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Could it be that Natural selection is so entrenched that they just don't want to look at other possibilities?

I'm assuming you meant evolution, not natural selection because natural selection has been proven and definately occurs in nature

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How is it that two seperate and yet dependent mutations could occur in a creature one at a time? Natural selection would render the intermediate stage dead.

Well, yes, most mutations of that scale would be fatal but whose to say that multiple mutations could not affect the creature's genotype? Yes it seems like a long shot but there has been (according to modern views on the age of the Earth) ample time for experimentation to occur. And as far as your "mousetrap argument" goes maybe the first part evolved and had no effect on the organism survival. This wouldn't be selection for OR against and the organism would be able to reproduce like its brethren. Say the organisms with this neutral mutation became more common and down the road another mutation occurred which suddenly made this creature more able to survive than a creature without the first mutation. This seems like such speculation but we really can't be sure. Plenty of traits could have come about due to single, non-linked mutations so your example is a much rarer circumstance than what is common in evolution. Sperm-like flagellum have been around since early life, perhaps they were modifications on the cilia concept and the gearbox started off insignificant and slowly developed in size and complexity over time (not instantaneuous formation with the flagellum).

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ID does not deny evolution in any way, they only deny random mutation. Neither camp can truely prove if the mutations are random or not and considering the evidence will never be there for either then why is ID not just as plausible?

well, I believe in a form of ID, mainly that He created the Big Bang and He created the seeds of life on early Earth. BUT I do not believe that he came back and created life over and over during Earth's history. The Bible says that he created once in the beginning and no more, so how can you justify, Bible or science, that he created a particular thing 340, 767 years ago? I think your "created evolution" theory has the most evidencen because it uses scientific evidence (Big Bang, old Earth, evolution) and also makes up for what science cannot explain (life's first appearance on a hostile Earth and the Big Bang coming from nothing).

Hahahaha: The reason it's called junk science is not because there is no provable model behind it, but that there is no observable characteristics that can attributed to a single factor. String theory has available mathematics that map out the basics, however ID requires first that you accept that there is a God, and second that God is behind these random mutations.

I'm not saying there isn't a God, but that the ID theory is entirely unprovable because there is no way to prove or disprove the existence of God within the Scientific Method.

BTW: If you want to talk about multiple random mutations within a single being, look at your fingerprints, palm prints, foot prints and DNA organisation. They differ from person to person, and if you never had more than one mutation per person, you'd see at the very most 1 variation of each fingerprint per person. You'd also have to explain the Chimeran DNA organisation (where a person can have as many as 3 distinct DNA organisations). Random mutations are not simply the work of God, but the product of environment and history. They're corruptions and amalgamations of different Gene pairs. Sometimes you get people that are absurdly tall, sometimes you get Tae-Sachs disease, but you never get the prototypical human. Mutations just happen, chalking it up to God is simplifying the case without really explaining it.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

I am not here to support ID, I am just suggesting it is plausible.

I guess then that any science which allows for the metaphysical is "junk" science. Enough said there, you can't win because you've already lost. I hate that type of competition.

I also believe in the long lost (it seems) ancient idea (at least 1700 years old) of created evolution. I don't think that contradict ID at all either. Yes, one act of creation but within that act could lie the blueprint for all things to come. We refer to DNA as an example. The seed of a plant is a simple embryo but within it is all the information needed to build the plant. No need for further intervention.

Perhaps the Earth is a biological machine itself, designed to "evolve" things as we see them.. Maybe there are a lot of possiblities.

Spitfire, I meant natural selection, but I meant it in the context of major driving force for evolution. I realise that natural selection happens, and it can explain plenty of extinctions etc, but it cannot explain (via random mutation) the evolution of complex mutations. IE: In my mind, it's hard to come up with a positive result buy subtracting elements. It appears to me that natural selection favours the strong by killing the weak. It does not explain the strong's advantage in the first place. I guess my argument is really with random mutation and not natural selection at all. I just have a hard time believing that a room full of monkeys with typewriters actually would write Romeo and Juliet.

PAX

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IE: In my mind, it's hard to come up with a positive result buy subtracting elements. It appears to me that natural selection favours the strong by killing the weak. It does not explain the strong's advantage in the first place. I guess my argument is really with random mutation and not natural selection at all.

I guess by "strong" you mean the competitively strong, as in Darwin's survival of the fittest. It doesn't really mean that the fittest will directly kill the less fit, but more that it will displace or dominate the less fit. And this idea is dependent of the environment. All it takes is an environmental change that is more favorable to the "less fit", and suddenly it becomes the "strong". The strong's advantage has less to do with its genotype, since the creature obviously cannot modify its genes during its lifetime, but more on the stability of its environment. That is why catacylismic events, like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, were able to wipe our so many species. So strong and weak are relative terms.

Hahahahha: Actually given an infinite amount of time a room full of monkeys would eventually write Romeo and Juliet. Also, if you could point me to a scientific argument used in ID that isn't logically flawed or without credible research and experimentation to back it up I would be very surprised.

...Still waiting for an explanation of why the Earth is only 10,000 years old and in turn why the Fossil record, carbon-dating, and astronomical data found and proven by scientists the world over are wrong.

Like I said, I'm not here to defend ID.

Regarding monkeys and typewriters, we don't have an infinite amount of time, we have but a few billion years. Sounds like a long time, but not long enough for Curious George to pull off Hamlet. Random character generation might actually come up with a few sentences of intel;ligible language but not a specified version. IE: the monkeys might write something, but they will not come up with a specific piece.

As far as ID goes, I find their idea of irreducable complexity quite interesting. Given that movement in ID really only happened with any vigor in the 90s, how about giving them the 100 years or so Darwin has had before declaring that they have no experimental data. Afterall the ability to re-produce a species in a lab environment took at least a few decades for Dawinists to pull off.

The other thing is that they have a great challenge that nobody has ever succeeded at, they have to somehow prove a metaphysical force exists. IE: they have to actually find the blueprint, but they have no access to the archives.

If you look at a building you can see that it was designed and built by people, but without access to the actual blueprints and cantracts, you'll have a hard time proving it.

I just find it an interesting concept, and it happens to agree with St. Athanasius' idea of "created evolution"

PAX

Short response I found to the idea of irreducable complexity:

Intelligent Designers often want to claim that there are organs such as the eye that would not give an organism an evolutionary advantage if the eye was underdeveloped. Here is Richard Dawkins response:

"Half an eye, the argument runs, is no better than no eye at all. You can't fly with half a wing; you can't hear with half an ear. Therefore there can't have been a series of step-by-step intermediates leading up to a modern eye, wing, or ear.

