Hi Hooberus,
:: Then your memory leaves something to be desired, as apparently does your ability to fathom what constitutes an answer to a challenge. An answer does not consist merely of posting a link to some website. An answer may consist of your own discussion of the contents of a website, along with a link to it.
: My answers do not merely consist of posting a link to some website.
Often they do. Or they consist of pointing to some creationist book or whatever, unaccompanied by much more than, "Look at this; it refutes what you claim." For example, to my detailed comments about the Turkana boy you merely replied: "Turkana boy is discussed in Gish's book Evolution: The fossils Still Say No!" Do you call that an answer?
: For example my discussion of mitochondrial eve included my own observations about the use of a date based on humans and apes sharing a common ancestor being used to disprove a biblical chronology which starts with them being created separately.
Yes, sometimes you do more than merely post a link or a reference. I never said you didn't.
: When I do post links In often post a specific paragraph or two from the link which supports my specific point. This shows that I am not just posting links, but that I am backing up my statements.
The problem is that when you merely post quotes from the linked or referenced material, it doesn't indicate that you understand it. Indeed, your claim that the talk.origins site misrepresents Gish is a perfect illustration of this. I'll discuss this below.
Very often the material you quote from some creationist reference has been thoroughly refuted by any number of people. You show no understanding of such refutations. Indeed, over the year or two in which I've observed your posting style, I've seen that you often ignore refutations and then post the same old nonsense all over again.
: Evolutionists here also frequently post links such as:
:: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/java15000.html
:: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_erectus.html
:: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/d2700.html
This is a pretty good illustration of your inability to comprehend technical (or other) discussions. You had said:
::: I've read some of the information on this and other homo erectus fossils from the talk-origin site. The site misrepresents what Gish's book actually says on homo-erectus.
To your latter claim of misrepresentation, I stated:
:: Nonsense. You have no idea what you're talking about. Here are several discussions:
Then I posted the above links. I posted the links so that you could read them and then attempt to prove your claim of misrepresentation. I did not post them to prove anything about Homo erectus. Clearly, all of this went entirely over your head. How you could miss my clear meaning is beyond me, since the very next thing I wrote after the three links was quite specific:
:: Can you point out even one thing that misrepresents Gish's claims? I don't think so. I don't think so because it's painfully obvious that you're incapable of reasoning for yourself on this subject.
If you are unable to understand such simple discussions, how can you hope to understand something as complicated as details of the creation versus evolution question?
: Some of my references may appear to be links but were actually typed by hand such as the Sarfati reference which comes from his book which I have read.
You're usually clear about what is a link and what is another sort of reference, so this is not an issue.
:: Furthermore, I was not only talking about threads in which I commented, but about the many posts of yours where you ran away from discussion with other posters.
: Why don't you give some examples?
Because it would be a waste of time. Every reader who has followed your posting history can verify my claim.
:: Sarfati is a crackpot and I will not waste space commenting on his nutty ideas. If you want to argue for him, go to it.
: The quote that I gave from Sarfati was well documented from not just creationist but evolutionary sources such as:
That doesn't change the fact that Sarfati is a crackpot. Immanuel Velikovsky -- who has been called "the very model of a crank" -- churned out about ten books (starting with Worlds in Collision in 1950) full of references. The fact that he carefully selected his references so as to weed out everything that didn't go along with his ideas is lost on his followers.
The fact is that the references you've quoted from Sarfati represent only a tiny fraction of the available literature on mitochondrial DNA mutation rates. With only a modicum of effort I found some comments from 2001 on the site: http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/ingman.html . This indicates that the studies cited by Sarfati were almost certainly statistically invalid because they sampled only a special part of the mitochondrial DNA sequence that happens to be known as a fast mutator, for reasons that are not understood. This is called the "D loop" (I don't know why) and is quite anomalous. When the rest of the mitochondrial DNA genome is examined, the author explains, it remains consistent with standard evolutionary ideas, i.e., mutation rates derived from correlation between fossils and radioisostope dating. So Sarfati's claims are either selective, or have been superceded by newer findings.
:: Can you point out even one thing that misrepresents Gish's claims? I don't think so. I don't think so because it's painfully obvious that you're incapable of reasoning for yourself on this subject.
<<
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/sinanth.html
"The reader [of Boule and Vallois, 1957] is invited to verify for himself that Sinanthropus occupies a position intermediate between the Anthropoid Apes and Man. If one accepts uncritically Weidenreich's model of Sinanthropus as a true portrayal of the real Sinanthropus, then he could hardly reject the above appraisal." (Gish, 1985) [emphasis added]
In other words, although Gish does not accept the accuracy of this model, he is saying that if it was accurate, it would be almost indisputable as a transitional fossil. Now compare the model with two other Homo erectus skulls, ER 3733 and WT 15000.
