To: All Msg #11, Apr0293 06:00PM Subject: Re: Evolution battle continues. In article 1993A

From:    Loren I. Petrich                       
To:      All                                    Msg #11, Apr-02-93 06:00PM
Subject: Re: Evolution battle continues...

Organization: LLNL
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Message-ID: <1pir43$svr@s1.gov>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.origins

In article <1993Apr2.192618.9568@umr.edu> SPARROW@physics.umr.edu writes:

: This is something to think about...
: (Thanks to the gentleman who sent it to me.) :-)

      [There are whole FAQ files on this subject kept by Jim Meritt
and other talk.origins readers...]

:                    Relevant Arguments against Evolution
: 1) Abiogenesis (Spontaneous Generation), or the emergence of life
: from inorganic material, has never been observed.

      So? Neither has "Special Creation".

      One has to use lab conditions because the posited conditions
are just the thing for present-day organisms. Hot springs are a
current favorite, but even they are infested with microbes that
subsist on the chemicals they release.

: 2) Mendel's laws of genetics explain almost all of the physical
: variations that are observed within life categories such as the dog
: family.  A logical consequence of these laws and their modern day
: refinements is that there are limits to such variation.  Breeding
: experiments have also confirmed that these boundaries exist.

      The "dog family"? What's the "dog family"?

      One can go beyond the boundaries of the available genes by
modifying them. It's that simple.

: 3) Acquired characteristics cannot be inherited.

      Such things as stretched necks can't, but genes from viruses
copied into germ cells can.

      And what's the relevance, anyway?

: 4) Natural Selection cannot produce new genes; it only selects
: among pre-existing characteristics.

      And new ones also.

: 5) Mutations are the only proposed mechanism by which genetic
: material becomes available for evolution.  However all (perhaps
: all) observable mutations are harmful; many are lethal.

      Mutations for improved survival in a new environment do
happen. Just consider bacteria and insects that become resistant to
attempts to poison them (antibiotics and pesticides).

: 6) No know mutation has ever produced a form of life having both
: greater complexity and greater viability than its ancestors.

      Gene duplication does. Polyploid speciation is known to occur.
Gene sequencing reveals that many genes come in families, suggesting
duplications of ancestral genes. Hemoglobin is a classic example.
Immune-system genes and Homeobox genes are other examples.

: 7) Over seventy years of fruit-fly experiments, equivalent to 2700
: consecutive human generations, give no basis for believing that any
: natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity
: and viability.  No clear genetic improvement has ever been observed
: despite the many unnatural efforts to increase mutation rates.

      Again, it is a relative issue. Fruit flies in their natural
environment may be as "good" in it as they possibly can. I wonder how
many experiments have been done to make them try to adapt to different
temperature or humidity, for example.

: 8) There is no reason to believe that mutations could ever any new
: organs such as the eye, the ear, or the brain.

      No _single_ mutations. But lots of them, improving on simple
structures. 

: 9) The many similarities between different species do not
: necessarily imply a genealogical relationship; they may imply a
: common designer.

      I will concede that the Philip Gosse _Omphalos_ hypothesis,
criticized as divine fraudulence [i.e. God decieving us], is
irrefutable. But it also irrelevant.

: 10) The existence of human organs whose function is unknown does
: not imply that they are vestiges of organs from our evolutionary
: ancestors.  In fact, as medical knowledge has increased, the
: functions of almost all of these organs have been discovered.

      The appendix is pretty low on functionality. The only
"function" cited is that of carrying lymph nodes, but lymph nodes are
lymph nodes and can reside elsewhere.

