“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”

– Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

Picard:  Captain’s log.  We’re docking at a spacestation to repair this ship.  This scene will remind viewers of a similar scene in “Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock”.  More astute viewers will wonder why spacestations haven’t changed in the 75 years since then.

Geordi:  Docking beams attached, sir.  Our analogy with sea-going vessels is complete.

Riker:  That was hard!

Picard:  Everyone give yourself a big pat on the back.  That’s the most action we’ve seen since this series began.

Gay-Looking Aliens:  We are binars.  We’re linked into computers or something.  I heard someone say once that computers work on binary, which consists of 0s and 1s.  We’ve got something to do with that.

Picard:  Go stand next to Wesley.  You make him look straight.

Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher (AEWC):  I’m an Ensign!

Tasha:  I’m going ashore to play futuristic dodgeball!

Worf:  I’ll come with.  It will give me a chance to showcase my Klingon-ness.

Dr. Crusher:  I’m going to go talk to a famous scientist no one has ever heard of.

Picard:  I’m going to sit in my quarters and act French.

Riker:  I guess I’ll just wander the ship.  Hey, there’s Data and Geordi!

Data: I’m painting.  This makes me more human, which I want to be.

Riker:  Keep working with him, Geordi.  Keeping you two together for a while may be a useful plot device.

Gay-Looking Aliens:  Hey Riker, we made your holodeck better.  Check it out, you can simulate chicks now.

Riker:  Cool!  I’ll stay here for a while and, uh, test the program.

Picard:  I’m tired of acting French.  I think I’ll go to the holodeck.  Oops, sorry Riker.  I didn’t mean to interrupt.  I hope you were planning on cleaning that mess up before leaving the holodeck for the next user.

Minuet:  I’m a hot holodeck chick.  You should both stay here and let me divert your attention for a while.

Picard and Riker:  Okay.

Meanwhile, outside the holodeck…

Data:  Data to Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher.  The ship is about to blow up.  Are those gay little aliens doing something I should know about?

AEWC:  I’m an Ensign!

Data:  I better ask the Captain what to do.  Data to Picard.  Hmm no answer.

Geordi:  That usually works.

Data:  I’m fresh out of ideas.  Let’s evacuate the ship and eject it outside of the spacestation and far away from us.

…but inside the holodeck…

Picard:  Well, time for me to be hittin’ the ole dusty trail.

Minuet:  Don’t go yet, I’m not through diverting your attention.

Picard:  Hey, she’s trying to divert our attention.

Riker:  Let’s go!

Picard:  Oh crap!  The ship is on red alert, totally empty, and flying god-knows-where.

Riker:  Kind of like this show.

Picard:  Exactly.  Let’s set the ship to self destruct.  The clips from that totally unnecessary scene can be used to make this episode look exciting in a commercial.

Gay-Looking Aliens:  Argh, we’re dying.  We downloaded a huge file to your ships hard drive.  You must copy that file back to the big computer on our planet.

Picard:  Okay, what’s the filename?

Gay-Looking Aliens:  pfshhhhhhhhhhh……

Picard:  No problem, I’ll just open Windows Explorer, then search for large files.  After all, it is taking up most of our hard drive space…

Riker:  Let’s go ask the chick on the holodeck!

Picard:  Good idea!

Minuet:  I don’t know that file name, except that it’s in binary.

Riker:  Awesome!  Now all we need to do is try every possible binary number.  How long can that take?

Picard:  Not long when the writers don’t know crap about computers.

Gay-Looking Aliens:  You saved us!

Picard:  Yes, but there’s a $5 fine for stealing the flagship of the United Federation of Planets.

AEWC:  I’m an Ensign!

Everyone:  ha ha ha ha!

TSL’s Friend: Again I ask you: 1) Does your definition of “theory of evolution” include you descending from anything but a human being, such as a monkey, fish or amoeba? 2) Has such a theory of evolution become a scientific law to you? Must one accept it as valid science to be a “scientist” in your dictionary? 3) How long has “Maxwell’s equations” been an active cause and part of the universe according to your thinking?March 24 at 4:16pm

TSL: 1) Yes, with the qualification that it is not my theory of evolution.

2) Theories do not become laws. This question is nonsense. Here’s a link to a definition of scientific theory that you will ignore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Scientific_theory

3) At least 13.7 billion years.

I have a question for you: What privileged position do you think you occupy that entitles you to ignore questions asked of you while simultaneously demanding that others answer yours? April 11 at 5:56pm

TSL’s Friend: Please forgive me; I am not trying to be rude or ignore your questions. I guess I would say the “privileged position” I would claim is that of having started this questioning and that I am trying to establish a line of reasoning on your part. It is difficult when you diverge from that line by inserting tangential questions. I would be glad to answer ALL of YOUR questions later. But, if you would indulge me, I would like to keep to the topic I introduced.April 13 at 3:32pm

TSL’s Friend: Now, it seems like all of the causes of our present existence (universe) started about 13.7 billion years ago. Am I presenting your thinking correctly without going into great detail?April 13 at 3:33pm

TSL: I would agree with you, if I were indeed asking questions that were unrelated to the topic. I’m not doing that, though. I am simply asking you to buttress the claims that you have made during the course of your questioning. For example, most recently you claimed that you could present many evidences that disprove evolution. You also claimed that the theory of evolution maintains mainstream acceptance because of bullying in the academic community, I asked that you 1) give what you think is the best evidence against evolution and 2) provide evidence of bullying in the academic community. These are not tangential questions, and they deserve an answer if your point is to be seriously considered. You can’t just make unsubstantiated claims and expect me (or anyone else) to take them seriously.

