Posts by AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

To freeAtlast:

Good Lord! You're not only nasty, you're about the most ignorant self-proclaimed master of science of I've ever seen!

:: So when you say that "Einstein's equation does not preclude an object traveling FASTER than the speed of light", you're quite right, because it has nothing to do with velocity at all.

: quite right,

So your original claim was wrong.

Strike one.

: it deals with momentum actually.

Really. Let's see now, the equation is: E = m * c^2, or Energy = Mass * velocity^2. Last I heard, energy is not momentum and it has units of kg-m/s^2, whereas momentum is simply Mass * velocity and has units of kg-m/s.

Strike two.

: Usually, it is convient to square both sides of the equation.

Really. Then you get energy squared. That's much good for anything.

: I'm not cutting and pasting the whole damn thing into here and then trying to reformat it. Do a Goggle search.

I don't need to. I know the material.

:: Do you have any idea what an imaginary distance is? Or an imaginary time? Of course not, and neither does anyone else.

: Well, first off their NOT imaginary numbers, oh enlightened one. They would be complex numbers (with real and imaginary parts).

Of course they're pure imaginary numbers. Look at the equations I posted, stupid. Here's the one for the relativistic mass:

m = m0 / sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) where m0 is the rest mass.

Here we have three real quantities on the right side: m0, v and c. If v > c, the square root yields a pure imaginary number which divides into the rest mass. Therefore, for v > c, the equation yields a pure imaginary number.

Strike three.

: You know just like the intelligence of this conversation has real (my part) and imaginary parts (what you say).

Your world is inverted from reality.

Strike four.

: A brief quote from Stephen Hawking taken from A Brief History of Time (don't have the phyiscal copy in front of me, found the txt OCR'd on the Internet, so no page number. look it up yourself if you think I'm making this up):

"one must use imaginary time... That is to say, for the purposes of calculation, one must measure
time using imaginary numbers, rather than real ones. This has an interesting effect on spacetime:
The distinction between time and space disappears completely... we may regard our use of Euclidean spacetime as merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real spacetime."

Your quote shows what kind of stupid conclusions the ignorant make when they try to understand things beyond their ken.

The quote is from page 134, and the parts you left out prove my point. In fact, the very last sentence you quoted proves my point: physics deals with real time in the end, and any use of "imaginary time" is "merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real spacetime."

Strike five.

Here is a more extended quotation along with my commentary that shows what Hawking was talking about:

We don't yet have a complete and consistent theory that combines quantum mechanics and gravity. However, we are fairly certain of some features that such a unified theory should have. One is that it should incorporate Feynman's proposal to formulate quantum theory in terms of a sum over histories. In this approach, a particle does not have just a single history, as it would in a classical theory. Instead, it is supposed to follow every possible path in space-time, and with each of these histories there are associated a couple of numbers, one representing the size of a wave and the other representing its position in the cycle (its phase).

Hawking is talking in non-mathematician's terms about complex numbers, which as you seem to understand, have real and imaginary parts. As I stated, this is what falls out of solving Schroedinger's equation.

The probability that the particle, say, passes thrrough some particular point is found by adding up the waves associated with every possible history that passes through that point. When one actually tries to perform these sums, however, one runs into severe technical problems. The only way around these is the following peculiar prescription: One must add up the waves for particle histories that are not in the "real" time that you and I experience, but take place in what is called imaginary time.

This is the mathematical device or trick Hawking later referred to. Also note: the "sums" (actually the squares of the sums) represent a probability density function in real space-time. Such a function is not a physical quantity, but is yet another mathematical device that allows one to predict the probability that a particle will be found at some particular location.

Imaginary time may sound like science fiction but it is in fact a well-defined mathematical concept. [short lesson in multiplying imaginary numbers deleted] To avoid the technical difficulties with Feynman's sum over histories, one must use imaginary time. That is to say, for the purposes of the calculation one must measure time using imaginary numbers, rather than real ones.

