On Thu, 28 Sep 1995 23:22:49 -0400 Glenn wrote:
>Stephen quoted me then replied:
>GM>Good question Stephen. Until the late 1980's archaeology had a
>lot of difficulty dating the time periods between 50,000 and 1
>million years. This gap was called the "muddle in the middle".
>Several dating techniques have now been developed ...First,
>thermoluminescence of burnt flint can be used in a range of 2,000
>years to 500,000 years...The second method is Electron Spin
>Resonance...used to date the appearance of the earliest modern humans
>at 100,000 years....The thorium-lead method can be used to date
>things from 5000 to 350,000 years....It is useful in caves...
SJ>Thanks to Glenn...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?<<
GM>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.
I note this quote is dated "1980". But Glenn had said that "Until the
late 1980's archaeology had a lot of difficulty dating the time
periods between 50,000 and 1 million years. This gap was called the
"muddle in the middle". If in 1980, K/Ar dating was reliable to about
250,000 years ago, why was there a "muddle in the middle" between
"50,000 and 1 million years"?
GM>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.
I do not direct any Reflector messages to Glenn. They are addresses
to the "Group". If Glenn wants to answer them, that's his choice.
Glenn does not have to do my "research" or anything else for me. If
he doesn't want to support his own arguments, that's fine by me! :-)
>Stephen wrote:
GM>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? :-)<<
GM>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.)
See above.
GM>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.)
GM>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.
So the bottom line is that there is no evidence for Glenn's 5.5 MY
Noah theory?
>Stephen wrote:
GM>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):<<
GM>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.
This is a YEC theme, but the Bible is ambiguous. Even Calvin in his
commentary of Genesis, could not decide, noting that Abel kept
livestock (Gn 4:2-4). There is no teaching in the whole of the rest
of the Bible that picks up this theme. What there is on the subject
is anti-vegetarian (eg. 1Cor 6:13; 1Tim 4:3).
GM>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.
If there was an original vegetarianism intended in the Garden, it did
not last long outside the Garden.
I do not claim that Gn 1 man was a "dog". I see him as an
emerging human, but not fully human until Gn 2.
>stephen wrote;
SJ>I prefer the Gn 1 man - Gn 2 Adam model, since IMHO it conforms
>better to the Biblical and scientific evidence.<<
GM>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.
I don't know exactly when Adam was created or when the Flood occurred,
but I would expect it was in the last 50,000 years.
GM>Where was the flood, and what sediments in that location are the
flood sediments?
As I have said before: 1) I believe on the Biblical evidence that the
Flood was in Mesopotamia; and 2) geology has been unable to locate
the "flood sediments" to date.
GM>A view which conforms to the data as well as you say yours does I
>am sure that you can answer those questions.
As I have also said previously, every theory that attempts to relate
the Biblical data of the origin of man and the Biblical data of Gn
1-11 has difficulties. I believe the Gn 1 man - Gn 2 Adam model
has the least difficulties. I certainly believe it has less
difficulties than Glenn's 5.5 MY old Noah theory! :-)
God bless.
Stephen