      Vestigial features are legion in the biological world:

      Wings of flightless birds
      Extra toe bones of hoofed animals
      Lesbian sex practiced by certain parthenogenetic lizards
      Solid-color equines having the genes for zebra stripes
      Flies sometimes growing legs in place of their antennae and
            four instead of two wings
      Baleen whale and cow fetuses having teeth later absorbed
      Cetacean hipbones
      Animals with forward-pointing eyes having sideways-pointing
            eyes as embryos
      Human toes and "wisdom teeth"
      Big hind legs of some four-legged dinosaurs
      Fused bones in many species (why originally separate?)
      Hollowness of the bones of some flightless birds (dodos,
            penguins, etc.)
      Aquatic animals breathing air: sea turtles, sea snakes, sea
            iguanas, crocodilians, penguins, seals, and cetaceans
      Fishlike tadpoles of frogs and toads; gill bars in embryos of
            land vertebrates
      Human-embryo tails
      The amniotic sac, a vestige of an eggshell
      Vestigial legs of some snakes
      One big lung and one small lung in some snakes
      Alternation of generation in plants; flowering plants are
            diploid, but still have a tiny haploid phase
      Flowers of self-pollinating plants
      Vestigial flower parts of non-flowering angiosperms, like
            grasses
      Mitochondria and chloroplasts in cells; these were apparently
         once separate cells, and they retain separate genomes and
         transcription/translation apparatuses.

: 11) As an embryo develops, it does not pass through the adult
: stages of its alleged evolutionary ancestors (recapitulation
: theory).  Embryologists no longer consider the superficial
: similarity that exists between a few embryos and the adult forms of
: simpler animals as evidence of evolution.

      So what about recapitulation? What happens is that the embryos
are much more alike than the adults, that the embryos resemble some
adults more than others, and that the adults the embryos are the most
like are the putative ancestors of the others (fish -> land
vertebrates).

: 12) There are many singe cell forms of life, but there are no forms
: of life with 2, 3..., or even 20 cells.  If organic evolution
: happened, these forms of life should exist in great abundance. 
: None do.  The evolutionary tree has no trunk.

      1. Protist colonies do exist.
      2. Intermediates can be driven into extinction.

: 13) Stories claiming that primitive, ape-like man have been found
: are overstated.  Piltdown man was an acknowledged hoax.  The
: fragmentary evidence that constituted Nebraska man was pig's tooth. 
: The discoverer of Java man later acknowledged that it was a large
: gibbon and that he had withheld evidence to that effect.  The
: fossil evidence concerning Peking man has disappeared. 
: Ramipethicus consists merely of a handful of teeth and jaw
: fragments.  It is now know that these fragments were pieced
: together incorrectly so as to resemble portions of the human jaw. 
: Detailed computer analyses of the Australopithecines have
: conclusively shown that they are not intermediate between man and
: apes.  The Australopithecines, which were made famous by Louis and
: Mary Leakey, are actually quite distinct from both man and apes. 
: For about 100 years, the world was led to believe that Neanderthal
: man was stooped and ape-like.  Recent studies show that this was
: based upon some Neanderthal men who were crippled with arthritis
: and rickets.  Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man, and Cro-Magnon man
: were completely human.  Artists depictions, especially of the flesh
: portions of the body, are quite imaginative and are not supported
: by evidence.  Furthermore, the dating techniques are questionable.

      The Piltdown finds were not investigated for several years because
they were one-of-a-kind, and there was a widespread belief that they
were a composite. Which is exactly what the hoaxer had made.
      DuBois changed his mind. So what? The Java find is still
hominid.
      What computer analyses of Australopithecus?
      So what if the Neanderthals walked upright? Their skulls look
different from modern people's skulls.

: 14) If the Earth, early in its alleged evolution, had oxygen in its
: atmosphere, the chemicals needed for life would have been removed
: by oxidation.  But if there had been no oxygen, there would have
: been no ozone, and without ozone all life would quickly destroyed
: by the sun's ultraviolet radiation.

      Not if they were deep in the ocean.

: 15) There have been many imaginative but unsuccessful attempts to
: explain how just one single protein could form from any of the
: assumed atmospheres of the early Earth.  The necessary chemical
: reactions all tend to move in the opposite direction from that
: required by evolution.  Furthermore, each possible energy source,
: whether the Earth's heat, electrical discharges, or the sun's
: radiation, would have destroyed the protein products millions of
: time faster than they could be formed.

      Ever heard of "thermal proteins" formed in lab experiments?

