What exactly is ID?

It's simple Smooth Operator, When they were one species (the parent species) then they were not the distinct (daughter) species.They become distinct species by becoming incapable of interbreeding. Convergent evolution does not imply that they become genetically similar, only that the external traits are similar. Inside they are quite different.Here we have a marsupial and a placental mammal that have converged on a common phenotype: The sugar glider is genetically closer to the kangaroo than it is to the flying squirrel, and the flying squirrel is genetically closer to a bear than the sugar glider. Even their skull bones are different, the one being typical of placentals and the other being typical of marsupials.Without the superficial external appearance, fossilized specimens would not be confused one with the other. Which makes it simply irrelevant. The definition of species is reproductively isolated populations, so there is no point in saying they can't -- it is mundanely true. And as has been pointed out, the common ancestor is older than the species in question, and thus there never was a time when evolution would say that they could reproduce across species boundaries.It is a very simple concept. Here is a simplified version:

|  ancient reptilian ancestor
|
|  common ancestor (reptilian)
/ \
/   \
/     \
therapsids       |       |    still reptilian
/ \     / \
/   |   |   \
|    |   |    \
/ \   |   |     |
mamaliforms    /   |  |   |    / \  crocodilians
(still not                          (still not
mammals)                            alligators)

Since you asked, here is a more complete version:You can start here at REPTILOMORPHA:
Palaeos: Page not foundFor BEAR ancestors go to SYNAPSIDA:
Palaeos: Page not found

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The Theropsids or "beast (mammal) faces" constitute an evolutionary lineage that developed a special opening, the synapsid arch, for attachment of jaw muscles, giving a superior bite and permitting adaptive radiation during the late Carboniferous. These basal forms evolved through the primitive pelycosaur stage, to the therapsids or mammal-like reptiles, and finally the mammals themselves. Pelycosaur, therapsid, and mammal represent three evolutionary grades in a single progressive evolutionary axis. The therapsids, as forms transitional between basal amniote and mammal, can be thought of as occupying the same evolutionary space as the dinosaurs, which are transitional between reptiles and birds, do.

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Note: NOT mammals, so CANNOT be bears.And then to THERAPSIDA:
Palaeos: Page not foundYou can follow the lineage down to CYNODONTIA
Palaeos: Page not foundand then MAMMALIFORMES
Palaeos: Page not foundthen to MAMMALIA,
Palaeos: Page not foundand on to EUTHERIA,
Palaeos: Page not foundbefore coming to FERAE, unfortunately incomplete at this time
Palaeos: Page not foundSo for more on FERAE go to
Ferae - WikipediaThen to CARNIVORA
Carnivora - WikipediaAnd finally to URSIDAE (FAMILY TAXON for all bears)
Bear - Wikipedia
Which is where your bear resides....Now we go back to REPTILOMORPHA
Palaeos: Page not foundFor ALLIGATOR ancestors go to ARCHOSAUROMORPHA:
Palaeos: Page not found

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During the Triassic period, at the start of the Mesozoic era, there lived a whole lot of animals that were no longer small and insignificant lizard-like forms, but not actually crocs, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, or birds. They used to be called "thecodonts", and the term is still used and is a very good one, even if cladistically rigid. A more precise term might be Basal or Stem Archosauromorphs. Archosauromorphs because this is a clade that includes the Archosauria or "ruling reptiles" and a number of similar types."

