>>…That’s supposed to be on the Moon, and the amount of dust is completely >>consistent with the measured rate of influx, although the ESTIMATE made during >>the 70s was off…
>So your saying meteoritic dust doesn’t accumulate on earth, just on the moon. Well >I didn’t mention the argument about the meteoritic dust on the moon because the >same response come over and over, “their estimate was off”. Even though they >were dead set in their calculations
Nope, micrometeorites land on Earth constantly. However, it is very difficult to tell space dust from ordinary Earth dust, and dust on the Earth’s surface tends to be washed into the ocean, where it is even harder to get a good measurement. The Moon does not have these problems, so the amount of dust built up on her surface can be directly measured.
The difficulty in distinguishing homegrown dust from imported is where the ESTIMATE fell down. The math was impeccable, but the measurements from which the math proceeded were inaccurate. Basically, the researcher used a figure for influx that was too high, he was wrong about what percentage of dust collected was of extraterrestrial origin. Now that we have devices above the Earth’s atmosphere we are able to directly measure the rate of influx rather than attempting to estimate it.
>>…I also snipped the list of scientific and technological advances made by theistic >>scientists as being irrelevant. My buttons are pushed by folks who deliberately >>misuse scientific-sounding language and misinterpret the observations of others. >>As I try to be a good Christian, I must use polite language and act as if they are >>merely mistaken, and not attempting to lie for my God. If it makes me a bad >>Christian to believe that the natural world is best explained by natural causes, so >>be it. I’ll settle for being a good man, and take it up with my judge at the end. I >>would never have the hubris to try to limit my God to the creation myth of any >>human culture, even if that culture happens to be my own…
>Hey guess what, my post wasn’t all about the evolution debate, the listing of >disciplines etc, at the end of my post is to show that religion and science does not >have to be separated as most people think.
Well how about that. We do agree on something. The potential problem occurs when people try to apply the rules of science to their religious beliefs, or vice versa. Science is properly limited to formulating natural causes for the observed natural world. Religion has an entirely different area of application, and it is as foolish to try “scientifically” to define morals as it is to try to describe the growth of a tree from Biblical verses.
> Was I attempting to lie, or are we having a discussion, I put out what I know, you >refute it, I respond, we both learn something. That’s my purpose in posting this. If >this is going to turn into another one of those arguments where name calling, etc. >ran amuck, then it is a very sad day for science and advancement of knowledge.
>You mention the creation myth limiting your god, to a human culture or >something to that nature. What I find is the attempt to limit god in saying that he >didn’t create us, rather he sits back and just watches as evolution takes its course >and he has no control over it, that is much more of a limiting belief then creation, >which is he created us, and the universe in 6 days, not because he couldn’t do it >in 1, but because he set a standard for his people, (he rested on the 7th day- the >Sabbath). He could have just snapped his fingers and we all would have been >here, I don’t see how that limits god.
My comment about liars for God was not directly aimed at you. I apologize if I caused any offense. I do not venture into Biblical commentary or criticism, as I have no skill with rhetoric nor background in heuristics. But I do have one question: why would a Creator be satisfied with just wishing everything into existence when the process of making is far more fulfilling? I mean, it might be enough for a child to have all he wants just handed to him “poof”, but an adult takes pride in building something worthwhile.
A person grows from a single cell to adulthood. We can watch the process, and we know all the stages involved. Does the fact that a person grows from a simple form to maturity invalidate the fact that we are all God’s creatures? If not, then why would the apparent fact that the Universe has also grown and matured make it any less God’s creation?
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reach through reason.”
>>I beg your indulgence, but I cannot stand long posts. With your permission, I would like to address separate points in separate messages. <<
Ok ,sorry about the long post ill try to cut them down to size from now on.
>>No. The argument “back then” was not about the advent of life on the primeval Earth. The argument was whether the bacteria and molds which spoil wine were a result of conditions in the wine itself or were introduced from outside. Pasteur demonstrated that the infectious organisms were introduced into the medium by dust particles and airborne mould spores. This is, as I said, irrelevant to questions concerning the behaviour of chemicals in an environment similar to that of the early Earth.<<
Really i didnt know that, so why did they argue that bacteria didnt grow because the lack of oxygen. Also why did they change the name from spontaneous generation to abiogenesis, or chemical generation?
>>Miller et al have shown that the production of complex organic molecules from simple compounds is an easy thing. With only a few gallons of ammonia, carbon dioxide, water, and other compounds COMMON THROUGHOUT ALL OF OBSERVABLE SPACE they made the precursors of life in just a few weeks. <<
Millers experiment was a success, but he had to seperate the amino acids, as soon as they were formed, which would not have been availible in the primitive world.
