Thanks to Glenn for this. I note the above methods only go back
"500,000 years". This leaves a gap of a mere 5 milion years in Glenn's
argument?<<
No. No gap at all. I quote
"In most circumstances the reliable lower limit of K/Ar dating is about 250
000 years before the present, ..." Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Archaeology,
(Cambridge Press, 1980), p. 417.
The method goes on up to the age of the earth, 4.5 billion years. You could
find out these things if you would simply open an encyclopedia. That way I
wouldn't have to do your research for you.
Stephen wrote:
>>So Glenn's argument that the Flood occurred 5.5 million years ago
has a minor problem in that there were no human beings (apart
from "Australopithecines") around at the time? :-)<<
I wish I didn't have to continually make the same argument over and over and
look up dating processes in the encyclopaedia for you (something you
certainly could do yourself with a little ingenuity.)
I am proposing that after the flood a small group of people (Noah's
descendents) lived in a rather primitive state due to the loss of technology
which would certainly occur. I am proposing that Africa eventually became
their home. Thus with very few people, the odds that anyone would be
fossilized is quite small. Assuming that they ended up where the food was
plentiful (a rain forest) the decomposition rate of things in the jungle is
incredible. Anything dead left in one of these places is eaten within days.
(Even here, a few days ago a friend said he found a dead mouse in his pool
and threw it over his fence onto his driveway.. He forgot to go pick it up
later that day. When he saw it the next day, the fire ants had eaten
everything except bone and fur. In the jungle there would be more scavengers
which would take care of the bones.)
Anyway, a small population could live unnoticed for quite a while especially
if they left no stone tools. This is seen in the European fossil record.
The first Stone tools appear 200, 000 years before the first fossil men in
Mediterranean Europe.(see Chris Stringer and
Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New York: Thames and
Hudson,1993), p. 64) If it werent for the stone tools found in Europe at an
early date, no evidence of humans in MEditerranean Europe would exist at all.
The lack of fossils from a small population in a tropical forest would be
very unlikely to be found.
Stephen wrote:
>>Glenn admits he has no evidence that human beings existed at the
"Miocene/Pliocene boundary", ie. 5.5 MY ago. His arguments for art,
etc. at 3.5 x 10^5 years or so, are not much support for his claim
that Noah built the Ark 5.5 x 10^6 years ago. Glenn seems out of step
with his own evidence by an order of magnitude! It's hard to
compare numbers. The scale below illustrates the enormous credibility
gap in Glenn's theory (even if H. erectus is fully human):<<
I agree, that I have no 5.5 million year old fossil human. But my argument
about the art is being misconstrued in the above. All archaeological
evidence we have of man shows that man hunted and ate meat. The Bible
implies that man was a vegitarian originally. If you believe the Biblical
account and man was a meat eater 100,000, 200,000 500,000 and further back
then the flood must have been earlier. The piece of art is NOT evidence for
the timing of the building of the ark but evidence that fossil man is MAN and
thus subject to the need of redemption. Since these men were not
vegetarians, they could not have been pre-flood. I see only two ways out of
this conclusion First, to allow animals to make scuplture, but over 14 years,
I never once saw my dog carve a statue of a naked female dog. Secondly, you
could deny the dating techniques and make these men much younger so you can
have a recent flood with the vegetarians not so far back.
stephen wrote;
>>I prefer the Gn 1 man - Gn 2 Adam model, since IMHO it conforms
better to the Biblical and scientific evidence.<<
If your view conforms to the scientific data and Biblical data, could you
outline a chronology of events for us? When was creation of man and the
flood. Where was the flood, and what sediments in that location are the
flood sediments? A view which conforms to the data as well as you say yours
does I am sure that you can answer those questions.
glenn