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Note: NOT crocodilians, so CANNOT be alligators.And then to CROCODYLOMORPHA
Palaeos: Page not foundThen to CRODODYLIFORMES
Palaeos: Page not foundAnd on to CROCODYLIA
Palaeos: Page not foundAnd then to ALLIGATORIDAE
Palaeos: Page not foundSwitch again to wiki for more on ALLIGATORIDAE (FAMILY TAXON for all alligators)
Alligatoridae - Wikipedia
Which is where your alligator resides.Here's how it looks with these lineages of descent laid out as above:

             REPTILOMORPHA
             |             
|                           |
SYNAPSIDA                       |
|                           |
THERAPSIDA               ARCHOSAUROMORPHA
|                           |
CYNODONTIA                      |
|                           |
MAMMALIFORMES              CROCODYLOMORPHA
|                           |
MAMMALIA                       |
|                           |
EUTHERIA                  CRODODYLIFORMES
|                           |
FERAE                         |
|                       CROCODYLIA
CARNIVORA                      |
|                           |
URSIDAE                   ALLIGATORIDAE

Note that many intermediate forms have been omitted for simplicity. Note further that there are fossils of every one of these stages, known, documented, validated.As any reasonable person can see, the relationship between bear and alligator is very distant, and occurred long before the ancestors of alligators and bears were even the beginning to form a family taxon. The ancestors were not bears nor alligators for most of the time since their common ancestor to the present.By the time we had URSIDAE and ALLIGATORIDAE in existence their ability to reproduce would be no more likely than modern bears and alligators reproducing. It would tend to invalidate common descent of hereditary lineages. Unfortunately, for you, this has not happened.Enjoy.

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Ah, yes bro, but will it even cause a ripple on the smooth surface of lake placid under the noon day sun?Enjoy.

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Hi Taq, lemme help with a little diagram. What you are talking about is the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent

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Definition:
Any argument of the following form is invalid:
If A then B
B
Therefore, A

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Examples:

1. If I am in Calgary, then I am in Alberta. I am in Alberta, thus, I am in Calgary. (Of course, even though the premises are true, I might be in Edmonton, Alberta.)
2. If the mill were polluting the river then we would see an increase in fish deaths. And fish deaths have increased. Thus, the mill is polluting the river.

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It's popular with people with no formal education in logic. To paraphrase: This pretty well sums up all IDologist arguments, from IC on down -- they only work if there is absolutely no {B} that is not {A}.When the typical creationist, IDologist, or other logically challenged person, states something like "we know that{B} produces {A}, therefore any {B} is evidence of {A}" they are assuming that the conclusion is true in their premise.Likewise they normally fail to see that concepts like IC are invalidated by a single example of {B} that is {notA}, and thus needs to be discarded if they want ID to be considered scientific (that's what science does with invalidated concepts).See Irreducible Complexity, Information Loss and Barry Hall's experiments for an example of IC invalidation AND the "information is always lost" invalidation.For good sources on logic see:
http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm
http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/permanent/fallacies.php
Formal fallacy - WikipediaEnjoy.Edited by RAZD, : ..

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Hi Smooth Operator. I can, whether you will consider understanding it, or not, is the bigger question.Simply put, they died.As your great great ancestors are no longer able to reproduce because they are dead, so too are all organisms that have died.In this case, millions of years ago, including all the other dead ancestors of the living populations of bears and alligators.It's a simple concept. Each generation reproduces while that generation lives, not before nor after.Evolution is the change in proportion of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunity. ps - it's phenotype ...For another very simple reason: there is no (natural) mechanism that would cause this to happen. You don't need to worry about stopping something that will never start.There is no way for natural selection to operate, or any other mechanism known to biology and the real world, to draw the genes closer to similarity.DNA doesn't change because you want it to, the change is mostly random, and the results are then filtered by selection processes to adapt the organism to the ecology it inhabits.Both organisms are adapted to their ecology and don't need to turn into the other to be adapted to their ecology. Good, I'll mark this down as a step forward. Because they found (and continue to find) skulls with this opening and arch belonging to therapsids and therapsid descendants, but not in ancestral species or in other hereditary lineages. In later descendants the opening closes, leaving the arch as a derived new feature in all descendant species. You have this arch, as do bears.For clarity, the arch "giving a superior bite" is present in the therapsids and descendants. Descendants can take advantage of opportunities to improve the jaw further, but they don't have to: not all descendants of therapsids evolved into cyconodonts. By following the evidence of derived and inherited ancestral traits. The whole pattern of the fossils show many aspects that are not altered from ancestral forms (ancestral traits), and some that are undergoing transitions that become more derived over time (derived traits). The synapsid arch is a case in point: it appears in one species (derived), and then you see it inherited (ancestral) in descendant species with continued development (further derived) as the arch becomes more developed and the skull closes back together under the arch. This occurs through the evolution in many species, that each inherit their pattern/s of derived and ancestral traits as they evolve generation by generation.See Derive - Wikipedia
for what is meant by "derived": "In phylogenetics, a trait is derived if it is present in an organism, but was absent in the last common ancestor of the group being considered. "An ancestral trait is a trait that is shared between the species and an ancestral species (common ancestor).When a fossil is >90% similar to an ancestral species with <10% derived (evolved) from the remaining ancestral features, as we see with the synapsid arch, then hereditary lineage is the most logical explanation. This is no different than looking at species that are all similar fossils and concluding that they are all the same species. When it is between an ancestral species and a descendant species in the development of the derived traits.See Transitional fossil - Wikipedia
or Transitional features - Understanding Evolution

