• anonymous said on Sep 28, 2006....

  Motivation
  

• hotaka said on Sep 28, 2006....

  Though I support evolution over spontaneous creation, I agree that evolution is full of holes. I think Darwin was on to something when he noticed how similar species of birds had adapted to different niches in a restricted environment. I don't doubt that species will over time evolve certain traits that give them an advantage in their niche.
  
  However, when viewed over a long period, it is difficult to show a gradual transition in a single species. Partly this is due to the fact that our knowledge of the fossil record is incomplete. It's like we have a book with lots of missing pages. What actually becomes fossilized is a very small percentage of the number of animals and plants that lived and died in the past. And due to the destructive/creative activity of the earth, many fossils may never be found or have long since been destroyed. We have a puzzle with many pieces hidden and many more have disappeared.
  
  Another problem is that when fossils are found of a creature that resembles another species, the new species gets a new name altogether and is just put into the same family as the previously known species. What we see is a chain of similar creatures (or plants) through time but each known as an individual species, not as an evolving chain.
  
  One theory I read not long ago (actually more of an hypothesis) is that genes may suddenly undergo changes - small changes but signifigant ones none the less - that can actually initiate the branching off of a new species from the original. This, however, would require decades of compiling data to see if it is actually a workable theory.
  
  If anything can be said for evolution it is that, like all other branches of science, it grows and changes with the information available and the concepts we humans can apply to our observations. Since I was a child so much has been learned about the dinosaurs that what I knew back then hardly stands its ground today. But that is science. Always discarding old ideas in favour of better ones as new information comes to light. Evolution is not perfect. But neither is physics, astronomy, geology, and all other branches. Still, I think it's worth attempting to understand as much as possible. What we learn along the way can benefit us in the future perhaps.
  

• hotaka said on Sep 28, 2006....

  And you will always find scientists who disagree with the current running theory or some of its points. That is also part of science - to challenge theories with reasonable doubt.
  

• thenack said on Sep 29, 2006....

  Hotaka: thanks for the reply,
  
  What Darwin noticed was not evolution but natural sellection. There is a very distinct difference between the two definitions. NAtural sellection works on existing genetic information. Therefore, species can specialise according to environmental or other circumstances. This process can happen very fast (100's of years). Evolution is the process where species change into new species ie. elephans jumpo in the water, grow fins and become whales. The first person to notice natural sellection was in fact not Darwin, he interpreted and extrapolated the fact to come to evolution. In fact, a creationist, Edward Blyth, thought of the concept (natural selection) 25 years before Darwin’s Origin of Species was published.
  
  On the fossil record, if we don't have all the pages, why are we assuming we know what we will find? The facts do not show that evolution ocurred. In fact, recently a T-rex was found to contain hemoglobin in red blood cells. This is a ver loud pointer that the bones are in fact not milions and billions of years old. [url=://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i4/blood.asp]T-REX BLOOD[url/]
  
  I do not consider evolution a science, it does not improve humanity one bit, and no developement that has benefitted humanity, was dependant on evolution. It gives us nothing. I have previously supplied links to Sir Richard Dawking, the world famous evolutionist, admitting that evolution is a world view, a philosophy, in other words, a religion. If you want to hear it from the man you can follow those links.
  
  I used to be an evolutionist, and the more I read on the creation/evolution debate, the more I couldn't believe how silly evolution is. Take the time to look at both sides and you will be amased.
  
  Keep weel, TN
  

• hotaka said on Sep 29, 2006....

  Thanks for that, TN. Yes, of course it was natural selection that Darwin focused on and then jumped to evolution. Well, as you said.
  
  Sorry, I didn't mean so much that studying evolution would benefit us as the study of natural sciences altogether. Your point about evolution as being like a religion is interesting, though there is no worship involved. Maybe it is just as much a mythology as the various versions of Creation that humans have invented.
  
  The big question still is then where do all these species come from over time? I am fine to ascribe the appearance and disappearance of all these millions of creatures and plants to God. But what is the reason behind it all? It is like a very complex and long experiment. Why create mastadons and then wipe them out? What was wrong with the trilobites? Mass extinctions aside, many species die out naturally once they become obsolete.
  