This is precisely what we EE's do when we use complex numbers to represent sine waves of various frequencies and phases, and use Fourier analysis to break actual signals down into their Fourier components. These components have magnitude and phase, just like Feynman's "histories" are associated with numbers representing the magnitude and phase of quantum mechanical probabilities. Fourier analysis results in another "unreal" quantity called "negative frequency", which is just an artifact of the mathematical representation of the signal and has no physical significance.

This has an interesting effect on space-time: the distinction between time and space disappears completely. A space-time in which events have imaginary values of the time coordinate is said to be Euclidean, after the ancient Greek Euclid, who founded the study of geometry of two-dimensional surfaces. What we now call Euclidean space-time is very similar except that it has four dimensions instead of two. In Euclidean space-time there is no difference between the time direction and directions in space. On the other hand, in real space-time, in which events are labeled by ordinary, real values of the time coordinate, it is easy to tell the difference -- the time direction at all points lies within the light cone, and space directions lie outside.

In other words, in this four dimensional space-time called "Euclidean space-time", where for purposes of calculation time can have imaginary values, time can run backwards. In real space-time, however, time does not run backwards. That's why in real space-time "imaginary time", such as pops out of the various equations of special relativity when you plug in a velocity greater than the speed of light, is meaningless.

By now you should also see that the "imaginary time" that results from velocities greater than the speed of light has absolutely nothing to do with what Hawking is talking about, which proves that you don't understand what you read about science.

Strike six.

In any case, as far as everyday quantum mechanics is concerned, we may regard our use of imaginary time and Euclidean space-time as merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate events about real space-time.

By this time interested readers will have seen your ridiculous error in trying to claim that this last quoted statement has anything at all to do with your point.

Strike seven.

: gee, AlanF, I guess the Lucasian (sp?) professor at Cambridge (a position once held by Issac Newton himself) is a regular nobody.

Not at all. But you've shown yourself to be a thoroughgoing dickhead who is too stupid to realize how stupid he is. More examples of that are forthcoming.

: You need imaginary time for singularities to exist. And you need singularities for black holes to exist, (which as far as we can tell they do since they have been observed in nature).

Here's a challenge, dickhead: present an equation that shows why imaginary time is necessary for black holes to exist. No hand waving permitted.

: Now, what do the imaginary parts of the complex roots exactly mean? As far as we can tell NOW, they have no accepted physical meaning. (just several discredited ones including stuff like negative mass) But, that doesn't mean they never will.

The imaginary numbers Hawking talks about do indeed have physical meaning. Not directly by themselves, any more than the negative frequencies that fall out of Fourier analysis have direct physical meaning, but when the mathematical devices and tricks are applied using these "unphysical" numbers, you get answers that represent reality very well. Thus, we again see you have no idea what you're talking about.

Strike eight.

: Inductors and capacitors have a complex impedance.

Wrong, they have pure imaginary impedances.

The impedance of an inductor is jwL and the impedance of a capacitor is 1/jwC, where "j" is the EE's equivalent of "i", and "w" (omega) is 2*PI*frequency.

Strike nine.

: Remember a complex number has real and imaginary part. Resistance is only the real part of impedance.

Inductors and capacitors have no resistive component, dickhead.

Strike ten.

: The imaginary part of the impedance is call the reactance. (I had a dash of EE in school too.)

You appear to have misunderstood all of it.

: Just curious AlanF, where oh where did you get your PhD in physics.

I never said I did. I said I took a lot of Ph.D. courses in math and physics.

You can't read. Strike eleven.

: You sound like you'd have trouble handling the intro physics class at your local community college, brightboy.

You statement shows just how stupid you are.

Strike twelve.

: And man that Stevie Hawking is just some crackpot fundie at Cambridge I guess with his imaginary time. btw, last I heard he was a devout atheist.

Pointless ad hominem.

Strike thirteen.

: well, it's safe to say you have no idea what you are talking about

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Strike fourteen.

: and I await your Farkel-like response of picking out all my typos and grammatical hiccups

For you, you didn't do too badly this time. But your real errors are so ridiculous that it would be guilding the dung heap to add them to your score.

: b/c you know everything else I say is abso-freaking-lutely correct.

