Re: new creationist museum in dallas

[Tank]

Go on, write something worth reading.

something worth reading

Another example of your vacuous attitude. Why don't you do us all a favour and just...?

[Asmodean]

By the way, I have read over the material kindly provided by members of this forum, and have to say I am still totally unconvinced by the arguments in favour of evolution.

...You being unconvinced does not make Evolution any less a scientific fact than it is. If you do not accept the scientific evidence, then you don't accept it. It is rather foolish though, since scientific evidence is the strongest form of evidence we have.

That said, please don't spam for higher post count (Seems to me that that is what you are doing)

[pinkocommie]

Go on, write something worth reading.

something worth reading

Reported for being off topic and being a troll.  Ignore it and it will go away/get banned.

[McQ]

Go on, write something worth reading.

something worth reading

You have received a warning for trolling, Ned. Another incident of trolling will result in a one week ban from HAF.

[KebertX]

Obviously, all us Happy Atheists know they're full of shit, but Creationists will eat this shit up!  So, let's actually discredit their proof that the earth is 6000 years old, and evolution is a lie.  Are their facts even true, did they really dig up T-Rex meat?

1) Soft tissue from a Tyrannosaurus!  Couldn't be millions of years old, so explain that with your heathen science!
2) Fossilized tree spanning sediment layers.  Those layers must have formed in less time than it took for the tree to decay.  Therefore the Earth was formed instantly!
3) Sedimentary layers all bent to together, they all must have been fresh at the same time.  Earthquakes don't count, explain it away!
4) How did those molecules just spring to life in the beginning? Assume Abiogenesis doesn't exist in your explaination... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg
5) This is proof evolution is bunk: Mutations only act on ALREADY EXISTING Genetic Codes. PWNED!
6) The Magnetosphere has been deteriorating at a rate of 7% a year, if the earth is millions of years old, WHY ISN'T IT GONE YET?!?

So, Atheists, since your precious theory of evolution is now dead, you must admit that God exists and he created everything.  (Evolution OR Creationism.  That's not a false dichotomy at all...)

Seriously, I am aware that these don't disprove evolution, but I couldn't explain them away to a creationists if they brought it up.  So, what do you freethinkers have to actually dispute these creationists, I need a little help here.

[Whitney]

Seriously, I am aware that these don't disprove evolution, but I couldn't explain them away to a creationists if they brought it up.  So, what do you freethinkers have to actually dispute these creationists, I need a little help here.

I'm pretty sure those have all been addressed on this forum at one time or another and if not here then check out TalkOrigins.

Are you being serious?

[TheJackel]

1) Soft tissue from a Tyrannosaurus!  Couldn't be millions of years old, so explain that with your heathen science!

They found it inside a really thick fossilized leg bone, and the soft tissue was effectively enclosed in what is equivalent to a well preserved time capsule.. Hence, such finds are likely to exist within many such fossilized bones that remain intact protected from outside elements, and mineralization ect.

The package weighed more than 2,000 pounds, which turned out to be just above their helicopter’s capacity, so they split it in half. One of B. rex’s leg bones was broken into two big pieces and several fragmentsâ€"just what Schweitzer needed for her micro-scale explorations.

"some rock-hard fossils tens of millions of years old may have remnants of soft tissues hidden away in their interiors. “The reason it hasn’t been discovered before is no right-thinking paleontologist would do what Mary did with her specimens. We don’t go to all this effort to dig this stuff out of the ground to then destroy it in acid,”

In the course of testing a B. rex bone fragment further, Schweitzer asked her lab technician, Jennifer Wittmeyer, to put it in weak acid, which slowly dissolves bone, including fossilized boneâ€"but not soft tissues. One Friday night in January 2004, Wittmeyer was in the lab as usual. She took out a fossil chip that had been in the acid for three days and put it under the microscope to take a picture. “[The chip] was curved so much, I couldn’t get it in focus,” Wittmeyer recalls. She used forceps to flatten it. “My forceps kind of sunk into it, made a little indentation and it curled back up. I was like, stop it!” Finally, through her irritation, she realized what she had: a fragment of dinosaur soft tissue left behind when the mineral bone around it had dissolved. Suddenly Schweitzer and Wittmeyer were dealing with something no one else had ever seen. For a couple of weeks, Wittmeyer said, it was like Christmas every day.

