Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

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robbyyoung
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by robbyyoung » Fri Jan 26, 2018 9:24 am

backwoodsman wrote:
robbyyoung wrote:Of course, (excluding any evolution theories) which OEC belief system are you associated with, and what online resource best describes your personal position, if any?
Sorry for the very slow reply. That would be Hugh Ross and Reasons To Believe: http://reasons.org/

I trust them on these matters because, after using them as a resource for many years, I have yet to find a point on which they compromise either Scripture or science, or any data they simply ignore because it's inconvenient for their position, as both YEC and evolutionism do so often (the Mt. St. Helens rock sample being a prime example from the YEC side).
Hi Backwoodsman,

No worries, and thanks for the information.

God Bless.

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backwoodsman
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by backwoodsman » Fri Jan 26, 2018 11:06 am

dwight92070 wrote:If you will look at the letter from Answers in Genesis (previous post), you will see there that they claim that the method that Dr. Austin used to date the Mt. St. Helen's rock was the PROPER method. So it's your word against theirs. I am not a scientist, so whose word should I believe?
Did you not read the article I linked earlier in this thread? It explains in detail exactly why AIG and Austin are wrong about the potassium-40 dating method Austin specified for the test sample. Again, it's been well known and understood for several decades; yet AIG and Austin simply ignore it. Since you're in touch with them, maybe you should ask them why, and then do your own research to see who's telling the truth about it.

In a nutshell, the half-life of potassium-40 is about 1.26 billion years. Anyone who knows anything about radiometric dating (even a non-scientist like me) knows that, to get an accurate result, the sample's age should be within about a factor of 10 of the half-life of the method used. So every scientist knows that the youngest rock for which potassium-40 is appropriate and accurate would be around 126 million years old. As I explained before, it's dishonest of Austin to send the lab a 10-year-old rock, specify that test method, then present the result as proof radiometric dating is unreliable, and AIG is being either dishonest or incompetent and irresponsible in propagating it.

Now please go back and read the article, and don't ask me any more questions that it has already clearly answered for you. Here's a link to that post for your convenience:
http://theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=77685#p77685

Si
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by Si » Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:45 pm

Jason wrote:
Evolution is supported by an overwhelming abundance of evidence. I know I'm not going to convince you of that, but really that was beside my point. Luther believed in a literal Genesis just like he believed in a literal firmament that held celestial bodies that rotated around a still earth. The rejection of Geo-centrism flew right in the face of the "plain understanding of scripture" and Church tradition, just like Evolution does nowadays.
Si, I know this was addressed to Dwight, but please allow me to take exception to this point. There are many within the scientific community (PhDs in biology, chemistry, and physics) who do not believe the evidence for common descent is overwhelming. The majority of them are theists, but their arguments do not come from the bible. One of the most outspoken (and competent) opponents of macro-evolution, Michael Denton, is actually agnostic. It's true that the vast majority who work in the sciences believe common descent is true, but as you rightly pointed out to Dwight, we must not make an appeal to the majority. Especially when there's extreme pressure in academia to not be labeled as a religious or superstitious person.

The most impressive evidence for evolution, to me, is natural and artificial selection, but we can only do this within a species so it's only evidence for adaptation. And to extrapolate from that to common descent using homologous structures and DNA is an unsatisfactory leap. A theistic evolutionist has the upper hand over a naturalist here because one could make the argument that God's hand is guiding the process, rather than blind forces. But evolution is also a rather messy and violent affair, and it would seem unusual if this were God's grand design (remembering that much of this took place in a pre-fallen world).
I certainly hold to the possibility that evolution could be wrong. The scientific method is self-correcting. If evidence to the contrary begins to accumulate to the point where there is a paradigm shift in the scientific community, that would be fine with me. Because as I said, my understanding of God as creator is not affected by evolutionary theory. In fact, it would be quite exciting. Scientists were initially very hesitant to accept the Big Bang, because it suggested that there was a beginning to our known universe, that it was in fact not infinite. That was another exciting paradigm shift.

