Do the doctrines of evolutionism protect the Bible?

Bob

You still avoid the question. You are hiding behind a non-technicaldescription of entropy intended for the lay audience. It is a populatization made to try and help people unfamilar with the concept have an idea of what is actually happening. As your quote from Dr. Williams indicates, we know full well what entropy REALLY is. It is a concept quite fundamental to many things.

What Asimov has done is what most people do when trying to explain entropy to a lay audience. It is hard to grasp disorder at a molecular level. So the analogy of disorder at macro scales is used because people can understand that. If you really think that a room getting messy is an example of entropy then you do not understand the concept at all. I could take a room, let it become quite messy indeed, and mathematically show that the entropy had DEcreased un certain conditions. Under other conditions it would have increased. It has nothing to do with how messy the room is.

So a direct question. Do you think a room becoming messy indicates that its entropy has increased? Of course I'll ask you to show your work if you answer yes.

Now, back to the question at had. You have in your possession the actual statement of the second law of thermo from an actual text. I even gave you three different ways of expressing it. Now apply this to evolution. I have been asking you to do this for a while. I am giving youu the chance to think critically here.

Does the evolution of humans from its LCA with the other apes violate 2LOT. If not, why are we discussing entropy. If it does...

Are mutations prohibited by the 2LOT? If so, please show us in technical terms why this is so. If not...

Is natural selection of beneficial mutations prohibited by 2LOT? If so, please show us this in technical terms. If not, then why exactly are we even discussing entropy?

 

Wouldn't you have to have at least a good clue as to how the room got messy before you could start to answer that?
Gina

 

Paul of Eugene: I've never seen any reasonable creationist explanation of the continents having once been united and now separated by thousands of miles at inches per year.

First of all - during the flood, the Bible says that the global flood not only came from rain, but from under the ground as well.

Gen 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

This continued to the end of the flood.

Gen 8:2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
Gen 8:3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

Check out the following two pages for those explainations:

Runaway Subduction
Plate Tectonics

For one thing, in the catestrophic events of the flood, great earthquakes would happen (the land breaking up and water gushing out). This started the great continental movement. Creationists believe the great majority of movement would have happened during the year of the flood. The condition of everything being covered with water would have done two things - #1 it would have added great force and pressure to the land masses (especially as the water ran off the land) and #2 it would have provided heat dissapation for the movement of plate tectonics.

There is a concept called 'dislocation slip'. For example, lets say you are strong enough to bend a metal bar. In bending it, heat is generated at the bend. That heat increases at a steady rate as you bend the bar till suddenly, it reaches a heat where the bar bends easily. This is called dislocation slip. But the bar doesn't melt into a puddle - why? In dislocation slip, the heat generated suddenly drops significantly. The coefficent of friction is greatly reduced and only enough heat is generated to keep it plyable. However, if you stop bending the bar, it begins to cool until it's hard enough not to bend.

This applies to plate techtonics as well. As the massive force that started the flood was applied, the plates began to slide until they reached the dislocation slip temperature. At this point they moved quickly and easily. The water covering the earth continued to apply pressure to the slip until it reached an equilibrium (after the water ran off the continents). At this point, the earth cooled enough to harden again. It has since been moving at the rate we see today.

UTEOTW: I OTOH recognize that if you accept the overwhelming evidence for common descent and interpret Genesis in a non-literal manner, you then remove this line of attack from the atheist camp.

I, otoh, believe the Bible is true, and no matter how much someone hopes it isn't, God doesn't change - he and his word are one - God's word never changes. There will eventually be enough people to 'interpret the evidence' convincingly in favor of YEC. Remember - evidence does not say anything in and of itself. Facts are facts. For them to 'mean' anything, they must be interpreted. They can either be intrepreted under the framework of scripture, or from the frame work of humanism (evolution).

Evolution is exclusionary to the supernatural - and to the Bible's account of creation. Therefore, evolution cannot be used as 'evidence' against Biblical creation as it has, by definition, excluded the supernatural means the Bible describes. Therefore any conclusion drawn upon by the those who interpret facts through the framework of evolution cannot be used to judge the validity of Biblical creation as it has already pre-supposed Biblical creation (ie the supernatural) doesn't exist. Any conclusions would follow that presupposition and therefore it cannot be used as proof against Biblical creation - it can only be presented as an alternative to Biblical creation.

If we, as Christians, take the Bible to be truth - take God to be truth (as he says he is) and take God and His Word to be one (as He says they are), then the following is also true: Evolution excludes Biblical creation, therefore evolution excludes truth. It's as simple as that.

 

"There is a concept called 'dislocation slip'. For example, lets say..."

