Talk:Evidence against a recent creation/Archive2

More
The more I read about "Evolution", the more I realize e that only an absolute IDIOT can believe all that rubbish!49.188.234.106 (talk) 04:55, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Wrong page, man. Use "add topic" at the main talk page to leave a message in the right place. Swerve (talk) 06:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Why this is all bollocks
Our BoN friend is probably trolling but here goes.

OK, so, Magic man created all the different species and then there has been nothing but micro-evolution. So, from that Dogs, cats, lions, bids, all existed since day one. Why then do we not see these species in the earlier fossil records. Why do the earlier fossil records show, typically, no birds, no mammals? You're keen to try and show "no missing link", which is not what you've shown at all, but, why, if magic man created Adam and Eve, do we not find fully human fossils right from the start. Adam was created "in god's likeness" - does god then look like homo habilis.

I mean, really! Bad Faith (talk) 23:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, we do see fully human fossils at the start in Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenensis, and Ardipithecus ramidus. That's what's been causing so much controversy - they're having to write off a number of earlier hominims that look more ape-like, and which they once called transitional forms - like Afarensis (Lucy), as ape-like offshoots. To quote Nature and Bernard Wood on the discovery of Sahelanthropus,


 * "If we accept these as sufficient evidence to classify S. tchadensis as a hominid at the base, or stem, of the modern human clade, then it plays havoc with the tidy model of human origins. Quite simply, a hominid of this age should only just be beginning to show signs of being a hominid. It certainly should not have the face of a hominid less than one-third of its geological age. Also, if it is accepted as a stem hominid, under the tidy model the principle of parsimony dictates that all creatures with more primitive faces (and that is a very long list) would, perforce, have to be excluded from the ancestry of modern humans."


 * Adam and early humans were created living 800+ years with regularity prior to the Flood, suggesting that the atmosphere changed resulting in shorter lived humans. So far as I'm concerned human transitional forms simply show human beings changing in lifespan and durability from bulky, longer-lived forms to those of present day, per God's commandment in Genesis 6:3. I've added evidence for some form of canopy or atmospheric difference in the past here, namely the discovery that insects grew much larger in earth's past due to oxygen levels of 30-35% compared to today's 20%, and fossilized raindrops showing earth's atmosphere was thicker than it is today. --98.220.198.49 (talk) 00:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenensis, and Ardipithecus ramidus are not, repeat not, repeat not, fully human. They may, or may not, mean that we have to reassess our ancestry - that's the wonderful thing about science, we're not wedded to bronze age myths and can progress - but the idea that these beings were human enough to, for example, build an ark.... no. Look at the cranium. They had small brains. Maybe that's gods image - a being with a small brain. Bad Faith (talk) 01:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Fossil record lies, here's a CreationWiki link that says so, QED. Scarlet A.pngpathetic 00:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, good lord, he's going to repeat the same garbage over and over again. This is already tedious. (I don't think he's trolling; he's believes what he's writing.) sterileevolutionist story telling 00:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

maximum rate of amino acid racemization
The article states,
 * While it is true that there can be great variability on the rate at which amino acids undergo racemization, the changes in humidity, temperature, and acidity required to make the oldest known samples conform to a young earth (under 6000 years) view are completely unreasonable.

I've been googling my brains out and can't find a source to back this up. Can anyone help? Just how hot for how long would a sample have to be to become completely racemized? Sapere aude (talk) 21:14, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Biomass Estimates
I was foolishly watching a debate between Hugh Ross (OEC) and a YEC on Youtube, when I noticed an interesting claim that I thought might be worth following up. Ross claimed that in the earth there was around 80 quadrillion tons of fossilised biomass. After a lot of searching, I could only find his website which supported this claim, but I have checked his calculations and it appears to be in the right sort of ballpark for the amount of biomass locked up in limestone. Ross compares this with the estimates of current biomass - and concludes that the limestone total exceeds this by around 122,000–348,000 times. The implication is, therefore that if the average lifespan of all this biomass is 1 year (a massive underestimate since most of it is coral, shellfish etc.), then the accumulated total in limestone alone would account for at least 100k years as a minimum. I think Ross's estimates lead into all sorts of issues (For example, can we really compare current biomass - which contains lots of water- with fossilised biomass- which could contain lots of mud & silt?) However, I have not heard of this biomass argument before, and as it is being proposed by a creationist (albeit an old earth creationist), if someone can find better references for it, perhaps with modifications it could be included here.

