Sheesh, how much more proof is there other than solid evidence of intelligent artistry 77,000 years old? The artifact WAS there, it DOES EXIST, and it HAS BEEN DATED accurately well into the "80,000-40,000 YBP blank spot" where all evidence of Man is supposed to up and disappear.

Good grief man, believe what you want. But please don't belittle your intelligence or mine by your repeated statements that what I am presenting here is not factual...

BECAUSE IT IS.

Glyph flares into ultraviolet....

[ 08-30-2002 04:10 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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And what I was saying is that evolution is NOT proven, and you cannot say it is. There are still way to many holes in the theory for it to be proven.

And as dating things go, that is very hard to do, because it is all based on circular reasoning. And if you don't know what I am talking about, then oh well. I give up. I'm trying to drop it before things get worse than they are...

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

Ya know, you say you will believe evolution only when it is proven without a doubt. Since when is God, or religion as a whole proven fact?

Look, step out of your holiness. Humans are naturally curious, they always have been. We didn't know why we were here or how we got here or how the sun and the moon floated in the sky, or why it got dark. We wanted to know, it was natural human curiousity. Most of the world to them was completely unexplainable, so, it must have been something better than them, something that understood it all, who created it. It caught on. How much simpler can I say it than that?

It caught on and is what you believe today. I have no idea how, but you do. Take one moment to consider the fact that God doesn't exist. If he does, he won't be mad, remember, he's merciful, and loving.

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SINCE WHEN?

Ummm... excuse me, but there is another little fact called RADIOMETRIC DATING, which is HOW we date the rock record, and it goes by the amount of daughter products there are in ratio to the naturally radioactive minerals which exist in EVERYTHING, EVEN PEOPLE.

For living organisms, we use carbon-14. It has a half-life of 5700 years (for you non-science majors, that is half of the original radioactive material decays into known products in that amount of time. Beginning with one whole, at the end of 5700 years the ratio is 50-50; at the end of another 5700 years it is 25:75, and so on. For materials older than what can be dated using C-14, we use elements which have radioactive half-lives in the millions, and sometime even billions of years. We can pinpoint quite accurately, and then zero in using known rock strata and the relative position of the find to that strata.

I hardly call this "circular reasoning," Rather it is factual evidence, and PROVEN IN THE LAB. I've done it myself.

Oh by the way, if you think radioactivity is something mysterious found only in nuclear explosions or bad sci-fi movies, think again. As I said, there is natural radioactivity everywhere; ever heard of radon? It's a natural by-product (one of the daughter products, in fact) of the radioactive decay of uranium which is found in ordinary granite... yes, that purty stone we make buildings and floors out of! ...and in some parts of the country is actually a worrisome problem.

Oh yes, to clarify further: radioactive decay is when a big nucleus (has a lot of protons, and waaaayyyyy too many neutrons) spontaneously breaks down and forms nuclei of smaller elements (less protons in the nucleus, but still to many neutrons, hence the process continues) with the simultaneous release of energy in the form of gamma radiation (among other things). Still don't believe this happens? Ummm... it's what powers the sun, and how it works, and this we have proven because we've caught the particles emitted from the sun, not to mention with further study have theorized the emission of the elusive neutrino which was said to be let off in supernovae... which we finally did in turn really prove by capturing some when Supernova 1987A went off in the Small Magellanic Cloud....

Anyway, I digress. But PLEASE, don't EVEN BEGIN to try to make a statement concerning something of which you obviously have no knowledge without checking the facts. Radiometric dating WORKS. Radiation EXISTS. And each radioactive element has it's own unique half-life, simply because each different element has a different sized nucleus from other elements.

Your turn....

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And before anyone starts throwing the atomic bomb back at me let me say that was at the rather strong behest of the government backed by the military. Every scientist working on the Manhattan Project was horrified by what the implications were of what they had created, and Einstein the most mortified of them all... but Germany was leading the heavy water experiment race, and after all we were at war....

And really, come to think about it, no one has ever managed to satisfactorily answer a question I put forth somewhere along the way in this forum (not this thread): ON A GLOBAL SCALE, who's religion is right? I mean, who wins out in the end? Where is the OBJECTIVE determining factor???

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Anyway your radon problems comment reminded me of the "genius" pottery company from teh 20s (can't remember the company name for the life of me) that uses a uranium based glaze to give thier dishes a gorgeous vibrant orange color... Something tells me that is not such a smart idea to own - and esp not to eat off of...

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And there is also a glass made with uranium in it which has a beautiful chartreuse color. Very difficult to come by now.

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What I meant was that to get an acturate dating process you need a completely pure substance and such, and well that is almost impossible.

I was reading an article about it just the other day about how Carbon-14 dating is not as reliable as it we once thought it was.