Further discoveries in the past year have shown that the discovery of soft tissue in B. rex wasn’t just a fluke. Schweitzer and Wittmeyer have now found probable blood vessels, bone-building cells and connective tissue in another T. rex, in a theropod from Argentina and in a 300,000-year-old woolly mammoth fossil. Schweitzer’s work is “showing us we really don’t understand decay,”

Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.”

Let me remind you that these are "microscopic samples" encased in fossilized  bones, and discovered through a process that has never been done.. Hence, we don't fully understand how fossilization can preserve microscopic soft tissues within bones. Especially Bones of this size.. It's funny how Creationists jump out and call Creationism without even waiting for scientific study, results, or even reading the entire sum of evidence without making up magical theory as the magic truth, especially when they can't even prove their GOD exists..

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... z0rp7tuJdo

[Schweitzer] indicated that the bones have a distinct odor, characteristic of “embalming fluids.” Therefore, it is possible that the bones landed in some chemical stew that preserved the soft tissue inside from decomposition….The new study reveals that the cortical bone within T rex [femora] may, under certain conditions, retain cellular and subcellular details. Under normal conditions, fossilization replaces living material with minerals. In this case, the soft tissue was protected from degradation, possibly through some chemical process, then desiccated to prevent further changes. (Deem nd; emphasis added)

----

2) Fossilized tree spanning sediment layers.  Those layers must have formed in less time than it took for the tree to decay.  Therefore the Earth was formed instantly!

LMAO!

That's entirely possible and commonly found in flood zones like around the mississippi river where multiple floods lead to multiple sedimentary deposits. But for giggles I will quote from a saved txt to which I no longer have the link to:

1) How did the tree survive during multiple catastrophes without
rotting or being knocked down?

Trees commonly remain upright during multiple river floods,
season after season, year after year. Some trees (such as the
modern bald cypress) are tolerant of immersion in water, and
will survive floods commonly. Even if trees are killed by immersion
during the period of a river flood (weeks or months), the tree does
not rot away or fall over as promptly as is commonly thought. Trees
often survive upright, after death, for years or decades. Some
are known to have remained upright for at least a century after death.
For example, there are trees standing upright in Reelfoot Lake
in Tennessee that were submerged by an earthquake that happened in
the 1800s. Some were killed by the water, others have survived.
There is also ample evidence in the fossil record that trees
did rot and fall down, and these are often more common than the
ones that remained upright.

2) How can anyone reasonably believe that a tree could stand for
the length of time it takes to build up the additional layers?

There are two components to this question: a) how long a
tree can stand upright while being buried (whether dead or alive),
and b) how long sedimentary layers take to build up.
A tree that remains standing for decades to centuries (whether
dead for that whole period or alive) would have ample time for metres
of sediment to accumulate on a river floodplain or a coastline, if
sedimentation conditions are suitable. A single river flood
can deposit tens of centimetres to metres of sediment. Granted,
only selected environments have sufficiently high depositional
rates to realistically bury trees to metres depth in under a
few centuries, but they are not rare, and trees are commonly found
there (e.g., river deltas and floodplains are). As mentioned above,
trees can remain upright for longer than people commonly think.

3) How can a tree representing a short life span (on evolution’s
geological time scale) stand erect through geological layers
representing millions and often hundreds of millions of years?"

