"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

J C · 20-02-2011 5:55pm

Pygmalion wrote: »

Actually I think Scarab did, then a couple of posts seemed to get moved/deleted.
So if you did win, it was through mod divine intervention :pac:

God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform ... until the advent of Creation Science anyway!!!:)

J C · 20-02-2011 6:19pm

Scarab80 wrote: »

The fact that the quoted text is a summary of the RATE project conclusions by someone critiquing their "paper" does not mean that the summary is incorrect.

I think that the summary is incorrect, but that is beside the point ... you shouldn't have presented the quotes as from the book ... when they were from the review by Dr Isaacs ... and were therfore his opinions ... and not those of Doctors Vardiman, Snelling and Chaffin.
I accept that it probably was a genuine mistake on your part ... but you need to now make this clear in your posting.

What is infinitely more damaging however, to the evolutionist cause on this thread, are the reactions of your fellow Evolutionists ... recording their thanks and defending your clear error.

robindch · 20-02-2011 6:28pm

J C wrote: »

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"

Been a while since I last noted it, but that phrase "believe on" is great -- can't help think of somebody sitting on Jesus, saying "Yep, that's Jesus".

I wonder what other inappropriate phrasal verbs there are?

Can't imagine what "believing up" involves.

King Mob · 20-02-2011 6:35pm

J C wrote: »

It is about the only thing that an evolutionist is going to 'win' on this thread ... and you didn't even get the 3000th post ... I did that !!!:D

Oh don't worry JC. Everytime you post, we win.

J C · 20-02-2011 6:35pm

robindch wrote: »

Been a while since I last noted it, but that phrase "believe on" is great -- can't help think of somebody sitting on Jesus, saying "Yep, that's Jesus".

The Holy Spirit is starting to inspire you, Robin.
Your comment is indeed very insightful ... because, in a very profound way, the Saved do sit safe in the metaphorical arms of Jesus Christ ... and no power in Hell or on Earth can unseat them from their Salvation!!!!

"Yep, that is indeed Jesus Christ ... our rock and our strength"!!!

J C · 20-02-2011 6:39pm

King Mob wrote: »

Oh don't worry JC. Everytime you post, we win.

... if you think that is 'winning' ... I wouldn't like to see what you conside 'losing' to be!!!
... although, your postings give me a good idea!!!:pac:

King Mob · 20-02-2011 6:41pm

J C wrote: »

... if you think that is 'winning' ... I wouldn't like to see what ye conside 'losing' to be!!!
... although, your postings give me a good idea!!!:pac:

Well as I've explained before, every time you post you show people just how stupid, dishonest, ignorant and bigoted creationists have to be to believe their bull**** whether you really believe what you post or not.

So please keep it up.

The Mad Hatter · 20-02-2011 6:46pm

robindch wrote: »

Been a while since I last noted it, but that phrase "believe on" is great -- can't help think of somebody sitting on Jesus, saying "Yep, that's Jesus".

Well, "believe on" doesn't suggest believing anything in particular. So you could sit on Jesus and say "I believe in fairies."

J C · 20-02-2011 6:47pm

King Mob wrote: »

Well as I've explained before, every time you post you show people just how stupid, dishonest, ignorant and bigoted creationists have to be to believe their bull**** whether you really believe what you post or not.

So please keep it up.

I speak in love and in truth ... and out of concern for your eternal destiny.

... ye call me unfounded names ... but I 'turn the other cheek'!!!!:)

King Mob · 20-02-2011 6:48pm

J C wrote: »

I speak in love and in truth ... and out of concern for your eternal destiny.

... ye call me names ... but I 'turn the other cheek'!!!!:)

Sure JC. I bet you do. Good job.

J C · 20-02-2011 6:52pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Well, "believe on" doesn't suggest believing anything in particular. So you could sit on Jesus and say "I believe in fairies."

You could ... but this wouldn't Save you!!

Scarab80 · 20-02-2011 6:53pm

J C wrote: »

I think that the summary is incorrect, but that is beside the point ... you shouldn't have presented the quotes as from the book ... when they were from the review by Dr Isaacs ... and were therfore his opinions ... and not those of Doctors Vardiman, Snelling and Chaffin.
I accept that it probably was a genuine mistake on your part ... but you need to now make this clear in your posting.

What is infinitely more damaging however, to the evolutionist cause on this thread, is the reactions of your fellow Evolutionists ... recording their thanks and defending your clear error ... which is akin to old-style religionists who blindly accepted and defended any old stuff their leaders may have pronounced ... even when it was clearly wrong.
Ye guys have become a parody of what ye condemn in some other religions!!!

The put down in times past of 'what did the priest say about it' ... seems to now have become 'what did Robin (or any number of leading Materialists) say about it' ... as the ultimate determinant about what ye should ... and shouldn't believe!!!