TSL: Are we done now?June 2 at 9:09am

TSL’s Friend: No. I have a feeling this will go on till one of us leaves this world.June 2 at 9:22am

TSL: I meant: have you finished making your argument? I don’t think it’s practical to keep this facebook thread going until one of us dies. June 2 at 9:50am

TSL’s Friend: I have only begun my argument. But I have many other duties in life that must take priority at this time. I plan on getting back to it ASAP. You will understand that I do not want to hurry a response that would not put forth my fully thought-out argument.June 2 at 3:24pm

TSL: That makes sense to me and I can accommodate the pause. I wonder how you justify it to yourself, though. 6 months ago when you started this you said you would defend the Bible. What other duties in life are more important than defending the Bible?June 2 at 4:15pm

TSL’s Friend: No, defending the Bible is not most important. Studying the Bible is the most important. But what you are talking about is not me defending the Bible, but showing that anything contrary to the Bible is a deception. That requires a little research into whatever deception one is currently refuting. If I had a group of workers who would have provided me with their voluntary contributions, I would be able to devote more time into studying all the deceptions that have attacked the truth of God’s Word over the centuries. But I have to provide for my own support in our current economic system, and this requires me taking on responsibilities that are time consuming. June 3 at 11:14am

TSL’s Friend: You mention that there is a difference between “biological organisms” (organic part of the universe) and “rocks” (inorganic part). Without going into a further definition of both, I am interested in knowing in your religion, which of the means by which you believe our existence came to be were the causes of the organic part and which were the causes of the inorganic? Also, which came first, the organic part or the inorganic, or did they come into existence at the same time? Thank you. June 24 at 11:48am

TSL: I want to answer your question (as much as that is possible with this medium), but it makes no sense as you have phrased it. Here are just some of the problems:

1) biological organism and organic matter are not synonyms.

2) Neither are rocks and inorganic matter.

3) The distinction between organic and inorganic matter is somewhat arbitrary.

4) The universe does not consist solely of organic and inorganic matter.

5) Many of the laws that govern inorganic matter also govern organic matter. In some sense there is no difference at all (e.g. at a QM level).

6) The list that I provided (of mechanisms that govern the universe) was by no means complete. So, if I were to take that list and explain separately how each item governs organic and inorganic matter separately, it would still not provide a complete explanation for the present condition of either.

Restate your question sensibly and I will do my best to at least point you to an answer.

I can tell you that inorganic matter predates organic matter. Most, if not all, organic compounds contain carbon, which did not appear until long after hydrogen, which is considered inorganic, appeared. Carbon is formed as a result of nuclear fusion in stars, which, early in their life at least, consist mainly of hydrogen. First generation stars consisted entirely of hydrogen. Heavier elements, such as carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, were formed inside the star through the process of nuclear fusion. When those stars exploded in supernovae, those elements were scattered into the interstellar medium. June 24 at 6:46pm

TSL’s Friend: I do not believe one has to be a chemist, or use definitions of words used only by chemists, to be “sensible.” Yes, the strict chemical definition of “organic” may now include chemical compounds of carbon, but it is an accepted dictionary definition of “organic” to be: “characteristic of, pertaining to, or derived from living organisms.” Likewise, “inorganic” has an accepted dictionary definition of “not having the organization which characterizes living bodies.” In your 12/21 & 12/22 response you contrasted the terms “biological organisms” and “rocks.” How about “living” and “non-living”? In your thinking, is there a difference between those two concepts? Do you see a basic difference between a human being and a wooden door, for example? How about a “living” human being and a “dead” one? Or to put it differently, how do you define “life”? July 2 at 2:08pm

TSL: Obviously, one wouldn’t be expected to know chemistry to sensibly ask for directions to the nearest Applebee’s. However, one does have to be familiar with the language of chemistry to ask sensible questions about chemistry, which is what you are trying to do.

It occurred to me that you might have meant “living” and “non-living” instead of organic and inorganic. But then your question would have made even less sense since living things consist of non-living things, and you asked which came first, as if living things could predate the material of which they are made.

How’s this for a definition of life”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Life#Definitions July 2 at 2:22pm

TSL’s Friend: Okay, so you believe that living things came from non-living things spontaneously, without an intelligent Living Creator. Every living thing has DNA which translates coded information to proteins. This requires precise enzymes such as isoleucyl-tRNA, which requires certain amino acids to be screened out of it first. Yet, the DNA itself signals the creation of the enzymes and the screen. Thus all must be present at the same time for life to exist. In other words, for the DNA to exist there must be the enzymes and the amino acids, which cannot exist unless the DNA first exists. No evolution possible here, no natural selection over time here. Life could not have come from non-living matter. August 2 at 10:46am

TSL: At most you have come up with an argument against abiogenesis, not evolution. Regardless, could you please cite your references?August 2 at 10:58am

