Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The race issue
IceNorfulk
Junior Member (Idle past 5880 days)
Posts: 6
Joined: 02-19-2008


Message 16 of 134 (457201)
02-21-2008 6:09 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by fallacycop
02-21-2008 5:49 PM


quote:
Exactly. Examples of inconsistecies in the bible abound. The most likely explanation is that the bible is a combination of ancient folks tales and real events that were blown out of proportion.
Which brings us back to my earlier question. Why would you want to believe that? I mean, six year old kids that believe in Santa Claus can be kinda cute, but grown ups that believe in fary tales is just plain pathetic. Why would you wannna do that??
Of all the world religions, the Bible is the most plausible. If the Bible isn't true, then I'd have to face up to the cold and harsh reality of death. I'm not strong enough for that.
That said, I could never believe in something that was an obvious lie.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by fallacycop, posted 02-21-2008 5:49 PM fallacycop has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by Blue Jay, posted 02-21-2008 9:48 PM IceNorfulk has not replied
 Message 24 by fallacycop, posted 02-22-2008 5:12 PM IceNorfulk has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 17 of 134 (457209)
02-21-2008 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by IceNorfulk
02-21-2008 4:03 PM


Enough with the skulls already!
are you honestly trying to say that Europeans, Asians and Africans have the exact same facial features, skulls and physical structure, they just have different coloured skin?
Why don't these albino Africans look like white people?
Did I say that? I think not. If you must insist upon putting words in my mouth, I would thank you for giving me less stupid ones.
I said that the differences between ethnic groups are extremely slight. This is obvious if you compare the vastly greater number of similarities between those groups.
The reason the people in your linked picture (which I saw the first time you posted it, thank you) don't look Caucasian is because they have very slight differences in the shapes of their faces, mostly due to the shape of their lips, hair and noses. Note that none of those physical differences is due to the shape of the skull.
It is also worth noting that those people have albinistic skin colour. That is not the same as Caucasian skin colour, which contains more melanin.
I am categorically not saying that there are no differences between ethnic groups.
What I am saying is that the differences are slight, the genes associated with these differences are widely distributed amongst many superficially distinct-seeming ethnic groups, and that using skull shapes as an argument for distinct races is rather reminiscent of nineteenth century anthropology, and represents an outdated view.

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by IceNorfulk, posted 02-21-2008 4:03 PM IceNorfulk has not replied

  
Zucadragon
Member
Posts: 61
From: Netherlands
Joined: 06-28-2006


Message 18 of 134 (457210)
02-21-2008 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by IceNorfulk
02-21-2008 4:03 PM


It works the other way around though, just having some random pictures put together doesn't prove anything.. You need to provide evidence that for instance a european skull (does not) differ as much from another european skull compared to the difference of a european skull to one of other origin, like asian or african.
These pictures have not done that because they are just random skulls of random people, the comparison is flawed because you have not shown that european people all have the same skulls with the same features.
I know there have been studies on skulls of different races.. Its called Craniometry, so you'd do best if you start looking in that direction.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by IceNorfulk, posted 02-21-2008 4:03 PM IceNorfulk has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 19 of 134 (457251)
02-21-2008 9:48 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by IceNorfulk
02-21-2008 6:09 PM


Some people have studied this subject before. Some people have not. For instance:
CTD writes:
I consider it a mistake to think of the human race having been composed of purely static units. Seafaring is as old as history, and there have been plenty of nomads and traders also. Hermit kingdoms like Korea are the exception. And in the old days, war often resulted in enslavement. There was plenty of opportunity for mixing, although the majority of the people may well have stayed put during peacetime.
Over time, familial traits have emerged to give the different peoples their own looks.
The first paragraph here does not lead to the assertion in the second paragraph. Mixing of genes produces homogeneity, or the lack of variation, not the distinct, ethnic looks here asserted.
Of all the world religions, the Bible is the most plausible. If the Bible isn't true, then I'd have to face up to the cold and harsh reality of death. I'm not strong enough for that.
I don't think I'd agree with this. I haven't read much of the Analects or the Ramayana or the Bhagavadgita, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing in there that wouldn't slide right past a casual bible-reader's eye if it was stuck in the middle of Isaiah somewhere.
The pre adamite theories have no leg to stand on whatsoever (because such people would have perished in the flood), so I won't go into them.
This is also assuming that the flood was a Global phenomenon. Genesis 7 does say the flood was over the whole earth, but Luke 2 also says the whole earth was taxed by Caesar Augustus. This did not include Mesoamerica, China, Australia or most of Africa. So, maybe Genesis didn't include these regions, either.
However, by the large, the best information given to us is the genetic markers (as you've mentioned). Stick with those, because they're not really open to much interpretation, whereas every word written in the Bible is.
Keep in mind here, I'm a practicing Christian. I'm also Mormon, and the current genetic studies (done here at BYU by Mormon scientists) utterly and completely refute our stated beliefs that the Native Americans are descendants of a side branch of the Jews. Therefore, all references in our Church history to the Native Americans as "Lamanites" is flawed.
But, there are a preponderance of Book of Mormon scholars who can argue subtle semantics to make the whole thing still 100% perfectly true. That's how open to interpretation the factual details of scripture are.
Good luck to you, and welcome to the forum!

