Science Disproves Evolution

[Steve]

I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace Concentration).

I say Walt Brown is wrong.

I refer you to the list of "Steves" mentioned earlier in this thread to see how many people agree with me.


According to the standards of logic you are employing, you should now be like the cat with toast (buttered side up) taped to its back.
Stuck in limbo, trying to decide which way up to land.

I have a degree in chemistry, and an (now outdated) MCSE. I have been published in a peer-review journal for my work in pesticide residue analysis. I concur that Walt Brown is wrong.

Recursive Appeals to Authority are the most fun.

I do not have a degree at all, but my real name is Steve. I also say that Walt Brown is wrong.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Simply claiming they are "facts' Doesn't make it so. The veracity of your links have been challenged. You can either defend those arguments or admit they are false, or simply state that you are not capable of defending them. all of those responses would be acceptable and understandable. What isn't is acceptable is restating unsubstantiated claims such as "these links are facts".

One of the "scientific" theories that Brown debunks in his attempt to explain comets with his hydroplate theory is the exploding planet hypothesis. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

Wasn't the whole planet actually covered in water for real at several points in prehistory? Devonian, etc in all paleo-whatever times? I'm not very up on geological eras until the dinosaurs show up. Dinosaurs are awesome.

This is a great video:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Earth-Made-History-Channel/dp/B00126808K

How The Earth Was Made

Earth at one point was completely covered in Ice a mile thick!

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
There's a lot of information in How the Earth Was Made, but perhaps the most interesting relates to time. Quite often, the numbers are so staggering that scientists refer to it as "deep time," an appropriate term when one grapples with the notion that our planet is 4.5 billion years old, or that the oceans were formed by rainfall that lasted literally millions of years, or that 700 million years ago, Earth was completely covered by ice that was a mile thick, with surface temperatures reaching minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other end of the scale are numbers that seem surprisingly small: for instance, it wasn't until 220 years ago that the accepted church doctrine regarding the planet's age (no more than 6000 years, according to the Bible) was seriously challenged and that the key to its past was found in rocks, not scripture, while the discovery that dinosaurs once ruled the Earth came considerably later than that. Using a combination of computer graphics and animation, various drawings and diagrams, photos, location footage, and expert commentary, this fascinating, 94-minute History Channel production takes us from the very beginning, when the planet was formed by meteors colliding in space, through numerous major events (including the appearance of water, granite, and oxygen) and mind-boggling catastrophes (such as mass extinctions caused by volcanic eruptions or the enormous meteor that wiped out 75% of all living things, including the dinosaurs, some 65 million years ago), right up to the present; there's even a glimpse into the future, when Earth will likely end up as barren and lifeless as Mars (no need to hit the panic button yet, though--a few billion more years will pass before that happens). Bonus features include additional scenes and a documentary entitled "Inside the Volcano." --Sam Graham

 

[Foster Zygote]

Brown attempts to explain the asteroid belt as being the result of the Radiometer Effect on spinning rocks ejected from the Earth during his flood scenario. He completely ignores the fact that, even if this were true, the asteroids in the belt would have to have nearly the same rotational characteristics to explain their orbital grouping. But the asteroids have all manner of different rotational characteristics.

 

[John Jones]

So it's settled then: Luke was not the world's greatest historian on secular matters.

No. wait . . .

 

[mactonite]

What's in a degree anyway? What matters is what you do after you get a degree. Luke was a physician by the way, so let's call him Dr. Luke.

 

[Dinwar]

I have a degree in chemistry, and an (now outdated) MCSE. I have been published in a peer-review journal for my work in pesticide residue analysis. I concur that Walt Brown is wrong.

I have a degree in geology, with a specialization in paleobiology. My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and I have given presentations at international conferences (though to be fair, one was just between the US and Canada--that's basically the 51st state anyway ). I also agree that Walt Brown is wrong.

According to the spurious logic of Creationists ("An authority said so!"), they must now accept our explination. After all, there's what, 3 experts and one guy without a degree agreeing vs. one random non-expert.