TSL’s Friend: Yes, it is not evolution because these things had to have been “created” simultaneously, thus life could not have occured by natural slection. It must have been by chance, but chance is not enough. For a reference check out A.R. Fesht, Sieves in Sequence, Science 280 (5363):541, 1998. Enzymes are in all living cells to speed up reactions. Phosphatase speeds up reactions vital for cell signaling by 10 to the 21st power times, thus allowing essential-to-life reactions to take place in a hundredth of a second, which, without Phosphatase would take a trillion years. It seems that the truth of your religion comes down to Phospatase being extant before DNA, but needs DNA to be extant, or you are going to need more than 14 or so billion years for life to be extant. 6 hours ago

TSL: Fersht’s paper backs up your claim regarding the mechanism by which DNA replicates. However, nowhere in the paper does he even mention the origin of life, let alone support your conclusion. It is no wonder, though, that you would not provide a citation for it since the only claims as such appear in creationist journals, most notably J. Sarfati, World record enzymes, Journal of Creation 19(2):13-14 August 2005. To claim that DNA and Phosphatase are both essential prerequisites to life one must fallaciously assume that all life has always been DNA-based. RNA, for example, catalyzes its own duplication. I refer you to D.C.Jeffares, A.M.Poole, and D.Penny, “Relics from the RNA World”, Journal of Molecular Evolution (1998) 46:18-36, the first sentence of which is “An RNA world is widely accepted as a probable stage in the early evolution of life.” And for the record, the theory of abiogenesis regards the origin of life, which is where you have steered this discussion. The theory of evolution is separate and describes the speciation of life. Natural selection is a speciation mechanism integral to the theory of evolution. 4 hours ago

⁶And God said, Let me first answer these emails, for surely they are great in number. ⁷And God read emails from colleagues and made the responses to them eloquently and oft were they biting: and it was so. ⁸And God called a meeting of his research staff to discuss the upcoming creation deadline. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

⁹And God said, I have still five days in which to complete the universe, which is plenty of time.¹⁰And God started a PowerPoint briefing and he called it “Methods and Apparatus for the Construction of the Entirety of Space, Time, and Matter”: and God saw that it was good. ¹¹And God said, Let us begin on this in earnest first thing tomorrow morning: and it was so. ¹²And God did take a two hour lunch and leave the office early: and God saw that it was good. ¹³And the evening and the morning were the third day.

¹⁴ On the fourth day God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ¹⁵And when God was about to divide the light from the darkness he was reminded that he had many papers to review before the end of the day. ¹⁶ And God did spend the afternoon reviewing papers. ¹⁷And, lo, he wrote scathing reviews of many papers, for they were not good. ¹⁸ When God had finished his reviews, which were good, he realized it was time to leave. ¹⁹And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

²⁰On the fifth day did God begin to panic, for he had but three days in which to finish the project. ²¹And God divided the light from the darkness. ²²And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  And God informed his research staff that they would be working through the Night which he had created, for the firmament work surely had stalled. ²³And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, Let us come back to the firmament later: and it was so. ²⁵And that morning God made the waters and the dry land, and the waters gathered he unto one place which one of his assistants called “seas” and God said it was good enough. ²⁶And God was eating lunch at his desk when he realized the light he created yesterday did not have a source.

²⁷And God berrated his research staff and said Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:  ²⁸And by them did God realize that it was very late in the fifth day. ²⁹And that night God created the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and every creeping thing that creepeth under the sun.  ²⁹And God was very tired and vowed never again to let deadlines creep up on him in this way.

³⁰And on the seventh day God cancelled his day of rest for he had much yet to do. ³¹And God said, I must still make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ³²And while God toiled on man he did receive an email notification that the deadline had  been extended, lo, another seven days.

¹Thus the heavens and the earth were nearly finished, and all the host of them. ²And on the seventh day God left early for he had plenty of time now to finish. ³And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had received an extension.

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Joshua 10:13

To take this literally one must reject the heliocentric model of the universe.  Martin Luther, for example, used this verse as evidence of an earth-centered universe and to condemn Copernicus.  Today’s orthodox heirs to Luther, however, while rejecting evolution and modern cosmology, cannot find it within themselves to question heliocentrism.  So they simply brush the language in this verse off as metaphor saying that the properly interpreted it means that the Earth stopped rotating for one day before starting up again.  Leaving aside how they interpret it that way without the added scientific data to which Luther either did not have access or refused to examine, this interpretation is still fraught with error, as a simple exercise in freshman physics will reveal.

<begin light math>

The rotational inertia of a sphere is given by I=2 m r^2/5, where m and r are the mass and radius of the sphere respectively.  The rotational inertia of the earth is therefore

I= 2 (5.9742 x 10^42 kg) (6.3781 x 10^6 m)^2 / 5 = 9.7213 x 10^37 kg-m^2.

The kinetic energy of a rotating sphere is KE= I * omega^2/2 where omega is the rotational velocity of the sphere.  The earth rotates once every 24 hours, so its rotational velocity is

omega = (2 pi)/(24 hours * 3600 seconds/hr) = 7.2722 x 10^-5 rad/sec.

The energy stored in the rotating earth is thus

KE= (9.7213 x 10^37 kg-m^2) (7.2722 x 10^-5 rad/sec.)^2/2 = 2.5705 x 10^29 J.

