Debate:Creationism vs. Evolutionism

This is a Debate page. Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil! This debate was created by bootmii.

Evidence for YEC

Alright, seeing as nobody is providing any serious arguments, I'll provide some of my own as more fully detailed here just to generate brief debate. The following are the basics of my core arguments for Young Earth Creationism:

I'm not sure what you mean by "Debate". You can't even edit pages on Berea, a sign that it does not tolerate people with different ideas.Wonderful Pizza (talk) 17:24, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure pages can be edited, I tried with a few test accounts. I'll check but thought I turned on editing for everyone. Only the main page is protected that I can recall. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I just checked, and pages can be edited. There's an account confirmation process just as a spam prevention measure, but editing is allowed at Bereawiki. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:16, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Human Population Growth Rates

Annual population growth rates exceed 1% in most of the world's countries, and at a 1% growth rate one goes from 8 people to 7 billion in just 2,071 years. Even if assuming population grew just half as fast as it does today, at a 0.50% growth rate, human civilization would still be only 4,130 years old. And if dropping down to rates just 1/5th the rates seen today, at a 0.20% growth rate, 8 individuals still grow to 7 billion in just 6,849 years.

Since nobody has taken the time to point this out to you, I will. This is easily the worst "argument" on your list, and yet you chose to lead with it. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why your fellow YECs always use population growth from the Flood to present day, instead of some other point in history? I'll give you hint: How many Hebrews did Moses lead out of Egypt? --Inquisitor (talk) 02:34, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned it's the best argument. I would say there were around 1.5 million involved in the Exodus.[1] And there were roughly 600 years between the Flood and the Exodus before you point that out. Which would mean population growth would have had to have been 2.5-3% or so to arrive at a global population between 21.2 and 391.4 million people on the Earth.

Which isn't that unbelievable when you consider that A) 12 countries currently have population growth rates above 3% and 30 countries have rates above 2.5%[2], B) lifespan after the Flood ranged from 200-500 years for much of that time (Genesis 11) resulting in fewer deaths and longer child-bearing ages, and C) natural predators may not have been as much of a problem in those early years per God's commandment in Genesis 9:2. Either way, that rate of population growth is acceptable given rates seen today. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 03:48, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

A)2.5-3% population growth, with bronze-age technology, in a still recovering flood-ravaged biosphere... seems totally believable. So how many were involved in the public works project known as the city and tower of Babel? A couple hundred? Or are you going to jack up the growth rate again?

B)Riiiight.

C)There appears to be no concept of carrying capacity (or any significant barriers to migration) on your fictional Earth, so why wouldn't predators be a problem? . There could have been billions of ravenous -and rapidly speciating - cat, wolf, bear kinds prowling about. And we know by your model, animals enjoyed quite the prodigious population boom post-flood. After all, you had tens of millions of mammoths hustling across the deserts of the middle east to get themselves buried in the Siberian permafrost. --Inquisitor (talk) 08:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I've got to say that I'm amazed that you think this is the best argument for a young earth. It's dreadful. But perhaps it is the best argument.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 14:23, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

To Inquisitor, Nimrod founded Babel and was the 4th descendant from Noah (Genesis 10:6-10). We aren't told his age, but it was likely similar to Salah's, also the 4th descendant from Noah, who died 440 years after the Flood. (Genesis 11:15) I'd say 400-500 years after the Flood seems a reasonable estimate for the building of Babel. At a 3% population growth rate that would be 1,059,602 people at 400 years and 20,364,095 at 500 years. At a 2.5% growth rate then 152,024 people at 400 years and 1,795,969 people at 500 years. Furthermore, they didn't really start dispersing from the Mesopotamian area until the Babel incident, so most could have worked on the tower of Babel.

I have a page on Pre-Flood Longevity examining Biblical genealogies and putting the ages into a chart, but from my calculations I'd say at the aforementioned 2.5-3.0% growth rate, you're looking at somewhere between 152 thousand and 20.3 million people who could have been working on the tower of Babel.

As for that "bronze-age technology", it accomplished feats that scientists still can't explain like the Easter Island statues, Stonehenge, and the pyramids. Babel appears from archaeology to have been a massive Mesopotamian ziggurat, and was mentioned in the Tower of Babel stele by King Nebuchadnezzar II dated from 604-562 B.C.

As for the food issue, Noah brought a vast array of food types on the Ark (Genesis 6:21), certain animals were brought on board in groups of 7 rather than 2 as a food supply (Genesis 7:2; Leviticus 11:47), and some plants can survive longer periods in water (e.g. mandrake trees) to ride out the 7.5 month Flood period. (Genesis 7:11, 8:5) Some fish would have survived as well and been easy prey when the waters subsided.

