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DNA half-life only 521 years, so is dino DNA and insect amber DNA young?

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If paleontology lives by radiometric dating, it also dies by radiometric dating. Either DNA trapped in 200 million-year-old Jurassic insect amber is young or it has some unexplained source. I argue it is young. Radiometric C-14 dates of fossils say the fossils are young. As I’ve said many times, the radiometric date of 65 million-year-old rocks is irrelevant to the radiometric date of the actual physical tissue of a fossil. I could bury a living dog in 65 million-year-old rocks, and the age of rocks will have nothing to say of the age of the dog. The best inferences for time of death of a fossil: half-life of C-14, half life of DNA, half-life of amino acids, etc., NOT the age of the rocks they are buried in…

From Nature News

After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate.

Determining that rate has been difficult because it is rare to find large sets of DNA-containing fossils with which to make meaningful comparisons. To make matters worse, variable environmental conditions such as temperature, degree of microbial attack and oxygenation alter the speed of the decay process.

But palaeogeneticists led by Morten Allentoft at the University of Copenhagen and Michael Bunce at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, examined 158 DNA-containing leg bones belonging to three species of extinct giant birds called moa. The bones, which were between 600 and 8,000 years old, had been recovered from three sites within 5 kilometres of each other, with nearly identical preservation conditions including a temperature of 13.1 ºC. The findings are published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B1.

Diminishing returns

By comparing the specimens’ ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.

The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of −5 ºC, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier — perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.

“This confirms the widely held suspicion that claims of DNA from dinosaurs and ancient insects trapped in amber are incorrect,”

http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555

😯

Mark Armitage was fired because his data dared to question the mainstream. And now we find dino blood with dino DNA that can’t be more than a few million years old, maybe even on the order of thousands of years with a DNA half-life of 521 years! And what about DNA insect amber? Armitage was fired, but his claims continue to be vindicated by mainstream science. His career martyrdom was not in vain.

We can assume for the sake of argument the universe is old, the Earth is old, that even many fossils are old, but if some fossils are proven young (like the dinos and insects) paleontology will go into anarchy and evolutionism won’t even have a coherent chronology to go on. One does not have to be a YEC to realize the latest discoveries are good news for ID because it casts doubt on the claims of Darwinist interpretation of the fossil record.

NOTES
1. HT: Darwin then and now

Evolution was once a theory in crisis, now evolution is in crisis without a theory.

