The Creationist Myth - 500,000-Year-Old Stone Tools, Butchered Elephant Bones Found in Israel

a reply to: nenothtu

Not all christians are creationists........So you don't need to ride your high horse around these parts.

a reply to: nenothtu

Thanks for your insightful, eye opening contribution.

Leave it to ATS to take a scientific discovery and just use it as ammunition against Christians, as if it has no real, intrinsic value.

It wasn't "ATS", it was me. Stop lumping the rest of them into it. I'm sorry you aren't willing to see the value of this amazing archeological discovery through your frustrations.

It would be amusing, if it wasn't so sad, how far some folks will go to get a dig in against Christians, using scientific discovery as a weapon against them rather than recognizing it's real value.

I didn't go very far or try that hard because it's easy to point out the how wrong young earth creationists think. It wasn't a dig on Christians, it was a dig on the creation belief that man has only been on this earth for 6000 years. Your making a mountain out of a molehill and playing victim.

using scientific discovery as a weapon against them rather than recognizing it's real value.

It's not a weapon, it's evidence to support a counter argument. I called people silly, loony and absent minded, hardly the stuff of nightmares. Some Christians are loons, get over it.

Gives a whole new interpretation to the notion that science is a tool for understanding - now it has been demoted as just a tool of attack, to hell with the understanding.

Put that forked tongue back in your mouth and point out where in my OP I was wrong and we could have a proper exchange of ideas.

a reply to: nenothtu

Sigh.

Leave it to ATS to take a scientific discovery and just use it as ammunition against Christians, as if it has no real, intrinsic value. It would be amusing, if it wasn't so sad, how far some folks will go to get a dig in against Christians, using scientific discovery as a weapon against them rather than recognizing it's real value.

Gives a whole new interpretation to the notion that science is a tool for understanding - now it has been demoted as just a tool of attack, to hell with the understanding.

I think such can be expected to happen more and more as YEC's take positions of authority in government and influence or make policy based on their YEC interpretation. It seems to me there is an effort to show everyone just how illogical that belief and those people are. Maybe the voters know who they are putting in those positions, but it is likely that they don't.

This thread seems to be geared towards the YEC groups and not so much at the whole of religion.

Isaac Newton would be so proud...

That poor guy died a virgin and was quoted saying celibacy was his greatest achievement.

originally posted by: eisegesis
a reply to: nenothtu

Thanks for your insightful, eye opening contribution.

You're welcome.

It wasn't "ATS", it was me. Stop lumping the rest of them into it.

Sure - when you have your own vehicle to deliver it. Until such time, it is on ATS.

[

I'm sorry you aren't willing to see the value of this amazing archeological discovery through your frustrations.

I'm not the one slinging it around as a weapon against nutjobs. I see an entirely different value in it than you seem to see - a value that far exceeds it's use as a mere bludgeon.

I don't think I would call it "amazing", though - two flint tools and some elephant bones. That hardly compares with the spears found a few years ago by Harmut Thieme in Germany, in an ancient hunter's camp on the edge of what had been a lake when the spears were left there. Stone tools are nothing new or unique - nor were they anything new or unique 500,000 years ago. By 500,000 years ago, stone tools had already been around a long LONG time.

Your argument is not even good as a club against nutjobs.

I didn't go very far or try that hard because it's easy to point out the how wrong young earth creationists think. It wasn't a dig on Christians, it was a dig on the creation belief that man has only been on this earth for 6000 years. Your making a mountain out of a molehill and playing victim.

Victim of what? How am I a victim of anything? Your science club certainly missed me. I'm neither a "young earth creationist" nor even a Christian, and I actually know the history involved, and that 2 Acheulean tools from the middle of the Acheulean period are not really remarkable enough to make an assault on either of them with.

Have you ever even actually met one of those "6000 year old Earth" folks in person? I haven't - not recently, anyhow. I think they must be like bigfoot - folks keep claiming they see them, but nothing can really be confirmed in the matter...

Finally, if countering the bizarre beliefs of these strange boogey men is really that easy, why bother? Isn't that beneath an actual intellectual? Isn't it like taking candy from babies or shooting fish in barrels? Couldn't your time be spent more productively - maybe actually analyzing the find in it's historical context rather than trying to grab it by the short end to beat children with?

Really, though - if these people and their odd beliefs are really that important to you, by all means keep pursuing them. Who am I to separate you from your hobby, really? I just wanted to point out the ridiculousness of the assault, that's all. I'm perfectly happy to move on and leave you to it, though.

It's not a weapon, it's evidence to support a counter argument. I called people silly, loony and absent minded, hardly the stuff of nightmares. Some Christians are loons, get over it.

