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More Thoughts on Christian Darwinism

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Well, I seem to have done it again, inspiring much debate concerning the philosophical and theological implications of materialistic Darwinism versus design and theism.

Disclosure: I am a former militant, Dawkins-style atheist, but now one of those dreadful born-again Christians who attends a semi-charismatic church every Sunday, plays keyboards in the praise band with much joy and fulfillment, and is actively engaged in Christian apologetics. ID was a major factor in my conversion, but it was by no means the only one.

I earn my living as a software engineer in aerospace R&D. My professional specialties include designing guidance, navigation and control software for precision-guided airdrop systems, and finite-element analysis of nonlinear dynamic systems. One my hobbies for many years has been computational artificial-intelligence research.

It was precisely because of these rigorous scientific, computational, and mathematical endeavors that it became transparently obvious to me that orthodox Darwinian “theory” was a Himalayan-sized pile of pseudo-scientific crap.

James Grover commented in the link supplied above: “I think the general cause of ID as an objective, nonreligious enterprise is not helped by posts like this one.”

ID is an inference to the best explanation based on what is known and understood. Its theological and philosophical implications are obvious, as are the theological and philosophical implications of Darwinian materialism, which I could not possibly muster up enough blind faith to believe in ever again, even if I tried.

Comments
In the same way, carbon-14 levels will be lowered, and “dates” increased, if the carbon in which the organism was living, and from which it obtained its food, has an abnormally low level of carbon-14. This commonly happens in deep sea water, which wells to the surface in several areas. Thus your example of dating live molluscs is not good enough. It would be like me trying to discredit all potassium levels because I could show that hemolyzed specimens gave unreliable potassium levels. The problem here is that you do not know what environment a certain specimen you are dating has been in. It should be clear to you, that you do not know, if a certain specimen that you just now found in nature, has been in a carbon rich or carbon poor environment. Since you do not know its past, you can not say how much carbon does it have in excess. Or is this specimen maybe lacking carbon. Therefore, the C-14 dating procedure is flawed not just in the practice, but in the theory also. But an even better indicator of how flawed this method is, is in the fact that you said that the molluscs are not good samples. You claim that they are not good samples because of the environment they were in, and this environment altered their carbon levels. If this was truly so, then you would simply have to calculate how much does their environment alter the carbon levels, and you would then find out by how much does the environment offset the dating. You would then have to simply calibrate the dating by the said offset. Since you havent done that, but simply declared the dating impossible on the said specimen, it would seem clear to me that what you are doing is the following. You are simply declaring obviously flawed datings as cases of where the the methods was wrongly applied, and when you see the date you like, you claim the method was correctly applied. This seems like an unfalsifiable stance on your behalf. And are you going to tell me that the scientists who dated the molluscs are less knowledgeable about this dating method than you are? Were they so ignorant about it that they didn't know that they could not use it on molluscs? No, clearly not. It would be more reasonable to conclude that they were as much as knowledgeable about the method as any other scientist, and they used it in the correct way. They simply didn't get the results they, or you, were expecting. Thus you, in a very ad hoc manner, decided to proclaim their use of the method as an incorrect one. I read your literature. It is full of omissions and errors. For example, the first link says, “It is most important that the creation of dendrochronological scales was based on the existing Scaliglerian chronology [reference]. Thus, any alteration of the chronology of documents should automatically alter these scales, whose independence is thus greatly compromised.” [italics his/hers] This could be true for tree series where rings are matched against each other by tree ring dating, as there may be several plausible matches, one of which was chosen because it most closely matched the expected correlation between carbon-14 and real-time years. But for single tree dating it is not. These are dependent only on the tree rings themselves and requires no support from the conventional chronology. But tree dating is useless in and of itself because tree rings are not anual rings. A tree can produce more than a single ring in a single year. And your discussant completely omits some data on sequoia and bristlecone pine that are done on a single tree (or more properly, single trees. Here are the references. I urge you to look at them yourself. Dorn TF et al.,1962. Radiocarbon dating at the University of Washington I. Radiocarbon 4:1-12 (especially pages 7-11). (Sequoia) Ralph EK et al.,1965. University of Pennsylvania dates VII. Radiocarbon 7:179-186. (Sequoia and bristlecone pine) So when your discussant states that “All these scales have a very obvious gap around 1000 A.D.”, he/she is giving you a slanted picture. Agin, unimportant since the method is flawed in its theory. A tree can produce more than a single ring in a year. In addition, there is the problem of where in history to put artifacts like the Dead Sea Scrolls. They do not date to the same time period as the “X century A.D.” Now, even with properly chosen samples, one occasionally finds that several different centuries can give one the same carbon-14 date (I am currently working on the era from 415-765 BC, and it may only extend to around 600 BC–see Taylor RE et al., 2010. Alternative explanations for anomalous 14C ages on human skeletons associated with the 612 BCE destruction of Nineveh. Radiocarbon 52:372-382). But different radiocarbon dates mean different real-time dates, as long as the carbon is obtained from the atmosphere at the same time. Even under the extreme stress of producing massive amounts of carbon-14 during aboveground nuclear testing in the 1940?s to 1960?s, where the carbon-14 content of the Northern Hemisphere essentially doubled, the Southern Hemisphere was essentially in equilibrium within less than 20 years. Do you seriously not understand what you are saying? You have just said that atmospheric conditions can change the dating of artefacts. But it should be clear to you that you do not know the full history of the said artefact and you do not know where a certain artefact has been before you found it. You do not know in what kind of environment the artefact was, thus you can not date it, beacuse you have an unknown variable X, which you can not derive from anywhere. So whatever else one can or cannot say, the Dead Sea Scrolls were not 10th century, and were highly likely to be earlier, even if one ignores the sequoia and bristlecone pine tree dates cited earlier. By its content they can be dated to the late medieval period. Your citing of “Tree ring studies of tropical rainforest species” is completely beside the point. We are discussing clearly temperate species. Completely unimportant. We are not discussing any specific trees, but any tree whatsoever that is used for dating. And your ” tree ring dating …[is] based on the idea that the tree rings are anual rings. But, I think that almost anyone knows that they are mostly not.” is just blowing smoke. If you were to argue that we were 1% off, or 5%, or even 10% off, I might listen. But your argument is that we are 100% off. That’s just daffy. If you can not predict how many rings a tree will produce in a year, then how can you know how old the tree is? How do you know your margin of error? How do you tell if its is 5%, 10% or 100%? Look, I understand that this theory is attractive to you. But it hasn’t solved the problem I pointed out. And until then it is not unreasonable to be skeptical. You have not pointed out any problems. You are simply restating again and again how tree dating and C-14 methods are be all and end all in dating historical artefacts. And when I point out flaws not just in practice, but in the theories of those methods, you just post more links to your articles. Im not interested in what articles you can show me, and how those methods work. I know how they work. The problem is in the theoretical concept itself. If the concept itself is flawed, the method is also flawed. To sum up, let me state the problems as follows. 1. – C-14 dating is flawed in theory because you need to know the initial C-14 contents of the artefact you are dating in order to date it. For this you would need to know the full hisotry of the artefact, and in which conditions it has been from its creation till the present date. This is an unknown which can not be derived at from anywhere. 2. – Tree ring dating is flawed in theory because it is based on the idea that a tree produces a single ring within a single year. Since a tree can produce more than 1 ring, or none in a single year, and since you can not derive the number of rings that will be produced in a year, you have an unknown in your equation. Because of this unknown you can not date anything using this method.skynetx
