Peanut Gallery - AronRa/Enyart - Phylogeny

[DiscipleTube1]

By now you've probably all forgotten that this conversation ever happened, but I did get a reply back from the NPS, and they directed me to this website:
http://www.palaeo-electronica.org/2011_1/236/index.html

AIG made a rebuttal to this article. Would love to know what you think about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/03/18/feedback-senter-and-cole

 

[DepricatedZero]

maybe it's just a trick of the light but doesn't this image seem doctored to you?

At least from the angle there, it appears the body and legs are more defined, as if they went in and manipulated the image to support their case. I'm almost tempted to swing by there and take a first hand look. I work about 5 minutes away from the Creation Museum...

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

I'm almost tempted to swing by there and take a first hand look. I work about 5 minutes away from the Creation Museum...

Stop by the bank first, and ay your admission in 10 Pound British Notes.

 

[Inferno]

AIG made a rebuttal to this article. Would love to know what you think about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/03/18/feedback-senter-and-cole

Everything that's said after this bit:

Senter and Cole begin with a declaration of their absolute adherence to the religion of humanism with its underlying concepts of naturalism, geological evolution, and biological evolution.

... is just stupid and not worthy of my time. If someone makes such a huge fallacy in the opening lines of their rebuttal, I can't take them seriously and have to conclude that the rest of their article will be the same kind of nonsense.

Have they ever observed anything over the course of millions of years? No. Have they ever repeated a single experiment over millions of years? No. So it is not a scientific view, but a purely religious one.

This is the typical "you weren't there" argument, which has already been shown to be an idiotic position to hold. There are indeed experiments one can make to test the accuracy of the age of the earth. Whichever dating method one uses (dendrochronology, C14, K-Ar dating, etc.) one ALWAYS and CONSISTENTLY gets dates older than 6,000 years.

Since God declared it, and He is the ultimate authority on the subject, then it is true.

Admitting an a-priori bias, confirming that one can never be wrong no matter what evidence comes up. I stopped reading at that point and gave up on the article as being a badly done piece of propaganda.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

By now you've probably all forgotten that this conversation ever happened, but I did get a reply back from the NPS, and they directed me to this website:
http://www.palaeo-electronica.org/2011_1/236/index.html

AIG made a rebuttal to this article. Would love to know what you think about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/03/18/feedback-senter-and-cole

Very well:

This:

Senter and Cole begin with a declaration of their absolute adherence to the religion of humanism with its underlying concepts of naturalism, geological evolution, and biological evolution. In other words, they have pigeonholed themselves as biased researchers who come to the evidence, not in a neutral fashion (which no one can do), but with an agenda to push their opinions as fact.

Have they ever observed anything over the course of millions of years? No. Have they ever repeated a single experiment over millions of years? No. So it is not a scientific view, but a purely religious one.

Does not accurately describe this:

The findings of mainstream geology have firmly established that non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago when the Mesozoic Era gave way to the Cenozoic Era, and that Homo sapiens appeared less than one million years ago.

This is not a declaration of absolute adherence to the "religion of humanism." I cannot speak for the authors of this paper, but nothing I can find in their work indicates that they are humanists at all. The assumption seems to be that since they accept "naturalism, geological evolution, and biological evolution" they must be humanists, but this is a complete non-sequitur as the two are not logically linked in any way. One could accept evolution and be a nihilist, or a pantheist, or a Jew, or be a humanist and a Christian (I personally know humanist Christians.) Further, they don't even say that they accept what, "the findings of mainstream geology have firmly established," just that this is what mainstream geologists say. Shoehorning people into these positions is incredibly deceitful, purposely (at let us not pretend it was an accident) misrepresenting your opponent is repugnant.

If there is a god, and he really does care about the 9th Commandment, these creationists should be terrified.

What these authors really do is exactly what they said: establish the "findings of mainstream geology," which seems a entirely legitimate thing to do in a discussion of whether dinosaurs and man could have lived together.

So right off the bat we have established that the people at AiG have no morals. But they could still technically have a point, so let us continue...

The authors of the paper then say this:

Young-earth creationists, on the other hand, insist that humans, dinosaurs, and all other terrestrial animals were created on the same day about 6000 years ago (e.g., papers in Ham 2006, 2008).

To which the AiG people respond:

Actually the Bible declares that land animals and humans were created the same day. According to information provided in the biblical genealogies, the earth was created several thousand years ago, and is not billions of years old.3 This idea did not originate with YEC (young-earth creationists), but the YEC are consistent with the Bible on this issue and trust the eyewitness revelation of the Creator God.

Now I'm actually willing to admit that this may be true (that is to say that the Bibles declares a young earth, not the other bit which is demonstrably untrue), but you will of course note that the majority of Christians in this country don't seem to think that it does. Again I can't speak for the authors of this paper, but it seems to me that they are being nice to Christianity when they focus in on the minority of Christians who proclaim a young earth, instead of accusing the religion as a whole.

However, for the life of me, I can't seem to figure out what this has to do with rebutting the paper.

They go on to say:

In contrast, the fallible, sinful, imperfect ideas and opinions of people regarding the past are not as accurate. So note again that the debate is a religious one: shall we interpret evidence in light of what God says or what man says (Christianity versus humanism)?

The first part is an ad hominem and an assertion without any evidence, and can be dismissed as such. The second part is an argument from authority, and an assertion without evidence, and a strawman. That is to say, that in this short amount of time, AiG has managed to produce 5 fallacies without providing any actual evidence, or rebutting anything.

