Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dean Anderson · 06-29-2007, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

I have never claimed accuracy like this for Smyth. I only note that it seems the only reason for disagreement between Smyth and Petrie is this "hollowed-in" thing.

Utter, utter, rubbish. That is by no means the only reason for disagreement between Smyth and Petrie.

You are taking the measurements where Smyth and Petrie are closest, and trying to use this to validate Smyth as an authority so that you can then take his more outrageous claims about the Pyramid (the ones that are based on "symbolism" and "prophecy" that you yourself claim not to agree with, and which disagree utterly with Petrie, and upon which his date for the Pyramid is based) as if those claims are also somehow trustworthy by association.

Quote:

And unless I missed it, I don't think Dean Anderson had an answer for my rebuttal of his speculation that the "hollowed-in-ness" was airbrushed into the photo. Petrie's own work verifies the existence of it.

Since:

1) Your Petrie quote described something very different from what your Smyth and Davidson diagrams show, and this is obvious to anyone reading it.

2) The whole issue was irrelevant to the dating of the Pyramid, and therefore to your "theory" that there was a 600 year gap between the Flood and the building of the Pyramid - and that this gap was enough time to repopulate Egypt.

3) It was obvious that you were never going to find any argument convincing, so unless I was the one to stop replying then the discussion would never end.

I decided to not bother replying further, and to let the readers of this thread draw their own conclusions about our relative credibility in this area.

06-29-2007, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike PSS

Dave,
Is your willingness to actually respond to my explanation any more than your willingness to respond to the same explanation I posted at RD.net a month ago?

I think I'll just refer you back to my previous unanswered questions about the pi-issue at RD.net.

It's the same questions you evaded and ignored already.

So how about the accuracy of Smyth's measurements. Another poster a page back brought up the Wiki reference that showed a discrepency in measurement of the GP of 15mm or more. And you have me believe that Smyth can measure a Pyramid Inch to the fourth decimal precision.

Now THAT is a glaring inconsistency if I ever saw one.
Classical measurments: plus/minus 0.015m
Smyth measurements: plus/minus 0.00005m

Was Smyth using lasers?

I have never claimed accuracy like this for Smyth. <snip>

Actually you did. Right here: http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...=224613#224613

Dave Hawkins · 06-29-2007, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Constant Mews

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyzer

Like the American pioneers . . . . .

Three years after they first set foot on American shores, 440 of the original 500 Jamestown settlers had died.

Riiiiiight.

Indeed, the mortality rates amongst the American pioneers was quite high - only a continual influx of new settlers kept many of the pioneer settlements going. Eight individuals are simply insufficient to form a viable population kernel.

Really? How big do you think a founder population has to be to be viable?

This article says the New World was settled by a group which included only 70 adults ... http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050528/fob1.asp

What makes you think 8 adults is too small?

Dave Hawkins · 06-29-2007, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calilasseia

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Fourthly, there is good evidence that the great civilizations of China and Egypt DID NOT EXIST until after the date of the Tower of Babel. See the end of my Formal Flood Debate at RD.net.

Au contraire, the vast majority of the world's archaeologists disagree with you. Taking China for a moment, there are numerous documented Neolithic cultures that did exist and left in their wake numerous artefacts that have been precisely dated. The Liangzhu culture straddles the period from 3400 BC to 2250 BC, and shows no signs of having been erased from the face of the Earth at the time of your supposed flood. It produced finely worked jade and silk artefacts with a high craftsmanship value. The Longshan culture straddles the period 3000 BC to 2000 BC, and produced some of the most exquisite examples of prehistoric ceramics to be found anywhere in the world, having alighted upon a technique for producing eggshell-thin pottery. Neither of these two Neolithic Chinese cultures (and there are quite a few Neolithic cultures that have been discovered to have existed in China, because it's a large land mass with room for several groups of people to have coexisted) have been documented as having come abruptly to a halt at the date of your supposed flood.

Returning to Egypt, Ancient Egyptian civilisation stretches back to 3150 BC and the unification of the Nile Valley Polities. Indeed, archaeological excavations have discovered traces of agrarian civilisation going all the way back to 9500 BC, which is a good three or four thousand years before you claim the universe was created.

Simply making a blind assertion that these cultures did not exist is flatly contradicted by archaeological evidence.

Tell you what Dave, why don't you forward your theories to some of the relevant experts in assorted museums around the world (Smithsonian, British Museum etc) and see what they say in reply? It would be very interesting indeed to find out their reaction to your assertion that these cultures and civilisations "did not exist until after the date of the Tower of Babel".

Precisely dated? By what? Carbon 14? That's not precise at all unless you mythologize the Flood which is an untenable position. Sorry ... not buying "precisely dated."