June 7, 2012
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skynetx (#25), You apparently do not understand laboratory procedures. Your attempted dismissal of radiocarbon dates on the basis of some obvious incorrect data fails because you do not understand how radiocarbon dating works. Like all laboratory procedures, radiocarbon dating is invalid when done on the wrong specimens. Here's an example from medicine. We depend on potassium measurements to determine whether to leave a patient's potassium alone, replenish it, or try to reduce it, and the results can be life-saving. But it is common knowledge that if plasma or serum is allowed to stand for a long period of time before separation from the cells, the potassium level will creep upwards, and that if there is hemolysis, the potassium level will be falsely elevated. So the blood sample is spun down rapidly or not used, and if there is hemolysis, a new sample is drawn. Failure to do so will, expectedly, result in a falsely elevated potassium. There are sound physical/chemical reasons for this. In the same way, carbon-14 levels will be lowered, and "dates" increased, if the carbon in which the organism was living, and from which it obtained its food, has an abnormally low level of carbon-14. This commonly happens in deep sea water, which wells to the surface in several areas. Thus your example of dating live molluscs is not good enough. It would be like me trying to discredit all potassium levels because I could show that hemolyzed specimens gave unreliable potassium levels. I read your literature. It is full of omissions and errors. For example, the first link says, "It is most important that the creation of dendrochronological scales was based on the existing Scaliglerian chronology [reference]. Thus, any alteration of the chronology of documents should automatically alter these scales, whose independence is thus greatly compromised." [italics his/hers] This could be true for tree series where rings are matched against each other by tree ring dating, as there may be several plausible matches, one of which was chosen because it most closely matched the expected correlation between carbon-14 and real-time years. But for single tree dating it is not. These are dependent only on the tree rings themselves and requires no support from the conventional chronology. And your discussant completely omits some data on sequoia and bristlecone pine that are done on a single tree (or more properly, single trees. Here are the references. I urge you to look at them yourself. Dorn TF et al.,1962. Radiocarbon dating at the University of Washington I. Radiocarbon 4:1-12 (especially pages 7-11). (Sequoia) Ralph EK et al.,1965. University of Pennsylvania dates VII. Radiocarbon 7:179-186. (Sequoia and bristlecone pine) So when your discussant states that "All these scales have a very obvious gap around 1000 A.D.", he/she is giving you a slanted picture. In addition, there is the problem of where in history to put artifacts like the Dead Sea Scrolls. They do not date to the same time period as the "X century A.D." Now, even with properly chosen samples, one occasionally finds that several different centuries can give one the same carbon-14 date (I am currently working on the era from 415-765 BC, and it may only extend to around 600 BC--see Taylor RE et al., 2010. Alternative explanations for anomalous 14C ages on human skeletons associated with the 612 BCE destruction of Nineveh. Radiocarbon 52:372-382). But different radiocarbon dates mean different real-time dates, as long as the carbon is obtained from the atmosphere at the same time. Even under the extreme stress of producing massive amounts of carbon-14 during aboveground nuclear testing in the 1940's to 1960's, where the carbon-14 content of the Northern Hemisphere essentially doubled, the Southern Hemisphere was essentially in equilibrium within less than 20 years. So whatever else one can or cannot say, the Dead Sea Scrolls were not 10th century, and were highly likely to be earlier, even if one ignores the sequoia and bristlecone pine tree dates cited earlier. Your citing of "Tree ring studies of tropical rainforest species" is completely beside the point. We are discussing clearly temperate species. And your " tree ring dating ...[is] based on the idea that the tree rings are anual rings. But, I think that almost anyone knows that they are mostly not." is just blowing smoke. If you were to argue that we were 1% off, or 5%, or even 10% off, I might listen. But your argument is that we are 100% off. That's just daffy. Look, I understand that this theory is attractive to you. But it hasn't solved the problem I pointed out. And until then it is not unreasonable to be skeptical.Paul Giem
May 3, 2011
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This might be a “he said, she said” discussion, except that I have actually seen the data, and some of it is published. Your assertion has no such observations to back it up. You are not reading my links or are misinterpreting them on purpose. I didn't assert anything. I posted the following links, with an explanation and a graph that has shown clearly, that tree ring data goes back to 1000 AD uninterrupted. Please read this. http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/9634/70107977.gif And please see this. http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7388/16914620.gif I would like to point out that this discussion about how the C-14 is calibrated is meaningless. It has been shown to give completely unreliable results. To discuss, if it has been calibrated correctly or not, is unnecessary. Dating living molluscs to be 1300 years old is evidence that the method is useless. It has been invalidated. Even if you have it calibrated to 4.6 billion years ago. Its useless because it dated living organism to have been dead for a millenia. Its flawed. End of story. Your statement that ... is just plain wrong. The calibration initially was tried on Egyptian material, but bristlecone pine, then Irish oak and German pine dates quickly supplanted them, and along the way sequoia wood was used. If it was tried on historical material, as I said it was, then how can you tell me, that I was wrong wrong? How can you say that I'm wrong, and then turn around and say exactly what I said? Your reference actually supports my contention. How? I can cite the literature for the bristlecone pine and sequoia dates. What for!? The method is useless. It is perfectly irrelevant how you calibrate it when it gives wrong results. We can observe that the molluscs were alive. They are not 1300 years old. Who cares how many bristelcone pines you have when a live molluscs is dated to 1300 years old!? What exactly are you trying to prove? Again, it doesn't matter how much trees you have, the method of tree ring dating is also unsound by itself. Its based on the idea that the tree rings are anual rings. But, I think that almost anyone knows that they are mostly not. Dry or rainly seasons influence the ring growth. Thus some trees migh grow no rings in a year, and some may grow multiple rings. Thus the method is flawed. Tree ring studies of tropical rainforest species are rare due to the difficulty of determining annual growth increments using traditional dendrochronological methods. This is especially problematic in wet tropical regions with year around rainfall where trees do not undergo a predictable annual rest period in growth. In such areas, trees may form no tree ring in some years or multiple tree rings in other years. http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/a/g/agl/FEM%20citrus-benlate.pdf Again, the theory needs to have a better answer to the combination of tree ring and radiocarbon dating than you have given. So dating live molluscs to be 1300 years old is not good enough? Is this a joke?skynetx
April 24, 2011
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skynetx, There seems to be some problem with comprehension. I said,
back to about 300-450 BC (depending on the dating series) it [carbon-14 dating] has been calibrated to tree rings on several different single trees (that is, trees with rings that have been counted serially from the present, not matched to others).