This type of argument is so naive that one can only wonder at the subconscious motives for wanting to believe it. It is obviously not true that half an eye is useless. Cataract sufferers who have had their lenses surgically removed cannot see very well without glasses, but they are still much better off than people with no eyes at all. Without a lens you can't focus a detailed image, but you can avoid bumping into obstacles and you could detect the looming shadow of a predator.

As for the argument that you can't fly with only half a wing, it is disproved by large numbers of very successful gliding animals, including mammals of many different kinds, lizards, frogs, snakes, and squids. Many different kinds of tree-dwelling animals have flaps of skin between their joints that really are fractional wings. If you fall out of a tree, any skin flap or flattening of the body that increases your surface area can save your life. And, however small or large your flaps may be, there must always be a critical height such that, if you fall from a tree of that height, your life would have been saved by just a little bit more surface area. Then, when your descendants have evolved that extra surface area, their lives would be saved by just a bit more still if they fell from trees of a slightly greater height. And so on by insensibly graded steps until, hundreds of generations later, we arrive at full wings.

Eyes and wings cannot spring into existence in a single step. That would be like having the almost infinite luck to hit upon the combination number that opens a large bank vault. But if you spun the dials of the lock at random, and every time you got a little bit closer to the lucky number the vault door creaked open another chink, you would soon have the door open! Essentially, that is the secret of how evolution by natural selection achieves what once seemed impossible. Things that cannot plausibly be derived from very different predecessors can plausibly be derived from only slightly different predecessors. Provided only that there is a sufficiently long series of such slightly different predecessors, you can derive anything from anything else.

Evolution, then, is theoretically capable of doing the job that, once upon a time, seemed to be the prerogative of God. But is there any evidence that evolution actually has happened? The answer is yes; the evidence is overwhelming. Millions of fossils are found in exactly the places and at exactly the depths that we should expect if evolution had happened. Not a single fossil has ever been found in any place where the evolution theory would not have expected it, although this could very easily have happened: a fossil mammal in rocks so old that fishes have not yet arrived, for instance, would be enough to disprove the evolution theory.

The patterns of distribution of living animals and plants on the continents and islands of the world is exactly what would be expected if they had evolved from common ancestors by slow, gradual degrees. The patterns of resemblance among animals and plants is exactly what we should expect if some were close cousins, and others more distant cousins to each other. The fact that the genetic code is the same in all living creatures overwhelmingly suggests that all are descended from one single ancestor. The evidence for evolution is so compelling that the only way to save the creation theory is to assume that God deliberately planted enormous quantities of evidence to make it look as if evolution had happened. In other words, the fossils, the geographical distribution of animals, and so on, are all one gigantic confidence trick. Does anybody want to worship a God capable of such trickery? It is surely far more reverent, as well as more scientifically sensible, to take the evidence at face value. All living creatures are cousins of one another, descended from one remote ancestor that lived more than 3,000 million years ago.

Indeed, there are creatures with "half-eyes" and "half-wings"... how do IDers explain creatures living in the abyss with tiny, skin-covered eyes or flightless birds having vestigial wings. If they were created as such why didn't God just omit the wings or eyes altogether? For all the wonder and uniqueness of Earth's life, there are alot of bad "designs" and "works in progress". Even the human design is far from ideal. If so, why didn't God in his all-knowing nature, design a perfect human?

with the monkies writing Romeo and Juliet, they would not have to start from scratch each time. If they managed to type a few words or even just a word, that phrase would be put aside. They then would come up with another word or phrase. Or course there would be more errors than successes but over time, the words would pile up until they could be re-arranged to make the book. It is a cumulative process, evolution, not everything at once.

Just a warning - this is kinda long so go get another soda or whatever before trying to read this.

Ryan Fisk wrote:Short response I found to the idea of irreducable complexity:

Intelligent Designers often want to claim that there are organs such as the eye that would not give an organism an evolutionary advantage if the eye was underdeveloped. Here is Richard Dawkins response:

"Half an eye, the argument runs, is no better than no eye at all. You can't fly with half a wing; you can't hear with half an ear. Therefore there can't have been a series of step-by-step intermediates leading up to a modern eye, wing, or ear.

This type of argument is so naive that one can only wonder at the subconscious motives for wanting to believe it. It is obviously not true that half an eye is useless. Cataract sufferers who have had their lenses surgically removed cannot see very well without glasses, but they are still much better off than people with no eyes at all. Without a lens you can't focus a detailed image, but you can avoid bumping into obstacles and you could detect the looming shadow of a predator.

As for the argument that you can't fly with only half a wing, it is disproved by large numbers of very successful gliding animals, including mammals of many different kinds, lizards, frogs, snakes, and squids. Many different kinds of tree-dwelling animals have flaps of skin between their joints that really are fractional wings. If you fall out of a tree, any skin flap or flattening of the body that increases your surface area can save your life. And, however small or large your flaps may be, there must always be a critical height such that, if you fall from a tree of that height, your life would have been saved by just a little bit more surface area. Then, when your descendants have evolved that extra surface area, their lives would be saved by just a bit more still if they fell from trees of a slightly greater height. And so on by insensibly graded steps until, hundreds of generations later, we arrive at full wings.

Eyes and wings cannot spring into existence in a single step. That would be like having the almost infinite luck to hit upon the combination number that opens a large bank vault. But if you spun the dials of the lock at random, and every time you got a little bit closer to the lucky number the vault door creaked open another chink, you would soon have the door open! Essentially, that is the secret of how evolution by natural selection achieves what once seemed impossible. Things that cannot plausibly be derived from very different predecessors can plausibly be derived from only slightly different predecessors. Provided only that there is a sufficiently long series of such slightly different predecessors, you can derive anything from anything else.

Evolution, then, is theoretically capable of doing the job that, once upon a time, seemed to be the prerogative of God. But is there any evidence that evolution actually has happened? The answer is yes; the evidence is overwhelming. Millions of fossils are found in exactly the places and at exactly the depths that we should expect if evolution had happened. Not a single fossil has ever been found in any place where the evolution theory would not have expected it, although this could very easily have happened: a fossil mammal in rocks so old that fishes have not yet arrived, for instance, would be enough to disprove the evolution theory.