I accept that the quotes are not directly attributable to the RATE authors, but also insist that they are a truthful summary of their paper, therefore reducing your argument to one of semantics.

Now will you agree with the ICR and accept that radioisotope dating evidence provides evidence for a old earth and that the only way the amount of radiation seen could credibly exist in a 6,000 year old earth is by saying God Did It, thereby relinquishing the claim of science, I expect not.

What this has to do with biological evolution is baffling.

J C · 20-02-2011 7:38pm

Scarab80 wrote: »

1. Do you disagree that the RATE project found evidence for millions of years or radioactive decay at constant rates?
Yes, I disagree ... there is still the issue of created 'daughter material' which confounds any conclusion based on constant rates ... and the Zircon Helium Diffusion 'Clock' is discordant (by up to 5 orders of magnitude) with the Uranium decay 'Clock'!!!
2. Do you disagree that the purpose of the paper was an attempt to find radioisotope evidence for a 6,000 year old earth? (The whole reason this was posted, starting with the conclusion and trying to fit the evidence in).
I don't disagree, but that is how science works ... you propose a hypothesis ... and then various scientists repeatedly test it for validity ... or invalidity.
3. Do you disagree that the authors proposed non-constant rates of decay to fit their millions of years of evidence into the YEC timeframe?
Not particularly ... it could be one explanation ... but the creation or the infusion/leaching/concentration of daughter isotopes could also be an explanation ... and the existence of discordant isochrons means that the evidence for a young earth is very compelling indeed.
4. Do you disagree that the authors failed to come up with a credible hypothesis for how or why this accelerated decay could have happened?
(Hint: [DIRECT QUOTE] "For example, the cooling of granite plutons would have taken thousands of years by conventional thermal diffusion. Of course, God was directly involved in all of these events, so it is possible that He employed some supernatural process which does not occur today or cannot be detected.")
I accept that the exact mechanism for accellerated rate of decay hasn't been proven ... but discordant isochrons, and the presence of C14 in coal that is supposedly 100 million Evolutionist years old ... and in Diamonds that are billion of evolutionist years old indicates that the 'carbon 14' dates may be out up to 6 orders of magnitude in extremis.
5. Do you disagree that the authors claimed evidence for a 6,000 year old earth despite these unresolved problems.
The presence of Polonium radiohalos in Biotite indicates vary rapid cooling of Granite (measured in months) as these radiohalos will not form in solid rock below 150 degrees ... and they will be deformed and 'lost' in molten rock and the half life of Po 210 is only about 4.5 months.
Further reading here
http://creation.com/radiometric-dating-breakthroughs

Quote mining is a problem where out of context quotes are used to try and infer a position on someone who does not actually hold that position. In this case that criticism is clearly not valid.
Like I have pointed out above, Doctors Vardiman, Snelling and Chaffin would disagree profoundly with Dr Isaacs assessment of their views ... but such is academic freedom in action.
Quotes should be direct, accurate and attributed to the right author(s). This clearly hasn't happened in your case ... and you are trying to defend the completely indefensible ... and doing enormous damage to your case for Evolution in the process

Regardless the post was intended as a humourous example of starting with your conclusion and trying to fit in evidence to match it (even if that means melting the earth!). I will not be getting into a discussion about it with you lest some impressionable youngster might read it and think that there is actually a discussion to be had instead of recognising that someone has devoted a not insignificant portion of their life to trolling the internet.
Your intention was clearly not achieved ... and instead you now find yourself defending your continued use of a misquote to make your point!!!
I see why you won't get involved in a discussion ... because you simply have no answer ... when confronted with the truth of Creation Science ... and it might lead to both young and old concluding that Materialistic Evolution is indeed specious nonesense ... just like the title of this thread claims!!!

.

J C · 20-02-2011 7:52pm

Scarab80 wrote: »

I accept that the quotes are not directly attributable to the RATE authors, but also insist that they are a truthful summary of their paper, therefore reducing your argument to one of semantics.

Dr Isaacs opinion is certainly not shared by Doctors Vardiman, Snelling and Chaffin ... what you have done is the equivalent of me posting a quote from Dr Ken Ham giving his view of a book by Prof Dawkins ... and attributing the quote to Prof Dawkins ... and it is therfore misquoting of the worst possible kind!!!

A simple statement that you made a mistake would be the appropriate action now ... if you don't wish to cause any further damage to your credibility!!!

Scarab80 wrote: »

Now will you agree with the ICR and accept that radioisotope dating evidence provides evidence for a old earth and that the only way the amount of radiation seen could credibly exist in a 6,000 year old earth is by saying God Did It, thereby relinquishing the claim of science, I expect not.