But the problem you run into is how to get rid of the heat. The amounts of energy you are talking about are absolutely staggering.

All that heat is one of the main objections to Baumgardner's runaway subduction. He not only asks that the mantle be hotter at the time, which requires a way to get rid of the extra heat, he also proposes that 10^28 joules of energy was released in the process. This would boil the oceans away without even having to get rid of the extra heat in the mantle. The mantle must be hotter to lower the viscosity to allow all this to happen. He also requires the thermal diffusivity, a measure of how fast something conducts heat, of the earth to be 10,000 times higher than its actual value. The model does not work. So the two links you gave have no basis in fact.

"Remember - evidence does not say anything in and of itself. Facts are facts. For them to 'mean' anything, they must be interpreted."

Sure. No the challenge for you is to find not only an alternative explanation, but one that explains all the current data BETTER than current science and can make predictions about what else we will find. I have given you a long list of things above that seem to indicate common descent, an old earth, etc. Explain these things better than the current understanding of the facts.

"Therefore, evolution cannot be used as 'evidence' against Biblical creation as it has, by definition, excluded the supernatural means the Bible describes. Therefore any conclusion drawn upon by the those who interpret facts through the framework of evolution cannot be used to judge the validity of Biblical creation as it has already pre-supposed Biblical creation (ie the supernatural) doesn't exist."

I disagree. We should be able to look at the Creation and let it tell us its history. An old earth and evolution are not old believes. It has only been in the last couple of hundred years that the evidence itself has led people to give up the old ways of thinking and to recognize to great age of the earth and that all life on earth is connected in a way that shows a common ancestry. A young earth makes certain predictions that have not been shown to be true. For example, even in the absence of any old earth theory a young earth theory that says that all life was created at the same time would predict that all these forms of life should be found together, more or less, in the fossil record. This is not what we actually find.

 

Gina

First, I am kind of glad to see that there is still a moderator following up on this whole shebang. Second, though you asked with a smilie, you ask an important question. You are right that it would depend on how the room became messy. Let's say you have a toy room with all the toys put up. YOu let a kid in. He drags out all the toys, plays for a while and leaves. You would think the room much less ordered but this is not necessarily true in a thermodynamic sense.

Let's look at what entropy is. Heat is considered a very poor form of energy as far as its ability to do work. Let's compare it to potential energy. If I take a 100 lb weight and lift it in the air, it has potential energy. With a rope and a pully, I could lift a weight nearly equal to the original 100 lb weight to the same height. THis is work and I can get nearly 100% of the potential energy recovered as work.

Now, if I take that same amount of energy, use it to heat water, and then try and recover that energy to do work. I will be able to recover only a small percentage of the energy stored as heat. Heat is a poor medium for energy. Some of the heat energy will be converted to a form of energy that cannot be recovered. This is known as entropy. The energy basically increases the disorder of the molecules of the system.

We can measure the change in entropy during a process. I will not bore you with the formula, but it is inversely proportional to temperature. What this means is the cycles that operate at higher temperatures operate more efficiently. For instance, in a power plant, you want to generate steam that is at as high a temperature as possible to get the most efficient generation of electricity.

I hope that helps explain a little bit about what entropy is.

 

UTEOTW: But the problem you run into is how to get rid of the heat. The amounts of energy you are talking about are absolutely staggering.

This would boil the oceans away without even having to get rid of the extra heat in the mantle.

This is evolutionist fantasy. Let me show you practically why. There are currently places in the Pacific ocean that are at temperatures up-wards of 400 degrees Celsius OR MORE! That's over 750 degrees F. (url=http://www.ocean.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/geology/vents.html]Reference[/url]

Perhaps even more amazing is the animal and plant life that lives in these temperatures. But do the oceans boil away? No. Why? How? Well - it's all about water. The more water you have the higher the pressure. The higher the pressure the harder it is to boil. If water can't turn into vapor, it can't boil.

Here is some information on that:

To put it simply, as great force was applied by earthquake and the force of so much water (the entire surface of the globe was covered by water) it caused the sheer stress that started the movement of continents. The temperature would indeed linearly increase until a percentage of the melting temperature. Once this was reached, however, the friction would decrease to a minute fraction of what it was... the temperature increase is no longer linear, and the temperature required to keep it 'moving' is very minute. So then, the major heat dissipation would be that of the initial temperature increase at which point it would level off manageability until the force exerted which caused the movement was abated. Remembering that EVERYTHING was under water during this process we have increased pressure to keep boiling from happening, as well as increased force on the land masses to keep them moving. As the water moved off of the continents and the crevasses left by the continental splits widened, more water and pressure and force would be applied to the tear causing both faster movement and increased heat dissipation until finally these reached an equilibrium and the continents slowed significantly enough for the increasing depth of water to cool it significantly to harden and start moving at the rates we see today.