The mammoths were presumably frozen as part of the catastrophe, not after it. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

400-500 years after the flood? Interesting, I've always heard that the dispersion from Mesopotamia occurred during the days of Peleg (which started a mere 101 years after the flood). But it's your fable, so I'll give you those dates.

Let's take a look at your chronology. Moses escapes an unnamed Pharaoh 600 years after the flood (your date). Since Moses was 80 at the time, that means he was born in Egypt 520 years after the flood. So right after God came down and told them to knock it off in Babel... the future Egyptians jogged down to the Indus valley, set up shop all along the Nile, forgot about the God they just left, invented new gods, enslaved the Hebrews, and built a bunch of pyramids... all in 20 years. Wait, that doen't work because Joseph was already kicking it around Egypt over 300 years before Moses was born. Did he get a head start?

Mammoths. So they were frozen during the flood? Permafrost sits above sedimentary rock layers. The same layers your creationist colleagues claim were laid down during the flood. Mammoths are found in permafrost. I'm curious as to which flood model you subscribe to. Your buddies at AiG say mammoths survived the flood. Even the clowns over at CMI put this claim on their "list of arguments creationist should not use". --Inquisitor (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

As for whether humans lived to be 400, 500, 900 years of age as mentioned in Genesis chapters 5 and 11, there's a decent article on that here by Apologetics Press.[3] They point out gene coding and metabolism rates could have been involved. I would also add oxygen levels 50% higher than today's may have also played a role, as they are now known to have caused gigantism in Earth's past.[4] There's a recent article on the role of metabolism in aging here.[5] --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Moving the Rapa Nui statues has been demonstrated by modern inhabitants of that island, using ropes and coordinated effort. To claim that "scientists still can't explain" it is, to put it politely, without basis in fact.

Atmospheric oxygen levels peaked during the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago. For the last two hundred million years they have not been too far from modern levels. Humanity, as a species, is at least one order of magnitude younger than that.

Yes, metabolism may affect aging. I don't see your source saying that it could lead to 900-year-old patriarchs. Calling that Apologetics Press article "decent" is a matter of opinion. I wouldn't, since it seems long on scripture and short on evidence. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:16, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Dinosaur Soft Tissue

Multiple instances have now been documented of dinosaur soft tissue including flexible blood vessels and preserved dinosaur skin. Even large numbers of dinosaur eggs with the soft eggshells preserved by massive amounts of sediment after being flooded out of their nests were discovered. While iron has been shown to be capable of preserving soft tissue for 2 years, it does not explain how the organic material could have been preserved for tens of millions, contrary to all predictions of evolution.

Unless you provide an example, no one's going to take this question seriously. In fact, you may be referring to this argument. Wonderful Pizza (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

A) 2005 discovery of T-Rex soft tissue.[6]

B) 2009 discovery of hadrosaur soft tissue.[7]

C) 2013 discovery of hadrosaur soft tissue.[8]

D)2013 lufengosaurus egg soft tissue.[9]

And there was an earlier discovery in 1998 also. But yes, multiple discoveries. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:16, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Living Fossils

Species once written off as extinct for tens of millions of years, such as the coelacanth and laotian rock rat have been discovered, whose demise was greatly exaggerated. How did they evade showing up in the fossil record for those long periods if the Earth is as old as is claimed by evolutionists?

Because science has made a mistake and has discovered something new. They have improved on their points and now know that the species exist. There's even a name for when a thought-to-be-extinct species is later found to be alive, and it's called a wp:Lazarus taxon. I'd like to point out that the coelacanth is in the West Indian ocean and the laotian rock rat is in southeast Asian Laos, two places that are incredibly inconvenient if you want to go looking specifically for new species and not just sightseeing, much like if you wanted to go looking for new plant species in the Amazon (which people are doing, by the way). The logic in this claim, which is "it wasn't discovered a long time ago, therefore the Earth must be young" is highly fallacious. Just because Vladmir Putin has not met you before does not mean that you do not exist. Your age is still yours, and just because Putin finds you when you are about 50 does not mean that you seemed to have not existed before that. On the other hand, you do not site at all how the coelacanth's exctinction has been 'greatly exaggerated', which leads me to believe that you may be making this up by the usage of loaded wording. Wonderful Pizza (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I actually devoted a whole section to Lazarus Taxa specifically. I even wrote a section just on Zombie Taxa.

http://www.bereawiki.com/wiki/Creationism#Living_Fossils_and_Lazarus_Taxa

My logic is not that "it wasn't discovered a long time ago, therefore the Earth must be young." My point is that it somehow managed to skip what you are claiming is tens of millions of years in the geologic record. The coelacanth had previously been thought extinct for 65 million years, and to have been essentially unchanged for 375 million years.[10] Yet it was rediscovered alive in 1938. I'm just pointing out that for it to have fooled the scientific community it somehow evaded 65 million years of geologic history, and it's more reasonable to believe shorter time spans are involved then for that to have happened.