Right.

Strike fifteen.

: you better give up physics and go back to washing the windows. Oh, and please keep whining to Simon to get me banned after I showed you up earlier. Real manly of you I must say.

Bathory, you're about the biggest asshole I've ever come across. Several people have told me that you're not only braindead, but a true mental case. Give it up before those nice young men in their clean white coats come to take you away HA HA!

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

To emyrose

My, my, how I've misjudged you.

: Are you saying I work for the shop downstairs, from my Apt and steal?

No. I'm saying that, whoever your employer is, I'm glad you don't steal.

: Well, whatever gave that idea, hummm?

Nothing.

You seem to have a problem comprehending input from your communications ports.

: What kind of person would say that, hummmmm?

A very bad one.

: As for you thinking that a basket weaving course would be challenging
: to study, please don't give me that bullshit.

Actually I think that such a course would be the exact opposite.
That was my point, dear.

: Your exact words: So how's the basket coming?

Right.

: Nothing about it being a college course, right.

No, but the implication of basket weaving was there.

: Can you tell me what college has ever had a basket weaving course?

Pilgrim State.

: Give me a break, you were responding to my statement about coming
: from a simple background or poverty. We know who weaves baskests, right?

Wrong. How could I possibly know your background? I don't know you from Eve.

: It's certainly not college students working on class assignments, right?

Generally, no. But my implication was a very standard and care worn
reference to "basket weaving as practiced by people in mental institutions
like Pilgrim State Hospital." It's such an old and common expression, and
so often used to mildly poke fun at people as if they were nuts, that I
thought you'd understand it immediately. Are telling me you never heard
of "basket weaving" as a joke about mental patients? Am I dating myself?

: BTW, black people are not always bringing up the race issue,

I didn't say they were.

: well unless they can detect racism.

Well some people are overly sensitive. And on a board like this, where
no one has any idea of another's race, and frankly, most people don't
give a rat's ass, thinking you detect it from subtle hints is just stupid.

: Anyway, making this statement is racist, asshole!

I agree! So don't do it again!

: I now know beyond any reasonable doubt, that you are not black.

I'm glad you figured that out. That's why I said it, to see if you could.

: Black people would never make such a statement.

Really. How about polling the black people on this board? There are
quite a few extremely intelligent blacks here. How about JT? He's one
of our most astute posters.

: Your words: Your implications of racism on my part are on a par with
: your other reasoning abilities. Apparently you're black -- otherwise:
: you wouldn't bring up this silliness.

Right, because you yourself said enough words to hint at your race, which
you probably did because of your obvious assumption that I'm not black
and therefore showed prejudice. But I certainly didn't know
anything until you said it in your post here.

But you're doing the same stupid thing with men and women, implying that
males on this board are trashing you just for being female. It's just as
easy to figure out from this silly complaint that you're female as it is
to guess at your race from your other complaints. All of this is stupid
and I wish you wouldn't have brought it up, because it's meaningless.

There are many extremely astute people on this board, my dear. Men, women,
blacks, whites, Asians, whatever. In a faceless online forum, it's not
even all that easy to figure out males from females. And none of it is
important. Online, you live and die by what you write -- nothing else.

As for your implication that I'm racially prejudiced, people who know me
know that that's insane. Racially, I'm mainly northern European with a
bit of Native American, Jewish and Lapplander thrown in. I grew up very
poor, in a racially mixed area, and attended racially mixed JW
congregations when I was still a JW. I dated white and black girls, and
socialized with all kinds of people, including racially mixed couples
after I got married. Among my closest of confidants over the years have
been blacks and people of extremely mixed descent. So don't try to pull
the race bullshit on me, dearie. You can martyr yourself but don't lay
the martyrdom on anyone else.

: Kiss my black ass, AlanF

Oh! My heart! Don't come on to an old man like that! I could collapse!

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

To emyrose

: AlanF, come on now you can do better than that.

Of course, but seeing as how you're such a tender flower, I thought I'd
go easy on you.

: "So how's the basket coming?"

