LeadSlead#2
And as for "creastionists" believing it's about 6000 years old... I believe in Creation, but I don't know how old the earth is, and I don't believe people who say they do. while I could read on about how they eventually decided they think the earth is 5 billion years old, it will come down to, "this looks like this, that's 15X as old, looks like this, so mathematically, one that looks like this is X old. that is the only way one could come up with it, and I'm sure there is a mathematical way to come up with such a system, but that doesnt mean the person interpreting the system got it right, it doesnt mean that something couldnt happen to make things look different when they get so old, maybe its right, maybe its not.
It certainly won't contribute to the defense of creation or Evolution, so it really doesnt matter.
Oh but it does... the age of the Earth argument is central to the discussion for one simple reason. Creationists believe that the Earth is so young that the process of Evolution could not have occured... but by proving that the Earth is infact not young, and is many orders of magnitude older than Creationists claim, science has demonstrated beyond all (rational) doubt that the Earth is indeed old enough to support the theory of Evolution.
When you say that 'the person interpreting the system', you seem to be implying that one or two people have come to the conclusion that the Earth is old, and that everyone in science simply chooses to believe them (or not as the case me be...) This is infact not the case... the age of the Earth has been independently measured by innumerable sources and backed up by evidence at every stage in the process. Therefore, it is not merely one observation, or even an 'opinion' or a 'belief', but an established fact based on a solid consensus of evidence. Whether
we as individuals choose to believe it is irrelevant... the fact will remain that the Earth is ~4.5 billion years old, and not just a few millenia old as Creationists will believe.
leadslead#2
P.S. The reason many creationists say "you don't know the answer, so your wrong!" without realizing that not everybody (hardly anybody) know everything they'd need to know, for the argument, is probabley becuase they know all the answers for what they believe, whereas you don't.
I would rephrase that - they (the creationists) believe they know the answers, when infact they don't. Atleast if we (the scientists) don't know an answer, we will admit it - or atleast admit that there is insufficient evidence to justify a claim. The key point however, is that creationists, whether they are actually right or actually wrong about any given topic, they don't seem to have any qualms whatsoever about pulling figures out of thin air, with no evidential support, and then claiming it to be 'truth' simply because they
believe...
leadslead#2
Which brings me to this: for he who asks why we believe, without looking more into science, ask yourself, if you don't even know how or what to disprove creation with, with your science, why do you assume that correct? We know what are entire argument is, wether some may be wrong with part, is not the point, we know what we believe, on every crucial matter with this, whereas, many times I've seen, "I don't know eveything about science!". Well, if you don't know, why do you believe it so strongly?
On the contrary, it is easy to disprove creation theory with science. Creation theory postulates that 1) Man (as a species) was created by an intelligent designer, 2) the Earth is 6000 years old, and 3) the process of evolution is a myth, and therefore also that the Theory of Common Descent is a myth also.
1. There is no evidence of intelligent design anywhere. Therefore, as a scientific theory, it is a non-starter. The chief assertion of intelligent design theory, as proposed by Michael Behe (in his book, 'Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge To Evolution'), is that the biomolecular machinery found in nature is so complex that it is infact 'irreducibly complex' - an object that is irreducibly complex cannot function without all the constituent parts being intact and fully assembled. Behe argues that the eye is a perfect example of irreducible complexity - take one part of the eye away and it ceases to function. He also cites many more examples. But, unfortunately for Behe, his arguments have been demolished by Dawkins (in 'The Blind Watchmaker') and Shanks (in 'The God, The Devil and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory') who show clearly that nowhere in the human body is there any examples of so-called irreducible complexity.
2. Again, there is multiple evidence that this claim is plain wrong... see earlier posts in this thread - geological evidence proves that some rocks are billions of years old. Archeological and anthropological evidence proves that Mankind has existed in structured, even civilised societies for far longer than creationists think the world has even existed! Paleontological evidence clearly shows that rocks that formed millions of years ago once contained the bones of dead animals - i.e. fossils.
3. For me, the strongest evidence that Creation Theory is bunk, is the abundant evidence that supports the Theory of Common Descent. Genetic and biomolecular evidence shows (in fact proves) that species are related. There is no other plausible explanation for the genetic sequence similarities (and hence amino acid sequence in proteins) between different species than the theory of common descent.... look at
this paper here - this paper shows a sequence alignment of the amino acid sequences of the protein cytochrome C, taken from 39 different species. The sequences are, of course, not identical. However, the similarity (or homology) of the sequences proves beyond any reasonable doubt, that all these species at one stage or another, had a common ancestor - (for a fuller discussion about this, feel free to send me a PM or an MSN message)... Fig 1. on page 10885 shows the 'relatedness' of the sequences (the caption tells you which sequence belongs to which species) - and the Fig 2. on page 10886 shows the actual sequence alignment. The take home message from this example is that only by the process of heredity (and hence common descent) could 39 separate species contain as many incidences of sequence similarity as this.
Creation theory has no explanation for this or any similar (and massively abundant) observations from the realm of biochemistry. Hence given the choice between 'believing' in Creation Theory, or 'believing' in the Theory of Common Descent, for a rational minded person, the choice is clear.