2. Hope Ken Ham bashes Bill Nye with this in debate. 🙂

Comments
JGuy (102), You might be interested that some YLC researchers at Southern Adventist University have obtained, IIRC, Eocene material from northern Canada that has been in Permafrost since the ice age (whenever that was) and are trying to get DNA sequences from them. You might want to contact them and try to find out what progress they have made. Try lee spencer % @southern. edu (Omit the spaces and the % which were added to confuse automatic e-mail collectors.) Paul Giem
Eric @127, I disagree with your reasoning on the chromosomes and I disagree with your reasoning on the interpretation of the ancient texts. That being said, I am also tired of this topic. I'm sure it will be revisited in the future on UD. Thanks for the comments. Mapou
Mapou:
I should add that the fact that we have a pair of chromosomes even though each sex only needs one, is powerful evidence that humans used to be both male and female.
No. From a genetic standpoint, the way the chromosomes are arranged (one sexual partner with XX and one sexual partner with XY) is precisely what allows the population to continue over many generations with very close to a 50-50 ratio of males and females being born. It might seem counterintuitive until we run a Punnet Square, but it is the case that arranging the XY chromosomes the way they are in males and females is an ingenious solution to the perpetuation of the race -- a race made up of individual males and females. It is most definitely not the case that only one chromosome is needed -- certainly not in terms of perpetuating the race. Furthermore, what kind of reproduction would we expect to see in an androgynous population? Presumably, there would still be a need for a gestation period, the uterus and myriad other requirements for the developing child, some way to breast feed the newborn. So -- in essence -- a female. Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c Especially the very last line! :) We could of course propose that the race was -- structurally -- female, but just happened to be able to self-fertilize. Fine. But there is just one problem with that. There is no evidence for it. Additionally, how then, did males come about? And if we started out as essentially female -- at least in structure, ability to birth, ability to gestate, ability to feed newborns, etc. -- then one has to square that with the scriptural account, which tells us precisely nothing in this regard, and (if anything), suggests that the man was created first. Yet again, if we are basing our understanding of early human biology on the use of a pronoun in a particular verse, might we not also be willing to consider that the verse specifically refers to God creating male and female, and says (plural) "them"? Finally, if by your own admission, as soon as we read a few more words and get to verse 3 we are already talking about a much later, different Adam than the Adam referred to in verse 2, then we have to acknowledge that the scriptural account gives us essentially zero information about the state of affairs before the "male" adam showed up in verse 3. So the whole thing is based on a highly questionable interpretation of a scripture translated from a foreign language after being handed down for thousands of years, an interpretation that flies in the face of current biological reality, and for which there is no other independent evidence. I'm afraid this is a prime example of "wresting scripture." Eric Anderson
Re: @125, I should add that the fact that we have a pair of chromosomes even though each sex only needs one, is powerful evidence that humans used to be both male and female. Mapou
JGuy @121:
But nobody is saying God only planned to create male. The observed chromosome setup is consistent with the literal interpretation without extra modifications.
No it isn't. There is no reason for the sexes to have a pair of chromosomes. Men could just have Y chromosomes and women could have x chromosomes. That would work just fine.
A fully androgynous person invokes a whole new kind of chromosomal setup.
Not true. An androgynous human would simply have a Y chromosome and an X chromosome, just like a modern man. The only difference is that both chromosomes would be fully activated.
You claim it isn’t rocket science, but you didn’t posit what a fully androgynous persons chromosome set would consist of whereby this being would be apparently capable of asexual reproduction.
I did. You did not understand it even though it is very simple. Mapou
tjguy@122:
But it doesn’t fit with the Bible and that is the issue for most YECs.
"But it doesn’t fit with our particular interpretation of the Bible and that is the issue for most YECs." There, fixed it. :) Seriously, there are multiple ways to interpret Genesis that allow for an old Earth -- and even moreso an old universe. But I do agree that Mapou has ironically taken at least an equally dogmatic interpretation, then accuses those who think otherwise of being insincere. The main lesson from this perhaps? Scripture is subject to interpretation and it is impossible to come to an agreement on these issues just by referencing the Bible. Anyway, I should probably keep my mouth shut since I don't have a dog in the old-Earth, young-Earth race. Just observing that different interpretations are possible, so we should (i) be cautiously willing to consider other people's interpretation and recognize the weaknesses in ours, and (ii) not hold too dogmatically to any particular interpretation. Sorry everyone for jumpin' in. /soapbox Eric Anderson
tjguy:
But it doesn’t fit with the Bible and that is the issue for most YECs.
It seems to me that most YECs interpret the Bible the way they want. IOW it ain't the Bible that is the issue. The point is YECs use genealogies to try to get the age of the earth. That only works if all the books are correct and present- meaning someone didn't remove some books and do a rewrite to make it seem like all is OK. Joe
@91 Joe
Doesn’t an “old universe with a young earth” solve the starlight issue?
But it doesn't fit with the Bible and that is the issue for most YECs. Who really cares if the earth is young or old? The only reason we YECers care is that we believe this is what God says. God's authority, His character, the truth of His Word, etc. is at stake. So the issue for most YECs is the authority of God's Word, not the age of the earth. If God's Word cannot be trusted, if it is not "truth" as Jesus claimed, then we have lost everything. We no longer have any idea what is/is not true. If science can trump God's Word, then how do we know if any of the miracles recorded in Scripture are true? If the things that we can verify prove to be false, then why in the world should we believe in things that are unverifiable(heaven, forgiveness, eternal life, etc.)? Just because "science" tells us that Genesis is wrong, does not make it wrong. The same evidence may have various interpretations. ie. Convergence and fossil stasis can also be seen as evidence against evolution. tjguy
Mapou
You know, you guys are so transparent. I can read you like a leaf. This is exactly the kind of reply I was expecting from you. It shows that you are not really after the truth but fighting to preserve your doctrine at all costs, truth be damned. You got a lame pony in this race.
Sorry, I don't have a pony in the race. Only scripture.
You give God all kinds of infinite powers to do anything he wants including creating an entire universe in 6 days and yet, you are unable to see any way for such a powerful God to design and create an androgynous human being? That’s truly pathetic, man.
On God's power.. I don't give God power. God is God. And of course God could have created a bi-gender being, that's not the issue. But a straight reading of scripture doesn't support this. Perhaps, you need to check yourself on what limits you pose on God's power. I'm sensing you may not be simply deluded but possibly deliberately misleading (I hope that is not the case). Especially after hearing your grand YEC conspiracy theory. I have nothing to gain from a YEC view. Most YEC have nothing to gain. We get flack from every angle. As I said before, I would accept an old earth model if scripture indicated that, in fact, I use to hold to an old earth model. But the scripture doesn't indicate that, so I had to change my position. And the evidence vindicates this decision. What's pathetic is your wild accusations. And careless judgement.
The way it works is that each sex really needs only one chromosome but chromosomes were designed to come in pairs from the beginning. Why? Because the original humans were androgynous, that’s why. In a male, the Y chromosome is programmed to automatically inhibit the X chromosome just by being there. How hard do you think it would be for God to figure out that all he has to do to create an androgynous human is to either suppress the inhibition mechanism in the Y chromosome or leave it out altogether? If God had planned to create only a male Adam, he would not have included the X chromosome in his genome at all. He would have given him just one or two Y chromosomes.
But nobody is saying God only planned to create male. The observed chromosome setup is consistent with the literal interpretation without extra modifications. A fully androgynous person invokes a whole new kind of chromosomal setup. You claim it isn't rocket science, but you didn't posit what a fully androgynous persons chromosome set would consist of whereby this being would be apparently capable of asexual reproduction. God would have had to do something different than what we see. Yet, what we see is 'coincidently'enough to account for in the literal interpretation. And so the reason I'm pointing out the currently observed chromosome setup account for individual male and for female. But not for hydribs that could apparently self-reproduce. So, all I'm saying is there is no other chromosomal set needed if you use the literal interpretation of a male and female beign created seperately from the start. Yes, the woman was made from Adam's (the individual man) rib, but that doesn't mean man was androgenous.
When God separated the sexes, he simply added a mechanism to inhibit the X chromosome in the males and then he replaced the Y-chromosome in the females with a duplicate X chromosome. It’s not rocket science, man.
An X chromosome doesn't account for a being capable of asexual reproduction. You have to add that to the story. This is why I'm saying it's not the simplest answer.
You YECs sound just like the Darwinists with their just-so stories that make no logical sense.
Again. There's no pony in the race. Only scripture. JGuy
JGuy @119, You know, you guys are so transparent. I can read you like a leaf. This is exactly the kind of reply I was expecting from you. It shows that you are not really after the truth but fighting to preserve your doctrine at all costs, truth be damned. You got a lame pony in this race. You give God all kinds of infinite powers to do anything he wants including creating an entire universe in 6 days and yet, you are unable to see any way for such a powerful God to design and create an androgynous human being? That's truly pathetic, man. The way it works is that each sex really needs only one chromosome but chromosomes were designed to come in pairs from the beginning. Why? Because the original humans were androgynous, that's why. In a male, the Y chromosome is programmed to automatically inhibit the X chromosome just by being there. How hard do you think it would be for God to figure out that all he has to do to create an androgynous human is to either suppress the inhibition mechanism in the Y chromosome or leave it out altogether? If God had planned to create only a male Adam, he would not have included the X chromosome in his genome at all. He would have given him just one or two Y chromosomes. When God separated the sexes, he simply added a mechanism to inhibit the X chromosome in the males and then he replaced the Y-chromosome in the females with a duplicate X chromosome. It's not rocket science, man. You YECs sound just like the Darwinists with their just-so stories that make no logical sense. Mapou
Mapou. My questions above may come off as sarcastic, but they are legitimate questions resulting from your hyper-metaphoric view of Genesis. Another evidence that original man was not androgynous: Observed sex chromosome patterns. Male : X Y Female: X X If Adam was a single male individual with X and Y chromosome pairs, he interestingly had the exact genetic material to make a female by present observations of what distinguishes male and female at the genetic level. The reverse (female to male) is not true. Convenient science if the original Adam was literally a male individual... is it not? What was a supposed androgynous Adam's chromosomal pattern? If Adam was a tribe of fully androgynous people - apparently capable of asexual reproduction - then was the chromosomal pattern say all four in one person, i.e. X X X Y. So, is it merely a coincidence then that by the literal interpretation that present day male chromosomal configuration is sufficient to make a female, but that the reverse is not true. Or is it this way because the literal reading is actually the true case. The simplest answer is clearly in favor for the literal case. In a sense, male's today are "androgynous" because they have the full genetic potential. God could do the same with a man today... just like the original individual man named Adam. This could be from where some of the confusion is injected into an otherwise straight forward account of two persons being made in the beginning. JGuy
By the way, Anderson, I am not the first one to suggest that the original humans were androgynous. Do a web search for "androgynous adam". It's a very old idea. My main objection to most other views is that I believe that "the Adam" was the name given to the original androgynous human species, not just one person. It's like using "the French" or "the Spanish" to refer to a people. I believe that early humans were highly civilized and scientifically advanced until they ran afoul of the Gods (the Elohim). And then everything went to pot. This is probably what led to the legend of Atlantis where androgyny is said to have existed. Just saying. Mapou
Eric Anderson @112:
Mapou: I apologize if my prior comments were a bit snide. I appreciate your views on ID and you have provided many valuable comments in this forum. I try not to make light of anyone’s religious beliefs, and apologize if any of my comments veered in that direction.
No problem.
Just one last question, for my own understanding rather than debate, and then I’ll drop the topic. This is the first time I have heard an interpretation of Genesis that suggests (i) Adam in the garden was not the Adam after the garden, and (ii) humans were androgenous originally. I’m just wondering if this is a viewpoint of a particular faith you belong to, or if it is your own personal viewpoint?