Well, given your demonstrated inability to actually reason on whatever
topics you've wandered into, and your focus on people rather than issues,
I figured basket weaving would be a challenging course of study. Given
that you seem to recognize a joke when you see it, perhaps I misjudged you.

So what courses are you taking? Any that require real mental discipline?
Or things like introduction to music appreciation? Are you taking courses
that will really do something for you? Or just whatever you can to be able
to say you went to college?

: Remember prejudiced remarks are for the..ignorant lil poor folk
: like me. I sho is thankful though for your advice on which rithing
: courses to takes. I'ma supposing ya doesn't think ebonics is any
: good, huh. You isn't racist is you? hummm

Your implications of racism on my part are on a par with your other
reasoning abilities. Apparently you're black -- otherwise you wouldn't
bring up this silliness. Somehow you seem to think I knew your color.
Well I didn't. And until you brought this up, I never thought about
it. So who is the racist here?

Besides, how do you know I'm not black?

My remarks have nothing to do with prejudice, except that I might admit
to prejudice against stupid remarks from any quarter.

: BTW, I buy my baskets from the shop downstairs from my high-rise
: building apt. in the silk-stocking district in manhattan, dum dum.

Oh. I'm glad you don't steal from your employer.

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

Well there, Emy, I'm glad to hear you're in college and doing well. I hope you're taking courses that are challenging. I heartily recommend taking a sequence in writing. Make sure you get several courses in the equivalent of "reading and writing the essay" and "writing for rhetoric". See if the courses require students to critique each other's essays. It teaches fuzzy thinkers a lot. Of course, you should also try for the hard sciences like biology, chemistry and physics, and solid math courses like calculus and differential equations. Such courses teach you about the real world and how it doesn't run on fuzziness.

So how's the basket coming?

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

I find it amazing, darkclouds, that a single person can manage to spew forth so much gobble-de-gook. It shows that you hold a far higher opinion of your lack of knowledge than is warranted.

Imagination will not turn imaginary time into real time, except in your own fuzzy mind.

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

Poor, poor emyrose.

It has become clear that you're a fairly nice, but simpleminded girl who would like to become more than she is.

Reach for the stars, girl, but keep your feet on the ground! One day you'll arrive.

Perhaps trying to emulate the intelligent ladies on this forum will help.

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

To dark clouds:

Like I told Suzi, you're so far out that you're not even wrong.

No sense trying to reply to such stuff.

As for my relationship with women, those who know me know that I have the utmost respect for them, as long as they think clearly most of the time. Many of the women on this board, and the old H2O board, have my respect because of their clear thinking.

You do not.

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

Hey Englishman

I'd love to meet Cleese one day. His sense of humor is off scale.

Thanks for posting the picture.

Do me the favor of writing me privately. One of these days I'm going to get to England and I'd like to visit as many of my Brit friends as possible.

AlanF

122

Suzi Mayhem Outdoes John Cleese

by AlanF in

jw
friends

a critique of suzi mayhem's theory of god .

i thought, when suzi first posted this, that it was a joke something like john cleese's classic "brontosaurus theory" skit in a monty python episode.

but mr. "dark clouds" has sort of asked me to critique it as if it were a serious theory, so here goes.. i'll address this to suzi, but suzi dear, don't take this too seriously.

AlanF

To freeATlast

Man, bozos are just flying out of the woodwork lately! Let's take a look at this latest bozo's words:

: Einstein's equation does not preclude an object traveling FASTER than the speed of light. It says that an object may not cross the boundary of the speed of light. An object travelling slower than the speed of light cannot go faster than light speed by the equation. But, if an object traveling faster than light speed from it's creation, it would always be traveling faster than light speed by the same equation. (kind of the universal equivalent of the bus in the movie Speed.)

: Look at the ACTUAL equation, not the simplified "for dummies" version. gee I thought you were a smart guy, but really you're just a smart ASS.

Yes, bozo, let's take a look at the equations. In standard form the Lorentz transformations are, for motion in the x-x' direction:

x' = (x - vt) / sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2)
t' = (t - vx/c^2) / sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2)

Similarly we have for the relativistic mass:

m = m0 / sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) where m0 is the rest mass.

