Neil deGrasse Tyson vs. Young Earth Creationism

reply to post by beegoodbees

"When paleontologist Mary Schweitzer found soft tissue in a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, her discovery raised an obvious question -- how the tissue could have survived so long? The bone was 68 million years old, and conventional wisdom about fossilization is that all soft tissue, from blood to brains, decomposes. Only hard parts, like bones and teeth, can become fossils. But for some people, the discovery raised a different question. How do scientists know the bones are really 68 million years old?"

68 million year old t-rex soft tissue? Yeah, that sounds possible to me. I am sure that finding was also explained away in some convoluted fashion.

I have no idea where you pulled that quote from but I doubt it was from a scientific journal. Maybe you should read what the actual person said about their work which BTW she is a Christian however she understands the difference between science and religion. In the future if you are going to quote something it is in the T&C to provide links and use the quote function for off site material unless that is your own quote from something you wrote.

“The reason it hasn’t been discovered before is no right-thinking paleontologist would do what Mary did with her specimens. We don’t go to all this effort to dig this stuff out of the ground to then destroy it in acid,”

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”

link to smithsonian

So are you another dishonest young earth creationist who misrepresents this Christian paleontologists work to further your own agenda?

beegoodbees
All of the moths changed twice at almost the same time, not a few mutated and only their offspring survived.(as evolution dictates) Give me a break.

I see you can't wrap your head around even simple concepts like natural selection. No, not all the moths changed twice at almost the same time and no, mutations were not necessarily even involved in these occasions. You see, we had variation within the moth population (as in any population of any species that are not clonal). The ones that were lighter were more likely to have been eaten by predators. Hence the ones that were darker were more likely to survive and perhaps pass their genes to the next generation. Repeat this pattern over many generations, and soon enough almost everybody will be dark, because the alleles that lead to dark are more likely to be passed on than the alleles that lead to light. This is not exactly rocket science.

As far as missing evidence, you will provide none to support your ideas but you expect me to provide some to support mine? Anyhow any such skulls that are found are simply labeled as being contemporary and never even considered for comparison to anything like a dinosaur because we already "know" that dinosaurs died millions of years ago and dolphins were not around yet.

I have addressed all your questions. You, however, have failed to address all my questions. So this is your final answer. No 200M year old skulls that are very similar to humans or dolphins have been ever discovered because it has never been considered that such old skulls could be similar to these. Are you serious?

This is what you apparently don't know.


"Now, in a series of papers published in September in Nature (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group) and elsewhere, the ENCODE group has produced a stunning inventory of previously hidden switches, signals and sign posts embedded like runes throughout the entire length of human DNA. In the process, the ENCODE project is reinventing the vocabulary with which biologists study, discuss and understand human inheritance and disease.

Ewan Birney, 39, of the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, England, led the analysis by the more than 400 ENCODE scientists who annotated the genome. He recently spoke with Scientific American about the major findings. Excerpts follow.

Scientific American: The ENCODE project has revealed a landscape that is absolutely teeming with important genetic elements—a landscape that used to be dismissed as “junk DNA.” Were our old views of how the genome is organized too simplistic?"

link to article

www.scientificamerican.com...

edit on 31-10-2013 by beegoodbees because: (no reason given)

Oh I know, but I also know that it's way beyond your comprehension. Tell me how it's surprising that there are "genetic elements" within "junk DNA" when we know for a fact that most of it consists of repetitive sequence and ancient integrated viruses, which obviously had "genetic elements" within them.

Grimpachi
reply to post by beegoodbees

 

"When paleontologist Mary Schweitzer found soft tissue in a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, her discovery raised an obvious question -- how the tissue could have survived so long? The bone was 68 million years old, and conventional wisdom about fossilization is that all soft tissue, from blood to brains, decomposes. Only hard parts, like bones and teeth, can become fossils. But for some people, the discovery raised a different question. How do scientists know the bones are really 68 million years old?"

68 million year old t-rex soft tissue? Yeah, that sounds possible to me. I am sure that finding was also explained away in some convoluted fashion.

I have no idea where you pulled that quote from but I doubt it was from a scientific journal. Maybe you should read what the actual person said about their work which BTW she is a Christian however she understands the difference between science and religion. In the future if you are going to quote something it is in the T&C to provide links and use the quote function for off site material unless that is your own quote from something you wrote.