  T-Rex may not be as old as we thought but he's still been dead for a long time. Bones don't petrify over a couple of thousand years. It's a slow process for minerals to seep into hollows where living tissue once existed and crystalize. And it still takes a very long time to turn a sea shell to stone and then lift the seabed up to the top of an inland mountain range 3,000 metres high.
  

• thenack said on Oct 03, 2006....

  Hotaka, The reason God created everything, what I believe, was and is to glorify Him and to share his Love. As to where all the species came from, this is not a big problem. Did you know that, using all the data we have and some pretty solid mathematics, less than 4000 years were needed to reach the current human population if you start with 8 people. Speciation takes place very quickly and polulation growth also. I can explain almost anything to you from a biblical perspective that will make as much or more sense tha evolution.
  
  Pertification can take place very very quickly. There are many examples of this where things of known age have been petrified. I reffer you to some pictures. But it should actually be logical. Many fossils show signs of skinn, scales feathers and soft tissue. If the pertification process took so long, these features would have been lost. Besides, as we have learnt from making diamonds in laborotories, many things can happen quickly under the right conditions. I strongly urge you to visite these links to see evidence of rapid petrification.
  
  http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v23/i1/flour.asp
  
  http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i4/wood.asp
  
  http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i3/stone_bears.asp
  
  http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/Young.asp
  

• thenack said on Oct 03, 2006....

  I just spotted the word polulation in my post, I meant population!
  

• hotaka said on Oct 03, 2006....

  Thanks TN. I appreciate what you are saying. I don't mean to suggest that you have bored me or sound unoriginal when I say that I have heard similar things many times before. What I see is that the Creationists are trying to change the views of... I will say scientists to cover evolution or life and the earth, though I recognize that many scientists work on the side of Creation. I also see that science is trying to say that Creation is just an outdated myth and ignore it. There's a kind of war of beliefs. I don't disrespect anyone for believing what they like if it makes sense to them. We all have to believe what makes sense to us.
  
  I looked into Creation(ism?) and tried to see how I could believe it. When I went to church and youth groups I heard from plenty of people about how evolution was wrong and how the earth could be only a few thousand years. Creation was just as the Bible said. But I didn't see it myself. When I looked at the two views (Creation vs. science) I just couldn't see an earth that was a few thousand years old. Perhaps twelve years of reading about geology, astronomy, dinosaurs, paleontology, and related topics made the scientific view too deeply ingrained to be pushed aside. Sure there are arguments and examples that say, "This never could have happened unless the time scale was much shorter." But how do we know? There are specific curcumstances where some remarkable things can happen. Just because we stumble across something that doesn't match what we think we know it doesn't mean our whole theory is disproven. It just means we have to rethink how things appear to work or find out why this appears to be anomalous.
  
  I am a landscape photographer and as such I travel to different places and study about the geologic history. There are things I see that make sense to me as having a history of millions of years. I cannot imagine these things happening in the short time many people would like me to believe. How do layers of rock in the middle of the Australian desert flake and weather to reveal ripples of sand from a beach that was there only a few thousand years ago? Did the Indian Ocean recede so quickly, leaving many layers of sand on top before rushing north? Maybe the sand is from a lake or river bank. The river now runs deep in a canyon below. Did it require only a few thousand years for the river to deposite all those layers above the ripples first and then begin cutting its deep gorge? How is it that a rock containing fossilized sea shells ends up below a mountain cliff some 200 kilometres from the sea in just a few thousand years? Why can we find evidence of glacial scouring on rocks in South Africa? Where there glaciars there so recently?
  
  I appreciate the links and I will take a look. I will not disregard these discoveries because they disagree with my area of knowledge. But Creation from a fundamentalist view does not work for me personally. I have no problem giving the glory to God for Creation from a scientific view. God has all the time He wants to develop things down here. And I appreciate the work he has done immensely. All that science works to uncover glorifies God even more, in my eyes, than the simple explanation given in the Bible. God is incredible beyond our ability to understand. Why should Creation be so simple as to fill only the first page in a book?
  

