Fossill 4 million yr old of an ancestor of man found http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-01-20-voa37.cfm

So, given that very old fossilised evidence exists of pre-modern man exists. What does this mean for the Garden of Eden?

If man created the world in 7 days, including man - did he create a monkey version of man - ready to evolve? Or is

1) The creation story is rubbish
2) The creation story a parable not to be taken literally
3) The monkey men were something else now extinct

or

4) As I have stated before...God's time is different than ours.

or

5) God created this Earth with the presence of age, just like he did man.

convenient - where does it say that in the bible?

Originally posted by DrewM
If man created the world in 7 days, including man - did he create a monkey version of man - ready to evolve?

<Smack> Now Drew being a lapsed Christian was the use of man for God a Freudian slip? ~smiling~

Could be !

It's actually closer to my views that way.

oops forgot to answer your question... I pick #2. creation story is a parable

I pick 2 & 3.

Originally posted by Dan Fussell
I pick 2 & 3.

darn ya got me on that one...forgot about the split thingie.... It has to be 2 and 3!

Originally posted by DrewM
[B]Fossill 4 million yr old of an ancestor of man found http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-01-20-voa37.cfm

So, given that very old fossilised evidence exists of pre-modern man exists. What does this mean for the Garden of Eden?



So Drew, how does anyone actually prove that a how old a fossil is? Where is true legit evidence about the age of a fossil? I heard people say that the earth is a few billion years old, but where would any proof to that come from?

Originally posted by the J Man
So Drew, how does anyone actually prove that a how old a fossil is? Where is true legit evidence about the age of a fossil? I heard people say that the earth is a few billion years old, but where would any proof to that come from?
Radioactive dating. Carbon-14 works for the short-term, and a couple others work longer-term.

Proving the Earth is billions of years old. This is one of those things that can be disputed with an analogy. Imagine a butterfly sitting on a branch of a massive oak tree that is three or four hundred years old. Now with a life span of only a few weeks as a catapillar and a few days as an adult butterfly, that butterfly could very easily imagine that the butterfly god made the tree and that no tree could grow to such a size seeing as how the Earth is only a few years old.

People don't live long enough to see the changes in the Earth or to comprehend just how long it has been around.

Carbon 14 has a half life of 5700 years and can be used to accurately date something upto around 60,000 years only.

Other radioative isotopes naturally found in the body can be used to date organic objects at much greater timespans. Potassium 40 has a half life of 1.3 billion years - so can be used to date accurately practically anything that has ever lived on this planet.

There is no question that life has been on this planet for millions of years.

How do the dinosaurs fit into the creation story? They were around for about 120 million years - far far longer than man has been here. Wiped out by climate change due to an asteroid impact.

Were dinosaurs God's first project but after 120 million years of trying to get them to hold a conversation he pulled the plug?

Originally posted by Darth Be'lal
People don't live long enough to see the changes in the Earth or to comprehend just how long it has been around.

Sorry I have to disagree with this statement. In my life I have seen many changes happen on this planet mountains have moved, floods have taken over, and trees have grown from nothing to very tall. I have heard stories from my parents{grandparents} that prove to me the the world keeps on changing even when I'll be gone. We have documents that show things as being different then they are now. So maybe a butterfly doesn't understand but as for us humans we would be stupid to think things end when we do.

Almost forgot;

#2

I also believe in evolution, maybe there were many different types of monkey men. Some evolved into the humans of today Asian, black, white, etc..... Some didn't survive otherwise we may have even more types of races.

I doubt any of us will know in our time what really happened, but one never knows.

Hold on, before we go on any further, everyone knows how a
half-life works right? Because if not then things might get very....redundant.

Originally posted by Evil Homer
Hold on, before we go on any further, everyone knows how a
half-life works right? Because if not then things might get very....redundant.

No how does it work?

Here is how half life works.

Certain atoms are unstable - all atoms above lead are unstable and certain isotopes of other atoms are unstable. By unstable - this means they are radioactive - they break down until they reach a stable state.