I cited well over 200 quality sources on that Creationism page backing up this and other points ad nauseum, possibly more than 300. And that includes dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles and dozens of mainstream media references. There are plenty of sources I can provide though. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

It's adorable that you think the lack of a complete fossil record for one creature is evidence against evolution, but the presence of literally millions of fossils around the world arranged in datable layers, including many fairly complete lineages, somehow fails as evidence for it. As for the coelacanth, we find most of our aquatic fossils on dry land where uplifting has occured. The Comoros islands are volcanic, and most Madagascar rock is too old to fill in the fossil record, but you might try looking in sedimentary layers of the correct age on the west end of the island. Weorthe (talk) 23:13, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

"As for the coelacanth, we find most of our aquatic fossils on dry land where uplifting has occured."

I don't suppose that might be due to the greater ease of performing an archaeological dig above water? Actually, finding aquatic fossils worldwide including on mountains and in deserts is evidence of a Flood. Deserts themselves could be considered the result of evapotranspiration following a Flood.

I think you'll find fossils aren't arranged as neatly as is claimed. If they are found in the wrong layer there's a convenient excuse, such as Zombie Taxa, Uplift, or contamination. Furthermore, as pointed out by CMI, "It may be surprising to learn that evolutionary geologists themselves will not accept a radiometric date unless they think it is correct—i.e. it matches what they already believe on other grounds."[11] There are dozens of examples that could be given of the evolutionary timeline being adjusted to agree with fossils found in the wrong layers. I'll give you 3 examples of the many I have observed:

1. Cambrian Explosion: New discovery of early complexity in ancient life results in 400 million years getting tacked on to the origins of animals.[12]

2. Flowering Plants: Early flowers are discovered to be so complex that their origins are pushed back 100 million years for evolutionist theories.[13] Earlier discoveries in the 1990s had already pushed back those origins 145 million years.[14]

3. Worms: Worms are found too early in the fossil record so 200 million years gets added to existing evolutionist theories.[15]

There are quite a few more I could give but this will do for a start. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 04:12, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The discovery of worm fossils millions of years older than previously known does not prove a young earth. Again you are ignoring the overwhelming mass of data. For things to be in the "wrong" layer, the layers have to exist and be mainly consistent in the first place, as they are. Weorthe (talk) 19:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Lack of Transitional Forms

Darwin's falsifiable prediction that the fossil record would produce the required transitions between core types of life has been utterly proven false. Thus his original model of phyletic gradualism was largely abandoned after 1972 when Gould and Eldredge created a new theory, Punctuated Equilibrium, proposing evolution just sped up too fast for the transitions to appear in the fossil record - a convenient way of denying the fossil record's evidence to move the goalposts.

Transitions listed today in Wikipedia's list of transitional forms are the same types of life seen today, ancient snails and nautiloids (e.g. Ammonoidea, Nautiloidea) which are similar to snails and nautiloids seen today. Ancient octopi (e.g. Palaeoctopus, Proteroctopus, Vampyronassa) which are strikingly similar to octopi seen today. There are ancient cockroaches (Aphthoroblattina), butterflies (Archaeolepis), spiders (Attercopus, Eoplectreurys), bees (Melittosphex), ants (Sphecomyrma), and leaf insects (Eophyllium), similar to insects today. There are ancient pangolins (Eomanis). There are ancient deer (Heteroprox), camels (Protylopus), and antelope (Eotragus). Etc. However, what is generally lacking are the transitions between these core types of life. Microevolution is compatible with the Genesis 1 account where species were told to speciate after their kinds, and does not infer a common ancestor.

A number of bipedal fossils have been discovered in recent years, and the oldest hominids in humanity's family tree are all now recognized to have walked upright and had unusual complexity similar to modern man, such as advanced faces. Orrorin tugenensis walked upright and was in an advanced stage of evolution. Sahelanthropus tchadensis discovered walked upright and had the face of a hominid half its age. Ardipithecus ramidus walked upright and was so advanced it disproved the popular apes to humans theory. Footprints discovered in 2009 showed Erectus walked upright. And Lucy, aka Afarensis, walked upright per a new study in 2011.

On top of this a large number of alleged missing links have been discovered to have coexisted so that their evolving from one another as had been claimed is highly unlikedly. Most notably Afarensis and Ramidus coexisted, Neanderthals and Humans coexisted, and Habilis and Erectus coexisted.