You come back with
The tree rings that are used for calibration are also useless. They only go as far back as 1000 AD uninterrupted.
This might be a "he said, she said" discussion, except that I have actually seen the data, and some of it is published. Your assertion has no such observations to back it up. Your reference http://booknet.wikispaces.com/file/view/Scientific+dating+of+documents.pdf actually supports my contention. Did you read it or just copy it? Your statement that
And it is also well known that the methods for calibrating the C-14 dating are the old historical documents.
is just plain wrong. The calibration initially was tried on Egyptian material, but bristlecone pine, then Irish oak and German pine dates quickly supplanted them, and along the way sequoia wood was used. Bristlecone pine on one tree used for radiocarbon dating goes back by itself some 2,300 years, and the sequoia data goes back some 2,800 years. If you like I can cite the literature for the bristlecone pine and sequoia dates. Again, the theory needs to have a better answer to the combination of tree ring and radiocarbon dating than you have given.Paul Giem
April 24, 2011
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What you seem to be missing is that your argument is pure circular reasoning. It is not circular in any way, shape or form. I simply do not know what else to tell you. You either have a different definition of a circular argument or we are not even talking about the same topic. 1. We know (from work on the NC) that stories in the OT are a rendition of later medieval European history. 2. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain parts of the OT. 3. Therefore the DSS cannot have been written before the middle ages. 4. Therefore the DSS cannot count against the NC. The logic is impeccable given the premises. The problem you don’t seem to see is that if one does not buy the first premise, the logic cannot prove anything. What is being challenged is not the logic but the premise. Which in no, way, shape, form, structure, or anything else you want to call it, is a circular argument. Its called a logical deduction. Its where you take a premise and work with it until the only logical conclusion left is that a certain statement is eiter true or false. My argument would be circular if it started with the statement: " NC is true " and ended with the statement: " Therefore NC is true. " But obviously it did not. It did start with the premise that NC was true, but it ended with the statement that DSS could not have been written before the middle ages. DSS being written before the middle ages does not, in and of itself show that NC is true. Perhaps you can see that different premises can give us an entirely different result. 1. If the NC is correct, the OT was not written before the later medieval period. 2. Therefore, if OT manuscripts can be reliably dated to older than the later medieval period, the NC is not correct. 3. Some Dead Sea Scrolls containing parts of the OT have been reliably dated to the BC era. 4. Therefore, the NC is not correct. Circular reasoning can indeed sometimes be correct; therefore the fact that you used it does not necessarily the NC is wrong. But it is not convincing to answer an objection by simply stating the objection is wrong because my theory must be true. The only problem here being, that I did not use circular reasoning. I will grant that there is a certain amount of circularity to the paleographic dating of the DSS. There is even some circularity to the archaeological dating that was used to calibrate the paleographic dating. That is why, when checked against carbon-14, there appears to be a 40 year offset (there are fascinating reasons for that which we won’t get into here). I'm glad we both agree that archeology and palaeography are both circular. But in this era, the carbon-14 dating is quite reliable; it happens to match some documents which have historical dates on them, and back to about 300-450 BC (depending on the dating series) it has been calibrated to tree rings on several different single trees (that is, trees with rings that have been counted serially from the present, not matched to others). It seems I will again have to point you to my links, that you either did not read, or do not accept for no apparent reason. These two links show that C-14 can give totally flawed results. Please have a look for yourself. http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/231/51647113.gif http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/521/62299438.gif And it is well known that the C-14 method is completely useless without calibration. In other words, it by itself can not date anything. It has got to be calibrated against objects of known age. Indeed, in establishing the radiocarbon method during the 1960s, it became increasingly clear that there was a systematic difference between the radiocarbon age and the ‘true’ or ‘calendrical’ age of dated historic material. This discrepancy, which is caused by a combination of factors, is now overcome by a process known as ‘calibration’. Without such calibration, any radiocarbon age is likely to be an underestimate of the true age of an object, and will certainly be wrong. http://booknet.wikispaces.com/file/view/Scientific+dating+of+documents.pdf And it is also well known that the methods for calibrating the C-14 dating are the old historical documents. And if that is so, you can not use C-14 dating to say that it confirms the consensual chronology. Because it is based on it in the first place! http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4186/10096821.gif The tree rings that are used for calibration are also useless. They only go as far back as 1000 AD uninterrupted. Everything else is stiched up based on the consensual chronology. Thus they too can not be considered in showing the validity of the consensual chronology since they are also also based on it. http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/9634/70107977.gif http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7388/16914620.gif I don’t see the NC, be it ever so clever, as able to stand up to that kind of evidence. The only evidence you provided is that the methods that were based on the consensual chronology, are used in turn to show its validity. Now that's what I call circular reasoning. I will repeat it again. If you are going to take down all of recorded history before, say, 1,000 AD, you will have to take down carbon-14 dating. Have you or your sources done any of that? Please do not repeat yourself. I have addressed all your arguments. Palaeography, archeology, C-14 and now tree rings. And you agreed that first two are circular. So now all that is left, is for you to admit that C-14 being calibrated on the consensual chronology, and tree ring dating which in turn is based on consensual chronology too, is also circular. So there is nothing else left for you to claim that can be used to independently date old texts. The only methods that are left are mathematical statistics. And they have shown that NC is the best current explanation. You should agree with me here also, because I haven't seen that you even tried to show how the statistical model is flawed.skynetx
April 23, 2011
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skynetx, (#21), You said,
I’m sorry, but I did not dismiss them [the Dead Sea Scrolls]. I have not been shown how they have been dated to a particular age. I did not say that they were fake. What I did say is the following. The DSS contain the books that are today known as the books of the Bible. Since the work on the NC has shown that the stories in the Bible, particulary OT, are a rendition of later medieval European history, then we can logically conclude that the DSS have not been written before the middle ages. It is a pure logical conclusion. It is not a dismissal.