And for the relativistic length contraction we have:

L = L' * sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) where L is the length of the object in the x direction in the 'at rest' reference frame and L' is the length of the object in the moving reference frame.

Clearly, if v > c, the factor sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) is imaginary. This means that the transformed quantities of distance, time, mass and length are imaginary.

Do you have any idea what an imaginary distance is? Or an imaginary time? Or an imaginary mass? Or an imaginary length? Of course not, and neither does anyone else.

Therefore, plugging velocities greater than c into the various relativistic equations gives meaningless results.

The fine book Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles by Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick has this to say about velocities greater than the speed of light (p. A-11):

Note that for v larger than c the Lorentz transformation equations are meaningless, in that real coordinates and times are transformed into imaginary ones. Thus c appears to play the role of a limiting velocity for all physical phenomena.

So, bozo, can you say anything at all about the physical properties of, as you so astutely referenced, "an object traveling faster than light speed from it's creation"? Perhaps you can measure its mass as 3i kilos. Perhaps you can say that it's 25i cm long and that it split in half 6i seconds ago.

If you can, you'll win next year's Nobel Prize.

At this point it's obvious that you don't know your ass from your elbow, physically speaking. You know that Einstein existed but you know nothing of the equations of mathematical physics. You know in a vague way that the speed of light is a limiting velocity but, not having examined and, most importantly, understood the various equations of Special Relativity, you think that there's no problem for velocities greater than c. Your ignorance is shown by your completely stupid use of the term "Einstein's equation". What people refer to as that is the famous E=mc^2, which has nothing to do with motion at all in this simple formulation. So when you say that "Einstein's equation does not preclude an object traveling FASTER than the speed of light", you're quite right, because it has nothing to do with velocity at all.

Given the above, I'll be interested to see your answer to a couple of simple questions: just what is the "ACTUAL equation, not the simplified 'for dummies' version" that you're referring to? And just what is the "for dummies version"? Please provide source references.

Once again we find a complete ignoramus expounding upon that which he knows nothing besides what he read in Weekly World News. While in his estimation I am a smart ASS, he has proved himself a dumb ASS.

It seems pretty clear that this bozo is a typical raving Fundy.

AlanF

8

C14 AND EARLY MAN

by uncle_onion in

jw
friends

in my quest to find an inner peace i have done a lot of research on early man and how his story fits in with the bible.

this research has also gone into c14 carbon dating.. i asked the website www.bibleanswers.com a question on this and have posted the replys below.

i would appreciate you having a look at the links especially the audio links and posting your replys on what you agree and disagree with.. thanks a lot.. uo.

AlanF

Wow, Uncle, you certainly have a lot of research to do. Having done this myself, I highly recommend that you beg, borrow or steal as much of the basic researchy material as you can manage.

I can't give you an in-depth answer to everything presented by the creationist camp, but you can find an awful lot of stuff on the Net that already deals with it. After awhile you'll get to know certain key phrases to stick into search engines. Of course, one of the best resources is talk.origins.org.

Probably the best method of debunking young-earth creationist (YEC) claims is to actually get hold of a lot of their books and then compare what these claim to what scientists publish. You always find substantial differences, and you almost always find that YEC publications simply ignore everything they can't figure out an answer for. I'll give examples below.

The Carbon-14 dating method is one of the YEC camp's favorite straw men. Their basic argument is that because there are certain problems with C14 dating, the method is completely unreliable for all measurements over a few thousand years ago. What they fail to do is to explain why the method corresponds so well with completely independent forms of dating. They also fail to deal with problems that completely destroy their overall notions such as a recent global flood that layed down virtually all of the earth's sedimentary rocks. In fact, their own writings are far more inconsistent than the minor problems they love to point out in the far more voluminous writings of good scientists.

