Heh. I've found an interesting YEC.

[Parallax]

For a while now, I've been keeping a bit of a blog and one of the entries I made attracted a researcher for a rather whacked out YEC supporting website (godsaidmansaid). I'm amazed at what he believes; actually thinking that the great flood formed the Grand Canyon and more.

I'm of a mixed mind, stuck between shaking my head in disbelief and laughing out loud.

[dworkin]

I advise laughing out loud. Open derision is our best weapon against those who indulge in thought control.

[Superman]

For a while now, I've been keeping a bit of a blog and one of the entries I made attracted a researcher for a rather whacked out YEC supporting website (godsaidmansaid). I'm amazed at what he believes; actually thinking that the great flood formed the Grand Canyon and more.

I'm of a mixed mind, stuck between shaking my head in disbelief and laughing out loud.

A 'researcher...' Riiiiggghhht...

[Spyder]

Har!

Godsaidmansaid made Something Awful's ALOD.

[Darth Wong]

I love the way these imbeciles think the Flood could carve out the Grand Canyon. Not only is there no explanation for why it looks rocky and jagged rather than being all worn away, but these idiots must think that something so violent that it scours the Grand Canyon out of solid rock can somehow leave topsoil, otherwise Noah and his daughters would have starved to death upon debarking. After all, what were they supposed to grow plants with, if there's no topsoil? Are they going to eat the precious animals they've been keeping on the Ark?

[AK_Jedi]

I think these YECs really just have a problem with thinking things through long term. They see a river remain the same for their entire lives, and they can't imagine how a river could carve out something so huge out of the rock. Then they see a flood take out the side of a hill in an instant and they assume that a really big flood will make a really big mark.

Throw all the evidence you want at them, and they'll keep saying, "but its just a small river, how could it do so much?"

[Parallax]

Ah damn. He's posted his last comment ... I was starting to have fun as well. Pity.

[wautd]

Are they going to eat the precious animals they've been keeping on the Ark?

My theory is that they ate the dinosaurs

[mr friendly guy]

Are they going to eat the precious animals they've been keeping on the Ark?

My theory is that they ate the dinosaurs

After all, they could have just broken T. Rex's arm and he would have bled to death.

Yes, Doctor Dino actually said that.

[Winston Blake]

I love the way these imbeciles think the Flood could carve out the Grand Canyon. Not only is there no explanation for why it looks rocky and jagged rather than being all worn away, but these idiots must think that something so violent that it scours the Grand Canyon out of solid rock can somehow leave topsoil, otherwise Noah and his daughters would have starved to death upon debarking. After all, what were they supposed to grow plants with, if there's no topsoil? Are they going to eat the precious animals they've been keeping on the Ark?

You must accept the Word of God with the innocence of a child, for are we not merely children compared to an Almighty God? What's that? No, Virginia, children should not ask questions and think critically, they must have faith in and obey their elders for their own good, just as we adults obey our father in heaven. Just for that, Virginia, I'm giving you an F.

[Chris OFarrell]

I love the way these imbeciles think the Flood could carve out the Grand Canyon. Not only is there no explanation for why it looks rocky and jagged rather than being all worn away, but these idiots must think that something so violent that it scours the Grand Canyon out of solid rock can somehow leave topsoil, otherwise Noah and his daughters would have starved to death upon debarking. After all, what were they supposed to grow plants with, if there's no topsoil? Are they going to eat the precious animals they've been keeping on the Ark?

Well that explains the the Dinosaurs...

[mr friendly guy]

I saw this on your blog

Well, Matt, you must be talking with Christians who “flatter with their lips.” Earth certainly can be far older than 6000 years. God didn’t say in Genesis how long the earth hung in the heavens before He created life upon it. What we do know is that life began almost 6000 years ago. As for what scientists claim to be ancient artifacts of life, we’ve only man’s carbon dating to go by; and, if man is anything great, he is great at being fallible

Ignoring for a moment that dendrochronology alone can date back 10 000 years. Ignoring for a moment that we can date fossils back millions of years using lead-uranium dating. Why do people think carbon dating is the only method we have to date ancient objects?

[Rye]

Amusingly, the site of old Jericho dates back 11,000 years. A biblical site is older than the biblical planet.

[Wicked Pilot]

If there was a global flood there why is there not a global grand canyon?

[Rye]

In fact, to hammer home the point:

Source.

Bar-Ilan University researchers have found a cache of 120,000 wild oat and 260,000 wild barley grains at the Gilgal archaeological site near Jericho that date back 11,000 years - providing evidence of cultivation during the Neolithic Period.

The research, performed by Drs. Ehud Weiss and Anat Hartmann of BIU's department of Land of Israel studies and Prof. Mordechai Kislev of the faculty of life sciences, appears in the June 16 edition of the prestigious journal Science.

It is the second time in two weeks that Kislev and Hartmann have had an article in Science. They recently wrote about their discovery of 10,000-year-old cultivated figs at the same Jordan Valley site.

According to the researchers, the newest find shows that the transition from nomadic food gathering and the beginning of agriculture were quite different than previously thought. Until now, the general assumption has been that agriculture was begun by a single line of human efforts in one specific area. But the BIU researchers found a much more complicated effort undertaken by different human populations in different regions, drawing a completely new picture of the origins of agriculture.

Agriculture, the BIU researchers suggest, originated through human manipulations of wild plants - sometimes involving the same species - that took place in various spatially and temporally distinct communities. Moreover, some of these occasions were found to be much earlier than previously thought possible.

