The Official Perfection KOs Creationism Thread Part Five: The Revenge of Mike Shermer

[warpus]

The eyewitness accounts come from the ancestors of all the peoples of the world with ancient myths that speak of our departure from the animals.

Eyewitness accounts?

What.. did this happen overnight?

In mid-sentence, maybe?

 

[Perfection]

Is there actual evidence of such a collision to back up the dominant theory? Like a trail of debris near the orbits of Mars and Venus?

Yes there's actual evidence, no there's no trail of debris.

How did the Earth form and keep so much water so close to the Sun? I'd think the early solar wind would have blown water vapor and other gases out of the inner solar system.

When the Earth was closer the sun was smaller and produced less heat.

Why is the Earth about 7 degrees off the solar equator? Sounds like the collision had enough of an impact to move the Earth 7 degrees out of whack and play other games with the orbits of the planets. I suppose a planet could form at 7 degrees off the nebular axis but wouldn't an even larger planet form faster in the denser part of the nebula?

I'm not sure why exactly, but it doesn't have that much to do with giant impact hypothesis.

Where? And we'll find evidence of the collision there?

In Earth's orbit and yes, on the Earth and moon.

What pattern?

Titus-Bode

By actual evidence I mean actual evidence of the collision (debris), but I am interested in planetary formation patterns. Is there a pattern if the Earth was not here? Is there a gap in the pattern where the Earth should or could be?

No... I dont see how the gravitation of the planets would eliminate the evidence of the collision site. There sure would have been alot of loose rock flying around in different orbits even crossing the orbits of the planets (or becoming captured or expelled) but the collision would have produced a trail of debris that we can identify even if alot of the rock was dispersed. Just in case it survived . Is there a trail of debris?

The collission was basicly in Earth's orbital path (because both the impactor and Earth shared the same orbit) and Planets by definition clear their orbital neighborhood of debris.

So in LHB (?) the Earth was not hit after being formed 4.5 bya (aside from occasional meteorites)?

What you're refering to is "Late Heavy Bumbardment" where the moon got wailed by either a series of crap or a large impactor. There's significant evidence Earth got hit too.

Why does the theory need a low velocity impactor?

It doesn't need one, but the origin of the impactor at Earth's Lagrange point (a point on Earth's orbit around the sun) would imply this.

The earliest rocks and oceans (and life) date back close to 3.9 bya. If this impact occurred 4bya then things settled down enough for rock formation, oceans and life after 100 my (and that was after a massive impact). If the proto-Earth formed at 4.5-6 bya and needed a similar amount of time, then it would have had a rock crust and an ocean (assuming vast amounts of water vapor was available this close to the Sun) at 4.4 bya, almost a 1/2 by before the collision. Clearly there was an abundance of water after the collision, so unless it all came with the impactor it was here before the collison.

Here's the timeline:
~4.5bya Proto-Eath whacked by impactor forming Moon
~4.4bya Earth becomes solid
~4.0bya LHB creams the crap out of Earth destroying much of the terrain
~3.9bya Earth terrain reforms and doesn't suffer impact events at that level again

If long term comets got their orbits as a result of this collision, there's no need for the Oort Cloud to explain them. The fact so many have retrograde orbits suggest to me the impactor was following an inclined retrograde orbit.

This theory doesn't work. If it were true comets would have long ceased outgassing and wouldn't have their spectacular tails. Comets have to be continually generated by some disturbance.

 

[Berzerker]

Stew

I have addressed your initial claim. You claimed that a passage in the book of Genesis was meant, either by the humans who wrote it or by the divine spirit that inspired it, to refer to the evolution of human consciousness.

Actually I provided several verses showing what Adam and Eve were like before and after the tree and you ignored it.

I've shown that the humans who wrote Genesis (or the divine consciousness that supposedly inspired them) had no clue of the evolutionary history of life on this planet.

Thats not even true, they didn't get everything right but they didn't get everything wrong either. But thats your strawman and I exposed it already. Do people deny evolution if they make mistakes in the order of life? Deal with what I said about the Garden and dont keep dodging my argument with "well, they got that wrong so they got everything wrong".

That makes the inference that the Garden of Eden is magically pointing to evolution, an extremely weak one.

Inferences about the first people behaving more animal-like before obtaining the knowledge of good and evil and behaving like humans after? Even God said their eyes were now open, we had become like the gods - to know good and evil. If we applied your standard even Einstein would have to be ignored because he wasn't always right. Of course, we'd be ignoring you too. You've made more mistakes in this thread than the mistakes in Genesis you're griping about.