Signed,
Nobody Important (just Bluejay)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by IceNorfulk, posted 02-21-2008 6:09 PM IceNorfulk has not replied

  
CTD
Member (Idle past 5869 days)
Posts: 253
Joined: 03-11-2007


Message 20 of 134 (457272)
02-22-2008 5:03 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by IceNorfulk
02-21-2008 10:58 AM


quote:
If nobody can answer this issue of the races, then other inconsistencies form themselves. The table of nations seems to imply that Japheth was the father of all Mediterranean Europeans. Among his sons is Javan, which means Greece. Ham was the father of the Egyptians and Kushites (Sudanese) - all North Africans. Shem was the father of the people of the Near East.
A great book for anyone interested in the table of nations is "After the Flood". It's not worldwide in scope, but it's very good. The author researched to find out the histories of different peoples according to their own writings, rather than traditional sources.
In former times Celts traced their ancestry to Magog. Norse & some Germanic peoples traced their ancestry to Gog. There's more, but that should give you the picture.
quote:
The Bible has lots of things like that. Take the name for the Mediterranean Sea, for example: hayyam haggadol, meaning "the Great Sea". Surely the creator of this planet would know better than that?
Or the Global Flood. The reason the flood is "global" is that it seemed to engulf the whole known world. It was "worldwide" in the sense of that day, and local according to our knowledge of things.
Or the "two great lights", the Sun and Moon. The creator would know that neither is very great (compared to other stars, which in the Bible end as little pinpricks stuck into the firmament), and only one is a light. Another strike against the divine inspiration of the Bible.
You have a unique take on divine inspiration. You contend that it's mandatory for God to prevent the ancient Hebrews from giving the Mediterranean Sea a name of which you disapprove.
You're just mangling everything with the next argument. The sun and moon are indeed great lights. They provide many times more light to us than all the stars put together. But I guess I'm not being strict enough to suit you. I gather I'm supposed to take a narrow definition of "greatness" that can only apply to actual physical size, and then compare it to the "official" present-day estimates of the stars.
Not that you're interested, but some plasma cosmology models being developed posit Earth initially orbiting Saturn which would have been active as a small sun/star.
When reading a text, the most productive course is to try to figure out what the author means to say. I must say I find it unusual for one who wants to believe something to endeavour to construct misinterpretations. You wouldn't by chance be a federal judge, would you?
In his later years, Mark Twain compiled a "great" list of lies about the bible and worked it into a book. Might look it up if you're into that sort of thing. Plagiarizing him could make one quite popular at EvC in very little time. And don't worry - he didn't originate much, if any of the list himself.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by IceNorfulk, posted 02-21-2008 10:58 AM IceNorfulk has not replied

  
CTD
Member (Idle past 5869 days)
Posts: 253
Joined: 03-11-2007


Message 21 of 134 (457277)
02-22-2008 6:14 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Granny Magda
02-21-2008 12:48 PM