And puh-lease, don't act like I don't know anything. I know what radiation is...geez...

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

Radiometric dating is still accepted as the means of accurately dating samples, and when used IN TANDEM with relative dating methods (by reading the actual rock, and noting the position of something relative to the rock, and following those layers out to other areas on earth, and so on, sheesh, go read a basic geology course book....) we can narrow in upon the age of something purty durn close. For example, in the case of something dated around 4 billion years, we can narrow it (using radiometric dating of minerals and an element with a loooong half-life) to within a million years, which sounds like a lot but is really what, about 2.5% of error, I believe. This is because we use something other than C-14 for the dating, and are dating crystals and not bits of material and so forth. 2.5% of error is really quite low....

Of course the samples dated in the "ochre stamp 77,000 years old" were zircon crystals found in lithified volcanic ash (this makes a rock known as tuff) -- in which the ochre stamp was embedded; ie: it got covered and preserved in what obviously was a volcanic eruption, and buried in ash -- and you just can't get any purer than mineral crystals which form in cooling rock. I'd say that ochre stamp was dated well within the standard allowable error limits, but again, I'm hunting for the original publication to see exactly what percentage of error they came up with. I'm betting it's 2.5% or less....lessee, which translates into 1,925 years off in either direction... making the ochre stamp then dating as being within a range of 78,925 to 75,075 years old.

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That little stamp, and the other artifacts found with it, just kinda blows that whole statement clear out of the water now, doesn't it?

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look at it, rather then try to prove that BOOM humans evolved from this, lead backwards slowly, i find small steps work best in these things.

Look at our technology now, now, compar this to when our parants were growing up... BIG DIFFERENCE, theres a "step or stage" of positive growth right there. so, mentaly, Evolution is now proven beyond a doubt, our minds evolved. now for the biological front.

Look at our change from the past, life has changed imensly from the past. If evolution did not exist, then i would be married with a few kids right now, cause i would die in about 3 years, maybe 5 if i live a good life. our body's have evolved incredably, look at it, the average life expectancy used to be 20 years old, 30 if yer lucky 40 was almost unheard of, now look, people are living to be like 98, 102, thats a BIG difference? why? some say conditions are better, but its really because of disease...and why are we not having to worry about those diseases that plagued the world back when you died a hapily maried man at 20, with 3 kids and a loving wife?
Evolution, our body's have evolved to survive, developing immunities to diseases we have troubles with.
OK, now into the true topic at hand. weve discovered our minds evolve with time, well, if you drag yourself back far enough, we'd be no more advanced then current day gorrilia's and such, we'd bald ape's. on the body half, well, our size has changed a bit to, i mean, a 6' 1" boy such as myself just didnt exist a while back, its been proven that as we advance, we hold the capabilities of being taller, as simple as it may seem.
so, if we can get taller, why not lose a little hair? i mean, actauly, the hairs still there! its just lighter colored! so, with this said, we are blound apes with different hair on top, there are red apes, and black apes, and all other kindsa apes out there, so, we are just a light colored being, that happens to be very similer to apes in every aspect? i think not, sorry to say it, but evolution has just been proven,
"brillent deduction" its all about the small steps leading to the leaps. through process of basics, we find that we are indeed apes, that have simply grown smarter, and changed hair color.

But, i know, even those suporting evolution will most likely diss-agree with me, oh well, i still say im right.

[ 08-31-2002 12:21 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Entaris ]

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Entaris, just because technology has gotten so much better doesn't mean we evolve. It just means we learn on the knowledge we get. Of course we know more today, because we learn from our past.

And the life expectacy thing. That is mainly because of modern medicine, and the way we eat nowadays. Most women died at an early age due to child birth and other things, not because we are gentically superior.

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

I would like to know though, what YOUR thoughts on the differences are, what seperates an ape from a human? what makes us different, in your opinion. because i personaly can not find anything besides knowledge...

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Blake, you're right, neither side is proven beyond a doubt. But, my side has scientific evidence that backs it up. Yours has none. Why do you ignore scientific evidence?

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I just think that the way everything is shows an intelligent design. That is just me, and like I said, I respect your veiws, but until proven, I will beleive what I beleive to be true.

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

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I am talking about the theory of evelution, look at the post bery carefully, as ive said, you have to look at the small changes in order to see the big, "rome wasnt built in a day"

If you look at how our sociaty has evolved, is incredibly simple to say the "theory of evolution" is completly correct, why? because as we go further back in socioty, were more apelike, less evolved. eventauly, the social structure of humanity, has to reach a point that it is akin to the apes, and as we are simply strangly haired apes in appearance, then what seperates us? we had to start somewhere, apparantly it was the apes.
But after this post im out here again, as no one understands my incredibly mind numbing logic...

all you peeps need to remember, though "the simplist explaination is usaly the correct one" and i mean not simple to say, simple to search out the complex. but no one will understand what im saying, cept maybe graysith, as she seemed to understand my first "logical" post on the thread, but oh well. *sigh*

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Anyway Bob -- GEE THANKS! THAT'S AWFULLY BIG OF YA!