You started this argument by claiming

Um no, I said the Garden of Eden represents the evolution of the human consciousness and you immediately started griping about the order of appearance of life forms during the 6 days of creation.

In fact, as you have shown, religious people need to construct whole new systems of interpretation to deliberately realign their beliefs - after the fact - with discovered science. When read literally their texts are, from a scientific point of view, bullcrap.

Which is just more blather... It doesn't take a genius or a religious person to read the story of the Garden and see it as describing a change in our consciousness, the intellectual evolution of man from animal (and hominid). The science says this happened within the past 75-100 kya and oral and written traditions from all over the world speak of a time when we departed from the animals. That is not a denial of evolution, but that was your assertion.

For example you've created a whole new definition for the word "firmament," namely "the altered sky seen from the proto-earth after it was struck by the hypothetical Theia object."

No, the firmament divided the waters. I didn't say it could be seen or was the sky after the impact. I didn't say much of anything about it other than it divided the waters. I did say the lights in our sky were a product of the Earth being given new orbital characteristics, you know, the seasons and signs observable from Earth. I notice you didn't quote me, why is that? Where did I say the firmament was the altered sky of the newly born Earth? Use an actual quote this time.

Guess what, this isn't what firmament means, it's not what the scribes thought they meant when they wrote firmament, it's not what 5950 years of exegesis of Genesis thinks firmament means, it's the definition you've invented for the word firmament in an attempt to make Genesis sound like it is something other than sheepherders on LSD.

My God, you just ramble on and on about nothing. I haven't defined Heaven/firmament, I said what Genesis says - it divided the waters. You just make stuff up and proceed to rant rather than actually address my arguments.

The word firmament actually refers to a mythical layer of clear crystal in the sky that kept the stars from falling and stored water in the heavens (except when God wanted it to rain). A common ancient belief - an EXCUSABLE belief for people 5000 years ago to have! - but today? scientific bullcrap.

Thats nice, but Genesis does call the firmament "Heaven" so it aint talking about the universe. The Akkadian or Sumerian defined Heaven as "the hammered-out bracelet" and that was written long before anything about a layer of crystal.

What does your new Genesis-explanation add to human thought? Nothing because it's just built around sounding-like what science has discovered.

The knowledge of good and evil - and Genesis told us long before Darwin or modern evolutionary theory.

If in 10 years scientists discover something that radically alters the evolutionary history of life I've presented in this thread, you'll rejigger your interpretation of Genesis so that it still magically points to whatever is the most advanced scientific understanding of the universe.

You haven't even shown where my interpretation is wrong and now you're accusing me of being dishonest? I'm not the one using strawmen, thats your game. All this time and you still haven't explained why the story in the Garden does not reference a change in human consciousness... All this time and nothing but blather...

 

[Berzerker]

Babbler

Volcanic outgassing is one proposed source of terrestial water.

But how did all that water vapor stay in so close to the Sun to become part of a planet? Outgassing occurred when the crust was forming 4.5 bya and again around 4 bya when the collision occurred.

The oldest minerals, IIRC, are ~4.4 Ga; the oldest rocks are a big younger.

Meteorites have been dated back 4.5 bya, no terrestrial rocks though. They go back 3.9 bya...

Warpus

Eyewitness accounts?

What.. did this happen overnight?

In mid-sentence, maybe?

Yes, eyewitness accounts. You know, our ancestors from 100,000 years ago or less interacting with hominids, erectus, archaic humans, Neandertals, etc... These people undoubtedly kept oral traditions of these contacts with other, more primitive looking humans.

 

[Babbler]

But how did all that water vapor stay in so close to the Sun to become part of a planet? Outgassing occurred when the crust was forming 4.5 bya and again around 4 bya when the collision occurred.

IIRC, it originates from the mantle via volcanic eruption.

Meteorites have been dated back 4.5 bya, no terrestrial rocks though. They go back 3.9 bya...

That is incorrect.

Yes, eyewitness accounts. You know, our ancestors from 100,000 years ago or less interacting with hominids, erectus, archaic humans, Neandertals, etc... These people undoubtedly kept oral traditions of these contacts with other, more primitive looking humans.

Really? I doubt that oral history could record those stories with any fedelity, have them (relatively) unaltered while being record as creation stories, and have those stories survive to the present.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, I was about to say.. An oral tradition spanning 100,000 years?

Have you ever played chinese telephone, Berzerker? Do you know how much time 100,000 years is?