As for bias in academia (which Dwight also referenced), it is really quite regretful. But I think it can be filtered out when looking at the facts. I think an honest assessment of academia finds that the bias is by a minority of people with an axe to grind, and most people in the field have no agenda but just love science. The fact is, as biology currently stands, evolution is orthodoxy. That is not an appeal to the majority on my part for the sake of this discussion, but merely an acknowledgement of the fact. I personally encourage outliers in the sciences such as those you reference because they are the ones who often make new discoveries and create the paradigm shifts.

As for the messy affair of evolution, I think an intriguing notion is put forward by Greg Boy, with an idea he calls Evolution as Cosmic Warfare. Boyd admits it's very speculative, but I find it fascinating:

http://reknew.org/2008/04/evolution-as-cosmic-warfare/
http://reknew.org/2008/04/more-on-evolu ... c-warfare/

And he has an essay in a book (which I have not read yet):

https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Made-Fr ... 1606084887

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dwight92070
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by dwight92070 » Fri Jan 26, 2018 9:56 pm

backwoodsman wrote:
dwight92070 wrote:If you will look at the letter from Answers in Genesis (previous post), you will see there that they claim that the method that Dr. Austin used to date the Mt. St. Helen's rock was the PROPER method. So it's your word against theirs. I am not a scientist, so whose word should I believe?
Did you not read the article I linked earlier in this thread? It explains in detail exactly why AIG and Austin are wrong about the potassium-40 dating method Austin specified for the test sample. Again, it's been well known and understood for several decades; yet AIG and Austin simply ignore it. Since you're in touch with them, maybe you should ask them why, and then do your own research to see who's telling the truth about it.

Dwight: Since you have obviously researched all of this, then I guess I can assume that you have contacted AIG yourself, to at least give them the chance to explain and defend themselves. Or haven't you?

Dwight: I looked at that article back then and again now. No, I did not read it all, because what I did read, I don't understand. It reads like a physics textbook. If it explains in detail why AIG and Dr. Austin are wrong, you could have fooled me, because I did not see that. As I have said, I am not a scientist. I did see the part where they specifically mentioned the rock at Mt.St. Helens and said something to the effect that if you're looking for an errant reading, you can probably find it, clearly suggesting that Dr. Austin deliberately wanted to find an error.

In a nutshell, the half-life of potassium-40 is about 1.26 billion years. Anyone who knows anything about radiometric dating (even a non-scientist like me) knows that, to get an accurate result, the sample's age should be within about a factor of 10 of the half-life of the method used.

Dwight: I know nothing about radiometric dating and did not understand the article explaining it.

So every scientist knows that the youngest rock for which potassium-40 is appropriate and accurate would be around 126 million years old.

Dwight: So I guess you have to ASSUME that there IS a rock that is that old to begin with. Then you would have to know beforehand that the specific rock that you seek a date on, is at least that old before you can use the potassium-40 method to find out the actual age of the rock. Sounds like circular "reasoning" to me, not a scientific method.

As I explained before, it's dishonest of Austin to send the lab a 10-year-old rock, specify that test method, then present the result as proof radiometric dating is unreliable, and AIG is being either dishonest or incompetent and irresponsible in propagating it.

Dwight: "For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions." Matthew 6:14-15

Now please go back and read the article, and don't ask me any more questions that it has already clearly answered for you.

Dwight: Sorry for being such a bother to you. I did not find the article clear at all.

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backwoodsman
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by backwoodsman » Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:01 pm

dwight92070 wrote:Dwight: I looked at that article back then and again now. No, I did not read it all, because what I did read, I don't understand.

Dwight: I know nothing about radiometric dating and did not understand the article explaining it.

I did not find the article clear at all.
There's no shame in not being able to understand something. We each have our own set of strengths and weaknesses, and a wise man has an accurate understanding of what his own are.