What I found more interesting however, wass that Ross used this biomass argument effectively to demolish his protagonist's model of flood geology, ie that the biblical flood created the fossil record. If every creature alive today suddently perished in a global catastrophe and became fossilised, it would only constitute around 0.001% of the total of the biomass locked up in limestone. The question then becomes - where the hell did the other 99.999% come from?--CatWatcher (talk) 10:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Who wrecked this page?
Seriously. This page was perfect, and someone totally fucked it up. When I find out who did it I will kill them.  ħ uman  03:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * which of you idiots wrecked it? Ruined the clever right side TOC?  Admit it, you scoundrel!  ħ uman  03:17, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment
I see that this is one of your top articles. For what it's worth, that "Creationism" box near the top right of the article creates an huge gap between paragraphs. This is problematic because, to a new person reading the article, I almost thought the article was only one paragraph. The Municipal Hero (talk) 14:15, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Another reason against a recent creation
God, it is claimed in the Bible made us in (his/her/its/appropriate deity pronoun's) image.

We procrastinate, and spend much time deciding upon interior decoration etc (do we want snow white, lily white or hint of apple green white?).

Therefore God would have taken much longer to create the world/the universe than six days six millennia ago (especially if (relevant pronoun) had to make everything appear as if it was much older.

A modified version of the computer 'game of life' seems more plausible. ('Experiment no 968190106 - trying to get dinosaur-operated spaceships ... failure; ...107 suffix - brown dwarf/red dwarf star+evolution #never# leads to anything interesting, so don't bother...' etc 171.33.222.26 (talk) 14:30, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

archaeology
i stumbled on this page while searching for a list of things made by humans that are older than 6000 years. it doesn't seem like anyone has compiled such a list. there is a wealth of evidence of human activity dating back well over 6000 years, so it seems like archaeological evidence should be included on this list. 05:30, 4 March 2013
 * How about this list? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:40, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Not to take the creationists seriously but...
If you copy and paste the headings of each of these evidences and put them into CMI's search engine, they have a rebuttal for about 60% of them.
 * Is it sound rebuttal? It seems pretty unsurprising that creationists would have an explanation for everything, but I wouldn't expect it to be reliable.  02:18, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Soft tissues
I think that the notion that the soft tissues in the T. rex bones were bacterial biofilms has been discredited by the person who found the tissues, as she found more tissues in the bones of a Brachylophosaurus in 2009. A study in 2012 also challenges this.

More collagen was also found in a mosasaur fossil in 2011 and lufengosaur embryos in 2013. Randomosaurus (talk) 05:33, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey um
How about "rational" wiki actually uses REFEREMCED. FSCT. Instead of just bias and god-hate? &mdash; Unsigned, by: 138.130.114.27 / talk / contribs 12:24, 4 December 2014‎
 * Err &hellip; this do you?. (can't hate what don't exist - can you?) Scream!! (talk) 13:26, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Galaxies
Shouldn't the existence of galaxies directly contradict a Young-Earth Creation because it would indicate that the stars and similar macrostellar conjuncts have existed long enough ago to form groupings. Simply said, the organization of the universe clearly shows that enough time has passed for the universe to become organized. This would add irony (because organization is a general "proof" of god in their convoluted logic). Qwed117 (talk) 19:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, if you accept standard big bang and standard star formation theories. Creationists subscribe to Goddidit instead. 04:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * But feel free to add an entry for star formation and galaxy formation, if you can find the references. 04:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Rhenium
Recently creationists have been spamming me with articles about the 1996 or whenever paper about the altered Rhenium decay through ionization, reducing it to 33 years from something on the order of 10^9. Does this affect currently understood standards or what? What do I say to them to refute them?
 * The only paper I can find says nothing even remotely like that: this one says ionization causes the decay rate of 187Re to go from 42 to 32 years. And full ionization in earth's past is just not that common.  The paper in question even suggests a process to adjust galactic chronology.  Ikanreed (talk) 15:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And reviewing more recent publications citing that paper highlight that, in fact, careful observation has already resolved the ambiguities it raises, by comparing results against other elements. Ikanreed (talk) 15:14, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Adding uranium lead dating
Can someone please add uranium lead dating to the nav box under the >million years section, thank you. Bubba41102 (talk) 13:54, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

