Dr. Pitman, take a deep breath and gain your composure.

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

Dr. Pitman, take a deep breath and gain your composure. Please read my posts again. Did I ever comment on the sandstone rocks at all? Have I ever commented on SETI or are you conflating that with something else that I said? How can I be dishonest about something I haven’t even commented on?!!!

Wait a minute here. You’ve argued several times in this thread along the lines that various artifacts are not clear artifacts because, put side to side with the same shapes in other materials that are not true artifacts, you couldn’t tell the difference.

Now you’re telling me that you’ve never even suggested anything about the origin of granite cubes or the balanced rocks in the pictures I’ve shown you? That itself is being rather disingenuous don’t you think? I’ve asked you very direct questions about the origin of these particular rocks and rock formations and you’re telling me now that you never even intended to directly answer my questions? What? You refuse to walk down the conversational path with me by giving misleading responses to my questions? Why waste my time then if you really don’t want to have a serious conversation?

Look, I really do think you’re a nice guy, but that doesn’t mean I think you’re being honest with this particular topic or with me in this particular discussion. I really don’t think you are…

I don’t think I have ever accused you of being dishonest.

That’s because I’ve always been very honest and direct with you. I’ve never played games with you or refused to answer any of your questions as directly and honestly as I am able. You, on the other hand, have just told me that you’ve avoided honestly and directly answering my questions of you… That’s dishonest in my book, and no way to have a respectful conversation. If you don’t want to answer my questions, just say so up front. Don’t just ignore me or my questions or pretend like you’ve answered them when you yourself now claim that you haven’t.

You are so overcome with your zealousness that you are right and there cannot be any rational argument against intelligent design that you unfortunately have lowered yourself to an ad hominem attack. That is indeed unfortunate sir.

If you continually refuse to directly answer my questions, the answers to which are downright obvious to the vast majority of people (even my 5-year-old son knows the answers to these very simple questions), we aren’t really having a true and honest conversation then are we sir?

I have tried to patiently argue that apparent to the human eye design may not be intelligent design at all.

Exactly! Which comes across as a suggestion that it is impossible to really tell if any apparent artifact is really an actual artifact of intelligent design at all! It comes across as a suggestion that not even the rock formations pictured above are necessarily artificial – that you can still rationally remain agnostic regarding their designed or non-designed origin. That’s not an honest position or suggestion – and you know it!

I have given you examples of that. I have patiently explained to you on many occassions that hypothetical highly polished granite cubes of which there is no evidence are in my estimation are not particularily relevant to the issue of intelligent design.

I’m not asking you about biological evolution at this point or the origin of life or the universe. I’m just asking if you’re honest enough to answer a very very simple question – if your honest enough to tell me that things like highly symmetrical polished granite cubes or the rock formations pictured above are in fact “blindingly obvious” artifacts of intelligent design and would be recognized as such by any candidly intelligent mind regardless of where they might happen to be found in the universe? You evidently are refusing to answer that question – which strikes me as disingenuous. It really does. Why not honestly and directly answer this very simple question? Why be so disingenuous and coy?

I have patiently pointed out that scientists have presented evidence- disputed yes! – of a metaverse, but you conclude there is none.

The problem that you don’t seem to understand is that the way you and others are using the metaverse concept undermines the very basis of science itself. You claim to respect science while using the metaverse concept to argue against the value and usefulness of the very basis of all scientific methodologies – statistical predictive value.

Now you can call me dishonest or irrational but don’t you realize this is exactly the same type of attack people use against creationsits. So what does that accomplish to say the other side is not honest or crazy? How does that aid civilized debate?

What would really help is for you to honestly and directly answer my question. Otherwise, I don’t see us having an honest discussion or “debate” at all. You’re just not being honest with me – and I say that in all sincerity. I really don’t think you want to have a meaningful discussion on this particular topic.

If you think otherwise, then directly answer this question: Would you recognize a highly symmetrical polished granite cube, or any of the balanced rock formations photographed above, as true artifacts of intelligent design if you happened to see them anywhere in the universe? – Yes or No? It’s a very simple question.

I know you feel strongly about your position and I am prepared to treat your personal comments against my intellectual integrity as being stated in the heat of the moment. I’m quite fond of you Sean, so I don’t take any personal offence. I don’t think you alone have a franchise on intellectual honesty and rationality though 🙂

Look, you’ve generally been a decent person and very cordial in the various discussions you’ve carried out with various individuals in this forum. However, I’m not going to let you get away with avoiding key questions or being disingenuous in your discussions here. I’m going to call you out on these things because I really don’t think you’re being honest with yourself or with me. This opinion of mine has nothing to do with the fact that I think you’re a nice guy. I’m sure you are. I just don’t think you’re being honest with this particular topic.

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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.