I certainly will not ... see my answer in my previous post.
... BTW, because Dr Vardiman is a conventionally qualified scientist, in good standing, he has reported his evidence for accellerated decay to the American Geophysical Union to considerable acclaim!!!
One of the mechanisms for accellerated decay that is currently being investigated is differences in the A nuclear potential well depth and well width under extreme conditions in the past.

Scarab80 wrote: »

What this has to do with biological evolution is baffling.

It was you who introduced this, in the first place ... so you should perhaps tell me!!!
I will hazard a guess that you were trying to disprove a young earth (which you haven't) ... so that you could then call other aspects of Creation Science into question.:pac:

Turtwig · 21-02-2011 2:15am

J C wrote: »

Scarab80 wrote: »

My favourite example of this has to be the RATE project. A "research project" set up by the Institute of Creation Research in an attempt to reconcile radioisotope dating evidence to a literal biblical interpretation. For any of you that haven't read their conclusions before, behold!

The key points of the book can be summarized as follows:
1. There is overwhelming evidence of more than 500 million years worth of radioactive decay.
2. Biblical interpretation and some scientific studies indicate a young earth.
3. Therefore, radioactive decay must have been accelerated by approximately a factor of one billion during the first three days of creation and during the Flood.
4. The concept of accelerated decay leads to two unresolved scientific problems, the heat problem and the radiation problem, though there is confidence that these will be solved in the future.
5. Therefore, the RATE project provides encouragement regarding the reliability of the Bible.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/rate-ri.htm

How someone can actually write those words without their heads exploding in some kind of cognitive dissonance mushroom cloud is beyond me.

EDIT: By the way as to the heat problem referred to they acknowledge - "Thermal energy from radioactive processes is a major source of heat in the earth. If those processes were accelerated by many orders of magnitude, the earth would have quickly evaporated from the heat..."

Their confidence in resolving this problem.... "the authors acknowledge that accelerated decay requires a most unusual heat removal mechanism that is outside the known laws of thermodynamics."

Good!!:)

Do you have anything to say about Scarab80's misquotation of Doctors Vardiman, Snelling and Chaffin ... when the quotes are actually from Dr Isaacs???

... Robin and Malty T have thanked him for it ... or did they simply not read what Scarab80 was saying ... before they thanked him ... or does it matter whether anybody accurately quotes anybody else on the A & A???

I feel obliged because my name was mentioned to reply to this post and the reason why I thanked Scarab.

The key points of the book can be summarized as follows:
1. There is overwhelming evidence of more than 500 million years worth of radioactive decay.
2. Biblical interpretation and some scientific studies indicate a young earth.
3. Therefore, radioactive decay must have been accelerated by approximately a factor of one billion during the first three days of creation and during the Flood.
4. The concept of accelerated decay leads to two unresolved scientific problems, the heat problem and the radiation problem, though there is confidence that these will be solved in the future.
5. Therefore, the RATE project provides encouragement regarding the reliability of the Bible.

This is a summary of a book. No problem here, never even thought they were quotes from the book.

Ok here's actually a mistake I made:

Their confidence in resolving this problem.... "the authors acknowledge that accelerated decay requires a most unusual heat removal mechanism that is outside the known laws of thermodynamics."

I actually understood " the authors" to be referring to creation pseudoscientists in general because it was an Edit. At no point did it even it occur to me this might be referring to the rate authors lol. Probably because the flow of the post had been broken up for me, or I was not concentrating, either way I never made the connection.

In light of what has gone on in this thread would I still have thanked the post? Yep, you bet. It's a humourous post pointing out the sillyness of creationist beliefs. The fact that the quote is by a person who didn't write the original book doesn't negate the humour I see in the post and I still find it funny.

So JC the thanks is still justified. The quote might have been attributed to the wrong person but you have helped correct that misconception and thank you for that.

robindch · 21-02-2011 11:31am

Malty_T wrote: »

I actually understood " the authors" to be referring to creation scientists in general

Not a term I've ever used myself, I must say

Turtwig · 21-02-2011 12:03pm

robindch wrote: »

Not a term I've ever used myself, I must say

Fixed.:D

J C · 21-02-2011 9:14pm

robindch wrote: »

Not a term I've ever used myself, I must say

You need to expand your vocabulary!!!:)

J C · 26-02-2011 12:11am

Dave! wrote: »

Pretty cool blog post by Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) about it being the 10th anniversary of the Fox show questioning the moon landing. He's a bit conflicted, because it helped start his career really, but it did some damage too.

I liked the ending.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/15/moon-hoax-10

... so you believe the story that the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon six times between 1969 and 1972 ... and they never went back because it was prohibitively expensive and/or too dangerous ... and they supposedly bopped about on the moon in temperatures that could fry an egg (180-200 degrees F) in a vacuum !!!!