Well, I don't belong to any church and I don't ever go to church except as a tourist (I love the architectures of old cathedrals), if that is what you mean. I am a Christian but have a deep distrust of organized religion. But then again, I feel the same way toward the secular scientific community. I think they all tell lies and half truths. I do my own research as much as I can. As far as my interpretation of the creation story of Genesis is concerned, all I can say is that this is what I see when I read the text. I am careful to study the usage of every Hebrew word or phrase that appears to have an ambiguous or fuzzy meaning. I am not fluent in Hebrew but modern computers have made it relatively easy to research how the original Hebrew words are used in different contexts. The book of Genesis is a little hard to read and easy to misinterpret at times but, as I said earlier, it's not rocket science. There is no doubt in my mind that the 6000-year-old earth doctrine is complete hogwash and that this is not what the book of Genesis says. Far from it. I feel personally insulted when I see it being preached by others. It puts Christianity in a bad light and make Christians like myself look stupid. It's evil, in my opinion. Thanks for asking. Mapou
p.s. To clarify, I'm not saying God made a mistake. I'm reading you're new interpretation as suggesting that it would have been a mistake on God's part to make man bi-gender before realizing he needed company. Correct me if I am misunderstanding your storied interpretation. JGuy
Mapou
I have shown clearly in this thread that you are mistaken about Genesis.
No, you have clearly not done so. Explain: If Adam is a bunch of bi-gender humanoids - why is Adam listed distinctly in a set of genealogies of clearly individual men? Why mix apples and oranges? i.e. Why mix a mistake (b/c man will be lonely...ooops!) on God's part with individual people? Wait? Why would they be lonely..a bunch of bi-gender people would keep each other company just fine. Who are all these subsequent generations? Of course you will have to keep adding to your admittedly far left field story (akin to Darwinist just-so stories) to make it fit. Elijah returning?? How do you justify not calling him a metaphor with all the other metaphors? Is sin a metaphor? Did Jesus die for a metaphor? Why do you think Jesus wasn't a metaphor, or do you think He was a metaphor? 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NASB) So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Romans 5:14 (NASB) Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. Luke 3:38 (NASB) the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. How do those verses fit with your story of Adam not being an individual man? They don't. Just calling like I see it. JGuy
correction: Then all I can say is that you are deluded to believe that, imo. Just calling it as I see it. JGuy
Mapou @ 109
I’ll take it even further than that. I accuse all YECs, especially their leaders in the Christian fundamentalist communities of lying in order to defend a doctrine that they know to be false.
Then all I can say is that you are deluded to believe that, imo. Just calling it as I see it. JGuy
Mapou: I apologize if my prior comments were a bit snide. I appreciate your views on ID and you have provided many valuable comments in this forum. I try not to make light of anyone's religious beliefs, and apologize if any of my comments veered in that direction. Just one last question, for my own understanding rather than debate, and then I'll drop the topic. This is the first time I have heard an interpretation of Genesis that suggests (i) Adam in the garden was not the Adam after the garden, and (ii) humans were androgenous originally. I'm just wondering if this is a viewpoint of a particular faith you belong to, or if it is your own personal viewpoint? Thanks, Eric Anderson
What do you think the half life of chlorophyll is?
That's a good question. TSErik
When on a visit to the Smithsonian I watched a paleobotanist splitting shale to reveal the leaves of a fern. What was interesting was that when opened the cast of the leaves was green. What do you think the half life of chlorophyll is? Latemarch
JGuy @100:
Essentially, in either case, you are accusing me of lying. I guess if that’s your ‘objective’ position, there’s not much I do for you here.
I'll take it even further than that. I accuse all YECs, especially their leaders in the Christian fundamentalist communities of lying in order to defend a doctrine that they know to be false. The book of Genesis does not support your 6000-year-old earth doctrine. It never did and never will. Genesis is where the YEC problem began and this is where it must be solved. I have shown clearly in this thread that you are mistaken about Genesis. You people have a worldview to defend at all costs, just like the Darwinists and the atheists. But Elijah will come and restore all things. And he will be nobody's female dog, that's for sure. This will happen in your lifetimes. Wait for it. Mapou
I just realized the other day when I was watching the Rose Bowl that there is only one person on the Stanford team. Incredible. All this time I thought there were a whole bunch of players, coaches, staff. But time and again, the announcers referred to the "Cardinal" -- note the singular, folks! -- not the "Cardinals." In very clear contrast, whenever I watch the Arizona professional football team, they are referred to as the "Cardinals" -- note the plural. Must be some deep meaning in this somewhere. :) Eric Anderson
Mapou: I just read the original texts very carefully; that’s all. The Genesis account plainly says that Adam was the name given to a group of humans and they were both male and female.
Right. And the Hebrew "adam" is used over and over in the Old Testament in a generic sense of "man", i.e, a lowly human, an "earthling." CentralScrutinizer
@Lincoln, Refer to buffalo's link @85 for examples of creationists testing dino bone. Refer to sixthbook's link @97 for citation of offer to Jack Horner to test bone, which was refused. And, to butcher a Mark Twain quote, reports of [creationist wealth] have been greatly exaggerated. As opposed to evolutionists who, via our vast government support of public universities and organizations like NCSE, receive billions in support. Besides, given that creationists DO run these tests (see link, ref icr.org for additional examples), and are ignored or dismissed as "contaminated" or "improper recovery/testing methods", there isn't really any point in them doing additional testing which always comes up positive. The only way the evolutionary establishment will accept these positive tests is if they are done by evolutionists brave or secure enough (ref Mary Schweitzer) to run the tests themselves. And considering that she has spent literally decades having to defend and repeatedly reproduce her results, which still aren't accepted by people like you, why would an evolutionist bother and endure the pain? I find it highly significant that when it comes to performing an experiment like testing dinosaur bone that could be world-changing for science, every creationist I know is saying "Go! Go!" and every evolutionist (like, say, Lincoln?) is saying "No! No!" If you truly believe that evolution is true, shouldn't you think this is a great idea, to finally shut up those annoying creationists? drc466
p.p.s. I think the sequencing can be done relatively cheap. Maybe, a few thousand dollars. So, the control study seems most important. JGuy
oops.. I assumed a human sized lengths DNA... perhaps, alligator DNA might act as a fair estimate. JGuy
Does anyone know what such a experiment would cost to conduct? Let's assume dino soft tissue can be gathered for the experiment. The cost to do a control study of tissue in moist conditions. Perhaps, this was done already. But I'd like to know what exact half-life values are expected to be in moist conditions... even bloody for those that think blood will preserve the DNA. A 512 year DNA half-life in amber would be ~9 half-life's since the Genesis flood. 3 billion nucleotides... that comes down to DNA segments of about 5 million nucleotides long. That seems pretty robust. But in earthy moist conditions what should we find after 4500 years??? JGuy
LP @ 94 Mapou @ 98 LP:
If dino DNA is such a game changer then the well funded creationist groups should be able to buy dino bones on the open market, chop them open, sequence the DNA and then laugh all the way to the bank.
Mapou:
If the creationists are serious about their claims, they should find the dinosaur DNA. Some recoverable dinosaur DNA should exist if the earth is only 6000 years old. Where is it?
I'm a YEC, and I totally agree. Well, other than LP stating that creationist groups are well funded. That doesn't appear to be the case. But I'd be willing to donate to such a venture. I'm quickly ready to put my money where my mouth is... let's do it. Oh, and let's agree before-hand not to claim "contamination!" if DNA segments are found. It would be best to figure out decay rates outside of amber. The topic of this post is 512 years half life (in amber?). What is the half-life in moist conditions that are typical in the earth? Preferably, we should measure the moisture levels of some recently known flood basins. And take these to the lab. Do some real world lab work. Calculate half-lives, and make a prediction on dinosaurs remains being 4500 years old. If anyone knows of any project doing just this, then let me know. I will probably donate to it. And I bet most YEC here would be willing to donate to the same. OEC and even Darwinist should be willing to donate as well, simply because they believe it will put a YEC argument to rest. But..dare they? :D JGuy
... Mapou. Like Sal, I use to be an old earth creationist. But my reasons for my initial change to young earth was a bit different than Sal's. After I heard of the young earth view, I found it very easy to reason that it was just a possible. Why? Simply because I accepted my ignorance, and accepted that the testability of ages was so dubious. Meanwhile, the many evidences of a young earth, and of youth in the massive features of the earth (e.g. the ocean salinity levels and the decaying earth's magnetic field) were compelling enough to further solidify the reasonable doubt about any age of the earth and to counter all the Flintstone's propaganda incurred in my youth. My hope is that others will break free from the Flintstone's brainwashing cycle... and consider things fresh again... revisit your youth and reconsider what you think you know. Why do you think what you think? Why do you think you think what you think about why you think what you think? :D JGuy
Mapou
I disagree with your interpretation of the geological data. I think you are either willingly mistaken or you are dishonest in your assessment.
Essentially, in either case, you are accusing me of lying. I guess if that's your 'objective' position, there's not much I do for you here.
The analysis of ocean floor sedimentation and layering over 10s of millions of years may not be super accurate but it’s good enough to conclude that the earth is billions of years old. That’s my opinion. I may change it but I doubt it.
At this point I am tempted to say to you: I disagree with your interpretation of the geological data. I think you are either willingly mistaken or you are dishonest in your assessment. ... But I won't.
I will tell you something, JGuy. I tell it like I see it and, as you know, I don’t mince my words. I have as much trust in YECs as I have in Darwinists. You people are on a mission to prove yourselves right in the eyes of men and that scares the hell out of me.
One can very easily consider your far-from-left-field view in this way. That you don't really see the problems with the old earth view could be considered troubling. Interesting. ... JGuy
Why bother looking for dinosaur DNA? Everyone knows it cannot last for that long. If creationists are serious about their claims, they should find Carbon 14 in dinosaur bones. Some carbon 14 should still be in them if the earth is only 6,000 years old. Where is it? YECs look for Carbon14 for the same reason they look for dinosaur DNA for the same reason they look for soft tissues. sixthbook
Why would anybody want to C-14 date dinosaur bones? That's ridiculous. Everybody knows that C-14 does not work that far back. If the creationists are serious about their claims, they should find the dinosaur DNA. Some recoverable dinosaur DNA should exist if the earth is only 6000 years old. Where is it? Mapou
@Lincoln Phipps: Creationists have offered Jack Horner a $23,000 grant to C-14 date dinosaur bones. https://uncommondescent.com/news/icc-2013-creationist-bob-eynart-attempts-to-bribe-darwinist-jack-horner/ (The link says 10k but if you google its between 20-23k) It's not for lack of trying. It's funny how the evolutionists are the ones scared of investigating science, not the creationists! sixthbook
I wrote:
The Bible does not specify when the original creation of the first humans occurred.
I should add, as far as I know. It is very possible that it is revealed in other metaphorical texts, or even in ancient texts that may have already been or will be discovered by archaeologists. Mapou
Querius @93:
Here’s an interesting view of time and the age of the universe from Gerald Schroeder: http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspx He suggests that the universe is both 14-15 billion years old and a few thousand years old depending on your frame of reference.
Wow! That's a first. Here's the first line from the link you provided.
One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data?
I have never seen any Biblical data that suggests that the universe or the earth is a few thousands of years old. And I have read the Genesis account many dozens of times using different translations and interlinear Hebrew/English translations. The Biblical text clearly indicates that we are dealing with two different "Adams", a historical one (who fathered Cain and Abel) and a metaphorical one in the garden of Eden. The Bible does not specify when the original creation of the first humans occurred. So after reading the first line of the article, I stopped there because I think Mr. Schroeder is sorely mistaken right off the bat. Mapou