: 16) If, despite the virtually impossible odds, proteins arose by
: chance processes, there is not the remotest reason to believe that
: they could ever form a self-reproducing, membrane-encased, living
: cell.  There is no evidence that there are any stable states
: between assumed naturalistic formation of proteins and the
: formation of the first living cells.  No scientist has ever
: advanced a testable procedure whereby this fantastic jump in
: complexity could have occurred--even if the universe were
: completely filled with proteins.

      One can go part of the way in lab experiments, but I will
concede that getting to the first self-reproducer is still tough.

: 17) DNA can only be produced with the help of certain enzymes.  But
: these enzymes can only be produced at the direction of DNA.  Since
: each requires the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin
: of one must simultaneously explain the origin of the other.  No
: evidence exists for any such naturalistic explanation.

      Ever heard of self-splicing RNA? A self-assembling RNA system
is all that is necessary. But I will concede that the origin of the
RNA is still a tough problem.

: 18) The simplest form of life consists of 600 different protein
: molecules.  The mathematical probability that just one molecule
: could form by the chance arrangement of the proper amino acids is
: far less than 1 in 10^527.  The magnitude of the number 10^527 can
: begin to be appreciated by realizing that the visible universe is
: about 10^28 inches in diameter.

      All this proves is the unlikelihood of exact duplication. It's
like saying it's impossible to design a car by citing the exact
specifications of each part of a single car. Cars can be built to
different specs, as can be seen by looking at any road.

: 19) There are many instances where quite different forms of life
: are completely dependent upon each other.  Examples include: fig
: trees and the fig gall wasp, the yucca plant and the pronuba moth,
: many parasites and their hosts, and pollen-bearing plants and the
: honey-bee family consisting of the queen, workers and drones.  If
: one member of each interdependent group evolved first (such as the
: plant before the animal), the other members could not have
: survived.  Since all members of the group obviously have survived,
: they must have come into existence at essentially the same time.

      Good grief. Halfway dependence is very plausible, and
sometimes happens. Plants can be wind-pollinated or pollinated by
unspecialized insects. Specialization can appear later.

: 20) Detailed studies of various animals have revealed certain
: physical equipment and capabilities that cannot be duplicated by
: the world's best designers using the most sophisticated
: technologies.  A few examples include: the miniature and reliable
: sonar systems of the dolphins, porpoises, and whales; the
: frequency-modulated radar and discrimination system of the bat; the
: efficiency and aerodynamic capabilities of the hummingbird; the
: control systems, internal ballistics, and combustion chambers of
: the bombadier beetle, and the precise and redundant navigational
: systems of many birds and fish.  The many components of these
: complex systems could not have evolved in stages without placing a
: selective disadvantage on the animal.  All evidence points to a
: designer.

      Baloney. Technology can easily beat biology in a host of
fields. Furthermore, all these examples can emerge from lower-quality
ones, ones that may actually be found in other species. So it is just
a case of specialization.

: According to the theories of Evolution of the Solar
: System:

: 21) The planets should all rotate on their axes in the same
: direction, but Venus and Uranus rotate backwards.

      If they formed from collisions of progressively larger and
larger bodies, offset spins are very possible. Furthermore, spin
precession is sometimes chaotic, and it can also be affected by tidal
drag.

: 22) All 49 moons of the various planets should revolve in the same
: direction, but at least 11 revolve backwards.

      Capture mechanics of some of the outer moons is thought to be
the culprit.

: 23) The orbits of these 49 moons should all lie in the equatorial
: plane of the planet they orbit, but many including the Earth's
: moon, are high inclined.

      That may be due to the effect of collisions.

: 24) The material of the Earth (and Mars, Venus, and Mercury) should
: almost all be Hydrogen and Helium--similar to that of the sun and
: the rest of the visible universe; actually much less than 1% of the
: earth's mass is hydrogen or helium.

      All that H and He was baked out of the inner solar system by
the Sun. That's a _really_ dumb objection.

: 25) The sun should have 700 times more angular momentum than the
: planets; in fact the planets have 200 times more angular momentum
: than the sun.

      The Sun is magnetically active, and interacts magnetically
with the Solar wind, which has spun it down. The same seems to be true
of many other stars.