That’s a lot of energy.  To put it into perspective, according to the CIA World Factbook the electrical energy consumption of the whole world in 2007 was 17.78 trillion kilowatt hours, or 6.4 x 10^19 J.  So the energy stored in the rotation of the earth is enough to power the electrical needs of the whole world for 2.5705 x 10^29 J / 6.4 x 10^19 J/yr = 4.02 x 10^9 yr.  So, God kindly granted Joshua enough energy to power the world’s economy for 4 billion years.  That may make Joshua’s war against the Amorites the most expensive war in all of history!

Or, to put it in terms of things the Old Testament god was more likely to do, imagine that the energy he applied to the earth that day was instead detonated evenly across the earth in fire and brimestone, or something.  The area of the earth is

A=4 pi (6.378×10^6 m)^2 = 5.112×10^14 m^2.

So, the godly energy per square meter was (2.5705×10^29 J)/(5.112×10^14 m^2) = 5.0284 x 10^14 J/m^2.

<end light math>

A megaton of TNT, the unit of measure for nuclear weapons, is 4.184 x 10^15 J.  Converting the energy density to megatons of TNT we get 0.120, or 120 kilotons per square meter.  So, the energy required to stop the earth is roughly the same amount of energy one would get by simultaneously detonating five hundred trillion 120 kiloton nuclear weapons (about 8 Hiroshimas) placed evenly across the surface of the entire planet. One wonders why he didn’t simply take a more economical approach and take out the bad guys with a more surgical strike.

The problem is that energy is not simply taken away from systems.  It has to go somewhere.  If the earth were to stop rotating the effects to the surface would be devastating.  When the vehicle you’re in suddenly goes from cruising velocity to rest you are quite aware of the effects.  Apologists will probably say here that Yahweh somehow protected the earth’s inhabitants from these deleterious effects, even though there is no mention of that anywhere in the Bible, other than to naively omit the high speed winds that would have simultaneously vaporized the armies of Israel and the Amorites.  They are thus reduced to once again using a supernatural explanation.  Why the contorted physical explanation in the first place?  Why not have Yahweh just poof the Amorites into vapor with his magic?  Why the obviously flawed natural explanation?

Those of you who would prefer to remain entranced by their dearest delusions would be well advised to remain ignorant.  Knowledge is a potent antidote to mysticism.

You don’t have to answer this, but I’m believing you believe in things that cannot be proven yourself! You make the claim that God’s attributes of omniscient and omnipotent are illogical. I will agree with that. Can you agree that you once believed that God is not under the same rules of nature as you and I are! You were taught that God was the creator. Can it be possible that if a superior creator existed, would this superior creator have far more superior attributes than you or I do? Attributes that we cannot understand because of our limited, inferior knowledge? Are you saying just because our scientist of today cannot prove something, that it does not exist?

Thanks for giving me the option not to answer, but I think I’ll take a stab at it just the same.  First of all, let’s get one thing straight.  It doesn’t matter what I was taught.  If I was taught that the Earth is flat that would not make it so.  What matters is what can be substantiated by evidence and what is logically consistent.  You may have once believed in Santa Claus.  Should I then argue for the existence of Santa Claus because you once believed it?  Critical thinkers are constantly re-evaluating their beliefs, particularly when new data become available.  Those who stubbornly cling to their old beliefs are excessively error-prone and not to be trusted.

If scientists cannot prove something it may yet exists.  However, if mathematicians prove that it cannot exist then it does not exist.  This is a subtle point and may be difficult to reason through to those who do not think beyond what they are taught.  Science has not proven that there is not life on the ocean’s of Europa, for example.  We must therefore remain agnostic about whether or not it exists.  Mathematicians, on the other hand, have proven that the area of a circle is the radius of the circle squared times pi, where pi is the ratio of the circumference of the circle to the diameter of the circle.  The argument is a purely logical one, derived from the definition of circle, radius, and area.  Engineers will never be able to invent a circle whose area is pi times the radius cubed, or for which pi is a value other than 3.14159265…., no matter how technologically advanced they are.  It is quite safe to say that such a shape does not exist.

I concede that if the universe is created it must have been by a being (or civilization) that far exceeds our own capabilities.  However, I do know with absolute certainty that this being must be logically tenable.  It could not be a circle with radius pi time radius cubed.  Neither could it be a being that is both omnipotent and omniscient since that is logically impossible.  A being, any being, cannot be both omnipotent and omniscient.  These are not simply unproven to coexist, they are mutually exclusive.  It is utter nonsense.  One may as well say that the creator is a circle and a square*, lives in a box made of up, is the color of big, and smells like green.

In all honesty, to say that she is omniscient and omnipotent just makes her sound even more made up.  It sounds like the kind of thing a child would say.  “My imaginary friend is so powerful.”  How powerful is she?  “She can do ANYTHING!”  Wow, that must be impressive.  She sounds smart too.  “She is way smarter than anyone else.  She knows EVERYTHING!”

Grow up, reader.  At least posit a creator that makes sense.

*I’m quite aware that a circle of radius zero is also a square of area zero.  Ignore trivial solutions.