• hotaka said on Oct 03, 2006....

  Loved the petrified flour bags. Calcium carbonate (the little devil) can percipitate quickly and create hard rock. Reading the explanantion made me nod (in affirmation, not sleep). Flour, when mixed with water will harden and become hard as soon as the water has evaporated. I am not surprised that when calcium carbonate percipitates "filled the air gaps" they created these solid rocks.
  
  Petrification may occur quickly under the right circumstances, but that doesn't mean all petrified things are as young as those flour bags nor does it mean that pertrification occurs so rapidly all the time. I enjoyed reading that, however.
  
  Petrified wood. Again it was interesting to read and doesn't surprise me. I like this part:
  
  "At 300°C (572°F) and 3 kilobars (about 3,000 atmospheres) pressure only 25 hours was required to crystallize quartz, whereas at only 165°C (329°F) and 3 kilobars pressure the same degree of crystallization occurred in 170 hours (about seven days)."
  
  I can't remember when the last time it was that hot or the atmosphere that oppressive outside. But underground it could happen. It takes a lot of heat and pressure for limestone to become marble.
  
  While the stories about wood pertrifying quickly in various places was interesting and totally believable, I wonder how one explains a petrified leaf of a plant that doesn't grow in the area. On a fossil dig once, I found a fossil of a ginkgo leaf in an area where gingko trees have never been known to grow in human history. I found the fossil between slabs of shale I chipped from a cliff high above the valey below and below a volcanic formation that was created more recently. The geology of the area says that the cliff, high above the river valley, was once a lake bed. Uplifting from techtonic movement raised the sediments of the lake bed so high and climate change over the eons forced ginkgo trees to die off. They require a climate more like Japan and more humid areas of China. The area I found the fossil is too dry and cold for ginkgo trees.
  
  The petrified teddy bears reminded me instantly of a mineral waterfall in Canada's Yoho National Park. Leaves and sticks from trees are being coated by calcium carbonate deposites in the water. The process is quick. Part of the reason is that calcium carbonate cements very quickly and another reason is that the waterfall is delivering a hefty dose of the mineral continuously, except maybe in winter when it is frozen. Stalactites in caves take much longer to form because the volume of water is at a mere drip rate, not pouring down as a waterfall. I have also seen manganese mineral deposites form at a waterfall not far from Vancouver. They formed recently too as a mine in the mountain beyond had exposed the manganese to the elements. You can also find calcite percipitation forming "soda straws" and flowstone-like formations in structures with cracked concrete where water flows through, such as in tunnels. Some minerals dissolve and percipitate very quickly. Volcanic activity from the volcanoes of Yellowstone deposited ash over large parts of western North America and that has helped preserve so many plant and animal remains. It may have occured not long ago except that those plants and animals don't live anywhere anymore and no one has any written documantation of seeing some of those creatures alive.
  
  The last link has lots to read. I can't look at it all tonight. I notice the source appears to be the same and the purpose is to disprove currently accepted scientific theories. But that happens all the time even in the scientific community. The age of the earth's magnetic field caught my eye since I have read that the polarity of magnetic rocks deposited on the Atlantic Ocean floor have a kind of oscillation pattern, with one band pointing north and the next pointing south and the next pointing north and so on. This suggests that after so many (hundred thousand? million? I don't remember now) the earth's magnetism flips. Any rocks born in the mid-oceanic rift after the flip will have a polarity opposite the previously laid rocks.
  
  This has been interesting. Thanks for all this.
  God bless.
  

• hotaka said on Oct 03, 2006....

  I just happened to glance at the lost squadron story. again, totally believable. Off the top of my head I can't recall how far back this goes but in the last so many millions of years there have been several glacial periods. That means enough snow accumulation built up for continental ice sheets to advance south of the Canadian border and then retreat when the climate warmed, only to advance again once conditions permitted.
  
  I am writing something about the time required for a full-scale ice age to develope and we are not talking millions of years at all. We are talking a couple to a few ten thousands of years to return to the same conditions as 18,000 years ago. In millions of years many glacial periods can come and go.
  