Interestingly enough - most of these vents are along the areas of seafloor spreading - "aka" the places where the land was suspected to have torn when the continents divided.

From this link we can see that not only do the plates move along these vent ridges, but the water above the 400 degree C is a mere 2 to 4 degree C. This shows an enormous ability to dissipate heat.

UTEOTW: No the challenge for you is to find not only an alternative explanation, but one that explains all the current data BETTER than current science and can make predictions about what else we will find.

No need to go searching. The guy who was there to create it gave us 'some of his notes' so we don't have to guess. The Bible tells us exactly how it happened - and creation science confirms the Bible.

You have given a long list of things that, if interpreted based on a framework that (by defintion) excludes what the Bible says happened could be true. However, I choose to believe the Bible and interpret the facts under a pre-supposition of truth.

UTEOTW: We should be able to look at the Creation and let it tell us its history.

We can do so under the Biblical YEC model. With this model, science confirms the Bible regularly. You just have to take off your evolutionary glasses and put on Biblical glasses. You will see that creationists and evolutionists use the VERY SAME EVIDENCE to come to very different conclusions. Using real, confirmable, repeatable, testable science.

UTEOTW: For example, even in the absence of any old earth theory a young earth theory that says that all life was created at the same time would predict that all these forms of life should be found together, more or less, in the fossil record. This is not what we actually find.

This is another myth perpetrated by Evolution. Would one ever find a Mccaw and a Camel burried together? How about a crocodile and a polar bear? Probably not. Why? They dont' naturally live together. Clearly differnt creatures live in different environments and not finding them burried together is not a reason to proclaim they are not contemporary with each other. However, humans do something extraordinary. They draw things they see. They make statues and art based on things they see. We find countless instances of peoples drawing pictures of dinosaurs. For example, in utah there are some cave drawings from indians many hundreds of years ago. It shows dear, bear, eagles, bison, and teradactyls. Teradactyls!!? Yep. Each in pretty good detail. Moreover there are indian drawings of other dinosaurs, such as apatosaurus (brontosaurus). How would they know of such creatures and draw them in such detail without seeing them? If they were mythical only, why draw them in with other common animals?

The Bible records people seeing dinosaurs as well. The word dinosaur was invented after the bible was written, but it often speaks of dragons, water dragons, fire breathing dragons... and also bohemouth.

The point here is that if we look at all the evidence objectively, without starting from a pre-supposition that the Bible is wrong, we see that there is an equal if not greater body of evidence to support the very creative account given in the Bible. As christians it is far more damaging to our faith to allow humanistic view to corrupt the Bible, especially in the face of so much corroborating evidence.

Why further Satan's kingdom on earth through humanism (which Satan used to decieve Adam and Eve in the garden) when the Bible is so much more correct and it's authority and infallicy reflect the God who created the universe?

Humanism is far more dangerous to Christianity that being scoffed at by biased scientists.


1Pe 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
1Pe 3:16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
1Pe 3:17 For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

You WILL suffer at the hands of those who do not believe, regarless of how much you try to line scripture up with fallible man. The only way to end persecution for being is a Christian is to stop being a christian. This verse exhorts us that if we are to suffer (and we will) then at least lets suffer supporting the Good and not the Evil. This is what 'the church' needs to learn - even if we are riddiculed, we need to hold firm to the truth of the Bible because it is good and true.

 

"This is evolutionist fantasy. Let me show you practically why. There are currently places in the Pacific ocean that are at temperatures up-wards of 400 degrees Celsius OR MORE! That's over 750 degrees F..."

Nope. Baumgardner's own work says that 10^28 joules of energy were released. You are making the mistake of equating two things that are not really equal. Those undersea vents may be hot but they do not put out much heat in the grand scheme of things.

Now let's see. The mass of the earth's oceans is 1.35 * 10^21 kg. The latent heat of evaporization for water is 970 BTU / lb. Let's do a little converting. 1 BTU is 1054 joules and 2.2 lbs is 1 kg. So the latent heat of evaporization is (970*1054*2.2 = ) 2250000 joules / kg. Now, the amount of energy required to boil the oceans would be (1.35 * 10^21 kg * 2250000 joules / kg = ) 3 * 10^27 joules. So, there would be enough heat not only to boil the oceans but to boil them THREE times over. And we still have not tried to get rid of the extra heat from the mantle needed to try and make all this work.