Dean Anderson · 06-29-2007, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Quote:

Originally Posted by RED DAVE

Let's continue with the basics.

From afdave:
I am unable to find, online, Rohl's dynastic sequences; however, it is my impression that it refers to later dynasties.

If you have this data, please share it, so we can see when in Egyptian history, according to Rohl's system, the flood occurred.

So far, according to your guesstimate and the standard chronology, it occurred during the Second Dynasty.

RED DAVE

Rohl's dynastic sequences are in his book, A Test of Time. His time adjustment would probably place the founding of Egypt after the Flood, which of course it has to be.

Bad luck, Dave. Unfortunately for you I don't just own a copy of Smyth's book, I also own copies of Rohl's book (books, actually).

As I have already mentioned in this thread, Rohl's New Chronology explicitly places the founding of Egypt's first dynasty before your Flood date - and also places much pre-dynastic history before that.

Quote:

It doesn't make sense for the Egyptians to live through the Flood, and it doesn't make sense to mythologize the Flood, or make it local or what have you. So you have no choice but to reconcile the events.

Okay. You've forced me into it. As you say, I have no choice.

I reconcile them as follows:

1) The Egyptians couldn't have lived through the Biblical Flood.
2) The Egyptians lived through the time when, according to the Bible, the Biblical Flood happened.
3) Therefore the Bible must be wrong.

Phew. That's a weight of my mind...

Quote:

And Rohl's New Chronology makes it possible to do that.

No it does not. It quite explicitly does not, and any claim that it does is misrepresentation of the highest order.

Dave Hawkins · 06-29-2007, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dean Anderson

Something I should point out here...

afdave has repeatedly used David Rohl and his "New Chronology" as a reference in support of an Egypt that only flourished after his flood, because this New Chronology pushes the dates of most of the Egyptian dynasties forward enough to leave a "suitable" gap between afdave's flood date and the building of the pyramids.

However, he is only taking isolated dates from Rohl's chronology out of context.

Rohl's chronology (if correct, and that is an extremely big "if") explicitly places the founding of the first dynasties of Egypt in 2781 BCE - 31 years before afdave's flood date - and leaves no room for the civilisation being interrupted by the flood during its early stages and spending hundreds of years rebuilding its population.

afdave has neglected to mention this problem, though, and has left us with the impression that by using Rohl's alternate chronology Egyptian civilisation fits nicely with his flood date.

But it doesn't. Rohl's alternate chonology does not rescue afdave at all. Using it, Egyptian culture still fails to be interrupted by the flood - it merely fails to be interrupted in a slightly different place.

It very much looks as though afdave is simply taking the isolated bits of Rohl's chronology that he can use to support his theory, and is ignoring that these bits are part of a whole that contradicts his theory.

No. Rohl's chronology shows that ...

THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF CIVILIZATIONS IS NOT SETTLED

contrary to what many people believe.

The fact, I believe, is that mainstream Egyptologists are ignoring more data than Rohl is.

************************************

BTW, Dean ... I did not see an answer from you on the hollowed in faces of the GP. Do you still think the photo is airbrushed?

Dave Hawkins · 06-29-2007, 05:55 AM

Paul Flocken ... My very rough population calculations are as follows ...

CREATIONIST / DILUVIALIST MODEL
Population growth rate 2.000%
Number of years 600
Starting population 8
Ending population 1,156,626

The 2% is very reasonable. Note that world growth rate reached very close to that in the 20th century. Now you say, "Yes, but we have modern medicine." Not a valid objection because most of the growth was NOT in the developed countries where modern medicine was available. Also note that the Bible records very long lifespans even for a few hundred years after the Flood. Recent genomic degradation studies imply that mankind was stronger and healthier in the past. There are traditions of early man having many, many children per family. Combine all this and 2% growth is not unreasonable at all. Probably 3% or more is reasonable for the early post-Flood phase.

Calilasseia · 06-29-2007, 06:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by !afdave"

Precisely dated? By what? Carbon 14? That's not precise at all unless you mythologize the Flood which is an untenable position. Sorry ... not buying "precisely dated."

You've been roundly trounced on this in numerous other places before. It's interesting that you are the only person who does not regard this as having happened. You are not in a position to say "Sorry, not buying 'precisely dated' ", because your woeful lack of knowledge upon the subject has been demonstrated repeatedly in other places. Radioisotope dating is a mature scientific activity founded upon rigorous practice and theory, and no amount of wishing it were not so on your behalf is going to change that. Unless of course you wish to assert that quantum mechanics is a myth, in which case I'd like you to explain how your CD-ROM drive works without it ...

