http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/29/070129220701.161f20yf.html
Scientific evidence supports the theory that a 18,000-year old "Hobbit" skeleton unearthed in Indonesia was a new species closely related to Homo sapiens .
Breaking News Researchers say 'Hobbit' was separate Species. Creationist!!!
by skyking 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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jimbo
Well it is food for thought!!! A Homo Floresiensis with sophisticated tools. Did you ever see what those tools may look like??
When they find my skeleton in a cave draped over this computer in 10,000 years they may wonder what that sophisticated tool is that I made. Probably call me Homo HPsiensis.
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skyking
What is amazing to me is when the scientist announced they thought that the Hobbit was after all a deformed modern human, this board was over run with creationist howling at the moon, post after post.
I posted this this morning and only one post. It tells me news is only news when it agrees with your thinking, that is the creationist thinking because the Hobbit and Neanderthal disproves the bible.
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Shazard
Hmmm how does the news overturns ID claims? :)
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Deputy Dog
skyking
What does "a new species" mean?
Is a wolf a separate species from a pug? How about a beagle? Is a husky a separate species from a wolf?
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IsaacJS2
I'm what some would call an evolutionist myself. But I don't think the Hobbit will convince anyone that isn't convinced by all the other scientific evidence that came before it. I took special interest in evolution because the Creation Book was one of the first WT books I did any real fact-checking on.
In any case, the last time I dug into this in another forum, all I did was make a lot of people angry. It's not worth it unless you just like arguing. I think the bottom line is that you're either convinced by scientific refutations of ID and other creationist arguments or your not. Many creationists still don't believe that evolution is even scientific, much less true. Unless they aren't aware of the refutations and are honestly interested in how scientists talk about them, what can you do except leave them alone? (Unless you have a serious stake in the results at least...)
IsaacJ
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Madame Quixote
I suspect that scientists do have a real stake, (along with the rest of us).
When creationists make pseudo-scientific claims that use real science to distort the facts of human evolutionary research and choose to quote real scientists out of context, (not unlike what the JWs do), to make claims that have already been de-bunked by real science, and the general public can't (or won't) see through it, it brings the credibility of legitimate, objective science into question. The opposite is what should be happening.
Ignoring and distorting objective science for the sake of religious emotionalism - (which is what intelligent design actually does) - can have dire consequences for our planet, and already is having such consequences. Whenever someone says, for instance, that the issue of global climate change is just a matter of "opinion" or "politics,' it is clear to me that they have not been reading real science, but rather junk science (like "intelligent design,") which is promoted for economic and political reasons to a public that is both confused and suffering from relative scientific illiteracy.
It is time for everyone to wake up and demand that religion of all sorts, including and not limited to so-called intelligent design, be kept separate and apart from science because intelligent design as a scientific theory is neither. It is a hoax promoted by a religious cabal of pseudo-scientists who earnestly believe they are right, but whose research and "theory" is profoundly shoddy, and whose expertise is limited by extreme bias.
An example of such bias may be noted in the admission by one of Intelligent Design's most brash supporters, Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute:
" . . .my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists" - (The Moonies, for goodness sake!) - "had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father" (Father Moon) "chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a PhD program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle."
Is this the kind of biased, missionary approach to science we want in our country, especially in regard to one of the most scientific theories we have, which is accepted as fact - (the way germ theory is fact) - by most real scientists? I rather doubt it, whether or not one believes in God. A separation of science and religion needs to be part of a broad concensus in this country; otherwise we will continue not only to be the laughingstock of the world - (thanks to the Kansas Schools BOE fiasco and others) - but we will also be forced to continually lower our standards in all fields of objective, scientific research to fit political/religious agendas that can be deeply damaging to the credibility and integrity of American scientific research, and to the educational system which seeks to promote such objective learning .
Religion belongs in religion class, and the so-called theory of "intelligent design" also belongs there.
I believe that we all do have a stake in this issue, even if we don't recognize it yet.
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IsaacJS2
Obviously scientists have a stake. So do parents whose children attend the schools where these battles are taking place. I thought that went without saying. My point was only that "the Hobbit" is as convincing as the Neaderthal or heidelbergensis. In other words, Creationists won't be convinced because similar things were discovered a long time ago. Either they've taken the time to learn the scientific evidence or they only read creationist literature and don't want to be convinced. In which case, no new evidence will change their minds. I've been there.
But if you guys just want to duke it out, that's your business. I'm stepping off now and will stay out of this topic from here on out. Just please don't let it spill over and ruin another board where secularists and believers happen to cohabitate. It's happened before.
That's all I'm hoping we can avoid. Thanks for understanding and sorry if I intruded.
IsaacJ
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Cephyr13
I find it quite entertaining that the non-creationists actually believe carbon dating is accurate and haven't the slightest clue how it works and why it's not accurate at all. And therefore, they believe claims like an 18,000 year old "Hobbit" was found.
Truth is, carbon dating is wholely dependent on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere at the time the hobbit died. Scientists have proven that the carbon levels are still rising today. Which means there was less carbon in the atmosphere 1,000 years ago...and there was even less 2,000 years ago, and so on. The less carbon in the air, the older things appear when they are carbon dated. Scientists do not take this into account when carbon dating.