For example, they fail to explain why C14 dates, corrected by tree ring methods, correspond extremely well with dates for major geological events shown in the record of ice cores from Greenland. For example, in the late 1970s a pair of Indian sandals were found in a cave in Oregon underneath a thick layer of ash from the huge explosion of ancient Mount Mazama, which is now the famous Crater Lake in Oregon. The sandals were made of tree bark, and were C14 dated to about 7000 B.C.E. In the 1980s some ice cores were taken from Greenland, and they contained many layers of ash in the annual accumulation layers. Many historical eruptions were found in the cores, going back some 4000 years. The ice core dating was generally fairly close to the historical dating, and generally not more than a couple of hundred years different. The ice cores contained layers countable year by year back to about 8-10 thousand years ago (I don't recall the exact figure). The cores contained ash from the Crater Lake eruption (this was verified by the unique chemical signature of the ash) and the annual layer count indicated about 6500 B.C.E., which is pretty close to the figure of 7000 B.C.E. from the C14 dating. In any event, that's about 5000 years too early for YEC dating. I have yet to see any YEC comments on this particular discovery, or even on anything like it. They focus on one thing at a time and fail to deal with correlated, independent evidence.

Here's another good example: YECs like to claim that the frozen carcasses of large animals found in Siberia and Alaska were somehow formed by the action of Noah's Flood. This theme should be familiar to you as a JW. They claim that in some manner, huge numbers of mammoths and other large animals were "quick-frozen" and then buried by the Flood. They fail to explain how the liquid water of the Flood could "quick freeze" an animal and then keep it frozen for thousands of years. Worse, they fail to explain the presence of predators that clearly fed on some of the "quick-frozen" animals before the beasts were buried.

A perfect example of this is the partial carcass of an extinct bison species found in Alaska in the late 1970s. This was eventually named "Blue Babe" because of the blue mineral crystals that formed on the frozen hide. To make a long story short, this bison was killed and partially eaten by lions in Alaska, then buried and frozen for some 30,000 years. The key bits of information are that this supposedly "quick frozen" specimen was largely eaten by something before it died, and that something was lions, which according to standard YEC/JW teaching did not eat meat before the Flood, and certainly would not and could not kill and devour a bison during such a cataclysmic event as Noah's Flood. That the bison was killed by predators is shown by the fact that the carcass bore all the usual marks of predation by large cats, such as puncture wounds in the bison's snout. It is known that lions ate the bison because one lion broke off a piece of molar, which remained stuck in the frozen flesh until it was found by the scientists. This one carcass alone destroys all of JW claims about "frozen animals in the Arctic" and pretty much all YEC claims about similar things.

For references and more detailed descriptions of the above, see my writeup "The Flood" at this URL:
http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/index2.htm

: I asked the website www.bibleanswers.com a question on this and have posted the replys below. I would appreciate you having a look at the links especially the audio links and posting your replys on what you agree and disagree with.

Ok. I'll strip out a lot of stuff and comment only on what I'm able to at this time.

AlanF

>>>>>>>>>>>>

----- Original Message -----

> From: uncle_onion
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 6:38 PM
............................................
--
> ----------
>
>BA: Thanks for your question, Uncle onion
>
> Carbon 14 dating is unreliable, particularly after about 3000 years. The
> old dates for Neanderthal generally come from this method.

A typical YEC misrepresentation. The dates come not only from C14 dating, but from a variety of other methods that are usually pretty consistent with C14 dating. They don't mention that.

> Neanderthals
> were among first people that migrated from Babel and settled in Europe
while
> life spans were still great after the Genesis Flood (Genesis 10).

Pure YEC speculation.

> > Exciting book "Buried Alive" detailing this written by Dr. Jack Cuozzo,
an
> orthodontist. He showed the teeth/jaw reconstructions were WRONG -
> artificially repositioned forward out-of-socket to look more apelike.

I have this book. You can order it from the ICR and form your own opinion. Cuozzo's writing, to be perfectly frank, borders on infantile. He fails to deal with a huge amount of information in the scientific literature and focuses mainly on one thing -- his story of his inability to examine most of the Neanderthal fossils he wanted to. The very few he was able to examine over a long period of time supposedly support his theories -- of course! But his claims contradict those of many solid scientists. Frankly, given the gross dishonesty I've personally witnessed by YECS and JWs, I wouldn't trust their judgment about anything that contradicted their beliefs, whether it be YECism or JWism.