“The reason it hasn’t been discovered before is no right-thinking paleontologist would do what Mary did with her specimens. We don’t go to all this effort to dig this stuff out of the ground to then destroy it in acid,”

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”

link to smithsonian

So are you another dishonest young earth creationist who misrepresents this Christian paleontologists work to further your own agenda?

science.howstuffworks.com...

It is found here and everywhere if you bothered to look, you in true religious fashion dismiss it because it goes against your beliefs. I know that I will never convince you that jesus isn't real I mean evolution isn't real, but hopefully i can force some critical thinking processes.

rhinoceros

beegoodbees
All of the moths changed twice at almost the same time, not a few mutated and only their offspring survived.(as evolution dictates) Give me a break.

I see you can't wrap your head around even simple concepts like natural selection. No, not all the moths changed twice at almost the same time and no, mutations were not necessarily even involved in these occasions. You see, we had variation within the moth population (as in any population of any species that are not clonal). The ones that were lighter were more likely to have been eaten by predators. Hence the ones that were darker were more likely to survive and perhaps pass their genes to the next generation. Repeat this pattern over many generations, and soon enough almost everybody will be dark, because the alleles that lead to dark are more likely to be passed on than the alleles that lead to light. This is not exactly rocket science.

As far as missing evidence, you will provide none to support your ideas but you expect me to provide some to support mine? Anyhow any such skulls that are found are simply labeled as being contemporary and never even considered for comparison to anything like a dinosaur because we already "know" that dinosaurs died millions of years ago and dolphins were not around yet.

I have addressed all your questions. You, however, have failed to address all my questions. So this is your final answer. No 200M year old skulls that are very similar to humans or dolphins have been ever discovered because it has never been considered that such old skulls could be similar to these. Are you serious?

This is what you apparently don't know.


"Now, in a series of papers published in September in Nature (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group) and elsewhere, the ENCODE group has produced a stunning inventory of previously hidden switches, signals and sign posts embedded like runes throughout the entire length of human DNA. In the process, the ENCODE project is reinventing the vocabulary with which biologists study, discuss and understand human inheritance and disease.

Ewan Birney, 39, of the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, England, led the analysis by the more than 400 ENCODE scientists who annotated the genome. He recently spoke with Scientific American about the major findings. Excerpts follow.

Scientific American: The ENCODE project has revealed a landscape that is absolutely teeming with important genetic elements—a landscape that used to be dismissed as “junk DNA.” Were our old views of how the genome is organized too simplistic?"

link to article

www.scientificamerican.com...

edit on 31-10-2013 by beegoodbees because: (no reason given)

Oh I know, but I also know that it's way beyond your comprehension. Tell me how it's surprising that there are "genetic elements" within "junk DNA" when we know for a fact that most of it consists of repetitive sequence and ancient integrated viruses, which obviously had "genetic elements" within them.

edit on 31-10-2013 by rhinoceros because: (no reason given)

You have answered none of my points and you are twisting my words. I said they all changed in a relatively short period of time. With in one century 90 percent had changed. That is not a long time on evolutionary terms.

Most of the moths were white and then black and then white. According to evolution one moth would have to change color on accident and then all of the other moths go extinct because they didn't accidentally mutate leaving only the white moth and it's offspring and then it happened again but in reverse. How dumb do you have to be to believe that? There were no reports of differnt colored moths before hand so you must have made that part up.

According to you the variation were already there. Then where are the green moths that should already be there in case the trees turn green? Where are the blue and brown moths.

You make no sense at all. All you do is hurl insults all the while twisting and spinning the truth to suit your beliefs. There can be no reasoning with you. Expect no more replies from me.

Simple reasoning and intelligent deduction are well beyond your mental capacity. It really doesn't bother me if you want to support the new religion of the state.

reply to post by beegoodbees


Well did you bother to read the entire article or did you just stop at the ambiguous quote? The article you sourced does a fairly good job at explaining the dating process and in no way says dinosaur bones are misdated.

BTW I should not have to scan the entire web to find where you pulled one particular quote see the T&C rules for clarification.

15c.) Intellectual Property: You will not Post any copyrighted material owned by others, material belonging to another person, material previously Posted by you on another website, or link to any copyrighted material without providing proper attribution*, as defined by TAN, to its original source. You will not Post any material that infringes, misappropriates, or violates any patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary rights of TAN or any third party. You will not use your Postings on the Websites to promote your own personal website or any other website with which you may be associated without first receiving permission from TAN.
* Proper Attribution for the posting of copyrighted material owned by others is defined as posting a relevant snippet of the online content not to exceed 10% of the entire piece, a properly formed link back to the source website, and a clear indication of the name of the source website. The posting to these websites of any copyrighted material owned by others that is not found elsewhere online is prohibited.

beegoodbees
All of the moths were white and then black and then white. According to evolution one moth would have to change color on accident and then all of the other moths go extinct because they didn't accidentally mutate leaving only the white moth and it's offspring.