You say the claims of a world wide flood are incorrect. You ask what proof do I have? I would say their are more proofs for a universal flood than you will admit to! A world wide flood explains the setiments found throughout the world. It explains why their were fossels of many many different kinds of animals all found lying together in a mass grave. It explains the the formation of canyons like the grand canyon. A universal flood explains why you find fish imprints in fossilized rocks high up on mountains. The flood explains why we still dig up fossels that are not completely decomposed! I believe there is more evidance for a universal flood than their is evidence that their is not! Am I an expert on the subject. No, just from what I have read. But again, I chose to only read and accept what agrees with God’s Word. You see, I put God’s Word first! You have put science first! Your God is Science! And that God will only take you to a fiery hell.

The reader gives himself away when he admits to only reading and accepting evidence that support his presupposed conclusion.  Ironically, this is exactly what he accuses me of when he says there are more proofs of a universal flood than I will admit to.  I put science first in so far as I use the scientific method to objectively examine evidence and arrive at the most parsimonious conclusion.  The reader begins with his conclusion, namely that the Bible is true, and then only considers evidence that supports that conclusion.  Unfortunately for the reader, the truth may lie in the massive body of evidence that he willfully throws away.

I am curious, then, what qualifies the reader to assert that “there is more evidance (sic) for a universal flood than their (sic) is evidence that their (sic) is not!”  (I also note that this reader has a fondness for exclamation marks.)  Since he only reads what agrees with God’s Word, how is he even aware of the existence of evidence to the contrary?

These are the supposed evidence for a world-wide flood (the reader says universal, but I refuse to entertain the notion that the entire universe was flooded with water), followed by a brief explanation why each does not constitute evidence for the flood.

1. Sediments found throughout the world. This maybe the hardest of the reader’s observations to respond to, since it doesn’t make any specific claim.  The geological column can be explained without invoking a world-wide flood.  Radiometric dating of the igneous layers of rock indicate that almost all the sedimentary layers between were laid down long before the supposed date of the flood, 4000 years ago.  Those igneous rocks also bear record of a planet that has roughly 4.5 billion years of history during which many interesting things have happened.  There is, for example, a world-wide layer of Iridium that may very likely be the result of an astronomical impact 65 million years ago.  But there is no record of a global deluge 4000 years ago.
2. Fossils of many different species found lying in a mass grave. There are many things that could explain fossilized remains of animals in mass graves, only one of which is a world-wide flood.  I will not deny, for example, the possibilities of many localized floods throughout earth’s long history.  In fact, organisms that perish in fast floods are more likely to become fossils than those that die otherwise.  This by itself does not constitute evidence for a global flood. Furthermore, the mass graves that are uncovered do not have a diversity of species.  We don’t find rabbits and dinosaurs together, as one would expect.  What we do see are groups of species that evolution predicts to have been contemporaries of one another.  Finding rabbit fossils in pre-Cambrian strata would be the evidence the reader is looking for.  Unfortunately for the reader this is not what scientists actually find.
   
3. The formation of the grand canyon. This may the creationists’ favorite canard.  It has been debunked many times.In a nutshell, canyons are not what one would expect from a sudden, receding flood.  Neither can the flood both lay down the sediments that are seen in the canyon walls and carve the walls.  The Grand Canyon is meandering, rather than relatively straight as one would expect from a receding flood.  The tributaries to the Colorado River, within the Grand Canyon, are perpendicular to the river in many places.  Mainly, though, there is another, perfectly reasonable, explanation for how the Grand Canyon was formed.  I challenge readers to seek out that explanation for themselves.  I suggest you begin your search here.
   
4. Fossils of marine animals on mountaintops. This one is easy.  Mountaintops used to be submerged.  This was not the result of a world-wide flood.  Rather many mountains are slowly being pushed up.  This is confirmed by GPS observations of mountain ranges.  The Himalaya’s, for example, are being pushed up as the Indian subcontinent slams into Asia.  Again, there is not a diversity of fossils to be discovered atop mountains.  If there were actually a flood, one would expect to find marine and land animals fossilized in the same layers.  What is actually observed are layers consisting only of marine animals.  Flood apologists also have the tremendous task of explaining how water covered the highest peaks (presently 5 miles above sea level) when there isn’t enough water on the planet to do so.
   
5. Fossils containing soft tissue. The reader may be referring to this paper, in which discoveries involving soft tissue in a Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil were disclosed.  This is, indeed, a curious discovery, but should not be overstated.  It may be that some tissues decay more slowly than was predicted.  If that sounds like making an excuse, though, and this is proof that the dinosaur died 4,000 years ago, then soft tissue remains of dinosaurs should be the rule rather than the exception.  However, dating of the fossil gives an age that is consistent with an old earth.  What we know is that this T-Rex lived before the C/T event (65 million years ago)  and some of the tissue survived until today. It is far more likely that there is something pathological in this specimen that reveals more about how fossilization occurs than it does the Biblical flood.