This whole heat problem is a huge dificulty for a young earth. These things crop up repeatedly. Do the same thing for all the volcanoes and other igneous rocks of the world. There are a number of other such examples. The bulk heat is the easy thing to see. Look above. In one paragraph I can do a heat balance and show you just what the heat from one such example would do. The reader is free to think about repeating this over and over for all the other heat that instead of being released over 4.5 billion years is now released in a few thousand.

The equally large difficulty, maybe even more difficult problem, is heat transfer. Now unsteady state heat transfer is a very complicated thing and is not something I could give an example of in a simple paragraph. But it has to do with how quickly heat can be conducted through a substance and how quickly that heat can be transferred to the surroundings. Now, just because it is difficult to explain does not mean that we do not know how to do it. And the cooling times are enormous. Here ( http://gac.esd.mun.ca/gac_2003/search_abs/sub_program.asp?sess=98&form=10&abs_no=421 ) is an abstract for rocks that took over 200 million years to cool. There is just no way to get this amount of cooling in a few thousand years. The heat capacity is too high and the thermal diffusivity too low. And we are talking by orders of magnitude.

Another related problem to the cooling rates is what forms at different temperatures when cooling. Bowen's Reaction series tells us the answer from chemistry. We know what temperature magma must be to form a certain mineral and we know how long it must be there to grow crystals of a given size. These results agree with the long cooling times of the heat transfer above and with radiometric dating of rocks to show how quickly they cooled. If you postulate quick cooling, you get NO crystals and therefore you lose most of the igneous rocks we know of.

These are not hard ideas to grasp. These are not based on bad assumptions. The physics and chemistry of what is listed above is well known and a young earth does not allow for it.

"No need to go searching...You have given a long list of things that, if interpreted based on a framework that (by defintion) excludes what the Bible says happened could be true. However, I choose to believe the Bible and interpret the facts under a pre-supposition of truth."

Use whatever presuppositions you wish. But let the facts speak for themselves. You are avoiding these issues. Even using your presuppositions, you do not have a BETTER explanation for this data. And that is what we are looking for here. You insist that I must use your interpreation of Scripture. I disagree. Let's go to the evidence and see which scenario BEST explains the data. A young earth has enormous problems with reality no matter what kind of lens you look through.

"You just have to take off your evolutionary glasses and put on Biblical glasses. "

I used to wear YEC glasses. It was reading YEC material that convinced me they were wrong. The poor quality of their own arguments lead directly to me examining the rest of the story. Now, I grow more convinved of the ancient age of the earth with each exchange, with each new fact. I was driven from YEC by YEC.

"Would one ever find a Mccaw and a Camel burried together? How about a crocodile and a polar bear?"

Of course you would not expect to find these together. They do not live togehter. But there are plenty of animals that lived in similar environments that are also never found together. Why do you never find any of the dinosaur herbivores with the large mammal herbivores? Dinosaur hunters with large mammal hunters? Whales, dolphins and ichthyosaurs? Modern fish in the Burgess shale? Why is is that grasses and angiosperms go missing from most of the fossil record? Why no apes in most of the fossil record? You answer a good question with things that we would not expect to see any way. You propose an amazing degree of segregation for all of life's history on earth that just happens to end now that we are watching.

You still have much to explain. "There are a number of problems you need to address: retroviral LTRs; the shared vitamin C crippling mutation; the nature of the fossil record including why we do not find past life mixed in a way consistent with everything having been alive together at the beginning; the tyoes of fossils we find including trace fossils; the evidence for a major impact at the KT boundary; the details of mountain formation; and the fossil hominids. Paul has also brought up some good issues. Some items related to his questions would be the linear relationship between age of the vocanoes of the Hawaiian chain and their distance from the active volcanic region and the consistent change in amounts of erosion with age. The measurment of seafloor spreading combined with indications that the rates are the same now as they were in the past, that rocks dated from different distances from the spreading agree with the expected age based on distance and rate of spreading, the magnetic field reversals chronicled in the rocks, and the many millions of years that these facts show that spreading has been happening. The paleomagnetic data supporting continental drift. " No matter what glasses you put on, it is up to you to show that you have a better explanation for the data that what is currently available. Remember you said "evidence does not say anything in and of itself. Facts are facts. For them to 'mean' anything, they must be interpreted." Now here is your chance. Interpret those facts and show us that your interpretation fits the evidence, the facts in question, better than the explanation of modern science.

 

UTEOTW: Nope. Baumgardner's own work says that 10^28 joules of energy were released. You are making the mistake of equating two things that are not really equal. Those undersea vents may be hot but they do not put out much heat in the grand scheme of things.