For the third time, no not all the moths were white. For the third time, variation exists within all non-clonal populations. Are all the humans the exact same color? Are all the wolves the exact same color? Are all the trouts the exact same color? In case you were wondering, the answer is NO. I don't know how things go according to your made-up version of evolution, but I can assure you that things don't go like that according to the theory, or when following the natural phenomenon.

According to you the variation were already there. Then where are the green moths that should already be there in case the trees turn green? Where are the blue and brown moths.

Variation being present doesn't imply that every color in the world should be represented.

You make no sense at all. All you do is hurl insults all the while twisting and spinning the truth to suit your beliefs. There can be no reasoning with you. Expect no more replies from me.

The exact opposite. Your mind is so locked in your religious upbringing that your brains have to go through extraordinarily sophisticated loops so that you can somehow unsee the obvious and make it seem rational.

Simple reasoning and intelligent deduction are well beyond your mental capacity. It really doesn't bother me if you want to support the new religion of the state.

edit on 31-10-2013 by beegoodbees because: (no reason given)

Again, the exact opposite.

Let's also keep in mind that you failed to disprove the dating methods or explain the most unlikely event that they all independently give very similar estimates on the age of stuff. More than that, let's also keep in mind that you utterly failed to explain why there are no 200M year old human skulls or 200M year old giraffe skulls or 200M year old skulls of any contemporary mammal. How does your brain keep on believing some creation fairytale keeping these obvious facts that go 100% against it in mind? The power of religious indoctrination is amazing..

the only problem I have with astrophysicists is when they say "the age of the universe is 14 billion years"....I think it should always be prefaced with..."as much as our present day instruments can measure, the age of the universe is 14 billion years old".

jimmyx
the only problem I have with astrophysicists is when they say "the age of the universe is 14 billion years"....I think it should always be prefaced with..."as much as our present day instruments can measure, the age of the universe is 14 billion years old".

edit on 31-10-2013 by jimmyx because: (no reason given)

I agree, but I would include all speculative theories.

jimmyx
the only problem I have with astrophysicists is when they say "the age of the universe is 14 billion years"....I think it should always be prefaced with..."as much as our present day instruments can measure, the age of the universe is 14 billion years old".

edit on 31-10-2013 by jimmyx because: (no reason given)

Popular media might put it like that. If you read scientific literature, it's not like that. I believe this paper has the most recent estimate, they put it at 13.82 billion years. Note the absence of "the age of the Universe is.."

beegoodbees

jimmyx
the only problem I have with astrophysicists is when they say "the age of the universe is 14 billion years"....I think it should always be prefaced with..."as much as our present day instruments can measure, the age of the universe is 14 billion years old".

edit on 31-10-2013 by jimmyx because: (no reason given)

I agree, but I would include all speculative theories.

Like what?

Grimpachi
reply to post by beegoodbees

 

Well did you bother to read the entire article or did you just stop at the ambiguous quote? The article you sourced does a fairly good job at explaining the dating process and in no way says dinosaur bones are misdated.

BTW I should not have to scan the entire web to find where you pulled one particular quote see the T&C rules for clarification.

15c.) Intellectual Property: You will not Post any copyrighted material owned by others, material belonging to another person, material previously Posted by you on another website, or link to any copyrighted material without providing proper attribution*, as defined by TAN, to its original source. You will not Post any material that infringes, misappropriates, or violates any patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary rights of TAN or any third party. You will not use your Postings on the Websites to promote your own personal website or any other website with which you may be associated without first receiving permission from TAN.
* Proper Attribution for the posting of copyrighted material owned by others is defined as posting a relevant snippet of the online content not to exceed 10% of the entire piece, a properly formed link back to the source website, and a clear indication of the name of the source website. The posting to these websites of any copyrighted material owned by others that is not found elsewhere online is prohibited.

All you have to do is copy one sentence and google search it, you do not have to scan the whole web. Yes I did read the whole thing. It is just another example of how things that don't fit are explained away and pushed aside.

"This illustrates the whole problem with the radioactive dating of geological events. Those who promote the reliability of the method spend a lot of time impressing you with the details of radioactive decay, half-lives, mass-spectroscopes, etc. But they omit discussion of the basic flaw in the method: you cannot measure the age of a rock using radioactive dating because you were not present to measure the radioactive elements when the rock formed and you did not monitor the way those elements changed over its entire geological history.

