzees. For example here are the amino acid sequences for the Cytochrome C gene from Humans (H), Chimpanzees (C), Rhesus monkeys (R), Mice (M) and Pigs (P):

H: mgdvekgkki fimkcsqcht vekggkhktg pnlhglfgrk tgqapgysyt aanknkgiiw gedtlmeyle npkkyipgtk mifvgikkke eradliaylk katne
C: mgdvekgkki fimkcsqcht vekggkhktg pnlhglfgrk tgqapgysyt aanknkgiiw gedtlmeyle npkkyipgtk mifvgikkke eradliaylk katne
R: mgdvekgkki fimkcsqcht vekggkhktg pnlhglfgrk tgqapgysyt aanknkgiTw gedtlmeyle npkkyipgtk mifvgikkke eradliaylk katne
M: mgdvekgkki fVQkcAqcht vekggkhktg pnlhglfgrk tgqaAgFsyt DanknkgiTw gedtlmeyle npkkyipgtk mifAgikkkG eradliaylk katne
P: mgdvekgkki fVQkcAqcht vekggkhktg pnlhglfgrk tgqapgFsyt DanknkgiTw geEtlmeyle npkkyipgtk mifAgikkkG erEdliaylk katne

I have marked the places where the other sequences differ from the human sequence with capital letters. The mouse sequence differs from ours at nine places, the pig sequence differs from ours in ten places. The chimpanzee sequence differs from ours in zero places - human and chimp Cytochrome Cs are identical. The rhesus monkey is another primate, which I have included for comparison. There is one difference between the Rhesus monkey and the human sequence.

There is a great deal of similar evidence from elsewhere in our genome. Our proteins are most similar to Chimpanzee proteins. We share the same pseudogenes, such as the GULO pseudogene from our broken Vitamin C synthesis system. Both pigs and mice have a fully functioning vitamin C systhesis system that does not have the identical error shared by ourselves and chimps.

rossum

 

[The_Barbarian]

Genetically, we are closer to mice and pigs, and you should know this unless you’re spouting something different again.

I see Rossum has already dealt with that idea, but let me add a little note to that:

gregladen.com/wordpress/wp-content/graphics/mammal_tree_lg.jpg

This is the phylogeny of all mammals according to DNA (genetic) information. Note that pigs are in the Suidae, in hoofed mammals, a great distance from the Hominidae, under which all the apes, other than the Hylobatidae (gibbons and saimangs) are gathered. You’ve really been taken for a ride on that one. Mice are in the rodentiae, closer than pigs, but a long, long way from primates of all sorts.

Pigs are used in forensic examinations of crime because of their similarities in ‘make up’ to humans, not their sizes, although a pig the same ‘size’ as the victim helps!

Nope. Anatomically, humans are most like chimps. Indeed, Huxley defeated Owens in a debate in which Huxley asked Owens to name even one structure in the brain of a chimp that did not exist in humans, and vice versa. Owens (considered the dean of anatomists at the time) could not name one.

You’ve been duped, my friend. Does it make you angry? Angry enough to check it out for yourself?

That would be a healthy response to this embarrassment.

 

[jcrichton]

It does not, it determines a minimum age for the universe. If we can see a quasar that is 12 billion light years away from us, and we know that the speed of light is constant then we can infer that the light from that quasar has been travelling towards us for the last 12 billion years and hence that the universe is al least 12 billion yers old.

The earth is only about 4.5 billion years old, which is determined by different methods.

rossum

My point is that at the time of Creation or “big bang” there was no human witness to determine what happened; it is conceivable that the mechanish of Creation itself created what is being perceived as the time construct: the tail may be wagging the dog!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

Change in allele frequency over time.

Barbarian observes:
Different premise. That one is natural selection. And I’m sure everyone would like to see the flaws.

That is not true of all bees, only the ones that hive in great numbers. The loss of an individual is not a great thing for the hive, or even the individual, since all workers have the same genes. And losing the sting is quite advantageous to such an organism, because the sting apparatus continues to pump poison into the victim for a prolonged time.