Besides, would proto-humans even understand that the Neanderthals were their cousins, and that they evolved from the same species? Would they know what evolution is or how it works? No.. these beings would be just another animal, roaming the countryside, to our ancestors.

Your eye-witness account theory doesn't make much sense.

The fact that we evolved from lower species wasn't discovered until. well.. you know.. Darwin.

 

[Berzerker]

Perfection

Yes there's actual evidence, no there's no trail of debris.

The trail of debris is the actual evidence, and last I heard there's a bunch of rock out there flying around. Wanna bet we find a trail if we look?

When the Earth was closer the sun was smaller and produced less heat.

But the solar wind "de-gassed" the inner solar system. Thats the explanation I've heard for the rocky inner planets. I understood the reason Jupiter gathered up so much gas was because the solar wind weakened out there past Mars and stuff slowed and froze.

I'm not sure why exactly, but it doesn't have that much to do with giant impact hypothesis.

It should Its very curious that the Earth is out of whack more than any other planet aside from Pluto. I think all the other planets are closer to the solar equator.

In Earth's orbit and yes, on the Earth and moon.

But all the planets have been getting hit by debris over time, and aside from a relative few earth crossing asteroids with elliptical orbits taking them outward, what is the evidence of a collision in our orbit? Hmm...aint the asteroid belt a trail of debris? I wonder if anyone has charted the asteroids and tried to pinpoint an orbital range for their origin.

Titus-Bode

Are there any patterns with the Earth removed from this location and placed elsewhere?

The collission was basicly in Earth's orbital path (because both the impactor and Earth shared the same orbit) and Planets by definition clear their orbital neighborhood of debris.

Unless the planet aint there any more. Is this why the theory requires hardly no change in Earth's orbit? Because the Earth has swept up the evidence of the collision?

What you're refering to is "Late Heavy Bumbardment" where the moon got wailed by either a series of crap or a large impactor. There's significant evidence Earth got hit too.

Okay, I'm familiar with that. But thats our collision. One theory says the Moon formed from this collision, but it looks to me like the Moon was present when the Earth got smacked. The serious damage done to the Moon occurred on one side, the side facing us. Was the giant impact theory devised to explain the Moon?

It doesn't need one, but the origin of the impactor at Earth's Lagrange point (a point on Earth's orbit around the sun) would imply this.

Why does the theory make the assumption the impactor was at a LaGrange point? Where did the impactor go? Surely it would have survived such a glancing low velocity impact.

Here's the timeline:
~4.5bya Proto-Eath whacked by impactor forming Moon
~4.4bya Earth becomes solid
~4.0bya LHB creams the crap out of Earth destroying much of the terrain
~3.9bya Earth terrain reforms and doesn't suffer impact events at that level again

Ah, okay, so the big impact at 4 bya did not result in the Moon. I swear the docu I was watching attributed the formation of the Moon to the 4 bya impact. That timeline works better since it has the Moon present at the time of the 2nd collision.

This theory doesn't work. If it were true comets would have long ceased outgassing and wouldn't have their spectacular tails. Comets have to be continually generated by some disturbance.

I understand some suspected comets have ceased outgassing. But they outgas as they approach Mars, so comets following highly elliptical orbits only come by once every few thousand years (or even longer). And how do we know comets cant recoup lost gases while flying around the outer solar system? And why the preponderance of retrograde long term orbits? Is the disturbance following a retrograde orbit? Take your time, I gotta take some time off from Stewie

 

[Berzerker]

Babbler

IIRC, it originates from the mantle via volcanic eruption.

Yes, but the Earth was forming in close to the Sun. The solar wind supposedly de-gassed the inner solar system.

That is incorrect.

Cool... something else for me to research. But it says the zircon was found in 3.9 bya magma so the crystal may have survived the impact but not its surroundings. I expect the Earth did have a crust going even further back (as I have said in this thread), but the 4 bya impact wiped out nearly all evidence from that time.

Really? I doubt that oral history could record those stories with any fedelity, have them (relatively) unaltered while being record as creation stories, and have those stories survive to the present.

And yet we have the oral traditions and written myths describing early human contacts with more primitive peoples, even "ape men" according to the Zulu.

Warpus

Have you ever played chinese telephone, Berzerker? Do you know how much time 100,000 years is?

Sacred oral traditions were handed down with a bit more care than some game But while I agree there's plenty of time for the details to mutate the story relates the same thing - our ancestors had contacts with more primitive creatures and now we know this is true. And the story could have started 100 kya but the contacts didn't end there. We were living alongside Neandertals as recently as 35 k and erectus much much more recently if Flores Man is in fact from the erectus line.