The patterns of distribution of living animals and plants on the continents and islands of the world is exactly what would be expected if they had evolved from common ancestors by slow, gradual degrees. The patterns of resemblance among animals and plants is exactly what we should expect if some were close cousins, and others more distant cousins to each other. The fact that the genetic code is the same in all living creatures overwhelmingly suggests that all are descended from one single ancestor. The evidence for evolution is so compelling that the only way to save the creation theory is to assume that God deliberately planted enormous quantities of evidence to make it look as if evolution had happened. In other words, the fossils, the geographical distribution of animals, and so on, are all one gigantic confidence trick. Does anybody want to worship a God capable of such trickery? It is surely far more reverent, as well as more scientifically sensible, to take the evidence at face value. All living creatures are cousins of one another, descended from one remote ancestor that lived more than 3,000 million years ago.

I'm sorry but that is an idiot argument - the author(I understand it isn't you) obviously has no screaming idea how Evolution works or how living biology works. Evolutions doesn't give you "half an eye," 1/10th of an eye or any such nonsense. Evolution gives you "components" of an eye. Some components are more critical than others. Without all the critical components you have nothing. People with cataracts have all their eye components but have a clouded lens. Seriously they need to do some medical research and educated themselves on how an eye is composed, how an eye works, on how that get transmitted to your brain, how your brain interprets that data, and how that data is used in decision making.

Earlier Hahahaha wrote "Please people, if you are going to say you believe in the Bible, please read it." Well someone needs to write - "Please people if you are gonna argue science you need to understand science." If I want to argue about an eye - it will be in detail and will be a very long read - so I'll let you all do your own medical research if you really care how an eye works. It is an amazing and complex machine(esp when you include the ability of your brain to process it). But consider this - more of your brain is DEDICATED to processing optical input that for anything else. Your eyesight requires serious brainpower and that ability of your brain to process it - IS NOT A SIMPLE EVOLUTIONARY JUMP by any means. And no its not exactly "plug and play" like we're used to with our computers. If you wired in a infrared sensor into your brain - it would not know how to handle that and really wouldn't do anything with it - so you won't suddenly be able to see the infrared wavelength.

I'm gonna writing about eyes here before I get tempted to write a gigantic article on it. This author also declares(incorrectly) that "Eyes and wings cannot spring into existence in a single step." - yes they can - Although that is VERY VERY VERY unlikely (that is would happen randomly) it is 100% mathematically possible. That is the very idea behind the macro-evolutionary idea that most scientist support(although I'm less convinced that this is feasible). Again - the author has no screaming idea how evolution works and as such should not be arguing on its behalf.

Ryan Fisk wrote:Hahahahha: Actually given an infinite amount of time a room full of monkeys would eventually write Romeo and Juliet. Also, if you could point me to a scientific argument used in ID that isn't logically flawed or without credible research and experimentation to back it up I would be very surprised.

First off - a room fun of monkey may or may not write Romeo and Juliet. In all mathematical PROBABILITY - they eventually should but that doesn't mean that IN REALITY they ever would. In mathematical probability if I played enough LOTTO then I'd win the jackpot - but it reality it is also mathematically possible that I'd never win even if I bought billions of tickets a day every day of my life. That is how things work. The chance for rain at location "X" may be 10% for tomorrow - but in reality that means nothing since either -
A. It will rain
or
B. It will not rain.

To put it more simply - suppose my odds of winning the lotto are 1/1,000,000,000(one out of one billion). Now suppose I play 999,999,999 times. but I loose each time. What are my odds of winning next time? If you said anything besides 1/1,000,000,000 - then you are wrong. My odds are still 1/1,000,000,000. That is math for you. That is why those monkeys may never write so much as "Cat in the Hat" no matter how long they're in there, or they might write "Hamlet" in a matter of minutes. More likely though - is that they would simply defecate on the typewriters before throwing them at each other.

Now for Mr "Also, if you could point me to a scientific argument used in ID that isn't logically flawed or without credible research and experimentation to back it up I would be very surprised" - PROVE TO ME THAT ID IS FLAWED, then I'll need to prove that it isn't - except that I can't un-prove something if you manage to prove it. If you manage I would be REALLY SURPRISED - since no one has been able to do such to date. FYI - Arguments supporting/opposing something do not equal proof.

GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:Hahahaha: Creationism and ID are pretty much written off as junk science by most of the scientific community, as interesting but not credible.

So you're telling me that most of the scientific community has the OPINION that ID is junk science? So what? The scientific community used to believe in plenty of things that where later proven false - by scientists no less - that is the nature of the business. Too many people treat the common scientist's consensus and/or theories like they are... well like they are the BIBLE

Aside from that - what are they really saying? Science + faith = ID. Since I doubt those scientist are calling the science aspect "junk" - then what other aspect could they be referring too? Gee I wonder... Just another case of angry atheists being overly arrogant.

GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:I know of a bunch of engineers and science types that have a strong belief in God, but don't let it infiltrate into their work. Observation is observation.

Good for them - I do 100% agree with that. You shouldn't be looking for the answers you want. You shouldn't let your beliefs get in the way of your reseach or sweeten/sour your results. But... this goes for atheists as well as the faithful. How many atheist scientist are out there trying to discount any religion as we speak? You can't tell me that all thier work is unbiased. Now GAM you know this from experience (from the .ORG alone) - what do heavily biased people do when they encounter something contrary to what they want to believe? Exactly!! Biased scientist only make for junk science.

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seperate thought

Now evolution(esp micro-evolution) has been demonstrated in insects - this is true. But its much easier for insects to do this - since they don't need to sexually reproduce(they can sexually reproduce but they can also self furtilize). Keep reading and during my example below it will become clear why I say that.

One thing that people who oppose the idea of any intelligence guiding evolution need to address - is evolutions that don't actually provide an advantage - even a small advantage - to survival - and how these evolutions can become dominant over a species in a given area. I could use plenty of examples from the general animal kingdom but I'll use a few human examples instead.

Human hearing - the part of your brain that processes auditory input is WAY WAY over-developed. It is ridiculously more powerful than is necessary for your hearing. Think of all the things it can do such as musical pattern recognition, even to memorize/recognize all the songs you ever hear(lyrics, what the singers voice sound's like, all musical tones, some parts being so much louder than other parts, and all - you can perfectly memorize it). It really has more power than is necessary to do even all those things that you take for granted. WHY? HOW? There is no advantage, not even a slight advantage and yet we evolved such a thing... Deaf people aside - this is something universal to all humans(which means it must have been present in early forms of humans - if not in human ancestors). So why/how did we get this gift? Certainly it is nice and enjoyable, but enjoyment is not a prerequisite for survival.

