<p>“The mere existence of fossils is best explained by some type of catastrophic event”</p>
<p>My recollection is that slow sedimentation is the preferred explanation. Can you cite the science for a catastrophic event?</p>
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<p>Think about “slow sedimentation”. What does that imply? The dead animal SLOWLY (long period of time) being covered by silt (or other sediment). What normally happens over any SHORT period of time? Decay and scavengers. The animal (or plant) will not survive intact for even a few days in order to become a fossile.</p>
<p>The only way a fossile can form is if the dead animal (or plant) is QUICKLY covered by sediment in some type of catastrophic event.</p>
<p>Have you ever seen the fossils of one fish about to eat another fish? That’s a long time to pose.</p>
<p>Looks like rapidly covered, then slow sedimentation.</p>
<p>[Fossilization:</a> - encyclopedia article - Citizendium](<a href=“http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Fossilization:]Fossilization:”>http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Fossilization:)
This doesn’t sound like a catastrophic event. Citation?</p>
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<p>How else do you get “rapidly covered”? What non-catastrophic events do you know that causes rapid deposits? Flood that washes down a lot of sediment?</p>
<p>Hey, I’m no expert; that’s why I look for citations. Can you find something to support a catastrophe requirement for fossilization? Or how about defining catastrophe in this context? Is it just sedimentation at a rate sufficient to produce a fossil? ;)</p>
<p>The Process of Fossililzation by S.K Donovan, Page 125</p>
<p>[The</a> Processes of fossilization - Google Book Search](<a href=“The Processes of Fossilization - Google Books”>The Processes of Fossilization - Google Books)</p>
<p>“Rapid Burial” is synonymous with “catastrophic”</p>
<p>Excellent, thanks. So it is a definition, covering at a rate sufficient to preserve and allow fossilization. I was thinking of a catastrophe as something more like the K-T event; my mistake. The article mentions how the rate has changed as different organisms evolved, and all this time I thought you were arguing against evolution!</p>
<p>You mentioned carbon dating; argon radioisotopic dating is the most accurate dating technique known, with the oldest fossils found being 227.8 million years old.</p>
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<p>It may be the “most accurate dating technique known” but, radioactive decay dating has a problem with assumptions. Potassium-Argon Dating Results:</p>
<p>Basalt from Mt. Etna, Sicily from an eruption in 122 BC gave an age of 250,000 years old (G.B. Dalyrmple, 1969 40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 6-47 55).</p>
<p>Lava from the 1801 Hawaiian volcano eruption gave a date of 1.6 million years old. (G.B. Dalyrmple, 1969 40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 6-47 55).</p>
<p>Basalt from Mt. Kilauea Iki, Hawaii (erupted in 1959) gave an age of 8,500,000. (Impact #307 Jan. 1999).</p>
<p>Basalt from Mt. Etna, Sicily (erupted in 1964) gave a date of 700,000 years old. (Impact #307 Jan. 1999).</p>
<p>Basalt from Mt. Etna, Sicily (erupted in 1972) gave an age of 350,000 years old. (Impact #307 Jan. 1999).</p>
<p>New Lava dome growing inside the crater of Mt. St. Helens since the 1980 eruption was dated at 350,000 to 2.8 million years old (S.A. Austia, 1996. Excess Argon Within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano, CIN Tech Journal 10(3), pp. 335-343).</p>
<p>When I ask google about the above, the entries are from pro-creation sites, repeated over and over and over.</p>
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<p>Evidence is evidence. I thought evolutionists are suppose to be open minded to scientific evidence.</p>
<p>Precisely, I’d like a reference to science evidence, not pro-creation sites. I’d like to read a science report about possible dating problems (first impressions, long-term relationships, etc.).</p>
<p>But I guess I can ask: Is the problem that the lava is shown by the dating to be way too young, or that there is a wide range of dates? I know nothing about the age of lava when emitted it is by volcanoes, or how the dating is affected by heat.</p>
<p>Whistle Pig - I enjoyed you sermonette on why you go to church. </p>
<p>I truly enjoyed the discussion that had gone on until the last few pages of I am right-you’re wrong - you ignorant evolutionist/creationist. I enjoyed the polite give and take of how each came to their beliefs.</p>
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<p>You are presuming that what is on pro-creation sites is not “scientific evidence”. What would you think of a creationist that says: “I ignore pseudo scientific evidence that is on pro-evolution sites”. Scientific evidence is scientific evidence regardless of who’s site it is on. The issue between evolutionists and creationists is not the evidence, but the interpretation of the evidence.</p>
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<p>Interpretation of Potassium-argon dating:</p>
<p>Potassium-argon method is based on the fact that potassium-40 spontaneously decays into argon-40. The process has a half-life for potassium-40 of 1.3 billion years. It is not just a matter of measuring the amount of potassium-40 and argon-40 in a volcanic rock sample of unknown age, and calculating a date. Before that can be done, we need to know the history of the rock. For example, we need to know how much argon-40 was present in the rock when it formed. It is routinely assumed that there was no argon initially. We also need to know whether potassium-40 or argon-40 have leaked into, or out of, the rock since it formed. It is routinely assumed that no leakage occurred. It is only after these assumptions are made that an ‘age’ for the rock can be calculated. And when this is done, the ‘age’ of most rocks calculated in this way is usually very great, often millions of years.</p>
<p>Mt. St Helens example:</p>
<p>Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980.</p>
<p>In 1992, a portion of a 15-lb block of dacite from high on the lava dome was crushed and milled into a fine powder. Another piece was crushed and the various mineral crystals were carefully separated out.</p>
<p>The ‘whole rock’ rock powder and four mineral concentrates were submitted for potassium-argon analysis to Geochron Laboratories of Cambridge, MA—a high-quality, professional radioisotope-dating laboratory. The only information provided to the laboratory was that the samples came from dacite and that ‘low argon’ should be expected.</p>