Mythologising the flood is the only tenable position, Dave, because there is no evidence it ever took place. There is no uniform global collection of geological strata that can be pointed to unambiguously as being a 'global flood deposit', and we know this because generations of geologists went looking for it and never found it. Furthermore, no one among your creationist heroes has been able to devise a "flood model" that doesn't involve wildly egregious violations of the laws of physics. Want me to repeat that nice little list of physical law violations AGAIN Dave, the one I posted the best part of a dozen times at RDF? You don't do you Dave? Well guess what? Bad news ... here it is once more, so that the people here can share the joy ...

[1] Vapour canopy model : Results in thermodynamic exchanges that has Earth temperatures oscillating wildly, between those more usually associated with Pluto (and the subsequent removal of breathable gases in gaseous form as they first liquefy and then solidify), followed by temperatures more usually associated with the interior of a Bessemer furnace;

[2] Hydroplate model : Which is still presented at icr.org using the same wording that I dissected as being in violation of the gas laws that I learned at school when I was twelve years old, and also includes that absurd nonsense about the Asteroid Belt being formed from rocks hurled from the Earth, which as I demonstrated with another series of calculations requires a directed energy input equivalent to that of 895 trillon hydrogen bombs of the size of the Tsar Bomba, yet no mechanism for the production of this energy, let alone its direction to this end, appears in creationist material;

[3] Runaway subduction model : AiG (your favourite one stop shop for cut and pastes) still describes Baumgardner's computer model of geological processes as being "the world's best", yet fellow Los Alamos scientists found numerous major errors in the code and only use the model after it has been subject to heavy correction of its deficiencies. Furthermore, even Baumgardner's own code only produces runaway subduction when it is loaded with MANIFESTLY UNPHYSICAL PARAMETERS;

[4] RATE group and accelerated nuclear decay : Once again, I supplied calculations based upon real world geological and physical modelling supplied by an accredited geologist elsewhere that demonstrates the absurdity of this notion, because it results in the temperature gradient of the Earth becoming so steep that the surface becomes incandescent plasma and the core becomes hot enough for helium fusion via the triple-alpha process to take place. This happens even if we restrict ourselves to rates of "decay acceleration" that result in physically feasible temperatures. If we accept RATE's value for the "decay acceleration", we end up with an Earth whose core is over one thousand magnitudes hotter than the entire universe was during the first Planck Second of the Big Bang.

Now, what part of "manifestly unphysical and absurd" don't you understand, Dave?

What part of "Earth would have been incapable of supporting life" in the case of the Vapour Canopy model don't you understand, Dave?

What part of "Hydroplate model is garbage because it violates the gas laws" don't you understand, Dave?

What part of "Runaway subduction is garbage because the model used to generate it was a crock and would also have resulted in the oceans boiling away" don't you understand, Dave?

What part of "RATE's accelerated nuclear decay theory is garbage because the Earth would have been smeared all over the cosmos if it had happened" don't you understand, Dave?

What part of this in any way, shape or form equates to "mythologising the flood is untenable", Dave, when ALL attempts to "explain" the flood and force the square peg of evidence into the round hole of Biblical inerrancy results in absurdity writ large?

VoxRat · 06-29-2007, 07:13 AM

Quote:

The point remains though. I don't know how anyone can see ~1 mile of sedimentary rock complete with fossils all over the earth and NOT think Global Flood. Beats me!

But, apparently doesn't pique your curiosity enough to make you want to crack a geology text.

ericmurphy · 06-29-2007, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Rohl's dynastic sequences are in his book, A Test of Time. His time adjustment would probably place the founding of Egypt after the Flood, which of course it has to be. It doesn't make sense for the Egyptians to live through the Flood, and it doesn't make sense to mythologize the Flood, or make it local or what have you. So you have no choice but to reconcile the events. And Rohl's New Chronology makes it possible to do that.

Wrong, Dave. The simplest and most obvious thing to do is to dispense with this absurd notion of a global flood. There's no evidence it ever happened. You proved that all by yourself.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

06-29-2007, 05:55 AM	#477
Dave Hawkins Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Missouri Posts: 2,375	Paul Flocken ... My very rough population calculations are as follows ... CREATIONIST / DILUVIALIST MODEL Population growth rate 2.000% Number of years 600 Starting population 8 Ending population 1,156,626 The 2% is very reasonable. Note that world growth rate reached very close to that in the 20th century. Now you say, "Yes, but we have modern medicine." Not a valid objection because most of the growth was NOT in the developed countries where modern medicine was available. Also note that the Bible records very long lifespans even for a few hundred years after the Flood. Recent genomic degradation studies imply that mankind was stronger and healthier in the past. There are traditions of early man having many, many children per family. Combine all this and 2% growth is not unreasonable at all. Probably 3% or more is reasonable for the early post-Flood phase.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.