What you seem to be missing is that your argument is pure circular reasoning. It goes something like this: 1. We know (from work on the NC) that stories in the OT are a rendition of later medieval European history. 2. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain parts of the OT. 3. Therefore the DSS cannot have been written before the middle ages. 4. Therefore the DSS cannot count against the NC. The logic is impeccable given the premises. The problem you don't seem to see is that if one does not buy the first premise, the logic cannot prove anything. What is being challenged is not the logic but the premise. Perhaps you can see that different premises can give us an entirely different result. 1. If the NC is correct, the OT was not written before the later medieval period. 2. Therefore, if OT manuscripts can be reliably dated to older than the later medieval period, the NC is not correct. 3. Some Dead Sea Scrolls containing parts of the OT have been reliably dated to the BC era. 4. Therefore, the NC is not correct. Circular reasoning can indeed sometimes be correct; therefore the fact that you used it does not necessarily the NC is wrong. But it is not convincing to answer an objection by simply stating the objection is wrong because my theory must be true. I will grant that there is a certain amount of circularity to the paleographic dating of the DSS. There is even some circularity to the archaeological dating that was used to calibrate the paleographic dating. That is why, when checked against carbon-14, there appears to be a 40 year offset (there are fascinating reasons for that which we won't get into here). But in this era, the carbon-14 dating is quite reliable; it happens to match some documents which have historical dates on them, and back to about 300-450 BC (depending on the dating series) it has been calibrated to tree rings on several different single trees (that is, trees with rings that have been counted serially from the present, not matched to others). I don't see the NC, be it ever so clever, as able to stand up to that kind of evidence. At some point reconstructions have to make contact with physical reality. When they do, they are at least theoretically falsifiable. It seems to me that the NC makes that contact whenever it can be tested on carbon-14 dating calibrated by single trees, and by that test it has failed. You protest that "the dating methods are based on the Scaligerian chronology" (although you should use the more neutral "conventional chronology" in this kind of a discussion). I will grant that paleography is somewhat circular, and even that there are circular elements in archaeology. But carbon-14 dating from single trees is not based on the conventional chronology; it is capable of challenging it. In this case, the support to the conventional chronology is non-circular and therefore substantial, and the challenge to the NC is real. I will repeat it again. If you are going to take down all of recorded history before, say, 1,000 AD, you will have to take down carbon-14 dating. Have you or your sources done any of that?Paul Giem
April 22, 2011
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Hi Paul. You said the following: But your dismissal of the Dead Sea Scrolls leaves me unpersuaded. I'm sorry, but I did not dismiss them. I have not been shown how they have been dated to a particular age. I did not say that they were fake. What I did say is the following. The DSS contain the books that are today known as the books of the Bible. Since the work on the NC has shown that the stories in the Bible, particulary OT, are a rendition of later medieval European history, then we can logically conclude that the DSS have not been written before the middle ages. It is a pure logical conclusion. It is not a dismissal. I will now show you an example where we can see how the works in NC have produced some relevant results. There is a Maxima correlation principle for telling dependent from independent texts. Which means that using statistics, we can tell which texts describe the same events. By counting the volumes of text written about some events in particular years, we can know what flows of events and how interesting they were to the scribes that described them. Thus the more interesting events like wars would on average be described in more detail, and peaceful events would be described in less detail, and so on. So if the graphs, their local maxima that is, of the particular events match, they can be said to descibe the same flow of events. Which would imply that they are describing the same events. Here are some examples. The Suprasal chronicle, and the Nikiforov Chronicle describe the same timeline in Russian history. Yet they are from two different authors. As we can see from the graphs showing the volume functions, they match. Thus we can conclude that they are describing the same events. Which is true. http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/654/51118070.gif Next we have Divina book of Chronicles and the same book, but this time the shorter version. Again, the method has shown correctly that the events in question are the same. http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8997/98138565.gif And now, we come to the Bible. We take the Old Testament, and superimpose it over the medieval Euroasian events. As we can also see, the principle has shown that the texts match. Thus they are describing the same events. So the best explanation is that the events described in the OT portion of the Bible were not written before the early middle ages. http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/9291/bibw.gif Handwriting analysis (paleography) established their ancient date, along with archaeology, and more recently carbon-14 dating has shown that the handwriting analysis was, if anything, about 40 years too conservative. I’ve been to one of the labs where the carbon-14 dating was done and talked to the head of the lab, as well as having read the reports. All the dating methods have been based on the conventional Scaligerian chronology from the beginning. They are not an independent dating method that could substantiate the chronology itself. Archeology is also in itself dependent on Scaligeraian dating. http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/6568/24401789.gif The C-14 dating is based on the Scaligerian chronology. Not only that but it has its own problems with its initial hypotheses. Some of them are described here. And it is also too crude to effectively be used for historical dates because the error margins are too large. http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/7199/19911246.gif And then we also have some examples of obviously erroneous results here. http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/231/51647113.gif http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/521/62299438.gif As for the palaeographical dating, you must understand that it is also based on the Scaligerian version of chronology. It is not an independent method of the chronology that is used. Because the order of the style of handwriting implies a chronological order in the first place. So, the three oldest codices of the Bible only surface after the XV century a.d. The reputation of their antiquity was created by the authority of K. Tischendorf, who had based his research on the style of handwriting. However, the very idea of palaeographical dating apparently implies the existence of a known global chronology of other documents and thus cannot be regarded as an independent dating method in any way.What we know for certain is that the history of these documents can be traced as far back as 1475 a.d.; in other words, no other more or less complete “ancient” Greek Bibles exist [444]. http://www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/01098vol1_excerpt.pdf If you are going to take down all of recorded history before, say, 1,000 AD, you will have to take down archaeology, paleography, and carbon-14 dating. (I know, because that’s what I am working on for an earlier period.) Have you or your sources done any of that? As I have shown you now, I believe its obvious that the dating methods can not show that the Scaligerian dating of historical events is correct. Because the dating methods are based on the Scaligerian chronology in the first place. You need to have some independent methods to show that this particular version of chronology is correct.skynetx
April 22, 2011
