Howard van Till wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Howard J. Van Till
>
>I presume, then, that you are comfortable with the idea that 5.5 million
>years ago there were fairly mature civilizations of modern humans (complete
>with agriculture, musical instrument making, making and working with iron
>and bronze, shipbuilding, etc) and that the factual particulars of a flood
>experience were accurately preserved by oral tradition for that same 5.5
>million years?
And I presume you are completely happy with the total mis-match between the
account and topography and physics of the more classically suggested sites
for the flood? Do you think water flows uphill in Mesopotamia? You are a
better physicist than that! So what you do is decide that the details of the
account don't matter. If that is true, if the details truly don't matter to
the truth of the story, then the account might very well not be about a
flood but about a country bumpkin going to the big city.
What exists and what has been found are entirely two different things in the
archeological record. Until 1959, no evidence of mankind (genus Homo) on
earth prior to 500,000 years had been observed. It existed but hadn't been
found. Why? they hadn't looked in the correct place. But in that year, Louis
Leakey discovered a fossil hominid that was 3 times older than any
previously known. It also left a nearly 1 million year gap in the record of
fossil man. Obviously if man existed 1.5 myr ago and also at .5 million
years ago, he had to exist in the middle, yet at that time, there was no
evidence for his existence during this interval. Over the next 20 years,
evidence for mankind was pushed back by another million years. The earliest
evidence of the genus Homo on earth is now from a jawbone found in Malawi.
Statistically, (given the fact that we don't ever find the absolutely
earliest individual in a new species) this means that the earliest expected
member of our genus should be somewhere around 3.5 myr. But that is only an
expected value--it might be larger, it might be smaller. But below I give
the demonstrable gaps in the fossil record between the first and 2nd fossil
examples of various animals. During the long time gaps, we KNOW that the
animals existed, but we have no evidence of their existence. One can't
treat the fossil record in the rigid manner you are. It is a statistical
thing.
> Taxonomic group Temporal gap between first and second oldest known
fossil
>
>
> caecilians 100 million years
> tetrapod 7 million years
> dinosaur 12 million years
> african turtle 60 myr
> tarsier 30 myr
> birds 8 myr
> coprolites 22 myr
> mushrooms 69 myr
> sharks 25 myr
> vascular plants 20 myr
> tube worms 420 myr
> pollen eating insect 150 myr
> proboscidean 10 myr
> chordate 10 myr
> land snails 200 myr
> crayfish 65 myr
> Tribosphenida 25 myr
> birds with beaks 65 myr
> ascomycetous fungi 250 myr
> angiosperm 10 myr
> archaeocete whale 3.5 myr
> therizinosaur 94 myr
> Maldybulakia arthropod 40 myr
> grass 30 myr
> sponges 50 myr
> gorilla 3.5 myr
> Onychophoreans 210 myr
One could go on and on. All I am asking for is a mere 3 million year gap
between the first appearance of man, and the first appearance of EVIDENCE of
man--a smaller gap than any of those above. Why exactly is this an
unreasonable expectation, Howard? Or do you not believe in statistics?
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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