It's also circular reasoning, "the Bible can be trusted because it is the word of god. We know the Bible is the word of god because the Bible says it is the word of god, and the bible can be trusted."

But they're not done yet:

They have therefore long sought evidence

False. All the evidence is God's, according to Psalm 24:1. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein." It is not a matter of trying to find evidence. The evidence is everywhere. The issue is the interpretation of the evidence. When starting with God's Word, the evidence makes sense.

Seriously? I'm not even sure how to respond to this other that to point and laugh. So creationists don't seek evidence then, good to know; I'll have to remember that the next time I'm talking to a creation "scientist," because that's all real scientists ever do.

And then they top it all off by declaring an a priori bias, which means that at this point these people at AiG are not only despicable human beings, but also thoroughly incapable of admitting if they're wrong. Not a pleasant combination of attributes, but we have to be fair, even refuse such as them could still - at least in theory - make a valid critique, so let's keep going.

for the coexistence of humans with dinosaurs

The Bible already declared man and land animals were living at the same time (Genesis 1:24-31). Since God declared it, and He is the ultimate authority on the subject, then it is true. Finding evidence that is properly interpreted should merely be a confirmation of this truth.

As I've already explained what is wrong with this I won't do it again. Just add these to your running tally of fallacies.

and other pre-Pleistocene organisms so as to cast doubt upon the mainstream geological timescale of millions of years.

The Pleistocene refers, not to a timescale, but to rock layers that were post-Flood. The indication of "pre-Pleistocene" assumes humanistic interpretations are absolute. By starting with the Bible, we can find out about the global Flood, which accounts for the bulk of the fossiliferous rock layers laid down about 4,350 years ago (since then, local catastrophes like volcanoes and smaller floods have occurred that accumulate some layers). Rock layers above that would be less in age (like the Pleistocene).

Those from Adam to Shem were living before rock layers that contain dinosaurs were even laid down!4 This occurred during Noah and Shem's lifetime. Furthermore, it is the Bible's timescale that casts doubts and in fact refutes the humanist's geological evolution.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to refute what the authors are saying... and again it is an empty assertion. You do actually have to prove that the Bible is authoritative before you can legitimately use it as an authority.

Several such pieces of "evidence" appeared in the twentieth century, only to be discredited upon scrutiny. Alleged human footprints in Mesozoic strata have been exposed as forgeries in some cases and identified as dinosaur tracks in others (Neufeld 1975; Kuban 1989). An alleged sandal print on a Cambrian trilobite has been identified as a weathering pattern (Stokes 1986). An alleged fossilized, Cretaceous human finger has been identified as the infilling of a burrow (Isaak 2007). Alleged Mesozoic sediment encrusting a hammer has been identified as a recent concretion (Isaak 2007). A human skeleton that allegedly came from Jurassic sediment has been identified as an intrusive burial (Strahler 1999). An alleged Miocene deposit on Guadeloupe in which a human skeleton was found has been shown to be a Quaternary deposit (Strahler 1999).

Answers in Genesis and, as I understand it, a number of other creation ministries have rejected the above findings as proper evidence for this subject. But note that recent concretion covering the hammer is good evidence for rapid formation of rock, which is an excellent argument against the allegation of slow gradual formation of rock over millions of years.

Well unless you're willing to present their evidence for rejecting these findings, I don't really care what they say. Especially given their track record so far.

And we know that concretions can form rapidly, and no one disputes this, it is not like there are two sides to the issue. There are all sorts of rock that we know can be laid down relatively quickly, but there are also lots of types of rock that we know can't. Chalk, for instance. Accordingly this:

presents something of a problem.

But one should not neglect the secular side and blatant forgeries such as Archaeorapter, Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, and so on.

Archaeorapter and Nebraska Man were never taken seriously by the scientific community, and Nebraska Man wasn't a forgery just a misidentification. Piltdown man is the only leg AiG has to stand on, and it was only accepted by the British and dismissed by naturalists elsewhere. This appears to have had more to do with the age of Imperialism than anything else.

But they're straying off topic. The paper was merely describing the condition of related literature. The AiG folk keep on responding to arguments that haven't been made. There's a word for that...

The overarching point here is that making an argument that there have been improperly used evidences is not a guarantee of the nature of this particular petroglyph.

Surely not, and if this was all the paper did I wouldn't have bothered to link it.

The Ica Stones, upon which are images of dinosaurs that were allegedly made by ancient inhabitants of present-day Peru, have been exposed as forgeries (Isaak 2007).

In recent times, some have created forgeries when poor Peruvians realized that tourists would gladly pay a pretty penny for stones with dinosaurs on them. Usually, these could easily be spotted as forgeries (recent paint, paintings of incorrect dinosaur images that were common in the latter part of the twentieth century). The same sort of thing apparently inspired the famous fraud of dinosaurs with feathers (Archaeorapter).

Acheaeorapter is not the only dinosaur with feathers, and saying that all the dinosaurs we've uncovered with avian features were frauds is an exercise in extreme stupidity.

While I'm on the subject, you will note that it was naturalists themselves that discredited Archaeorapter, not creationists. In fact, that's been true of all of these examples of 'secular forgeries...' none of them were caught by creationists.

Christians have a basis to refrain from engaging in forgeries but not those who espouse a secular worldview.