>>
: I don't have a copy of Gish's 1985 edition, however the 1995 edition reads:
: "The reader is then invited to verify for himself that Sinanthropus occupies a position intermediate between the Anthropoid apes and man. If one accepts uncritically Weidenreich's model of Sinanthropus, then he could hardly reject the above appraisal. As a matter of fact, on the basis of this model, some have been led to believe that Sinanthropus should not be considered as near-man, but should be judged fully human." Evolution the fossils still say No! 1995 edition p. 291
: If the 1995 [sic; should be 1985] edition reads similar to the 1995 edition, then the talk-origin site has misrepresented Gish. If not then they haven't and I stand corrected.
Then you stand corrected on two counts: (1) I have the 1979 Third Edition of Gish's book and, except for the phrase "is invited" which should read "is then invited", the quote is identical to the original (I'll post a scan if you really want to see it. (2) The only difference between the 1979 (and I assume, 1985) quotations, other than a few extra commas in the 1995 quote, is that in the 1995 quote the phrase "as a true portrayal of the real Sinanthropus" has been deleted. But this does not change the meaning of the quotation at all. The third sentence from your 1995 quote is left out of the talkorigins quote, but that's fine since it has nothing to do with the point the author made. You seem to have once again misunderstood what you read.
I suspect that you think Gish has been misrepresented because the third sentence was left out. But the talkorigins author's point was this: If one accepts Weidenreich's model of Sinanthropus as accurate, then Gish has admitted, as Boule and Vallois claim, that Sinanthropus is almost indisputable as a transitional fossil. That is what Gish's statement means: "... then he could hardly reject the above appraisal." If "he could hardly reject the above appraisal", then he must almost certainly accept it. What appraisal? That Sinanthropus is a good transitional fossil.
Gish's third sentence in the 1995 quote actually contradicts his second sentence. It is this inconsistency that has confused you. Thus, what I wrote near the beginning of this post is proved correct: You do not really understand what you're reading. If you did, you would have noticed Gish's inconsistency.
As for Gish's point in his third sentence, it contains no references to who "have been led to believe that Sinanthropus should not be considered as near-man, but should be judged fully human." I suppose, given the wide array of opinion on this topic, that there may be "some" who have been so led, but without specifics I can make no further comment.
: When I read the talk-orign site arctlice I looked up the quotes in my 1995 edition which shows Gish's position on the matter to be different than the site implies. If the references in the 1985 edition support the sites quote properly than I appologise. It would then be my fault for not checking the different editions.
It always pays not to assume anything.
: "If one accepts uncritically the evidence usually presented in texts and treatises on Peking Man, the case for the existence of near-man, or a man with many primitive features, would seem established. For example, the skull model and flesh reconstructions based on this model shown in figure 31 reveal a remarkable resemblance to modern man and could hardly be called less than human." Evolution:the Fossils Still Say No! 1995 Edition p.285
The problem with Gish's claim here is that he is using an outdated reconstruction of the skull of Sinanthropus (Peking Man) -- which he has already argued is probably a wrong reconstruction -- and claiming that a couple of a great many "flesh models" (i.e., reconstructions of the fleshly appearance of the creature), made before 1970, are a fair representation of the looks of the original creature. But Gish is completely ignoring the nearly complete skull of the Turkana boy (Homo erectus, now Homo ergaster), which even a child can see is not a modern human skull. It looks even more 'primitive' than the skull shown in Gish's figure 31, which you can easily verify by checking the photos in the above talkorigins links.
Finally, I should point out that your claim that one talkorigins author misrepresented Gish -- even if true -- is a red herring. You completely failed to deal with the actual evidence presented in the paper that you yourself claim misrepresented Gish. Even after I posted other links that you could easily have read and commented on, you failed to deal with the evidence. By substituting an ad hominem for real discussion, you committed the red herring fallacy.
With regard to the Green River formation in Wyoming:
: Alan, aren't there many animal fossils found there whose bodies transgress several layers?
Yes, but so what? The huge lake in which these layers were laid down seems to have been a rather stagnant body, so that deep layers were anoxic -- without oxygen. Fish or other dead things falling to the bottom would not decay for a long time in anoxic conditions. Years could pass while layers accumulated on the slowly decomposing carcasses. I happen to have a sample of these layers, which I bought at an artsy rock and gem store. It contains three fish fossils, each about 8-12 centimeters long. They're completely flattened and are no more than a millimeter thick. It's not clear how many layers this millimeter thickness comprises, but it's evident that it's not many, since each layer is generally 0.1 to 1 millimeter thick. Fine bones are clearly evident, and it looks to me like some skin or scales were fossilized because the area between about half the bones contains obvious fossil material. The matrix is extremely fine clay.