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Fossils or organisms that show the intermediate states between an ancestral form and that of its descendants are referred to as transitional forms. There are numerous examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, providing an abundance of evidence for change over time.

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Again, it is a simple concept: species evolve, there is no species alive today that is not going through changes in the proportions of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities. Thus population A evolves into population B as the old members die and new members are born, and population B evolves into population C as the new members age, older ones die, and new ones are born: the members of population B are intermediate between population A and population C. Now introduce increasing numbers of generations between A and B and between B and C and you still have intermediate forms in population B that have ancestral traits in common with the ancestral traits in population A and derived traits in common with some of the derived traits in population C. Oh dear, you've made the unfounded assumption that you are a reasonable person. The vast evidence of this thread and the one about the earth being fixed with the sun orbiting around it, speak volumes to your not being a reasonable person, but an unreasonable and obstinate person. I expect you will now demonstrate how unreasonable and obstinate you are. The evidence is available in the information already presented, evidence that any reasonable person can take as a starting point and investigate further if they want to. Denying that this evidence exists is not being reasonable, and I'm not about to spend a lot more time on someone that I don't consider willing to confront the evidence realistically. Because there are no fossils of existing species in the fossil record at the time of the reptilomorphs, while there are fossils that show their evolution from the ancestral forms from reptilomorphs to todayBecause there is evidence that shows the evolution pattern given and there is no evidence that shows your pattern. I said that observing a bear and an alligator reproduce viable offspring would tend to invalidate common descent, not that any hybrid between closely related species would invalidate it.American bison - Wikipedia

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Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Bovinae
Genus: Bison
Species: B. bison

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Cattle - Wikipedia

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Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Bovinae
Genus: Bos
Species: B. primigenius

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So they are interbreeding between members of the same subfamily, not between organisms from different class levels of ancestry.Alligatoridae - Wikipedia

quote:

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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Crocodilia
Family: Alligatoridae

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Bear - Wikipedia

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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Caniformia
Family: Ursidae

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There is much much more genetic difference between bears and alligators than there is between cows and bison. They are not much more different that the hybrids of horse and donkey and zebra, some of which are fertile.Horse - Wikipedia

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Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Equidae
Genus: Equus
Species: E. ferus

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Donkey - Wikipedia

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Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Equidae
Genus: Equus
Species: E. africanus

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Zebra - Wikipedia

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Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Equidae
Genus: Equus
Species: Equus zebra, Equus quagga, Equus grevyi