Well, they are 400 degrees C, which is almost as hot as the lava the flows from Volcanoes such as Mt. St. Helen, for example. Such volcanic magma ranges from 500-700 degrees C. Volcanoes such as the Hawaiian Island's, on the other hand, range from that up to 1200 degrees C. In fact, the Hawaiian Islands are over plates and were formed by underwater volcanoes. These repeatedly arrupt and eventually built up enough land to emerge from the ocean. Here we have magma at 1200 degrees C underwater that didn't boil away the oceans. I would remind you that for dislocation creep to occur, you don't even have to reach the melting point of the basalt rock (approx 50% silica mix). All you have to do is get to about 80% of the melting temperature. I remind you that lava flows of 500 degrees are recorded by Mt. St. Helens - so 80% of that is 400 degrees. Hrm - those thermal vents are 400 degrees. Within mere feet of those vents you will find water that is 2 degrees Celcius.

UTEOTW: The mass of the earth's oceans is 1.35 * 10^21 kg. The latent heat of evaporization for water is 970 BTU / lb ....

I question your math, as applicable. For one thing, you have not accounted whatsoever for perhaps one of the MAIN variables - pressure. The increased pressure from being under tons and tons of water. Secondly, any time you add a solute you increase the boiling temperature. We are talking NOT ONLY about salt water, but an intesely agitated water mixing in tons of sand, rock, etc. Remember - in the creationist model this water not only came from rain, but it also came up from under the ground. Also, the Grand Canyon is great evidence of the ammount of displaced 'earth' mixing we see in the water. Clearly, this was a very pressurize and extremely mixed solution of water. Your calculations take none of this into account, yet both of these factors significantly increase the boiling point of water.

UTEOTW: This whole heat problem is a huge dificulty for a young earth. These things crop up repeatedly. Do the same thing for all the volcanoes and other igneous rocks of the world. There are a number of other such examples. The bulk heat is the easy thing to see. Look above. In one paragraph I can do a heat balance and show you just what the heat from one such example would do. The reader is free to think about repeating this over and over for all the other heat that instead of being released over 4.5 billion years is now released in a few thousand.

How long does it take granites and igneous rocks to form anyway? Well lets take a look at that question. Evolutionary scientists proclaim millions of years are needed. This obviously doesn't jive with the Biblical model of 6000 years.

from here

You should also see - The Rapid Formation of Granite Rocks - More Evidence

That link has some interesting viscosity information.

The question of crystals has also been moderately addressed by Tas Walker. There is evidence that they were produced rapidly. Also, the same dynamic conditions of the flood that may have kept water from boiling would also effect the formation of crystals - namely differences in pressure. See Tas Walker's response to a similar question.

UTEOTW: But let the facts speak for themselves. You are avoiding these issues.

Facts do not speak for themselves, they must be interpreted in order for any conclusions to be made about what the facts mean. I choose to interpret based on God's infallible Word.

Also, I am not avoiding these issues. As you can see the creationist model has already provided evidence to the contrary.

UTEOTW: A young earth has enormous problems with reality no matter what kind of lens you look through.

Eventually you will come to see that this simply isn't true. You may regret not standing firm on God's unchanging, unfallible Word. Since He was the only one there at the beginning and creation of the universe, I tend to believe His account.

In that link to Tas Walker's response on granite crystals he says

"‘True knowledge begins with the Bible (Proverbs 1:7, Psalms 119:160; 138:2), and that is where we need to start.’

This is because we accept that the Bible is the Word of God. As the article says, ‘God was there when He created the world. He knows everything, does not tell lies, and does not make mistakes.’

The Bible teaches that the world is ‘young’: ‘If the Bible taught that the world was millions of years old, we would believe that. However, the concept of millions of years of death and suffering contradicts the Word of God, and destroys the foundation of the Gospel of Christ.’ "

This is so true. The Bible, in fact doesn't teach that the world is millions of years old - and NO INTERPRETATION can be construed to give that impression. Therefore, if we take the Bible to be true, we must, start with it was our framework.

UTEOTW: I used to wear YEC glasses. It was reading YEC material that convinced me they were wrong. The poor quality of their own arguments lead directly to me examining the rest of the story. Now, I grow more convinved of the ancient age of the earth with each exchange, with each new fact. I was driven from YEC by YEC.

You still have not answered my question from before - how do you try to fit millions of years into the Bible? It simply doesn't fit. The Bible already forms a complete picture. By you proclaiming to now believe in millions of years, you are basically saying "I choose to believe man over what God tells me is true". That is a very slippery slope, friend.

UTEOTW: You propose an amazing degree of segregation for all of life's history on earth that just happens to end now that we are watching.

No, I propose that just because we don't find something huddled togther with something else while it was dying from drowning, doesn't mean it wasn't contemporary with another creature.

