‘Earthtime’ project to take on creationism - October 29, 2009
Posted for Rex Dalton
A US project to more precisely chart geological time scales is releasing a new initiative to educate students on deep time in order to challenge religious groups who argue life was divinely made about 10,000 years ago.
Earthtime’s program – downloadable at earth-time.org and available in DVD and CD format – explains the ages back billions of years. It includes teaching methods in math and physics to explain how researchers date sediments through atomic decay.
Sam Bowring, a geochronologist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and an Earthtime leader, described the educational drive last week to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.
“I will never forget Kirk Johnson of the Denver Museum of Science and Technology leaning into the camera, saying: ‘Go home and tell your parents the world is 4.567 billion years old’,” says Bowring.
In Denver, Colorado, and Boston, Massachusetts, Earthtime scientists have provided educational material to a total of hundreds of students and teachers. Denver scientists also conduct dialogues with students over district video networks.
In a planned next grant from the US National Science Foundation that previously has funded Earthtime with $1 million, scientists hope to expand the educational outreach.
One major Earthtime science project is to precisely date the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary about 65 million years ago, when most life forms were wiped out by a worldwide catastrophic event. Bowring, Johnson and other researchers are using sediments of the K-T boundary debris outside Denver for the more exact date.
Comments
The attempt to "precisely chart geological time scales" and get a "more exact date ... when most life forms were wiped out by a worldwide catastrophic event" would be greatly enhanced if the researchers referred to a very accurate, historical account of the events:
Exodus 20
The Ten Commandments
1 And God spoke all these words:
. . .
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. ..."
See: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=2&chapter=20&version=31
Also:
"Genesis 7 The Flood
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month - on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
...
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.
20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. ...
23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days."
See: The global Flood of Noah
Genesis 6-11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis6-11&version=NIV
Posted by: JosephU | October 30, 2009 01:04 AM
Um, JosephU,
I'm sure we're all very impressed with your ability to quote scripture. I myself am able to do so after what most people consider to be a remarkable amount of study. Say, 20 years or so?
However, what you've posted has no relevance to the topic. A world-wide flood does nothing to explain observed phenomena and indeed contradicts mountains of evidence that says otherwise.
Do you have anything to add besides quoting scripture at people? Any sort of actual information, knowledge or insight? If you do, Post away! I'm sure we'd all love to know.
Otherwise, you're just wasting both your and everyone else's time.
Thanks much.
Posted by: Dahan | October 30, 2009 05:57 PM
This is a much needed project. It is so difficult for people to recognize th extent of deep time. I look forward to the final results.
Posted by: John (Burgy) Burgeson | October 30, 2009 07:51 PM
It's about time that those who recognize that when relious dogma prevails ignorance and bigotry reign.
Posted by: James Allen | October 30, 2009 09:24 PM
Actually, it's always refreshing to see when a creationist honestly and openly quotes Bible verses about their beliefs, precisely because by doing so they are honestly, openly demonstrating that creationism is religion, not science. Which we know already, but you always have those many creationists who are all the time falsely pretending their ideas are based on science and playing all sorts of rhetorical games to try to hide the fact that their beliefs are based on their religious doctrine.
Posted by: Todd Greene | October 31, 2009 05:54 AM
Hello Dahan,
You asked:
"Do you have anything to add
... Any sort of actual information, knowledge or insight?"
The answer is Yes.
Although Earthtime’s program tries to explain the ages "back billions of years" ... observable evidence such as fossilized mature trees, extending through many layers of strata (polystrate fossils), is evidence for "rapid deposition of sediments and burial of fossils" and is in accord with "the biblical account of earth's history."
An informative on-line article about polystrate fossils,
including 2 photos,
is:
A Classic Polystrate Fossil
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.
http://www.icr.org/article/classic-polystrate-fossil/
(Partial quote)
"... The tree was a mature tree, yet could not have grown in the location where the surrounding shale was deposited, since trees don't live long under the sea. Furthermore, the time required for shaley sediments to accumulate must be added to the tree's lifespan, as must the time to deeply bury the coal precursor and create the pressure to generate enough heat to alter the peat into coal. No scenario possible today could account for this sequence of events if evolution’s interpretation of earth history is true.
...
But there's more--the fossilized tree stood in the neighborhood of numerous other trees. It suggests a significant dynamic event that uprooted, transported, and buried many trees in an upright position.
...
The more evidence that science uncovers, the more it supports the biblical account of earth's history."
Posted by: JosephU | October 31, 2009 08:42 PM
lol @ JosephU
Posted by: Dog | November 1, 2009 03:55 PM