I would like to divert some attention towards the word 'fossil' itself; a fossil is a living being that has been 'fossilized' by which the outer parts have been preserved, but not the insides, which were decomposed over time. Fossils are more likely to be vertebrates or with stronger material that would be able to stay in a rock form. The fossil record will never be complete, considering how many species have died without leaving a fossil (i.e. bacteria, invertebrates, small plants). Therefore, many plants, animals, and bacterium will never present their fossil records; they simply don't have any. However, the lack of fossils does not equate to the lack of evolution. You can witness microevolution in your household by breeding with anyone; your offspring will be similar, but not 100% the same as you. Do this for several generations and your great-grandsons will hardly look like you at all. Coming back to your logic, which is "There are no fossils in between two species, therefore evolution could not have happened", however; if you die without leaving a single picture, writing, or memory from anyone around you, but someone still has your family tree, they can infer that you did exist by looking at the gap between your son and your father. They can infer that you would look like your father and your son but not be completely the same. This happens in evolution, albiet in a wider scale.

I don't understand why Punctuated equilibrium would be any problem to evolution per se, though; if you have two fossils before and after the change, then you can infer that the change happened sometime in between which involved the losing or gaining of traits. It is not a way of denying the fossil record's lack of Missing links, because you can still see the changes and infer how they changed.

Moving on, I don't understand how the similarities of snails over time have anything to do with evolution being wrong. Evolution through natural selection implies that nature favors desirable changes over time, mainly to adapt to the changes around them; if certain types did not need to adapt to new environments, then there would not be much reason for them to change, just like how humans don't grow wings or sprout fins because we don't need to- unless there was a global flood, by which we may not be able to survive anyway.

A little thing about 'after their kind' of the Genesis collection; what is a 'kind'? If it is something that can bring forth (Genesis 1:24-25), then there certainly is a problem; Ring Species demonstrates that common ancestor A splits into groups B and C. A can breed with B, A can breed with C, but B cannot breed with C. So, are A, B, and C still all the same kind?

By the way, the account of Genesis of course doesn't infer a common ancestor. The answer is Goddidit. But even if a god did create all the animals as they were and never changed into different species, then the first animal that god created for each line would then be the common ancestor of that line, much like how Adam and Eve are considered the first humans, they would be our common ancestors (if they actually existed, of course).

Your remaining paragraphs do not seem to be different from the one above. Hominids hardly changed, therefore, evolution is wrong and the Earth was created in 6000 years. This leads us back to the theory of evolution again: if there is no need for animals with favorable traits to be selected, then they wouldn't change. I would like to point out, however, that though our life spans have been getting longer, we have not yet gained the ability to fly.

Your last paragraph, which is "hominids coexisted, therefore they did not evolve from each other, therefore (macro)evolution doesn't happen at all" is incorrect. While groups may coexist, such as how poodles may coexist with German shepherds, does not in any way suggest that poodles evolved from German shepherds or the opposite. The correct assumption would be that the two species evolved from a common ancestor, which is known to be a wolf. Wonderful Pizza (talk) 16:56, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

""a fossil is a living being that has been 'fossilized' by which the outer parts have been preserved, but not the insides, which were decomposed over time."

Umm, no. Many fossils are completely mineralized inside and out. Go visit the petrified forest in Arizona some time. Microscopic intracellular features may be poorly preserved, if that's what you mean, but still, "not the insides" is a somewhat inaccurate way of putting it. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:05, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

To Wonderful Pizza, my logic is not that "There are no fossils in between two species, therefore evolution could not have happened", my argument is that while the fossil record does consistently show adaptation, it is overwhelmingly within the same types of life we see today, microevolution. You see sharks adapting as sharks, jellyfish adapting as jellyfish, etc. Just like we see today. The fossil record shows ancient jellyfish, ancient sharks, ancient horses, etc. And those are getting claimed as transitional forms. But they only show transitions within core categories of life, not between them. There aren't the brand new transitions in between, the merges of different types of life, that is needed to prove a common ancestor, the kind of transitions Darwin asserted would exist and do not.

Punctuated Equilibrium is a serious problem because the scientific community basically just moved the goalposts, changed the required test for evolution after the evidence contradicted it. Darwin's original model of phyletic gradualism said evolution was slow, constant, and steady. The fossil record completely disproved that so they just made a new theory saying evolution can just rapidly speed up too fast to show the key changes needed for a common ancestor to be true. And in the process they made evolution unfalsifiable, because there is no test now for proving it wrong. They showed no matter what evidence arises, they'll just create a new theory to fit with the evidence based on their personal belief in a common ancestor. That is a religion, not science.

As for ring species, this actually relates to something I considered including as a proof of creationism, sterility in hybridism. Darwin devoted a whole chapter (Chapter 8 of On the Origin of Species) to addressing this problem for evolution, because the creationists of Darwin's day pointed to such sterility as evidence that God was using it to prevent the mixing of different types of life so it would stay in the categories He had originally intended.