UTEOTW: You still have much to explain...

I have touched on just about all those areas in a meaningful way.

retroviral LTRs - touched on that - mutation and loss of information consistent with the creationist model.
the shared vitamin C crippling mutation - didn't deal directly with it, but even the name of this item suggests it is consistent with a loss of information.

he nature of the fossil record including why we do not find past life mixed in a way consistent with everything having been alive together at the beginning - creationists believe that most of the fossils were formed during the year-long global Flood recorded in Genesis chapters 6-9. Thus creationists believe that the order in the fossil record is due to the order of burial during the Flood, and the local catastrophes that followed.

Many fossils and artifacts have been found ‘out of place.’ That is, they are in strata that the evolutionist says represent a period of time when, for example, that organism did not live, or human artifacts could not have been made. There are plenty of examples; some published in respectable journals before the evolutionary paradigm became locked in. Such examples do not get published in modern standard evolutionary journals, possibly because it is inconceivable that such could exist in the evolutionary worldview. In another context, Nobel Prize winner Sir Fred Hoyle said,

‘Science today is locked into paradigms. Every avenue is blocked by beliefs that are wrong, and if you try to get anything published by a journal today, you will run up against a paradigm, and the editors will turn it down.’

Forbidden Archeology, by Cremo and Thompson, lists some out-of-place human artifacts. They wrote the book from a westernized Hindu perspective to show that humans were present from antiquity, as required for the eons of multi-cycles of reincarnation of Hindu belief. (True Hindus are not concerned about such rationalizing, believing the physical world to be illusory.) Cremo and Thompson are not worried about the millions of years, just whether humans were there. They are ‘fellow-travelers’ with creationists only in the sense that we also believe that people were here almost all along, except we do not accept the billions of years. Cremo and Thompson have done a thorough job, with the final work being 914 pages long.
Visit this page for the rest of this information. the tyoes of fossils we find including trace fossils; the evidence for a major impact at the KT boundary; Covered by the same article.

the details of mountain formation - This is generally caused by plate techtonic movment. I have touched on this quite a bit. Partly due to water run off of the contintents after the flood.
the linear relationship between age of the vocanoes of the Hawaiian chain and their distance from the active volcanic region and the consistent change in amounts of erosion with age. - I touched on this somewhat in this post. One reason for Hawaiian magma being so hot a easily flowing is it's relativity to plates. Clearly, it would be a very active place durng the flood.
consistent change in amounts of erosion with age. The measurment of seafloor spreading combined with indications that the rates are the same now as they were in the past, that rocks dated from different distances from the spreading agree with the expected age based on distance and rate of spreading - I could show many cases where errosion rates and 'spreading' rates are consistent with a young earth. These seem to all point to the conclusion that - rates haven't been constant. Your data would also verify this conclusion when framed properly with a YEC.
the magnetic field reversals chronicled in the rocks - it's not as shut and dry as you think. See this article and also this link for information on the striping pattern.

UTEOTW: Now here is your chance. Interpret those facts and show us that your interpretation fits the evidence, the facts in question, better than the explanation of modern science.

That is precisely what sites like www.answersingenesis.org and www.icr.org are attempting to do. They have a pretty daunting task, as there is a lot of work that has to be re-visited as it was interpreted incorrectly. YEC are often criticised for being 'reactionary' and not doing 'new' work. Well, we still have a ways to go to re-interpret all the data we already have! The workers are few and progresses slowly. However, as you can see, it is progressing. Right now it is in the early stages of 'we have an answer for just about everything'. It will soon transition to 'we can now decisively say...'. However, from all that I have read, just about every 'old earth evidence' can be seen to work under YEC theories. There is no bit of evolutionary evidence that can disprove creation. The Bible is true, and science proves that more and more every day.

 

"Well, they are 400 degrees C, which is almost as hot..."

I do not think you understand what I am saying. You are talking local spots of heat. It is not the temperature that matters, it is the total heat to be dissapated.

"I question your math, as applicable. For one thing, you have not accounted whatsoever for perhaps one of the MAIN variables - pressure."

There is no where near enough pressure to save you. With out any evaporization, that is enough heat to increase the temperature of ALL of the water of the oceans over 3200 F. What would happen in practice is that you would heat until the surface was 212 F (a bit more actually) and then the heat would go to evaporation. The sea levels would drop until everything evaporated. I could not find a steam table that went up to 3200 F to see what pressure would be required to keep it from boiling. As an example, however, 1.5 miles of depth would be enough to allow water to be heated to 700 F without boiling. Now mind you that ALL the water would have to be deeper than 1.5 miles. Any water any more shallow would instantly boil away at that temperature.