drc466, you claim that you know of scientists who refuse to look at dinosaur bones and look for DNA. Citation needed ! On the other hand the stance of the pro-YEC scientists is just that. If dino DNA is such a game changer then the well funded creationist groups should be able to buy dino bones on the open market, chop them open, sequence the DNA and then laugh all the way to the bank. Probably not going to happen as the current science shows. Where chemicals have been found the DNA is excessively degraded. Remember that DNA consists of elements that have been in existence since before the formation of the Earth and we don't know how long certain compounds can exist for but we do know that DNA does breakdown on a certain timescale (which is far longer than YEC timescales). Current science says it is degraded. YEC creationists have vast wealth. They could easily afford to pay for this and publish the dino DNA sequences. Will they ? Unlikely as that would mean going from whiny critics to actually doing science that would be trivial to compare with modern gene database tools. Lincoln Phipps
Here's an interesting view of time and the age of the universe from Gerald Schroeder: http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspx He suggests that the universe is both 14-15 billion years old and a few thousand years old depending on your frame of reference. -Q Querius
Doesn’t an “old universe with a young earth” solve the starlight issue?
Yes indeed. scordova
Doesn't an "old universe with a young earth" solve the starlight issue? Joe
drgrossi, Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out.
Neglect of Geologic Data by Daniel Wonderly
George E., According to the inflationary model there is no starlight problem. For most of its existence, the "fabric of space" in the universe was expanding faster than the speed of light, giving the light being emitted a free ride over enormous distances in a relatively short time. -Q Querius
Jguy:
You said doubt the opinions of men more. Then why do you accept the opinions of men for an old earth given you have more data going the opposite direction?
I disagree with your interpretation of the geological data. I think you are either willingly mistaken or you are dishonest in your assessment. The analysis of ocean floor sedimentation and layering over 10s of millions of years may not be super accurate but it's good enough to conclude that the earth is billions of years old. That's my opinion. I may change it but I doubt it. I will tell you something, JGuy. I tell it like I see it and, as you know, I don't mince my words. I have as much trust in YECs as I have in Darwinists. You people are on a mission to prove yourselves right in the eyes of men and that scares the hell out of me. Mapou
George E Agree on both parts. Old earth advocates forget that their theory for the cosmos has a light speed difficulty problem of it's own. Of course, the claim will be that it's not a problem [now] with the inflationary band-aid. Lesson learned... we are ignorant of what happened or is happening per the data. JGuy
@ 71 CS: I would call the 'starlight problem' a difficulty rather than a problem. I may not know how to resolve the difficulty, but there's no intrinsic irrationality involved in considering a resolution possible. Here's something to consider, though. We have absolutely no clue what light is doing before it reaches our own local neighborhood. We can only assume it's doing something similar to what we observe. I'm sure astro-physicists hate to admit this, but it's true. George E.
Mapou @ 78
I’m sure you may be right in a few cases but the data certainly does not show that the world and all lifeforms on it are just a few thousands years old. That is preposterous and it is dishonest for anybody to argue on that basis, in my opinion.
It's not dishonest to disagree with making a conclusion being drawn for an old earth from that same dataset. The way I see it. It's easier to make a fault by leaning with an old earth bias than a young earth bias. Why? More clocks indicate a young earth than old earth. List all the clocks for an old earth and all the clocks for a young earth. And generalize the understanding of the science behind the clock. You should find that the clocks indicating old earth have not only have more room for doubt than young earth clocks, there are more clocks favoring a young earth. Also, the young earth clocks are more empirically understood and testable in labs. e.g. Try measuring the effects on light as it crosses regions of the entire universe in a lab versus measuring the diffusion rates of helium in a lab on a specific material. You said doubt the opinions of men more. Then why do you accept the opinions of men for an old earth given you have more data going the opposite direction? JGuy
RADIOCARBON DATING OF BONE - http://www.dinosaurc14ages.com/carbondating.htm buffalo
scordova:
Years later,my defense of YEC started out as me being an anti-establishment rebel when arguing at the old ARN forum (at the time I was only 50% convinced). It was merely a debate exercise rather than a statement of faith. It was an exercise in just giving Darwinists a hard time….
Being an anti-establishment rebel is a very good thing, in my opinion. I, too, am a rebel. But I go even further, I rebel against everything. I have another favorite motto: "I rebel, therefore I am". Why? Because almost everything I was taught turned out to be either cr*p or a mixture of good stuff and cr*p. Consider that fundamentalist Christianity is also very much a part of the establishment, just like the atheists. They've been there for centuries. The fact that YECs are anti-atheist does not make them anti-establishment. IMO, they love each other. Mapou
centralscrutinizer @77:
Mapou: Personally, I believe that God first created a race of androgynous humans (the Adam) who were both masculine and feminine. Jesus himself said that male and female were not separate in the beginning and that, for this reason, a man would cling to his wife and the two would become one flesh.
Interesting. My views are similar but a bit more metaphorical. I’m curious how you came to that. This is probably not the proper venue of that conversation.
I just read the original texts very carefully; that's all. The Genesis account plainly says that Adam was the name given to a group of humans and they were both male and female. These are adjectives, not nouns. Besides, it's impossible to create a male being without also having the design for a female being at the same time. The Genesis account leaves no doubt that the Elohim only created females later when things did not work out too well with the Adam (i.e., the androgynous humans). In other words, I just put two and two together. It's not really rocket science. But, of course, when one reads ancient scriptures, especially metaphorical texts, one should put all preconceived ideas aside, including the things you were taught to believe by others. One should be ready to change one's interpretations if need be and retrace one's steps when things don't make sense. Doctrinairism is the enemy. Mapou
If I’m wrong, it doesn’t strike me as the end of the world….
Or the beginning. Reciprocating Bill
Lincoln Phipps:
Opinions are a dime a dozen. Someone who brings it all together like Dalrymple is a lot rarer.
Sorry, storytelling isn't science. Joe
That, my friend, is how I feel about it. I wish you would consider your YEC stance and realize that you are placing your faith in the opinions of men. Do your own research. “Search and you shall find”, that’s my motto. And keep searching, always.
FWIW, I was an Old Earth Darwinist raised in a Roman Catholic home. I then became a creationist after hearing about the OOL difficulties, not to mention it seemed intuitively correct. At the time I was an OEC. Years later,my defense of YEC started out as me being an anti-establishment rebel when arguing at the old ARN forum (at the time I was only 50% convinced). It was merely a debate exercise rather than a statement of faith. It was an exercise in just giving Darwinists a hard time.... But as I argued the position, I began to find parts of it more believable. There are still serious problems with the model, but I have a mustard seed of faith it is true. If I'm wrong, it doesn't strike me as the end of the world.... scordova
Geologist Daniel Wonderly has a powerful essay on judging the age of the earth called Neglect of Geologic Data: Sedimentary Strata Compared with Young Earth Creationist Writings. He raises points that I do not see considered here in UD or other blogs. It is very compelling and worth a read. drgrossi
scordova @74:
I respect your opinion, and even though you think YECs are delusional, I still respect your opinion.
I always tell it like I see it and I do my own research because I don't trust the judgement of others.
Independent of Genesis, the data casts a lot of doubt on the mainstream dating of SOME fossils. Even if I were not a YEC, but an agnostic like Richard Milton, I don’t think the data can decisively argue for the mainstream chronology. Even if life is billions of years old on Earth, my argument is that the ages of some of the fossils presumed to be hundreds of millions of years old is suspect. I think that is empirically and theoretically defensible in light of : [...]
I'm sure you may be right in a few cases but the data certainly does not show that the world and all lifeforms on it are just a few thousands years old. That is preposterous and it is dishonest for anybody to argue on that basis, in my opinion. That, my friend, is how I feel about it. I wish you would consider your YEC stance and realize that you are placing your faith in the opinions of men. Do your own research. "Search and you shall find", that's my motto. And keep searching, always. Mapou
Mapou: Personally, I believe that God first created a race of androgynous humans (the Adam) who were both masculine and feminine. Jesus himself said that male and female were not separate in the beginning and that, for this reason, a man would cling to his wife and the two would become one flesh.
Interesting. My views are similar but a bit more metaphorical. I'm curious how you came to that. This is probably not the proper venue of that conversation. CentralScrutinizer
Sal: it is my ultimate goal to find evidence of Young chronology for life
Why? Why not have truth, whatever it is, be your ultimate goal? CentralScrutinizer
Mapou: You have not read my comments then. My arguments are precisely aimed at showing that the Garden of Eden story is metaphorical.
My apologies CentralScrutinizer
Mapou, I respect your opinion, and even though you think YECs are delusional, I still respect your opinion. Independent of Genesis, the data casts a lot of doubt on the mainstream dating of SOME fossils. Even if I were not a YEC, but an agnostic like Richard Milton, I don't think the data can decisively argue for the mainstream chronology. Even if life is billions of years old on Earth, my argument is that the ages of some of the fossils presumed to be hundreds of millions of years old is suspect. I think that is empirically and theoretically defensible in light of : 1. DNA half life 2. amino acid homochiral half life 3. C14 half life 4. known erosion rates at variance with existence of geological column 5. salinization and mireral saturation rates etc. Surely it's premature to say mainstream accounts on the chronology of life is a done deal. If I can induce at least some reasonable doubt into some of the readers regarding the credibility of the Darwinist narrative regarding fossils, then I feel I've done my job. I'm trying to make my case independent of Genesis (although it is my ultimate goal to find evidence of Young chronology for life, it is not my starting premise). Perhaps I've become more jaded over the years. Anything coming out to the mouth of Darwinists, I've grown to distrust almost automatically....and that includes their claims about the chronology of life. scordova
CentralScrutinizer:
Careful. That cuts both ways. Maybe you’re delusional for believing the Eden story is literal in the first place.
You have not read my comments then. My arguments are precisely aimed at showing that the Garden of Eden story is metaphorical. Personally, I believe that God first created a race of androgynous humans (the Adam) who were both masculine and feminine. Jesus himself said that male and female were not separate in the beginning and that, for this reason, a man would cling to his wife and the two would become one flesh. That experiment with androgynous humans did not work out too well because the Adam were bored out of their skulls. So God took the feminine part out of them and split the humans into males and females. The males got really excited when they saw the females but while they were busy running around doing male stuff, the females were communicating with some evil alien creature and, soon afterwards, they got together and learned science, i.e., they ate of the tree of knowledge. The point I'm driving at is that all this stuff could not have happened in one afternoon. OK, it's a wild hypothesis out of left field but it's infinitely more sensible than believing in a literal garden of Eden story from which they extrapolated that the earth is 6000 years old. It's pathetic, in my opinion. Mapou
Subject to another post, the DNA half-life problem is devastating to OOL. If a pre-biotic soup contained DNA, the DNA won't last long for the presumptive cellular precursor to seize upon it and use it! Millions of years do not help chemical evolution/OOL because half-lives of biotic materials preclude time from helping the process. Time is the enemy, not friend of OOL. 1. DNA decomposes 2. Amino acids racemize 3. there is de-amidation of amino acids 4. depurination of DNAs 5. hydrolysis of proteinoid polymers. Just like shaking fair coins that start out 100% heads, there is a certain expectation value that emerges over time, and with respect to biological materials like DNA, the expectation is non-life, not life. Even assuming long ages of the Earth, time is no friend to chemical evolution in light of the DNA half life and other similar considerations. But we already know this intuitively. A dead dog stays a dead dog... scordova
George E: the so-called ‘starlight problem’
It's not a "so-called" problem, it's an actual problem, aptly named. If you don't think so, then go ahead an tell me this: today when we view light from galaxies that are billions of light years away, when was that light emitted? CentralScrutinizer
Mapou: You YECs are hopelessly delusional. Doctrine is all that is important to you.
Careful. That cuts both ways. Maybe you're delusional for believing the Eden story is literal in the first place. CentralScrutinizer
JGuy:
Adam was not suppose to name species as you think of them. Nor was he told to name every animal. He named the beasts of the field.
Not true. Adam named every animal that walked on the ground and every bird that flew in the sky. The only species he did not name were the creatures in the seas and the lakes and rivers. Even if we do not count variations within kinds (a just-so story, not unlike Darwinist stories), we would still have tens of thousands of species. Not even the six-million dollar man could do what Adam did in one little afternoon. Mapou