: 26) No scientific theory exists to explain the origin of matter,
: space or time.  Since each is intimately related to or even defined
: in terms of the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin of
: one must also explain the origin of the others.  Naturalistic
: explanations have completely failed.

      Irrelevant.

: 27) The public has been greatly misled concerning the consistency,
: reliability, and trustworthiness of radiometric dating techniques
: (the Potassium-Argon method, the Rubidium-Strontium method, and the
: Uranium-Thorium-Lead method).  Many of the published dates can be
: checked by comparisons with the assumed ages for the fossils that
: sometimes bracket radiometrically dated rock.  In over 400 of these
: published checks, the radiometrically determined ages were at least
: one geologic age in error--indicating major errors in methodology. 
: An unanswered question is, "How many other dating checks were not
: published because they too were in error?"

      Where is the original reference for this? It is contrary to
the Conventional Wisdom of this field. Fossil ages are relative only,
though they may be calibrated by radiometric dating of nearby lava
flows.

: 28) Direct measurements of the Earth's magnetic field over the past
: 140 years show a steady and rapid decline in its strength.  This
: decay pattern is consistent with the theoretical view that there is
: an electrical current inside the earth which produces the magnetic
: field.  If this view is correct, then 25,000 yrs ago the electrical
: current would have been so vast that the earth's structure could
: not have survived the heat produced.  This would imply that the
: Earth could not be older than 25,000 years.

      Baloney. The Earth's magnetic field is _very_ variable over
time, and we are simply in one of those periods of field decline.

: 29) The atmosphere has less than 40,000 years worth of helium,
: based on just the production of helium from the decay of uranium
: and thorium.  There is no known means by which large amounts of
: helium can escape from the atmosphere.  The atmosphere appears to
: be young.

      Horseshit. Helium is a _very_ light gas, and once it gets to
the upper atmosphere, it is pretty easy for helium atoms to get
bounced to past the Earth's escape velocity.

: 30) Evolutionists believe that the continents have existed for at
: least 1 billion years.  However, the continents are being eroded at
: a rate that would level them in much less than 25 million years.

      According to which estimate?

: 31) The rate at which meteoritic dust is accumulating on the earth
: is such that after 5 billion years, the equivalent of 182 feet of
: this dust should have accumulated.  Because this dust is high in
: nickel, there should be an abundance of nickel in the crustal rocks
: of the earth.  No such concentration has been found--on land or in
: the oceans.  Consequently, the earth appears to be young.

      That meteoritic-dust figure is just plain wrong. It is really
a lot less, about a few cm.

: 32) If the moon were billions of years old, it should have
: accumulated extensive layers of space dust--possibly 900 ft in
: thickness.  Before instruments were placed on the moon, NASA was
: very concerned that our astronauts would sink into a sea of dust. 
: This did not happen; there is very little dust on the moon. 
: Conclusion: the moon is young.

      See above.

      Furthermore, Moon rocks have been found that are over 4
billion years old.

: 33) Since 1836, over one hundred different observers at the
: Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory have made
: direct visual measurements which show that the diameter of the sun
: is shrinking at a rate of about 0.1% each century or about 5 feet
: per hour.  Furthermore, records of solar eclipses indicate that
: this rapid shrinking has been going on for at least the past 400
: years.  Several indirect techniques also confirm this gravitational
: collapse, although these inferred collapse rates are only about
: 1/7th as much.  Using the most conservative data, one must conclude
: that had the sun existed a million years ago, it would have been so
: large that it would have heated the earth so much that life could
: not have survived.  Yet, evolutionists say that a million years ago
: all the present forms of life were essentially as they are now,
: having completed their evolution that began a billion years ago.

      The Sun could simply be in a shrinking phase. Since its
activity goes in irregular cycles of several hundred years, such as
the "Maunder Minimum", it might also expand and shrink slightly in
that time.

