So, to start:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3321819.stm

According to old earth models (and lets not start arguing over the validity of those just yet), the heavy bombardment of asteroids ended around 3.8 billion years ago which leaves only about 100 million years for life to get started and to evolve photosynthesis. Considering this, I think it "odd" ( ) that they don't mention the potential upset to the evolutionary models. Not even the staunchest evolutionist can reasonably believe that such a complex process as photosynthesis could evolve in only 100 million years, especially under those harsh environmental conditions said to be at that time. There are other findings such as this, but it will be interesting if various scientists start to doubt the validity of the dates returned by the various radioisotopic methods. It would interesting for evolutionists to suddenly start turning around and claim they don't actually work with any realy accuracy.

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited January 11, 2004).]

http://www.icr.org/headlines/tomvailbook.html

Please, no arguing about old Earth vs young Earth...

http://www.sciencediscussion.com/DisplayBP.aspx?Loc=BioPaleo/Article/A004600.html

I had no idea the Chinese seemed to consider Neo-Darwinism so silly.

Personally I think the whole earth layers were formed in the flood. Mix dirt with water and let it set and it will form layers. These layers cud be just that same thing on a worldwide scale :P

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/08/galaxies.find/index.html

For this new study, I wonder if they made the exact same types of mistakes that was made with "Mitochondrial Eve".

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1217_031218_spencerwells.html

If you guys remember the late 80s, the press made a big hoopla over Mitochondrial Eve . Scientists announced that they had “proven” that all modern human beings can trace their ancestry back to a single woman who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa (man, makes you wonder how these two managed to cross that 140,000 year gap to get together ).

Anyway, to cut the story short, the original scientists realized the mutation rate was far different then they had first thought. Based upon evidence gathered during the 90s, they concluded that based upon the new clock/rate that Eve was a mere 6000 years old. Of course, they then back-peddled saying "no one thinks that’s the case" and that test results were often "inconclusive". Right... in any case, I've seen other scientists doing RECENT studies flat out IGNORING this new evidence and continue working based upon the original idea that resulted in 200,000 years. Of course, their studies result in hundreds of thousands of years, built on faulty assumptions as they are.

Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible" DMA Watson - "Adaptation" Nature

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scinetific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories. because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary that we are forced by out a priori adherance to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foor in the door." Richard Lewontin "Billions and billions of demons" The New York review January 9, 1997 Page 31.

"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic" SC Todd - Correspondence to Nature

Wouldn't surprise me if the evidence really DID point to a 6000yr old Eve. Of course the scientists would then throw that away because its way too young, we know mankind has been evolving for miiiiilllions of years. This evidence points to a young earth, much like the stance the creationists hold. But they are religion and WE are science.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/01/26/neanderthals.ancestor1.reut/index.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030512/neanderthal_print.html

The real question is, what do they now believe we evolved from? The reason I want to know this is because I need a target to aim at now. Can't come up with any logical arguments without that.

Well, besides suggesting that there isn't a monkey for an ancestor!

EDIT:

Mack, too bad Mike doesn't come here any more. This evidence pretty much destroys his whole reason for becoming an athiest.

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited January 27, 2004).]

The people who have destroyed other's faith in God with evolution are in serious doodoo.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040127085316.htm

Now, what I'd like to see is research using the same methods, but this time comparing Cro-Magnon against normal humans.

The mtDNA research had this to say:

quote:

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No matches were found when Neanderthals were compared with ancient and modern humans. Cro-Magnons, however, had genetic sequences present in 14 percent of the modern humans represented in the database, particularly individuals from the Near and Middle East.

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I think some PhD level creationists need to take a look at that data and see how this particular link in the chain may be severed with logic. If we can find data that actually shows Cro-Magnon's are NOT are ancestors...

...well, on second thought, a lot of people would just put their hands over their ears and announce that the test results were "inconclusive".

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited February 02, 2004).]

Fortunately, this helps prove that conviction is a matter for the Holy Spirit and not something any one person can do for someone else.