Now consider Melatonin. Of course early man came from Africa and had a high amount in their skin which is an evolution to protect from ultraviolet radiation. But then later Europeans evolved to have less of it in their skin - since there is less UV radiation in Europe than in Africa is it is less necessary and then the Europeans got more Vitamin D as a benefit. Yes that is a small advantage... but is it enough of an advantage that the ones who had it flourished and out-breed the ones who do not? So the ones who didn't develop this stopped breeding altogether? Of course you could say they breed together (as they no doubt would) and so it spread like that.

But look what happens when a modern black and white person breed - you have someone who is relatively "in between" in terms of skin pigment. And if their child breeds with another white person you end up with someone lighter skinned, but vice vera if they breed with a black person instead, the offspring will be darker. So given that this evolution happened to one individual(that is how random evolution works after all), and given that they would of course have to breed with people who have not evolved in such a way, this particular evolution would be diluted with each new generation into obscurity. So... you have a problem that the "evolved" person is living in a area already populated with people without said evolution - so really you need the entire population to mutate in this same way at the same time or this evolution isn't getting off the ground - and that is a problem. Even worse by the fact that their skin really doesn't provide any greater means of survival nor any superiority. Ask a black person living in Europe today how much of an evolutionary disadvantage he/she is at living in Europe - and you're getting slapped/punched.

You have the same issue with different races(or even nationalities) having different facial features etc. No advantage or superiority there either - and yet those features are dominant in different regions.

You know I make that same point to my fellow Christians who try to discount evolution - so if we all came from Adam and Eve, yet have not evolved, why do we look so different? I haven't heard an answer to that yet.

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another seperate thought

One potential ID line of thought(my line of thought) might say that God created the universe and has guided some evolutions - but not all. Namely that God evolved certain things in certain organisms but also allows random mutations to occur on their own. Its in the design to do so. Call that "gently guided evolution" if you will. Not all ID thought is identical. I mean really you can call anyone who doesn't renounce science as "silly hoo-ha" but still believe in a God(or other source of intentional creation) as ID people. Darwin himself falls into this category. And this line of thinking can explain differences in races and even nationalities - maybe God likes variety



I've never heard of this "part throttle" before. Does it just bolt on?

I just realized that was Richard Dawkins work up there I still stand by my statement - "the author(I understand it isn't you) obviously has no screaming idea how Evolution works or how living biology works" - judging by the illogic of that peice that was posted(not to mention the things that are just plain factually incorrect) - He's still an idiot no matter how well known he is. Living proof that evolution is dead in humans.




I've never heard of this "part throttle" before. Does it just bolt on?

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GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:

Hahahaha: Creationism and ID are pretty much written off as junk science by most of the scientific community, as interesting but not credible.

So you're telling me that most of the scientific community has the OPINION that ID is junk science? So what? The scientific community used to believe in plenty of things that where later proven false - by scientists no less - that is the nature of the business. Too many people treat the common scientist's consensus and/or theories like they are... well like they are the BIBLE

No, and I've stated it before. Most (even the ones that think that there might be something behind ID) understand that the theory as it stands currently cannot be proved or disproved conclusively because you need to conclusively prove or disprove the existence of God.

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Aside from that - what are they really saying? Science + faith = ID. Since I doubt those scientist are calling the science aspect "junk" - then what other aspect could they be referring too? Gee I wonder... Just another case of angry atheists being overly arrogant.

No, not entirely, and I pointed at it before. It's more or less:

(Science + Faith) - (Objecitivty + Scientific Method) = ID.

You can't create a concrete theory which you have no avenue to prove that theory through testing and observation. ID is at best an idea that some people have allowed to cloud the core of their understanding of science and the scientific method. This is a broad and unprovable idea (such as science stands currently), and science is by it's very nature conservative. When you come to a conclusion, you must have overwhelming proof to back up your findings so it survives scrutiny and re-testing. As such, most scientific findings are very VERY narrow of scope. ID basically starts with a broad based conclusion, and nevermind the scientific method to arrive at the hypothesis. There is not a scientist worth their credentials in the world today that can conclusively prove or disprove the existence of God. Without that element (ie a LAW in science), the rest of the ID equation falls apart because you are dealing with several unknowns as opposed to only one.

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GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:

I know of a bunch of engineers and science types that have a strong belief in God, but don't let it infiltrate into their work. Observation is observation.

Good for them - I do 100% agree with that. You shouldn't be looking for the answers you want. You shouldn't let your beliefs get in the way of your reseach or sweeten/sour your results. But... this goes for atheists as well as the faithful. How many atheist scientist are out there trying to discount any religion as we speak? You can't tell me that all thier work is unbiased. Now GAM you know this from experience (from the .ORG alone) - what do heavily biased people do when they encounter something contrary to what they want to believe? Exactly!! Biased scientist only make for junk science.

The thing that you're going to find is that any scientist that wants to be worth a damn is going to confine their hypotheses, and conclusions very narrowly. I'm not going to say that there isn't a couple that want to kill Santa Claus as it were, but their number is usually a lot quieter and fewer than the ID sycophants.

I have yet to see an aetheist's or ID's agenda stand up to scrutiny if their findings cannot be proven or explained. Either way, the whole idea of science is to base a claim on observation, test that claim using a method, and prepare a conclusion which basically either confirms or denies the original claim. If that original claim can't be proven through an alternate method, the original claim is null.

I actually linked a breakdown of the scientific method in an earlier post, I'll re-link it here...

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

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I just realized that was Richard Dawkins work up there I still stand by my statement - "the author(I understand it isn't you) obviously has no screaming idea how Evolution works or how living biology works" - judging by the illogic of that peice that was posted(not to mention the things that are just plain factually incorrect) - He's still an idiot no matter how well known he is. Living proof that evolution is dead in humans.

"Richard Dawkins studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He gained a second class BA degree in zoology in 1962, followed by an MA and DPhil degree in 1966. Between 1967 and 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1970 he was appointed a lecturer and then in 1990 a reader in zoology at the University of Oxford, before becoming the University's first Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science in 1995."