quote:
Not agreed. This is a painfully obvious falsehood. No population could be based on such a small group. If it had been, we would, at the very least, find genetic evidence for this. We don't. This is a science thread. If you want to pursue this line of argument, I suggest that you find some kind of evidence, beyond "The Bible says so."
Like maybe
http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2007/06/070620154911.htm
quote:
I expect that they must have, if they existed, which I suspect they did not. Even if they did exist, it seems a bit of a stretch to assume that one wife looked African, one looked European and the other looked Asian. They would all have come from the same area, and individual variation simply does not go that far.
Which area must these three women have come from? Why is their origin restricted? And beyond "the present is the key to the past", what restricts their potential to produce genetically diverse offspring?
quote:
Canaan is Ham's son btw. Handy justification if you happen to be a white racist slave owner. Your actions are now officially sanctioned by God and those black buggers are just getting what they deserve, right?
Wrong. And it's no secret that this is wrong. Anyone using such "justification" was probably about as disingenuous as any evolutionist here.
quote:
Why should anyone take childish fairy tales into account?
It seems like an O.T. question, but when childish fairy tales are promoted as scientifically established fact to the vast majority of the population, IMO it's kind of hard to ignore.
quote:
Uh-huh. I take it that you are going to provide us with the evidence for this one as well, rather than just coming in here and making bare assertions.
You may take it that I'll consider it after you provide evidence for Ham's wife, Shem's wife, and Japheth's wife coming from the same area and lacking diversity.
quote:
Do you not see a slight contradiction there?
No. I see how one could misconstrue what I said to create the impression of a contradiction if one were so inclined. And I notice that you have company.
Any scenario intended to provide "racial purity" is going to require perfect isolation. This is practically impossible, and has not happened for the reasons I stated.
The similarities that are clearly visible are due to the fact that most people stay put and tend to marry someone nearby. You can't even create a plausible scenario where this isn't the case over time. Mixing must occur, but it has to be sporadic. The majority of marriages have always been between spouses that were locally available.
That's enough. Next one to pretend not to understand can just go on pretending.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Granny Magda, posted 02-21-2008 12:48 PM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Granny Magda, posted 02-22-2008 11:14 AM CTD has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 22 of 134 (457295)
02-22-2008 11:00 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Granny Magda
02-21-2008 12:48 PM


Even if they did exist, it seems a bit of a stretch to assume that one wife looked African, one looked European and the other looked Asian.
Heh. Welcome to Fundamentalist Fantasy Land, where no scenario is too bizarre or unreasonable to provide a rationalization for an obvious myth.
You should see the literalists' rationalization of the two different descriptions of Judas' death. (Twebs comatose drooling smily goes here.)

If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Granny Magda, posted 02-21-2008 12:48 PM Granny Magda has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 23 of 134 (457298)
02-22-2008 11:14 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by CTD
02-22-2008 6:14 AM


Still no Evidence
Hi CTD,
Your sheep article is very interesting and the study in question certainly produced some surprising results, but it isn't the evidence I asked for. It is relevant and interesting, but what I asked for was evidence that;
CTD writes:
There are different peoples in the world and they descended from one man and one woman.
not evidence that sheep can survive from tiny populations. You are no closer to producing evidence for this ridiculous claim then before. I'll grant you that the study on the mouflon sheep makes it look a little more plausible, but you still have no evidence that it actually happened, which was what you claimed.
CTD writes:
Which area must these three women have come from? Why is their origin restricted?
You answered this one yourself;
CTD writes:
most people stay put and tend to marry someone nearby.
It is a stretch to claim that the wives came from anywhere far removed from the rest of the characters in the tale. The Bible makes no mention of their being from foreign parts as far as I am aware.
I am glad that you reject the racist "Curse of Ham" theory. It is a stinker. What puzzles me is why you want to hang on to the bones of the theory. You deny the curse, but stick to the bit about Ham's sons giving rise to black people. The whole reason this bizarre story originated was because of the curse element and the association of blackness with sin. It is merely a just-so-story, and a racist one at that. Why do you cling to it when you realise how offensive it is?
CTD writes:
It seems like an O.T. question, but when childish fairy tales are promoted as scientifically established fact to the vast majority of the population, IMO it's kind of hard to ignore.
I agree. That's why creationists have to be prevented from peddling their childish nonsense in schools.
CTD writes:
You may take it that I'll consider it after you provide evidence for Ham's wife, Shem's wife, and Japheth's wife coming from the same area and lacking diversity.
Why on Earth would I do that? I don't believe that any of them ever existed. So far as I am concerned they're all fictional characters. I can only explore the internal logic of the tale, which seems lacking to me.
You are the one making claims about the origin of human ethnic diversity stemming from the sons of Noah. Either provide evidence or shut up.
You are the one who is making claims about the tower of Babel. Either provide evidence for it's existence or drop it.
So far all you have provided evidence for is the remarkable breeding capabilities of sheep.
I'm afraid that the last few paragraphs of your post are just waffle, with no real content. I thought you were going to "easily" disprove the out of Africa theory. Now is your chance, I'm not stopping you...