Which is why the scientific community rigorously hunts down and intellectually eviscerates anyone who is caught lying or fudging data, and the people at AiG are content to deceitfully misrepresent their enemies at every turn, right?

I'm not saint, but I will not be lectured to about honesty by refuse such as this. They wouldn't know honesty if it hit them 800 times with a wiffle bat.

Notice who did the frauds,non-Christians, be it from China, Mexico, Peru, or elsewhere, and the primary reason was for money, not for worldview debate.

Yeah, because there are certainly no Christians is Mexico or Peru... :facepalm:

Note how Christians argue against incorrect or fraudulent findings. The exposure of many of the above examples as frauds was aided by researchers from Loma Linda University, the Institute for Creation Research, and Answers in Genesis.

Acknowledgement isn't the same as aid.

The Acà¡mbaro figures, which include dinosaur statuettes allegedly made by ancient inhabitants of present-day Mexico, have been exposed as forgeries (Di Peso 1953).

Again, this was not promoted by Answers in Genesis either.

Who ever said that it was?

But there is plenty of evidence from radiometric dating to dinosaurs that has been repeatedly ignored by humanists pushing for evolution and millions of years. See the Answers in Genesis website Get Answers section.

I didn't know discredited and ignored were synonyms. I do hope they'll eventually get the rebuttal.

Furthermore, why have all this listed here when the authors agreed in the conclusion that this petroglyph was not a fraud? Is this section for the purpose of making creationists "guilty by association"?

Again, describing the state of current literature on the topic comes standard. When I was writing about why Manichaeism is Christian-Gnostic and not Zoroastrian, even though I had my own reasons, I had to go back and describe why everyone else thought so too.

Another putative piece of evidence for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, the alleged depiction of a sauropod dinosaur at the Kachina Bridge archaeological site (Figure 1), has proved more baffling.

Even the secular side agrees that Native Americans made the petroglyph well before the recent debate over the age of the earth, and in particular the dinosaur/dragon issue. So of course, this is a more difficult issue. One can't simply claim forgery.

You know, if you're not going to say anything useful, why respond?

Alright, finally we seem to be getting to some actual meat. But this has taken longer than I had hoped so that will have to come later. So far though, this is profoundly disappointing.

To be continued...

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Continuing...

The image, hereafter called Dinosaur 1, is of importance because until now it has escaped explanation from mainstream science.

A couple extremely important points need to be made here. First, "science" doesn't explain things. This is the fallacy of reification. People explain things, not science. Science, as we practice it today, is a methodology developed by a young-earth creationist (Francis Bacon).

This is what I and Daniel Dennett like to call a "deepity." To the extent that it is true, it is trivial. To the extent that it is profound, it is false.

It's really no different then those new-age hippies who say thing like, "Love is just a word, man." Of course 'love' is a word, it could scarcely be anything else, but it describes something that is not a word, and that is the thing people mean when they use it. Similarly it is obvious that science doesn't literally explain anything, okay. Science never jumped out of a textbook, grabbed me by the shoulders and explained the mechanics of cell devision do me. But to say that the mechanics of cell devision is not explained by science is flat-out idiotic however you try to do it. This is clearly the sort of explanation Senter and Cole are referring to. To not get this is as purposefully deceitful, or as plain stupid, as to say that an engine doesn't actually 'run.'

And while it is technically correct to call Christian scientists operating before the hypothesis of an older earth was seriously proposed "young-earth," it is clearly misleading for obvious reasons. We cannot know what their opinions would have been if they had lived today and had access to modern data, but you can no more use them to disparage the combine fields of modern science which are all allied against creationism then I could use Newton to disparage Quantum Mechanics.

So what Senter and Cole really mean is the secular humanists do not have an explanation yet.

No. I can safely say that they almost certainly did not "really mean" that. I caveat only because, unlike certain other people, I have a sense of intellectual honesty that prohibits me from presenting as fact what I don't actually know.

But even if they did, does that disprove the other view? Not at all. For example, imagine someone finds a solitary dinosaur fossil, and one group says the dinosaurs had three babies and four grandbabies. If another group comes along and disagrees with the first by stating, "No, no, this dinosaur had one baby and six grandbabies," does that refute the first? Of course not. They have not refuted the first view because their position is merely an educated guess based on scant evidence.

Declaring evidence "scant" before you've seen it is... well I'll be nice about it... consistent with the level of stupidity we've seen demonstrated by AiG thus far. Same goes for saying that someone's position is only an educated guess.

Reference to it persists in young-earth creationist literature (Swift 1997, 2006; Ham 2000; Butt and Lyons 2005, 2008) and websites (Sharp 2001; Anonymous 2009; Creation Truth Ministries 2009; Swift 2009; The Interactive Bible 2009) as a popular rallying point, heretofore without rejoinder. A plaque illustrating the image is even exhibited in the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.

True.

Moving on.

Dinosaur 1 has received considerable attention from young-earth creationists but close inspection and thorough description of it has not occurred before now. This lack of research is understandable, because it is approximately 2 m above the head of the average observer on a nearly vertical surface, surrounded by rough and extremely steep terrain that discourages the carrying of a ladder, about an hour by foot from the nearest road. One author (Sharp 2001) identifies three more petroglyph images, hereafter called Dinosaurs 2, 4, at the Kachina Bridge site as dinosaurs. Here we report the results of an investigation into the nature of these four items.

These others are more difficult to discern and may well be other creatures. But this discussion will regard Dinosaur 1 in the response, which is the main one used and the easiest to discern.