If you question the math you should show me that the latent heat value or the mass value are way off. Otherwise, it is valid. The oceans are not nearly deep enough to save the argument with pressure. The effect of dissolved ions can be corrected for as far as the temperature for boiling goes and suspended solids do not affect the boiling point. Heat capacity is tiny compared to latent heat so you cannot shift the heat to heating the suspended solids nor to heating the water to higher temperatures.

 

Now you attempt to change the cooling time of plutons with the "hot potato" analogy. I read the various lengths and basically found that the authors assumed that geologists do not know what they are talking about. Or, more likely, that the lay readers are not familar with geology. There were examples presented of supposedly fine grained, deeply buried rocks and coarse grained, thin layered rocks, without pointing out that geologists are well aware of the differences that various factors, such as the concentration of various constiuents, can have on cooling rates and grain size. They used an example that they said proved rapid cooling (Harney Peak Granite pluton) where a quick search of related abstracts shows that several diferent lines of evidence all support its slow cooling. It was typical YEC material, trying to make mountains in front of lay readers while ignoring the known science behind what is happening.

"No, I propose that just because we don't find something huddled togther with something else while it was dying from drowning, doesn't mean it wasn't contemporary with another creature."

Then why do the things we do find together all fit an old earth model and not a young earth model?

"retroviral LTRs - touched on that - mutation and loss of information consistent with the creationist model"

You miss the point. This is not any form of mutatin or loss of information. This is a virus inserting a part of its DNA into the genome of a germ line cell that is then spread, through reproduction, to the entire population. A sizable percentage of the human genome is made up of this "junk" that you insist could not be original. If it is not original, then all these LTRs have been inserted recently. If that were the case, humans would vary widely in which LTRs their genome contained. Instead, the LTRs are shared. Not only that, but humans and the other apes share several LTRs that are only explainable by common descent.

"the shared vitamin C crippling mutation - didn't deal directly with it, but even the name of this item suggests it is consistent with a loss of information"

The key point is again missed. The exact same mutation is shared by all primates including humans. It is a strong piece of evidence for common descent. You cnnot dismiss it as only loss of information. You must tell us why ALL the other ape and primate "kinds" share the exact same mutation, right down to the same nucleotide on the same gene, but no other animals have this mutation.

"he nature of the fossil record including why we do not find past life mixed in a way consistent with everything having been alive together at the beginning - creationists believe that most of the fossils were formed during the year-long global Flood recorded in Genesis chapters 6-9. Thus creationists believe that the order in the fossil record is due to the order of burial during the Flood, and the local catastrophes that followed."

You will have to go into greater detail. You suppose that all creatures that ever lived were on the earth at the same time yet you do not find it the least bit surprising that they are no found mixed together in the fossil record. Are we going to hear about "hydraulic sorting" here?

"Forbidden Archeology, by Cremo and Thompson, lists some out-of-place human artifacts..."

Here is a good review of that. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/groves.html Basically they try and build a case for out of place items exclusively from 19th century work when discoveries were not very well documented and not from well documented, recent finds.

"the tyoes of fossils we find including trace fossils; the evidence for a major impact at the KT boundary; Covered by the same article"

How exactly? We got fossilized footprints in a layer of soft mub at the bottom of a great flood. What was walking underneath all that?

What about the details of the iridium, tektites, shocked quartz and fossil changes I presented for you at the KT boundary? How did that get in there?

"the linear relationship between age of the vocanoes of the Hawaiian chain and their distance from the active volcanic region and the consistent change in amounts of erosion with age. - I touched on this somewhat in this post. One reason for Hawaiian magma being so hot a easily flowing is it's relativity to plates. Clearly, it would be a very active place durng the flood"

Again, you miss the point. Radiometric dating of the Hawaiian islands show a roughly 70 million year history of formation. Look at this link. http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html Near the bottom is a plot that shows the dated age plotted against the distance from the currently erupting volcanoes. It is linear showing the slow movement of the hot spot (or of the crust ofer it). All of these scores of volcanoes show the same differing pattern of erosion, also. The further west one goes, the more eroded the volcanoes are, consistent with their dated ages. Recently created volcanoes would not be expected to show such a smooth relationship between location and age and would be expected to be more uniform in the amounts of erosion. Instead, the furtherest east have essentially no erosion while the furtherest west have been eroded right back into the ocean.

"I could show many cases where errosion rates and 'spreading' rates are consistent with a young earth. These seem to all point to the conclusion that - rates haven't been constant. Your data would also verify this conclusion when framed properly with a YEC.
the magnetic field reversals chronicled in the rocks - it's not as shut and dry as you think. See this article and also this link for information on the striping pattern."