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skynetx, I am sympathetic to the idea that the conventional wisdom has made major blunders in history as it has in science. I am also sympathetic to the idea that some do not have as clean a separation between their theological and scientific arguments as perhaps they should. After all, most of them, when pressed, will admit that there isn't an easy way to prove the God of Christianity using only the arguments from intelligent design, yet they sometimes act as if they can. (I say this as a believer in the Christian God.) But your dismissal of the Dead Sea Scrolls leaves me unpersuaded. You should know that when they were first discovered there were many in the scholarly world who believed, for example, that the text of the book of Isaiah was quite fluid until the AD era, and were shocked to find that there was very little change between the scrolls and the Massoretic text, the earliest copies of which were close to 1,000 years later. Handwriting analysis (paleography) established their ancient date, along with archaeology, and more recently carbon-14 dating has shown that the handwriting analysis was, if anything, about 40 years too conservative. I've been to one of the labs where the carbon-14 dating was done and talked to the head of the lab, as well as having read the reports. If you are going to take down all of recorded history before, say, 1,000 AD, you will have to take down archaeology, paleography, and carbon-14 dating. (I know, because that's what I am working on for an earlier period.) Have you or your sources done any of that?Paul Giem
April 21, 2011
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Pardon, but you are running in circles. What exactly did I say to make you think that? The Previously linked rules by Greenleaf are a way out of the halls of mirrors you seem stuck in. Will you please stop directing me to the same arguments over and over again? I saw them, I read them. They are perfectly irrelevant to the discussion. The discussion is about chronology, not forgeries. Are you having problems understanding my sentences or something? I am not claiming that the Bible is a forgery. I'm simply claiming that it is a text from a particular point of view, about certain events, and is based on a certain chronological structure. That chronological structure has been shown to be outdated. Thus it needs to be revised. Do you, or do you not understand that? Its not fake, its outdated. Understand? Do you see who has an unmet burden of proof? Yes I do see. It is you who is claiming that certain documents are dated to 70 AD. I have not seen how you dated them. Did you know that we could all be brains in vats stimulated to imagine we live in the world we think? Or,t ha the world was created in a moment 5 minutes ago, and we only imagine the past? We reject such “everything we thought” is a delusion claims on grounds that they hold the — unmet and unmeetable — burden of proof. Unless you have positive and undeniable evidence we are living in a Plato’s Cave world, reject such claims. You are now making absolutely no sense. I am not talking about philosophy. I accept observational evidence. How did you come to the conclusion that I do not? The point is rather, that you provided no evidence, just assertions. You simply stated a certain document is such and such age. You provided no dating methods at all. I on the other hand will show you some brief excerpts from the works on the New Chronology. We shall start with astronomical datings of old texts. The first text in question is Thucydides' description of Peloponnesian War, usually dated to 430 BC. We can extract the information given in the text of Thucydides. There are astronomical descriptions of eclipses. Some of them have been already dated in the past but have been know to have been false because they did not describe what Thucydides wrote accurately. And the search for accurate dating was abandoned because no accurate datings were found in the vicinity of 430 BC. Which as we now know is a big mistake, because there is a possibility that the war happened much later. And you can read the excerpts I compiled for you. The exact solutions have been found. Exact solution that accurately describe the Thucydides' writtings of the eclipses are now known. The most probable date is between 1133 and 1151 AD, for the war. http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/8513/21426814.gif http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/4089/17514942.gif http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/351/65002962.gif Our next case concerns the Bible and the Book of Revelation. If we take into the account that this book was written at some later date, and not about 2000 years ago we can make the following hypothesis. The description in the book will contain some information that reflects the worldview of the author in the time that he lived. And and if the author lived in the middle ages, one of the most widespread interests among scientists was astrology. Specifically zodiacs. We can then try and find patterns in the descriptions of the Book of Revelations that would fit medieval zodiacs. And the best part is, that this has shown itself to be very fruitful since we can find a complete zodiac in the Book of Revelation and accurately date it to October 1. 1486. All the decriptions that have been said to be present in the sky, are actually planets and stars. This in itself would actually indicate that the text was written in the middle ages since the author has demonstrated a high degree of knowledge in celestial mechanics and positioning. This concurrs well with other independent methods that point to the dating of the Bible being medieval in its origins. http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4918/76866149.gif http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/994/14062453.gif http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4866/48425043.gif http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5531/13156765.gif http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/9876/72221929.gif Please do keep in mind that this is a very brief excerpt of the whole process and it can not be reproduced in its entirety here. But as you can clearly see, it is possible to date old sources, and there is evidence that the current chronology we are used to should be fundamentally revised. Mostly, things connected tothe Christian faith come up in connexion with ID issues because the objectors to ID keep on saying and trying rhetorical talking points along he lines of ID is creationism in a cheap tuxedo. When that happens, I think that design thinkers, theists, philosophically aware people and yea even creationists have a right to speak in reply. Remember that NCSE line is a MAJOR part of the claims against design thought. I think you know very well that a lot of people here mix ID and their particular religion for their religious purposes. That's fine, I have nothing against religious freedom. But there are limits to everything. Every now and then I can see people posting Youtube videos with Christian music. I'm sorry, that has nothing to do with ID or science.skynetx
April 21, 2011
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Sky: Pardon, but you are running in circles. The Previously linked rules by Greenleaf are a way out of the halls of mirrors you seem stuck in. Let's clip and highlight: _______________ >> 1] THE ANCIENT DOCUMENTS RULE: Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise. [Testimony, p.16.] 2] Conversance: In matters of public and general interest, all persons must be presumed to be conversant, on the principle that individuals are presumed to be conversant with their own affairs. [p. 17.] 3] On Inquiries and Reports: If [a report] were "the result of inquiries, made under competent public authority, concerning matters in which the public are concerned" it would . . . be legally admissible . . . To entitle such results, however, to our full confidence, it is not necessary that they be obtained under a legal commission; it is sufficient if the inquiry is gravely undertaken and pursued, by a person of competent intelligence, sagacity and integrity. The request of a person in authority, or a desire to serve the public, are, to all moral intents, as sufficient a motive as a legal commission. [p. 25.] 4] Probability of Truthfulness: In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is a sufficient probability that it is true. [p. 28.] 5] Criteria of Proof: A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence is meant such as the nature of the thing to be proved requires; and by satisfactory evidence is meant that amount of proof, which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind, beyond any reasonable doubt. [pp. 28 - 9.] 6] Credibility of Witnesses: In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the objector. [p. 29] 7] Credit due to testimony: The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. [p.31.] 8] Ability of a Witness to speak truth: the ability of a witness to speak the truth depends on the opportunities which he has had for observing the facts, the accuracy of his powers of discerning, and the faithfulness of his memory in retaining the facts, once observed and known . . . It is always to be presumed that men are honest, and of sound mind, and of the average and ordinary degree of intelligence . . . Whenever an objection is raised in opposition to ordinary presumptions of law, or to the ordiary experience of mankind, the burden of proof is devolved on the objector. [pp. 33 - 4.] 