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Interfertility does not necessarily cease between sibling species if there is no opportunity to interbreed and no selection pressure to change.The cow and bison did naturally interbreed, once they were introduced to the same area, but not all of the offspring were fertile, and it took a while for humans to develop a complete separate breed.There is also the "cama" - part camel part llama (only 3 so far, don't know if they are fertile).http://taylorllamas.com/Camel-LamaCrossPhotos.htmlCamel - Wikipedia

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Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Camelidae
Genus: Camelus

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Llama - Wikipedia

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Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Camelidae
Genus: Lama

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Members of the same family, but cannot breed naturally.Cama (animal) - Wikipedia

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A Cama is a hybrid between a camel and a llama, produced via artificial insemination at Camel Reproduction Centre in Dubai.[1] The aim was to create an animal with the size and strength of the camel, but the more cooperative temperament of the llama.[2]

​

The Dromedary camel is six times the weight of a Llama, hence artificial insemination was required to impregnate the Llama female (matings of llama male to Dromedary female have proven unsuccessful). Though born even smaller than a Llama calf, the Cama had the short ears and long tail of a camel, no hump and llama-like two toed pads rather than the dromedary-like pads. All six camelids are pedopods, having two padded toes instead of hooves.

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At four years old, the Cama became sexually mature and interested in llama and guanaco females. This first Cama has been a disappointment behaviorally, displaying an extremely poor temperament. Four Camas have since (April 2008) been produced using artificial insemination [4] .

​

Despite approximately 2—3 million years of evolutionary separation, both Old World and New World camelids have by chance maintained the same number of chromosomes, seventy-four, making this extraordinary cross-breeding between not only distinct species, but distinct genera, much easier and more likely to produce fertile offspring.

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So we see that evolution doesn't necessarily change the ability to breed between species that do not normally come into contact.There have also been no successful attempts to mate cows and camels even though they have coexisted for thousands of years and belong to the same order level above family (but which excludes horses and bears). There have been no successful attempts to mate species at higher\older levels of ancestry, and the common ancestor level of alligator and bear is significantly higher\older than these examples.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : splng

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Hi Smooth Operator,Thanks for confirming that you are simply unreasonable when it comes to understanding reality. I'll just hit the high points. It isn't. The descendants have become different species. That's what happens over long periods of time, such as the span of time between the common ancestor between alligators and bears to the present. Nothing, but what they reproduce are their current species, not the original species. All the individuals in the population have evolved into a different species that continues to be a breeding population, but it is not the same as the ancestor population. Curiously, your opinion is completely unable to affect reality in any way.Below is an example of the type of evidence used by reasonable people to come to reasonable conclusions about reality:

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A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus Pelycodus was a tree-dwelling primate that looked A complete fossil much like a modern lemur. The skull shown is probably 7.5 centimeters long.

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The numbers down the left hand side indicate the depth (in feet) at which each group of fossils was found. As is usual in geology, the diagram gives the data for the deepest (oldest) fossils at the bottom, and the upper (youngest) fossils at the top. The diagram covers about five million years.

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The numbers across the bottom are a measure of body size. Each horizontal line shows the range of sizes that were found at that depth. The dark part of each line shows the average value, and the standard deviation around the average.

​

The dashed lines show the overall trend. The species at the bottom is Pelycodus ralstoni, but at the top we find two species, Notharctus nunienus and Notharctus venticolus. The two species later became even more distinct, and the descendants of nunienus are now labeled as genus Smilodectes instead of genus Notharctus.

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As you look from bottom to top, you will see that each group has some overlap with what came before. There are no major breaks or sudden jumps. And the form of the creatures was changing steadily.