Ah, I see. We must not have been reading the same posts then. You can call folks names without bringing science into it at all.

What was this "counter argument" you were trying to support, anyhow? Why wouldn't you try to find some stronger evidence to support it - you know, something a bit more spectacular?

You really feel a need to "counter argue" against patent lunacy?

Put that forked tongue back in your mouth and point out where in my OP I was wrong and we could have a proper exchange of ideas.

Which forked tongue? What is it you believe makes it "forked" - or do you not understand that phrase and it's cultural underpinnings?

If you're thinking I posted to exchange ideas with you, either properly or improperly, you missed the point altogether. I just wanted to point out the utter ludicrousness of your argument. There's not an idea in it I deem worthy of exchange.

have a nice day!

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: borntowatch

You'll need to give me your calculation for the constant so that I can compare it to the known data. that's the only way to know if you're right.

I dont have a calculation for a constant or one for an inconstant.



The whole point is that its all an assumption, a best guess, a belief you are right.

No amount of words or links can prove you have anything more than a faith

originally posted by: borntowatch

I dont have a calculation for a constant or one for an inconstant.

Well I for one am shocked, I tell thee, SHOCKED!

originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: nenothtu

Sigh.

Leave it to ATS to take a scientific discovery and just use it as ammunition against Christians, as if it has no real, intrinsic value. It would be amusing, if it wasn't so sad, how far some folks will go to get a dig in against Christians, using scientific discovery as a weapon against them rather than recognizing it's real value.

Gives a whole new interpretation to the notion that science is a tool for understanding - now it has been demoted as just a tool of attack, to hell with the understanding.

I think such can be expected to happen more and more as YEC's take positions of authority in government and influence or make policy based on their YEC interpretation. It seems to me there is an effort to show everyone just how illogical that belief and those people are. Maybe the voters know who they are putting in those positions, but it is likely that they don't.

This thread seems to be geared towards the YEC groups and not so much at the whole of religion.

Grim, I like you - but more importantly, I can believe you. If you say these "YEC" exist out in the wild, then they must - but where in the devil are you running into these folks? I live in the deepest, darkest, scariest part of Appalachia, the place that defines "backwards", and there aren't any here. There WAS one, about 30 years ago or so, but he's either died or left. I've not seen him since I've been back, nor have I ran across any of these "YECs" here other than that one.

If us hillbillies are not so backwards, WHERE in the world are you guys running into these headcases? Especially in numbers that they would need to be "countered" with substandard evidence?

Isaac Newton would be so proud...

That poor guy died a virgin and was quoted saying celibacy was his greatest achievement.

Yeah - I hear there is a fine line between genius and insanity.

originally posted by: peter vlar

Independent measurements, using different and independent radiometric techniques, give consistent results (Dalrymple 2000; Lindsay 1999; Meert 2000). Such results cannot be explained either by chance or by a systematic error in decay rate assumptions.


2. Radiometric dates are consistent with several nonradiometric dating methods. For example:

• The Hawaiian archipelago was formed by the Pacific ocean plate moving over a hot spot at a slow but observable rate. Radiometric dates of the islands are consistent with the order and rate of their being positioned over the hot spot (Rubin 2001).


• Radiometric dating is consistent with Milankovitch cycles, which depend only on astronomical factors such as precession of the earth's tilt and orbital eccentricity (Hilgen et al. 1997).


• Radiometric dating is consistent with the luminescence dating method (Thompson n.d.; Thorne et al. 1999).


• Radiometric dating gives results consistent with relative dating methods such as "deeper is older" (Lindsay 2000).

www.tim-thompson.com...

www.asa3.org... 9

None of thats evidence, why not back up what you believe with thescience that they base this dating methods on

All you have done is say dating method a matches with dating method b and it cant be coincidence.

How about explaining why dating methods a and b can come up with the same time frame.

They still date rocks by fossils and fossils by rocks, circular reasoning and its called science“Retired Professor Captures a ‘Living Fossil’ on Video” (2006), Research in Review, June 13, [On-line], URL: www.rinr.fsu.edu...



You have offered no evidence, just some statements based probably on circular reasoning

a reply to: nenothtu

I think most are in the midwest I know Alabama has some my uncle being one aside from that I see them post on here fairly often.

For the most part I say live and let live, but they are in political positions what's more concerning to me has been the school board positions trying to and sometimes successfully influencing the curriculum being taught across the country wit YEC in mind.

If it wasn't for the positions of influence that can affect us all I don't think I would care the slightest about those beliefs, but that is just me others may have differing opinions.