So these people saw living dinosaurs and only drew a single depiction of one that can actually resembles a dinosaur? Do you know how many carvings of coyotes we have by these people? You'd think a sauropod would attract more attention.

The four alleged dinosaur depictions are part of a plethora of images made by prehistoric cultures at the Kachina Bridge site.

They are not prehistoric. Prehistoric is actually an illogical term that demonstrates an anti-biblical worldview.

What?!

No really, what!?

Prehistoric just means that they do not appear in any historical accounts, because they exist prior to any that have been preserved. It's a word that means different things in different places, prehistoric in Siberia is not so far back as prehistoric in the Indus valley. Calling this anti-biblical is... you know I'm struggling to come up with original methods of describing this AiG guy's stupidity... he's dumb, this critique is dumb. It's irrelevant and dumb, misleading and dumb, fallacious and dumb, mean-spirited and dumb, crude and dumb, bigoted and dumb, and on and on it goes.

I'm surprised anyone who has passed high school can read this without wincing in pain from how obviously, strenuously ignorant it is.

Historical accounts begin with the beginning of time in Genesis 1, which is a historical account. Genesis 5:1 mentions "the book of the genealogy of Adam" which was written long before this petroglyph. This etching was both after the Flood and the scattering at Babel, so it was less than about 4,200 years ago and probably much more recent than this. But it was definitely within historic times, as time would not exist prior to Genesis 1:1.

And I am getting really tired of the Bible being trotted out as though it were evidence for AiG's retarded assertions. It is not.

Kachina Bridge is an immense sandstone formation resembling an archway over 60 m high and wide, formed by the undercutting of a rock wall by flowing water. The images comprise rock paintings (composed of pigments) and petroglyphs formed by pecking, abrading, incising, and scratching.

Agreed,and all of which can be done by humans with tools.

Wait, undercutting 60m of a rock wall with flowing water can be done by primitive humans with their tools? If that is what this statement means then it is stupid, if not it is merely unnecessary.

Earlier examples are associated with Archaic era hunter-gatherers that occupied the study area generally prior to 1000 B.C.

The time period was ancient, yes, but not an "Archaic era," as these people were fully developed descendants of Noah. The date of 1000 BC is possible, as that is in the biblical range, but it could also have been much more recent.

Assertion. That is all he does. Will there be any evidence in this rebuttal? I keep hoping there will be so that I might have something to actually review, but as it stand it looks like I'm just going pointing out over and over again that his favorite book isn't true just because he says it is.

Other images are for the most part attributed to Ancestral Pueblo farming societies (Basketmaker II-Pueblo III) dating from approximately A.D. 200 to 1300.

Though dating methods are proven to be wrought with problems,5 these dates seem reasonable within a biblical timeframe.

He links to an article about radiocarbon dating, as though that's the only way, or even the main way, we know when the Pueblo lived. But as he doesn't dispute it it's a pointless gesture.

I suppose this would be a good a time as any to talk about the laughably unprofessional use of sources. It reminds me of back in the really early days of college when I was required to cite a certain number of sources, but couldn't think of any legitimate reason to include that many citations. So instead I would just say something really unobjectionable or a tad irrelevant, find some academic who agreed with it, and cite that. Thus fulfilling the technical requirements and padding out my sources page to make the paper look more professional.

This is exactly what this 'rebuttal' looks like. He has five citations. The first two just establish who the paper is by, and that some creationists noticed it. The third links to Ussher's chronology, which is evidence only that this chronology exists and not evidence for it or AiG's assertions. The fourth is another AiG article that presents the same chronology with evidence no more impressive then what we have here. And the fifth is not only badly misinformed, as I have shown, but is by the author's own admission irrelevant because he doesn't dispute the paper's claim.

I did better work in high school, does whoever wrote this even have a GED?

Oy vey.

Some petroglyphs may have been made by more recent protohistoric or historic Paiute, Ute, or Navajo groups (Grant 1978; Schaafsma 1980; Cordell 1984; McVickar 2001; Cole 2009; Spangler et al. 2009).

Either way, the glyphs were made post-Flood and post-dispersion from Babel. They may have been made within a few centuries of the dispersion or immediately before modern times.

Assertion.

The hypothesis that a given petroglyph depicts a dinosaur makes four predictions:

Actually the authors are making four predictions, but they are humanists looking at this from a humanistic perspective, and so they already believe it does not represent a dinosaur they have made this clear with their stated comments adhering to humanistic beliefs). So any conclusions they draw will comport to their previously stated position. Honest, unbiased observers they are not. In fact, they have made their conclusion prior to any of this research. To be quite frank, the research done so far has had gross misrepresentations of biblical Christianity and the Bible, so this is already a red flag because their research has proven to be of low quality.

Good to know the fine people at AiG haven't dismissed an argument before they've heard it. Is it even worth continuing? We know exactly what AiG is going to conclude, and it really wouldn't matter what the paper said.

(1) the image is a single image, not a composite of separate images,

This is irrelevant. An artist can easily use multiple images to composite a whole image. This is often done by artists today. But if such a prerequisite was applied to secular interpretations, Lucy, which is a composite, must be rejected in the alleged human evolution debate.

1. Are the Pueblo known to do that? This is important, because if this is the first such incidence of this technique among them then... well... that's probably not what is going on. Unfortunately AiG never bothered to check. Which is surprising, because that wouldn't have been hard, they could have just called or emailed the NPS like I did.
2. We have hundreds of Australopithecus skeletons. It wouldn't matter if Lucy was rejected.