[-------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ This comes from a 1980 or 1981 paper by John Eddy.  In the 13     ]
[ years since then, some problems have been found with Eddy's data  ]
[ and numerous more measurements have been taken.  The sun's        ]
[ diameter does oscillate, and cannot be used as a dating technique.]
[ This has been acknowledged by the creationists themselves, in an  ]
[ article by a couple of ICR folks published in the _Creation       ]
[ Research Society Quarterly_ around 1988.  (A bunch of references  ]
[ regarding the "shrinking sun" argument, including this _CRSQ_     ]
[ paper, may be found in my _Creation/Evolution_ debate with        ]
[ Walter Brown.)                                                    ]
[                                                                   ]
[ I concur with Bill Jefferys that this list looks like it was      ]
[ lifted from Walter Brown's work.                                  ]
[                                                                   ]
[ Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU                 ]
[ Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET                   ]
[ University of Arizona                                             ]
[ Tucson, AZ 85721                                                  ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------]

: 34) Short period comets boil off some of their mass each time they
: pass the sun.  Nothing should remain of these comets after about
: 10,000 years.  There are no known sources for replenishing comets. 
: If comets came into existence at the same time as the solar system,
: the solar system must be less than 10,000 years old.

      There are plenty of long-period comets to replace them.

-- 
/Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
/lip@s1.gov

-=-===============================================================



Bill Anderson
Apr-02-93 09:54PM

Organization: Emory University, Atlanta, GA
From: libwca@emory.edu (Bill Anderson)
Message-ID: <2509@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
[ Article crossposted from alt.fan.rush-limbaugh ]
[ Author was SPARROW@physics.umr.edu ]
[ Posted on 2 Apr 93 19:26:18 GMT ]

----------------------------------------------------------------------
            Relevant [sic] Arguments against Evolution


1) Abiogenesis (Spontaneous Generation), or the emergence of life
from inorganic material, has never been observed.

2) Mendel's laws of genetics explain almost all of the physical
variations that are observed within life categories such as the dog
family.  A logical consequence of these laws and their modern day
refinements is that there are limits to such variation.  Breeding
experiments have also confirmed that these boundaries exist.

3) Acquired characteristics cannot be inherited.

4) Natural Selection cannot produce new genes; it only selects
among pre-existing characteristics.

5) Mutations are the only proposed mechanism by which genetic
material becomes available for evolution.  However all (perhaps
all) observable mutations are harmful; many are lethal.

6) No know mutation has ever produced a form of life having both
greater complexity and greater viability than its ancestors.

7) Over seventy years of fruit-fly experiments, equivalent to 2700
consecutive human generations, give no basis for believing that any
natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity
and viability.  No clear genetic improvement has ever been observed
despite the many unnatural efforts to increase mutation rates.

8) There is no reason to believe that mutations could ever any new
organs such as the eye, the ear, or the brain.

9) The many similarities between different species do not
necessarily imply a genealogical relationship; they may imply a
common designer.

10) The existence of human organs whose function is unknown does
not imply that they are vestiges of organs from our evolutionary
ancestors.  In fact, as medical knowledge has increased, the
functions of almost all of these organs have been discovered.

11) As an embryo develops, it does not pass through the adult
stages of its alleged evolutionary ancestors (recapitulation
theory).  Embryologists no longer consider the superficial
similarity that exists between a few embryos and the adult forms of
simpler animals as evidence of evolution.

12) There are many singe cell forms of life, but there are no forms
of life with 2, 3..., or even 20 cells.  If organic evolution
happened, these forms of life should exist in great abundance. 
None do.  The evolutionary tree has no trunk.

13) Stories claiming that primitive, ape-like man have been found
are overstated.  Piltdown man was an acknowledged hoax.  The
fragmentary evidence that constituted Nebraska man was pig's tooth. 
The discoverer of Java man later acknowledged that it was a large
gibbon and that he had withheld evidence to that effect.  The
fossil evidence concerning Peking man has disappeared. 
Ramipethicus consists merely of a handful of teeth and jaw
fragments.  It is now know that these fragments were pieced
together incorrectly so as to resemble portions of the human jaw. 
Detailed computer analyses of the Australopithecines have
conclusively shown that they are not intermediate between man and
apes.  The Australopithecines, which were made famous by Louis and
Mary Leakey, are actually quite distinct from both man and apes. 
For about 100 years, the world was led to believe that Neanderthal
man was stooped and ape-like.  Recent studies show that this was
based upon some Neanderthal men who were crippled with arthritis
and rickets.  Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man, and Cro-Magnon man
were completely human.  Artists depictions, especially of the flesh
portions of the body, are quite imaginative and are not supported
by evidence.  Furthermore, the dating techniques are questionable.