For the interested - random YEC links on the age of the earth etc.: Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth Argon and Helium Diffusion Rates Indicate Young Earth 101 Evidences for a Young Earth drc466
Lincoln,
It’s disappointing that there is none !
From this, I will assume that you take the position that every single one of those articles claiming to have found ancient fossil tissue is mistaken/false.
The rocks that the dino bones are in dates the dino bones.
As shown by scordova's "bury a dog today" example, this is a fairly large assumption that is at the core of CvE disagreement. Stating it as a fact doesn't make it so. I take it you would agree that there's not a lot of pure undecayed uranium laying around? Yet apparently dinosaurs had perfected uranium-smelting operations...
As the science shows there is a natural explanation so far for other results. That YEC don’t like the results is no good reason to claim palaeontologists are negligent (deliberately or otherwise) in their jobs.
The only thing your citation shows is that YEC'ers have accused evolutionists of failing to look for original biological material in dinosaur fossils, because their long-age paradigm makes them believe it would be a waste of time. This would seem to be an uncontroversial, obvious assertion. You can't say that YEC don't like the results, because...there are very few results to dislike. And the results that do exist (ref prior link) support YEC. Unless you are saying that scientists HAVE looked for biological material in ancient fossils and HAVE NOT found any. If that is what you are saying, I would appreciate seeing links to those studies, as I am unaware of any such.
people have been gagging out for dino DNA.
And yet, as I just stated, I don't know of any study where a group of scientists cracked open a dinosaur bone to look for DNA, and failed to find anything at all. I do know of scientists refusing to even look, which seems against the true spirit of science, but hey. Realistically, though, I have to sympathize with scientists such as Jack Horner faced with the challenge of looking for dino DNA. As can be easily seen by the Armitage example, such a move carries significant career and reputation risks. How many of us would do something we weren't required to, at the risk of our jobs? I probably wouldn't, sadly - I need my job. drc466
Mapou @ 64 Adam was not suppose to name species as you think of them. Nor was he told to name every animal. He named the beasts of the field.
We can safely assume that there were many more animal species moving about then than now.
That's not a safe assumption at all. Though I believe there were were more varieties of animals pre-flood. The original creation needed only the original kinds of animals. For example, there needed not be lions and tigers etc...but an original feline kind. With higher genetic potential, diversification would be rapid. Consider for example that every dog today could be from one more original variety of dog (w/ greater genetic potential) - some describe it as something akin to a wolf. JGuy
LP @ 58 Is your assertion that the fiction writer Crichton was writing about what scientists actually thought regarding the possibility or prospect of finding dino DNA in any recognizable form? JGuy
I'm a little busy today. Can someone post some info on the diffusion work on Zircons, argon in the atmosphere, lack of saturation of minerals in the ocean, etc. I wrote an essay on the problem of fast entombment and slow erosion and the geological column. https://uncommondescent.com/creationism/cocktail-falsifying-darwinism-via-falsifying-the-geological-column/ To my astonishment there weren't many credible counter arguments. Invoking million of years in geological processes cuts both ways. Time can destroy the fossil record faster than it can build it! The 521-year DNA half life has opened a nice panadora's box against the Darwinists. We may as well pour it on them in this discussion. :-) This data point on DNA doesn't lie in isolation, it is representative of problems the paleontological community is actively suppressing. We don't have to insist the Earth is young, we can say however, science doesn't make the mainstream paleontological account a done deal, responsible science ought to classify it as a speculation at best given the mountains of evidence based on basic science against the standard Darwinist narrative. The fact that an agnostic like Richard Milton sees the problems is indicative that the contentions put forward by the YECs don't have to be religiously based. The difficulties are so obvious even non-creationists are becoming skeptical. Really, finding dino blood and soft tissue and soft tissue in amber after tens and hundreds of millions of years seems downright problematic. Why hasn't erosion of a mere 6cm per 1000 years erased the Phanerozoic record within about 10 million years. Certainly it seems awfully premature to say the evolutionary record is settled science since basic science does not cooperate with the Darwinist narrative. Worse for the Darwinists, even if we assume their chronology, it doesn't help their case since real evolution in the wild is destructive, not constructive. scordova
JGuy @39:
This doesn’t add up. The text does not call the Adam male and female. God made man and woman both on day six. Besides, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are accounts of part of the same week of creation, but in a different perspective. Nowhere does it indicate Eve was created long after Adam.
Let's see now. Adam was lonely. So God asked him to give a name to all the animals on earth. We can safely assume that there were many more animal species moving about then than now. That is a huge number. Adam was still lonely. So God operated on Adam and Eve was created. Consider that naming all the animal species on earth is something that would take many decades, if not centuries, even if thousands of people worked at it. And you can't just do it orally. You need a writing system and a record keeping system. And all this animal-naming business occurred in one little afternoon? And that wily talking serpent had time to fool Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. All that knowledge was downloaded into Eve's brain instantly. And all this amazing stuff happened before the setting of the sun? You YECs are hopelessly delusional. Doctrine is all that is important to you. Mapou
LP You find soft dinosaur tissue in strata that also has a igneous rock formation. What is the right tool to date the soft tissue? JGuy
Mapou:
I take it you are a YEC?
No. I don't hold to a particular timeframe. If anything, I tend to lean toward an old earth chronology and it would take a lot more to convince me that a YEC position is tenable. That said, I do think some thoughtful YEC's have raised some valuable questions and I am always open to learning more. What I am opposed to is dogmatic interpretations of a few words here or there in scripture, in a language that was translated from another language, that was written down by someone who presumably heard it through oral tradition handed down for a couple thousand years, and when the purpose of the writing almost certainly wasn't to give a scientific answer to the age of the Earth anyway. Eric Anderson
LP
Joe, ok so you don’t like, don’t understand or don’t want to understand what scientists calculate and explain. I get that; you had to be there for it to be “real”. Then invent a Time Machine and go visit it. Drop in to the 3rd Reich and the Moon Landings as there are just as many people who have a problem with that history too.
Historic events and scientifically testable hypotheses are two very different things, LP. This is the furthest one can get from an analogous comparison. TSErik
Joe, ok so you don't like, don't understand or don't want to understand what scientists calculate and explain. I get that; you had to be there for it to be "real". Then invent a Time Machine and go visit it. Drop in to the 3rd Reich and the Moon Landings as there are just as many people who have a problem with that history too. Opinions are a dime a dozen. Someone who brings it all together like Dalrymple is a lot rarer. Lincoln Phipps
drc466, the key point is "perhaps even DNA". The link you provide is duplicitous when it says, "Consider all the potential soft tissue, and perhaps even DNA, lost to humanity because of secular universities ignoring previous claims by young-earth creationists due to the false evolutionary timescale which so biased paleontologists that they would never even look for non-decomposed original biological tissue inside of dinosaur bones." Why ? Well ever since Jurassic Park (1990 for the book but really Crichton was thinking of this earlier in 1983) and quite possible earlier people have been gagging out for dino DNA. As science has sequenced whole genomes since the early 1980s then it has always been assumed that there would potentially be DNA to find albeit decayed. It's disappointing that there is none ! No dino pets. The rocks that the dino bones are in dates the dino bones. As the science shows there is a natural explanation so far for other results. That YEC don't like the results is no good reason to claim palaeontologists are negligent (deliberately or otherwise) in their jobs. Lincoln Phipps
@Lincoln - Just out of curiosity, I would like your personal opinion on my linked list of ancient fossil tissue recorded in professional sciences journals (#18 above). Real tissue magically preserved, or are they all lying/mistaken? @20 Mapou - I think we'll have to agree to disagree on who's argument is weaker. Perhaps the following analogy will help: "In 1997 as a grad student in Animal Husbandry, I created several species of colored cows. First I created an egg-shell white cow, then a glossy black cow, and then an off-tan cow. My culminating triumph, however, was a species of green cow I called 'Greenies' I created on my last week of my final semester. I created my first green bull by taking a standard Holstein cow and splicing in the genome for the color green from a common American Lizard. I called him 'Greenie'. I then created a female cow variant by taking the color genome from Greenie and splicing it into a female egg. That's how I created my species of green cows called 'Greenies'". Other than being completely fictional and scientifically ridiculous, there isn't anything partically atypical about how I tell the story of the creation of Greenies above. In fact, there is almost no other way to tell the story in a sensible fashion. It also matches the pattern of the Genesis account of "man/adam". There isn't anything contradictory in stating that I created "Greenies" by my act of creating "Greenie". Nor is there anything contradictory in Genesis by stating in Genesis 1 (Intro) that God created man, in Genesis 2 (Details) that God created Adam and Eve first and only, and in Genesis 5 (Conclusion) that that was how God created man. Again, we'll probably have to agree to disagree, but I think my analogy above at the very least proves that the standard YEC interpretation of the Genesis account of man's creation via a single man is both reasonable and straight-forward. drc466
Lincoln, I am an amateur astronomer. I have most likely read everything we have on the alleged formation of the earth. And as I said none of it can be scientifically tested. Joe
Lincoln Phipps:
if you visit a library Joe then look under DDC 550 for Earth sciences. Or you can just google ‘ formation of the earth ‘.
Lincoln, everything I have read sez t6he earth formed via multiple cosmic collisions. That cannot be tested scientifically. IOW all we have is a bias based on people's personal point of view. FYI- the alleged age of the earth DEPENDS on the ASSUMPTION that the early earth was molten, above 20,ooo kelvin, such that no crystals remained. THAT cannot be tested. Joe
scordova, "Dr. David Plaisted has written a "critique" of radiometric dating, which appears on the The True.Origin Archive. He claims on p. 2 (the page numbers for Dr. Plaisted's report are based on placing a copy into Microsoft Word® with a Times New Roman Font 12 single spacing format) that his report discusses a number of issues that question the validity of radiometric dating. He further claims that the issues in his report have not been adequately discussed in other creationist documents. A review of his report, however, shows that little, if any, of his material is original. He has simply recycled erroneous claims from Slusher (1981) and other creationist sources. In some cases, statements from Dr. Plaisted and his sources are word for word identical to statements in Slusher (1981), but Slusher (1981) is not properly quoted or referenced. Overall, the worn-out claims in Plaisted's report were refuted long ago by Dalrymple (1984), Brush (1983), Young (1982), and others. My report briefly discusses and addresses some of the worn-out claims in Plaisted's report, but for details consult my references. " For more see..... http://www.tim-thompson.com/plaisted-review.html Lincoln Phipps
Joe, if you visit a library Joe then look under DDC 550 for Earth sciences. Or you can just google ' formation of the earth '. Brent Dalrymple's book should be fine for you (the earlier The Age of the Earth book or the more recent Ancient Earth, ancient skies: the age of Earth and its cosmic surroundings. Both are by the Stanford University Press. Sure you'll find critics of the science but the process of dating and the ages are accepted irrespective of religion, (or none). It is only a minority (so called Young Earth Creationists) that have a pre-conceived idea that the Earth should be young or should be formed in a certain way. Few other Christians have such niche views. Lincoln Phipps
There are problems with dating volcanically formed rocks. So much for "bracketing". http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dating2.html Some highlights:
