"god" wants me, needs me, shows me....

[pattygreen 5]

All I'm saying is : If God could create Adam and Eve 6000 years ago to live on this earth and to be our "first parents", why isn't it possible that he created other different beings 'made in his image' before them. This article tells of these "human neandrethals" as having a unique and differnt DNA than humans today, and that they became wiped out all at once like the dinosaurs were. A potter makes something on His platform out of His clay and then destroys it and starts over with something new all the time.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Accuracy of Fossils and Dating Methods

Michael Benton

An ActionBioscience.org original article

Fossil dating is accurate since the method follows strict scientific guidelines:

• the age of rocks around a fossil can be considered
  
• mathematical calculations are used
  
• the state of decay, carbon-14, and isotopes figure in calculations
  
• tree of life relationships often help sort the dates
  

January 2001

Fossils provide a record of the history of life.

Engraving from William Smith’s 1815 monograph on identifying strata based on fossils. Smith (1759-1839) is known as the Father of English Geology. Source: Oxford Library.

Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data.

The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them:

Millions of fossils have been discovered.

• They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous.
  

Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age.

• Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood.
  

Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.

• The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity.
  

Fossils occur in sequences

Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France.

Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800.

• Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order.
  

Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils.

• Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail.
  
• From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on.
  
• All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time.
  

Accuracy of the fossils

Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs.

Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites.

Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils.

Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees.

• Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other.
  
• Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters.
  
• Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy.
  
• The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms.
  

Accuracy of dating

Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay:

Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements.

• Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates.
  
• Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element.
  
• By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated.
  

Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating.

Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating:

• The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years.
  
• Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age.
  

Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.

The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other.

There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology.

Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so.

Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating.

Conclusion

The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

It has been proven scientifically that the human remains found that you speak of do NOT have the same kind of Human DNA that humans have today. They are a different species altogether. Is it possible that at one time God created other beings to live on this earth before Adam and Eve? I believe it is. He created Dinosaurs at one time to roam this earth and then he wiped them all out in a day, why not other beings? All I know is that The earth and the Heavens were created in the beginning (whenever that was) just as God says in his word. Adam and Eve were created approx. 6000 years ago. What was on this earth before them, I do not know. (except for what science has uncovered. Dinosaurs, etc.) Also carbon dating is only accurate for up to a few thousand years. Read this article about it.

Oldest Human DNA found in Australia

Australian scientists have found the oldest human DNA and these findings challenge the theory that the human originated from Africa alone.

Researchers analysed the DNA taken from Lake Mungo in New South Wales. This research has been done at Australian National University. The dating of fossils in May 1999 put the age between 56,000 and 68,000 years. Dr. Alan Thorne of this university states that Mungo man’s DNA do not have any links with fossil remains of Africa or other parts of the world.

Human DNA. 56,000 - 68,000 years ago. Of course I'm sure you'll find some science-denying religious website to dispute this but those of us who believe in science stand by it. Like me.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[MsMackieLee 0]

I think it's an insult to my intelligence when non-believes say they KNOW there is no god, as if believers are delusional.

Umm, you talk to alternate lifeforms that refuse to manifest themselves in front of anyone but you. I'd compare that to "hearing voices" and conclude that you are in fact...delusional!

Santa is a fictional charachter that adults made up for their children. When they reach school age, it is figured out that it is fictional fun. God, on the other hand, is very, very real and adults from all over the world, 88% of the people for that matter, (America 95%), believe in Him. You are a minority in this world. I find it facinating that such a huge percentage of people in the world believe in God, yet those who don't, feel that they are the ones with the wisdom, and the rest of us living here are dilusional. How is it that sooooo many of us are duped and you're not??

Because the rest of you refuse to make things happen for yourselves and instead rely on a fictional characted to make all YOUR wishes come true? God youre fucking pathetic....you alone make me vomit and swallow.

When death comes, God rejoices.

Im sure this is exactly what you were thinking the last time you tried it. Sorry but ya...you failed at that too.

God is a gentleman. He will not force his way upon anyone of his creation.

He wont huh? But "he" thinks its ok to convince "his" followers to do it for him? "Speaking the words of the lord" again, your utterly pathetic to believe in a "god" who would place such chores upon you.

God is real, because if they did, then they would have to be responsible to Him. And they don't want to be.

Responsible "TO" him? him? So why'd you get your surgery? You werent good enough then, and you arent now either. Kill yourself! Please?

Obama was not the choice of Christians. But he was the choice of the people. God did not come to vote. He gave free will to people and they went down to the polls and voted. And now look what we are stuck with.

Ya...even though we thought people like you would die, or like kill themselves...youre still here.

[pattygreen 5]

He wont huh? But "he" thinks its ok to convince "his" followers to do it for him? "Speaking the words of the lord" again, your utterly pathetic to believe in a "god" who would place such chores upon you.[end quote]

God doesn't force me to talk about Him to others. I love Him so much that I just can't help talking about Him.

BTW, what's "pathetic" is that you feel the need to put down, criticize and name call those who DO believe in Him. That's pathetic!

[123crod 170]

Msmackielee: God loves you whether you love Him or not? Your choice to choose Him or not. You don't believe so? Nobody is forcing you.

But you are one of the rudest posters I have seen on the boards in over a year. Don't want to read this stuff don't make a thread about stuff you do not believe in. Call us all whatever you want but you can't change a Christian's mind once the have felt the love of God. Good luck!