9] Internal coherence and external corroboration: Every event which actually transpires has its appropriate relation and place in the vast complication of circumstances, of which the affairs of men consist; it owes its origin to the events which have preceded it, it is intimately connected with all others which occur at the same time and place, and often with those of remote regions, and in its turn gives birth to numberless others which succeed. In all this almost inconceivable contexture, and seeming discord, there is perfect harmony; and while the fact, which really happened, tallies exactly with every other contemporaneous incident, related to it in the remotest degree, it is not possible for the wit of man to invent a story, which, if closely compared with the actual occurrences of the same time and place, may not be shown to be false. [p. 39.] 10] Marks of false vs true testimony: a false witness will not willingly detail any circumstances in which his testimony will be open to contradiction, nor multiply them where there is a danger of his being detected by a comparison of them with other accounts, equally circumstantial . . . Therefore, it is, that variety and minuteness of detail are usually regarded as certain test[s] of sincerity, if the story, in the circumstances related, is of a nature capable of easy refutation, if it were false . . . . [False witnesses] are often copious and even profuse in their statements, as far as these may have been previously fabricated, and in relation to the principal matter; but beyond this, all will be reserved and meagre, from fear of detection . . . in the testimony of the true witness there is a visible and striking naturalness of manner, and an unaffected readiness and copiousness in the detail of circumstances, as well in one part of the narrative as another, and evidently without the least regard to the facility or difficulty of verification or detection . . . the increased number of witnesses to circumstances, and the increased number of circumstances themselves, all tend to increase the probability of detection if the witnesses are false . . . Thus the force of circumstantial evidence is found to depend on the number of particulars involved in the narrative; the difficulty of fabricating them all, if false, and the great facility of detection; the nature of the circumstances to be compared, and from which the dates and other facts to are be collected; the intricacy of the comparison; the number of intermediate steps in the process of deduction; and the circuity of the investigation. The more largely the narrative partake[s] of these characteristics, the further it will be found removed from all suspicion of contrivance or design, and the more profoundly the mind will rest in the conviction of its truth. [pp. 39 - 40.] 11] Procedure: let the witnesses be compared with themselves, with each other, and with surrounding facts and circumstances.[p. 42.] Here, we supplement: J W Montgomery observes of the NT accounts -- and following the McCloskey and Schoenberg framework for detecting perjury -- that the modern approach to assessing quality of such testimony focusses on identifying internal and external defects in the testimony and the witness: (a) Internal defects in the witness himself refer to any personal characteristics or past history tending to show that the "witness is inherently untrustworthy, unreliable, or undependable." (b) But perhaps the apostolic witnesses suffered from external defects, that is, "motives to falsify"? (c) Turning now to the testimony itself, we must ask if the New Testament writings are internally inconsistent or self-contradictory. (d) Finally, what about external defects in the testimony itself, i.e., inconsistencies between the New Testament accounts and what we know to be the case from archaeology or extra-biblical historical records? --> In each case, the answer is in favour of the quality of the NT, as can be observed here. 12] The degree of coherence expected of true witnesses: substantial truth, under circumstantial variety. There is enough of discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them, and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction, as the events actually occurred. [p.34. All cites from The Testimony of the Evangelists (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Classics, 1995). The First Easter's timeline gives a good case in point. You may find it profitable to also examine Edwin Yamauchi's review and W L Craig's remarks on the resurrection vs the current version of the hallucination hypothesis. Craig's critical assessment of the Jesus Seminar is also well worth the time to read it.] >> _________________ Do you see who has an unmet burden of proof? Did you know that we could all be brains in vats stimulated to imagine we live in the world we think? Or,t ha the world was created in a moment 5 minutes ago, and we only imagine the past? We reject such "everything we thought" is a delusion claims on grounds that they hold the -- unmet and unmeetable -- burden of proof. Unless you have positive and undeniable evidence we are living in a Plato's Cave world, reject such claims. GEM of TKI PS: Mostly, things connected tothe Christian faith come up in connexion with ID issues because the objectors to ID keep on saying and trying rhetorical talking points along he lines of ID is creationism in a cheap tuxedo. When that happens, I think that design thinkers, theists, philosophically aware people and yea even creationists have a right to speak in reply. Remember that NCSE line is a MAJOR part of the claims against design thought.kairosfocus
April 21, 2011
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Are you familiar with the discovery of the DSS and the texts recovered dating to before 70 AD [archaeologically substantiated, not just books, Yes I am. The DSS are the same books, that are contained in the Old Testament. And some others that are not. But they can be found in the Ethiopian Bible, like the Book of Enoch. And as I said already, the Biblical Old Testament is describing medieval European events. I do not see how you dated it to 70 AD. cf the previous link on how we can tell made up stories from real ones per courtroom techniques . . . start with the Ancient Documents Rule and see if your sources meet the required challenge], up to C2 BC for an Isaiah MS? I understood you very well before. I'm not claiming that the documents in questions are falsified. Sure, some documents are forgeries. But I'm not claiming that the Bible is a forgery. Its not, its just a book that describes real medieval events but is based on an outdated chronology. Anyway this is all way OT so let us allow this thread to return to its proper focus as soon as possible. Christianity is a GIANT offtopic to ID itself, yet its constantly being promoted by Christian ID proponents. I'm sorry, but I do not stand for that. That is the reason why ID is being viewed as Creationism. It is because overly religious people who like to mix their religion with science, will not actually discuss science here, but they keep spreading their religion. And I would have no problem in saying that BA77 is a prime example. I have nothing against him, I think he has some great arguments for ID. But 90% of what he says is NOT ID but pure Creationsim or pure theology. And franky I am sick of it. If its not science, its not ID related. End of story. I think its about time we stop this evangelization at UD because this is going nowhere. And the best way to do it is to introduce the New Chronology, so our guests can see that there are also people here who are not Christians, yet are ID proponents and that ID does not equal Creationism. If you are a Christian, than fine, I have nothing agains you, but please do understand that not all ID proponents are Christians, or are interested in becoming one.skynetx
April 20, 2011
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Sky: Are you familiar with the discovery of the DSS and the texts recovered dating to before 70 AD [archaeologically substantiated, not just books, cf the previous link on how we can tell made up stories from real ones per courtroom techniques . . . start with the Ancient Documents Rule and see if your sources meet the required challenge], up to C2 BC for an Isaiah MS? Anyway this is all way OT so let us allow this thread to return to its proper focus as soon as possible. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
April 20, 2011
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PPS: “That there is not a single document in existence that can be reliably dated earlier than the 11th century.” Try the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Rosetta stone, the Gospel of John [Rylands papyrus c 125 AD], the Republic, Herodotus and Thucidides, The Cuneiform records, the writings in the Pyramids and tombs, plus the documents from further east. Did you date any of them in any way?skynetx
April 20, 2011