They can’t live in all niches and other ants have evolved effective defenses against them.

It is a mammal. It has no bird apomorphies at all; the eggs are reptilian, not avian, and the “beak” is most like that of some extinct reptiles, not at all like the beak of a bird. It has no fishlike characteristics other than those found in other mammals. Exactly what you’d expect in a transitional between reptiles and mammals.

The extreme variations you see in Equus were induced by human intervention. There were much smaller horses in the wild millions of years ago, but they were not like the artificially dwarfed modern ones.

Barbarian, regarding polar bears:
Food to be had. Seals are pretty good prey. And the evidence is that they evolved during the last glaciation, which would favor such adaptations.

Brown bears live in Alaska now. And they take an occasional seal, when the opportunity arises. Polar bears use pretty much the same techniques.

Evidence. The two species diverged so recently, and are genetically so similar, that they can sometimes produce viable hybrids.

Barbarian observes:
Some did. For example, elephants tend to become dwarfed on islands. There are several examples of that. And some of the family, such as Hyraxes, got smaller and filled a different niche. Whales tend to be large because the environment favors larger animals with better heat retention. Selective pressures sometimes favor size, sometimes favor smaller sizes. Depends on the environment.

Small elephants would be less mobile. But food supply may be why they evolve to smaller sizes on islands.

Better at avoiding them, though. Fighting is not the only way.

Thylacines, for example. But they are now extinct. Pandas are less efficient predators, and are in considerable trouble.

Tends to. But that means that there are winners and losers. As conditions change, new winners and losers appear.

Dolphins are unable to efficiently exploit the large numbers of krill that are available to baleen whales, or to prey on the giant squid eaten by sperm whales. Each has it’s own niche.

Barbarian observes:
They aren’t. Chimps are far more like us than pigs.

viewingspace.com/genetics…rd_piglets.htm

Your link doesn’t say what you claim it does. In fact, it says that humans are more like primates than pigs.

All it says is that pigs are about the same size as humans, and that genetic manipulation to make pigs immunologically acceptable to humans might permit tissue or organ transplants.

…we are obviously at different pages… round about arguments serve no purpose so I’ll let this one go!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[historyb]

There have been many evangelicals lately who hold to the Young Earth theory, that the earth is 6,000 years old. They deduce this from scripture. I would like to know what some of you CF members think of this theory. It seems to me that science has provided considerable evidence that shows the contrary: that the earth is very old. About 4.5 billion years. Please render your comments on this subject. Thanks.

Before I became Catholic I give it little thought. God created and that’s that, I don’t put a whole lot of faith in science I tend to the young earth. I think evolution is so much hooey.

 

[inthecloud]

Genetically, we are closer to mice and pigs, and you should know this unless you’re spouting something different again.

They don’t transplant chimp ears or body parts to humans for a reason, or pursue research in that area. (Yeah, yeah, I know the ‘animal rights’ cop out is available!) What they did, is ‘grow’ a human ear on the back of a ‘rat’ to test the science because of the genetic similarity.

That nonsencical statement does need some link. Apes are the closer living being to humans. I think the problem of using them to grow human parts is ethical. It will be human or chimp.

My point is that at the time of Creation or “big bang” there was no human witness to determine what happened; it is conceivable that the mechanish of Creation itself created what is being perceived as the time construct: the tail may be wagging the dog!

The problem with that statement that implies embedded age is that makes God some sort of liar. Since all the evidence points to a Old Earth and a Old Universe.

 

[rossum]

My point is that at the time of Creation or “big bang” there was no human witness to determine what happened; it is conceivable that the mechanish of Creation itself created what is being perceived as the time construct: the tail may be wagging the dog!