  I am finding that those articles too often say something like, "But it shows how much the ‘millions-of-years’ ideas have permeated into the general public." The general public hasn't a clue anyway. After fifty years and with the right climate conditions, snow fall can quickly build enough to bury those planes. In 1975 the Franz Joseph glacier in New Zealand appeared to be shrinking around the bend in the valley from the look-out. Since then it has galloped forward (glaciers can move ahead by several tens of metres a year and sometimes faster) and then begun to shrink back. Snow accumulation is the key to the speed.
  

• thenack said on Oct 03, 2006....

  Hotaka, you are one of the most decent people I have come across yet. I respect your point of view and you as a person. I appreciate also that you have understood my point of view and what I am trying to say. As long as God gets the glory it is fine by me.
  
  At least you realise that much of what we understand is based on what we believe. I am not someone to believe something without thinking about it and I respect people who do this. Discoveries and facts do not speak for themselves, especially when historical-scineces are involved. They have to be interpreted to an extent.
  
  As long as we both keep searching for truth, some good has to come out of it, (-;
  
  I will try and write some more on the topic, maybe break things down a little. Please give your view, I will not be offended if you disagree. Much of these things have to be reasoned out before one can come to a conclusion, if ever you can.
  
  Keep well
  
  Thenack
  

• hotaka said on Oct 07, 2006....

  I had more thoughts on this after I got home but I thought I should give you a chance for a rebuttle. I don't know if I'll have the time and energy to keep up all these fascinating discussions, TN. But I just wanna say I am really glad to know you here. I appreciate our differences in opinion and support you in your beliefs. I wouldn't ask you to change a thing.
  

• thenack said on Oct 10, 2006....

  Hi Hotaka, sory for the delayed response, at least I got some fotos of the Drakensber (lit Dragons Mountains) up!
  
  I long wondered about geological evidances that things, some time back, had to be very different. Like you say, finding sea schells far from the sea, deep gorges and massive geological structures with significant erosion and shifting. Something definately happened. The short answer is this, it could either take a little water a lot of time, or a lot of water a little time. The Creationist explanation for all of these things is the great flood of Noah. The Bible says that not only did it rain 40days and 40 nights, it also says that the fountains of the great deep broke open. The immense geological and volcanic activity that must have accompanied this dramatic event explains many things we see today. In my opinion, much better than other theories. Why are there huge coal fields? All the planst were burried rapidly by a catastrophic event. Why are the animals buried instantly to create fossils? Same answer. How can something like the grand canyon be cut in a short time? You need a lot of water. Did you know that if the earth was flat, it would be entirely covered by 2km of water? So there was a lot of water once, it had to flow to the see, it took that route. The heated water coming from under the earths crust can explain the well preserved (rapidly) petrified fossils we see the world over.
  
  These conditions whould also have caused high humidity and the consequent cooling of the earth resulting in the only ICE age. Noahs flood was approximately 4500 years ago. It is no coincidence that this is roughly (200-400) years later that it seems most societies began writing. History before this time is not really documented. The oldest trees on eart are 4000 years old.
  
  So there are basically two views here, a little water with lots of time, or a lot of water with less time. It seems to me that the sighns of lots of water is to be seen accross the globe. (Ayers rock in Aus is a good example http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i2/uluru.asp)
  
  So we need to choose on of these theories to interpret what we see.
  
  Well, that my opinion (-;
  
  I put some pics on http://rainbow.qobble.com/ of my Kilimanjaro and Drakensberg trips.
  
  Keep Well
  
  Thenack
  

• hotaka said on Oct 11, 2006....

  Thanks for the link TN. I like the sunrise shots especially.
  
  Interesting info about the flood. I gotta say that while I was hiking on Monday and Tuesday (see my latest post) I was thinking a lot about our discussion. I haven't the time now but I am interested in reading more on those links. Gets me thinking.
  
  Man, you gotta come to Japan. There are some views here you'd really love!
  

• thenack said on Oct 11, 2006....

  I will some day, my company does a lot of work in the east so perhaps it will be sooner than later.
  
  Am pretty busy at the moment but will continue this, perhaps just a little slower (-;
  
  Cheers
  
  thenack
  

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