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Do you know of the Septuagint (orig >200 BC) and the DSS MSS as well as the Masoretic text tradition and the Talmuds? Josephus? [Arabic copies not just western ones?] The Ante Nicene Fathers? You do not know that those text are more than 2000 years old. According to the New Chronology (NC), all allegedly ancient texts are reflections of medieval events. The New Testament was actually written before the Old Testament, they have only switched place when compiled into the Bible. Jesus Christ was based on a medieval person named Andronicus I Comnenus which was killed in the most horrid way. This was the start of Christianity. Later the medieval European events were written down and transcribed into what we now know as the Old Testament. And in the 16-th century, they were both compiled into the Bible. Let me show you few examples. But do keep in mind that this is a very complex topic with multitude of books, some spaning more than 1000 pages. So I will be extremely brief. The basic scheme goes like this. The standard version of history is a composit of 4 smaller versions. One is the original and the copies are shifted by approx. 300, 1053 and 1800 years backwards. So, if we take some event, character or a whole epoch from the past, we will be able to find it when we shift forward in time by those 3 time spans. Here is an example, for a person. The Bible mentions Abimalech, king of Israel. He is a phantom reflection of the ancient Greek king Pyrrhus. And the parallels are as follows: Both are great warlords. Both die in their battles. In the case of Abimalech, a feamale in the city of Thebez was observing a fight from a tower. When Abimalech came close to the tower, she took a piece of millstone and threw it and it fell on Abimalech head, wounding him mortally. In the case of Pyrrhus, he was fighting in a town of Argos, and a woman was observing him fighting her son. She got scared for her son, and while on the top of the house, took a roof tile and threw it at Pyrrhus. It fell on his head wounding him mortally. Later both characters die. And now, if we visit the middle ages, we actually find the original event that served as a template for these myths. It was Count Simon de Montfort that died during a siege, and he was killed by a catapult that was operated by women. As for some events. We have the Trojan war that is a copy of the Gothic-Tarquinian war. I won't list all the parallels. I will just point out how the idea of a Trojan Horse came about. We have all heard about how the Greeks built a giant horse and they left it infront of the city of Troy. The Trojans took the Horse in, but little did they know that it was a trap. The horse had Greek soldiers inside and they killed all the Trojans when they exited the horse. Well, actually this myth came about from the event that happened in the Gothic war. There was an aquaduct that led into the city that the Greeks were trying to conquer. The Greeks entered the aquaduct and and quietly entered the city, and killing all the enemies and willing the war. This is not such a strange formation of a myth keeping in mind that old texts were only written in consonants. And the word AQUA (water), end EQUA (horse). The mistake in transcription could easily transform one into another. These are just some of the parallels. They go on and on, for different people, events and whole epochs. William Ramsay’s digs in Asia Minor and the cross-checks with Acts? No, please do tell me about it. The cities of the East named after Alexander, not just the one in Egypt? What about them? They are all medieval. Please observe this map. This is a comparison of the alleged ancient empire of Alexander the Great. And the actual medieval original, the Ottoman Empire. As you can clearly see, they are in the exact same position, and very similar in shape. Without listing all the other parallels, it will sufice to say that this served as the template for the myth of the ancient Alexander. http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/8760/alexy.gif Speaking of, how do you smuggle in the pyramids, temples and mummies [not just the kings, the necropolis]? You don't. They were all built during the middle ages. The zodiacs in all the main pyramids were dated by Dr. Fomenko. And in every single case the result was medieval. http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/8656/zodi.gif The Roman remains all over Europe No Africa and the ME? The Roman remains are actually standard Western European remains. For an example, please observe the following images. http://www.orda2000.narod.ru/chrono/docs/acro_5.jpg This one is the photo taken in 1865. These are the remains of what was once a war ravaged Greece after the fight with the Ottomans. There we can see the allegedly ancient Greek temple, and a still standing medieval Ottoman tower. http://www.orda2000.narod.ru/chrono/docs/acro_2.jpg But in this second image, when we come closer, we can clearly see that the tower which is medieval, has the same exact, identical masonry as the foundations that the alleged ancient Greek temple is standing on! Thus, the most reasonable conclusion is that this architecture is not ancient, but medieval. You should also take a look at the following parallel. The third Roman empire is a reflecion of the second roman empire. And do take note that the eruption of Vesuvius takes place in the SAME point in time in both empires. http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/4151/secondrome.gif This is curious indeed. But, if we break free from the standard chronology, and look at this for what it is, just a phantom reflection of the middle ages, then it all makes sense. And guess what, if that is true, if the actual events happened in the middle ages, then we would have to unearth the town of Pompeii and find some medieval artefacts there, wouldn't we? Well, that is precisely what we do find. Please take a look at some of them. My favorite is the almost identical painting made by alleged ancient Roman artists and later Renaissance artists. The style and the composition is exactly the same. Everything points to this town of Pompeii being medieval when it was burried by the Vesuvius eruption. http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/pompejigallerydt.htm http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/pompejidt.htm The ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean? Probably medieval like everything else. The remains of the long history of India and China, and the interactions with the West . . . there was actually indirect trade with Rome. The Chinese history is no more than 600 years old. Everything else is a phanotm reflection of European history. Without listing all the parallels, I would like to point you to the following image. http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/5645/china.gif This 18-th century map shows China and at its top border, we can see (not very good) a bit of a thicker line. It is the Great Wall of China. And the most important part is that it stands exactly at its current border with what then, in the midle ages, was Tartaria. Which would indicate that they built the wall in medieval times to protect their, then current territory. And not 2000 years ago, and it just so happens that after 2000 years, the wall just happens to be on the border. No, the more reasonable explanation is that its a wall built in that particular time when it was needed. What of the civilisations of the Americas? Again, without listing all the details which are too numerous, I would like to point out the following map. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/California_island_Vinckeboons5.jpg/800px-California_island_Vinckeboons5.jpg As you can see, California was very recently even, reproduced as an island, even though it clearly is not. The best explanation is that the Europeans were not yet allowed there and the Horde Empire was still holding that part of the World. Whose founder was Kalif Ivan, thus the name CALIFornia, could mean Land of The Kalif and be derived from Kalif. Calif or Caliph = Kaliph. This is a whole giant area which can not possibly be covered here. There are about 5,000 years of written record. Yup, once past 1,000 or so BC, things begin to get fuzzy on dates (they did not count as we count years), and past about 2000 BC it gets faint and fades at about 3200 BC, but there is enough there that there was a credible historic past that can be cross checked and will cross check other approaches. Unfortunately, it seems to me there is not. You should check out the New Chronology and see for yourself, that history is not what it seems to be. Our currect chronology was actually produced by Joseph Justus Scaliger in 16-th century. Before that there was no world chronology. And it was about time it got revised. Keep in mind that most of the work on New Chronology is still in Russian so its hard to get the relevant information.skynetx
April 20, 2011
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PPS: "That there is not a single document in existence that can be reliably dated earlier than the 11th century." Try the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Rosetta stone, the Gospel of John [Rylands papyrus c 125 AD], the Republic, Herodotus and Thucidides, The Cuneiform records, the writings in the Pyramids and tombs, plus the documents from further east.kairosfocus
April 20, 2011
