Miracles- really Dr. Pitman?- demonstrate them scientifically, repeatedly – I’ll …

Comment on IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID by Sean Pitman.

Miracles- really Dr. Pitman?- demonstrate them scientifically, repeatedly – I’ll gladly look at that evidence.

How can you “look at the evidence” when you won’t even say what evidence would meet your definition of a miracle?

It sounds to me like you don’t want to paint yourself into a corner. You just don’t want to say what evidence would convince you of anything beyond the mindless laws of nature? Why not? – for fear that someone might actually present you with such evidence? Until you can tell me what it would take to convince you, however, what’s the point when you won’t put yourself on the line and actually say what God would have to do to convince you of His existence? What are you afraid of?

If medicine was based on miracles you’d be a faith healer not a licensed doctor.

Not everything is based on miracles nor does God always perform miracles in all situations. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist or that He never acts or has acted in detectably miraculous ways.

Do you consider all of the universe to be perfectly designed and why? Would you have done it this way if you were a perfect good God?

There are certainly imperfections in the universe. I suppose if God wanted a universe with a bunch of mindless robots in it, things could be perfect and extremely precise and orderly in all situations and at all times and places. However, the fact that things aren’t always perfect, that people do appear to have freedom of will to act in various imperfect ways, doesn’t disprove the concept of God-level intelligent design behind the various extraordinary features of the universe and living machines. Like the rock piles pictured above, the existence of various piles of rocks that are not “perfect” or that do not require high levels of intelligence to explain does not negate the fact that intelligence is quite clearly required to explain the origin of some of the rock formations pictured above. And, not even you have any difficulty knowing which piles of natural rocks do or do not require ID to explain their origin. If you’re not agnostic with respect to the origin of these various rock formations, what would it take to cause you to recognize an even higher level Signature that you yourself would admit as being indistinguishable from the finger of God?

It’s a perfectly legitimate question – unless you’re trying to say that you really can’t say, or won’t say, which rock piles where produced by intelligent design…

Would you agree that there is non human non intelligent design? How do you determine that?

As in the pictures above, some rock piles can be explained by mindless natural mechanisms without the need to invoke intelligent design to explain the origin of these rocks or their arrangements. Such are examples of non-intelligent design. And, even you can tell the difference between the different types of rocks and rock piles pictured above… right? How do you do that? Ask yourself that question…

Sean Pitman Also Commented

IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID
I don’t think you understand the argument. Of course very small amounts of C14 can be produced by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium in rocks close by. That’s not the problem or the relevant question. The real question is, how much C14 can be produced by this method? And, why would this source of C14 production be so uniform? As I’ve already suggested to you, your argument that C14 production by uranium and thorium explains very high C14 levels within dinosaur bones equivalent to ages of 15-35 kyrs simply doesn’t seem like a tenable argument. Is there remotely enough uranium and thorium scattered in a fairly uniform manner all over the world to generate that much C14 underground? That’s a pretty big pill you’re asking me to swallow don’t you think? – especially given that a level of less than 20 parts per million of uranium and thorium was detected in the dinosaur bones that contained large quantities of radiocarbon? (Link) Beyond this, turning 12C into C14 by neutron capture isn’t very easy to do. In fact, nitrogen creates carbon-14 from neutrons “110,000 times more easily” than does carbon. This dramatically increases the amount of uranium and thorium that would be needed to produce all the necessary C14 to make your theory tenable.

For example, to produce a C14 age of 40,000 years we need a ratio of 14C/12C equal to about 1e-14. As best as I can tell, producing this ratio would require 125 atoms of uranium per carbon atom, which is a concentration by weight of 99.96% uranium (Link).

Also, according to your arguments, C14 dating would be pretty much worthless beyond about 10,000 years due to all the extra C14 being produced by uranium and thorium underground. No one believes that. So, how then can C14 be used on the one hand to “reliably” date mammoths and mastodons and the like as living some 10-35 kyrs ago, but when these same levels of C14 are discovered uniformly throughout thick coal beds or dinosaur bones it must have been the result of non-atmospheric C14 production? A 14C/12C ratio of only 1e-15 corresponds to a ~60,000 yr age for a specimen. We’re talking about less than half that age or more than twice as much C14. I’m sorry, but yours seems like a self-defeating argument even without knowing how much uranium and thorium would be needed. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Do you see the problem I’m having here with your argument? Or, do I need to read more talk.origins or wiki articles to figure it out?

As far as Schweitzer’s discoveries are concerned, I’m not sure of the significance of your point when you argue that no “collagen reactivity” was detected in response to collagenase in the dinosaur soft tissues? In her 2007 paper (Link) she did in fact note that, “antibody reactivity was significantly decreased after we digested dinosaur tissues with collagenase.” However, even if this wasn’t the case, so what? The really amazing thing is that there are soft tissues at all – to include sequencable antigenic proteins and even fragments of DNA in dinosaur bones dating from 60Ma to more than 150Ma (Link). Just a few years ago science had shown, by kinetic chemistry experiments, that such soft tissues and proteins should have been completely degraded within less than 100 ka. The current argument that iron helps to preserve soft tissues like formaldehyde doesn’t really solve the protein of kinetic chemistry decay.


IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID
There is far far too much radiocarbon in this samples of dinosaur bone to be explained by either contamination or uranium-thorium decay (production of non-atmospheric C14). These “talk.origins” and “wiki” arguments of yours are nothing new (Link) and they simply don’t hold water when it comes to explaining the origin of such high levels of radiocarbon. We aren’t talking about C14 dating beyond 80,000 years here. We’re talking C14 dates that are well within the detection spectrum of AMS techniques – well less than half that “age”.

And, as Dr. Giem noted back in 2010, “It is difficult to imagine a nature process contaminating wood, whale bone, petroleum and coal, all roughly to the same extent. It is especially difficult to imagine all parts of a coal seam being contaminated equally.” See also my 2010 discussion with Erv Taylor on the potential and limitations of radiocarbon dating here: Link.

But, please do, inform me of my inability to appropriately read the available “literature” that you cited here and why Schweitzer should be excused for not subjecting her dinosaur bone specimens to C14 analysis and publishing the result?


IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID
Whatever. We’ve been through this endlessly before regarding your droll claim that it’s impossible to rationally think for one’s self or reasonably judge if anything is right or wrong unless some mainstream journal publishes the argument and a majority of Darwinian fundamentalists are converted. Forget about the idiots like Galileo, Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Aristotle, Archimedes, etc… who obviously learned nothing worthwhile or “scientific” on an individual basis because their work lacked official “peer review” in some popular journal of the day.

Sure, peer review has it’s place. It’s certainly worth while when available. However, it is by no means the end-all nor is it even vital to scientific discovery or understanding of the world in which we live. Do you think any of the guys mentioned above cared one lick if anyone else or any “majority” group of “peers” in the world agreed with them? Do you think any one of them would have changed his mind simply given the opposition of any kind of “majority opinion” alone? – without a personal understanding of the evidence itself? Not at all. Not a single one of them would have believed that they were in error simply because any or all of the peers of their day disagreed with them. They studied for themselves and came to their own firm conclusions regardless of what anyone else said or thought.

I recommend trying to do the same thing for yourself as well. Try thinking for yourself on occasion, at least on certain topics of special interest – regardless of what anyone else thinks. Who knows, you might like it! And then, please do let me know when you come up with something new and interesting for a change – something worth my time to “chat” about by the fireside.


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.