>>I have a link somewhere to a recent announcement of a synthetic replicator. Would that satisfy your request for “some info where scientist actually create living things from non-living things”?<<
>>Nope, micrometeorites land on Earth constantly. However, it is very difficult to tell space dust from ordinary Earth dust, and dust on the Earth’s surface tends to be washed into the ocean, where it is even harder to get a good measurement.<<
This brings up another problem I have with the earth being 4.5 billion years old. Looking at the rate our shores are eroding , all of the land on earth will have eroded off into the ocean like 14 times already.
Another problem I have , is this big bang. Now i wish i had the paper i read about this so i could be fully accurate with the argument , but ill try to write what i remember. If at first the gases and debris that led up to the big bang, were spinning(and they must have been moving otherwise there wouldn’t have been a reaction), then when it exploded, all these planets and and galaxies, and solarsystems should be spinning in the same direction, i forget the scientific law supporting this action, but i remember a analogy made by a science teacher , Most playgrounds have a little ride that the kids sit on and get a adult or a strong kid to hold onto the bar and run around the ride. This makes the ride spin , and the faster the person spins the ride the more the kids have to hold on so they wont get thrown off, but if the person spins it too fast the kids will start flying off all spinning in the same direction. Well you might understand my rambling.
No doubt about that. Of course, with the tectonic plates floating around on the surface of the earth and bumping into each other, the collisions are constantly forcing land up out of the sea (note the height of the Sierra Nevada and the Olympics on the U.S. West Coast) while fresh magma is constantly welling up from the earth’s molten core to add more “land” (witness the mid-Atlantic range, capped by Iceland, the Hawaiian islands, and the increased elevation surrounding Mount Pinatubo).
(At least) Two problems with this. First, you are assuming that today’s rate of erosion has held true throughout the entire history of the world. Considering that there have been several ice ages, when ocean water has been trapped in glaciers and thus sea levels went down, this is a bad assumption. Second, as tomndebb already mentioned, there are other things going on here, such as continental drift.
You probably heard this from Hovind, a creationist who has a series of 10 tapes out (a friend of mine has the tapes and mentioned this very “argument” to me a couple weeks ago).
The first problem is – where did you get this “gas and debris moving around” before the Big Bang? That is not part of any standard Big Bang theory that I’m aware of – so what exactly is this notion supposed to attack?
Simply wrong. The Big Bang started from a single point and exploded outwards in all directions. No real scientist, to my knowledge, has proposed a “spin”. Also, of course, even if this scenario were true, there are other forces at work. For example, as masses collide, the spin of a planet may be altered due to the collision itself. So again we see multiple forces at work, but you are acting as if there was only one.
Hovind is most certainly not a science teacher (and he is the one who made the example below, in his tapes).
Except the example is, again, simply wrong. The kids will fly off in a straight line, on a tangent to the spinning merry go round. They teach this in basic science classes. Too bad most people don’t have record players anymore, 'cus that was a great way to teach it. You put something small on the turntable and start it up. The object will not fly off in a circle, but in a straight line.
Consider for a moment. If Hovind is wrong about something this basic – what must we think about the rest of his “science”?
(This ignores, for the moment, that Hovind is a proven liar.)
“I don’t believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate
I don’t believe in forever or love as a mystical state
I don’t believe in the stars or the planets
Or angels watching from above” – Neil Peart, RUSH, “Ghost of a Chance”
>>Really i didnt know that, so why did they argue that bacteria didnt grow because the lack of oxygen. Also why did they change the name from spontaneous generation to abiogenesis, or chemical generation?
If I recall correctly, and us old folks have a tendency to misremember things, that objection arose when Pasteur had boiled a medium and sealed it into an air-tight flask. The objection was that there was some “vital principle” that was driven out of the medium by boiling and which could be replaced through exposure to air. To answer this Pasteur made a flask with a swan-necked curve in its throat; the mold spores and bacteria laden dust settles into the curve of the throat but air was allowed to reach the medium. The medium stayed sterile, thus proving that the infectious organisms were introduced rather than spontaneously generated in the medium.
The term abiogenesis was adopted to describe the initial generation of complex organic chemicals for the simple reason that “spontaneous generation” carries a negative connotation. “Spontaneous generation” brings up images of mice appearing in grain silos and frogs in swamp water. It implies an ongoing process rather than the historical event scientists are investigating.
>>Millers experiment was a success, but he had to seperate the amino acids, as soon as they were formed, which would not have been availible in the primitive world.