Of course I'm sure you have much better understanding of evolution than he does. Anyway his argument although very brief and lacking some important details does a good job at explaining the general idea that the small genetic mutations that are needed to create a complex structure such as an eye or wing are not a hindrance that would make this process impossible as irreducable complexity argues.

Well, I'm off to class and will argue the rest of my points when I get back.

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Human hearing - the part of your brain that processes auditory input is WAY WAY over-developed. It is ridiculously more powerful than is necessary for your hearing. Think of all the things it can do such as musical pattern recognition, even to memorize/recognize all the songs you ever hear(lyrics, what the singers voice sound's like, all musical tones, some parts being so much louder than other parts, and all - you can perfectly memorize it). It really has more power than is necessary to do even all those things that you take for granted. WHY? HOW? There is no advantage, not even a slight advantage and yet we evolved such a thing... Deaf people aside - this is something universal to all humans(which means it must have been present in early forms of humans - if not in human ancestors). So why/how did we get this gift? Certainly it is nice and enjoyable, but enjoyment is not a prerequisite for survival.

Your examples of "how overdeveloped" our hearing is are based on things that we do NOW. The advantage was back in our nomadic days. As you know, humans have been around for millions of years. They needed every ounce of hearing when they had to hunt for a living, listening for food or communicating over large distances. They also had to be able to hear danger. Hearing improved with our species to pick up intricacies in speech (which requires hearing detail). The examples you state are simply rewards for our minds, you might say, for that evolution. Also, plenty of creatures in this world hear FAR better than we do, so I'd say we have underdeveloped hearing.

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Now consider Melatonin. Of course early man came from Africa and had a high amount in their skin which is an evolution to protect from ultraviolet radiation. But then later Europeans evolved to have less of it in their skin - since there is less UV radiation in Europe than in Africa is it is less necessary and then the Europeans got more Vitamin D as a benefit. Yes that is a small advantage... but is it enough of an advantage that the ones who had it flourished and out-breed the ones who do not? So the ones who didn't develop this stopped breeding altogether? Of course you could say they breed together (as they no doubt would) and so it spread like that.

I don't get your question... both sides were able to reproduce... humans first evolved in Africa and developed dark skin to protect them from UV rays, yes. When humans left Africa, skin tone lacking as much melanin was favored as long as it gave an additional benefit. Living in more temperate, less sun-extreme regions, mutations occurred which lightened skin tone and also gave other benefits (Vit D perhaps). These original population interbred with "blacks" and through genetics, more "whiter" babies appeared. These reproduced and over generations, the number of "whites" increased and blacks decreased. They didn't just stop "breeding", natural selection acted on them.
Remember, there wasn't segregation back then, but most likely the whites had superior hair cover or could hide better from prey. They dominated certain regions, while darker skinned peoples lived i nthe tropics. Look at the Indians, Native Americans, Aborigines, Africans, and most tropical people. They are dark skinned. Look at Arctic and temperate peoples. They are light-skinned. Mixing did not happen till recently historically. It may have been racism or just the will of the person in power of that civilization or tribe??

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But look what happens when a modern black and white person breed - you have someone who is relatively "in between" in terms of skin pigment. And if their child breeds with another white person you end up with someone lighter skinned, but vice vera if they breed with a black person instead, the offspring will be darker. So given that this evolution happened to one individual(that is how random evolution works after all), and given that they would of course have to breed with people who have not evolved in such a way, this particular evolution would be diluted with each new generation into obscurity. So... you have a problem that the "evolved" person is living in a area already populated with people without said evolution - so really you need the entire population to mutate in this same way at the same time or this evolution isn't getting off the ground - and that is a problem. Even worse by the fact that their skin really doesn't provide any greater means of survival nor any superiority. Ask a black person living in Europe today how much of an evolutionary disadvantage he/she is at living in Europe - and you're getting slapped/punched.

The same way you get a pink flower sometimes when you breed a white and red flower. It is all in the genes.... sometimes you get clear dominance and recessiveness, sometimes you get co-dominance.
Your human example once again is modern-day biased. Back when we were merely another animal species the skin color had a big impact on survival. And the trait did not suddenly appear in Europe as a bunch of white people. It gradually occurred over time fro ma few individuals. They interbred with blacks and whites alike and any "intermediates" simply helped the process along. As the population "lightened", natural selection acted on the population, and evolution occurred. Plus, animals can't just "mutate" to keep up, the gene can only be passed on through reproduction (genetic recombination).

Well SpitFire seemed to do a goo job picking apart several of Bastardking's arguments so I'll just get to the other things not yet responded to.

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So you're telling me that most of the scientific community has the OPINION that ID is junk science? So what? The scientific community used to believe in plenty of things that where later proven false - by scientists no less - that is the nature of the business.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, since scientists are constantly trying to researching and doing experiments to prove their theories sometimes they find new information that changes old theories, that must mean that the scientific communities OPINION has no weight.

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First off - a room fun of monkey may or may not write Romeo and Juliet. In all mathematical PROBABILITY - they eventually should but that doesn't mean that IN REALITY they ever would.

I was just arguing that given the theoretical group of monkeys in a room for an infinite amount of time that they would end up producing a infinite amount of random characters which would contain somewhere in it every work of literature ever written. In no way is this a possibility in reality, its really a stupid argument anyway I just thought I'd say that i is possible given infinite time, oh and magical immortal monkeys of course with typewriters that never run out of ink or break, and an endless supply of paper.

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Now for Mr "Also, if you could point me to a scientific argument used in ID that isn't logically flawed or without credible research and experimentation to back it up I would be very surprised" - PROVE TO ME THAT ID IS FLAWED, then I'll need to prove that it isn't - except that I can't un-prove something if you manage to prove it. If you manage I would be REALLY SURPRISED - since no one has been able to do such to date. FYI - Arguments supporting/opposing something do not equal proof.

Well, I have to say when I asked for any part of ID that you believe isn't flawed I wasn't expecting the response of no why don't you prove that ID has flaws. You got me there its hard to prove that ID is flawed as its hard to prove the idea that a magical entity that is all-powerful as well as outside of time and the laws of the natural world which we as humans use to describe the world around us decided to make all life as we know it either all at once or through guiding evolution is wrong. I was asking for one of the "scientific arguments" that ID supporters use to try and disprove evolution and thereby somehow make the idea that God designed life idea more plausible.