Not to mention that I've seen someone carbon date a cow's leg to be 2,000 years old, yet the cow had died that same day. The cow's other leg dated 200 years old. Gee, isn't that interesting? That 18,000 year old date for the Hobbit MUST be correct then, right? lol
The way a scientist interprets date is completely governed by their world-view. Were they taught the world was old or young? And they will interpret their data by whichever of these they were taught is correct. This is why most mainstream science is biased toward the old earth, evolution and big bang theories. It's what they were taught and so their research data results are interpreted as such.
And finally, I find it funny that people put so much stock in scientists and their finds and theories even though they keep finding out they're wrong constantly. The fact is this...when a scientist has a new "find" or interprets data, their published results should say that this is the best scientific OPINION they can give on the matter presently, but that further research and data may prove this incorrect in the future. Because that is inevitably what will happen eventually. That'd be more truthful. But no. Scienists want to make every claim appear to be solid evidence and definitely true. Why? Because they're SURE it's the truth and they don't want to show a lack of confidence in their own work. People shouldn't make judgements on scientific claims until they're better educated or better informed on the matters at hand. Otherwise, calling creaitonists or anyone else stupid is just a stupid statement made out of ignorance of the facts and understanding of their working functions in this world. It's based on the opinion of a man, and not your own findings, research or knowledge. Good job!
Hitler said, "Give me control of the textbooks, and I will control the people." That's a powerful statement.
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Asheron
Sorry Cephyr13 but you are partially wrong in your understanding about how Carbon dating works. The quanity of Carbon in the atmosphere has something to do with how the the dating process works but it is considered during the process. In addition there are multiple methods of dating used today. I believe you are trying to refer to a known and adjusted for problem called the industrial effect.
Suess or Industrial effect
Since about 1890, the use of industrial and fossil fuels has resulted in large amounts of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere. Because the source of the industrial fuels has been predominantly material of infinite geological age ( e.g coal, petroleum), whose radiocarbon content is nil, the radiocarbon activity of the atmosphere has been lowered in the early part of the 20th century up until the 1950's. The atmospheric radiocarbon signal has, in effect, been diluted by about 2%. Hans Suess (1955) discovered the industrial effect (also called after him) in the 1950's. A number of researchers found that the activity they expected from material growing since 1890 AD was lower. The logical conclusion from this was that in order to obtain a modern radiocarbon reference standard, representing the radiocarbon activity of the 'present day', one could not very well use wood which grew in the 1900's since it was affected by this industrial effect. Thus it was that 1890 wood was used as the modern radiocarbon standard, extrapolated for decay to 1950 AD.
Perhaps this will help with basic CDating knowledge.
The carbon-14 atoms that cosmic rays create combine with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which plants absorb naturally and incorporate into plant fibers by photosynthesis. Animals and people eat plants and take in carbon-14 as well. The ratio of normal carbon (carbon-12) to carbon-14 in the air and in all living things at any given time is nearly constant. Maybe one in a trillion carbon atoms are carbon-14. The carbon-14 atoms are always decaying, but they are being replaced by new carbon-14 atoms at a constant rate. At this moment, your body has a certain percentage of carbon-14 atoms in it, and all living plants and animals have the same percentage.
As soon as a living organism dies, it stops taking in new carbon. The ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 at the moment of death is the same as every other living thing, but the carbon-14 decays and is not replaced. The carbon-14 decays with its half-life of 5,700 years, while the amount of carbon-12 remains constant in the sample. By looking at the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the sample and comparing it to the ratio in a living organism, it is possible to determine the age of a formerly living thing fairly precisely.
A formula to calculate how old a sample is by carbon-14 dating is:
t = [ ln (N f /N o ) / (-0.693) ] x t 1/2
where ln is the natural logarithm, N f /N o is the percent of carbon-14 in the sample compared to the amount in living tissue, and t 1/2 is the half-life of carbon-14 (5,700 years).
So, if you had a fossil that had 10 percent carbon-14 compared to a living sample, then that fossil would be:
t = [ ln (0.10) / (-0.693) ] x 5,700 years
t = [ (-2.303) / (-0.693) ] x 5,700 years
t = [ 3.323 ] x 5,700 years
t = 18,940 years old
Because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, it is only reliable for dating objects up to about 60,000 years old. However, the principle of carbon-14 dating applies to other isotopes as well. Potassium-40 is another radioactive element naturally found in your body and has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. Other useful radioisotopes for radioactive dating include Uranium -235 (half-life = 704 million years), Uranium -238 (half-life = 4.5 billion years), Thorium-232 (half-life = 14 billion years) and Rubidium-87 (half-life = 49 billion years).
The use of various radioisotopes allows the dating of biological and geological samples with a high degree of accuracy. However, radioisotope dating may not work so well in the future. Anything that dies after the 1940s, when Nuclear bombs, nuclear reactors and open-air nuclear tests started changing things, will be harder to date precisely.
Mistakes can certainly happen so would you care to provide evidence of your 2000 year old cow leg statement and I am also interested in what lab you visited?
Asheron