As a first approximation, Miller’s experiment was a resounding success. He clearly showed that amino acids can be produced from more simple compounds outside of a living cell. That his apparatus does not resemble the natural world is irrelevant, one might as well argue that the discoveries of physicists are meangless because cyclotrons do not resemble stars.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reach through reason.”
>>Another problem I have , is this big bang. Now i wish i had the paper i read about this so i could be fully accurate with the argument , but ill try to write what i remember. If at first the gases and debris that led up to the big bang, were spinning(and they must have been moving otherwise there wouldn’t have been a reaction), then when it exploded, all these planets and and galaxies, and solarsystems should be spinning in the same direction, i forget the scientific law supporting this action, but i remember a analogy made by a science teacher , Most playgrounds have a little ride that the kids sit on and get a adult or a strong kid to hold onto the bar and run around the ride. This makes the ride spin , and the faster the person spins the ride the more the kids have to hold on so they wont get thrown off, but if the person spins it too fast the kids will start flying off all spinning in the same direction. Well you might understand my rambling.<<
Whomever told you this did not understand what the “Big Bang” is all about. According to the physicists. there was no dust and gas that exploded. What exploded was pure energy, and it had to cool down a lot before some of that energy could clump up into quarks and other subatomic particles. It was a long time before anything as lumpy as dust and gas appeared.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reach through reason.”
>>Except the example is, again, simply wrong. The kids will fly off in a straight line, on a tangent to the spinning merry go round. They teach this in basic science classes. Too bad most people don’t have record players anymore, 'cus that was a great way to teach it. You put something small on the turntable and start it up. The object will not fly off in a circle, but in a straight line.
Consider for a moment. If Hovind is wrong about something this basic – what must we think about the rest of his “science”?<<
I didnt say the kids/object will fly off in a circle , I said they will fly off spinning, all in the same rotational direction. You cann see this if you attatch a ball to a string and twirl it around , when you let goo the ball will fly off in a straight line, but it will be spinning.
>>(This ignores, for the moment, that Hovind is a proven liar.)
<<
How? Also wasn’t Hovind a science teacher for 8 years in a highscool?
I didnt fully read the article you posted, i just glanced through it, I printed it and will read it later, but one question. Are the Nanotubes what you cosider the living thing?
No Mad, the nanotubes are as similar to living things as a hydrogen bomb is similar to a star. They are, however, synthetic self-replicators, and given the proper medium will reproduce themselves. They are another tool we can use to make valid extrapolations about what could have happened in the “primordial soup”.
Nope, I don’t think so. Think of the track event called the hammer throw (or something like that). The thrower spins around and around to gain momentum, and then lets go of the hammer, trying to send it as far as he can. When it is released, it heads straight off, without spinning around and around.
Also, even if he was right about that, it still ignores (as you did from my previous message) that there are other forces at work. For example, as masses collide, the spin of a planet may be altered due to the collision itself. So again we see multiple forces at work, but you are acting as if there was only one.
You also ignored several other points I made about Hovind’s claims and the Big Bang: The first problem is – where did you get this “gas and debris moving around” before the Big Bang? That is not part of any standard Big Bang theory that I’m aware of – so what exactly is this notion supposed to attack?
Where to begin? Well, I’ll start with something I had already posted to the SDMB about him a little while ago (back before Great Debates existed).
From an August 1993 “REALLity Check” column (written by yours truly, you can find the entire column in the newsletter at http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v01/n07/index.html (it’s not in a real good format yet):
Underhanded Creationist Tactics
The Peoria Journal Star (June 25) had an article about Kent Hovind, an evangelist who is offering $10,000 to anybody who can provide empirical evidence of the theory of evolution. But the key is “empirical” or based on experiment. In other words, he wants somebody to prove millions of years of natural selection and evolution in a laboratory, to his satisfaction.
Bradley University religion professor, Robert Fuller, is appalled with Hovind’s challenge, saying, “No properly educated, reflective person could possible dispute the fact of biological evolution. No credible professor of religion in the world has difficulty with the concept of evolution.”
But that’s not the half of it.
It seems the Hovind is not being exactly straight with everybody. The article states that Hovind is scheduled to debate “paleontologist Steven (sic) Jay Gould, a Harvard University professor.” Hovind goes on to state, “I suspect Gould will back out.”
Hovind apparently has good reason to expect that Gould won’t be there. Dr. Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, wrote to Gould and asked about Hovind. In his response, Gould says, “You really shouldn’t believe everything you read … I have never heard of the man and therefore cannot have agreed to anything with him.” Gould went on to comment about “the obvious phony tactic of claiming that he challenged me to a debate when he didn’t, and then claiming that I backed out when I didn’t appear.”