Gump and Mack: You each have a PM.

But ultimately it's God that convicts and changes, not what we say or do.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gump:
That's not true; CS Lewis is a living example of that.

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Sorry, I have to say it: I'm afraid CS Lewis can no longer be classified as a "living example."

quote:

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Originally posted by skynes:
Apologetics are a great thing. We're told to give a defense for the hope we have. I'm totally behind them 100%

But ultimately it's God that convicts and changes, not what we say or do.

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Exactly.

Anyway, here is a speech by Michael Crichton on the subject of science. Not really "creationist" news but it's still an interesting read.

http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/GW-Aliens-Crichton.html

The interesting thing is that you could replace policy-driven pseudoscience (SETI, global warming, nuclear winter) with "Neo-Darwinism" and the argument would still work.

[This message has been edited by nfektious (edited February 03, 2004).]

A quote from the article:

quote:

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...we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides.

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This is often why I stray away from creationist debates. I fear that (however unintentional) much of the data on either side is skewed policy, similar to what Crichton talks about. I don't doubt the Biblical view of 7-day creation; however, I can easily see some of the (scientific/extra-biblical) data being used to support it being misinterpreted or whatnot (notice I said *some*, not *all*).

The big problem I see is that Christians start with 7-day creation and attempt to prove it from there, building on a foundation which the secular scientists don't believe. Secular scientists, on the other hand, build on theories (such as big bang, evolution, etc.) which are just as unprovable (don't get me wrong, I believe the Bible; but to a secular scientist, that's not believable proof). Each side argues through their own interpretation that's based on something the other side doesn't trust. See the problem?

In this age of media hype, who do you believe? I believe the Bible. As far as scientific evidence is concerned, the truth is probably harder to filter out than it appears.

Please don't take any of this the wrong way. Maybe I'm just disillusioned. I'll be the first to say I haven't done as much research into creationism as I probably should; many times I've started to look into it, then immediately hit a solid brick wall when *everything* I read seems to contradict the things I've been taught in school. It seems to me that secular scientists would have at least *some* valid points. Gump, I invite education; help me to find unbiased, unhyped, unspun truth in this issue if you so desire.

[EDIT]Moved last comment to other thread.[/EDIT]

[This message has been edited by BKewl (edited February 04, 2004).]

http://www.christianwriters.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1237&pagenumber=2

Why are people compelled to go to Christian sites and then start by basically insulting us? Boredom? It's like if I popped in on at an atheist forum and started lambasting them, telling them what I REALLY think of "so-called" intelligence for their beliefs.

The views of creationists are not diametrically opposed to so much of modern science, for crying out loud. They are diametrically opposed to the totalitarian elitism of the Darwin Party. Like so many great creation scientists before him, Damadian performed exemplary scientific research that has had phenomenal, world-wide impact for good. That is what a prize should go for, not for allegiance to any “standard” mythology.
We cannot know exactly how much this factor weighed in on the Nobel committee’s secret deliberations, but it would not be surprising, given the Darwin Party’s history of smear tactics going back to Huxley. Rather than have open debate about the evidence, they present themselves as the noble couriers of science and everyone who disagrees with them as crackpots. The Smithsonian, whose museum houses Damadian’s first working MRI scanner, could have done a better job defending his case, but at least this article is one of the few that have dared to suggest the creation factor. Notice how Weiss talked about the “Nobel imprimatur,” and portrays the committee as if it were a council of bishops declaring the official interpretation of their scripture, The Origin of Species. What’s next, the secular inquisition?