Besides, would proto-humans even understand that the Neanderthals were their cousins, and that they evolved from the same species? Would they know what evolution is or how it works? No.. these beings would be just another animal, roaming the countryside, to our ancestors.

An animal that looked alot like them... But the myths still say we were more like the animals and became human.

Your eye-witness account theory doesn't make much sense.

Then you explain how the Zulu have a myth about interacting with ape men. All those stories of our emergence from the animal world relate an evolutionary fact. You deny this because it was so long ago, but we have the stories nonetheless.

 

[Simple Simon]

Simon
Jesus,

right the first time, wrong the second

I said the Garden story represents our evolution in consciousness from animals to humans and I provided a few verses that show what I'm talking about.

You said evolution - care to answer my questions now?

The eyewitness accounts come from the ancestors of all the peoples of the world with ancient myths that speak of our departure from the animals.

And how do explain how they can be eyewitnesses when they, given your logic, at that time still were animals? or are you claiming that Adam wrote the Genesis?

Maybe they ate from the tree of knowledge But I'd love to know how you figured out these animals understand good and evil as opposed to desirable and undesirable.

Science! That's how!

Perhaps you do not understand the principles, so let me explain: first, you need to define what you talk about. 'good' and 'bad' (or 'evil') are terms that have no universal meaning. You seem to use them in a sense close to 'moral' and 'immoral'. I assume, therefore, that you want to claim that animals have no morals, while humans do.

Next, we find us a test subject, and then design a test. Has been done umpteen times. Premack et al. comes to mind, or Tomasello. And others - Pepperberg, e.g.

Then, we test - and if you bother to actually read up on the research on animal consciousness you'll find that a surprising number of species is capable of understanding without being taught that taking things from others is not nice.

Suffices for me - but I know you'll now twist your original statement the 'yellow-black' way

The tree of knowledge refers to alot more than just good and evil, it refers to what makes us like the gods.

Would you please care to prove this? All I see is you again reading a bunch of stuff into a mistranslation of an old text.

But you cant very well attach an encyclopedic description to a name for a tree.

Irrelevant - care to finally define 'good' and 'bad'?


You made a claim - that Genesis shows us how its writers understood evolution. I have just shown you that you do not even know what would be required for this claim.

Sounds real bad... So, Genesis says land appeared from under the waters and God called the land "Earth". And what about the waters? They were here before the land appeared, the world was covered by water. It is the appearance of the land that God takes credit for, not the waters or this planet. If you got something to refute that, go right ahead.

Well, as you by now should well know, this is not what really happened! So Genesis makes false claims: that earth was at first water-covered, and that land appeared later, and that all this was caused by a god person.

Refuted - next? Maybe you'd bother to answer my questions?

 

[Simple Simon]

Besides, would proto-humans even understand that the Neanderthals were their cousins, and that they evolved from the same species?

Not proto-humans! Both Homo sapiens and Homo neaderthalensis are fully human. Unless you want to redefine 'Homo'.

And yes, they might very well think those bleached out, huge guys and gals are human - albeit primitive! Possibly the way Victorian British saw Africans. Just that in the sapiens-neanderthalensis case, the skin pigmentation went th other way: the 'brutes' were white

The fact that we evolved from lower species wasn't discovered until. well.. you know.. Darwin.

Well, not quite! There were a bunch of others who got to that point and shied away, e.g. Charles Darwin's grandfather! They simply shut up when their religious beliefs were in doubt, stopped their investigations and musings, and turned to other subjects. Much as Darwin did, too, burying himself in mollusks and other stuff.

 

[Simple Simon]

Ah, okay, so the big impact at 4 bya did not result in the Moon. I swear the docu I was watching attributed the formation of the Moon to the 4 bya impact. That timeline works better since it has the Moon present at the time of the 2nd collision.

You seem to have a problem with the type of sources you use: old tales with no scientific outset and content, and TV documentaries. Guess what: if you ask someone who works in a certain field about a docu about that field, he can usually tell you 5 to 10 serious mistakes in a second. That's for a good docu. Don't get me started about some of the stuff that is produced by ignoring the entire professional community working on the stuff and then called 'docu'.

 

[brennan]

Where in Genesis does it say God created the universe or this planet (or the waters)? Heaven refers to the firmament used to divide the waters and Earth is the name God gave to the dry land. Thats what Genesis says, not my interpretation...

Uh, well the traditional view is that God created everything. Correct me if i'm wrong. Perhaps you'd like to give us your own personal slant on the Creation?