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Here, not only do we see that the ancestral population had no trouble interbreeding among their members, and that the daughter species at the top are now reproductively isolated, but we also see the level by level transition from the ancestral forms to the derived forms.We also see that each level reproduces, but that at the top there are no more Pelycodus ralstoni being produced by that reproduction. This in only 5 million years, compared to the hundreds of million years between the common ancestor to bears and alligators and these animals today. Except that it is much more than simple similarity - more than the similarity between sugar gliders and flying squirrels for instance (that you find curiously compelling) - rather it is based on a preponderance of homological identity. A fossil that is 90% homologically identical to a previous fossil is more than just similar.In the above example we see that there are many individuals at one level that could belong to the level above or the level below, and that it is only the ones at the end of the spectrum of change in the direction of the overall trend that lie just outside the parameters of the previous population, but within the parameters of the next. We know that they are related to the rest of their level population, and hence can readily conclude relation to the previous generation.IMHO, any person who claims that ancestry cannot be logically and rationally inferred from evidence like this is not just smoking ignorance, but holding firmly onto delusion. Where you fall on that scale is up to you. A 1b is curable, a 2 may need some work, but a 3 is clinical.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : ...

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Hi Smooth Operator, still jousting at windmills? Because your arguments are based on fantasy, false analogies, logical fallacies, your personal opinions and your assumption/s that your personal worldview is an accurate representation of the reality, all the while refusing to validate it against reality.If anyone needs any proof of this they can just read your latest post and realize that you are claiming that it is possible for cups to breed and produce offspring with hereditary variation, and that because of this logical fallacy (which you seem to regard as a "fact" in your fantasy world), that it is not logical to conclude that this diagram represents successive generations of related organisms: And further, you appear to be claiming that we cannot even logically conclude that fossil bones at the same level can be related. Curiously, in the real world, paleontologists can and due tell whether female bones show the effects of childbearing. Once again your opinion is at odds with reality.Essentially your behavior is just as I predicted, when I said (Message 1129): It appears you have chosen clinical delusion. Curiously, this just proves that your opinion is indeed incapable of affecting reality. Logical conclusions are not facts, they are constructs, and they can only be valid if (a) the premises are valid, and (b) the construction is valid. Even if the conclusions are valid they do not become fact.This statement of yours: ... is not a fact, nor is it a valid logical conclusion, it is an assumption that you have made based on your opinion about reality. Your opinion is not fact, and any conclusion based on it is not, cannot be, fact.Just for comparison on what reasonable conclusions that can be reached from the evidence,

• you look at the diagram above and say that one cannot reasonably infer that a single bone is related to another fossil bone at any level.
• I look at the diagram above and say that any person who claims that ancestry cannot be logically and rationally inferred from evidence like this is not just smoking ignorance, but holding firmly onto delusion.
• you look at the diagram above and say that one could assume that the layers were laid down in "5 minutes of rapid layer deposition due to a catastrophe" ... without any evidence of such catastrophe.
• I look at the diagram above and say that one can assume deposition of layers seen in the diagram occurred in the same manner that we see such layers being deposited today, because there is no evidence of any catastrophe in the data, and no known catastrophe that could produce the same results sorted by layer and arranged by phenotypic groups.

Here we have you inconsistently claiming that (a) you cannot form any logical conclusions from the evidence available, but that (b) you can form a logical conclusion from a lack of evidence.By comparison, in both cases I've claimed that you can form reasonable, valid and logical conclusions that are consistent with the evidence. The evidence from uranium halos show that this is a reasonable, valid and logical conclusion from the evidence.I need say no more.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added