For example - Carbon is normally molecular weight 12. Carbon 14 is heavy carbon - it is unstable and will break down back to Carbon 12 over time.

Half life is the time it takes for half the quantity to break down to a stable state.

So, 1lb of Carbon14 will in 6000 years have 1/2lb carbon12 and 1/2lb carbon 14 left. Then 6000 years later - there will be 1/4lb of carbon14 and 3/4 lb of Carbon 12

6000 years is the half life of carbon. Carbon dating simply looks at the amount of Carbon14 in a sample to be tested. The amount of naturally occuring carbon14 is constant today as it was a million years ago in a living object. Once the objecy dies it's amount of C14 is fixed and decays over time. By looking at the ratio of C14 to C12 in the sample it can be dated very accurately.

Same deal with Potassium 40 - but the half life is over a billion years - so you can date anything that was once alive with it.

Originally posted by DrewM
Here is how half life works.

Certain atoms are unstable - all atoms above lead are unstable and certain isotopes of other atoms are unstable. By unstable - this means they are radioactive - they break down until they reach a stable state.

For example - Carbon is normally molecular weight 12. Carbon 14 is heavy carbon - it is unstable and will break down back to Carbon 12 over time.

Half life is the time it takes for half the quantity to break down to a stable state.

So, 1lb of Carbon14 will in 6000 years have 1/2lb carbon12 and 1/2lb carbon 14 left. Then 6000 years later - there will be 1/4lb of carbon14 and 3/4 lb of Carbon 12

6000 years is the half life of carbon. Carbon dating simply looks at the amount of Carbon14 in a sample to be tested. The amount of naturally occuring carbon14 is constant today as it was a million years ago in a living object. Once the objecy dies it's amount of C14 is fixed and decays over time. By looking at the ratio of C14 to C12 in the sample it can be dated very accurately.

Same deal with Potassium 40 - but the half life is over a billion years - so you can date anything that was once alive with it.
Good description. You forgot to say what it's called though. ;) The whole process of determing the amount of x in a fossil (x being C-14, K-40, etc.) is called "radiometric dating".

God bless 9th grade science. (an interesting statement no?)

Originally posted by BorgHunter
Good description. You forgot to say what it's called though. ;) The whole process of determing the amount of x in a fossil (x being C-14, K-40, etc.) is called "radiometric dating".

I left out that crucial detail on purpose for you to mention.

Originally posted by DrewM
I left out that crucial detail on purpose for you to mention.
Well we can't have people going around talking about how they're going to half life these fossils, now can we?

Originally posted by Darth Be'lal
Proving the Earth is billions of years old. This is one of those things that can be disputed with an analogy. Imagine a butterfly .........

What you can NOT dispute, however, is the scientific process of radiometric dating.

Sadly, i doubt if you really understand that you have NOT disputed anything with regards to the dating of fossils and the age of the planet.

Originally posted by Darth Be'lal
People don't live long enough to see the changes in the Earth or to comprehend just how long it has been around.

At least I now have a much better grasp on WHY you hold some of the political positions that you hold.

Lets not bring politics into religion and spoil everything.

This shouldnt be in either, its rightful place is within the science section

Its all bullshit anyway, Who cares, We once thought the world was flat, We thought we have proof. We were wrong and i am sure in years to come a lot of other things we thought will be wrong too.

Such as Physics, Maths.

My mate from uni who is in his third year uni degree doing Pure Maths and Physics told me that every new term they are pretty much told to forget everything they learned from the previous term because the stuff contradicts the old stuff.

