Originally posted by riley
Recently, a member said that scientists had found a fossilised miners helmet that could not have been over seventy years old. 
Tried to find some info on this but couldn't find much. Found one page
here where the Op says
"when you look at the fact the
Fossilized Miners helmets have been found in Britain (Yes you guessed it fossils don't take thousands or even hundreds of years to be created)."
Unfortunatley he didn't post a ref or link of any sort to back it up... *shrug* i guess that's your point though eh.
I know in one of the 'dating techniques are flawed' type threads around here there's a similar argument (living snails with fossilized shells or
some-such.) I'm pretty sure this type of argument is exclusively a YECism thing... so i checked those sites.
Here's what i found at AIG on the miner's helmet:
'fossil' hat
'Fossil' hat
This miner's hat is rock hard. It was found in a mine in Tasmania where it had been covered with water for more than 50 years.
Over that time the chemicals in the water precipitated within the open structure of the felt material of the soft hat, thus turning the soft hat into
stone by a process called calcification, which means that solid calcium carbonate has impregnated the original felt material of the hat.
The hat is now on display in a mining museum on Tasmania's west coast.
This quick-forming 'stone' hat adds weight to the claims that creation scientists are correct when they say that thousands or millions of years are
not needed to form rocks and fossilize animals and plants.
*that's actually the entire article... not a whole lot to go on there. Here's another essay on DNA degredation and how that fits the young earth
model:
www.answersingenesis.org...
Brian Sykes in the prestigious journal Nature clearly states that the rate at which DNA breaks down in the laboratory is such that after 10,000 years
no DNA should be left. Writing about the magnolia leaf fossils (and others in the same ‘ancient’ layer found to also have DNA, including oak,
cypress and tulip tree fossils) he says:
‘This means these compression fossils defy the prediction, from in vitro estimates of the rate of spontaneous hydrolysis, that no DNA would
remain intact much beyond 10,000 years. What a good job not everybody knew that, grant reviewers included.’
snip
1)In the absence of the repair machinery of a living cell, DNA breaks down, by itself, at an observed, measurable rate which would mean that after
10,000 years there should be none left.
2)Therefore, any specimen which has DNA still in it cannot be more than 10,000 years old.
However:
3)Intact DNA has been found in specimens which evolutionists ‘know’ to be millions of years old. (Because it is found in lavers which, according
to the geological age-dating system, are assigned this age—17–20 million years in the case of the plant fossils mentioned here.)
4)If this system of vast ages is not correct, the whole evolutionary scenario collapses.
5)Therefore, the logical deduction in the first two points above (based on real science—that is, an observable process) must be flawed. There must
be some special conditions which can somehow ‘hold up’ the breakdown of DNA quite dramatically.
Notice how point 3 brings in the assumption/belief that the vast evolutionary age assigned to these fossils is correct. That belief becomes the
justification for discarding the prima facie implications of the laboratory data.
If you're interested in the YECists position/arguments on fossils here's AIG's
Fossils Questions and Answers Q&A page. If the miner's hat got you POed you're
gonna love this page.
This is not meant to be classroom.. it is meant to be about conspiracies yet it has gotten to the point that before any productive discussions
can begin we have to explain why a buried helmet is not a fossil, why turnips don't turn into bumble bees, why the sun is not 10,000 years old [let
alone the earth], how apes and humans just share a common ancestor, why dinos and humans could not have co-existed and many other things that boarder
on the ridiculous.
I'd be interested to know how many conspiracy "theories," do you think,
do not border on the ridiculous? Turnips into bumble bees is, while
a little disingenuous, just a dramatic way of pointing out they evolved from the same thing (LUCA.) Not the greatest argument in the world but not
entirely innacurate either.
Every time someone comes in and makes the mistake of saying man evolved from an ape/monkey he/she gets it from all sides. "Hey dummy they share a
common ancestor... BIG difference." They evolved from an 'ape-like' species and not an actual ape, why do some folks get so worked up over the
distinction? I could give you some links from ToE supporters around here whom mis-understand/represent evolution as much as any creationist, those
guys seem to get a free pass though.
Basically, unless i misunderstood your post, you're saying that YECists shouldn't be allowed to post on ATS? While i disagree with their
scientific and Biblical interpretations, they have as much of a right to post on this
discussion board as the next guy imho. You could always
just ignore them.
I don't know whether or not this is
supposed to be a classroom, but i know i've learned alot here. I was familiar with this stuff prior and
have read dozens of books on the subject. But the give and take of a discussion board and the chance to talk with actual scientists is invaluable to
someone like me who has no such outlet in real life.
Evolution has won in the courts yet the dissinformation campaign continues..
I don't think the courts/judges are qualified to make such determinations, you do? I'm not advocationg teaching creationism (of any kind) in the
public schools for many reasons, but i could honestly care less what a specific judge's
opinion is of the ToE, creationism or ID. I believe
it'd be unfair to push creationism (of any kind) in our public schools, which
should be secular imho; ID is too incomplete and high school
teachers have enough to do already just teaching basic science to students... i see no reason to further complicate matters. There will always be
those who disagree and think it's neccessary to teach the deceived masses the "truth." *shrug* YE creation science has been refuted by everyone
from OECists to atheists and their still here, gotta admire their dedication at least.
What happens when even ET life is found? We know this is inevitable- wonderful as it will be it will feel like a demotion for many.
There's nothing in Scripture that says life was
only created here on Earth. Many religious people (yup including Christians) believe in ET
life, some even use the Bible as proof ET has visited Earth in the past. What if ET is religious? What if they are montheists? What if they too
have a messiah? IF, if, if etc. etc. Why is it the assumption that ETs will be atheists and their existence with be the death blow to religion?