It's radioactive decay, and it's already in there under >1,000,000,000 years. --Lpetrich (talk) 00:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I didn't dare change the article of the day, but just a couple of comments
Distance is what makes mountains blue. Blue is actually the colour of the medium light travels through, in this instance the atmosphere - unless conditions make it otherwise, e.g. an orange sunset. Blue is the actual colour of water - very faint, but visible. This is something you can do at home - filling a bathtub- or observe in swimming pools. This is nothing new of course but it does provide an example of the speed of light being finite.

I think Olbers' paradox deserves a mention, since Olbers was speculating before the advent of The Theory of Evolution and before Maxwell developed his equations.

And last, but for debating purposes not least, dendrochronology is probably the one single most powerful arguments against YEC's. You can dismiss quantum physics, relativity and all that but it is really hard to argue against simply counting rings. Sorte Slyngel (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Article structure
Rather than having one special TOC at the top and then an alphabetical list of 39 evidences, would it be better to [1] shift the TOC to the right, as in Manosphere glossary, and [2] break up the evidences into headers (==X==) based on >10,000 years, >100,000 years, >1,000,000 years, and >1,000,000,000,000 years? 00:07, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. 01:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Another one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widmanstätten_pattern

Any thoughts? WP says the structure has to cool over millions of years in order to exist. 18:49, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

We have been refuted
https://www.reddit.com/r/christianity/comments/4orh4m/trackreddit/d4f709l/

05:40, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Reads like the opposite to me? And besides, it warms my heart to read a post by an ex-creationist who literally credits a rationalwiki article with "blowing their creationist beliefs out of the water". Brings a tear to my eye. Sniff. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:49, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Creationist reply to the dinosaur evidence
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/4s4hhw/evolution_vs_creationism/d5glbrp

I think that plenty of skeptics agree that there are flaws with how we present the research -- mostly in that it's no longer true, with updated studies corroborating the soft tissue findings and also offering new explanations. 02:52, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * FuzzyCatPotato, that critic doesn't actually have a point. First, the very article he cites explicitely says that molecules consistent with traces of DNA have been found, but it's not been proven that they're DNA. Second, the article says nothing about T-rex red blood cells being found, but rather that in order to test an idea about preservation of biomolecules, ostrich red blood cells were used. Furthermore, this video -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWDY7GSf6Rk (at 7:25)- states that the media misunderstood about red blood cells being found instead of collagen. But yes, what seem like red blood cell renmants have been found. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33067582 --Ander Garin (talk) 20:13, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Spanish translation proposal
This article is really good. Indeed, if you search on Google either “evidence against young Earth” or “evidence for old Earth” this page is the first result. If you type “evidencia contra el creacionismo de la Tierra joven” or “evidencia de una Tierra vieja” however, the results leave much to be desired.