Most commonly, the misconception develops because
it is assumed that if geologists claim a formation 1000 metres
thick took 100 million years to deposit, therefore every
metre of it (such as the metres that may be piled up around a tree)
took 100000 years to form, and every centimetre took a thousand
years. Such an assumption will be spectacularly wrong in any
environment where the depositional rate varies greatly. In the
deep ocean, it might be reasonable, but on a river floodplain,
it is wrong in the extreme. A soil horizon a few centimetres
thick may have taken thousands of years to form, a river
channel sandstone metres thick might have been deposited in a
few weeks at that spot, and the bottom of the river channel
commonly erodes away sediments that were deposited previously
(creating a gap).

Or for demonstrative purposes:

Tidal marsh encroaching on forest, Amherst Marsh, NS.

Sea level is rising slowly causing the tidal salt marshes to build up and advance onto the land surface. Here the salt meadows are invading a forest. Dating of the trees at the base of the marsh shows that tide level is rising about 30 cm (1 foot) per century; the outermost tree is 1000 years old and is buried by 1 meter of peat.

3) Sedimentary layers all bent to together, they all must have been fresh at the same time.  Earthquakes don't count, explain it away!

Read above..And volcanic activity can easily accomplish the above..

Wiki:

In geology, such fossils are referred to as upright fossils, trunks, or trees. Brief periods of rapid sedimentation favor their formation. Upright fossils are typically found in layers associated with an actively subsiding coastal plain or rift basin, or with the accumulation of volcanic material around a periodically erupting stratovolcano.

4) How did those molecules just spring to life in the beginning? Assume Abiogenesis doesn't exist in your explaination... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

Disingenuous argument to force the removal of evidence, or to assume Abiogenesis doesn't exist in our explanation, or the fact that we can in fact create, digitize, encode, or program synthetic life. If you like I can provide links, and youtube videos.

Molecular Dynamics: Life: Gravity
Genome, DNA, Reproduction
Darwin, Origin of Life
Age dating,Black radiation, Phonton energy, Nuclear decay rates
Rubberband and Protein: Thermodynamics
Photon Energy and Life

Synthetic Life:
Video: Synthetic Life 1
Video: Synthetic Life 2

or:

* http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... gists.html
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_life
* http://gizmodo.com/307958/craig-venter- ... en-created
* http://www.wired.com/science/discoverie ... rentPage=2
* http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003908.html

DNA Robots:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33483705/ns/...nnovation/

DNA robots that can reproduce themselves:

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=8412.php
http://2020science.org/2008/01/26/synthe...echnology/

Example of Self organization:

Self Orgainization and Complexity

or we can watch videos on self-organization.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHGifWhoJ_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeKWDOJv ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me5Zzm2T ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOho0VHP ... re=related
http://vimeo.com/9975725
http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/29159962

Enzymes:

Strong diffusional mixing and short delivery times typical for micrometer and sub-micrometer reaction volumes lead to a special situations of self oscillation where the turnover times of individual enzyme molecules become the largest characteristic time scale of the chemical kinetics. Under these conditions, populations of cross-regulating allosteric enzymes form molecular networks that exhibit various kinds of self-organized coherent collective dynamics.

RNA:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 162009.htm (no human intervention)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p0mp6w24211696h3/

* self organizing algorithms through the study of RNA

Genes:

* Gene self-organizing maps
http://blog.peltarion.com/2007/04/10/the-self-organized-gene-part-1/

-

Biochemical Self-organization
Self-Organizing Biochemical cycles
Physical Role in Biochemical Self Organization


Here is a Good article for you to read in regards to Early Earth's Atmosphere. This destroys the argument that Creationist scientist Sarfati used to attempt to prove the Earth was created vs formed through natural process..

Genesis VS Science Part 2: Early Earth's Atmosphere

5) This is proof evolution is bunk: Mutations only act on ALREADY EXISTING Genetic Codes. PWNED!

That's not proof against evolution LOL.. Everything in existence has pattern, chaotic systems with feed back, and order that comes from chaos. All you did here was state that a pattern can lead to the change of another pattern should said pattern influence and exert pressure on the other.. Your argument is like stating a color pattern can only act on already existing color to form new patterns of color.. What exactly are you attempting to prove with this .

