2ndAmendment said:
I cannot prove creation nor can anyone prove evolution. Evolution is a matter of faith as is belief in the Bible.
Once again, faith is defined as belief based on personal experience. While faith may be bolstered by facts, it does not rely on them.
Science, including evolution, requires objective fact. Evolution is observable and testable. Is it complete? No, but neither is any other science. Even our oldest sciences such as chemistry and physics are constantly updated. Newton established the foundations of physics. His rules have been updated and altered over time in order to refine them.
Consider how often "modern" science has been wrong; earth was the center of the universe, earth was flat, everything was made of three elements - earth, wind, and fire.
That is simply asinine. You are labelling ancient myths as "modern science"?
Scientists have known the earth was round since Greece was the center of the known world. Ancient measurements were even fairly accurate. Galileo proposed the Heliocentric theory in the 1500's when the modern scientific method was in its infancy! Your E/W/F claim is ridiculous!
People miss that evolution is still a theory. A theory is not a fact but a proposed, unproven idea. When a theory is proven, it is no longer called a theory.
Wrong Wrong and Wrong. A theory is a hypothesis that has been verified through experimentation and careful observation. Let me spell this out.
There Is No Higher Scientific Status Than Theory.
A "law" is a mathmatical concept or an observable truism. There are no scientific "laws" that identify the "why" and "how". Electricity=Theroy of electromagnetics. Gravity=Theory of Gravity/Relativity. See? Theories.
I raise this issue. As I understand it, all the dating methods are based on assumptions of radioactive elements being at certain levels and known decay rates or half-life.
These are not "assumptions". You are biasing your description. These are known rates of decay based on the theories of chemistry.
The math formulas that are used have "fudge factors" in them that are valid within given ranges. It is usual that "fudge factor" values would be chosen (since they cannot be determined) as the median value of the range. I have been told (cannot verify) that the values for these "fudge factors" have been chosen at the extreme of the range that would cause the resulting calculated date to be the oldest.
Vastly incorrect and full of half-truths. Radiometric dating gives a "range" based on the known decay rates. While these dating techniques cannot give exact dates, they do give the lower end of how old something is, not the upper end. In other words, something dated is at LEAST so old, not a max.
Radiometric dating has also been verified against other dating systems, including ice-core, geological dating, coral reef dating, tree-ring dates, varve deposit dates and sediment deposit layers. These independently confirm an age of the earth of millions of years.
For further consideration, all these methods were developed post WWII after open air detonation of atomic devices had forever changed the amount of radioactive material, carbon or otherwise, on the surface of the earth.
I would love to see information on how open-air detonations affect the dating of rocks and underground fossils. Further, these spread radioactive material, they did not change the way in which radiation and radioactive decay function.
Darwin had questions about his own theory.
As did Einstein, Watt, Plank, Hubbell, and every scientist. He was proposing a radical concept in biology and was making hypothesis further and further afield from what data he had personally collected. He rushed his work into print because another scientist had come to similar conclusions based on his own research. Some of Darwin's conclusions were correct, others were incomplete or wrong. He freely admitted weaknesses in some areas, weaknesses that have been addressed by modern science.
It has been reported (I don't think proven) that he refuted his own theory before he died, but whether he did or did not is irrelevant.
He did not. Lady Hope reported this with no support while Darwin's daughter and contemporaries reported that he was firmly convinced.
He did question the evolution of the eye and the evolution of creatures that require male and female to reproduce. There were others, but these two raise serious doubts of evolution in my mind.
And Einstein was troubled by facets of relativity, some of which we are still grappling with. The eye is found in nature ranging from a few light-sensitive cells (in burrowing creatures) through a range of complexity levels. The human eye is complex and interesting, but has flaws (the optic nerve is reversed causing a "blind spot"). There are more complex and useful eyes than ours out there, from raptors and falcons to reptiles with independant monocular vision that switches to biocular vision. The eye has independently evolved in insects and vertebrate animals. Other complex functions like wings have evolved independently, repeatedly and in clearly defined steps.
Why would sexual reproduction evolve? How would it evolve? It would require the male and female to evolve at the same time and in the same location.
You are proposing independent evolution of two species and having them then reproduce. This is a ridiculous strawman. Sexual reproduction is apparent in the simplest creatures, plants and insects. As for "why", because it helps to expand the potential genetics of the offspring. Its not a motivated decision, its a change based on the rules of evolution.
I do not expect this post to convince anyone that the Bible is the divine Word of God as I believe. I have posted that that is not my job, but I hope that this has given you "food for thought".
Most modern religions accept evolution. The few organized groups who do not are divided into people who cannot agree on the age of the universe, the age of the earth, the age of the light arriving from distant stars, or the timeline of creation. Intelligent Design is creationism dressed in scientific jargon. There is no unified theory on intelligent design, it is purely a systematic sniping at the fringes of evolution.
Any scientific theory, from the golden theories of chemistry through the newest quantum concept can be overthrown instantly. All you need to do is undermine the foundation of the theory. The reason that these theories survive is because there are no holes in the foundation. We understand the valences of atoms because hypothesis were tested to become theories. New theories add, subtract or modify existing theories. It is a constant, self-fixing proces by which we all live.
I'd ask if your theories of medicine are as Biblically-inspired? There are some treatments for leporasy in the Old Testament. Would you forego modern antibiotics for those theories?
LEV 14:2
"This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest: And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean , and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:
And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:"