Having grown up around engineers (father and grandfather) I can also attest to the general lack of understanding of geological concepts in some engineers (anacdotal, but I'm using it to illustrate what I've found to be a common view, not to prove any point). They're perfectly good at looking at rocks from an engineering perspective (ie, stress/strain, impact load, coefficient of friction, sheer strength, and the like), but they simply are not trained in concepts fundamental to understanding geology (structural geology, stratigraphy, geochemistry). In short, going to an engineer to discuss historical geology is like going to a dentist to discuss animal husbandry. They may have an opinion, and it's probably going to be a little better than the man on the street, but it's no where near an expert opinion and cannot be treated as such.

 

[John Jones]

I have a degree in geology, with a specialization in paleobiology. My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and I have given presentations at international conferences (though to be fair, one was just between the US and Canada--that's basically the 51st state anyway ). I also agree that Walt Brown is wrong.

According to the spurious logic of Creationists ("An authority said so!"), they must now accept our explination. After all, there's what, 3 experts and one guy without a degree agreeing vs. one random non-expert.

...

How can anyone argue against such Appeals To Authority?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

According to the spurious logic of Creationists ("An authority said so!"), they must now accept our explination. After all, there's what, 3 experts and one guy without a degree agreeing vs. one random non-expert.

I have a degree in history, (MA, '04, Purdue U.) I bet they won't even look at your post.

 

[Dinwar]

Well, if they're Canadian they will, eh?

How can anyone argue against such Appeals To Authority?

Ask my boss. For some reason, a paleontologist in a construction firm doesn't get a whole lot of respect.

 

[yomero]

What you refer to as drivel are conclusions by a scientist (Walt Brown) based on known laws of physics confirmed by other scientists, such as:


Scott Tremaine, David Stevenson, William R. Ward, Robin M. Canup, Fred Hoyle, Michael J. Drake, Kevin Righter, George W. Wetherill, Richard A. Kerr, Luke Dones, B. Zuckerman, Renu Malhotra, David W. Hughes, M. Mitchell Waldrop, Larry W. Esposito, Shigeru Ida, Jack J. Lissauer, Charles Petit, P. Lamy, L. F. Miranda, Rob Rye, William R. Kuhn, Carl Sagan, Christopher Chyba, Stephen W. Hawking, Don N. Page, Huw Price, Peter Coles, Jayant V. Narlikar, Edward R. Harrison, Govert Schilling, Eric J. Lerner, Francesco Sylos Labini, Marcus Chown, Adam Riess, James Glanz, Mark Sincell, John Travis, Will Saunders, H. C. Arp, Gerard Gilmore, Geoffrey R. Burbidge, Ben Patrusky, Bernard Carr, Robert Irion, Alan H. Guth, Alexander Hellemans, Robert Matthews, M. Hattori, Lennox L. Cowie, Antoinette Songaila, Chandra Wickramasinghe, A. R. King, M. G. Watson, Charles J. Lada, Frank H. Shu, Martin Harwit, Michael Rowan-Robinson, P. J. E. Peebles, Joseph Silk, Margaret J. Geller, John P. Huchra, Larry Azar, J. E. O’Rourke, Peter Forey, J. L. B. Smith, Bryan Sykes, Edward M. Golenberg, Jeremy Cherfas, Scott R. Woodward, Virginia Morell, Hendrick N. Poinar, Rob DeSalle, Raúl J. Cano, Tomas Lindahl, George O. Poinar, Jr., Monica K. Borucki, Joshua Fischman, John Parkes, Russell H. Vreeland, Gerard Muyzer, Robert V. Gentry, Jeffrey S. Wicken, Henry R. Schoolcraft, Thomas H. Benton, etc.

Walt Brown is a mechanical engineer. He has no credentials in the fields of biology, chemistry, geology astronomy etc. His claims in these fields are full of errors. And just because he borrowed parts of journal articles from a number of scientists it does not mean that those scientists or their work support Brown's theories.