So the reader has no evidence whatsoever for his silly little fairy tale.  It gets worse for him, though, for there is no shortage of scientific and technical challenges to the Biblical flood.  Consider, for example, that

1. there simply is not enough water on the earth to completely submerge everything from the Marianna Trench to Mount Everest.
2. Because of interbreeding problems, a species cannot survive a population bottleneck of 2.
3. Why is it that paleontologists do not find mass graves containing many diverse species separated by millions of years of evolution?  Why are there not rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian strata?
4. Why are not organisms of every species spread evenly throughout the world as one would expect if they all crash-landed on a boat in central Turkey 4000 years ago?  Does it not seem odd that both of the kangaroos on the ark hopped all the way to Australia (crossing several mountain ranges, deserts, and formidable bodies of water on the way), not leaving a single baby kangaroo on the way?  Is it not even more odd that every other placental mammal made exactly the same journey?
5. Most freshwater animals cannot survive in saltwater, nor can most saltwater animals survive in freshwater.  If the flood was world wide, though, then the water from the many lakes and rivers on the earth would have mixed with the water from the oceans.  How did the earth’s marine animals survive the changing salinization of the water?
6. There are numerous technical difficulties involved with capturing a pair (or was it seven?) of every species of animal and keeping them on a boat for many months.  Consider how the carnivores were cared for:  were extra animals brought on board to serve as a source of food?  How were plants cultivated and kept fresh for the many herbivores on board?  How was waste disposed of?  Where did drinking water come from?  Consider the expense in running a zoo for even 1 month, then imagine that it is the largest zoo in the world, housing every species on earth, and it is boxed in a wooden crate and set adrift on the ocean and staffed by a crew of 8.  Personally, I think it’s easier to explain how Santa Clause distributes presents to 1.2 billion people in one night than it is to explain Noah’s flood.

Reader, if you are still reading (and I am fairly certain you are) I challenge you to respond to each of these six problems with Noah’s flood.  Of course you should feel free to seek out whatever help you think you need, be it creationist tracts, your friends at AiG, or the learned clergy of your church body.  I am confident that if you look at it objectively, and free your mind of presuppositions, you will come to realize that the flood is nothing more than a myth.

TSL’s Friend: WOW! That is an impressive list! I congratulate you and thank you for all the work you put in on it. But before I comment on it, let me take on the topics you raise in their order.
First, “evolution.” I did not invent the term. It is no…t my idea or theory. I take no responsibility for it. What I have read about it is enough for me to know I disagree with it and think it leads people away from the truth. I do not care to waste any of my valuable time on it. It would be, in your words, “pointless.” But, for the record, what is your definition of it (“evolution” that is)? I will stick my neck out and state before I even hear it that ANY definition of the theory of evolution, including yours, contradicts the Bible. I find it interesting that your list of words explaining the present state of the universe did not include “evolution.”
Now, as to your list of theories. You use the term “theory” several times. How do you define “theory”? Is it something you believe is true and real? Or could it be a “myth”? Could all or some of these things you list just be “myths”?
I have found one thing we DO agree on in your remarks. Yes, I DO also think the universe and how it came to be what it is today is very complicated. I never stated it was simple, I simply asked you the question, “Is this so complicated?” I wanted you to admit it is very complicated. Thus you are wrong in your statement, “as simple as you seem to think.” I think this universe, this existence, and how it got to be what it is is very, very complex and complicated–far beyond any human being to fully understand and know. In fact, as you describe, it has so far been beyond the collective ability of all mankind combined to fully understand, or make. How could anyone rationally claim to understand it? Who could have such arrogance and pride? You have only listed, as you say, an incomplete list of theories attempting to explain and understand the universe. It is so complex. That is why most scientists down through the ages have believed in an infinitely wise and powerful Creator. How else could such a vastly complex thing come about?
Now, let us introduce the fascinating element of TIME. Let us take your list one term, or “theory”, at a time. First, “gravity.” How long has “gravity” been doing it’s thing? Or, to put it another way, how long has there been “gravity”?

TSL: I’m glad you appreciate the work I put into my last response. I wish you had read it more carefully. If you had you would have realized that I did include evolution in my list. (It was number 8.) Evolution is tersely defined as a change… in allele frequencies in a population over time.

A theory is a an explanation of reality that has been demonstrated by repeated observation. A myth is a traditional narrative that is handed down through the generations. It often involves supernatural events, the proof of which relies on witnesses and authorities that are no longer living. Obviously a theory is not a myth.

That the functioning of the universe is complicated does not mean it is completely incomprehensible. That you and I are able to communicate in this way is possible only because Maxwell’s equations were arrived at by repeated experimentation. Clearly it was not far beyond the capacity of any human being to understand the electromagnetic force. I concede that many early scientists were creationists, but it matters not. In the 16th century scientific consensus was that the earth was surrounded by a glass dome on which the stars were inscribed. In the late nineteenth century scientific consensus was that all of space is occupied by an ether that eluded detection. Now we know otherwise, and it doesn’t matter what those early scientists believed for they did not have access to the data we have. It is true that we may be wrong about some things, but we are less wrong than we used to be. Isaac Asimov illustrated this well in his essay “The Relativity of Wrong”. I refer you to it here:

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

Gravity is a property of space and matter and has “been doing it’s [sic] thing” for as long as there has been space and matter. According to our best estimates and to three significant figures this has been 13.7 billion years.

TSL’s Friend: Sorrry about that. You DID include evolution in your list of how the universe came to be what it is currently. Let’s go to the second in the list: quantum mechanics. How long has quantum mechanics been doing its thing? How long has there been quantum mechanics?