(2) it depicts an animal,

This is a reasonable deduction. In fact, this is more key. One needs to show what other animal it could be, but even then, that would not be absolute but merely a tentative option.

Well if it can be reasonably shown to possibly depict an animal other than a sauropod then Occam's razor eviscerates AiG's claim.

(3) its features cannot be reconciled with an interpretation that it depicts a member of the non-dinosaurian local fauna that was contemporaneous with its maker(s),

This presupposes that dinosaurian local fauna was absent. In a biblical worldview, dinosaurs survived the Flood and have since died out (from our best estimates).

Actually it explicitly doesn't. Re-read that sentence.

(4) its features depict a specific, identifiable dinosaur, and

Not necessarily. We expect that the ancient depiction is no longer in the original condition and has deteriorated. So having a specific species is not a requirement, nor even close.

It wouldn't matter if it hadn't, I can already tell you from the tail that it's not any species of dinosaur anyone has ever found. Sauropod tails don't hang on the ground.

(5) it is entirely human-made.

This is a fifth prediction, so why do the authors say there are four predictions, as noted above? Of course, there will be weathering acting on it, but the sheer fact that other images are also etched and have residual paint should be obvious. Should we expect the common humanistic view of aliens to dominate the rest of this?

Because this is the prediction that rejects "The hypothesis that a given petroglyph depicts a dinosaur." This isn't actually that hard.

And I don't know, should we expect the common humanist view of a spherical earth to dominate the rest of us?

To test these predictions the four alleged dinosaur depictions were examined with the naked eye and with the aid of binoculars and telephoto lenses. Observations were made while the images were illuminated by direct and indirect sunlight and when they were in shadow. Accurate documentation and analysis of petroglyphs requires this level of observation and recording insofar as visibility varies considerably under changing light conditions, and it may be difficult if not impossible to perceive differences between natural and man-made manipulations of sandstone surfaces.

So all the researchers did was . . . look at it? They performed no paint test, etching experiments, weathering experiments, animal shape research, or researching related rock art in the region? This is no more scientific than what had been previously done. This entire procedure is an insufficient evidence fallacy to refute. Merely looking at something, like others have already done, and ignoring other scientific procedures that could have helped or refuted the authors' position reveal that precious little was done to actually derive plausible conclusions to refute the depiction being a dinosaur image.

You know, I too wish that Senter and Cole had done more. But let us just point out that Creationists haven't done any research into this, at all, ever. They're welcome to, no one is stopping them. They could trot out there with all sorts of gear and engage in rigorous scientific scrutiny, determining once and for all time if this thing is genuine. But they won't. They won't because they've already decided what the carving means, and all that investigation could do is prove them wrong.

It's the same with everything else. Creationists don't do science. What scientific contributions have they made in the last hundred years? What new technologies have they invented? What new drugs and medical treatments has creationism produced? I ask only because evolutionary theory has produced many. All they do is bitch about real science and misrepresent it.

RESULTS

Dinosaur 1 does not satisfy the predictions that it is a single image,

As pointed out, this was irrelevant.

And as I pointed out, no it isn't. Not unless you can demonstrate that the Pueblo used composite images.

that it depicts an animal,

But other researchers, doing the same scientific procedures that Senter and Cole did (observing it) come to the opposite conclusion.

Yeah, this happens sometimes. Are we supposed to be surprised.

Also, are you sure they used the same procedures? They did mention looking at it from many angles in different lighting conditions, or did you miss that. Because if these other guys didn't do that what you just said would be a lie...

Why trust biased persons who believed it was not a dinosaur to begin with and then upon looking at it conclude it is not a dinosaur? This is a fallacy of affirming the consequent.

If only he could apply this logic consistently.

or that it is entirely human-made.

Naturally, weathering will have its effect, but the original is what is in question.

I'm not sure what he thinks the point of this statement is... unless he is just assuming that the original must have looked like a dinosaur, in which case he's being dishonest again. Otherwise this statement is meaningless.

It is a composite of two separate items that were formed by pecking (a technique in which small bits of rock are chipped from the surface by a hand-held instrument), plus mineral or mud stains. The "head," "neck," and "torso" are a single item: a thick, sinuous shape formed by pecking. The "tail" is a second, Ushaped item formed by pecking. That the two items are indeed two separate items is indicated by a gap between them and also by differences in pecking patterns and densities between the two (Figure 1).

As mentioned, being a composite does not eliminate it from being intentionally done in such a way by the artist.

Everything I said before, plus Occam.

Do I smell desperation? I think I do.

The "legs" are not part of the image and are not pecked or otherwise human-made but are stains of mud or some light-colored mineral on the irregular surface.

But why assume it is not part of the image? Using stains of mud or other sources of coloring was common for artists.

You see, this would have been where an honest person would use citation. Because what he really ought to do now is demonstrate the Pueblo people did this, otherwise this... oh what do you call it... oh right, a lie.

Furthermore, the under surface has been through years of weathering, which we would expect to affect the surface. Such a find is not to be misconstrued as having no original human input.

Didn't effect the other surfaces, but it must have eroded the base because lord forbid it might not be a dinosaur. Desperation, thy name is AiG.

What appears to be an eye is a natural chip or depression.

That is an easy thing to do from an artistic perspective.