That would begin to grate after a while

To the two brits.
A) The flat earth was a religious view. A Greek guy(forget his name) in a couple thousand BC proved that the earth was round and was very very close in his prediction of it's circumfrence. How he did it was he had an aprentice go down into africa and measure the sun and shadows at a certain time, and using that measurement and his was capable of determining that not only was the earth curved, but how much it did curve and based off of the distance between the two got the circumfrence. *takes a deep breath*

2) There is no math that "worked" a hundred, or a couple thousand years ago that doesn't "work" now. Math does not have any problems regarding improper readings based off of early technology. Pi has always been the circumfrence over the diameter. 1+1 has always been two. The square root of 4 has always been 2. On and on into even more complicated math. They were never wrong. Physics on the other hand can change. Theoretical physics is based off of math, so that part is never wrong, but when you have to interpret readings, that's where things go screwy. Newton's math was not wrong. It still works, and always will. His perception of why it worked was wrong. All modern theories regarding physics are based entirely off of a string of numbers they got from an instrument. It does not stand on it's own, and may fall(if you try and get more precise you could have errors). But it's predictions, they aren't wrong. The theory is not wrong. We haven't completely scrapped theories that have worked for many years. Nope, we've never been wrong. The scientific community doesn't listen to crackpots. The government may, religious organizations may. They have lower standards. Therefore you learning something wrong is not the fault of the scientific community.

Actually Blib, it was an egyptian guy, but close enough.

The beautiful thing about science and math is that it is open to change, many things are only theorems and postulates, very few laws. Oh btw, math is crazy, did you know that 2.99 repeating perfectly equals 3? All you do is the normal way of computing repeating decimals and you find out that 2.99 rep. and 3 are equivalent.

Originally posted by Evil Homer
did you know that 2.99 repeating perfectly equals 3? All you do is the normal way of computing repeating decimals and you find out that 2.99 rep. and 3 are equivalent.
Untrue. The limit as n approaches infinity where n equals the number of 9's after the decimal point equals 3. 2.bar9 DOES NOT EQUAL 3. It approaches 3, but never touches it. Asymptotic.

ah good point, but mine was that i can find that a statement of 2.99 repeating = 3 to be true, and how insane logic is.

I'd like to see your proof on that one...

Bah, i hate doing proofs. You're probably right, but im just sayin what i remember from that class, which isnt much. Although, i do remember that it was a tuesday...i think.

I'm in AP Calc. I know plenty about math and such. More even than Blib! ;)

wow, im in algebra 2, and barely hanging on.

Wow Borg, do you place in Mu Alpha Theta competition at the state level? Oh wait...that is usually near the end of the school year isn't it? I remember competing for my HS like 5 years ago. The intense nerdy atmosphere is almost unbearable. Maybe not as bad as Star Trek convention but...you know what I mean. ;)

Originally posted by Dio Seijuro
Wow Borg, do you place in Mu Alpha Theta competition at the state level? Oh wait...that is usually near the end of the school year isn't it? I remember competing for my HS like 5 years ago. The intense nerdy atmosphere is almost unbearable. Maybe not as bad as Star Trek convention but...you know what I mean. ;)
I was in Mu Alpha Theta in middle school. Never did interest me enough to join again in HS.

I'm in AP Calc. I know plenty about math and such. More even than Blib!
Ah, but I understand class inheritance right!
I dropped out of that advanced thingy(MGSSSSSSS or some shit like that) in 7th, bah homework, you don't need it. CURSE THE 20 PERCENTAGE OF YOUR GRADE!

Bah, i hate doing proofs. You're probably right, but im just sayin what i remember from that class, which isnt much. Although, i do remember that it was a tuesday...i think.
You got a "working definition". It's "wrong", but for your level of knowledge and all of the tools you can possibly use, it's true. Personally I think most of them are stupid, "oh, just round up". I really hate that, if the number you calculate out is 2.123292928398393093028293939, you use 2.123292928398393093028293939. Unless it's derived from a imprecise measurement, but that's physic's problem, not math's.

Anyways, no I'm sure it was a Greek dude. Woah, multiple Greek dudes. Parmenides used curved shadows from an eclipse. Eratosthenes of Alexandria(Alexandria was not Egyptian city, just in Egypt) calculated the circumference.

We stopped rounding a while ago. We use only exact measurments unless it comes out to something nice looking.

And Blib, what you just said about my knowlege being wrong, but with the available tools being true...it perfectly proves how nice and flexible math and science can be. We use the tools we have and create the most plausible explanation, as we progress, we discover that these explanations might be wrong and need revising.