SPITfire: I'm not attacking your ideas, I'm articulating:

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I don't get your question... both sides were able to reproduce... humans first evolved in Africa and developed dark skin to protect them from UV rays, yes. When humans left Africa, skin tone lacking as much melanin was favored as long as it gave an additional benefit. Living in more temperate, less sun-extreme regions, mutations occurred which lightened skin tone and also gave other benefits (Vit D perhaps). These original population interbred with "blacks" and through genetics, more "whiter" babies appeared. These reproduced and over generations, the number of "whites" increased and blacks decreased. They didn't just stop "breeding", natural selection acted on them.

The idea is that once Homo-Sapien and Homo-Erectus were differentiated, the skin of homo-sapien was not naturally inclined to high melanin levels. Humans that lived in sub-Saharan Africa adapted to their environs differently than did European and Asian humans. As such, you see lighter skin and stockier builds (on the whole) for Caucazoids, Negroids are generally taller and thinner, their skin has a much higher Melanin content, as well, their vascular organization is much more suited for warmer climates as well as their general build is also usually slighter because of the lower sun profile they would present, and Asians have other mutations that alter their bodies for the environment such as their eyes (Mongolian heiritage has more fat around the lid allowing for heat retention in the eye, equatorial asians have less fat and higher vascular content in their eyes to aid in heat dissipation) and body differences.

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Remember, there wasn't segregation back then, but most likely the whites had superior hair cover or could hide better from prey. They dominated certain regions, while darker skinned peoples lived i nthe tropics. Look at the Indians, Native Americans, Aborigines, Africans, and most tropical people. They are dark skinned. Look at Arctic and temperate peoples. They are light-skinned. Mixing did not happen till recently historically. It may have been racism or just the will of the person in power of that civilization or tribe??

The general consensus is that humans developed with more or less similar traits that differentiated over generations during exposure to their climates... basically, Whites/Blacks/Mid-easterners/Hindustanis/Asians... all had genesis in a similar mammalian type, and from there ended up migrating elsewhere and gaining traits that would allow them to best deal with their environment.

Most of this idea went to hell when people started altering their environment to suit them... but that's another story.

Also, one other thing: North American/South American Indians are descended from Mongol Asian tribes... There was a land-bridge across the Bering Strait up until about 10-15,000 years ago (global warming melted the ice-bridge, can you dig it?), and since there was fertile Seal and Caribou hunting grounds, more and more people migrated... some went far south and adapted to their surroundings (Pygmy), some stuck around in the arctic (Inuit), and some went somewhere in the middle. All are well adapted to live a subsistent lifestyle in their areas, but many could not cope with European trade and other factors... too much change too fast.




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

GAM: thanks for the additonal comments. Good points on the races and their adaptions to diff. areas.

I was forcusing on Homo sapiens as we can only speculate if the other hominids had distinct races like we do. I'd assume races would be harder to see since our ancestors had hair to make up for skin tone. I'd like to speculate that the evolution of skin tone was directly related to our nakedness and our need to cope with sun. I'd wish that white people could have built up a better defense against skin cancer but I guess we can't rush evolution? Plus we are a sun-loving species for the most part nowadays.

The funniest thing I noticed about the caribbean: you could tell who the tourists were (if they were white) because they had the tans and sunburns... most of the rest of the caucasians had little if any tan because they kept out of the sun.




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

Has anyone here ever heard of a guy named Joe White, or heard of a camp called Kanakuk. Joe White is a great guy. He as talked to scientists who were atheists and converted them. he failed to convert me because my parents are butt holes. But i did learn a thing or two from him. First off, the tests that "prove" the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Carbon dating testing is 100% wrong. one example, Joe White and a scientist took a bone fragement from a 2.5 billion year old teenager. My bad, they took the bone fragement from a 17 year old, who unfortunatly died in a car crash. they carbon dated the bone fragement and found that the bone wasn't 17 years old, but actually 2.5 billion years old. Does anybody see something wrong with that.

Second, if anyone has read the bible, they would know about the worldwide flood, that happened when Earth was only a few dozen years old.. Correct. Well there is a tribe of natives somewhere by turkey. No missioneries have ever been there, but these natives have records on caves, of a massive flood lasting approx. 38 days. They never heard of the Bible, but they believe that the flood happened approx. 9500 years ago.

And this proves that the Dinosaurs didn't die from a comet. In the Bible, there are records of giant creatures (dinosaurs). Before the Flood, Noah gathered up a male and female of every animal, including dinosaurs. Unfortunatley, there was one animal he couldn't gather, the unicorn. thats a different story. when noah gathered up the dinosaurs, he could only get baby dinos. all the others died in the flood. after the flood was over, the baby dinos were let off the boat. since they had no parents, they didn't know what to do, therefore, they died.

If anybody thinks I'm crazy, I agree. But I know is true.


I hate cars that dont have soul. You need to realize the need to accesories.--Some HCR magazine add.

The Bible records one very large creature called mega(something). Nobody is sure what that actually refers to, could be a big lizewrd-like creature or maybe a dinosaur, could be a mammoth, could be a large whale. Not sure.

The Noah story says absolutely nothing about what animals were taken apart from the fact that they were considered "clean". No mention of the unicorn.

The story of Gilgamesh is also a non-biblical global flood story, but it proves diddly-squat.

The flood story invovles Noah, not Adam and Eve or any of their immediate family. The Earth is certainly more than "a few dozen" years old at that point in the story.

Radio Carbon dating has it's short comings but it is not the only method of dating the Earth. We can do things like looking at the errosion rates of land features, the mineral content of the oceans, the co2 content in ancient pack-ice.. All of these things give clues as to the age of "modern" Earth (for lack of a better term). All of them point to an Earth that is at least a few 100 000 years old. Keep in mind that these factors can only take into account an Earth with liquid water a fairly sable atmosphere and relatively stable landmasses. There is a good deal of time that pre-dates this period.

PAX (Latin for "yo peace man")

Dimension-X Motors wrote:Has anyone here ever heard of a guy named Joe White, or heard of a camp called Kanakuk. Joe White is a great guy. He as talked to scientists who were atheists and converted them. he failed to convert me because my parents are butt holes. But i did learn a thing or two from him. First off, the tests that "prove" the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Carbon dating testing is 100% wrong. one example, Joe White and a scientist took a bone fragement from a 2.5 billion year old teenager. My bad, they took the bone fragement from a 17 year old, who unfortunatly died in a car crash. they carbon dated the bone fragement and found that the bone wasn't 17 years old, but actually 2.5 billion years old. Does anybody see something wrong with that.