Most scientists today believe that life has existed on the earth for billions of years. This belief in long ages for the earth and the existence of life is derived largely from radiometric dating. These long time periods are computed by measuring the ratio of daughter to parent substance in a rock and inferring an age based on this ratio. This age is computed under the assumption that the parent substance (say, uranium) gradually decays to the daughter substance (say, lead), so the higher the ratio of lead to uranium, the older the rock must be. Of course, there are many problems with such dating methods, such as parent or daughter substances entering or leaving the rock, as well as daughter product being present at the beginning. Here I want to concentrate on another source of error, namely, processes that take place within magma chambers. To me it has been a real eye opener to see all the processes that are taking place and their potential influence on radiometric dating. Radiometric dating is largely done on rock that has formed from solidified lava. Lava (properly called magma before it erupts) fills large underground chambers called magma chambers. Most people are not aware of the many processes that take place in lava before it erupts and as it solidifies, processes that can have a tremendous influence on daughter to parent ratios. Such processes can cause the daughter product to be enriched relative to the parent, which would make the rock look older, or cause the parent to be enriched relative to the daughter, which would make the rock look younger. This calls the whole radiometric dating scheme into serious question. Geologists assert that older dates are found deeper down in the geologic column, which they take as evidence that radiometric dating is giving true ages, since it is apparent that rocks that are deeper must be older. But even if it is true that older radiometric dates are found lower down in the geologic column, which is open to question, this can potentially be explained by processes occurring in magma chambers which cause the lava erupting earlier to appear older than the lava erupting later. Lava erupting earlier would come from the top of the magma chamber, and lava erupting later would come from lower down. A number of processes could cause the parent substance to be depleted at the top of the magma chamber, or the daughter product to be enriched, both of which would cause the lava erupting earlier to appear very old according to radiometric dating, and lava erupting later to appear younger. Finally, we have a third quotation from Elaine G. Kennedy in Geoscience Reports, Spring 1997, No. 22, p.8.:
Contamination and fractionation issues are frankly acknowledged by the geologic community.2 For example, if a magma chamber does not have homogeneously mixed isotopes, lighter daughter products could accumulate in the upper portion of the chamber. If this occurs, initial volcanic eruptions would have a preponderance of daughter products relative to the parent isotopes. Such a distribution would give the appearance of age. As the magma chamber is depleted in daughter products, subsequent lava flows and ash beds would have younger dates. Such a scenario does not answer all of the questions or solve all of the problems that radiometric dating poses for those who believe the Genesis account of Creation and the Flood. It does suggest at least one aspect of the problem that could be researched more thoroughly. 2. G. Faure. 1986. Principles of Isotope Geology: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., NY, 589p. It is interesting that contamination and fractionation issues are frankly acknowledged by the geologic community. But they may not be so familiar to the readers of talk.origins and other forums where creation and evolution are discussed.
So there you have it. Ignore the actual clocks available in the fossils and then deliberately affix dates to the fossils based on the rocks they are buried in, not to mention the dates of the rocks may have issues as well. Where is the logic in any of this. No forensic crime scene investigator who investigates a buried body will attempt to establish time of death by measuring the age of the soil or rocks the victim was buried in, but this sort of illogical procedure is par for the course in paleontology. :roll: More from Plaisted:
Some information from the book Uranium Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Geology provided by Jon Covey gives us evidence that fractionation processes are making radiometric dates much, much too old. Geology contributing author Massimo Cortini cites a very interesting anomaly regarding the U 238 decay chain, which is U-238, U-234, Th-230, Ra-226, Rn-222, Po-218 Po-214, Po-210, Pb-210, Bi-210, Pb-206. The half life of U-238 is 4.47 x 10^9 years and that of Ra-226 is 1.6 x 10^3 years. Thus radium is decaying 3 million times as fast as U-238. At equilibrium, which should be attained in 500,000 years for this decay series, we should expect to have 3 million times as much U-238 as radium to equalize the amount of daughter produced. Cortini says geologists discovered that ten times more Ra-226 than the equilibrium value was present in rocks from Vesuvius. They found similar excess radium at Mount St. Helens, Vulcanello, and Lipari and other volcanic sites. The only place where radioactive equilibrium of the U-238 series exists in zero age lavas is in Hawiian rocks. Thus instead of having 1/(3 million) as much radium as uranium, which we should expect, there is ten times as much, or 1/(300,000) times as much radium as uranium. We need to consider the implications of this for radiometric dating. How is this excess of radium being produced? This radium cannot be the result of decay of uranium, since there is far too much of it. Either it is the result of an unknown decay process, or it is the result of fractionation which is greatly increasing the concentration of radium or greatly decreasing the concentration of uranium. Thus only a small fraction of the radium present in the lava (at most 10 percent) is the result of decay of the uranium in the lava. This is interesting because both radium and lead are daughter products of uranium. If similar fractionation processes are operating for lead, this would mean that only a small fraction of the lead is the result of decay from the parent uranium, implying that the U-Pb radiometric dates are much, much too old.</b< Cortini, in an article appearing in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research also suggests this possibility. He says:
"The invalidity of the Th-230 dating method is a consequence of the open-system behaviour of U and Th. By analogy with the behaviour of Ra, Th and U it can be suggested that Pb, owing to its large mobility, was also fed to the magma by fluids. This can and must be tested. The open-system behaviour of Pb, if true, would have dramatic consequences...." J Vol Geotherm Res 14 (1982) 247-260.
scordova
Lincoln Phipps:
the fossils are dated by the bracketing in rocks and those rocks are dated by radiodating systems that do not have the known limits of C14 dating.
No one knows the age of the rocks unless they know how those rocks were formed and how the earth was formed. So please tell us when there is scientific data to support the premise that the earth formed via multiple cosmic collisions. Joe
@47 tjguy, That's a great list. And who's to say that the so-called 'starlight problem' won't end up to have been yet another 'old-age of the gaps' argument doomed to be falsified by further advances in scientific understanding, as were the 'Darwin of the gaps' arguments such as 'vestigial organs' and 'junk DNA'? George E.
the fossils are dated by the bracketing in rocks and those rocks are dated by radiodating systems that do not have the known limits of C14 dating.
A living dog today could be bracketed by old rocks if I buried it old rocks! The sedimentation video JGuy provided may suggest how this can be done in nicely stratified layers. Bracketing living dog today inside layers of old rocks doesn't make the dog 500 million years old! Unbelievable you guys will insist on using the rock dates when dates are available in the fossil tissues themselves, unless of course the truth needs to be covered up to maintain a narrative. If we found a victim buried somewhere due to some sort of catastrophe (say a flood or tsunami), would we use the date of the sediments to establish the approximate time of death? Heck no. But you guys insist on doing this even in the face of available alternate clocking mechanisms. scordova
Lincoln says:
Over the past 100 years of radiometric dating the right tool for rocks has never been C14. The right tool is what doesn’t hit its limits when it is used.
The point is, how do you know what the right tool for the job is? If you automatically assume the rocks are old, then you use radiometric dating, but the point is, before you date the rocks, how do you know what the right tool is? It is quite informative that almost any time you use the C14 test on anything, you can find traces of C14 still in the rock, etc. That should not be if it is really old as is claimed. Here is an article that speaks to this C14 Dating problem: "What about carbon dating?" http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf And here is a short clip from another article that deals with the subject.
Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata. With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it. Lately the world's best such laboratory which has learned during two decades of low-C14 measurements how not to contaminate specimens externally, under contract to creationists, confirmed such observations for coal samples and even for a dozen diamonds, which cannot be contaminated in situ with recent carbon.27 These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old. http://www.icr.org/article/evidence-for-young-world/
tjguy
OK, I was looking for a chance to post this without it being off topic. Here is a list of various natural processes that we used to think took thousands/millions of years to happen, but which have been demonstrated to happen very quickly! Check out the article for links to the scientific data supporting these claims. http://www.icr.org/article/7874/
One hour oil production Normally slow-decaying radioisotopes sometimes decay in very short time frames.4 Wood petrifies in decades or even weeks.5 Coal forms within weeks.6 Bacteria produce opals in weeks.7 Floods gouge huge canyons within hours or days.8 Brown coal releases natural gas in two to five days.9 Magma moves over 2,000 feet per day through Earth’s crust.10 Sedimentary layers are laid down in minutes.11 Diamonds harden in a matter of minutes.12 Gold forms from deep earthquakes almost instantly.13
Basically what this means is that scientists can no longer use these processes as support for an old earth. tjguy
scordova, the fossils are dated by the bracketing in rocks and those rocks are dated by radiodating systems that do not have the known limits of C14 dating. Using the right too for the job is not circular reasoning but being professional. Deliberately using a tool that will show only a limited reading is just dishonest. I would not expect someone to do that. Part of the science of measurements is choosing the right tool for the job. This applies to all fields from technicians to engineers and scientists. Over the past 100 years of radiometric dating the right tool for rocks has never been C14. The right tool is what doesn't hit its limits when it is used. The fossils are deemed old because they are in rock structures that are old and those rocks are measured using different isotopes that have different half-lifes. That's like choosing the right temperature probe on your temperature probe. Rather than going overscale and showing an wrong reading it shows an accurate reading. The temperature isn't what it is because of the probe but a n independent fact that you deny and try and cover up by using the wrong tool. Lincoln Phipps
JGuy, The disturbing thing to me is that this data should be interpreted as YEC rebuttal, counter-argument, or anything else. What I mean is that - The presence in chlorophyll in most plants is not a Catholic argument, socialist rebuttal, or anything else. - Punctuated equilibrium might be attractive to a Marxist philosophy, but that it does so is completely irrelevant to Science. See what I mean? -Q Querius
Sal @ 42. Maybe that would be like someone finding an 1-hour hour glass with sand in it still falling through unimpeded. And a skeptic claiming that the hour glass must be broken, because they believe that it must have been draining for months. JGuy
Q (again), When I say that the arguments they have are distant starlight and radioactivity. That isn't to say that their arguments aren't without a YEC rebuttal or counter argument. My thrust was that that is what is usually relied on to make the claims for an old earth and/or universe. JGuy
If the radiocarbon dating has a limit according to the lab of so many thousand years then trying to date a sample that knowingly exceeds that then that’s always going to get a wrong reading.
Darwinist circular reasoning as usual. "The carbon dates are invalid because the fossil is old, the fossil is shown old because the carbon dates are invalid." You're assuming the very thing your trying to prove. That was the same circular reasoning in play in part of your link to the antediluvian DNA. Some of that info was correct, but not all of it, and where it was wrong is the issue at hand. Circular reasoning and dodging due process to hide inconvenient facts ought to be called out, and Jack Horner bailed. The only way this false narrative will be perpetuated is through institutional facism and a culture that willing disbelieve Design like JLAFan....it's not because the data is really helping out evolutionism. I'm not insisting all fossils are young based on DNA half life, but its enough to throw paleontology into disarray if they were willing to deal fairly with the facts. They won't do it, they'll choose to close their eyes like JLAFan and just keep screaming falsehoods in the face of truth. scordova
Q, I didn't read it carefully, but I think Schweitzer’s theory is not based on actual decay rates. It's based on the decay compared between two samples. In other words, take the best case scenario of the evolutionists & old earth types, and assume the tissue was soaked in a bathtub of blood (ewww)...and somehow encapsulated that way. They still need to determine, if I'm not mistaken, the rate of decay in this unrealistic best case scenario. My bet is that it still won't work. JGuy
Some comments on the comments:
Schweitzer’s new theory is that the rich iron content in blood helped preserve proteins for 100+ million years.
Yeah, it musta worked like that because everyone knows that the dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago . . . and around the circle we go. Wheee! Don't forget background radiation (mostly from Radon). It's a ubiquitous factor that's even present in bones, and this radiation is slowly cooking the DNA, relentlessly breaking it apart. Naturally, Darwinist apologists will eventually have to claim that ancient DNA musta been more resistant than modern DNA, and then they run off in search of some unlikely reason such as a protein that contains Fe ions that magically reflects or absorbs radiation. We know it must be working, but just not exactly how. lol And this is what passes for Science? It's more like science fiction!
The only thing old earthers really have to argue with are distant starlight and radioactive dating.