If Hovind is so sure of himself and his “theory”, why does he need to mislead the public in such a manner?
(I also did a search on the talk.origins archive, and found 21 hits for “Hovind,” including several examinations of some of his nutty claims. I would suggest you read them before citing Hovind as a good source again.)
I’m not sure about this. I know he’s certainly not a teacher now, and have never heard that he ever was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he never was one. I can check.
“The struggle to be freed from the tyranny of superstition and ignorance resulted in nothing less than the greatest accomplishments of our species.”
– Dr. Dean Edell, Eat, Drink & Be Merry
Sorry guys, Mad’s wrong about the origin of life, but he’s right about the spinning kiddies. If they’re going around on a platform they’re going to have angular momentum, assuming they’re always facing the same direction relative to the platform (facing in towards the center, say).
When the tikes are flung from the platform their centers of gravity will certainly travel in a straight line radially, but they will be spinning about those centers. Else where did the angular momentum go?
Mad’s point is still moot, though, for as someone has already pointed out, there is no angular momentum postulated for some “pre-big bang” matter (or any such matter, for that matter!).
I can find nothing to confirm or deny whether Hovind taught High School science at any time. Seems odd that he wouldn’t mention it in his list of credentials. Perhaps we are trying to think of a different Creationist?
Be that as it may, bringing up an (unproven) former job the man had does nothing to validate any assertions of his. If a syatement is factual, it is factual whether the presenter works at Harvard or Home Depot. And Kent Hovind is just plain wrong about so many things.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position that he did not reach through reason.”
I do believe you’re correct, and I was wrong about that. I thought about it a bit more, and realized I was mostly concentrating on a singular point, rather than a larger, irregularly-shaped object. I did an in-office experiment with my calculator and a cut rubber band to verify my thoughts, and have come over to your side on this particular issue.
But, as you pointed out, this is really a minor issue. He has based the point on false starting conditions and has ignored all the other factors, among other errors.
“The struggle to be freed from the tyranny of superstition and ignorance resulted in nothing less than the greatest accomplishments of our species.”
– Dr. Dean Edell, Eat, Drink & Be Merry
At this page: http://www.drdino.com/AboutCSE.htm
Kent Hovind claims to have been a high school science teacher for 15 years. Still no details as to where or at what type of school. And I still hold that a teacher is just as capable of really incredible errors as anyone else.
Re: Hovind as a science teacher – DrF is quite right about science teachers being just as able to make mistakes as others. Yes, we expect science teachers to know what they’re doing, but the sad truth is that some don’t. I’ve been at two conferences of the Illinois Science Teachers Association, and there are creationists among that group, sad as it is to say.
Heck, I remember in my high school (which was actually pretty good), several students were often ahead of our physics teacher, who wasn’t exactly a brilliant man.
So, as somebody else already pointed out, the point here is that no matter what his background is, Hovind’s claims must stand or fall just like anybody else’s. Alas, his fall flat.
“The struggle to be freed from the tyranny of superstition and ignorance resulted in nothing less than the greatest accomplishments of our species.”
– Dr. Dean Edell, Eat, Drink & Be Merry
Athiests live miserable lives-------
they feel/know they have no purpose in life-- all you have to to is be born and die…
90% of the people on Earth belive in a God/superior being in one form or another…
I feel that the majority rules, God exitst----sure, you say prove it—it cant be proved—it has to be taken on faith–even the Bible says that—if god was to walk up to you and say "hey, im god, worship me, " then you would’nt have to do any thing, there would be no chalange in being a beliver…EVEN DARWIN BECAME RELIGIOUS…SEE, EVEN HE KNEW WHERE MEN REALY CAME FROM
FROM GOD
“In wildness is the preservation of the world, so seek the wolf inside thyself”
Well, gosh, thanks for speaking up for me. I mean, here I thought I had a pretty good life. I just had a wonderful Father’s Day with my two sons and my wife and I thought that my life was doing fine. But then you come along and point out that I am living a miserable life. Now I’m all upset, because I didn’t realize just how bad I had it…
What is or is not real has nothing to do with what the majority believes. At one time the majority believed the earth was flat. At one time the majority believed God created the universe in 6 days. Now both of these things are known to be untrue.
Either back up your claim or admit you’re just repeating a false piece of creationist propaganda.
“Most creatures prefer a warm lie to a cold truth. If you make them feel good, the masses will love you. If you make them think, they will hate you. I warn you: He who dares disturb the sleepwalk of masses, prepares for nightmare.”
– Richard Walker, The Running Dogs of Loyalty: Honest Reflections on a Magical Zoo
