RBH

The origin of the "exponential" decay claim is Barnes, in 1973 (Barnes, T. G. (1973). Origin and Destiny of the Earth's Magnetic Field. San Diego, CA: Creation-Life Publishers.) As usual, talkorigins has a useful analysis of this specific claim. One thing the TO analysis doesn't mention is that the author of the paper containing the original data that Barnes used modeled the data as a linear decay. The "exponential" was Barnes's gratuitous alteration. (I can't now find that original reference. Rats. Too many operating systems ago, I guess.)

RBH

Roller

Let's entertain the thought that these "arguments" are valid. What kind of conclusion could we draw from them?

Hovind is a YEC, almost all of the dating here contradicts young earth. But this data seems to be internally inconsistent. If the Earth is 6000 years old, than Hovind has some serious problems with his arguments. For example this:

Contradicts this:


Then this:

Contradicts this:

And then this:

Contradicts this:

So, is the Earth few millions, couple of hundreds of thousands, or just a couple of thousands of years old?

Hovind is truly the master of cognitive dissonance.

Kingdomovehearts

I was told I might be able to get a better answer here:

What came first? DNA? Or the proteins needed for DNA that can only be produced by DNA?"

Rhaedas

I think this is one question that Voyager II raises and left unanswered, with the discovery of the shepherd moons, and Cassini will hopefully give more data on. Even if Saturn is a unique situation, to find out that its rings are naturally rebuilding themselves would hurt this particular argument.

I'd like to see how a YEC could use this same argument, without demonstrating that such a ring formation could form within 6000 years (without a goddidit wildcard).

Dr.GH

Tee Hee.

For those proteins that are uniquely coded by DNA, then DNA was clearly first.

But these are hardly all proteins, or enzymes, or ogliomers.

Try some science instead of creationist's claptrap. I think that you can get all these from the internet for free.

Huber, Claudia, Gunter W�chtersh�user
1997 �Activated Acetic Acid by Carbon Fixation on (Fe,Ni)S Under Primordial Conditions� Science v. 276: 245-247

This sets up the next article:

Huber, Claudia, Gunter W�chtersh�user
1998 �Peptides by Activation of Amino Acids with CO on (Ni,Fe)S Surfaces: Implications for the Origin of Life� Science v.281: 670-672

Imai, E., Honda, H., Hatori, K., Brack, A. and Matsuno, K.
1999 �Elongation of oligopeptides in a simulated submarine hydrothermal system� Science 283(5403):831�833.

AiG's Jon Sarfati wrote a criticism of Imai et al here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4170.asp

My responce to Sarfati is here:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/s...on_imai_gh.htm

Joyce, Gerald F.
2002 The antiquity of RNA-based evolution Nature 418, 214 - 221 (11 July) Insight

Lazcano, Antonio, Stanley L. Miller
1996 �The Origin and Early Evolution of Life: Prebiotic Chemistry, the Pre-RNA World, and Time� Cell vol 85:793-798

Lee DH, Severin K, Yokobayashi Y, and Ghadiri MR,
1997 Emergence of symbiosis in peptide self-replication through a hypercyclic network. Nature, 390: 591-4,

These should do for your first week.

The literature on self catalytic systems, and early membranes will wait until next week.

Dr.GH

I just re-read my last post, and it seems a bit dismissive. Not really my intent.

lpetrich

Roller:
Hovind is a YEC, almost all of the dating here contradicts young earth. But this data seems to be internally inconsistent. If the Earth is 6000 years old, than Hovind has some serious problems with his arguments.

Actually, Mr. Hovind's figures may be interpreted as upper limits.

Kingdomovehearts

That guy showed me the link where he got that DNA stuff from

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/1016/1016%5F01.asp

lpetrich

Kingdomovehearts:
What came first? DNA? Or the proteins needed for DNA that can only be produced by DNA?

That is certainly an important problem, and the most plausible solution so far is the "RNA world".

Among present-day organisms, DNA serves as a master-copy molecule. To make a protein, a gene region of DNA is copied onto a close chemical relative, RNA. This in turn is used to assemble a protein, with three RNA building blocks mapping onto one protein building block.

These assembled proteins then do a variety of tasks, like assist the copying of DNA and RNA onto each other. Proteins that perform chemical-reaction tasks, such as molecule assembly and disassembly, are called "enzymes", and they are usually named <action>-ase.

RNA also appears in some other contexts, including some surprising ones like energy metabolism. Also, DNA's building blocks are made from RNA ones.

This suggests that DNA was invented as a modification of RNA, and that some early organisms had RNA genomes instead of DNA ones.

We've gone from DNA-RNA-protein to RNA-protein; can we go any further?

YES. RNA molecules can act as enzymes ("ribozymes"), and several of them them have been discovered in the wild. It's possible to produce DNA enzymes ("deoxyribozymes") in the lab, but none have been found in the wild -- which is consistent with DNA being a relative latecomer.

The "RNA world" hypothesis proposes that some early organisms were essentially collections of self-replicating RNA enzymes.

That has the problem of the origin of the RNA, but there is a much simpler system to account for.

Roller

But still, I don't think that millions of years as an upper limit servers his cause. Actually... Maybe not in front of a crowd which is scientifically literate, but than again, I doubt he ever targets such crowd.