There are different hypotheses about what happened at the Big Bang. Many hypotheses we can reject; for example some proposals result in a universe consisting entirely of hydrogen. The fact that we are here now and observing the particular universe that we observe restricts the range of possible conditions at the Big Bang. Thus we can have limited knowledge of what happened in the past, even though there was no human observer to see it. If a tree has 180 rings then I can be reasonably sure that it started growing 180 years ago, even if nobody was there to observe the event.

It is possible that time started at the Big Bang, but we have enough evidence to show that it was a very long time ago - more than 13 billion years.

rossum

 

[inthecloud]

And one of the persons who did that calculation was a Catholic Priest. Look at my signature.

 

[edwest2]

We don’t actually know who did it, but we do know scientists debunked it. If you’ll look at books on human ancestry at the time, you’ll see little mention of Piltdown man, mostly because it was sort of an embarrassment; it showed exactly the opposite of the predictions evolutionary theory made.

What do you think she’s “cracked up to be?” Most people don’t know very much about it, and fill in the gaps with suppositions.

Would you be offended if God gave souls to more primitive men?

You think that’s what evolutionary theory says? No wonder you hate science. You don’t know what it is.

“Very young” being a few million years. And if you’re a Catholic, you should know that the image of God is not a physical resemblance. God has no body, being a spirit.

“hate science” Why do you bring up this illogical slogan? Catholics are free to believe in a young earth. Hatred does not enter into it. If we are truly free to believe this, why accuse anyone of hating a concept called science?

I had no problem with science until a small group realized they could use it to promote atheism. I read way too much here that could be pulled, word for word, from the (and I write it this way to be descriptive) secular atheist humanists on the web site I moderate.

When I see Catholics angry at other Catholics because they believe they hate science which has become equal to the word evolution, I am convinced that this “why do you hate?” response has nothing to do with science.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Verisimilitude]

That would be a healthy response to this embarrassment.

You’re pretty funny to read. I wonder if you would feel embarrassed or admit being wrong if sufficient argument was made to change your mind about something.

Evolution is conjecture still despite the physical scientific evidence. Creation is fact by example of our existance. I believe the geologic evidence supports an old earth but what we know about the natural world and universe has changed dramatically in the time I have been alive to rely on earlier conclusions. Common held beliefs of how oil reserves or diamonds are formed have changed. The Missing Link is no longer thought to exist as once believed and the Big Bang is being challanged. We really know very little despite knowing so much.

The slow crawl of life from primordial seas to human beings over a few billion years seems more remarkable than God saying ‘Be’ to the bee and flower, horse and tree, dinasour, or fish at different times in Earths history. Science has shown there have been previous life extinction events on Earth in the past and the billions of years is reduced to millions of years to evolve a horse from nothing when its progenitor was wiped out.

Verisimilitude reasons:
Nothing evolutionists conclude disprove God or Creation.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:
That would be a healthy response to this embarrassment.

You’re pretty funny to read.

Thanks. I was at one time, a pretty good stand-up comic. The most important thing you learn is how do deal with hecklers.

I wonder if you would feel embarrassed or admit being wrong if sufficient argument was made to change your mind about something.

If I were to taunt the person before being proven wrong, yeah, I’d be pretty embarrassed.

Evolution is conjecture still despite the physical scientific evidence.

It’s directly observed. “Conjecture” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means.

Creation is fact by example of our existance. I believe the geologic evidence supports an old earth but what we know about the natural world and universe has changed dramatically in the time I have been alive to rely on earlier conclusions. Common held beliefs of how oil reserves or diamonds are formed have changed.

Tell us about those. I hadn’t heard.

The Missing Link is no longer thought to exist

No, it’s “Missing Lynx”; and they found it. “Missing link” is not a scientific term. The proper term is “transitional”, and there are many, many of them. Would you like to learn about some of them?

Big Bang is being challanged.

It seems unlikely that anything is going to change that one; the accidental discovery of the predicted microwave background at just the right temperature seems to have nailed that one.

The slow crawl of life from primordial seas to human beings over a few billion years seems more remarkable than God saying ‘Be’ to the bee and flower, horse and tree, dinasour, or fish at different times in Earths history.