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Sky: Do you know of the Septuagint (orig >200 BC) and the DSS MSS as well as the Masoretic text tradition and the Talmuds? Josephus? [Arabic copies not just western ones?] The Ante Nicene Fathers? William Ramsay's digs in Asia Minor and the cross-checks with Acts? The cities of the East named after Alexander, not just the one in Egypt? Speaking of, how do you smuggle in the pyramids, temples and mummies [not just the kings, the necropolis]? The Roman remains all over Europe No Africa and the ME? The ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean? The remains of the long history of India and China, and the interactions with the West . . . there was actually indirect trade with Rome. What of the civilisations of the Americas? And so on? There are about 5,000 years of written record. Yup, once past 1,000 or so BC, things begin to get fuzzy on dates (they did not count as we count years), and past about 2000 BC it gets faint and fades at about 3200 BC, but there is enough there that there was a credible historic past that can be cross checked and will cross check other approaches. GEM of TKI PS: Cf here and here.kairosfocus
April 20, 2011
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MODERATOR'S NOTE: At least 6 months ago I ran my mouth off on this blog, for which I apologized as soon as I was called on it. I got stuck in moderation. However, being in moderation is like being banned as comments make it through to the page so slowly. I promise to be more careful with my vitriol. Is there any chance I can be let out of hock and become a full participant again? Gil, I hope you don't mind if I respectfully disagree with the premise you established in your previous post, that "Christian Darwinism is the ultimate oxymoron." I was of this mind until I read Denton's "Nature's destiny". I eventually internalized the ideas that Denton presented. Here is how I now see it. When people pour cement, they stick a vibrator into the cement to get rid of bubbles. The vibrator is effectively an influx of randomness, yet because of the laws of nature, the results are absolutely predictable. Once we realize that within the correct framework of laws, randomness can produce absolutely predictable results, we are free, I believe, to consider Christian Darwinism. If law allows randomness to produce predictable results, then is it possible that God established a set of laws which, when submitted to the forces of random mutation produce those traits that we would call human as surely as a vibrator removes air pockets from cement? I personally cannot unify the data with anything but an interventionist designer. While front-loading may be part of the picture I see some evidence that fits with neither random mutation nor front-loading theories such as: the har1f gene, and the existance of at least 50 de novo genes that are exclusive to humans. However, I am certainly not an IDer for religious reasons despite being very active and satisfied in my faith.bFast
April 20, 2011
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Are you experiencing problems BA77?skynetx
April 20, 2011
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EPIC Facepalm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjLgekyOZA0#t=0m58sbornagain77
April 20, 2011
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So, is this statement a judgment, based upon, you know, actual criteria accessible to others? Or, is it just meaningless blather? I'm basing my opinion on the work of Russian mathematician Dr. Anatoly Fomenko and his concept of New Chronology. He has shown that the world chronology and history is in a dire need of a revision. http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29 He has basicly shown that the ancient world never existed, and it is actually nothing more than a phantom reflection of the medieval world, on paper only. In other words, Our history is no more than 1000 years old. The ancient Roman Empire, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt etc. are nothing more than descriptions of events than happened in medieval times and then falsly transplanted into antiquity. And since all the major religions are based on the current standard chronology, they are by definition false and they acquired their current form somewhere in the 15th - 16th century. Please observe an example. http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/9414/parallel.gif You can clearly see here, that the Biblical Kingdom of Judah and the Eastern Roman Empire have the same durations of their respective rulers. This is clearly a case of a phantom reflection, where one dynasty is nothing more than a copy of the other one on paper only, and never actually existed.skynetx
April 20, 2011
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in "The Design Revolution", page 25, Dembski writes:
Intelligent Design has theological implications, but it is not a theological enterprise. Theology does not own intelligent design. Intelligent design is not a evangelical Christian thing, or a generally Christian thing or even a generally theistic thing. Anyone willing to set aside naturalistic prejudices and consider the possibility of evidence for intelligence in the natural world is a friend of intelligent design.
He goes on to say:
Intelligent design requires neither a meddling God nor a meddled world. For that matter, it doesn't even require there be a God.
"Intelligent Design is based on scientific evidence, not religious belief."- Jonathan Wells "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design" In his book "Signature in the Cell" Stephen C. Meyer addresses the issue of Intelligent Design and religion:
First, by any reasonable definition of the term, intelligent design is not "religion".- page 441 under the heading Not Religion
He goes on say pretty much the same thing I hve been saying for years- ID doesn't say anything about worship- nothing about who, how, why, when, where to worship- nothing about any service- nothing about any faith nor beliefs except the belief we (humans) can properly assess evidence and data and properly process information. After all the design inference is based on our knowledge of cause and effect relationships. Other people have also weighed in on this- including John Morris, the president of the Institute for Creation Research:
"The differences between Biblical creationism and the IDM should become clear. As an unashamedly Christian/creationist organization, ICR is concerned with the reputation of our God and desires to point all men back to Him. We are not in this work merely to do good science, although this is of great importance to us. We care that students and society are brainwashed away from a relationship with their Creator/Savior. While all creationists necessarily believe in intelligent design, not all ID proponents believe in God. ID is strictly a non-Christian movement, and while ICR values and supports their work, we cannot join them."
Joseph
April 20, 2011
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ID should stand on its own two feet and stick to the evidence, of which there is mountains and not continually rely on theistic discussions. What's the point of conducting science or attempting to stand behind a scientific theory such as ID if there is a magic man/men/woman/half crow that can perform magic miracles that can completely invalidate or produce any result at all?atheistIDer
April 20, 2011
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Well, all minus one are certainly false. It remains to be seen whether the last one is false too.Seqenenre
April 20, 2011
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I am posting this here because it is the current thread, and I think it needs to be addressed on two levels: I am noting the day and time to see how long it remains moderated. KL 04/20/2011 4:57 am Your comment is awaiting moderation. OK, that’s a start-2 days in moderation, although my last post on the thread WITH MY NAME ON IT has been in moderation for 5 days and counting. With this moderation policy my question is held until the conversation moves on before appearing, so I don’t get an answer. I will ask again: Explain the fossil record for hominids (ages, features, distribution) using, as another poster said, the paradigm of ID. If ID is to be treated as science, it must explain the existing evidence (and new evidence) better than evolution.KL
April 20, 2011
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"ID should not align itself to any particular religion, since they are all probably false." So, is this statement a judgment, based upon, you know, actual criteria accessible to others? Or, is it just meaningless blather?Ilion
April 20, 2011
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The implications are not specific to any religion, they are generally theism-friendly. Nor should there be any religion-specific implications. ID should not align itself to any particular religion, since they are all probably false.skynetx
April 20, 2011
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"ID is an inference to the best explanation based on what is known and understood. Its theological and philosophical implications are obvious,..." Are these implications in terms of Christian theology and Christian philosophy only, or are they inclusive of other religions? Could they be seen to reflect positively on Islam, Hinduism, etc, as well?paragwinn
April 20, 2011
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