Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site iham1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!ihnp1!ihnp4!iham1!rck From: rck@iham1.UUCP (Ron Kukuk) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: The Scientific Case for Creation: (Part 33) Message-ID: <387@iham1.UUCP> Date: Sat, 29-Jun-85 17:10:45 EDT Article-I.D.: iham1.387 Posted: Sat Jun 29 17:10:45 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 03:02:07 EDT Distribution: net Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 87 THE SCIENTIFIC CASE FOR CREATION: 116 CATEGORIES OF EVIDENCE I. (Life Sciences): THE THEORY OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION IS INVALID. (See 1-36.) II. (Astronomical Sciences): THE UNIVERSE, THE SOLAR SYSTEM, AND LIFE WERE RECENTLY CREATED. A. NATURALISTIC EXPLANATIONS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND UNIVERSE ARE UNSCIENTIFIC AND HOPELESSLY INADEQUATE. (See 37-56.) B. TECHNIQUES THAT ARGUE FOR AN OLD EARTH ARE EITHER ILLOGICAL OR ARE BASED ON UNREASONABLE ASSUMPTIONS. 62. Geological formations are almost always dated by their fossil content, especially by certain INDEX FOSSILS of extinct animals. The age of the fossil is derived from the assumed evolutionary sequence, but the evolutionary sequence is based on the fossil record. This reasoning is circular [a-e]. Furthermore, this procedure has produced many contradictory results [f]. a) ''It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains embedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms that they contain.'' [R. H. Rastall, ''Geology,'' ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 1954, Vol.10, p. 168.] b) ''Are the authorities maintaining, on the one hand, that evolution is documented by geology and, on the other hand, that geology is documented by evolution? Isn't this a circular argument?'' [Larry Azar, ''Biologists, Help!'' BIOSCIENCE, Vol.28, November 1978, p. 714.] c) ''The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling that explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard- headed pragmatism.'' [J. E., O'Rourke, ''Pragmatism Versus Materialism in Stratigraphy,'' AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, Vol.276, January 1976, p. 47.] d) ''The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales.'' [O'Rourke, p. 53.] Although O'Rourke attempts to justify current practices of stratigraphers, he recognizes the inherent problems associated with this circular reasoning. e) ''But the danger of circularity is still present. For most biologists the strongest reason for accepting the evolutionary hypothesis is their acceptance of some theory that entails it. There is another difficulty. The temporal ordering of biological events beyond the local section may critically involve paleontological correlation, which necessarily presupposes the non- repeatability of organic events in geologic history. There are various justifications for this assumption but for almost all contemporary paleontologists it rests upon the acceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis.'' [David B. Kitts, ''Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory,'' EVOLUTION, Vol.28, September 1974, p. 466.] f) ''It is a problem not easily solved by the classic methods of stratigraphical paleontology, as obviously we will land ourselves immediately in an impossible circular argument if we say, firstly that a particular lithology is synchronous on the evidence of its fossils, and secondly that the fossils are synchronous on the evidence of the lithology.'' [Derek V. Ager, THE NATURE OF THE STRATIGRAPHICAL RECORD, 2nd edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1981), p. 68.] g) See references for items 22 and 64. TO BE CONTINUED III. (Earth Sciences): Ron Kukuk Walt Brown