xBobTheAlienx

MrDarwin, any kind of Convincing evidence would suffice. Like an ACTUAL documented case of macroevolution. Or an ACTUAL transitional fossil. And, of course, you would have to answer all the questions like:

If the earth's spin is slowing, millions of years ago the spin would have caused some nasty problems.

The sun is burning gas, therefore it is shrinking. Millions of years ago it would have been touching the earth (or the earth would have been it).

Trees upright through multiple layers of strata?

There should have been miles of moondust on the moon if it was millons of years old.

Why do many cultures have legends of a worldwide flood?

I could go on forever...

hezekiah jones

Hey - where is your critique of the talkorigins articles?

lpetrich

It had been this and similar experiments that had led Einstein to formulate SR. Here's why.

One feature of Newtonian mechanics is the velocity is relative, as is apparent from everyday experience.

However, one result of James Clerk Maxwell's famous equations relating the electric and magnetic fields and their sources is that an electromagnetic wave travels at a fixed speed, c.

This is contrary to Newtonian mechanics, and it provoked a lot of head-scratching among physicists. One favorite solution, the "ether" hypothesis, was that there was some cosmic reference frame, the ether, that one could see Maxwell's Equations be correct in. But if one was moving relative to it, one would see correction terms in those equations that involve the velocity of that motion. Another favorite solution, the "source" theory, was that Maxwell's Equations for some electromagnetic field applied only relative to its source.

And the Michelson-Morley experiment was an effort to test that hypothesis, because the Earth would have a continuously-changing velocity related to that ether. It registered zero apparent motion, despite its ability to see the effects of the Earth's motion around the Sun.

This provoked even more head-scratching, and Poincare' and Lorentz groped for a solution, claiming that motion relative to the ether produced a sort of fake time. Einstein's great contribution was showing that this fake time was as real as the supposedly "real" time, meaning that Newtonian mechanics had to be modified to take some form consistent with Maxwell's Equations. A modification which he performed.

xBobTheAlienx

im gonna read the article tonight, i just finished fixing my printer (dont buy HP stuff!!!)

hezekiah jones

You were given two articles, and you are expected to read them, take notes, and return here to critique them from your obviously advanced perspective.

Any more nonsense about burning gas and moondust and you'll be xBobTheTrollx.

beausoleil

That cuts the other way - when these stromatolites were alive the year had 424 days - hard to explain if it was only 8000 years ago since the year would have changed a lot within the span of written records. But perfectly explicable in the 'scientific' world view as a consequence of tidal friction over geologic time. In short, it's more of a problem for the creationists than the conventional view.

<a href="http://www.etx-mensa.org/Archive/Math/DinosaurCalendars.htm" target="_blank">http://www.etx-mensa.org/Archive/Math/DinosaurCalendars.htm</a>

Quote:

The sun is burning gas, therefore it is shrinking. Millions of years ago it would have been touching the earth (or the earth would have been it).

Conventional theories suggest the loss of mass is insignificant over geological time - no problem there. You're forgetting how big and how far away the sun is, I think.

<a href="http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1491.html" target="_blank">http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1491.html</a>

Quote:

There should have been miles of moondust on the moon if it was millons of years old.

&lt;For the moon the annual accumulation of dust would be 11 thousand tons. This quantity would produce 1.2 inches of dust for a moon 4.5 billion years old. When other factors, such as decomposition from ultraviolet radiation, other sources of erosion, and impact of larger interplanetary objects, are considered 2.5 inches of dust would be produced on the moon in 4.25 billion years, which is very close to the age determined by other methods.&gt; (site below)

Even creation scientists accept this now...

"It thus appears that the amount of meteoritic dust and meteorite debris in the lunar regolith and surface dust layer, even taking into account the postulated early intense bombardment, does not contradict the evolutionists’ multi-billion year time scale (while not proving it). Unfortunately, attempted counter-responses by creationists have so far failed because of spurious arguments or faulty calculations. Thus, until new evidence is forthcoming, creationists should not continue to use the dust on the moon as evidence against an old age for the moon and the solar system." -
Snelling, Andrew A., and David E. Rush, 1993. "Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System" in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal Volume 7, No. 1, pp. 2-42.

Quote from and cited from:

<a href="http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/dust.html" target="_blank">http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/dust.html</a>

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think what's most telling is the presumption of bad faith among scientists by the creationist movement - they think those of us who don't agree with them are clinging to ideas we know are wrong - I'm not sure what our motive is supposed to be. I think that's very revealing - they have that model of human behaviour because that is how they themselves behave. They know the arguments are dumb, but they're stuck on the wrong side of a debate they've got a personal stake in and can't back down.