Okay then, demonstrate that this chip is consistent with how the pueblo usually depict eyes. Because I just did a search of all the Pueblo rock carvings I could find and most didn't have eyes at all. The ones that did looked like this:

or this:

It's always amazing how little effort it takes to show that a creationist doesn't know what they are talking about.

What appears to be a smiling mouth is the edge of the pecking that forms the "chin." It follows a raised surface that continues to the right, beyond the "head."

This is an excellent observation, but it would seem strange that the artist would intentionally put a smile on it, too. So it is good that this is dispelled. Thanks.

Why even bother?

The meaning of the two pecked items is enigmatic, but it is clear that neither depicts an animal.

Again, this is based on the assumption that a person wasted his time etching two things that are, in the authors' opinion, not things at all, but happen to look very much like something! This is a common tactic of seeing what the authors want to see, but it in no way presents a solid argument against this being a final single image.

The irony. Still waiting for some evidence.

The "head" of Dinosaur 1 is overlapped by a subsequent pecking of a spiral-like shape, a common motif in petroglyphs and rock paintings and on pottery of Ancestral Pueblos after Pueblo I times (~A.D. 700 to 1300).

Granted, the dates are highly questionable, but it shows that this artist was indeed using techniques common to him and well before the new idea that man and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.

Isn't it amazing how creationists are never in any doubt as to what something shows? I'm sorry, it should be obvious by now that mere exposure to this AiG guy's supidity is rotting my brain. I'm going to try to make it through this (deep breath.)

The "torso" is superimposed over a previously pecked triangle the apex of which protrudes above the "dinosaur's "back." The significance of the triangle is enigmatic.

In all this, there is no coherent argument that this was not designed to look like an animal or that it was not done by a person. Yet it shows the intricate ability of Native American artists as being highly intelligent in using a number of techniques,etching, pecking, painting, and so on,when doing rock art.

I get tired of the humanistic diatribes against peoples like the Native Americans whom they have viewed as less "evolved" and thus not as intelligent. These natives were truly brilliant, and poor arguments that lack good scientific research, like this one attacking their artwork, surely do not help evolutionary worldview considerations.

There is no need to spend time on the questionable images, which are still clearly done by Native Americans. So the response will pick up on the discussion.

So with no actual refutation forthcoming the creationist decides that it's time to accuse the author's of racism. You know, I know a lot of scientifically minded people who accept evolution, I can't get any of them to describe any racial group as "less evolved." The only openly racist people I happen to come across are religious. We have one on the forum right now actually, he's a Romanian Orthodox Christian who loathes Magyars from deep within his soul.

Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon of perceiving significance in vague or random stimuli, e.g., seeing animals in clouds or the face of a religious figure in a food item. The results of this investigation indicate that the dinosaurs of Kachina Bridge are examples of this phenomenon and exist only as pareidolic illusions.

This would be predicated on the argument that the illustrations and petroglyphs were drawings of nothing and had no meaning to the artist; and therefore, those looking at it are deriving a false meaning of something when it is supposed to be nothing! This is an absurd conclusion to say an artist took time to draw "nothing" that had no meaning. These etchings did signify something, and Senter's and Cole's paper has not shown Dinosaur 1 to be something other than a dinosaur. The argument that this petroglyph represents "nothing" does not show in the slightest the very point in question.

I suppose he shouldn't have mentioned the possibility then? Because an honest discussion of something can only take place when you deliberately leave out obvious possibilities as to its origin? Man, this guy flies off the handle at the drop of a hat.

They can therefore be added to the list of discredited evidence for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans.

And likewise, the argument still stands that the most reasonable explanation of the petroglyph is that it is indeed a dinosaur that the artist rendered.

Yep, most reasonable explanation. Clearly.

In light of the poor quality of the research and arguments, Senter and Cole have brought nothing of substance to refute the idea that this Native American petroglyph, dubbed here Dinosaur 1 at Kachina Bridge, is best explained as a dinosaur.

I don't think that is the best explanation, but who can I find to support me in my view that we shouldn't just assume things because of our biases?

but they are [creationists] looking at this from a [creationist] perspective, and so they already believe it does ... represent a dinosaur they have made this clear with their stated comments adhering to [creationist] beliefs). So any conclusions they draw will comport to their previously stated position. Honest, unbiased observers they are not. In fact, they have made their conclusion prior to any of this research. To be quite frank, the research done so far has had gross misrepresentations of [science] and [logic], so this is already a red flag because their [argument] has proven to be of low quality.

So all the [creationists] did was . . . look at it? They performed no paint test, etching experiments, weathering experiments, animal shape research, or researching related rock art in the region? This is no more scientific than what had been previously done. This entire procedure is an insufficient evidence fallacy to refute. Merely looking at something, like others have already done, and ignoring other scientific procedures that could have helped or refuted the authors' position reveal that precious little was done to actually derive plausible conclusions to refute the depiction being a dinosaur image.

Why trust biased persons who believed it was ... a dinosaur to begin with and then upon looking at it conclude it is ... a dinosaur? This is a fallacy of affirming the consequent.

Thanks AiG!

 

[fightofthejellyfish]

maybe it's just a trick of the light but doesn't this image seem doctored to you?

Yes, yes it does, and not just where they appear to have filled out the "legs".
Have a look at the "head" in this photo from AiG. petro-close-2-big.jpg (sorry to big to embed)
and form Sentor and Cole image 4 in fig1.jpg
and from a Daily Mail article

Now have a look at the "head" in the photo marked original, in the image we've been discussing.

