Atheist Corner - Thought of the Day

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Science Fiction

"Charles Dawson, a British lawyer and amateur geologist announced in 1912 his discovery of pieces of a human skull and an apelike jaw in a gravel pit near the town of Piltdown, England . . . Dawson's announcement stopped the scorn cold. Experts instantly declared Piltdown Man (estimated to be 300,000 to one million years old), the evolutionary find of the century. Darwin's missing link had been identified. Or so it seemed for the next 40 or so years. Then, in the early fifties . . . scientists began to suspect misattribution. In 1953, that suspicion gave way to a full-blown scandal: Piltdown Man was a hoax . . . tests proved that its skull belonged to a 600-year-old woman, and its jaw to a 500-year-old orangutan from the East Indies." Our Times--the Illustrated History of the 20th Century (Turner Publishing, 1995, page 94).

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001

Answers

If the Earth was created in a matter of several days, how do you explain radio-carbon dating that puts its age between 4 and 5 billion years?

-- (@ .), May 08, 2001.

Carbon dating can be an inaccurate form of measurement.

Time magazine published an article June 11, 1990 subtitled, "Geologists show that carbon dating can be way off."

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001.


Duh, there have been a lot more bones found since 1912.

-- (youre@freak.azoid), May 08, 2001.

Duh, there have been a lot more bones found since 1912.

Absolutley true. Here is another example you must be refering to.

The Piltdown Man fraud wasn't an isolated incident. The famed "Nebraska Man" was built from one tooth, which was later found to be the tooth of an extinct pig.

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001.


...or were you refering to "Java Man"? "Java Man" was found in the early 20th Century, and was nothing more than a piece of skull, a fragment of a thigh bone and three molar teeth.

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001.


Don't look to "Neanderthal Man" for any evidence of evolution. Recent genetic DNA research indicates the chromosomes do not match those of humans. They do match those of bipedal primates (apes).

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001.

Shouldn't you call these posts "Creationist Corner?"

-- (.@...), May 08, 2001.

How about Corner of Truth?

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001.

Exactly what DNA evidence are you citing?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), May 08, 2001.

Please, no racist remarks about Neanderthals (men or women). I am a Neanderthal.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), May 08, 2001.


Question posed way up top was "If the Earth was created in a matter of several days, how do you explain radio-carbon dating that puts its age between 4 and 5 billion years?"

Probable answer - God created the heavens and the earth with age built into them. He did the same with Adam, and Eve - he created them as adult people.

-- D. Howard Rusling (dale @dct-inc.com), May 08, 2001.


Oh yeah, God created evidence of age for us to find to deceive us. Doesn't that mean God is tempting us? Doesn't that make God=Devil?

-- (confused@creationists...), May 08, 2001.

The half life of carbon14 is only 5 or 6 thousand years. Different elements that decay much more slowly are used for dating the Earth. Maybe someone else has the details at hand.

Question: does the fraction of fossils that are hoaxes differ much from the fraction of famous paintings that are forgeries?

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), May 08, 2001.


Exactly what DNA evidence are you citing?

I have lost the original source. This should help though.

DNA Shows Neandertals Were Not Our Ancestors

-- Atheist Corner (Truth or@Consequences.con), May 08, 2001.


dandelion:

That depends on what you would consider "famous". But the number of forgeries purported to be by famous *painters* is very large. For every real van Gogh, there are probably a dozen forgeries of his actual works or paintings done in his style and claimed to be his. And along these lines, Michael Jordon could have spent his entire career changing jerseys as fast as he could while his teammates actually played the game, and *still* not have worn as many different jerseys as have been sold as "actual Michael Jordon game-worn jerseys". And in the autograph business the rule of thumb is, if you didn't personally watch it get signed, the autograph is a fake. Period.

Conversely, of the billions of fossils discovered so far, you can count the hoaxes on one hand.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 08, 2001.



DNA Shows Neandertals Were Not Our Ancestors

Saber tooth tigers were not our ancestors, does this prove Creationism?

Neanderthals were not our ancestors, so far as they can tell, but Cro Magnons were. And so were humans in Africa 200,000 years ago (this also from study of mitochondrial DNA).

Beyond this, I am not confident to make statements. It is a rather complex field to say the least!

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), May 08, 2001.


Debbie:

Not quite. Cro Magnons were US, as far as we can tell. Not our ancestors except in the sense that your grandparents are your ancestors. There is currently a very high likelihood that Cro Magnon man was in fact homo sapiens sapiens as we know us today.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 08, 2001.


You must have more than 5 fingers on your hand Flint.

-- Love that Norm! (L@t.n!), May 08, 2001.

Atheist Corner:

It never ceases to amaze me. You quote news releases and not the actual scientific literature. You aren't interested in the truth but just interested in promoting some agenda. As Flint has said, you want to justify those stories that you inherited from your ancestors.

When you want to discuss the scientific literature, get back to me. I leave for Europe soon and will be unavailable. You can spar with Flint in the meantime. *<)))

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), May 08, 2001.


from the link-

"The baby’s mitochondrial DNA differed from that of the other Neanderthal in 3.5 percent of the locations tested, while the divergence of the Neanderthal DNA from humans was twice as great: 7 percent. Scientists consider that to be a substantial gap."

Anybody know what the variance is between humans and chimpanzees? Seems I remember that it's less than 10%.

-- Sam (wtrmkr52@aol.com), May 08, 2001.


That the fact of evolution so bothers creationists is really sad. They're not really giving the Creator enough credit. It isn't really a problem that we discover evolution but that some can't make it fit into the bigger picture.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), May 09, 2001.

Karlos, you sound just like the "GI's" of y2k fame...acting like YOU have the answer and everyone who thinks different from you is wrong...a "DGI" (or worse, a DWGI)

Er.... Just how did y2k turn out again? ......uh.....*WHO* were the true DGI's???

Think about it.

-- (micro@evolution.ist), May 09, 2001.


That the fact of evolution so bothers creationists is really sad. They're not really giving the Creator enough credit. It isn't really a problem that we discover evolution but that some can't make it fit into the bigger picture.

you sound just like the "GI's" of y2k fame...acting like YOU have the answer and everyone who thinks different from you is wrong...a "DGI" (or worse, a DWGI)

On the contrary, Carlos' is a thoughtful comment. Buddy said something similar elsewhere. I don't have to agree with it to see that this way of thinking about Creation has a lot more staying power (flexibility) than limiting oneself to a certain fixed, literal version of the Creation gotten from a book written by anonymous authors 2000 years ago. That is a mighty big battle to fight, since you've defined your battleground as 'your' facts vs. the body of science to date.

This way, you just define the Creator as the prime mover behind "it all." As our view of the "it all" changes with open-ended scientific observation, no problem, no contradiction. You just keep your vision fixed on the un-changing Creator behind "it all." Belief in a Creator is an article of faith (outside science) so there is no concluding yay or nay about it.

(If I misconstrued anyone they will have to clue me in.)

(That "random" stuff seems like a Belief to me TOO but that's for later - if ever.)

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), May 09, 2001.


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