> The
> distinctive appearance of Neanderthal skulls is also due to their great
ages
> (HUNDREDS of years).

Pure speculation based on the assumption that their overall notion of "flood geology" is correct.

> Skull growing and aging computer study by Cuozzo
> predicts if we lived hundreds of years today, our skulls would resemble
the
> Neanderthals.

Would you trust computer modeling done by a YEC orthodontist? You really have to read the book to get an idea of how infantile this guy is.

http://www.icr.org/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=001&Product_Code
> =BBUAL1
> http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/j_cuozzo.asp
>
> http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4140.asp
> 2 part Real-Audio interview with Dr. Cuozzo "Truths That Transform" host
> D.James Kennedy
> This is really worth listening to (each 26 min)

I listened to about 15 minutes of the latter. It says pretty much what the book does. Cuozzo's basic notion is that Neandertal skulls are really the skulls of regular modern humans that lived to ages of many hundreds of years, and that the unusual skull features are the result of "normal" aging processes that result in the lengthening of the face and jaw, and a gradual transformation of very old people towards the Neantertal norm. This notion is easily debunked: How many old people do you see today who have distinctly Neandertalish features? Not many. End of story. The Neandertals were a distinct race, as has been recently proved by DNA testing.

> Cave men including Neanderthals resulted from the scattering of
civilization
> at the tower of Babel, almost 2000 years after Adam and Eve.

Pure speculation.

> Genesis 11
> gives the story and Genesis 10 shows who went where. Genetic isolation
> resulted in rapid developemnt of different races.

Nonsense. There are many extant and recent examples of very isolated humans, such as tribes way back in the forests of the Amazon and New Guinea. They're far closer to the modern norm than Neandertals are. If Neandertals evolved so rapidly, why are these more modern humans, who have been largely isolated for much longer than Cuozzo's supposed Neandertals were, so much closer to the average?

> The cave men were simply
> those who found caves as homes. These were good places to live during the
> ice age which followed the Flood by 500-700 years or so.

A simpleminded 'explanation' that ignores the realities of hundreds of caves. In many caves, paleontologists have dug down and found layer after layer after layer of accumulated "stuff" that cannot possibly have been accumulated in a few hundred years. For specifics you have to look at the scientific literature.

> There has even been a Neanderthal skeleton found in a Europen tomb dressed
> in a "coat of mail".

Sounds to me like those supposed "mantracks" of Paluxy, Texas.

> "Neanderthal Skulls and Longevity" by Dave & Mary Jo Nutting
> Abstract - Neanderthals are characterized by massive features, heavy brow
> ridges, and somewhat larger skulls than is common in mankind today.
> Consequently, many evolutionists believe they were primitive men with
> ape-like characteristics. However, other evolutionists and most
> creationists see evidence that these people suffered from rickets and
> arthritis. They say they were entirely human and would go unnoticed if
> dressed in modern clothing. .....

A lot of this is outdated information that even appeared in JW literature in the 1960s. Certainly some Neandertals suffered from those diseases. How do these people think the information got into the scientific literature? Scientists put it there. Besides, such diseases don't affect the basic shape of the skull. The Neandertal skull, as well as the rest of the skeleton, has many distinct features that are rarely found in modern humans.

.............................................................
-----Original Message-----
>From: uncle_onion
>Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 5:10 AM
>UO: Dear Tom
>....
>1. You said C14 dating is unrelaible.On whose evidence are you quoting? I
>have read a lot about this and can find no evidence of this?<

>BA: Bottom line answer - The assumptions of these dating methods are flawed!

Note that the guy is quoting other YECs -- not a good sign.

>References:
>See Chapter 4 of the Resived & Expanded Answers Book for radioisotope
>dating - The 20 most-asked questions about Creation, Evolution, and the Book
>of Genesis, Answered!

By all means, get this book and check it out for yourself.