What happened to all the pecking in front of the "snout"?

Apparently, in AiG's view, "original" means the slightly less doctored than the "enhanced".

 

[The Felonius Pope]

Are the people who created these images going to tell us that the native americans were a lost tribe of Israel?

 

[DepricatedZero]

Are the people who created these images going to tell us that the native americans were a lost tribe of Israel?

And Jesus was a White Christian

 

[The Felonius Pope]

And Jesus was a White Christian

For some reason I was under the impression that he was a jewish zombie.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I am glad to see that AronRa is just quoting parts of the original thread back at BobEnyart. I am also glad to see the summarization of most of the mistakes made by BobEnyart during the radio show. Funny how BobEnyart ignored the summery of those mistakes the first time AronRa posted them in the debate.

I also find it hilarious that none of the citations BobEnyart cited support what he is claiming, again. I did not think any of them would support his case for the simple fact that he was trying to use the Archaeopteryx papers, even after it was explained in detail how they did not claim to discover soft tissue to YesYouNeedJesus. YesYouNeedJesus also said that he was going to bring that up to BobEnyart. This is an example of very poor reading comprehension or blatant dishonesty, and after reading the private message that YesYouNeedJesus posted, I feel the latter is correct.

I hope that BobEnyart will start to concede the blatant errors that way the debate can start to narrow down onto one subject. I doubt this will happen, but one can hope.

 

[australopithecus]

At this point Bob is doing little more than pointing at things and stating "this, therefore God".
:facepalm:

 

[Inferno]

Not having read everything yet:

BE-Question #5, Preparing for the next round, and presuming Darwinian deep time, Aron, If Extensive Genetic Sophistication Appears a Hundred Millions Years BEFORE Any Organs or Organisms that Require that Sophistication, would that be evidence that would:
A) strengthen evolutionary theory, or
B) challenge evolutionary theory?

or
C) neither of the above.
"Extensive Genetic Sophistication", I take it, is the same as "genetic sequence which is needed to form an organ, but is not yet activated". If that is the case, then this can happen by one of three ways:
1) Recombination. The haploid gametes of your parents recombine and by chance you get the desired sequence.
2) Neutral allele fixation. A (then) neutral allele arises and becomes fixed. The average time for a neutral allele to be lost is 2(Ne/N) ln(2N) where Ne is the effective population size (reproducing) and N is the total population size. Fixation occurs at a frequency of 1/2N. One can calculate that rate with any population.
3) Duplication. An already existing and useful sequence is duplicated and changed slightly (by drift, neutral allele loss, etc.) to a very similar sequence that might later be used for something totally unrelated.

BE-Question #6, In This Debate Is It the Creationist or the Evolutionist who has offered the more substantive defense of our opposing positions regarding:
- the discovery of dinosaur soft-tissue
- whether or not Newton rejected natural explanations for supernatural origins
- residual Carbon-14 in fossils, and
- the rates of the deposition and erosion that formed the Grand Canyon
including evidence, original source material, scientific argumentation, and peer-reviewed support for our positions. Was it the atheist or the creationist who offered the more substantive defense on these matters?

1) Evolutionist
2) Since Aron never made a positive claim here, this isn't relevant but for the sake of it: Creationist
3) Evolutionist
4) Evolutionist

 

[rareblackatheist]

Earth: On our planet continents are covered nearly a mile deep in sedimentary strata, often with thousands of square miles of sharp contrast between horizontal layers, frequently with massive swaths of such intersections, called "flat gaps," showing little or even no evidence of erosion between those layers, and with scores of peer-reviewed articles claiming discovery of original biological material from strata allegedly tens of millions of years old (apparently all of which contains 14C and primarily non-racemized left-handed amino acids). These strata contain billions of dead things rapidly buried, such as millions of closed-shelled clams, and seashells atop the world's major mountain ranges, and millions of mammoths buried around the arctic circle, and millions of nautiloids buried in a single narrow limestone layer at the Grand Canyon. Yet secularists posit that Mars (which might have the equivalent of eight inches of water if evenly spread over the surface from the ice at the poles and the ice presumed to be below ground) may have had global-scale flooding. And the same scientists mock anyone who offers evidence that the Earth (which is more than two-thirds covered in ocean water that averages a depth of 2.5 miles) could ever have been flooded.

Therefor it is true that a man and his family about 4 thousand years ago brought enough animals on a ark that is responsible for all the living life on earth now. Not to mention 8 people to 7 billion people in that same time frame. There are no other explantions.

For such experts, like Edward Sapir and MIT's Noam Chomsky, though themselves evolutionists, make it clear that:
- the expected "primitive languages" do not exist on the face of the Earth, and
- that no evidence for the evolution of language has ever been found, and
- that dog barks and animal sounds are categorically unlike human language.
I've only studied a few languages including some years in Greek class and I've traveled the world from New Zealand to Europe, Fairbanks to Montreal to Puerto Peà±asco, to Turkey and the Middle East, learning what I could from their museums, cultures, and history. Human language appears suddenly in human history and as such, it is another great argument in favor of recent creation and against the alleged millions of years of early human evolution, and specifically now, historians have falsified the confident, specific Darwinian predictions about the origin of language. As I recall, Staks couldn't even try to rebut any of this.

Therefor one day people just magically started talking in different lanuages out of nowhere. People instantly understood lanugages they never heard before. There are no other explanations.


Why don't you people just say it was all done by magic and be done with it? That's all you are saying Bob.