With the inflationary model of the universe, a star that's 55 million light years distant (let's say SDSS J122952.66+112227.8) doesn't mean that the light we see from it was in transit for 55 million of our years. Remember that the universe initially expanded much faster than the speed of light. In other words, that star might have been very close only 1 million years ago--the fabric of space inflated "beneath" it, stretching the light. Because of wide discrepancies between the results of different radioactive dating methods, the results have to be "calibrated" (I'm not making this up). Of course the old term for calibration was "cheating." Dang, I wish I would have thought of "calibrating" my results in the various lab sections that I took in college. lol -Q Querius
Mapou @ 20
drc466 @18, Your argument does not hold water, in my opinion, because the Genesis text was calling Adam “male and female” long before Eve was created.
This doesn't add up. The text does not call the Adam male and female. God made man and woman both on day six. Besides, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are accounts of part of the same week of creation, but in a different perspective. Nowhere does it indicate Eve was created long after Adam. Cain killed Able. Were they both infants in the field when Cain killed Able? Clearly not. Much time had passed since Adam and Eve were made/formed. The other things you list as what you call problems actually fit easily with the literal single man name Adam interpretation. The opposite is not true. Examples with my bold emphasis: Genesis 2:22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Why does the NASB distinguish Man and Adam here?: Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. Then follow up that verse using Adam to mean what is clearly a single individual: Question: If Adam in Genesis 5 means mankind. Did mankind live only about 10 generations and did mankind die out and went extinct without anyone telling us about it?: Genesis 5:3 When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. 4 Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. 1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 1 Timoth 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. The argument that there is no reason to think they had children every few years (if not more frequently) is just doubt for the sake of the position you hold. Even more, there is reason that they would have often had children, because they were commanded to multiply and fill the earth. This wasn't modern day America where people stop with child number 2 so that bills can be paid or whatnot. Besides, they would have the incentive to bring more help into the world to work the earth as they aged. They were also much healthier than we are today, and I would suspect Eve would be physically resilient being genetically perfect (sans effects of the very slow aging after a several hundred years). JGuy
scordova, I want you to try this experiment. Get a thermometer that bottoms out at -20 C and stick it in liquid nitrogen. It'll say -20 C assuming it hasn't shattered. It won't show the correct reading. By asking someone to do a test on something that you know won't work is just plain stupid. You can yell all you like that the reading always says -20 C when the lab engineer is telling you should be around -190 or similar C. Bribing the engineer to do the same wrong test so you can claim the engineer says the temperature is "-20 C" is just unprofessional. That's what creationists are trying to do. Unprofessional smear tactics. If the radiocarbon dating has a limit according to the lab of so many thousand years then trying to date a sample that knowingly exceeds that then that's always going to get a wrong reading. Lincoln Phipps
Sal. p.s. This Berthault paper has a lot of references at the bottom: http://www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm And here is more related material: http://www.icr.org/article/473/ http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/imp/imp-328.pdf JGuy
Sal. I'm not sure where you can find that video on an official site yet. But one of the speakers is Dr. Julien Pierre. Looks like he might have taught at Colorado State in Dept of Civil Engineering. He was an author of at least one book on sedimentation. Example: http://www.amazon.com/Erosion-Sedimentation-Pierre-Y-Julien/dp/0521537371 Another person in the film is Dr. Guy Berthault. And the best I've found so far is that Guy is the producer (at some level). According to this site, here is data on the film: "Colorado State University flood modeling - Experiments on Stratification by Pierre Julien & Guy Berthault. Published by Geological Society of France, French Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences Journal" Related: http://bsgf.geoscienceworld.org/content/164/5/649.short Finally... I am sure if you contact Ian Juby, he would know a lot about this stuff. He has a youtube channel - look up "wazooloo". Also, you can see that he has been proactive in similar sediment experimentation: http://ianjuby.org/sedimentation/ JGuy
It might be worth mentioning that the finding is not Earth shattering news nor should it be a surprise. We've known (perhaps for decades) that the DNA half-life was not very long and even prior estimates of DNA full-life had a bound of somewhere in the neighborhood of a few million years. The study was important because of the level of rigor and it drives home the point harder:
The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of ?5 ºC, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier — perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.
But the discovery of DNA, like at a forensic crime scene, is causing a lot of trouble, so much so that people like Mark Armitage get fired for highlighting the data (Mark didn't even argue for YEC, he just pointed out the discovery of soft tissue in dinos!) I know I probably ruffled feathers of some at UD for even questioning fossil ages because it smacks of YECism, and YECs (to quote Bill Dembski) are like unsavory associates of ID. But as a matter of conscience, I couldn't just sit on the data and pretend it isn't a serious problem for evolutionism. It is a serious problem. First there was problems in OOL, then problems in Darwinism, and now even problems about the fossil record. What's left for these guys except institutional power and the willingness of the culture at large to disbelieve design. If the mainstream were behaving in a fair balanced way, they ought to be saying, "it's a little premature to insist on any age of the fossils". But, noooo, it has to be "fact fact fact" that insect ambers are 200 million years old, the carboniferous era was 300 million years ago (despite C14 dates saying otherwise), that well-preserved dino tissues are a fluke. The institutional and cultural imperatives are too strong, but hard empirical data refuses to cooperate with mainstream culture. Remember, we can also C14 date dino tissues in addition to DNA half lives. I pointed out, we can't even bribe Darwinists to do their job and make a simple C14 measurement. See: https://uncommondescent.com/news/icc-2013-creationist-bob-eynart-attempts-to-bribe-darwinist-jack-horner/ What's the matter with these Darwinists, is the truth so difficult to face we can't even bribe you $24,000 and pay for the lab work? :roll: Independent of YEC, something in mainstream paleontology smacks of severe institutional bias. It stinks, I'm sorry I've wasted so much of my life arguing against Darwinism when I could have been spending more time studying chemistry and electromagnetism....Maybe I needed to go through the process because it has strengthened my faith in design. But I still have regrets over time wasted, but the encouraging thing is it seem the Designer is more real to me today than ever before. Praise God! PS regarding "unsavory associates":
some of the people at the table with us will also be young earth creationists. Throughout my brief tenure as director of Baylor's Michael Polanyi Center, adversaries as well as supporters of my work constantly pointed to my unsavory associates. I was treated like a political figure who is unwilling to renounce ties to organized crime .... loyalty and friendship are not principally what's keeping me from dumping my unsavory associates. Actually, I rather like having unsavory associates, Bill Dembski
We YECs love you too, Bill. Thanks for not dumping us.:-) scordova
61.4% of variation in DNA degradation in the studied samples was because of environmental factors – not due to age of DNA, so I wouldn’t expect DNA to give accurate dating for YEC.
Agreed for exact numbers, but accurate within a few hundred thousand years would suffice to throw paleontology into anarchy. Again, I'm not insisting ALL the fossil record is young (though I personally believe it to be so), it would suffice to find the equivalent of a few pre-Cambrian rabbits, and thus Haldane will have his counter example. scordova
Timaeus, I agree that JLAfan2001 is a dirt worshiper and a troll. I'd rather worship an invisible alien in the sky than worship dirt. Mapou
JLAfan2001:
Mapou And you are an ancient alien and lesser gods worshiper.
Not correct. I worship only one ancient butt-kicking alien who called himself Yahweh. I acknowledge that there are other aliens but Yahweh is the big Kahuna that all knees will bend to. Mapou
Mapou: I suggest we all resolutely ignore jlafan2001. He won't engage on the crucial questions. I presented my biographical analysis of jlafan's deep personal hangups a while back. He did not reply, because it was bang-on, and there was nothing he could say to defend himself. Basically, he grew up in or was converted to a very narrow fundamentalist religion, and when it failed him, he threw out the baby with the bathwater -- Bible, Jesus, God, indeed all religious possibilities were flushed down the toilet because his fundamentalism failed him. But his reasons for believing in the fundamentalism were never good in the first place; it was a leap of a faith based on sheer need for emotional security, not a reasoned position. And now his atheism is held out of sheer need to identify with a community of "smart" people -- Darwinians etc. -- to show how he has outgrown the "dumb" people (i.e., people who believe in God) that he used to hang out with. He is clearly of that dependent personality type who needs to belong to something that tells him what is right or wrong; before, it was his fundamentalist teachers in the home and church; now, it's "consensus science." The emotional and intellectual risk of really investigating all the religious options and scientific options is one he can't take, because he can't live with doubt and indecision, with wrestling and seeking. This is why he won't read Augustine, or Lewis, or Chesterton, or Kierkegaard, or Behe, or Dembski, or Meyer, etc. Having to investigate two sides of either scientific or religious questions, having to consider the possibility that the champions of his own current side may be fibbing to him, having to consider the possibility that the champions of the other side have been misrepresented by his own side, and generally having to face the possibility that neither side has the whole truth and that he may have to live with some uncertainty, involves too much existential strain. So he plumps for one side and argues for it dogmatically. He will not listen. We can present facts; we can refer him to books where proofs and disproofs will be found; he won't listen to the facts, and he won't read the books. He will, however, listen to distortions of the facts and the books presented by the side he agrees with, and declare that his side has refuted the other. He just doesn't have the elementary intellectual honesty, the elementary academic training, and the elementary personal courage needed to investigate both sides fully and fairly, and to withhold conclusions until he has done so. Therefore, he will publish nothing but recycled atheist and Darwinist talking points on this site. If we want him to stop, the best way to get him to stop is to respond to his posts with silence. Of course, paradoxically, I'm breaking my own advice here, but if my advice is taken by everyone, I won't have to do it again, he'll stop posting because he isn't getting any attention, and we'll be free of this immature individual and his (metaphorically) father-slaying complex about God and his former religion. He can then go back to reading about Superman and Batman, which is probably more fun for him than arguing about science and theology, anyway, and makes much less stringent reading demands than Gould, Darwin, Denton, Dembski, Carroll, Berlinski, Shapiro, Augustine, Calvin, etc. -- the authors he is terrified to confront, lest he learn from them that the truth is much more complicated than he would like it to be. Timaeus
Sal,
If creationists can extract DNA from “ancient” fossils (like insect amber) and demonstrate that young DNA cannot be the result of contamination, they are going to be able to build a devastating case because now we have an inexpensive means for dating fossils!
61.4% of variation in DNA degradation in the studied samples was because of environmental factors - not due to age of DNA, so I wouldn't expect DNA to give accurate dating for YEC. selvaRajan
JGuy, Awesome video of drama in the rocks. Can you find out where we can buy Drama in the Rocks. If not, I'll ping some of my friends at CRS. Thanks. Sal scordova
cantor, how you use wikipedia is you see what it says and follow the breadcrumbs to the references it provides which are, Willerslev E, Hansen AJ, Binladen J et al. (May 2003). "Diverse plant and animal genetic records from Holocene and Pleistocene sediments". Science 300 (5620): 791–5. Bibcode:2003Sci...300..791W. doi:10.1126/science.1084114. PMID 12702808. Johnson SS, Hebsgaard MB, Christensen TR, Mastepanov M, Nielsen R, Munch K, Brand T, Gilbert MT, Zuber MT, Bunce M, Rønn R, Gilichinsky D, Froese D, Willerslev E (September 2007). "Ancient bacteria show evidence of DNA repair". PNAS 104 (36): 14401–5. Bibcode:2007PNAS..10414401J. doi:10.1073/pnas.0706787104. PMID 17728401 Zischler H, Höss M, Handt O, von Haeseler A, van der Kuyl AC, Goudsmit J (May 1995). "Detecting dinosaur DNA". Science 268 (5214): 1192–3; author reply 1194. doi:10.1126/science.7605504. PMID 7605504 Nicholls H (February 2005). "Ancient DNA Comes of Age". PLOS Biology 3 (2): e56. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030056. PMID 15719062 Lincoln Phipps
drc466,lifepsy et al, I'm like everyone else and I'd love to get dino DNA as it would be awesome. But I'm being realistic here and know that's unlikely given the evidence to date. Lincoln Phipps
JGuy #11, thanks for the link to that interesting video. How is this debate proceeding? What are the counter-arguments? Wikipedia mentions research from 2007 - under the heading "Recent developments in sedimentology":