"But even if a god did create all the animals as they were and never changed into different species, then the first animal that god created for each line would then be the common ancestor of that line, much like how Adam and Eve are considered the first humans, they would be our common ancestors (if they actually existed, of course)."

This perfectly sums up what creationists believe when they talk about microevolution actually, that there were common ancestors of different lineages of life, so that life branched out, adapting after their parent species per Genesis 1. Thus the fact that the fossil record shows considerable evidence for this kind of microevolution, but not the change between species, is a strong evidence to Creationists that Genesis is correct. Hybridism sterility such as that seen in ring species is another evidence. I would also point out that the definition of what a species is can itself be debated.

"This leads us back to the theory of evolution again: if there is no need for animals with favorable traits to be selected, then they wouldn't change."

This isn't how the theory has been presented however. Evolutionists have fought for the last century to claim humans evolved from knuckle-dragging apes, and the discovery of Ardipithecus Ramidus was effectively in the nail in the coffin disproving that claim.[16][17] The claims of a common ancestor always argue the simple evolved into more complex lifeforms, so the fact that the fossil record is increasingly showing ancient species have remained essentially unchanged from the beginning is a strong evidence for the Biblical creation account.

--Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:57, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Before you go claiming that the fossil record "only show[s] transitions within core categories of life" you might want to look at what talk.origins has to say about it. For instance, here is a page on transitions between invertebrates and vertebrates. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Still though, how does Pikaia differ all that much from modern lancelets? Pikaia had a cuticle, which isn't typical of chordates from what I'm seeing. Creationwiki raises some questions about this TalkOrigins claim here.[18] Arguing that a notochord is transitional between an actual spine and vertebrate seems pretty interpretive to me. There are worms with teeth today I suppose.[19] Claiming that is evidence of a transition from invertebrate to vertebrate though seems speculative. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:10, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Rates of Microevolution

Microevolutionary rates witnessed today are consistent with a far younger earth, on the scale of decades and tens of meters. Prominent examples include Australia's cane toads, which evolved longer legs and heat tolerance within a few decades, overruning the continent contrary to predictions, and Italian wall lizards, which evolved new gut structures, larger heads, and a harder bite within a few decades in order to thrive in their new island habitat.

--Jzyehoshua (talk) 00:34, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

"Alright, seeing as nobody is providing any serious arguments, I'll provide some of my own..." So now that you've gotten the jokes out of the way, what time can we expect your serious arguments? --Inquisitor (talk) 00:43, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

By serious arguments you mean ones that agree with what you believe? That wouldn't be much of a debate, now would it? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 00:47, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I really thought you were joking. So if you are serious, I'm left feeling that you're either trolling, or fairly new to the CvE "debate". Neither of which I am particularly interested in engaging with. But... if you do manage to post an entirely new argument, instead of PRATT, then you may pique my interest. --Inquisitor (talk) 01:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

If you want to espouse young Earth creationism then your really need to tackle the age of the Earth first because the geology just doesn't support a young Earth. Генгис^unbelieving 01:39, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

As addressed here radiometric dating involves a series of assumptions:

1: Daughter Isotope Levels Known. With radiometric dating you are comparing the ratio of an initial isotope to what it decays into. However, all of those calculations only work if you know how much Carbon-14 there is to begin with. This involves assuming the atmospheric levels millions of years ago were the same as today's or can be determined, a presumption that's since been proven false - we now know oxygen levels were 50% higher than today's levels resulting in insect gigantism. Al Gore predicted the ice caps would be gone and instead the Antarctic ice cap is growing, contrary to all predictions. In other words, there are not even 5 year predictions being made correctly, yet supposedly they can correctly predict what the atmosphere was like 50 million years ago.

2. Closed System and Uniform Rates. The Evolutionist must assume a closed system of decay, that nothing is altering the decay process. If unprecedented global catastrophes such as Floods or volcanoes caused the dinosaur extinction this would throw off Carbon-14 dating as well as other dating methods. As pointed out by Encyclopædia Britannica Carbon-14 is not uniformly distributed among today's plants and animals, and there are non-atmospheric sources for Carbon-14. Volcanic carbon dioxide, dissolved limestone carbonate, and updwelling of deep ocean water can all alter Carbon-14 levels, making them appear much older.