[This message has been edited by Gump (edited February 18, 2004).]

quote:

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The discovery in the 1950s that DNA stored a coded language was amazing, but recently a new level of complexity has come to the awareness of biochemists. Apparently, another code determines which DNA genes will be opened for expression and which should be suppressed.
The Feb. 14 issue of Science News1 describes the history of the discovery of the so-called “histone code.” These are patterns of “tails” attached to the histones around which DNA is tightly wrapped. Within the last eight years, scientists have been discovering that the histones do not merely spool the DNA, they regulate which genes get expressed.
The pattern of acetylation and methylation on the histone tails appears to form a code that is heritable through cell divisions. Compared to the well-known DNA genetic code, “A histone code may be much more complex,” writes John Travis. Shelley Berger (Wistar Institute) exclaimed, “There are all kinds of sites [on histone tails] that can be modified. The possibilities for a code are quite enormous. It’s not going to be a simple code.” After summarizing the literature, Travis concluded, “With such designer histones, it seems that researchers are on their way to having in their hands all the words of the histone code. But, it may still be a stiff challenge to figure out what those words mean.”

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quote:

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Evolutionary biologists had their hands full explaining the origin of the DNA-protein language, and now this. As usual, there is no description in the article about how this code might have “emerged” through an evolutionary process. There is only the following quip, that not only fails to explain the code’s origin, it adds another problem: apparently the code has not evolved at all: “From species to species, he [C. David Allis, U. of Virginia] notes, these tails are nearly identical, implying that they are important to the cell. ‘Nature has held these things constant for a reason,’ says Allis.”

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Let's put it this way, as a programmer this is the number one fact that has stood out in my mind that MADE me realize natural evolution impossible. Now we've found another layer of programming??

I wasn't expecting this, though I've had this theory that their may be further encoding on the quantum level, but at this time our instruments are not precise enough so that further investigation of this idea is impossible.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gump:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues03/dec03/object.html

The views of creationists are not diametrically opposed to so much of modern science, for crying out loud. They are diametrically opposed to the totalitarian elitism of the Darwin Party. Like so many great creation scientists before him, Damadian performed exemplary scientific research that has had phenomenal, world-wide impact for good. That is what a prize should go for, not for allegiance to any “standard” mythology....

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Gump, I couldn't find the aforemetioned quote at the link you provided. Could you please give me the direct link to that?

[EDIT]Fixed some quoting[/EDIT]

[This message has been edited by BKewl (edited February 21, 2004).]

The big problem I see is that Christians start with 7-day creation and attempt to prove it from there, building on a foundation which the secular scientists don't believe. Secular scientists, on the other hand, build on theories (such as big bang, evolution, etc.) which are just as unprovable (don't get me wrong, I believe the Bible; but to a secular scientist, that's not believable proof). Each side argues through their own interpretation that's based on something the other side doesn't trust. See the problem?
_____________

This is such an excellent point!!!

Although I do personally believe that the Scriptures indicate a 7 day creation, I do wonder about some things. In any event, it seems as though this "article of faith" will never be accepted "as is" within the circles of those who use a "scientific reductionist" world-view.

The two views seem to be (and are growing more) mutually exclusive.

Nonetheless, I try to be familiar with scientific material so that I can discuss these topics from their point-of-view. If the Spirit is willing, perhaps they will be able to see my point of view. If nothing else, plant a seed of faith which leads one to recognize "intelligent design" in creation. Let the Lord water it and let it grow.

Although they are not "creationist material" per se, two very excellent books are available to familiarize oneself with the scientific logic involved in our modern day. Both books, written by Christians, provide excellent logistics and data which challenge the current trends in evolutionary thought. They speak from an "old-earth" perspective and tend to think in terms of something like a "gap theory".

Darwin's Black Box
The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
Michael J. Behe

Darwin on Trial
Phillip E. Johnson

Note: These books are not considered "creation science". Nonetheless, I would recommend anyone to read them, whether young-earth, old earth, or some variation of "evolutionary-based" faith in creation -- whether divine or materialistic.

God bless you all in Jesus' Holy Name.
Mr. Ex Nihilo

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Do not forget to entertain strangers,
for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13:2 (NIV)

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Do not forget to entertain strangers,
for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13:2 (NIV)

Take care,
Mr. Ex Nihilo

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Do not forget to entertain strangers,
for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13:2 (NIV)

[This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo (edited April 26, 2004).]