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by CTD, posted 02-22-2008 6:14 AM CTD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by CTD, posted 02-22-2008 6:12 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
fallacycop
Member (Idle past 5521 days)
Posts: 692
From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil
Joined: 02-18-2006


Message 24 of 134 (457334)
02-22-2008 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by IceNorfulk
02-21-2008 6:09 PM


If the Bible isn't true, then I'd have to face up to the cold and harsh reality of death. I'm not strong enough for that.
Many people find it possible to believe in god and an afterlife while simultaneously understanding that the bible is not supposed to be understood as literally true.
But even if you cannot do that (Thanks to the fundamentalist that got you sold into an either-I-believe-everything-in-the-bible-or-nothing-at-all frame of minde), consider that: I don't remember the time before I was born as having been particularly painfull for me (I had no functioning brain to feel anything). The time after I die will likely be just like that. There is no reason to fear death itself. What many of fear is the dying process (which may turn out to be painfull). Well, even if the bible turns out to be absolutely true, you will not be spared of that pain. So, no reason to want to believe a story that doesn't add up.
Edited by fallacycop, : got to fix them boxes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by IceNorfulk, posted 02-21-2008 6:09 PM IceNorfulk has not replied

  
CTD
Member (Idle past 5869 days)
Posts: 253
Joined: 03-11-2007


Message 25 of 134 (457341)
02-22-2008 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Granny Magda
02-22-2008 11:14 AM


Re: Still no Evidence
The post I respond to contains more than one misrepresentation.
quote:
You deny the curse, but stick to the bit about Ham's sons giving rise to black people. The whole reason this bizarre story originated was because of the curse element and the association of blackness with sin. It is merely a just-so-story, and a racist one at that. Why do you cling to it when you realise how offensive it is?
I never denied the curse, nor do I desire to do so.
quote:
Your sheep article is very interesting and the study in question certainly produced some surprising results, but it isn't the evidence I asked for.
But previously, in the post I responded to you said
quote:
No population could be based on such a small group.
quote:
Why on Earth would I do that? I don't believe that any of them ever existed. So far as I am concerned they're all fictional characters. I can only explore the internal logic of the tale, which seems lacking to me.
Why indeed! You claim the wives of Noah's sons couldn't be diverse, but we have seen zero evidence to support this claim. You pretend it's a big deal if I don't submit evidence to support every last thing I say, but you exempt yourself from any such requirement. I decline to play your game. I've seen it before.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Granny Magda, posted 02-22-2008 11:14 AM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Granny Magda, posted 02-22-2008 11:37 PM CTD has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 26 of 134 (457375)
02-22-2008 11:37 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by CTD
02-22-2008 6:12 PM


Re: Still no Evidence
I never denied the curse, nor do I desire to do so.
So what exactly is your stance? Do you believe that black people are descended from the accursed sons of Canaan?
If not, what has the Noah myth got to do with ethnicity?
With regards to your sheep article, I am not convinced by it because for it to provide us with evidence that Noah's family could account for all human diversity, we would need to determine that the sheep in question demonstrated a comparable level of diversity. The article does not provide enough information to say with any confidence that the sheep are as diverse as humanity, or ever could be, since there hasn't been sufficient time for them to achieve said level of diversity. It doesn't prove much of anything.
The article is interesting. It supports your case, somewhat, but only hints that it might not be impossible, not that it actually happened, as you claim.
You ask for evidence that human genetics are too diverse to have come from Noah's family. It is quite simple. A population bottleneck of just five individuals would by necessity limit the number of alleles in the population. Lets look at your sheep again.
quote:
The researchers stress the point that the genetic variety of the mouflons on the Kerguelen Islands is still less than what could be observed in a larger population.
The genetic diversity was better than expected, but still very low. Humans are more genetically diverse. Whilst there is evidence that humans underwent one or more population bottlenecks, the idea that any such bottleneck was as small as five individuals is not consistent with evidence.
quote:
GENETIC PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN ORIGINS AND DIFFERENTIATION
Henry Harpending and Alan Rogers

