JW's, science, and how old is man?

clovis

One thing that always got me about the org. was how they praised modern science when it upheld or agreed with their thinking or doctrines. However they totally bashed it when it refuted something they taught. Case in point is mankinds time on this planet. The org. say appx 7,000 years and base all their teachings on that fact. They discount radio carbon dating as unreliable.

Enter the Kenniwick man and suddenly the time frame is skewed. Radio carbon 9,000+ - years old. Here in Florida an extinct type of bison was found in the Aucilla river. 12,000 years old, no big deal except for the stone spear point lodged in its skull which killed it.

I'm not discussing science which tries to prove some ape type ancestor millions of years old because quite frankly that is a little far fetched. But proof of mankind alive and well 15 to 20 thousand years ago is irrefutable. Radio carbon dating on previouly live objects is very accurate in time frames of 20 thousand years or less. Hundreds of Paleo sites ranging to 11-12 thousand years ago have been researched here in North America. The entire Clovis culture is that old and is a continent wide culture of big game hunters including mammoth.

I cannot believe the 7,000 year thing among so many other points. It throws off the entire belief of JW's who are so stuck on dates. I would like to here other ideas along this line. Any acheologist/paleoentologists out there?

garybuss

Reasoning From The Scriptures 1989 p. 88 Creation
Was all physical creation accomplished in just six days sometime within the past 6,000 to 10,000 years?
The facts disagree with such a conclusion: (1) Light from the Andromeda nebula can be seen on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. It takes about 2,000,000 years for that light to reach the earth, indicating that the universe must be at least millions of years old. (2) End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years.

"Consider the relationship between Jehovah and Jesus. They were together in heaven for perhaps billions of years."
The Watchtower, August 15, 2005
Page 27, Paragraph 15

smellsgood

"Consider the relationship between Jehovah and Jesus. They were together in heaven for perhaps billions of years."

The Watchtower, August 15, 2005

Page 27, Paragraph 15

This is ridiculous as well, how funny to think that they think of Deity living in a A_______B dimension in time, not beyond it.

Come on, science nor religion agree with this.

smellsgood

Forscher

Greetings Clovis.
I minored in Anthropology and took pre-columbian Archeology courses as part of that work. Although your ID indicates that you are fascinated with Clovis culture, I am sure you are aware that there are a number of sites in the Americas, including several in North America, go a lot further back than the Clovis. Of course, the main significance in that is that it strengthens the case you make even further.
I see the way the WTBTS critisizes the science as just a part of their pattern of blowing-off any point of view which differs from their own. To me, the big dishonesty is in the way they seem to feel that they can have it both ways. Now I wouldn't mind it if they would just say that they feel that mainstream science is mistaken. They would be entitled to that onpinion, especially in view of the fact that scientists have been mistaken in the past many times. But the superior and smug way that they go about it is what makes it so bad.
Now I'll give them their due that they don't go to the extreme that the young earthers do. They do admit that the Earth and the universe may will be billions of years old, a position consistent with known facts of science.
Their position on the age of man is that as of 1975, man has been on the earth for 6,000 years. They are locked into that based on their interpretation of biblical chronology a la Franz/Knorr (COC informs us that Franz wanted to change that to 1974 but Knorr overruled him). Since Russell put the 6,000 year figure at 1874 and there are just about as many different figures out there for that as there are for folks trying to figure it out I am not even going to hazzard a guess on that particular one.
I'll leave it at that for the moment.
Forscher

Forscher

By the way Clovis.
Have you heard about the recent theory that fluted projectiles are actually a European import? One fellow noticed that some of the earliest projectiles found in North America most resembled a family of projectiles found only in Europe. It seems that as he was refining his theory somebody found some very old projectile in the Eastern U.S. which were virtually identical to the European projectiles and the site was dated to the recent end of the dating of the European ones. That one is being debated and it will be interesting to see where the consensus ends up.
Forscher

Leolaia

The Solutrean hypothesis is discussed here:

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

Intriguing (I first encountered it in 2001 in Chandler's book on Kennewick Man), but still needs a lot more evidence to substantiate the hypothesis.

AlanF

clovis wrote:

: One thing that always got me about the org. was how they praised modern science when it upheld or agreed with their thinking or doctrines. However they totally bashed it when it refuted something they taught.

Of course. This is one of the things that defines a cult. Its leadership is always scholastically dishonest. On the one hand, science is grand when it supports the cult's claims, but is a tool of the devil otherwise.

: Case in point is mankinds time on this planet. The org. say appx 7,000 years and base all their teachings on that fact. They discount radio carbon dating as unreliable.

Sure. But you'll note that they haven't said much for some 20 years. That's because they've gotten their scholastic ass kicked all over the place by JWs attempting to be loyal to WT teachings and to their academic consciences.

: Enter the Kenniwick man and suddenly the time frame is skewed. Radio carbon 9,000+ - years old. Here in Florida an extinct type of bison was found in the Aucilla river. 12,000 years old, no big deal except for the stone spear point lodged in its skull which killed it.

This business of stone points lodged in the bones of fossil mammoths, bison and so forth is one of the things that clued me in many years ago that the Watchtower Society was completely clueless, or even dishonest, about scientific evidence.

: I'm not discussing science which tries to prove some ape type ancestor millions of years old because quite frankly that is a little far fetched.

Actually, not. You're obviously on a road to recovery from the JW cult, and I'm pretty certain that when enough time passes, you'll see that your old JW-based prejudices will evaporate, just as mine did.

: But proof of mankind alive and well 15 to 20 thousand years ago is irrefutable. Radio carbon dating on previouly live objects is very accurate in time frames of 20 thousand years or less. Hundreds of Paleo sites ranging to 11-12 thousand years ago have been researched here in North America. The entire Clovis culture is that old and is a continent wide culture of big game hunters including mammoth.

Absolutely!

: I cannot believe the 7,000 year thing among so many other points. It throws off the entire belief of JW's who are so stuck on dates.

Quite so.

: I would like to here other ideas along this line. Any acheologist/paleoentologists out there?

Plenty of amateurs; I know of no professionals.

AlanF

gaiagirl

There are many problems with the Watchtower timeline. At the Witte Museum in San Antonio I once saw a display of native American artifacts which proved that Texas was inhabited 9000 or more years ago. Similarly, dendrochronology proves that there are living trees which were hundreds of years old at the time the JW's say the Earth was covered with a worldwide flood. It is just not possible that those trees would have survived months of total submersion in hundreds of feet of salt water.

jwfacts

Genetics, archaeology and carbon dating all point to Aust aboridgines being amonst the oldest modern man, at 50,000 years old. There is plenty of science to show that writing etc was around the middle east for at least 8000 years. The pyramids can be dated from a time line of kings to being 4500 years old.

JWs belief in the a global flood puts history not at 6000 years, but at only 4000 years.

Joe Grundy

Where I live, excavations have revealed substantial settlements of circular stone buildings, and graves, which are very reliably and confidently dated to c. 8000 bc, i.e. 10000 years old.

The most recent excavations are of a site which indications suggest may be 2000 years older.

JW's, science, and how old is man?

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