What I am asking is whether I, or anyone for that matter, could translate this page into Spanish. I have read the RationalWiki:Languages article and I am aware that a Template:Es has to be used. Because honestly, I cannot see the point of having an article about goats in Spanish but not about creationism in a wiki about rationality. --Ander Garin (talk) 19:05, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Mention
This article is cited in Walter Brown's "Hydroplate" Flood Model Doesn't Hold Water by Glen Kuban.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 06:31, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Another article with more to add
http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~dperley/univage/univage.html 04:55, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Reader comment
[Emailed to me] "The third paragraph of this site: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_against_a_recent_creation#Distant_starlight:_13.2C700.2C000.2C000 says that the closest star to Earth is Alpha Centauri. That is the third closest star to Earth, closer are Sun (Sol), and Proxima Centauri." - David Gerard (talk) 10:06, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * is the closest star to the Sun, and a member of, together with AC A and AC B.--JorisEnter (talk) 10:18, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

TIL RatWiki is a satanist website
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/comments/55iy81/which_books_are_considered_historical_canon_and/d8azgao

11:24, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't know we had a list article of biblical scholars where we try to denigrate them by resorting to ad hominem and such! Link plz? :D Reverend Black Percy (talk) 12:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Lichenometry
Lichenometry might be an appropriate addition to this article. According to an article published in American Antiquity ("A Review of Lichenometric Dating and Its Applications to Archaeology" by James B. Benedict), "Most lichenometric studies have involved yellow members of the crustose genus Rhizocarpon, which grow slowly and can live for as long as 10,000 years." See https://www.jstor.org/stable/25470542. Lichens like Rhizocarpon would seem to damage any argument that the Earth is 6,000 years old. However, I'm not sure lichens provide strong evidence that the Earth is over 10,000 years old. (p.s. TY for this excellent article) W. Bloom 66.91.15.28 (talk) 09:36, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting angle! states:


 * For this reason, it might be prudent to leave lichenometry out, as our article's first headline is "Evidence for a minimum age of 10 thousand years"...


 * On the other hand, if specific lichenometrical studies can be found where the dating process has indeed indicated an age of 10,000 years (as opposed to: lichenometrical dating of much younger rocks, wherein the 10,000 year number is just mentioned as "the theoretical max" of lichenometry), then sure — in that case, it might make a great addition! However, I think it might be prudent to leave out, still — here, a comparison of methods points out that lichenometry is generally only accurate for rocks up to 250 years of age:


 * Interesting take, anyways. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 12:04, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A "runners up" section would be nice. 14:33, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Zesty comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/5rcj79/examples_that_prove_the_earth_is_not_millions_of/dd66lw8/

14:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Just for fun/Stellar Metamorphosis
Can I put stellar metamorphosis in there too? I mean it literally has Mercury as about 65 billion years old. I know it is considered pseudoscience, but even pseudoscience says a recent creation is nonsense. That is really bad.Roo (talk) 21:35, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Quotes + articles + papers to mine!
Please see here. Thanks in advance. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

The point is
Those of us who accept that 'the scientists have what appears to be convincing evidence that the Earth is very old (and I can follow the arguments, even if I don't understand some aspects of evolution - oh, they don't quite either)' don't need to be convinced (apart from some of the middling-obscure technicalities).

Those who are convinced of recent creation are unlikely to be persuaded otherwise, however much RW and the rest of us try.

What is to be done? 31.49.115.236 (talk) 09:41, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Distant starlight: 13,700,000,000
First of all I would like to point out this dumb remark, unless the person thinks the universe was created at the same time as the earth (says it no where in the bible, and it even talks about other worlds) this is a very stupid remark to come back with.-- 18:16, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The same for anything not having to do with the solar system but instead deals with everything distant.-- 18:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * [EC]It isn't evidence against a recent creation of the earth, but it's evidence against the belief that a god created the whole universe recently, which is what lot of YECs believe. Christopher (talk) 18:20, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * ... What? According to Genesis [1 vs 2], God created Earth on the first or second day. According to Genesis [1 vs 2], God created the stars on either the first or fourth day. ??? If you think these are literal days, then the difference is either 0 hours or 48 hours -- not enough to explain the fact that we can see billions of lightyears away. 18:22, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Gen 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
 * Gen 1:2  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
 * In other words the earth was already existent, BUT the creation of time for it began when he first made light for it.
 * Heb 11:3  Through faith we understand that the WORLDS were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
 * So it states there are other worlds out there, it states he did make earth, not that he made us first.-- 18:30, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

How can you possibly read "In the beginning God created the heaven [literally: the stars] and the earth" as "it states he did make earth, not that he made us first"? It literally starts with "in the beginning", and the whole process apparently took one day. If God created other planets beforehand -- as you allege -- then these planets could have predated Earth by -- at most -- 24 hours.