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Hi Smooth Operator, One is your claim that cups and frying pans show the same patterns as evolution, in spite of the facts that (a) they are not breeding organisms, (b) they have no hereditary traits, and (c) there is no selection process that makes survival and breeding of one more likely to be passed on to later generations than the other.That is why it is a false analogy. Your assumption that it does represent evolution is one of your fantasies.Likewise, your claim that because we cannot absolutely positively know something that we therefore cannot infer anything is one of your logical fallacies. What contradiction? You yourself said "frying pans do not reproduce" and that is one of several reasons why it is a false analogy.There is no evidence of the change in hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunity in the inanimate objects: they don't have hereditary traits, they do not have breeding populations, they do not have generations, they do not have ecological opportunities, they do not have selection mechanisms, so they cannot be analogous to organisms that do possess these elements of biological life.We also see evolution in living breeding populations today, including speciation events, and we can compare the trends and tendencies seen in the living world with the evidence we see in the fossil record. Here you are (intentionally?) confusing and conflating what we can know with absolute truth with what we can logically infer from the evidence. This is a logically false argument (what a surprise eh?).Is it logical to infer that the population of this species of fish (including the parents of this fish) produced no offspring? Or does your fantasy extend to propose instant de novo creation of individual fossils?Amazingly, it is not necessary to conclude whether or not this individual fish produced offspring to infer that the breeding population of the species it represents produced offspring. Curiously, this fish is, of itself, such strong evidence of this process of reproduction that one needs to posit some other totally unknown and unobserved process to "poof" the fish into existence without friends and relations. Once again, you are (intentionally?) confusing and conflating what we can know with absolute truth with what we can logically infer from the evidence. Curious how so much of your arguments depends on logical fallacies eh?Obviously one cannot show that two randomly chosen bones, presented devoid of any context or knowledge of where they came from, are related, but this does not mean that one cannot logically infer that fossils, found and cataloged with full context, in close proximity, with multitudinous homologies from level to level, and consistent geological stratigraphy, as in the case with Pelycodus, are related.And when the differences from level to level are less than the overall differences we see within the dog species (just for example), then it is not logical to claim that one cannot infer that they are related. Now you are equivocating. Small surprise. What you claimed was that it was as logical to infer that the deposit was made in 5 minutes, involving unrelated organisms in a catastrophic event, than to conclude that the pattern is due to evolution, hereditary relationships, and normal geological processes.Interestingly, it is the scientific evidence that shows that it happened over a
5 million year period:A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus

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The numbers down the left hand side indicate the depth (in feet) at which each group of fossils was found. As is usual in geology, the diagram gives the data for the deepest (oldest) fossils at the bottom, and the upper (youngest) fossils at the top. The diagram covers about five million years.

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Curiously, I'll trust the evidence over your opinion that is based on denial, fantasy and logical fallacies, especially when you have no evidence for a single element of your claims. I can link you to the original PDF from Gingrich if you are interested.What you said was that it is not logical to infer that they are related, and then set up some imaginary scenarios based on fantasy and denial that have nothing to do with the evidence, and claim that they are equally logical conclusions. They aren't, because your proposed scenario is not supported by any evidence, while the evidence of hereditary relationships is supported by the evidence.Fascinatingly, your scenario cannot explain how the fossils come to be sorted in the specific layers and not jumbled together in one mixed bag (as is the case when we do find evidence of a catastrophic flooding event) or all laid out in one horizontal layer (as is the case when we do find evidence of a catastrophic burial event). So in addition to a lack of evidence for a catastrophic event, you have no mechanism to cause rapid layer formation AND the sorted pattern of the fossils. No, that is another logical fallacy: Everything within the A circle = B but not everything within the B circle =A.http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/affirm.htm

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Any argument of the following form is invalid:

If A then B
B
Therefore, A

Examples:
1. If I am in Calgary, then I am in Alberta. I am in Alberta, thus, I am in Calgary. (Of course, even though the premises are true, I might be in Edmonton, Alberta.)

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(ps note that it is IF ... THEN ..., not IF ... THAN ... )Because it is a logical fallacy it cannot be a fact.Because any logical conclusion can be false it cannot be a fact.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : subtitle

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Hi Smooth Operator, I'm separating this out from the other posts. "This" being related to the actual old age of the earth, the previous context being The explanation is fairly simple.Halos form around radioactive material in certain types of rock.The halos form a characteristic pattern for each radioactive decay chain for the material in question.The pattern is based on the alpha decay energy for the decay of the different isotopes in the decay chain.The four basic decay chains for the radoactive elements are found atDecay chain - WikipediaFor halo formation only the alpha decay events are important (beta decay does not affect halo formation). Note that each alpha decay event in each of the four different chains is unique, and this is important because the diameter of the halo formed for each isotope is related to the alpha energy of that isotopes decay event and the density of the rock where the halo is formed.Radiometric Dating

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At any rate, halos from uranium inclusions are far more common. Because of uranium's long half-lives, these halos take at least several hundred million years to form. Because of this, most people agree that halos provide compelling evidence for a very old Earth.