>Also see The Young Earth

I have this piece of junk too. It's just another compilation of nonsense that was long ago debunked.

>p5-56 Known dates of lava flows don't give correct age.
>Sunset crater eruption of 1065 AD (tree-rings) dated 200K+ by K-Ar
>("excess Ar")
>. . .

This is another standard YEC straw man -- applying a method known to be inaccurate for young dates to young material and then saying, "See! The dates are wrong!" No surprise -- scientists know that K-Ar dating is no good for dates under a million years or so, and don't use it for them. It's like using a clock that has only an hour hand to time 100-yard dashes. It isn't the clock that's wrong -- it's the misuse of it. Since scientists don't do this, it's pretty obvious that the only reason YECs do is to try to discredit the method.

In practice, when dates under a couple of million years are found by K-Ar methods, other methods are applied in order to check. A lot of times the dates don't check out and so some dates are shelved or thrown out.

The point here is that geologists and paleontologists are far from the bumbling idiots portrayed by YECs. You have to read a good deal of solid scientific literature to see this.

>An intensive study on Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth by a team of 6
>Creationists was begun about 3 years ago. It is termed RATE. The RATE
>group have just published a 667 page book describing in detail the tough
>questions, evidences to be studied and results to date.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just bought this book, but haven't read it yet. However, I did read one of the "technical monographs" that came from the same ICR folks. In some 75 pages, it contains about 5 pages of actual relevant content, most of which is just a long-winded exposition on a simple high-school math formula along with a completely unsupported claim that the formula applies to the time period "after Noah's Flood". This is one of the best examples of ICR nonsense yet to appear.

As for the RATE book, I've kept up with ICR "findings" over the years, including the much-heralded appearance of the RATE book as published in the ICR's pamphlets "Impact" and "Acts and Facts". If the early material is any indication, the RATE book will prove to contain much ado about nothing, and be a sort of contentless agenda for "what might prove to be" but will never pan out. Again, order this stuff yourself and delve into it -- it's the best way to see how dopey these people can be.

For a solid look at modern dating methods, look at Brent Dalrymple's The Age of the Earth.

>5p63 Radio halos p5-62-64 [data on coalified wood from Gentry's book]
>Alpha particle decay damages the crystal structure producing rings.
>U halos in coalified wood give extremely high U/Pb ratios & dates under 1 MY
>Jurassic - Colorado, Utah, New Mexico

Robert Gentry is a charlatan if I ever saw one. He's a 7th-Day Adventist who managed to get a Ph.D. in physics, but mainly to try to learn enough to support his YEC religious beliefs. His writings have been thoroughly debunked by good physicists, but the debunkings are ignored by the YEC community. Gentry's opinions have been surreptitiously used even by the WTS.

......................................................................
UO:Dear Tom
Thank you for your reply.Let me tell you where I am coming from.<

>I have been a Jehovahs witness for 27 years and am now doing something that
>I should have done a long time ago and reexamine my beliefs.<
. . .

By this time you should be able to see the pattern: Quote creationist "scientists" as if they were mainstream scientists in an attempt to fool the ignorant believers. Forget that the views of creationist "scientists" are entirely determined by their religious beliefs. And on and on.

>BA:Creationists believe there was only ONE ice age which occurred after the
Genesis Flood and as an aftermath of it.

This is fairly new in YEC circles. Until the early 1990s they simply denied that ice ages existed at all. But by then so much evidence had appeared, largely in the form of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, that even the ICR couldn't deny it anymore. So they came up with their own explanation of "the ice ages". Again, to get a good idea of the nonsensical, "dog ate my homework" type of explanations offered in ICR material, you have to get hold of this material for yourself:

>IMPACT No. 168 The Ice Age And The Genesis Flood by Michael J. Oard, M.S.
>An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood

I know this is far from comprehensive, Uncle, but I'll try to help out further if I can. Again, to really get to know what's going on, you have no choice but to get hold of lots of technical material. There's no substitute for understanding the nitty gritty details by dint of your own hard research. Don't take anyone's mere word for anything.

AlanF