If you check this educational page by the US Geological Society you will see that they spend all their time talking about the technicalities of radioactive decay. But they do not even mention the basic problem that you cannot know the radioactive concentrations that existed in the rock in the past.

In other words, the fatal problem with all radioactive dates is that they are all based on assumptions about the past. You can get any date you like depending on the assumptions you make. And that is what geologist do, they make up an assumed geological history for rock depending on the numbers that come from the geochronology lab (see Dating secrets"


biblicalgeology.net...

pretty simple stuff really.

reply to post by beegoodbees

It is just another example of how things that don't fit are explained away and pushed aside.

You are making that argument in this thread of all places?

WOW you really haven't learned anything please go to page one and watch the video with Neil deGrasse Tyson as he addresses the very argument you are making. They are not explained away or pushed aside there is a margin of error figured into the dating same as it is figured into dating the stars but that margin is nowhere near a span of millions of years for paleontology.

You are making the same argument the creationists made in the video it is no more valid in cosmology than paleontology.

reply to post by Grimpachi


I would actually recommend going back and reading the ENTIRE thread all over again.

beegoodbees
In other words, the fatal problem with all radioactive dates is that they are all based on assumptions about the past. You can get any date you like depending on the assumptions you make. And that is what geologist do, they make up an assumed geological history for rock depending on the numbers that come from the geochronology lab (see Dating secrets"


biblicalgeology.net...

pretty simple stuff really.

Your link is to a creationist blog, which is riddled with inaccuracies, mistakes, leaps of faith (duh) and downright falsifications.

reply to post by AngryCymraeg


All evolution evidence comes from evolutionist websites full of assumptions and mistruths. Since there are no unbiased websites I don't see your point.

If a christian says the sky is blue, don't believe him, I guess that is what you are saying.

1. Millions of missing links
2. Unprovable dating techniques
3. Archeological finds that contradict the theory
4. A history of fraud and fabrications
5. Paintings and carvings thousands of years old depicting dinosaurs that these people would have supposedly never seen
6. A whole world of ancient histories that say otherwise.
7. No answer as to why there are only lagre amounts of fossils in certain layers of earth as opposed to having fossils everywhere or nowehere.
These are the reasons why it is not science. There are no good anwers to these because there are no good answers to these. So to believe in things unseen is faith.

How do scientists "know" how far away the nearest star to the sun is? Once you figure out that there is currently no possible way to know and that it is really just a guess than you will begin to see, unless of course you stick your head back in the sand.

Einstien put it best when he said " Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school"

Grimpachi
reply to post by beegoodbees

 

It is just another example of how things that don't fit are explained away and pushed aside.

You are making that argument in this thread of all places?

WOW you really haven't learned anything please go to page one and watch the video with Neil deGrasse Tyson as he addresses the very argument you are making. They are not explained away or pushed aside there is a margin of error figured into the dating same as it is figured into dating the stars but that margin is nowhere near a span of millions of years for paleontology.

You are making the same argument the creationists made in the video it is no more valid in cosmology than paleontology.

So an evolutionist brushes aside the brushing aside. As likeable as the guy is The truth is there has been no real debate of the so called anomolies that have been discovered.

reply to post by beegoodbees

All evolution evidence comes from evolutionist weblites full of assumptions and mistruths. Since there are no unbiased websites I don't see your point.

Show us some examples. And while you're at it, refute Rhinoceros's posts explaining carbon dating and...whatever that other stuff is.

beegoodbees
reply to post by AngryCymraeg

 

All evolution evidence comes from evolutionist weblites full of assumptions and mistruths. Since there are no unbiased websites I don't see your point.

They also tend to be full of something called science. With a bedrock of evidence.

reply to post by beegoodbees

Let's look beyond radiometric dating and magnetostratigraphy. You know how the Atlantic ocean is growing from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. According to wikipedia, the average measured spreading rate for the ridge is about 2.5 cm per year. Go back in time, and about 180M years ago there was no Atlantic Ocean, but Africa and North and South America, Eurasia, etc. made one large super continent titled "Pangaea". The idea of Pangaea is supported by the distribution of fossils:



How do we interpret this? Would you agree that the most logical assumption is that these species existed around the time of Pangaea? Then how do you feel when you get a similar age estimate for these fossils from radiometric dating and magnetostratigraphy? Can you put two and two together?