That is a long list of scientists, all but 5 unknown to me. So I searched in Google for a few of them: Tremaine, Stevenson, Ward, Canup, Drake, Hughes, Miranda, Lerner. None of them is a geologist nor a biologist, and as far as I could find out, none of them support the story of The Flood. Hawking and Sagan do not (did not) believe in a personal God. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are the 2 that oppose natural selection, but I think they believed in panspermia by intelligent aliens. Bryan Sykes, (one of my favorite authors) is the only one of those I searched or knew about that is in the field of biology. He clearly believes that homo sapiens lineages are over 40 000 years old.

 

[X]

How can anyone argue against such Appeals To Authority?

Maybe they prefer ignorance.

 

[Delvo]

That is a long list of scientists, all but 5 unknown to me. So I searched in Google for a few of them...

He said that this nonsense was "based on known laws of physics, confirmed by other scientists" such as those in the list. He didn't say how it was "based on" those laws; it could have been the way movies often portray events that are "based on" reality loosely enough to still blatantly defy it. Even if it were true that the laws of physics that it's based on were "confirmed by" scientists such as those listed, then that doesn't really tell us whether the ideas that are based on them are accurate or whether any of those scientists who confirmed the laws in question would agree with his ideas "based on" those laws. All it does tell us that every scientist in the list should be a physicist.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I will probably never understand why threads such as this one, which is called "Science Disproves Evolution", are posted in the Religion & Philosophy and not in the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, & Technology forum.

 

[westprog]

I will probably never understand why threads such as this one, which is called "Science Disproves Evolution", are posted in the Religion & Philosophy and not in the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, & Technology forum.

I think that the Medicine forum would be the most appropriate.

 

[Wowbagger]

I will probably never understand why threads such as this one, which is called "Science Disproves Evolution", are posted in the Religion & Philosophy and not in the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, & Technology forum.

Because it is ONLY through philosophies and theologies that "science" disproves these things.

 

[Rincewind]

Look up plate tectonics.

About 70 million years ago, The Indo-Australian plate collided with the Eurasian Plate.

You may ask, why is this interesting? Well, it’s because sitting on top of the plate was/is India -- maybe with a few French Fries, and the whole mass was heading north.

What started happening then is that as the Indo-Australian Plate moved north - it’s still moving at about 67 mm per year - it’s forcing the other plate upwards.

So - the Himalayas (you know, the highest mountains on the Earth?) were created, and have been rising slowly (about 5mm per year presently) ever since.

As there was sea between India and Eurasia originally, that’s how shells, etc can be found throughout the Himalayas.

By the way - it took me about 10 minutes to find this in Wikipedia. I hope I’ve not summarised it too much!

 

[AcesHigh]

there are two main histories to explain the myth of the global flood:

1 - pre-historic/ancient civilizations finding fossils of marine life on the top of mountains. We know NOW that, because of plate tectonics, somethings that nowadays are mountains, were once the bottom of sea floors. Back then, without such explanation, the most "obvious" thing to explain such findings would be that those mountains were once covered by water. And if they were covered by water, that means water was that height ALL around the world (not really all around, because I dont think they knew the world was a globe back in 2000 BC.

2 - rising sea levels after the last ice age. Humans LOVE their coastal cities. Not nice when in a relatively short period, the sea rises 50 meters and floods entire pre-historic civilizations/communities.

3 - some people use the rising sea level theories to explain Atlantis also. Its a good probability in fact, that the Atlantis myth HAS some truth in the background, and the deglaciation rising sea levels would explain it really well. A society as advanced as Ur, in Iraq, would look to be ULTRA advanced to other tribes, 10 thousand years ago, creating an oral myth passed down by generations.

 

[AcesHigh]

yeah, but at least it accepts SOME science. some Intelligent Designers even accept Evolution...only they believe "God" is the driving force behind all the mutations, not randomness.

basically the view of the Vatican, which admits the bible (specially the old testament) is full of allegories that do not portray realistically what happened. That they are more important for the moral content and as myths than trying to explain reality.

the Vatican recognizes the universe is several billion years old, as is life on Earth, and modern that humans exist for some 100 thousand years. They just believe that each random mutation in history was part of "god´s plan".

although I am an atheist, I am fine with people who believe in that.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I will probably never understand why threads such as this one, which is called "Science Disproves Evolution", are posted in the Religion & Philosophy and not in the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, & Technology forum.

Easy. Goddidit.