Yep. But He’s a remarkable God. And a lot more capable than creationists are willing to let Him be.

Science has shown there have been previous life extinction events on Earth in the past and the billions of years is reduced to millions of years to evolve a horse from nothing when its progenitor was wiped out.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.

Nothing evolutionists conclude disprove God or Creation.

True. Which is why the Church says that it’s consistent with our faith.

 

[The_Barbarian]

You know, Ed, I’m pretty good at dealing with aggressive atheists. If you have a problem with one of those on your board, I might be able to help.

I’d be willing to spend a limited time (at your convenience) to talk to him, and leave when you ask me to.

Let me know.

 

[D_M]

Hi, D M!

I am suggesting that it does not necessarily has to be a 6-24-hour-day period; that God did not become exhausted from Creation but instituted a, as you say, symbolic “Rest Period.” Yet, this “rest” is not merely symbolic as He would incorporated it into the system of worship which He will demand of the Hebrew people.

And you are correct… I mean to say that the Sabbath is not referencing a 24-hour-6-day-Creation period; rather, that “rest” is both symbolic of the final cycle of the active Creation (bringing into existence that which did not yet existed) and the final “Rest” to which Christians are called: Union with Yahweh God! (Paul speaks of it a little bit in Hebrews 4:1-11.)

I agree with you that it could well be as described by Scriptures (six-twenty-four-hour days); God is Spirit; He Created all that exists by His Will (Power/Energy…); who is to say they have conclusive proof of anything that happened before Creation, at the moment of Creation, or afterwards? We have several insights into God’s Way: Eternal, Immutable, Beginning and End, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent… and He can compress time or expand it exponentially… Could Yahweh God not have Created the enigmas that science attempts to explain as “big bang,” “evolution” or “emersion?” Could these enigmas not have been a product of Creation itself?

Isn’t it funny how some are quick to point-out the similarities that we have with other species (say primates) while ignoring that though all other species existed prior to us none of them have been able to pose theories, hypothesis, or any natural laws? We have the huge advantage of being Created in the image and likeness of the Creator: Omnipotence and Omniscience are part of our rudimentary composition! Yet, because we are not as He is our abilities are hindered and we cannot bend time and space, except in science fiction.

I love Romans 1:19-20, it is a wonderful example that shows us how Yahweh God has revealed Himself to us through nature (the study of which we call science), so that all can find Him there staring into our hearts and minds!

Maran atha!

Angel

Hi jcrichton!

I agree, all creation points to its Author. And admittedly this is essentially the more important point that is at the basis of the evolution controversy (the less important point would be that it tends to hurt sola scriptura, hence the reason why so many protestants have had trouble with this, especially in the United States).

Sometimes though I question how a person would ever successfully prove that there were in fact no other species that possessed intellect, reason, or the ability to pose, postulate and understand…

and sometimes I think that even if this could be found in other species that humans would still possess something special for simply being created in God’s image…

do you think that the possession of intellect is what is meant when it is said that humans were made in God’s image?

I’ve read some of the doctors of the church who seem to speak in this fashion as though the soul were essentially intellectual, and I can see the relationship between this belief and Greek philosophy (ie. the ‘psyche’ in the Greek conception of the soul), although I’ve never really found if it had basis in the holy tradition that came from the Hebrews… that doesn’t necessarily mean its untrue, but I do sometimes question it

God Bless,

 

[edwest2]

You know, Ed, I’m pretty good at dealing with aggressive atheists. If you have a problem with one of those on your board, I might be able to help.

I’d be willing to spend a limited time (at your convenience) to talk to him, and leave when you ask me to.

Let me know.

Your attempt at misdirection is interesting. Why not deal with the points I raise?

If this belief in a young earth or Creation is such an embarrassment according to you, have you considered contacting the Vatican? Really. The Church allows Catholics to believe in a young earth. Your should contact the Church and point out this embarrassing situation.

God bless,
Ed