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Anakin, thank you for being the steady one in this thread -- as well as staying true to your course of questions you put forth to Bob. I too am curious as to how a person will totally ignore proven fact that HIGHLY SUPPORTS a theory over no fact whatsoever, and what I've read in certain articles to be called "crackpot science."

"Crackpot science" only listens to a part... not the whole... and tends to skew the data, and use only the bits which may support its own views, and tends to ignore the rest.

Hence my reference to the article from the website Bob provided the link for... the statement about the "40,000-80,000 YBP disappearance of any evidence of man." I have then gone on to present fact to utterly disprove that rather grandiose statement... and now Bob is backing away once more.

And now, ummm.... from what I am reading in "Genome," evidence leads science to now think upon the exact "hows and whys" single cells did unite to form more complex organisms. At first it was along the lines that organisms unite symbiotically, to be more efficient as a group together rather than singly. Eventually they actually went from a group to a "one, made up of those group members" -- see mitochondria in our cells, folks, if you don't believe me. Hehehe... that lil powerhouse of ATP used to be a separate single-celled organism which way back in the mists of time found home in a cell and joined in to provide that cell energy, and in return have a place safe from predation. This we know because the mitochondria has a double cell wall around it, among other things.

Anyway, science is going further. There is evidence springing up from our learning to understand genetics more deeply, where genes are said to be in competition with each other, and thus evolve to a more complex organism that they might find expression of themselves. In this enlightening new school of knowledge it is being heavily considered that intelligence is actually just a by-product of our genes trying to "run the show," so to speak.... hehehe.

And... will SOMEONE please offer me some kind of NON-SUBJECTIVE evidence as to WHICH SCHOOL OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IS RIGHT? Which is the one in the Grand Scheme of Things... AND WHY???

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Anyway I digress so I'll leave now as I never took Bio and so have nothing to really add to this conversation as fun as it is to read.

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Hmm...I'm only going to make one reply to this topic.

Yes, I am a Christian, and no, I do not believe in large-scale evolution. I'm going to take a diferent spin on this, because while I've been following this thread for a few days, I didn't know where to jump in.

All I'm going to say is this. I am very much of an instinctual person. I trust my feelings and I go with them. I definately have a lot of respect for M1J and BobPalpatine because they've done a lot of personal reading and research on how they can back up their faith, and I'll admit that I haven't. I know that Gray and Anakin won't think my reply very logical, but it's not meant to be logical. The reason I don't believe in large scale evolution is because of the experiences that I have in life as a Christian. I truly believe that I can feel God's presence with me wherever I am, and it makes me happy. There's always been something in my gut that what I hear on Sunday mornings and what I read in the Bible is the truth. It's also one of the reasons why I still wake up in the morning, but that's another story altogether. Anyway, because I believe that God created everything with a few simple words from his mouth, I do not believe that any animal(or creature/being, whatever) was 'created' or came about through large-scale evolution.

That's my two cents.

[ 09-02-2002 01:38 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Taehun ]

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May I remind you that unlike some schools of thought, science always tries to disprove itself? The overall aim is for TRUTH to be known, after all.

And it takes LOTS AND LOTS of not only reproducible but PREDICTABLE evidence to make a scientific theory into a law. But then science doesn't refuse disproving fact which would topple that law; instead it uses it as a means of GROWTH, to further seek the truth. ie: Obviously, when disproving facts arise (again, reproducible an predicting factual ones!!! -- and ones which of course cannot themselves be disproven, for if that were the case they wouldn't be fact) then science has been on the wrong track. Science seeks truth, and so would backtrack to where the initial error was made, and then continue.

That is the wonderful thing about science. It actively seeks facts, whether proving or disproving, in order to find truth. It does not ignore those facts which fly in the face of a formerly held truth, which is something I find religion/faith does all the time.

And the main reason is this: science is OBJECTIVE, while faith is based on very, very much SUBJECTIVE reasoning. Faith sprang up from, "I don't reeeeally understand how all this works, so it MUST be due to God...." while science says, "Here, look! I've found this and this and this...."

And now you know... the rest of the story...!

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anyway, i, id like to suggest that perhaps umm... well, maybe we should get together and play monopoly? that game fixes everything... *pulls out his wieghted dice* fifty bucks say's i win...

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