The researchers analyzed archeo-botanical data from Near Eastern archeological sites to locate human attempts to grow early crops. Several plant species, which they term "pioneer crops," were found to be the earliest plants manipulated by humans. Some of these attempts succeeded, which means that domestication and continuity were achieved, while others were abandoned. They offer a model of a pioneer agriculture with its disappointments and achievements.

They were certain that the grains found at Gilgal were cultivated and not found naturally in the environment because they were found in such large quantities and because field observations showed that only moderate amounts could be gathered from natural growing sites in this part of the Jordan Valley, even in rainy years.

[K. A. Pital]

Wow... made my day. Thanks. It was hilarious. GOD SAID MAN SAID... remember folks... And use magazines from 1950, 1957 as sources, as well as Henry Morris...

[Lord Edam]

Ignoring for a moment that dendrochronology alone can date back 10 000 years. Ignoring for a moment that we can date fossils back millions of years using lead-uranium dating. Why do people think carbon dating is the only method we have to date ancient objects?

German Physicist Claus Rolfs has shown that radioactive decay is not the constant, unchanging thing we've always thought it is.

for centuries physicists have assumed radioactive decay rates are constant irrespective of environment, thus giving rise to "accurate" ages for millenia-old materials. However, Rolf's research demonstrate that both fission and fusion rates are highly dependent on the environment. Rolf even proposes (New Scientist no 2574) that this could be harnessed to cut the length of time we have to store nuclear waste before it is safe from hundreds or thousands of years to just 2.

If the environment can have such a great impact on the half life of dangerous radioactive materials it is no longer possible to trust the wild assumptions of scientists using radioactivity to bolster their attempts to ignore the wonder of the Great Lord's work.


addendum: the science is something that's been popping up in the background for a few years now, but the results whilst apparently true don't match the model anywhere near as much as would be required to go from a 14 billion yo universe to a 6000 yo earth. Oh, and it seems to require cooling stuff to near absolure zero. Still, after the article in New Scientist I've decided it might be amusing to see if we can poke the fundamentalists into pick up the research and twisting it to fit their own ends.

[Darth Wong]

German Physicist Claus Rolfs has shown that radioactive decay is not the constant, unchanging thing we've always thought it is.

for centuries physicists have assumed radioactive decay rates are constant irrespective of environment, thus giving rise to "accurate" ages for millenia-old materials. However, Rolf's research demonstrate that both fission and fusion rates are highly dependent on the environment. Rolf even proposes (New Scientist no 2574) that this could be harnessed to cut the length of time we have to store nuclear waste before it is safe from hundreds or thousands of years to just 2.

It's unfortunate that a lot of people out there assume New Scientist is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, when in fact it's the National Enquirer of science.

[Gil Hamilton]

Sooo... what, despite the fact that measurements based on radioactive decay under normal conditions are consistant with other dating methods, we should throw that into doubt because scientists in very controlled and unusual circumstances found a way to alter the process, Edam?

You can do some weird ass stuff in a labratory to matter, but that doesn't exactly apply to natural processes when that weird ass thing happened in a supercooled tank under some university, does it?

[Lord Edam]

Sooo... what, despite the fact that measurements based on radioactive decay under normal conditions are consistant with other dating methods, we should throw that into doubt because scientists in very controlled and unusual circumstances found a way to alter the process, Edam?

you didn't read the whole post then? No one's claimed these results invalidate radioisotope dating, btu I've always enjoyed seeing how little effort it takes to get the wackos to twist real theories to their own ends. think ofit as social art

unfortunately, it's generally too much for one man to do on his own. You don't have to join in, but if you get the chance to poke it along a bit it would be much appreciated.

[Lord Edam]

It's unfortunate that a lot of people out there assume New Scientist is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, when in fact it's the National Enquirer of science.

To be fair, when they do an article based on real research rather than just an overview of a wide field they're generally a good lead into deeper sources. You just have to read the science and ignore the fantasy they throw in (like with this one - the actual differences in decay rates are a few % @ 10K for small amounts, so you don't even need to be a nuclear physicist to read the science & realise the claim of clearing out nuclear waste in a few years is absurd)

[drachefly]

for centuries physicists have assumed radioactive decay rates are constant irrespective of environment

Yeah, we had really firm ideas about radioactivity in 1806. Heh.

[Darth Wong]

It's unfortunate that a lot of people out there assume New Scientist is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, when in fact it's the National Enquirer of science.

To be fair, when they do an article based on real research rather than just an overview of a wide field they're generally a good lead into deeper sources.

Wikipedia is a "good lead into deeper sources" too; it doesn't change the fact that academically, it's trash.

You just have to read the science and ignore the fantasy they throw in (like with this one - the actual differences in decay rates are a few % @ 10K for small amounts, so you don't even need to be a nuclear physicist to read the science & realise the claim of clearing out nuclear waste in a few years is absurd)

What "science"? A typical New Scientist article contains no science; it contains "science journalism"; the art of someone taking science, removing all of the math and methodology, and turning it into a description that Joe Plumber can understand.

[Frank Hipper]

Since when do geology and paleology depend so much on radiometric dating that questions about radioactive decacy are presumed to completely invalidate estimates of the age of the Earth?

[Darth Wong]

Since when do geology and paleology depend so much on radiometric dating that questions about radioactive decacy are presumed to completely invalidate estimates of the age of the Earth?

Since those are the only parts of geology and paleontology that the average YEC knows about. As I've said elsewhere, it takes a lot of education to get to the point that you realize how little you know. YECs haven't reached that point.