TSL: QM describes how matter and energy operate at the subatomic level. Matter and energy have been around for at least 13.7 billion years.

TSL’s Friend: You state that many “early scientists” were creationists because they did not have access to the data available today. I disagree. If “data” was the scientific proving point of atheism, how do you explain Darwin (19th Cent.) denying the B…ible and Einstein (20th Cent.) believing in the existence of God? Of course, I could go on to list many present-day scientists who believe in both God and the Bible. It seems the amount of “data” has nothing to do with whether or not a scientist is an atheist. Let us go on to “thermodynamics” on your list of what is responsible for our current existence. How long has “thermodynamics” been around?

TSL: I said the data invalidated creationism. Your conflating creationism and atheism. Einstein was not a creationist. Hardly any credible scientist today is a young-earth creationist.

As I said on Jan. 8, thermodynamics can be derived from qu…antum mechanics by an exercise in statistical mechanics. I’ve told you how long quantum mechanics has been valid. The answer to your question should have been obvious.

TSL: I should have said that you are conflating creationism and theism (not atheism).

TSL: For the record, a survey of the National Academy of Science revealed that 93% of scientists lack belief in a personal god: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

You may think that you can list many present day scientists that… are creationists, but I could list even more present days scientists that are not, even if I restrict myself only to scientists named Steve. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve

I stand by my original claim regarding the availability of data and the viability of creationism within the scientific community.

TSL’s Friend: I was simply stating that Einstein believed in a creating God.
You state that a “theory” is “an explanation of reality that has been demonstrated by repeated observation.” According to this, how has the theory of evolution been “repeatedly …observed”?
As to the age of all your explanations of how the universe came into existence, I do not presume to know what you think. I will only ask.
You state on 1/12 that gravity has been doing its part in this process for and “estimate” of 13.7 billion years (I assume you mean the time it takes earth to rotate the sun 13.7 billion times). Later, you state you believe (1/13) “at least” 13.7 billions years for QM, matter, energy and thermodynamics doing its thing. In other words, you don’t know. It could be at least 100 billions years, or an infinite amount of time; eternity. If you “know” its 13.7 billion years, you should be able my the same method of calculation, to know exactly how long it has been around.
I think we are down to “Newton’s laws of motion”. How long?

TSL: First of all, you were doing more than simply stating that Einstein believed in a creating god. You clearly stated that you could list many scientists that believe in both god and the bible and that therefore the availability of new data i…s not correlated with atheism. I have shown you evidence that scientists overwhelming reject the idea of a personal god by 93%. By comparison, only 15% of all Americans admit to atheism. Clearly there is a correlation between being educated in the sciences and believing in a god. Einstein’s beliefs, which evidence suggest were more comparable to pantheism than anything you would recognize as monotheism, is but one data point and one cannot draw conclusions about larger populations from it. Whether Einstein believed in a god means as much to me as does the fact that Christians like Ken Miller and Francis Collins accept evolution means to you.

Secondly, the scientific evidence for evolution is immense and I could not begin to cover it in a facebook comment. Besides, evolution is hardly my field of expertise. If you want to know the evidence you should go to the experts. I recommend the following sources:
Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution Is True (Viking Adult, 2009).
Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, 1st ed. (Free Press, 2009).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
I believe you will find these works accessible, even to the scientifically illiterate.

Thirdly, when I said that QM has been operating for x, where x>=13.7 billion years you suggested that the presensce of the “>=” symbol means that I can say nothing at all about x. This is a gross misrepresentation and I don’t see how it is possible to seriously level such a charge with anything more than a third grade education in mathematics. x>=13.7 does not imply that x>=100 or that x=infty, although it does admit them as both possibilities. We can, however, exclude all possible values for x that are less than 13.7. We can know, for example, that any claims that x=0.000006, which I’m guessing is also your claim, is just plain wrong. So you see, I do know something about the value of x, after all.

Finally, you said “If you ‘know’ its [sic]13.7 billion years, you should be able my [sic] the same method of calculation, to know exactly how long it has been around.” This is just plain wrong, and I wager that you burped it onto your keyboard without even knowing what the method of calculation is. If not, then you would have realized that, at present, we are unable to say much of anything at all about what happened more than 1×10^-44 seconds after the big bang, which was (wait for it) about 13.7 billion years ago. If you want to stick to this absurd claim you should explain why the method by which the date of the big bang has been estimated should allow us to make predictions about the behavior of the universe prior to one Planck time after the moment of the big bang.

Oh, I almost forgot. Newton’s laws of motion are a local approximation to the theory that explains gravity. It’s been at work for as long as gravity has.