Or do they think we'll read these objections, slap our foreheads and say "Gosh, why didn't we think of that?. Here I've been studying the solar system for 20 years and I didn't spot that huge made in 6000BC, best before 2100AD label stuck on the surface of the Moon. "

[ June 29, 2002: Message edited by: beausoleil ]</p>

hezekiah jones

Jan Peczkis a.k.a. "John Woodmorappe" has solved that problem rather cleverly by inventing the latter creationist pseudonym. "Woodmorappe" has even been known to cite Peczkis in the course of his "arguments."

MrDarwin

Am I not asking my question clearly enough? I ask what kind of evidence you would find convincing, and you turn around and tell me: any kind of convincing evidence. Do you see the problem with this answer?

Okay, you're getting a little better now, but you're still talking in vague generalities, so apparently I do indeed have to ask my question all over again. What kind of documentation of macroevolution would you find convincing? What kind of fossil would you find convincingly transitional?

Yes, of course you could go on forever because there is an infinite number of ways of changing the subject. What do you want to talk about, the evidence for evolution, or the age of the earth? The evidence for evolution, or whether or not there was a flood? The evidence for evolution, or whether our estimates of the sun's shrinking, the slowing of the earth's rotation, or the accumulation of moondust are accurate?

Because these are all entirely different questions, answered by entirely different fields of science. Evolution does not have to be true for the earth to be ancient. Evolution does not have to be false for there to have been a worldwide flood. The truth of evolution, and how we evaluate that truth, is entirely independent of the rate of the sun shrinking, or the earth's rotation, or the accumulation of moondust.

If you want to talk about the age of the earth, or whether or not Noah's flood occurred, feel free to start a new discussion--we have plenty of people more qualified than I who would love to talk about these subjects. But in the meantime, let's get back to my original question, which you are so reluctant to answer, simple though it is:

What kind of evidence would convince you that evolution, as understood by evolution biologists, has indeed occurred?

Duvenoy

(sigh) xBob, old sport, you could go on well past forever and not come up with anything we haven't seen and heard before. Did you even read the recommended essays and references at talkorigins? It’s all right there. All you have to do is look.


"MrDarwin, any kind of Convincing evidence would suffice. Like an ACTUAL documented case of macroevolution. Or an ACTUAL transitional fossil.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here ya go: Fishy went a’walkin’.

<a href="http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~reffland/anthropology/origins/comingonto.html" target="_blank">http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~reffland/anthropology/origins/comingonto.html</a>

Also: <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html</a>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, of course, you would have to answer all the questions like:
If the earth's spin is slowing, millions of years ago the spin would have caused some nasty problems.

The sun is burning gas, therefore it is shrinking. Millions of years ago it would have been touching the earth (or the earth would have been it).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-solar.html#_Toc430357875" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-solar.html#_Toc430357875</a>

This will tell you more than you wanted to know about the Sun. It deals with ‘shrinking’ about halfway down the page.

More yet: <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/matson-vs-hovind.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/matson-vs-hovind.html</a>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trees upright through multiple layers of strata?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ome creationist presentations include claims about "polystrate fossils". From the description, this term is used for fossils which intersect several beds (layers), usually in sedimentary rocks. Although often used in creationist literature, I have been unable to determine the origin of the term -- it is not a standard geological term. This makes it difficult for the uninitiated to find conventional literature about these fossils. This presentation attempts to explain what "polystrate fossils" are, and offers a critique of claims made about them. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the author via e-mail. I have seen plenty of examples of "polystrate" fossils in the field.

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html</a>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There should have been miles of moondust on the moon if it was millons of years old.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a recent creationist technical paper on this topic which admits that the depth of dust on the moon is concordant with the mainstream age and history of the solar system (Snelling and Rush 1993). Their abstract concludes with:
"It thus appears that the amount of meteoritic dust and meteorite debris in the lunar regolith and surface dust layer, even taking into account the postulated early intense bombardment, does not contradict the evolutionists' multi-billion year timescale (while not proving it). Unfortunately, attempted counter-responses by creationists have so far failed because of spurious arguments or faulty calculations. Thus, until new evidence is forthcoming, creationists should not continue to use the dust on the moon as evidence against an old age for the moon and the solar system."

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html</a>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why do many cultures have legends of a worldwide flood?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why do so many cultures have deity myths? <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html</a>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I could go on forever..."

No, you couldn’t. Now, go do your homework.

doov

Autonemesis

It isn't a reasonable belief, because it was not constructed using reason. It was constructed using dogma. A reasonable person, cognizant of their ignorance, believes no theory at all.

A reasonable person, cognizant of other people's ignorance, might believe that his insight gives him an advantage over them. I can agree with that as a reasonable explanation for the origin of creationism. But it is not a reasonable "default belief" in the absense of any other knowledge, by any stretch of the imagination. This is why indoctrination is necessary to get people to believe it.

[ spelling ]

[ June 29, 2002: Message edited by: Kind Bud ]</p>