Second, if anyone has read the bible, they would know about the worldwide flood, that happened when Earth was only a few dozen years old.. Correct. Well there is a tribe of natives somewhere by turkey. No missioneries have ever been there, but these natives have records on caves, of a massive flood lasting approx. 38 days. They never heard of the Bible, but they believe that the flood happened approx. 9500 years ago.

And this proves that the Dinosaurs didn't die from a comet. In the Bible, there are records of giant creatures (dinosaurs). Before the Flood, Noah gathered up a male and female of every animal, including dinosaurs. Unfortunatley, there was one animal he couldn't gather, the unicorn. thats a different story. when noah gathered up the dinosaurs, he could only get baby dinos. all the others died in the flood. after the flood was over, the baby dinos were let off the boat. since they had no parents, they didn't know what to do, therefore, they died.

If anybody thinks I'm crazy, I agree. But I know is true.

you belive this to be true?.................. WOW.......................

Dimension-X Motors wrote:Has anyone here ever heard of a guy named Joe White, or heard of a camp called Kanakuk. Joe White is a great guy. He as talked to scientists who were atheists and converted them. he failed to convert me because my parents are butt holes. But i did learn a thing or two from him. First off, the tests that "prove" the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Carbon dating testing is 100% wrong. one example, Joe White and a scientist took a bone fragement from a 2.5 billion year old teenager. My bad, they took the bone fragement from a 17 year old, who unfortunatly died in a car crash. they carbon dated the bone fragement and found that the bone wasn't 17 years old, but actually 2.5 billion years old. Does anybody see something wrong with that.

obviosly this scientist and this man know nothing of carbon dating as does the majority of anyoen saying how it shouldnt be used.

it can be VERY accurate you just have to understand its limits and hwo to calibrate your answers.

first of all, youd have to be a moron to carbon date a 17 year old bone using a method in which you measure the half life of radio carbon 14 which takes over 5,000 years to occur. you dont have to measure in direct half life but the more half lifes have actually happened the more accurate the results at least my understanding. so 17 years old is not going to be easily or accurately carbon dated. you would use a different method to date such recent objects.






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Dimension-X Motors wrote:Has anyone here ever heard of a guy named Joe White, or heard of a camp called Kanakuk. Joe White is a great guy. He as talked to scientists who were atheists and converted them. he failed to convert me because my parents are butt holes. But i did learn a thing or two from him. First off, the tests that "prove" the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Carbon dating testing is 100% wrong. one example, Joe White and a scientist took a bone fragement from a 2.5 billion year old teenager. My bad, they took the bone fragement from a 17 year old, who unfortunatly died in a car crash. they carbon dated the bone fragement and found that the bone wasn't 17 years old, but actually 2.5 billion years old. Does anybody see something wrong with that.

I'd venture there was incomplete combustion of the sample, or the person doing the Carbon dating is inept... or some other explanation. If I can't read the article, I can't say for sure. I've seen c14 carbon dating done wrong that gives fallacious results. This is one of the reasons you conduct multiple tests, or you have multiple independent inspections. Either way, if you do something the wrong way, you're not going to get reliable results... This also doesn't go to explain why it is that C14 carbon dating is the gold standard for dating of unknown and known samples.

Before you write off something that has been tested, re-tested, proven, studied, and accepted after a lengthy and exhaustive trial period and regimen Solely on one person's say so (and that person having an agenda no less), you might do the accrediting agencies the favour of actually reading some of the materials that they have authored in regards to the relevance of that item. It's like just discounting scientific method because when you follow it you don't get the observations you expected.

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Second, if anyone has read the bible, they would know about the worldwide flood, that happened when Earth was only a few dozen years old.. Correct. Well there is a tribe of natives somewhere by turkey. No missioneries have ever been there, but these natives have records on caves, of a massive flood lasting approx. 38 days. They never heard of the Bible, but they believe that the flood happened approx. 9500 years ago.

So please tell me how it is that in that time, the Polar ice caps have formed? Let's ignore the fact that:
a: it's impossible to have a WORLD WIDE flood... mainly because there would be NO humans left alive (38 days of food, potable water and waste elimination is not possible in a flood environment in primative times)
b: they are in caves that are high enough that they won't be affected by a "world wide" flood (this also pre-supposes that they live in highlands and that there is little if any grain or long term vegetable storage, because farming happens in flat-lands that lay close to water).
c: for them, WORLD-WIDE is what they could probably travel in 5 days on foot, or, what they saw from the mouth of their cave.
d: Genesis 7:6 says specifically :

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[6] And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

It would seem that Joe White or whomever authored the apocryphal version of what you said was not acquainted with the King James Bible's version of what happened to Noah.

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And this proves that the Dinosaurs didn't die from a comet. In the Bible, there are records of giant creatures (dinosaurs). Before the Flood, Noah gathered up a male and female of every animal, including dinosaurs. Unfortunatley, there was one animal he couldn't gather, the unicorn. thats a different story. when noah gathered up the dinosaurs, he could only get baby dinos. all the others died in the flood. after the flood was over, the baby dinos were let off the boat. since they had no parents, they didn't know what to do, therefore, they died.

Interesting story... but the fact remains that there is only a story to back this up, and it doesn't even jive with what's in the Bible, or the Torah which Genesis and the whole old Testament is based out of. The fact that the Old testament is metaphorical in nature, and much of it utterly defies physics as we know it is interesting... The fact that most biblical scholars (ie people that know a LOT about the Bible) realise the metaphor, and those that have next to no idea about the bible beyond the bible take the printed word as gospel without articulation, inference or applied logic... and utterly abandon their own common sense in the process.

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If anybody thinks I'm crazy, I agree. But I know is true.

I think you're woefully uninformed and have allowed one person's ideas to co-opt your better reason.

I'm not attacking your faith, but I AM questioning your ideas regarding this... You seem to be bright, but if you don't use your own grey matter and at least peripherally research an idea that interests you, you're going to miss the forest looking at the trees. To think of it another way: it's like buying a Yugo or Lada on the basis of salesman's info say-so without ever looking up anything about the car otherwise.

To put it another way: when the body of a child that was murdered 25 years ago is unearthed, the only person that would challenge the C14 Carbon Dating methodology used on the dating of the body would be someone with an agenda.