TSL’s Friend: The theory of evolution. You seem to have accepted it as more than a theory. You believe it, you have faith in it. You point to “immense” evidence of it. I can point to many facts that prove it wrong, only a theory accepted only by fait…h by those who want to believe it, or are bullied by the “scientific/academic” establishment into thinking it is not a myth. I maintain your 93% statistic is somewhat due to this same phenomena, much as most Germans favored Hitler because Hitler saw to it that they did. I would guess you define “scientist” as one who has the stamp of approval of the “scientific/academic” establishment. If the evidence for evolution was so “immense”, why are there thousands of “scientists” who reject it even at this present day? You would think the number of “scientists” believing in such a well-proven fact as evolution would be 100%, not just 93%.
Einstein believed in a creator. But if you want to dismiss him from our discussion, let me list just a few more true “scientists” who believed in a personal creator: Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Boyle, Dalton, Pascal, Ramsay, Ray, Linnaeus, Mendel, Pasteur, Steno, Woodward, Brewster, Agassiz, Kepler, Galileo, Herschel, Maunder.
All I want and need to know about your definition of evolution is this: do you believe you (and by deduction, I and my parents) are descended from anything but a human being, such as a monkey, fish or amoeba?
In regard to your time table of your catalog of causes of our present existence, you state ” . . . we are unable to say much of anything at all . . . ” I find that interesting, as I feel this is crucial concerning God being a “myth.” I find it intellectually unsatisfying to only go part way in knowing how we came to exist.
Let’s go on to “Maxwell’s equations”, one of your religion’s causes of our current state. How long has it been around?

TSL: The scientists you list did not have the data that are available now. We’ve been over this before. The percentage of scientists presently practicing who accept evolution is far more than 93%. Again, you’ve conflated atheism and accepting… the theory of evolution.

Please provide evidence of bullying in the academic community.

You say you can point to many facts that prove evolution wrong. (Later you ask me to further define evolution. That has me scratching my head.) How about you give me your one best fact that proves evolution wrong?

I’ve already given you my definition of evolution. I’m not teaching a course on it. You should have found the answer to your question in the references from my last mail. Did you not even cursorily examine them?

You have taken me out of context when quoting me. Why?

It is true that we cannot piece together much of what happened prior to once plank time after the big bang. You may find that intellectually unsatisfying, and that may lead you to wish that it was brought on by fairies. That doesn’t make it right.

How you can not believe in a creator is beyond me! How an educated person can believe that something suddenly was created out of nothing is beyond me. You want proof from me that God exist and God’s Word is true! You would hear from me the same truths you once believed in yourself! All one has to do is walk outside and look around! Nature tells you there has to be a creator. And that’s not rocket science.

Even if the reader is right about nature telling us there has to be a creator, then this still does not prove that God’s Word (I think he meant the King James Version of the Bible) is true.  Could not nature have been created as described in any of the creation myths that have been posited?  The creator, if she exists, may or may not still take an active role in the daily functioning of nature.  She may not be at all concerned with human life.  (Judging by what is common throughout her creation, it is likely she is more interested in black holes.)  In fact, the creator need not even be an omnipotent deity.  It could have been an advanced civilization from another universe.  Proving that nature was created rather than occurred naturally does very little to help prove the truth of Christianity.

The reader is right about one thing, though.  This is not rocket science.  Neither is it robotics, civil engineering, contemporary women studies, or model railroading.  It is biology, physics, and geology.

I am asked to walk outside and look around.  I grant that if I were to do that carelessly and not look too closely, I may well come to the conclusion that what I was looking at must have been designed.  But if I were to look closer I would slowly come to another conclusion.  Biologist do as the reader instructs: they walk outside and look around at animals.  Geologists go outside and look around at rocks.  Then they pick them up and take them back to a laboratory where they look at them closer than they can by simply staying outside and marveling at them.  Astronomers go outside with telescopes and make careful, controlled measurements of the sky.

They then write down what they have observed and compare it with what other observers have written about what they observed.  Theories are constructed that explain all of these observations, and make predictions about what other observations should reveal.  The scientists then walk back outside and look around some more to see if those predictions hold up.  If they do not, the theories are modified to account for the new data, or rejected entirely so that new theories may be constructed.  This process of walking outside, looking around, making measurements, theorizing, and predicting repeats ad infinitum.  Thus is science.

Here is just one thing that biologists have noticed by walking outside and looking around.  Of all the animals that they have studied they have found that every animal with three bones in its middle ear also has mammary glands.  There is not one example of an animal with only two middle ear bones with mammary glands, or an animal with three middle ear bones, but no mammary glands.  This need not be if all animals were separately created.  It is not true, for example, that all cars with six-cylinder engines also have 6 CD disc changers in the trunk.  That is because cars are designed by engineers who mix and match different engines and car stereos to meet the design requirements.  If animals were designed by an engineer we would expect to see no correlation between middle ear design and mammary glands.  The observation is explained, though, if all animals with three inner ear bones and mammary glands share a common ancestor.  This is a specific example of what is more generally stated as the convergence of independent phylogenies.  It is very strong evidence against design in nature and strong proof for common descent.

Another example involves the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.  This was noticed by physicists that were looking very closely at the elementary constituents of matter and is one of the core tenets of quantum theory.  One of the theory’s predictions was the existence of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence in very short time scales all over the place.  A vacuum is never really a vacuum, it turns out, because of these virtual particles.  Virtual particles have been shown to exist by experimentation, thus further confirming the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but also providing a mechanism whereby something can come from nothing.

These are but two examples.  Science is full of similar examples that come to the same conclusion.  After 400 years of walking outside and looking around the most parsimonious conclusion is that nature occurs naturally.  It does not require a creator.  To reject this is to reject the major conclusions of biology, geology, and physics, which, again, were arrived at by doing as the reader instructs, although perhaps more carefully and studiously than he intended.  The reader should take his own advice, being careful not to presuppose the conclusion.