Footprints 'too old' to be human

Yes, admitting when they were wrong.

 

I fail to see why the issue of creation/evolution debates is brought up in the OP. The topic in the link is not a C/E issue.

 

Looks like they are back-peddling to me.

All this shows is the level of "assumptions" that are occuring in the scientific community regarding evolution.

 

.....looks like "news" to me.

 

Options;
1. They are human prints and the older age of the site is correct.
2. They are human and the age of the site is wrong.
3. They are not human and the dating of the site is correct
4. They are not human and the dating of the site is wrong.

Option #1. This option doesn’t fit any current origin theory.
This is a problem for all theories.

#2. Certainly a possibility. Re-check the dating of the site (young-earth creationists will accept this option without offering any method to determine the correct date).
Not a big problem for most creationist theories or for the theory of evolution.

#3 Again it’s possible; check the data regarding size of foot and stride of step to see if it fits the norm and calculate the probabilities of other sources for the cause of the indentations.
It’s a problem for YECists.
Not a problem for old-earth creationist or theistic creationist.
Not a problem for evolutionism.

#4. Bad assumptions were made from the get-go.

Rob

 

They don't look like footprints to me, but there are no endowments predisposing me to that conclusion.

 

I am reminded of the science magazine story I read as a child in school (40+ years ago) about a scientist who tested a tree for age. His test showed the tree to be 3500 years old. Only one problem -- he had planted that very same tree as a child!

As the Bible says, people will try to ignore God in all possible ways. This is just another example!

Bill

 

Let's keep in mind the words penned by the Apostle Peter 20 centuries ago. "...there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming?...all things continue as there were from the beginning of creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the the water:...." Since some have chosen to reject the Savior, they must reject the creator as well.

 

This is a fallacious arguemnt. You can't test living things the same way you test other things. That's fairly common knowledge, except by certain groups. I would question this "scientist".

 

The YEC are never wrong. "God poofed it" covers every situaton.

 

Another ill-equipped attempt at rejecting that for which you have no REAL answer!

Nutshell: God said "---6 days---",
Man said "---billions of years---".

Which do you CHOOSE to believe?

 

The OP claims...

"Footprints found in volcanic ash in Mexico were declared human UNTIL the dating placed them far too early, evolution-wise, to be human in their time frame. Therefore, despite the fact that they are human, they are NOT human."

But Renne, the author of the Nature paper says.

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/051130_ancient_footprints.html

So they are not just being dismissed because they date incorrectly.

In reality, this is an example of good science showing us the process that ensures good science. Do not let anyone try and spin it into something else.

Someone made an extrordinary claim. As with any other extrodinary claim, it must pass the review of one's peers.

This one does not seem to have passed. The extrordinary claim has been found to be flawed by other sciences.

And that is the way it should work. That is the way it normally works. And it seems to have worked just fine here.

This also serves to underscore the importance of requiring those with extrordinary claims to submit them to review by experts in the relevent fields. If you do not, how can you know if it is corect?

 

Way to go, Helen!

 

Why do you need a break?

THis is how things work. Someone made a claim and published it. Others are then free to examine the same evidence. When they did so, they obviously came to a different conclusion.

Why?

Well as you pointed out the dates were wrong for one. But you left out that they also did not think that the prints actually looked like prints and that there was much evidence in the area where machines had marked and scoured the ground. SO it was not simply that they were too old. It was a combination of factors. If you refer back to the article I linked, you will see that one of the participants even says that the particular location is very difficult to date accurately. I think it was much more than just the date.

And again, this shows how very important it is to subject claims to peer review. Real science does this and it is the method by which the good work is sorted from the not so good.

 

Unfortunately, science has lost a lot of credibility by pushing the God-denying theory of evolution.

 

Why do you need a break?

THis is how things work. Someone made a claim and published it. Others are then free to examine the same evidence. When they did so, they obviously came to a different conclusion.

Why?</font>[/QUOTE] Did you actually read the article? This appears in the very first paragraph: "A dating study puts the age of the volcanic ash in which the indentations were found at 1.3 million years, which casts fatal doubt on the theory that they are footprints."

Other explanations weren't needed until the footprints failed to meet the evolutionists' necessary time frame. Since it didn't meet the time frame, any alternate explanation will do... even if it is one that was not preferred based on just the evidence as discovered.

But real science doesn't just arbitrarily discard the direct implications of the evidence when it disagrees with unproven assumptions.

As Helen pointed out, this is how "evidence" for YEC gets covered up. Regardless of what the actual truth on this particular find is, the methods of evolutionists concerning evidence that points to a young earth are more than apparent. If something looks as if it contradicts evolutionary assumptions... then there must be another explanation. The data cannot be allowed to "speak" for itself.

 

Let's look at this one more time. There are important lessons to be learned.

YEers will often make the claim that scientists ignore or cover up data that contradits their theories. In this case, you see the claim being made that the ONLY reason that these were rejected as footprints is because they were too old. Let's review some of the quotes on this thread.

At this point there should be no doubt of the YE opinion on this topic. They continue to assert that nonconforming data is routinely thrown out just becuase it does not conform. And they are fiercely defending their assertions here that this is another case of data being ignored only because it does not conform.

And with that, this example provides a powerful lesson on the misrepresentations that must be made to make these asertion. This case provides an excellent example of how such things are generally not as they are presented by YEers when examined.

Before we get to the new study, let's look at what paleoanthropologist Tim White had to say about the original paper proclaiming the footprints. He is a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley'

So here is at least one person who is an expert and who doubted the findings based on nothing more than the original paper.

But let's keep digging. Remember that the claim is that the ONLY reason that the footprints were dismissed was because they dated wrong. We have just seen one expert who doubted the footprints because he thought that the original paper made a weak case. I think everyone will concede that Renne doubts the dating. So let's move on.

But let's see another reason that was advanced.

Did you catch that? The magnetic fields in all of the grains ara aligned with the poles, opposite of today's polarity. If the depressions had been formed by footprints, the action of making the prints would have disturbed the grains and led to a more random orientation. This is strike two against the assertion that is being made.

Let's go for three. This time an observation from Renne, the head of the team that did the dating.

So, they are unlikely to be footprints because they are randomly scattered. If a human, or humans, had walked through, you would expect to find a line of footprints. We don't.

So, here we have another example of the usual pattern. We see strong charges that scientists are a dishonest bunch, ignoring evidence, picking and choosing their data and dismissing data merely because it disagrees with preconceived ideas.

The reality is that the scientific method is once again shown to work. This is a great example of the process in action. Claims were made. Claims were tested independently. Claims were found to be wanting. The claims were rejected for a number of logical and factual reasons. The idea that it was ONLY because of faulty dating has been shown to be false.

While it was the YEers claiming that science was making a mistake, the mistake is actually found to be in the YE claims once they are closely examined. A false charge was manufactured by selective reporting and by misrepresenting the full story.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/uoc--a4h112805.php