14) If the Earth, early in its alleged evolution, had oxygen in its
atmosphere, the chemicals needed for life would have been removed
by oxidation.  But if there had been no oxygen, there would have
been no ozone, and without ozone all life would quickly destroyed
by the sun's ultraviolet radiation.

15) There have been many imaginative but unsuccessful attempts to
explain how just one single protein could form from any of the
assumed atmospheres of the early Earth.  The necessary chemical
reactions all tend to move in the opposite direction from that
required by evolution.  Furthermore, each possible energy source,
whether the Earth's heat, electrical discharges, or the sun's
radiation, would have destroyed the protein products millions of
time faster than they could be formed.

16) If, despite the virtually impossible odds, proteins arose by
chance processes, there is not the remotest reason to believe that
they could ever form a self-reproducing, membrane-encased, living
cell.  There is no evidence that there are any stable states
between assumed naturalistic formation of proteins and the
formation of the first living cells.  No scientist has ever
advanced a testable procedure whereby this fantastic jump in
complexity could have occurred--even if the universe were
completely filled with proteins.

17) DNA can only be produced with the help of certain enzymes.  But
these enzymes can only be produced at the direction of DNA.  Since
each requires the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin
of one must simultaneously explain the origin of the other.  No
evidence exists for any such naturalistic explanation.

18) The simplest form of life consists of 600 different protein
molecules.  The mathematical probability that just one molecule
could form by the chance arrangement of the proper amino acids is
far less than 1 in 10^527.  The magnitude of the number 10^527 can
begin to be appreciated by realizing that the visible universe is
about 10^28 inches in diameter.

19) There are many instances where quite different forms of life
are completely dependent upon each other.  Examples include: fig
trees and the fig gall wasp, the yucca plant and the pronuba moth,
many parasites and their hosts, and pollen-bearing plants and the
honey-bee family consisting of the queen, workers and drones.  If
one member of each interdependent group evolved first (such as the
plant before the animal), the other members could not have
survived.  Since all members of the group obviously have survived,
they must have come into existence at essentially the same time.

20) Detailed studies of various animals have revealed certain
physical equipment and capabilities that cannot be duplicated by
the world's best designers using the most sophisticated
technologies.  A few examples include: the miniature and reliable
sonar systems of the dolphins, porpoises, and whales; the
frequency-modulated radar and discrimination system of the bat; the
efficiency and aerodynamic capabilities of the hummingbird; the
control systems, internal ballistics, and combustion chambers of
the bombadier beetle, and the precise and redundant navigational
systems of many birds and fish.  The many components of these
complex systems could not have evolved in stages without placing a
selective disadvantage on the animal.  All evidence points to a
designer.

According to the theories of Evolution of the Solar System:

21) The planets should all rotate on their axes in the same
direction, but Venus and Uranus rotate backwards.

22) All 49 moons of the various planets should revolve in the same
direction, but at least 11 revolve backwards.

23) The orbits of these 49 moons should all lie in the equatorial
plane of the planet they orbit, but many including the Earth's
moon, are high inclined.

24) The material of the Earth (and Mars, Venus, and Mercury) should
almost all be Hydrogen and Helium--similar to that of the sun and
the rest of the visible universe; actually much less than 1% of the
earth's mass is hydrogen or helium.

25) The sun should have 700 times more angular momentum than the
planets; in fact the planets have 200 times more angular momentum
than the sun.

26) No scientific theory exists to explain the origin of matter,
space or time.  Since each is intimately related to or even defined
in terms of the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin of
one must also explain the origin of the others.  Naturalistic
explanations have completely failed.