— Abstract This is a review of genetic evidence about the ancient demography of the ancestors of our species and about the genesis of worldwide human diversity. The issue of whether or not a population size bottleneck occurred among our ancestors is under debate among geneticists as well as among anthropologists. The bottleneck, if it occurred, would confirm the Garden of Eden (GOE) model of the origin of modern humans. The competing model, multiregional evolution (MRE), posits that the number of human ancestors has been large, occupying much of the temperate Old World for the last two million years. While several classes of genetic marker seem to contain a strong signal of demographic recovery from a small number of ancestors, other nuclear loci show no such signal. The pattern at these loci is compatible with the existence of widespread balancing selection in humans. The study of human diversity at (putatively) neutral genetic marker loci has been hampered since the beginning by ascertainment bias since they were discovered in Europeans. The high levels of polymorphism at microsatellite loci means that they are free of this bias. Microsatellites exhibit a clear almost linear diversity gradient away from Africa, so that New World populations are approximately 15% less diverse than African populations. This pattern is not compatible with a model of a single large population expansion and colonization of most of the Earth by our ancestors but suggests, instead, gradual loss of diversity in successive colonization bottlenecks as our species grew and spread.
The bolding is mine, because I want you to look closely at that bit. If we were all descended from such a small population, the genetic diversity would be much smaller, much as we see in cheetahs;
quote:
The cheetah is unusual among felids in exhibiting
near genetic uniformity at a variety of loci previously
screened to measure population genetic diversity. It has been
hypothesized that a demographic crash or population bottleneck
in the recent history of the species is causal to the observed
monomorphic profiles for nuclear coding loci. The timing of a
bottleneck is difficult to assess, but certain aspects of the
cheetah's natural history suggest it may have occurred near the
end of the last ice age (late Pleistocene, approximately 10,000
years ago)
(from "Dating the genetic bottleneck of the African cheetah" by Marilyn Menotti-Raymond AND Stephen J O'Brian, which can be found here).
That kind of homogeneity just isn't displayed in humans. If the flood were true, it would show up clearly in our genes after a mere four or five thousand years.
Now perhaps you would like to provide me with some evidence that goes some way towards proving that any of these people, Noah, Ham, Canaan, any of them, ever existed at all.

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by CTD, posted 02-22-2008 6:12 PM CTD has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Marcosll, posted 03-31-2008 12:02 PM Granny Magda has not replied

  
Marcosll
Junior Member (Idle past 5778 days)
Posts: 25
From: Estepona, Spain
Joined: 02-14-2008


Message 27 of 134 (462124)
03-31-2008 12:02 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Granny Magda
02-22-2008 11:37 PM


Re: Still no Evidence
I see a lot of people associating Christianity with Creationism.
While I understand that 33% of the world's population are Christian and therefore the vast majority of creationists are Christian I don't think it's fair to link Christ with the popular Christian view of creation.
Christ doesn't go into much talk about origins and focuses more on the spiritual and moral, and those things he said to this day hold value like equality between men and women.
I think it's reasonable to think that "debunking" the ark story just detracts from the main issue at hand.
There is something a bit off topic that's interesting about the ark story, and that's the age of people.
Remember, Noah lived 950 years. If you take the Ark story seriously you must take all the data seriously too. Noah had no offsping until he was 502. If you assume some of the data to be correct to try to debunk, then you must also factor in that time worked diferently somehow. How do current years relate to old years? How does that affect dating genetic bottlenecks?
Has anyone figured out why turtles used to live hundres of years until not too long ago? Why don't they live that long now? What does a 1000 year old turtle look like?
What does a 950 year old human look like?
We are missing a lot of information still to try to imagine these things in my opinion.
Estepona Apartments

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Granny Magda, posted 02-22-2008 11:37 PM Granny Magda has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Blue Jay, posted 03-31-2008 6:49 PM Marcosll has not replied
 Message 29 by Adminnemooseus, posted 03-31-2008 7:06 PM Marcosll has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 28 of 134 (462152)
03-31-2008 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Marcosll
03-31-2008 12:02 PM