3. Crosschecking Dating Methods. The same dating methods used to cross-check radiometric dating methods/proxies, such as Dendrochronology, Ice Core Dating, and Coral Dating are the same ones used by Climatologists to determine the history of the Earth's temperature. As such, these methods are mentioned quite a bit in the Climategate emails, and some prominent Climatologists privately admit within the emails that serious problems exist in all of these dating methods. In essence, Evolutionists are claiming multiple seriously flawed methods can be used to cross-check one another. To quote three key Climategate emails:

"The underlying assumption of our own work has always been that each of the proxies have their own potential problems, and 'multiproxy' approaches are probably the most robust. I don’t have a particular axe to grind about any particular proxy, and recognize that there are some pretty serious potential problems with all proxies, including ice core delta o18 (as you’re aware, these are not clean paleotemperature proxies at all), and Sr/Ca or o18 from corals. There is a good discussion of the strengths and weaknesses in all of the proxies in Jones and Mann (2004): Jones, P.D., Mann, M.E., Climate Over Past Millennia, Reviews of Geophysics, 42, RG2002, doi: 10.1029/2003RG000143, 2004.

-Michael Mann

RE: Agreed completely on value of multiproxy. And yes, a lot of my earlier work was on figuring out how much of the isotopic signal in ice cores is temperature and not other things. The reassuring result was that all the big stuff is temperature, although with a rather bizarrely unexpected calibration. Of the little stuff, stack several cores and you get up toward order of half of the variance being temperature with the rest left for something else. The devil is in the details of when big meets little, as well as what calibration to use. But, there is a pile of data from the 3% of the globe that is ice sheets that have not been assembled properly."

-Richard Alley[20]

"1) Didn't see a justification for use of tree-rings and not using ice cores -- the obvious one is that ice cores are no good -- see Jones et al, 1998. 2) No justification for regional reconstructions rather than what Mann et al did (I don't think we can say we didn't do Mann et al because we think it is crap!)"

-Simon Tett[21]

"It sounded like it is an embarrassment to the tree ring community that their indicator does not seem to be responding to the pronounced warming of the past 50 years. Ed Cook of the Lamont Tree-Ring Lab tells me that there is some speculation that stratospheric ozone depletion may have affected the trees, in which case the pre-1950 record is OK. But alternatively, he says it is possible that the trees have exceeded the linear part of their temperature-sensitive range, and they no longer are stimulated by temperature. In this case there is trouble for the paleo record. Kieth Briffa first documented this late 20th century loss of response. Personally, I think that the tree ring records should be able to reproduce the instrumental record, as a first test of the validity of this proxy. To me it casts doubt on the integrity of this proxy that it fails this test."

-Jeff Severinghaus[22]

--Jzyehoshua (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

No. The whole "radiometric dating isn't accurate" line of attack is pretty standard fare. Give me something fresh to chew on. --Inquisitor (talk) 07:54, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I guess when your mindset is limited to 6000 years then you think that bringing up short-term dating techniques is a way of addressing the problem; it is not. People knew that the Earth was way older than that posited by biblical literalists by many orders of magnitude long before radiometric dating came along. The rocks tell their own story morphologically, physically and chemically; and there is no way that can be reverse-engineered into the young-Earth narrative. I have yet to find one creationist geology book that actually provides a coherent narrative for the Earth's rocks. The basic mindset of creationist geology, which can't get past the idea of a global flood, rests on trying to pick holes in niche corners of geology and making up far-fetched magical hypotheses laden with "might", "could have" and "possibly". All commerical mineral exploration and extraction makes use of scientific geology because it works. I have yet to meet any geologist with a proper job who has come to the conclusion that the Earth is a few-thousand years old based on evidence rather than religious belief. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 12:03, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Name one example of commercial mineral exploration that contradicts a Biblical Flood model where dead organisms would be deposited in low-lying areas of the globe under massive amounts of sediment and igneous rock. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 12:11, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Also, one of the founders of geology, William Buckland, was a Creationist who believed in the Flood. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 12:14, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Your first question is simplistic and shows ignorance of how geologists model complex subsurface structures which unfortunately I don't have time to address in detail right now. Buckland was a theologian first and a geologist second, so his geological ideas were coloured by his religion. And while he believed in a flood his claims for evidence of a biblical flood were later rescinded in favour of Agassiz's glacial model. In fact Buckland even went so far as to reject flood geology as being the source of the Earth's rocks. He was not a young-Earth creationist but subscribed to gap theory and hence old-Earth creationism. But really, the amount of new information that has been amassed since Buckland's time make his views irrelevant to most of modern geology. But that is typical of another creationist tactic, focussing on historical figures who lacked modern knowledge and trying to leverage their importance. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 14:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Seems pretty straightforward, you're claiming commercial mineralization relies on geological principles contrary to Creationism, and I just want to see one example of a principle that contradicts the Creationist Flood model. From what I've seen, petroleum exploration for example has had to adopt a model essentially based on the idea of a global Flood, that petroleum reserves lie where a Flood would have deposited the future fossils in low-lying deposits. That's exactly what a Creationist expects to see. As far as I am concerned modern geology is perfectly compatible with a recent global Flood aside from the millions and billions of years claim which is a Uniformitarian assumption contrary to the new evidence that catastrophes did occur.