... I thought that you guys were 'skeptics' ... i.e. skeptical of stories that don't stack up??

magicbastarder · 26-02-2011 12:12am

J C wrote: »

they supposedly bopped about on the moon in temperatures that could fry an egg (180-200 degrees F) in a vacuum

ever been in a sauna?
also, *what* was at 200 degrees?

J C · 26-02-2011 12:20am

magicbastarder wrote: »

ever been in a sauna?

also, *what* was at 200 degrees?

... the surface of the Moon in direct sunlight ... and Humans suffer heat stroke above about 110 degrees F

The average temperature in direct sunlight on the Moon is 107 degrees C which is above the boiling point of water!!!

magicbastarder · 26-02-2011 12:30am

J C wrote: »

and Humans suffer heat stroke above about 110 degrees F

you've never been in a sauna?
the surface of the moon may have been at 200 degrees. but it has an albedo of about 10%; i.e. it's as black as coal. so it will absorb a *much* greater proportion of incident radiation than a white space suit.

anyway, the *real* reason that the astronauts survived up there was that jesus was with them.

J C · 26-02-2011 12:46am

magicbastarder wrote: »

you've never been in a sauna?

Try turning the heat up to 120 degrees C and staying there for a day ... and see what happens!!!!
Safety Warning to all Skeptics ... don't do this ... it will kill you!!!!

magicbastarder wrote: »

the surface of the moon may have been at 200 degrees. but it has an albedo of about 10%; i.e. it's as black as coal. so it will absorb a *much* greater proportion of incident radiation than a white space suit.

... the moon dust looked pretty white to me ... but in any event, if it was as black as you say ... the surface would be as hot as an oven and it would melt the socks off anybody standing on it!!!

magicbastarder wrote: »

anyway, the *real* reason that the astronauts survived up there was that jesus was with them.

... as I recall they quoted Genesis !!!:eek:

Dave! · 26-02-2011 1:15am

Have a read here XXXXXXXXXXX

.

J C · 26-02-2011 1:51am

Dave! wrote: »

Have a read here XXXXXXXXXXX

Dave ... we may have a difference of opinion ... but calling me xxxxxxx hardly helps your case ... nor does it constitute civil debate.

Anyway, I have read your link ... and the idea that the strength of the low incident sunlight in the Lunar 'morning' would be significantly different to lunar 'noon' doesn't stack up ... and as a skeptic ... you should know this!!!

The reason that the ambient temperature increases slowly in the morning on Earth is due to the presence of the atmosphere ... the sunlight is attenuated by having to travel through a much greater amount of air when it's incidence is low in the sky on Earth ... and the air also has to be warmed up following cooling during the night ... and the incident angle spreads the energy over a large area.
None of these factors, except the latter one, are present on the moon. Because the Moon has no atmosphere ... the heat isn't attenuated at lower incidence ... and there is no atmosphere to be warmed up in the Lunar 'morning' ... so the heat is practically instant (and fierce) at the Lunar dawn!!!
The landing site of the first lunar landing was near the Lunar equator ... so the sun (with an angular diameter, when seen from the moon of approximately 32 arcminutes, 1920 arcseconds or 0.53 degrees, will move upwards in the Lunar Sky through about 13 degrees (or about 25 solar diameters) in one day ... so the full solar disc will be visible ... and fully delivering it's heat within 1 hour of Lunar 'dawn'.

... this really is very interesting stuff!!!!

J C · 26-02-2011 2:47am

Tyler MacDurden wrote: »

Can we have our thread back please?

... I didn't 'take' your thread ... this issue was raised by Dave ... and it is very interesting stuff!!!

... as a true skeptic, would proving the moon landing hoax not make you a hero amongst your peers???

... equally, proving a little ole Creation Scientist wrong about something ... might also make you a hero amongst skeptics as well !!!

Turtwig · 26-02-2011 3:15am

J C wrote: »

... I didn't 'take' your thread ... this issue was raised by Dave ... and it is very interesting stuff!!!

... as a true skeptic, would proving the moon landing hoax not make you a hero amongst your peers???

... equally, proving a little ole Creation Scientist wrong about something ... might also make you a hero amongst skeptics as well !!!

Ok fine then start a new thread or discuss it in the CT forum.

Monty Burnz · 26-02-2011 1:09pm

Why do you guys still reply to JC? He's either a heroic troll or a total fanatic - either way, there's no point trying to talk logically to him.

Dave! · 26-02-2011 1:24pm

It's the angle of the sun that affects how much heat is reaching a satellite XXXXXXX

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_sun_angle_on_climate

Others are more patient than me, but I have no interest in indulging you XXXXXX by entering into a discussion with you.

Thought I posted Phil Plait's article in the 'interesting stuff' thread anyway?

26-02-2011 1:24pm

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Why do you guys still reply to JC? He's either a heroic troll or a total fanatic - either way, there's no point trying to talk logically to him.

he's been at this for 6 years. Its safe to say he's the latter.

"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

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