A real life example of how a massive flood puts down thick layers of clay, and not millions of extremely thin layers, is found in the flood deposits of eastern Washington State that were laid down during the end period of the last ice age, some 12-14,000 years ago. A large lake had formed in the mountain valleys of Idaho and Montana, in the watershed of the Clark Fork River. It formed when a lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet plugged the mouth of the river where it exits the mountains and enters a relatively lower area, soon joining the Spokane River which eventually joins the Columbia River. The lake eventually deepened to the point where it contained some 500 cubic miles of water, about as much as is in Lake Erie today. Eventually the lake got so deep that it broke the ice dam and the entire lake spilled out onto the relatively flat basalt rock of eastern Washington. The flood was at least 1200 feet deep at Spokane, and it rushed along at nearly 60 miles an hour. It cut huge canyons like the Grand Coulee, and as it spilled out through the Columbia River it widened the Columbia Gorge a great deal. Near the edges of the flooded area, which covered thousands of square miles, the water contained only fine silt and clay. This material gradually dropped out, forming a thick layer of silt. These flood recurred at least 40 times, and built up large areas of fertile soil, such as in the Walla Walla region of Washington. Around 1940 a farming community irrigation ditch broke in this region, and over a period of several weeks the water cut a small gorge down through the 40 or more thick layers of silt. Each layer was from a foot to three or so feet thick. This layering is one proof that many floods occurred. The main point is this: within each thick layer, there are no thin layers like there are in the Green River formation. This shows that a massive flood does not form large numbers of thin layers of silt and clay.
: This is one of the main evidences that crreationists appeal to for the formation being formed rapidly.
I know that, and they're wrong.
: http://www.icr.org/newsletters/drjohn/drjohnjan03.html
: There's also evidence it happened rapidly. Numerous fossils are found in the Green River Formation. Catfish in abundance are found, looking much the same as they did when alive.
Nonsense. The fossils are mostly bones. Do you want me to post a photo of my fossil fish? You can see for yourself. But it would be easier if you take a look on the Net for some photos.
: The thickness of their bodies transgresses several layers.
How many is "several"?
: Obviously a fish carcass, even if it did get to the bottom of a lake would not remain undecayed and unscavenged for several years, slowly being covered by seasonal deposits.
"Obviously" only to someone who was deliberately ignoring the published literature, which shows that the lake bottom was anoxic, and therefore preserved carcasses for years.
: Even more remarkable are an abundance of bird fossils. In spite of their low density, bird fossils are copiously present here. If these sediments are from the bottom of a calm lake, as required by the standard varve interpretation, how could myriads of bird fossils be present? Bird carcasses don't lie on the bottom of a lake. What happened?
By now, even you should be able to answer this foolishness, Hooberus.
::: While some fossils are generally found above other groups of fossils, There are more than enough instances of missing systems with no evidence of erosion to call into question the whole concept of geologic ages.
:: Nonsense. Instead of doing as usual, why don't you take an example you think you can explain, and explain it to us?
: Alan, are you saying that the very common existence of "paraconformities" is "Nonsense"?
Not at all. I'm saying, why don't you take an example you think you can explain, and explain it to us?
Why did you try to deflect this with yet another question?
As for your question, the existence of "paraconformities" is well known. The problem is your statement that there are "instances of missing systems with no evidence of erosion". There are indeed instances where layers from a geological "age" are missing from the pile of sediments that are now rock, but in almost every case there is plenty of evidence for erosion. The ICR is infamous for propagating this lie. For example, they claim that there is no evidence of erosion between a couple of large "systems" of sedimentary rocks now exposed in the Grand Canyon. But any geology book on the Grand Canyon will give plenty of descriptions of erosional features on the surface of the lower layer, which are filled in conformably by the next layer up. What kind of erosional features? Streambeds cut into the rock of the lower layer, complete with gravel and even boulders in the streambed that are derived from the lower layer. This kind of feature proves conclusively that the layers were not put down as a continuous rain of soft sediments in a huge flood, which later hardened into rock. Topography is another feature. A lower layer may contain sediments laid down flat, but erosion cut through the layers and left a typical low topography. When the land eventually sank down and was again covered by a shallow sea, the topography was covered with conformable sediments.
The ICR and other groups like it have propagated lies like this for decades. They seem not to be ashamed of telling lies in the name of God, any more than the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses are ashamed of telling their own lies. Why is this? Whatever the reason, it is clear that these people have no respect for truth, and seem to think that lying in God's name will gain favor with God. I'll leave it to you to judge whether such lying is good or bad.
AlanF