And nowhere in Genesis does it say that "God creates time". 18:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Obviously you don't understand ,Gen 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Heaven translates to sky, or air. can you say a vacuum has air? I think not. The beginning as we know it is starting. earth has its own separate beginning compared to the rest of the universe. Gen 1:16  And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. notice how it says he made stars, not that he made them at that time, but that he made them also. punctuation was not around during that time so it was a hit or miss on how you made the sentence. all it is stating is the fact he did make stars, it does not say that he made stars exactly at that time. Even if he did, wouldn't a creator boost how fast the light would go? Dont be dumb about it, if you were creating a program and you had the ability to make things go faster would you not do it?-- 18:51, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I know many of y'all don't agree with her but this is one thin E.G White states. The science of redemption is the science of all sciences; the science that is the study of the angels and of all the intelligences of the unfallen worlds;
 * Here she doesn't deny the existence of other worlds. Another thing came to mind, didn't he make the angels before earth? Why would he not mention it in the beginning? Unless it was ours and had nothing to do with the creation of earth.-- 18:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Look. [Here's the text of Genesis 1:1-5:

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

So either:


 * 1) The ordering here is wrong. Instead, the entire universe was created before Earth -- but it had no light. If so, then this means that light from distant stars shouldn't have been able to reach us in the 6000 years the universe has had light.
 * 2) The ordering here is right. The earth was created, and then within 24 hours, the entire rest of the universe. If so, then this means that light from distant stars shouldn't have been able to reach us in the 6000 years the universe has had light.

As for the "why not just speed up light" line, check Anisotropic synchrony convention 17:08, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Another rebuttal
We are, supposedly, made in "the deity's/deities' image(s)", and we have created and perpetuated the generalisation 'Keep it simple' (Occam's Razor is a particular case).

Therefore 'the deity or deities' will keep it simple (especially as there are 'zillions of planets', on 'a fraction of which' life will emerge, and life sufficiently sentient to discuss theology will emerge on 'a fraction of a fraction' which will still be a large number (reworking the Drake equation) - and therefore 'letting the rules of physics and the laws of nature take their various courses' will be the most viable option (especially as there health and safety legislation/union rules on how much work the deity/deities can spend developing planets, and there are deadlines for the 'planet X reality TV shows' on the various Deity TV Channels).

And could the various temperatures in the Widmanstätten patterns section be made 'more reasonable to the casual observer' - '100-10,000 degrees Celsius per million years, from a starting point of about 500-700 degrees Celsius[6] to a temperature of about -73 Celsius' doesn't add up. Anna Livia (talk) 10:31, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I have read this rebuttal three times and I am afraid that I don't understand the point being made or even what is meant to be rebutted.--Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:28, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Are 'deity or deities' likely to spend much time creating elaborate backstories that disprove their existence for instantly created planets #or# allow the laws of physics 'to do all the hard work' for (singular or plural deity pronoun) so they can concentrate on the fun bits. And a reference to all the cookery/makeover/construct-it programs etc. Anna Livia (talk) 10:11, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah.--Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 17:34, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Anyone care to develop the Fun:Great Deity World+Sentient Species Construct-a-thon page? (Extra marks for added surrealism/the most bizarre theories developed by sentient species in question.) Anna Livia (talk) 17:50, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Transmissible dog cancer
There exists a transmissible dog cancer whose lifespan can be (somewhat weakly) estimated at 11,000 years. 20:50, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Oldie but goodie
Lots of graphs 06:47, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

The English playwright Christopher Marlowe was under suspicion of atheism before his death in a supposed tavern brawl in 1593. An informer's report of things he was supposed to have said in conversation included Marlowe maintaining that the Indians documented the world being older than 20,000 years whereas the Bible said it was only about 6,000 years old.Philosophyfootball (talk)