As for Buckland, I'm not convinced he did completely abandon a Flood model. In fact, Charles Lyell rejected Catastrophism to create Uniformitarianism (the theoretical model which Evolution/a common ancestor is based on) because he disliked his mentor William Buckland using Catastrophism to prove a Biblical Flood. To quote the University of California Berkeley:

"'Catastrophism,' as this school of thought came to be known, was attacked in 1830 by a British lawyer-turned-geologist named Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Lyell started his career studying under the catastrophist William Buckland at Oxford. But Lyell became disenchanted with Buckland when Buckland tried to link catastrophism to the Bible, looking for evidence that the most recent catastrophe had actually been Noah's flood. Lyell wanted to find a way to make geology a true science of its own, built on observation and not susceptible to wild speculations or dependent on the supernatural."[23]

Nor was Buckland an isolated case when it comes to scientific founders. Sir Isaac Newton published detailed analyses of the books of Revelation and Daniel. Louis Pasteur set out to disprove the Darwinism of his day, using experiments to conclusively disprove spontaneous generation and abiogenesis. Either way, my point was that geology was actually founded by Creationists, not Evolutionists.

And yes, there are geologists who are Creationists, for example Kurt Wise and Steve Austin, but I already know what you'll say, you'll argue there aren't many of them or that they are just misguided somehow.

--Jzyehoshua (talk) 14:34, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Ideas of an old-Earth predate Darwin's Theory of Evolution so it is bollocks to talk about the foundings of modern geology in regard to "evolutionists". But once again you dive into ancient scientists like Newton and Lyell who were men of their time. Lyell provided the foundations of modern geology, thanks to Hutton's ideas, but nobody today uses his books as a teaching tool because as a pioneer on the scene there were some things he got wrong and others that he had no way of knowing about. But even so, many people misunderstand Lyell's uniformitarianism. Lyell did not exclude catastrophism but suggested that we should look at current processes in action and then work from that as a basis for unravelling the past, which I think is alluded to in your quote-paste above. The meaning of catastrophism has also changed; in the early 1800s it specifically alluded to the Biblical flood but nowadays means any rare large-scale event from asteroid impacts, super-volcanoes or massive tsunamis which are now accepted because we have more evidence; but so far none for a global flood. Buckland clung on to the flood but gave up the on the notion of it being the source of all sedimentary rocks and you'll need to come up with some good evidence to show that he was a young-Earther. But you need to see both Buckland and Lyell in the light of the great factions in early geology, the questions of Neptunism and Plutonism are no longer relevant but they were big issues in their day. I never said that there weren't geologists who were creationists but the examples you cite really don't have "proper" jobs in geology - i.e. getting paid for commercially useful results - they are merely dilettantes who started from a religious standpoint and try to bend geology to their beliefs rather than looking at the evidence and drawing a conclusion. And if you want an obvious example of mineral geology disproving a global flood then you need only look at the coal measures, which in the UK at least, show long-term cycles with layers of coal interspersed with sediment and those layers exhibiting evidence of root growth proving that the deposits were laid down over a protracted period and not in a single catastrophe. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 15:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree, I think Uniformitarianism was, as the University of California states, an "attack" on Catastrophism by Lyell. Catastrophism was largely abandoned in favor of Uniformitarianism until the past few decades when the evidence that catastrophes had occurred from the fossil record became too great to deny. So now there is an effort to reconcile the theory of evolution with the possibility of catastrophes, while still holding to the lengthy dates inferred from Uniformitarianism.

But Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism are necessarily at odds, because you can't assume the Earth is millions of years old while accepting unprecedented catastrophes occurred. Uniformitarianism is based on the belief that slow, constant processes were all that was occurring in order to derive massive dates of millions and billions of years. If the whole geologic record could be considerably changed by huge catastrophes, large chunks of the record built by said catastrophes, that undercuts the whole premise of Uniformitarianism. Catastrophism destroys the idea of constant decay rates and uniform geologic processes in a closed system, unaltered by outside forces. Volcanism alone throws off multiple radiometric dating methods like Carbon-14 and Potassium-Argon, so hypothesizing a global supervolcano destroying the dinosaurs means accepting it would have also messed with the radiometric dates of everything it fossilized. That's why I say the two are diametrically opposed, accepting Catastrophism is true means accepting Uniformitarianism is false, they are at odds.

Buckland definitely was a young earth creationist early on, although he did go for glaciation in later years. Whether that means he abandoned a young earth model entirely though is debatable, I haven't seen the evidence for that yet.