Re: Still no Evidence
Hi, Marcosll. Welcome to EvC!
Try saying this to your pastor or congregation. I have: it doesn't go over very well.
Marcosll writes:
Remember, Noah lived 950 years. If you take the Ark story seriously you must take all the data seriously too. Noah had no offsping until he was 502. If you assume some of the data to be correct to try to debunk, then you must also factor in that time worked diferently somehow. How do current years relate to old years? How does that affect dating genetic bottlenecks?
This line of reasoning bothers me. Essentially, instead of assuming that humanity has changed or can change, this logic assumes that the whole world, or the flow of time, or even physics itself changes. Rocks don't get older deeper in the geologic column--radioactive decay rates change. Mutations don't accumulate--whole genomes decay rapidly over time. Peoples' skin color isn't the result of mutation or environment adaptation--magical curses account for that.
In general, the assumption is that processes of nature a few thousand years ago had to be extremely different from the way they are today in order to maintain harmony with the ancient Hebrew mythology. The common pro-ID argument is that scientists can't prove that X was the same in the past as it is today, so our theory is automatically just a bunch of assumptions. Of course, they can't prove that X was different in the past from what it is today, so this line of reasoning doesn't help them anymore than it hurts us.
Science generally avoids concepts such as "time worked differently" or "decay rates were different" until there is attainable evidence to support such ideas. And, until such processes can be proven to have occurred, ID is completely suspect. For the same logic, until a dramatic genetic bottleneck of 5 genomes is found in human history, there is no reason to believe that it occurred.
Marcosll writes:
Has anyone figured out why turtles used to live hundres of years until not too long ago? Why don't they live that long now? What does a 1000 year old turtle look like?
Who measured how old turtles lived in the past? I don't recall anyone having measured turtles' ages until the 1900's. Maybe it was because they thought turtles lived hundreds of years until somebody actually measured them and found them to be false.
Maybe Noah didn't know how to count "years". Maybe the word "year" used to mean "moon cycle," until after the Flood, when people started to use it for "sun cycle." If this is the case, Noah lived to be (950 "years"/12 months) = 79 years. That sounds reasonable to me. But, this belongs on a different thread, because it's off-topic here.

There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Marcosll, posted 03-31-2008 12:02 PM Marcosll has not replied

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 29 of 134 (462155)
03-31-2008 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Marcosll
03-31-2008 12:02 PM


Really getting off-topic
Your message was flagged here.
Many of the recent messages seem to me to be getting rather remote from the topic theme. I guess that's what tends to happen when science and religion start mixing (or something like that).
Your message, however, is really shooting off-topic, in several different directions. Please try to find better places for those themes, or perhaps propose a new topic
Your message ending links really reeks of spam (ie It's an commercial advertisement for something absolutely unrelated to the topic). Please cease posting that link. If you wish, however, you can go to your profile and make that link your home page.
Adminnemooseus

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Marcosll, posted 03-31-2008 12:02 PM Marcosll has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Marcosll, posted 04-01-2008 5:05 AM Adminnemooseus has not replied

  
Marcosll
Junior Member (Idle past 5778 days)
Posts: 25
From: Estepona, Spain
Joined: 02-14-2008


Message 30 of 134 (462178)
04-01-2008 5:05 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Adminnemooseus
03-31-2008 7:06 PM


Re: Really getting off-topic
Ok, let me try to explain why my message was on topic (more on topic than many of the replies in this thread by the way).
One of the questions the original poster poses is how can you account for cranial differences.
Skin, size, etc are also issues.
Another important thing to consider (which is 100% on topic) is that if you are trying to debunk parts of the old testament you must take into consideration the whole text not just bits that are convenient (such as people's ages that I mentioned).
Further, my question (which pertains to the original question) is, what does the skull of a 950 year old person looks like?
As for the age of turtles, 250 year old turtle
There are also other reports of turtles found the size of cars. Large turtle
So as a perfect example, we know things used to live longer (reptiles) up until very recently.
So you assume rates stay the same forever but there IS evidence that things used to live longer (turtle evidence 250 + years, recorded evidence humans 950 years). Up until recently.
When a 900 year old human has a child how do you know for certain this child hasn't evolved more than the child of someone who is 20 for example?
I think this is on topic and very relative to the question, especially compared with some of the other replies.
Please explain why you flag mine? Perhaps the questions I bring up are troublesom and the answers may be frightening? The link at the end of my post doesn't bother anyone. Perhaps my questions do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Adminnemooseus, posted 03-31-2008 7:06 PM Adminnemooseus has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Granny Magda, posted 04-01-2008 7:23 AM Marcosll has not replied
 Message 32 by molbiogirl, posted 04-01-2008 7:46 PM Marcosll has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024