6) The Magnetosphere has been deteriorating at a rate of 7% a year, if the earth is millions of years old, WHY ISN'T IT GONE YET?!?

Where is your Data for this, and do you even know how it works? Hell, I googled your little number 6 to come up empty on any such claim.. And you do realize that our magnetosphere has it's own weather patterns right?

# The internal field of the Earth ("main field") arising from electric currents in the core. It is dipole-like, modified by higher harmonic contributions.
# The ring current field, carried by plasma trapped in the dipole-like field around Earth, typically at distances 3â€"8 RE (less during large storms). Its current flows (approximately) around the magnetic equator, mainly clockwise when viewed from north. (A small counterclockwise ring current flows at the inner edge of the ring, caused by the fall-off in plasma density as Earth is approached.)
# The field confining the Earth's plasma and magnetic field inside the magnetospheric cavity. The currents responsible for it flow on the magnetopause, the interface between the magnetosphere and the solar wind, described in the introduction. Their flow, again, may be viewed as arising from the geometry of the magnetic field (rather than from any driving voltage), a consequence of "Ampére's law" (embodied in Maxwell's equations) which in this case requires an electric current to flow along any interface between magnetic fields of different directions and/or intensities.

Nasa Says nothing about 7% loss each year..

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.c ... etic+field

"Earth's Inconstant magnetic field
- Our planet's magnetic field is in a constant state of change, say researchers who are beginning to understand how it behaves and why."

It´s only explaining the behavior of our magnetic field and that it's constantly changing. The article is not saying that we have just found out our magnetic field changes. It says we are understanding better WHY it changes and HOW it changes. THAT´S IT!

[Tank]

@ TheJackal  :hail:  
You put a lot of effort into that, thank you.

[freeservant]

I see the funding is past the 3 million mark.  

And it will be in the Cliff!

I don't think they have completed much of it though so might I suggest the near by Dallas Zoo.

[Thumpalumpacus]

By the way, I have read over the material kindly provided by members of this forum, and have to say I am still totally unconvinced by the arguments in favour of evolution.

Hey, when you're ready to talk turkey, lemme know.  I personally don't understand how someone can argue that an invisible guy up in some place called Heaven can know everything, do anything, be good, and still permit evil -- and yet that same someone can reject a theory which is supported by multiple converging lines of evidence from different scientific disciplines.

:baffled:

[Asmodean]

@ TheJackal  :hail:  :hail:  :hail:

[Businessocks]

And again to The Jackel  :hail:  

And if TX is the wrong side of the country for a field trip, you should know there is a similar one in Akron, Ohio.  http://www.akronfossils.com/news.html

[KebertX]

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to quote the whole thing.  I'm used to Twitter, where you click on the person's last post to reply to them. I've been using the Quote-Button like an @Reply.

TheJackel --> WOW! You really took me seriously.  I always forget that you can't convey sarcasm in writing.  No, I was just mocking the information provided on the museum's website.

You also put an obvious shit ton of work into rebuking my "arguments."  You wrote a whole freaking essay!  I appreciate it!  I didn't necessarily know any of these things before (except that bit about the fossilized trees), but I wasn't claiming that evolution was a lie, or that the earth was 6000 years old.  Thanks for the logical information!  That's what this forum is for... I suppose.

[Gawen]

@ TheJackal  :hail:  :up:

[Asmodean]

WOW! You really took me seriously.  I always forget that you can't convey sarcasm in writing.  No, I was just mocking the information provided on the museum's website.

You also put an obvious shit ton of work into rebuking my "arguments."  You wrote a whole freaking essay!  I appreciate it!  I didn't necessarily know any of these things before (except that bit about the fossilized trees), but I wasn't claiming that evolution was a lie, or that the earth was 6000 years old.  Thanks for the logical information!  That's what this forum is for... I suppose.

For the future, please refrain from quoting large posts when you have a general comment to the whole thing - it makes it somewhat harder to navigate the thread. You can, hwever, do something along the lines of:

First paragraph

*wall of text*

It's a lot cleaner and better.