I'll admit I haven't really looked into the issue of root growth in coal, do you have a source? Just from what I remember offhand, I seem to recall creationists contesting whether this indicated a long period of growth or trees deposited with their roots after a flood. I've also seen arguments made for coal as evidence of a recent flood. For example coal deposits like amber are mixed with organisms from all different climate zones, including insects, coral, and leaves from different continents, both warm and cold climates.[24] McDowell and Stewart cite several examples of this in 'Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity,' Section 3.[25] They argue the evidence better fits allochthonous coal formation than autochthonous, this is a similar argument to what they make.[26]

--Jzyehoshua (talk) 21:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

British Regional Geology: The Pennines And Adjacent Areas published by the Institute of Geological Sciences, HMSO, London (ISBN 0 11 880720 X) will tell you all you need to know about cyclic coal deposition in the UK with not a hint of flood geology. What you need to understand is that 3-D mapping of coal seams (and other strata in general) does not support a flood scenario but a long term subsidence with cyclic deposition. But no matter, because there is obviously nothing I can present that is going to persuade you otherwise, unless you can say upfront what it would take you to change your belief in a young Earth. If you really want to understand geology or evolution then you need to embark on a period of long study through all aspects of the respective discipline and not just regurgitate creationist PRATTs. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 23:01, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

From what I've seen the secular scientific community makes every effort to avoid theorizing that is compatible with a global Flood, devising every alternative to even evidence strongly suggestive of a Flood. For example, hordes of trilobites get buried under layers of sediment in locations all over the globe, and this gets claimed to have been caused by a "hurricane" instead of a Flood.[27] Fossils get entombed in a burrow, and they were fossilized by a temporary flash flood, rather than a global one.[28]

For a Creationist the geologic record is indicative of a global Flood, and certainly not contradictory. Just because it's never mentioned indicates all alternatives to a Flood are mentioned by the scientific community without reference to a Flood if humanly possible. They'll happily consider volcanoes, meteorites, even aliens, but never a global Flood. Hypothesizing that is taboo in all but Creationist circles. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 04:34, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Creationism vs. Evolutionism

Well, Evolutionism. Where's the debate? --Beenz715 (talk) 13:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

What's an "evolutionism," and are members of the laity allowed to hold one? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Lamarckism is right, creationism/neo-Darwinism wrong :) Evolutionist (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

For the true debate see aSoK Hamster (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I favor Bumba the african vomit god. It explains so much about the world Hamster (talk) 19:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

• Basic debate theme and purpose: "I'm right and you are wrong." Add details. Avoid specifying the terms of the debate, it's boring and might actually produce some agreement, thus defeating the purpose. Agreement is for wimps and losers. Disagree? Ah! Now we have a debate, because I'm right and you are wrong. Q.E.D. --Abd (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Next debate question - Are fairies real

I'm saying they are not; but I'm hoping for a debate on this important scientific question too.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 18:54, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. The existence of fairies has been documented for years. Take a look at this indisputable photographic evidence. Conservative Punk (talk) 19:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

would the phrases "fairies at the bottom of my garden" or "he's a fairy" exist if they were not real ? I don't think so. I offer Tinkerbell as evidence. Hamster (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

You're all spelling "faeries" wrong. Swerve (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Spelling technicalities are a typical sign of a troll and certainly an example of liberal deceit! Conservative Punk (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Fuckin' liberals also merged the A and E together to make "færies." Rubbish. We only need 26 letters in the American alphabet. Swerve (talk) 19:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I feel like there's loads of debate topics that have been started at RW that could use some more love, but are being neglected in favour of whatever this is... Nullahnung (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

In favor of sanity? --Abd (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I also agree that people should stop posting on this thread. Who agrees that people should not post on this thread? Our American listeners may want to Google "irony".--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 16:38, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I dont agree so I can post here. People who do agree obviously would not. Are we talking fairies like tinkerbell or the FAE like banshees and the big pointy earred one with swords ? Hamster (talk) 16:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that people who do not agree with posting here would not post here. It is very likely that RW editors who feel that posting here is a waste of time would post here to explain that posting here is a waste of time.

Anyway, to answer your particular point, I would suggest that the essential "fairyness" of the fairy (or faery) in question would be the deciding factor rather than its bulk, attitude or ability with weapons. --Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 17:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Reading through the above, I must say that I agree that RWians should refrain from posting here. SO why am I posting here? Well, if I don't post here, then nobody will be here to stand up for those who think this page is a waste of time. I am posting here because I feel it is important to post here to get the word out about how much I wish people wouldn't post here. But most of all, and in true, blue RationalWikian form, I'm posting here because I am drunk and bored. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

To maintain RW traditions I'm thinking about sending you to the coop for this!--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 12:03, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

buck AWK!!! (garble garble awk) Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The ultimate proof that creationism is unscientific

I will not even start debunking until I see a way, no matter how absurd, to falsify creationism, because of all the ad hoc statements that creationists make. But anyway, creationists will have to deal with this.--Rlin (talk) 04:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)