<p>The results ranged from 340,000 to 2.8 million years.</p>
<p>The correct answer would have been ‘zero argon’ indicating that the sample was too young to date by this method (12 years old).</p>
<p>Comment:</p>
<p>No one disputes where a rock is found (layer), nor that it is a rock from that layer. No one disputes that radioactive decay is very predictable. The issue is: If you don’t know the initial conditions of the sample, and have to make assumptions, any radioactive dating is just a guess, and can be a very bad one.</p>
<p>^ so you are saying that because of possible fallacies in radioisotope dating techniques, you believe the world is less then 10,000 years old?</p>
<p>“Scientific evidence is scientific evidence regardless of who’s site it is on.”</p>
<p>I will indeed presume that evidence on a scientific site is scientific, but I won’t make the same assumption about “evidence” presented on a religious site.</p>
<p>Here’s a bottom line question: Do you think scientists are wrong about their dating techniques, such that evolutionists are therefore wrong to rely on them?</p>
<p>the earth is around 4.56 billion year old, not 1.8 billion, lol, a little off buddy.</p>
<p>Hello i am new to this blog and i am going into college next year and i felt like throwing in my opinion an a matter that was posted a while back. Someone said that he believes in God and overall believes in the bible, but he also believes that God used evolution to create our universe, or at least thats what it sounded like. I would like to say that if you believe in a theistic God, that’s personal in our very lives, and the reason he created us was to have a personal relationship with Him. Then God could not have used evolution to bring about our universe. The main reason is because the evolutionary process takes away that personal relationship that the bible is based upon. If by way of evolutionary creation, we aren’t made in His image, He doesn’t know who we are, redemption isn’t needed, us worshiping Him isn’t necessary, and this world wouldn’t care about death and whatever else happens because it would be in our nature to look out for ourselves. I don’t believe in evolution because i am afraid of it, I don’t believe in it because it doesn’t fit with what I believe about God and what I have seen of God’s creation. I just wanted to say my opinion and if i wasn’t clear on something or if you have questions, then ask away.</p>
<p>^^^^
Who are you to restricts God’s love for his creations? Evolution is nothing to be afraid of, it is one of the most exciting theories in science, only second to the big bang theory IMO. It allows us to get a glimpse into the mind of God. I personally find a comforting feeling when I think of God looking down on the first single celled organism and give the command to evolve.</p>
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<p>I’m just saying that if a lie detector test can’t be proved to be reliable, then it can’t be used as evidence in court. Radioactive dating is fine if you know all the conditions to evaluate the reading (radioactive clocks are the most accurate clocks available). However, if you pick up a random rock and tried to date it, the results can be meaningless, and you have no way to tell in advance that the results will be meaningless.</p>
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<p>That is religion, not science (you believe, or don’t believe, regardless of the evidence). You can say that you will be more skeptical, and further investigate any claims, but dismissing claims just because they are on a religious site is not being intellectually honest.</p>
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<p>It depends on the dating technique. I think birth certificates are a fairly accurate way to determine the age of a person (absent fraud). Tree rings work too.</p>
<p>Radioactive dating works if you know the initial conditions. Some argue that radioactive dating is accurate because readings are “consistent with each other”, but that is a circular argument.</p>
<p>A lot of dating science relies upon the assumption of “uniformitarianism” – That things have always happened in the past they way they are happening today. But that there are problems with that assumption.</p>
<p>The moon is currently moving away from the earth at the rate of 1.5 inches per year – that implies a moon touching the earth as early as 1.5 billion years ago.</p>
<p>The decay in the earth’s magnetic field (decays about 5%/century) would imply an unlivable magnetic field a million years ago. Even the known reversals of the magnetic field have problems. Each reversal exposes life on earth to cosmic radiation. It takes about 7,000 years for the magnetic field to reverse. “Outside the atmosphere, the cosmic-ray bombardment is intense… A week or a month of this radiation should not have serious consequences, but a couple of years on a jaunt to Mars is a different story. One estimate from NASA is that about one third of the DNA is an astronaut’s body would be cut by cosmic rays every year…” Shielding Space Travelers, Scientific American.</p>
<p>Mt. St. Helens should be a wake-up call that scientists need to refine dating techniques. Not only are rocks being dated incorrectly, but rock layers themselves need to be rethought. Mt. St. Helens laid down up to 400 feet of strata that had been previously thought to take thousands of years. When you see a tree vertically petrified, the entire height of the tree was probably buried in a matter of a few years at most, thus implying rock layers representing a few years, not millions of years.</p>
<p>Note: I am not challenging the “evidence” (the amount of potassium-40 and argon-40 in the sample), I am saying that the “interpretation” of the evidence (based upon unverifiable assumptions) is not indisputable.</p>
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<p>I don’t think they are being malicious in the use. I think they are being intellectually dishonest if they are unwilling to admit that the dating science they are using may not be accurate. After all, scientific advances happen when scientists realize there are problems between the theory and the data, and use the new data to develop better theories. When scientists ignore the data because it doesn’t match their preconceived notions, that is when you have a religion, and not science.</p>
<p>Technically, those dates are possible. The magma that created/formed the basalt could be that old…</p>