 

[rareblackatheist]

Even if we conclude differently, you might be surprised how much further you could get in communicating your position by being polite and simply pointing out what you think is a misunderstanding on my part, rather than you coming across as just plain mean.

What? Where?

Your avatar is your choice for how you present yourself to friends and your opposition (and even dragging down the LoR standards).

Offended by a cartoon.... :lol:

 

[Frenger]

He's doing it again......

As for other dinosaur-era species, in their very titles, peer-reviewed papers report discovery of "soft tissue".

That bit where he only reads the title and abstract of a paper he quotes. :facepalm: Didn't Hytegia politely warn him off that?

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

He's doing it again......

As for other dinosaur-era species, in their very titles, peer-reviewed papers report discovery of "soft tissue".

That bit where he only reads the title and abstract of a paper he quotes. :facepalm: Didn't Hytegia politely warn him off that?

Honestly, I was being as polite as I have ever been to anyone.
I treated him better than the moderators. :lol:

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

:facepalm:

I will make a more detailed post this weekend, if I have more time. However, I just wanted to point out that BobEnyart wasted the majority of his fourth post on something outside of this debate. The debate is supposed to be about topics raised on the radio show, the Grand Canyon and its formation were not one of those topics. Nevertheless, if BobEnyart wishes to discuss this topic, I started a thread here asking one of the creationists questions about the Grand Canyon, which he refused to answer. Perhaps BobEnyart would like to give them a shot. There are also questions for YesYouNeedJesus, which he has refused to answer as well.

BobEnyart, please stop obfuscating this debate and acknowledge the other mistakes you have made thus far (e.g. the genetic difference between humans, chimps, and sponges). It appears that you only read a quarter of AronRa's post and wrote a response based on that and most of that response was on a tangent that is irrelevant to this debate. There is no posting deadline, thus you can take as long as you need to post a full response. It would not surprise me if AronRa ignored all the irrelevant parts and just reposted everything he said in this last post, since you seemed to ignore it.

 

[Isotelus]

I found these parts to be particularly...interesting, and wanted to get them off my chest :roll:

Human language appears suddenly in human history and as such, it is another great argument in favor of recent creation and against the alleged millions of years of early human evolution, and specifically now, historians have falsified the confident, specific Darwinian predictions about the origin of language.

Perhaps written language appeared relatively quickly, but not spoken language. Homo erectus shows cranial features that suggest it was capable of making complex sounds and perhaps some form of primitive language, and Homo neanderthalensis was even more derived, particularly in terms of the brain and hyoid bone.

Along with many other dead creatures in this one particular limestone layer, 15% of these nautiloids were killed and then fossilized standing on their heads. Yes, vertically. They were caught in such an intense and rapid catastrophic flow that gravity was not able to cause all of their dead carcasses to fall over on their sides.

:facepalm: That's just about as ridiculous as Juby's claim of a dinosaur laying eggs in a neat row as it ran from the flood. If this catastrophic flow was so rapid and intense, why haven't the fossils been broken apart and scattered, as would be expected? Furthermore, apparently only 15% were "standing on their heads" (*snort*), and Bob thinks he's making a good case? What about the other 85%? Lastly, since when does limestone form rapidly in marine environments?

This enormous rock was catastrophically catapulted here at just the same time when these multiple layers were all simultaneously soft, and rather than shattering the rock (which it would have done if those layers right around it had been deposited over millennia and had hardened into stone), its impact caused a curved deformation of the layers around indicating that these foundational layers were soft all at the same time as the event that launched the boulder.

This certainly isn't evidence of rapid sedimentation. Without knowing anything about the surrounding depositional environments or lithology of the rock in question, and even using a basic understanding of geology, here's a couple of actual good reasons why the rock wouldn't shatter: 1) It could be a drop stone; no catastrophy required. 2) it was deposited on the top layers of sediment which would be expected to be soft. Diagenesis occurs in stages, and the layers immediately below would not be fully lithified.

Richard Dawkins once said that "if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." It rapidly became clear that Bob was none of these things. For a start, I know a fair bit about evolution and genetics. But when it came to familiarity with the arguments, he was way ahead of me. On epigenetics, RNA/DNA chemistry, and animal physiology, I was hopelessly outclassed. Bob is not ignorant. And it is pretty clear he is neither stupid nor insane. He came across, in fact, as extremely intelligent.
-British Author and Darwinist James Hannam about Bob Enyart

:lol: Myers also said this:

Wow. This summary was written by James Hannum, a theistic evolutionist who has written a book about medieval history and philosophy. Enyart had to find a medieval historian to find someone who might think he was scientifically competent.

Bob's failed grasp of geologic processes aside, I'm with he_who_is_nobody. Get get back to the original topic of the debate.

 

[ClockworkFox]

dog barks and animal sounds are categorically unlike human language

As always I may simply be missing it, but from a brief perusal this assertion appears to be completely unsourced, except for namedropping. A shame, considering the fascinating implications its validity would have. It would be interesting to know, for example, why so many animals readily take to human methods of communication if they don't use a similar system themselves. Well, unless Bob wishes to assert that his god made various birds capable of comprehending and speaking human languages (to an extent) for the sole purpose of our amusement.

Also, I feel almost obliged to idly wonder how Bob would advocate reacting to a growling wolf if, as he appears to assert, they lack a consistent method of communication.

Of course, my confusion could simply be due to our interpreting the word "language" differently, so I would also like to know how he's using it.