27) The public has been greatly misled concerning the consistency,
reliability, and trustworthiness of radiometric dating techniques
(the Potassium-Argon method, the Rubidium-Strontium method, and the
Uranium-Thorium-Lead method).  Many of the published dates can be
checked by comparisons with the assumed ages for the fossils that
sometimes bracket radiometrically dated rock.  In over 400 of these
published checks, the radiometrically determined ages were at least
one geologic age in error--indicating major errors in methodology. 
An unanswered question is, "How many other dating checks were not
published because they too were in error?"

28) Direct measurements of the Earth's magnetic field over the past
140 years show a steady and rapid decline in its strength.  This
decay pattern is consistent with the theoretical view that there is
an electrical current inside the earth which produces the magnetic
field.  If this view is correct, then 25,000 yrs ago the electrical
current would have been so vast that the earth's structure could
not have survived the heat produced.  This would imply that the
Earth could not be older than 25,000 years.

29) The atmosphere has less than 40,000 years worth of helium,
based on just the production of helium from the decay of uranium
and thorium.  There is no known means by which large amounts of
helium can escape from the atmosphere.  The atmosphere appears to
be young.

30) Evolutionists believe that the continents have existed for at
least 1 billion years.  However, the continents are being eroded at
a rate that would level them in much less than 25 million years.

31) The rate at which meteoritic dust is accumulating on the earth
is such that after 5 billion years, the equivalent of 182 feet of
this dust should have accumulated.  Because this dust is high in
nickel, there should be an abundance of nickel in the crustal rocks
of the earth.  No such concentration has been found--on land or in
the oceans.  Consequently, the earth appears to be young.

32) If the moon were billions of years old, it should have
accumulated extensive layers of space dust--possibly 900 ft in
thickness.  Before instruments were placed on the moon, NASA was
very concerned that our astronauts would sink into a sea of dust. 
This did not happen; there is very little dust on the moon. 
Conclusion: the moon is young.

33) Since 1836, over one hundred different observers at the
Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory have made
direct visual measurements which show that the diameter of the sun
is shrinking at a rate of about 0.1% each century or about 5 feet
per hour.  Furthermore, records of solar eclipses indicate that
this rapid shrinking has been going on for at least the past 400
years.  Several indirect techniques also confirm this gravitational
collapse, although these inferred collapse rates are only about
1/7th as much.  Using the most conservative data, one must conclude
that had the sun existed a million years ago, it would have been so
large that it would have heated the earth so much that life could
not have survived.  Yet, evolutionists say that a million years ago
all the present forms of life were essentially as they are now,
having completed their evolution that began a billion years ago.

34) Short period comets boil off some of their mass each time they
pass the sun.  Nothing should remain of these comets after about
10,000 years.  There are no known sources for replenishing comets. 
If comets came into existence at the same time as the solar system,
the solar system must be less than 10,000 years old.

----------------------------------------------------------

From:    Daniel Kuan Li Oi                      
To:      All                                    Msg #26, Apr-03-93 02:11AM
Subject: Re: Evolution battle continues...

Organization: The University of Western Australia
From: doi@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Daniel Kuan Li Oi)
Message-ID: <1pjnskINNbm6@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
Newsgroups: talk.origins

       Nearly all of the arguments raised in this article have been
refuted, challenged or thrashed out to the Nth degree quite recently.
Most of these arguments are straw man demolition, or are gross
misinterpretations of current theory, or delightfully ignore well
formulated and supported explainations. 

      Arguments 14-18 deal with abiogenesis and are mainly probability
arguments. These have been thrashed over and over again. How can one
calculate probabilities when we don't know the precise conditions that
existed early on in the history of the earth.

      Arguments 21 - 33 have been refuted time and time again on t.o.
The silliness of the arguments can be demonstrated particularly in
argument 29. It is claimed that there is no way that helium can escape
the atmosphere. This is totally wrong. Helium has a small enough mass
such that even at room temperature, a not so insignificant fraction of
molocules have a velocity greater than the escape velocity of the earth.
Helium gas is escaping from the earths atmosphere all the time. 

      This is just an example of the misconstruing/contortion (lying?)
that creationists resort to in order to inflict a self imposed labotomy.
And they expect others to believe them. 

      Enough of my ranting and raving.

      Daniel Oi
      University of Western Australia