Feel free to give data. But as far a the link, I think we have already dealt with Baumgardner and his runaway subduction.

 

Let's see if we can recap this whole entropy thread. First you proposed that the 2LOT denies the posibility of evolution having happened. I point out to you that entropy is a quite complex concept and that scientists typically try and relate it to everyday things when trying to explain it to a lay person. You reassert the popular account. This goes on for a while. Finally, I give you the actual statement of the second law of thermodynamics

"No apparatus can operate in such a way that its only effect is to convert heat absorbed by a system completely into work."

from Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics, Smith and Van Ness, 4th Edition, 1987

I ask you to apply the actual statement to evolution. You reassert that popular explanation for a lay audience. So I then explain what entropy actually is.

"Let's look at what entropy is. Heat is considered a very poor form of energy as far as its ability to do work. Let's compare it to potential energy. If I take a 100 lb weight and lift it in the air, it has potential energy. With a rope and a pully, I could lift a weight nearly equal to the original 100 lb weight to the same height. THis is work and I can get nearly 100% of the potential energy recovered as work.

Now, if I take that same amount of energy, use it to heat water, and then try and recover that energy to do work. I will be able to recover only a small percentage of the energy stored as heat. Heat is a poor medium for energy. Some of the heat energy will be converted to a form of energy that cannot be recovered. This is known as entropy. The energy basically increases the disorder of the molecules of the system."

You reasert the popular generalization rather than a real statement. I do not see this ending. I'll take the time to respond to your latest posts though.

"Asimov has devastated your own case by admitting that 2LOT applies equally well to biological systems as to "cars"."

I have already stated that thermodynamics applies to every process in the universe. That includes biological life. So I have not said that thermo does not apply to life. What I have said is that you are misusing a common way of trying to explain entropy to those who do not have the proper background to understand it. You cannot substitute an attempt at analogy for the actual scientific statement just because you find it convenient.

"(But you pretend not to notice it - by avoiding critical thinking in this case.)"

I do not think that rebutting the improper use of a non-technical account intended to explain a concept to a lay audience with the actual science is a lack of critical thinking. I believe, in fact and in my humble opinion, that not being able to see the difference constitutes a lack of critical thinking on your part. I have laid that science out for you everal times and shown you why what you are attempting to do is invalid. But, since the real science is opposed to your point of view, you continue to return to what you think supports your position no matter what you have to ignore.

"(But you pretend not to notice it - by avoiding critical thinking in this case.)"

Who is ignoring the obvious? Go back and try and read the relevent posts with an objective eye.

"Mutations - are entirely possible in this everything driving to decay scenario of Asimov.

Beneficial mutations are possible in the sense that losing the ability to see is ok - if you live in a dark cave and eyes are more of a liability than a benefit in that case."

So you cannot show that beneficial mutations are prohibited by entropy. I see that you assert that this is so. But you allow for mutations. Since mutations are fairly random, what is it that says that the neutral or harmful mutations are allowed but not the beneficial ones? How do those chemicals know th difference? When that base pair is about to be substituted with a new base pair how does it decide in advance that if this mutation happens, it would be beneficial and not allowed by entropy? Assertions are great. Where are the facts?

You do not asnwer if natural selection is prohibited by entropy. I can only assume that this means that NS is possible. So, given that there is no way for those chemicals to know if a mutation is bad or not and that natural selection is a ral process, then you have no basis for stating "The molecule to man mythology clearly violates the "everthing drives towards decay" statement of Asimov regarding biological systems."

 

Bob

Nice attempt at slander by pairing a response I made to a different question with a question that was asked AFTER the response was given. You knew that the response was to a different question. And you should have easily been able to tell that the question came second, not first. So what was your motivation here in twisting the threads in such a way? Trying to make me look bad? An Ad Hominem attack does not change the facts.

You also know that I have answered such questions many times in the past. It is not something I have shrunk from. In the end, I resist your assertion that I must take your interpretation of Scripture. The account of Creation tells us all we need to know without invoking a literal reading. God is the Creator of the universe, of earth, and of us and the other life. It tells us of the nature of God, the sinful nature of man, the special relationship man has with God because he has given us a soul (in His image), and of the need for man to be saved by God's grace. I do not think that there is the need to take a crowbar to what the Creation itself reveals to us in order to try and justify your literal interpretation. You disagree. So, I say let's let Creation itself tell us its history. I am not here to question God in His choice of how to reveal to us what He considers important. Let the Creation speak and we will know the age of the earth. And so far, there is not any "good science" to show us that the earth is young and that you have the correct interpretation.

 

Guys, be calm.
Everyone loses credibility when emotions are obviously taking over the conversation.
Gina