Huh? Where did I say Genesis does not refer to creation? It just doesn't refer to the creation of the universe.

Since when? Why should we be discussing what appears to be a totally unique interpretation of Genesis, rather than the one that has prevailed amongst Jews and Christians for thousands of years?

I already explained that several times, the "Light" is the name God gave to the day and dark to the night. The Earth has day and night because it spins in close proximity to the Sun. Why is that complicated?

As has been pointed out, this is an attempt to make the story fit established scientific facts. This is not an interpretation the original writer(s) would have recognised so why should we be addressing it?

The authors didn't say the Sun was the center of the system, nor do they deny it.

And from this total lack of information you infer what precisely? I infer that they didn't have a clue, and the conclusion you came to is ludicrous.

 

[Leifmk]

C'mon, I specified a 'larger' animal before. I still mean it. We have all of North America to work with, you'd think we could find another species which appeared after people.

Polar bears? They're certainly large enough, and they have evolved to fit a top predator niche in a climate which didn't exist during the last interglacial period (i.e. 110 - 130 thousand years before present).

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

A climate which won't exist in the future and as a result they are now drowning by scores. That's what you get for sloppy last minute evolving.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Also, it's a mistake to think that genetics is the only argument for men being apes. Remember, this was put forth in the very first version of the On the Origin of Species. The largest arguments are the great number of physical similarities between men and apes with the fossil record also providing an important role.

That humans fit anatomically among the great apes was recognized long before Darwin. Linnaeus even put some of the non-human apes into the genus Homo.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Not proto-humans! Both Homo sapiens and Homo neaderthalensis are fully human. Unless you want to redefine 'Homo'.

The definition of Homo isn't "fully human". You may want to consider all members of the genus to be "fully human", but it's no more definitionally necessary than it is to consider a donkey (Equus asinus) "fully horse".

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, not quite! There were a bunch of others who got to that point and shied away, e.g. Charles Darwin's grandfather! They simply shut up when their religious beliefs were in doubt, stopped their investigations and musings, and turned to other subjects. Much as Darwin did, too, burying himself in mollusks and other stuff.

That is not (I think) true either. Darwin didn't come up with evolution, he just figured out that it happened by natural selection. And not everyone was terrified of contradicting religion - Darwin didn't invent atheism either.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Why is the Earth about 7 degrees off the solar equator?

All the planets are off the solar equator by 3-7 deg.

In fact, it would make more sense to say it's the solar equator that's off the plane of the solar system by about 6 deg.

 

[Perfection]

The trail of debris is the actual evidence, and last I heard there's a bunch of rock out there flying around. Wanna bet we find a trail if we look?

Nope, it was in Earth's orbit. Planets by definition clear thier orbits of debris. Yes, there are some random rocks in Earth's orbit but they're in transient orbits and given a few million years they'll get flung elsewhere.

But the solar wind "de-gassed" the inner solar system. Thats the explanation I've heard for the rocky inner planets. I understood the reason Jupiter gathered up so much gas was because the solar wind weakened out there past Mars and stuff slowed and froze.

Venus Earth and Mars all have substantial atmospheres so it's pretty obvious solar wind can't preclude the existance of an atmosphere. Here's the deal, solar wind prevented the formation of large hydrogen-laden planets (gas giants) they didn't prevent the mostly heavy element (carbon nitrogen oxygen etc.) atmopheres from forming via vulcanic outgassing.

It should Its very curious that the Earth is out of whack more than any other planet aside from Pluto. I think all the other planets are closer to the solar equator.

Dude get the memo, Pluto's not a planet. Now Earth's inclination is highest but not by much and I'm not going to speculate why when it's relatively minor to giant impact and may be accounted for by other things.

I'm hella busy and have to go now, I will respond to the rest later.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Now Earth's inclination is highest but not by much and I'm not going to speculate why when it's relatively minor to giant impact and may be accounted for by other things.

The Earth's inclination is the highest because it happens to be off the invariable plane in the opposite direction from the Sun's equator whereas most of the other planets are off in the same direction. This is not a permanent arrangement - the orbits rotate with respect to one another on timescales of 100,000s and millions of years (which is very swiftly compared to a timedepth of 4.5Ga) and at other times other planets will have the highest inclination compared to the solar equator.

(The invariable plane is the plane perpendicular to the vector sum of the angular momenta of the solar system. It's identical with Jupiter's orbital plane to within half a degree, but off the solar equator by about 6 degrees. Odd as it may sound, the Sun's contribution to the total angular momentum is tiny, whereas Jupiter accounts for about 60%.)