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

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Has anyone here ever heard of a guy named Joe White, or heard of a camp called Kanakuk. Joe White is a great guy. He as talked to scientists who were atheists and converted them. he failed to convert me because my parents are butt holes. But i did learn a thing or two from him. First off, the tests that "prove" the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Carbon dating testing is 100% wrong. one example, Joe White and a scientist took a bone fragement from a 2.5 billion year old teenager. My bad, they took the bone fragement from a 17 year old, who unfortunatly died in a car crash. they carbon dated the bone fragement and found that the bone wasn't 17 years old, but actually 2.5 billion years old. Does anybody see something wrong with that.

lemme guess, he is one of those close-minded fundamentalists that brainwashes his congregation with lies... I'm sure he is a good guy, but not so great for teaching you this junk. I think Nathaniel O'Flaherty put it best in his post

"first of all, youd have to be a moron to carbon date a 17 year old bone using a method in which you measure the half life of radio carbon 14 which takes over 5,000 years to occur. you dont have to measure in direct half life but the more half lifes have actually happened the more accurate the results at least my understanding. so 17 years old is not going to be easily or accurately carbon dated. you would use a different method to date such recent objects."

radiocarbon dating is not wrong, or even that inaccurate, you'd have to be an uneducated moron to date something from a modern 17-years old kid. He obviously has no knowledge of the subject.

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Second, if anyone has read the bible, they would know about the worldwide flood, that happened when Earth was only a few dozen years old.. Correct. Well there is a tribe of natives somewhere by turkey. No missioneries have ever been there, but these natives have records on caves, of a massive flood lasting approx. 38 days. They never heard of the Bible, but they believe that the flood happened approx. 9500 years ago.

yes, there was a local event that happened nearly 10,000 years ago in that region, a massive flood in which water from the Mediterranean burst through the Bosporus to form the Black Sea. Hundreds of feet of water filled the Black Sea basin and probably this catastrophic event was the one witnessed by these peoples. Also, if all the people on Earth were killed by the Flood (except Noah's boat), then how the hell did these people survive underwater to record the event on a cave!!!???

Plus, how can a Flood occurr "a few dozen years" after the formation of the Earth? Even creationists believe it occurred 2000 years after creation (2500BC), even in the most literal sense. It seems that not only do you not know science or common sense, but you don't know the Bible either.

I won't even go into the impossibility of a global flood, maybe in another post or thread

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And this proves that the Dinosaurs didn't die from a comet. In the Bible, there are records of giant creatures (dinosaurs). Before the Flood, Noah gathered up a male and female of every animal, including dinosaurs. Unfortunatley, there was one animal he couldn't gather, the unicorn. thats a different story. when noah gathered up the dinosaurs, he could only get baby dinos. all the others died in the flood. after the flood was over, the baby dinos were let off the boat. since they had no parents, they didn't know what to do, therefore, they died.

what prove's it? The Noah Story has no proof in existence except the Bible. There are giant creatures around today.. You cannot assume they are dinosaurs. Don't you think they would have had a more vivid description of such a creature if they indeed existed? A 20 foot Tyranosaur doesn't deserve a detailed description. Why do you believe that Noah had flippin' dinosaurs? The story is far-fetched enough without them... now it seems to be a Flintstone boat ride with a little water on the side. There is NO EVIDENCE ON EARTH of dinosaurs and humans occupying the same era so how can you believe it. The Bible never mentions the words giant or lizard anywhere. A lion or shark was a monster and an elephant could have been a giant creature. Also, pray tell, how can a handfull of 600 years olds take care of freakin' dinosaurs? "Yeah, Noah, baby T-Rex just got into the antelope cage and wiped out 4 species" LOL
Yeah, and baby dinosaurs relied mostly on instinct and were on their own once they hatched (for the most part) . i think when they got off the boat they would have made a snack out of some of the other animals. I just have to ask, when you REALYY think about it, doesn't this seem a little nuts to believe this stuff? I mean really! It is so funny to me that people can be brainwashed to believe in such fairy tales. Which segways to unicorns, THEY DON'T and NEVER DID exist. They are a fairy tale (just like the rest of the story)

There is absolutely no mention of a Unicorn in the Noah story. I have no idea where that came from.. Except that the first mention is in ancient Chinese literature, then in The books Job 39:9,10, Deuteronomy 33:17, Numbers 23:22 and 24:8; Psalm 22:21, 29:6 and 92:10; and Isaiah 34:7.

Biblical Scholars say

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So what was the animal described in the Bible as the ‘unicorn’? The most important point to remember is that while the Bible writers were inspired and infallible, translations are another thing again. The word used in the Hebrew is øàí (re’em). This has been translated in various languages as monoceros, unicornis, unicorn, einhorn and eenhorn, all of which mean ‘one horn’. However, the word re’em is not known to have such a meaning. Many Jewish translations simply left it untranslated, because they were not sure which creature was being referred to.

Archaeology has in fact provided a powerful clue to the likely meaning of re’em. Mesopotamian reliefs have been excavated which show King Assurnasirpal hunting oxen with one horn. The associated texts show that this animal was called rimu. It is thus highly likely that this was the re’em of the Bible, a wild ox.

It appears that the reason it was shown in Assyrian (but not Egyptian) art as one-horned was as an artistic way of expressing the beauty of the fact that these horns on the rimu/re’em were very symmetrical, such that only one could be seen if the animal was viewed from one side. The first to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek probably knew that the rimu/re’em was depicted as one-horned, so they translated it as monoceros (one horn).

The real re’em or wild ox was also known as the aurochs (Bos primigenius). This was the original wild bull depicted in, for example, the famous Lascaux (Cro-magnon) cave paintings. This powerful, formidable beast is now extinct, though its genetically impoverished descendants lived on as domestic cattle. For more information, see the feature article on the aurochs, ‘Recreating the extinct Aurochs?’ in this issue of Creation magazine, pages 25–28).

PAX

Nate had a good idea of it, but there is a C12/C13 short term deterioration technique that can do short term dating, but it's not vetted yet for use as a standard.

As well, the 2.5 billion year bone is possible, but assuming the sample was fresh, it COULD yield a sample age that old... but it would require an absolutely moronic tech to assign that age value. BTW, C14 carbon dating isn't going to give you an exact age, but a range based on the half-life of C14 (5700 years or so). There is a reason that there is a range assigned... and if Dimension-X had read a syllabus on the process, he'd understand that the process is accurate when the results are interpreted.

The other thing: If he had read about how the dating of fossils is done, it's by placing it within the rock strata.




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.