But, that being the case, and especially since you know you don't understand these things, it would be wise to have a little more humility and grace about them, and to be much more careful about condemning your brothers who, because they do understand them, have come to a belief different than yours.
Dwight: Sorry for being such a bother to you.
I should've worded that a bit differently. It's only a bother if your questions aren't honest because you're intent on not learning. If your intention is to learn and try to understand, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Si
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by Si » Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:32 pm

I have a question for the Old Earth Creationists:

I admit that this thread has me thinking a lot about a literal Adam and Eve. I believe I mentioned earlier that this was the toughest part theologically for my position. If anyone has any comments, or recommendations for articles or videos that seek to reconcile a literal Adam and Eve with mainstream science, I would be interested. Specifically genetics and how we can achieve the biodiversity that we have in humankind from just two individuals, and also how to account for the seeming hundreds of thousands of years of paleolithic hunter-gatherers and prior to that primitive hominid like forms such as Homo erectus, Australopithecus, etc.

Thanks.

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TK
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by TK » Sat Jan 27, 2018 3:54 pm

Si- Hugh Ross does try to reconcile a literal Adam and Eve with an ancient earth.

I too have difficulty about what to do about the “cave men” for lack of a better term. Per the Bible, man was advanced from day one, farming, worshipping, raising herds, building cities and great structures.

It would seem from a literal Bible interpretation that cave men, Neanderthals etc were contemporaneous with the patriarchs but the Bible does not seem to make any mention of them. It would seem a little odd to suggest that all the people in the Bible lived here but all the Neanderthals lived over there. And why would one line of descendants of Adam and Eve be advanced socially etc and another line remain primitive?

I’ve read ken hams solution but I am not convinced. Then again, I have no idea why medieval artisans could construct glorious cathedrals but could not draw a picture that looked any better than a 2nd grader could do. There are some mysteries.

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backwoodsman
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by backwoodsman » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:49 pm

Si wrote:Specifically genetics and how we can achieve the biodiversity that we have in humankind from just two individuals
That seems at first glance like it could be a problem, but I've read stuff by geneticists that say it isn't. Dogs, for example, exhibit many times greater biodiversity than is seen in humans, and it all came from a similarly small gene pool that all looked the same, with maybe a bit of input from other canids here & there. Frankly, this doesn't seem like a reasonable thing for an evolutionist to have a problem with, considering that evolution says that all the biodiversity that's ever existed came from just one amoeba, or whatever the first organism was.
and also how to account for the seeming hundreds of thousands of years of paleolithic hunter-gatherers and prior to that primitive hominid like forms such as Homo erectus, Australopithecus, etc.
Again, not a problem. Many species of animals came and went before modern man came on the scene. Some of those species were bipedal primates that looked a lot like humans physically, and like a few animals alive today may have had a bit of what we might call a primitive culture, but were no more human than those animals. Like every other animal, they served a purpose in the time and place in which God put them; and like every other animal, when that purpose was finished they went away. The evolutionary idea that some of them were descended from others, or we from them, is purely assumption with no scientific basis other than some observed similarities, which are explained at least as well (maybe better) by OEC.

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dwight92070
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Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?

Post by dwight92070 » Mon Jan 29, 2018 5:24 pm

There is a new book out called Replacing Darwin: The New Origin of Species by Nathaniel T. Jeanson. Using the field of genetics, the book claims "that the Bible timeframe
(6,000 years) correctly predicts the total number of genetic mutations that we have discovered in human mitochondrial DNA in the cell's "energy factory". If humans have been around for 6,000 years, the number should be 80. If they have been around 200,000 years or more, as evolutionists claim, the number would be over 470. The number is around 80. This same amazing pattern occurs in other creatures, not just humans. When we graph all these differences in human mitochondrial DNA, we discover that the human family divides into three different groups. This is just what we would expect if all humans came from three women who got off Noah's Ark just a few thousand years ago".

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