As far as Newton he was a great man with what I consider some strange quirks.

a reply to: borntowatch

If it's an assumption, then you must have a basis for an "assumption". Science doesn't work on assumptions. It works on evidence. So let's have it.

Your post actually posed a good question - even though you probably didn't know it. If you want to know why, let me know.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: undo

Sorry, I refuse to call the belief that the earth isn't billions of years old anything but idiotic, because it is. There is more than enough definitive proof to say that is the case. Refusing to believe that humans are anything but hundreds of thousands of years old and arrived here through evolution is idiotic.

Denial of either of these two points requires denial of all sorts of valid evidence as well as denial of multiple topics across many different scientific disciplines. It is just willful ignorance at play.

what the hell! don't you read before you respond?

a reply to: Grimpachi

That poor guy died a virgin and was quoted saying celibacy was his greatest achievement.

in buddhist teachings, you can re-route your sexual energy into other disciplines. perhaps mr. newton discovered this. not to mention, it was quite an achievement

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: borntowatch

If it's an assumption, then you must have a basis for an "assumption". Science doesn't work on assumptions. It works on evidence. So let's have it.

Your post actually posed a good question - even though you probably didn't know it. If you want to know why, let me know.

some branches of science rely more on assumption than you might think. for example, once a dig site has been dated, any artifacts found in that dig that are visually out of place in the presumed timeline, are tossed aside or even thrown away, as contamination. that's one helluvalot of assumption

a reply to: undo

Please give me an example. Assumptions don't get published.

a reply to: borntowatch

You don't understand the underlying physics. The statements that Var made represent the results of hard evidence derived from experimentation. If you don't agree with the evidence, then you have to explain why.

originally posted by: nenothtu

Have you ever even actually met one of those "6000 year old Earth" folks in person? I haven't - not recently, anyhow. I think they must be like bigfoot - folks keep claiming they see them, but nothing can really be confirmed in the matter...

Never met this guy in person but I would hardly compare his existence with that of Bigfoot as far as being able to be verifiable.

Ken Ham

For a more personal account of a YEC I do believe there is one right here in this thread. I won't go so far as to name names because it seems every time I do directly point to a member I get in trouble for it. But figuring out who I'm talking about shouldn't be difficult if you just pay attention.

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: undo

Please give me an example. Assumptions don't get published.

an example: lets say they found a copper tool in a stone age dated dig - that's considered contamination. or a bronze tool in a copper age dig. etc. but we know today that people were using all manner of tools, of various types, at the same time in many cases. example- ancient egypt used copper tools, whereas other places didn't have kilns/forges/or even the knowledge of how to mine and forge metals, and as a result, used bone and stone and wood. granted, this has no bearing on REALLY ancient history until you start to consider any possible evidence that stone age or older homo sapiens (etc), might have been involved at some level, with higher civilizations that were entirely wiped off the face of the planet.

there's also the argument that high tech we've developed may not look even remotely similar to high tech another civ might have developed, particularly if it was eco-friendly technology, which theoretically would involve employing forces of nature in their natural state/insitu. an example might be knowing the crystalline properties of limestone or quartz, and how they interact at the physics/molecular level, magnetic lines of force and so on, could result in tech we wouldn't even recognize as tech. we'd just assume it was a bunch of stones, because they might not be highly machined or because they appear very natural/in the raw. the more advanced the civ, the more likely they would learn to use nature in its most natural forms, for fear of wiping themselves out with pollution and environmentally abusive technologies.

an example of an environmentally abusive tech would be cloning so many generations from the same parent, that the dna degraded and the species went extinct.

originally posted by: nenothtu

If us hillbillies are not so backwards, WHERE in the world are you guys running into these headcases? Especially in numbers that they would need to be "countered" with substandard evidence?

That's probably because YEC seem to be more of a New Age Christian Cult than the Old Age Christian Cult. No doubt your hillbilly brothers and sisters might also have some crazy superstitions and Religious theories but they are also usually much more traditional or conservative old school in their beliefs and haven't bothered to upgrade to the new version of insane Fundamentalism. Strict Literal Interpretations of the bible wasn't a very wide spread practice until recently. Historically most people had the understanding that Biblical stories were symbolic and/or metaphorical rather than literal.

a reply to: mOjOm

but what if they ARE literal, and we've just been taught to believe they meant something they didn't, and as a result, we think it must either be figurative/metaphorical/symbollic or complete fantasy? well, let me fine tune that: what if they are a mix of literal and figurative?

a reply to: undo

I'm really thinking hard science. I understand there is a lot of speculation and opinion. But hard science is repeatable and published with peer review.