The research shows that some mudstones may have formed in fast-moving waters: "Mudstones can be deposited under more energetic conditions than widely assumed, requiring a reappraisal of many geologic records."
Which is not exactly the counter-argument I was looking for. :) Box
Eric responded:
. . . but if some fossils are proven young (like the dinos and insects) paleontology will go into anarchy and evolutionism won’t even have a coherent chronology to go on.
It never had a coherent chronology to begin with
LOL! I forgot about that! scordova
Mapou And you are an ancient alien and lesser gods worshiper. JLAfan2001
JLAfan2001 @22:
IT NEVER FRIGGIN’ HAPPENED!! IT’S ALL A MYTH AND THE GENESIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN REFUTED!!!!!!! GET OVER IT!!!!
You don't know what the Genesis account is even if you think you do. Your understanding of Genesis is about as good as your understanding of how life started from dirt all by itself. You're a dirt worshiper. Your opinion is not particularly valuable. GET OVER IT!!!! Mapou
Wow, so much division among you christian brothers. Allow me to be the bringer of peace: IT NEVER FRIGGIN' HAPPENED!! IT'S ALL A MYTH AND THE GENESIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN REFUTED!!!!!!! GET OVER IT!!!! There, now we can all go back to being friends, living in peace and doing real science. You're welcome. JLAfan2001
Sorry but the claims to have dino DNA are premature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA#Antediluvian_DNA_studies
Sorry but you won't get any traction citing Wikipedia as an authoritative source here. cantor
drc466 @18, Your argument does not hold water, in my opinion, because the Genesis text was calling Adam "male and female" long before Eve was created. Mapou
Eric Anderson @17, Please. The use of that pronoun, THEIR, is repeated in several other places in Genesis to mean the same thing. It's not a fluke. I take it you are a YEC? Mapou
@10 Lincoln: Only time will tell, of course, but it is getting harder and harder to deny the existence of original organic material, including DNA and proteins, in dinosaur fossils. I would refer you to This Link for a list of science journal articles documenting dinosaur and other multi-million year old fossil tissue finds - even skin and teeth! Again - time will tell. In the meantime, I would recommend not being too emphatic about the non-existence of original dinosaur tissue. @16 Mapou: The trouble with your argument is that Adam means "man". Genesis 5:2 is translated "mankind" in many versions, because the word Adam (a person) and Adam (mankind) are the same. The Bible is fairly clear in its context that Genesis 1-3 are referring to a unique individual (how do you take a rib from mankind?), while Genesis 5 is a general reference to the truism that God created mankind (when he created Adam and Eve). drc466
God created man in his image and he called THEIR name Adam. This is crucial because it shows that the Adam in verse 2 is not the same Adam seen in verse 3.
Holy cow! Talk about getting doctrinaire over a single pronoun. In a non-original translation. Of a story that came from another language. After having been retold for generations until it got to Moses. Nothing like cold, hard facts, eh? :) I'm amused (and perhaps a bit saddened) by these Biblical disagreements over a single word here, a comma there . . . Eric Anderson
JGuy @14, I hear your arguments but they are not very convincing. There is no reason to believe that the early people were having children every few years. The men did not begin to have children until they were in their sixties and at times they were over a hundred years old before they had kids. After Abel was killed, Adam begat Seth when he was 130 years old and he thanked God for giving him a replacement for Abel. I realize that Genesis is not very clear how many children Adam and the others had but, be that as it may, here is where I think the YECs are mistaken:
Genesis 5: 1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
Verse 2 is the key verse here. God created man in his image and he called THEIR name Adam. This is crucial because it shows that the Adam in verse 2 is not the same Adam seen in verse 3. The verse 2 Adam was more than one person (more like a race, given the context) whereas the verse 3 Adam was just one man. The verse 3 Adam was married to a woman named Eve which, I'm sure, was a popular name among women in those days. My point is that the Adam in the Garden of Eden (the Adam in verse 2 above) is not the same Adam that started the genealogical chronology on which YECs base their 6000 year-old earth. The young earth doctrine has turned into a object of worship among YECs. It's akin to idolatry, in my opinion. YECs are mistaken and they should repent from their ways. Telling it like I see, as always. Mapou
LP @ 10 http://www.icr.org/article/dinosaur-soft-tissue-preserved-by-blood/ Excerpt: Third, for experimental control, the Royal Society authors kept ostrich vessels in water to watch them rot.1 Does this resemble the burial conditions of dinosaurs, which are mostly dry today and have been primarily dry perhaps since the day of burial? Water accelerates tissue decay by providing for microbes and by facilitating degradative chemistry. So by adding water, these scientists may have rigged their “control” sample to show a higher-than-expected decay rate difference. The researchers then compared their hemoglobin-soaked samples to the watered-down samples and wrote, “In our test model, incubation in HB increased ostrich vessel stability more than 240-fold, or more than 24000% over control conditions.”1 If both their control and test models used unrealistic conditions, then they dulled the edge of their entire argument. JGuy
First off, the Hebrew expression that is translated Adam in the garden of Eden story should actually be “the Adam”. Second, we are told that, after murdering Abel, Cain was afraid of being persecuted by all the people that lived on earth at the time. Where did those people come from if Adam and Eve were the first humans that were created in the Garden of Eden? There is something decidedly dishonest about YEC doctrine, in my opinion.
That's akin to an argument from silence. After Cain killed Able, Adam & Eve had Seth when Adam was 130 years old. So, consider Adam & Eve having children every few years for 125 years. And those generations of children growing and multiplying further. That's would be a LOT of people long before Cain was exiled and Seth was born. That simply shows that here would be people alive besides Cain and Able. Even if that doesn't convince you... from another angle... From Genesis 4 (KJV), bold emphasis mine: "13 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me." That is Cain looking at a future case. Surely, he understood that people were mutiplying. And he probably had no sense of what it would be like to die of old age... since everyone alive at that time was as youthful as late teens or very early 20's.
In my opinion, the YEC doctrine is a big mistake. It is a weakness that is retarding our fight against Darwinism. Darwinists know this and this is the reason that most of their arguments are directed against YEC argument. They would rather debate YECs than debate people like Berlinski.
I disagree. The only thing old earthers really have to argue with are distant starlight and radioactive dating. And those evidences are counter-balanced by evidences that contradict old ages, e.g. this post by Sal. Furthermore, there are theoretical problems on both sides. There are reasons rapid inflation were thought up... with the horizon problem etc... The reason people feel it YEC is a bad position is that they are convinced by the repeated mantra of millions of years. Perhaps, one too many episodes of the Flintstones when they were kids :P JGuy
JGuy, totally agree on that sedimentation documentary. It really clicks when you see actual video of hydrology experiments where moving water currents are separating sediments by type and laying them down in distinct horizontal beds of strata just like we see all over Earth. Same with thinner lamination. It is funny how the real, empirical, testable, experimental science tends to lean in YEC's favor. Part 4 cuts to the flume experiments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7exxtkN8610&list=PL886FFE0E3EA557BE lifepsy
You know the drill. After DNA is confirmed in dinosaur fossils, they will just change the rules of DNA preservation to fit evolution timescales. Schweitzer's new theory is that the rich iron content in blood helped preserve proteins for 100+ million years. :) And yes, Scordova, the Young Earth Creation model is very compelling the more you look into it. From geology and paleontology alone there are countless features which scream rapid deposition by global flood. lifepsy
Sal. I'm not sure if you've seen this video. But I decided to wait for another UD YEC topic to post it. This video is one of the more impressive, if not important, video's on sedimentation that I've run across. If you haven't watched it in entirety, please take the time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwA6CGwpTsM&list=PL886FFE0E3EA557BE Side note regarding this video. In one of the segments, discussions of some work by Dr Steve Austin show some very interesting graphics of the strata that mimic the experiments so closely, that an objective viewer exposed in the past to old earth processes should be stunned.... imo. JGuy
Operative words being "may be possible" The relevant papers - http://www.thebonejournal.com/article/S8756-3282%2812%2901318-X/abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3110760/ As for the ages and a YEC model ? Mary H. Schweitzer work isn't going to help as this paper by her (et al) shows, http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1775/20132741.abstract Lincoln Phipps
Lincoln, I think we only met each other once before at UD. In any case let me extend a proper greeting. Welcome to UD and thanks for your comments. Sal scordova
Lest we forget: T-Rex Cells Found In Bone Confirmed To Be Actual Cells, Not Contamination, May Be Possible To Extract DNA Read more here Joe
I think everyone would be ecstatic to have dino DNA. The Chinese certainly would given they are now the, or at least one of the, world's largest cloners of animals - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25576718 But it's a YEC/creationists wet dream. Sorry but the claims to have dino DNA are premature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA#Antediluvian_DNA_studies Lincoln Phipps
The age of the Earth depends on HOW it was formed. Just sayin'... Joe
In my opinion, the YEC doctrine is a big mistake.
Even granting for the sake of argument you are correct, I don't think that takes away from the problem of young DNA in fossils. It remains to be seen if the young DNA can be found in many fossils, it would be better than even a pre-Cambrian rabbit.
It is a weakness that is retarding our fight against Darwinism.
I agree, I won't even try to argue against the distant starlight, long term and intermediate term radio metric problems for YEC. One can believe in YEC at a personal level, but I don't think the physical evidence at this time is at all favorable in light of these difficulties. That said, I think young DNA young C-14 young amino acids in fossils is a legitimate problem for palenotology and Darwinism. The question is not the age of the Earth but the time of death of the fossilized creature. Like crime scene forensics, establishing the time of death is important, and we have three "clocks" that give a recent time of death: 1. C14 2. DNA 3. Amino acids That's hard science, not theology. I don't think the problem of recently dead tissues will go away. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Shelock Holmes ought to be saying, paleontology has got the time of death all wrong regarding the fossils. scordova
scordova:
IMHO, man was a product of a miraculous special creation only a few thousand years ago.
Sal, the Biblical chronology used by YECs to arrive at a few thousand years for the age of the earth and the universe is fundamentally flawed. The Adam of the garden of Eden is not the same Adam as the one who was married to Eve and had Cain and Abel. First off, the Hebrew expression that is translated Adam in the garden of Eden story should actually be "the Adam". Second, we are told that, after murdering Abel, Cain was afraid of being persecuted by all the people that lived on earth at the time. Where did those people come from if Adam and Eve were the first humans that were created in the Garden of Eden? There is something decidedly dishonest about YEC doctrine, in my opinion. In my opinion, the YEC doctrine is a big mistake. It is a weakness that is retarding our fight against Darwinism. Darwinists know this and this is the reason that most of their arguments are directed against YEC argument. They would rather debate YECs than debate people like Berlinski. Mapou
Sal: Very interesting. We'll see if more of this "young" DNA is found in the future and whether it becomes a pervasive problem or is seen as a one-off anomaly.
. . . but if some fossils are proven young (like the dinos and insects) paleontology will go into anarchy and evolutionism won’t even have a coherent chronology to go on.
It never had a coherent chronology to begin with, but I agree this would make the problem more stark. Eric Anderson
C-14 dating is expensive, but as far as I can tell analysis of DNA via PCR is much cheaper and possibly more accurate. If creationists can extract DNA from "ancient" fossils (like insect amber) and demonstrate that young DNA cannot be the result of contamination, they are going to be able to build a devastating case because now we have an inexpensive means for dating fossils! scordova
My personal view is the Genealogy of Christ as laid out in Luke chapter 3 looks more and more credible. IMHO, man was a product of a miraculous special creation only a few thousand years ago. If young DNA is ubiquitious in the fossil record will suggest strengthen the case for a recent special creation of life. How we handle the age of the Earth, the non-biotic parts of the geological column, the age of the solar system, stars, galaxies and the universe is a separate question, but imho, it looks like life, or at least a lot of life that we have in the fossil record could be recent. The YECs are not out of the woods by any means because of long term and intermediate term radio metric dating (C-14 is short term dating) and the problem of distant starlight. But the above findings are huge vindication for ID and parts (not all) of various creationist (OEC and YEC) theories. Ken Ham will have a lot of ammo to go after Nye in debate:
Bill how do you account for DNA in 200 million year old insect amber? What if the DNA is of a mammal the insect bit, how could you claim contamination?
scordova

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