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The reason it takes a long time is that it takes many decay events to build a halo, as each decay event only makes a point, so it takes many decay events to build a visible halo.So we have these conditions:

1. each alpha decay event has a specific energy that is unique to the isotope that decays,
2. each decay event only causes a single point on the halo,
3. how far the alpha particle can travel in a type of rock before it causes a point on the halo is related to the energy of the particle and the density of the rock,
4. it takes many decay events to make a visible halo.

In order to have sufficient decay events to form a halo for a radioactive isotope with a long half-life a very long time, "hundreds of millions of years", needs to pass.This is a 238U halo: (original image provided by Gentry at Evidence for Earth's Instant Creation - Polonium Halos in Granite and Coal - Earth Science Associates)This is the 238U decay chain: You will note that the top alpha decay event listed is 238U with a half life of ~4.5 billion years, (with the next two being 234U with a half life of ~245 thousand years and 230Th with a half life of ~75 thousand years).Simply put, this means that a long time needs to pass before you have enough decay events to form the halos.Or you need a lot of the 238U atoms to have enough atoms decay in shorter time periods, however to have this occur in significantly less time, the particle quickly becomes too large to form a clear halo. *Or you assume (by some unknown magical process that has no evidence for it) that the rate of decay was significantly different in the past.Which gets us to the fun part:The alpha particle decay energy is related to the half-life of the radioactive isotope.If you change the rate of decay, so that the halos could form in a shorter time period, then you also change the alpha particle energy.If you change the alpha particle energy, then you change the diameter of the halo formed by the decay for that particle.The evidence shows no variation in the diameter of the halos, so it is logical to infer that there was no change to the decay rates during the time that the halos formed.Thus it is logical to infer that "several hundred million years to form" the evidence that you see in the picture above have indeed occurred.Enjoy.* the mathRemember the decay curve is exponential: Nt=No*(1/2)^{^(t/hl)}To have the same (No-Nt) decay events in 10 thousand years as would occur in 200 million years you need No to be ~20,000 times as big as the particle seen in the picture above:Noa-Nta = Noa-Noa(1/2)^{^(200e6/4.468e9)} = 0.03055078NoaNob-Ntb = Nob-Nob(1/2)^{^(10e3/4.468e9)} = 0.00000155NobAnd Nob/Noa = 0.03055078/0.00000155 = 19,693

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Once again, Smooth Operator, we see an inability to deal with the facts in a reasonable manner.Is this stupidity, ignorance, delusion or maliciousness? Hard to say, could be a combination. The concepts are simple. Which they can not possibly do, for the simple reason that they cannot reproduce. An evolutionary pattern is based on reproduction and the descent of hereditary traits, and multiple lines of evidence, not on ad hoc similarities complied by a person on a computer.Convergent evolution is not an evolutionary pattern, as it does not show direct descent from common ancestors, it shows analogous features that have evolved independently of homologous features.Your cups and frying pans are only based on superficial analogous features, and thus cannot be similar to the treed structure of homologous features in a hereditary lineage.If you cannot (or refuse to) understand this simple point then you are incapable (by choice or by ability) of understanding evolution. Except that the structure of cups and frying pans does not exist in the real world or anywhere outside your imaginary ad hoc assemblage. No body else would come up with the same pattern you did by taking random pictures off the internet. Scientists, on the other hand, would (will and have) come up with the same pattern/s of hereditary descent in nested hierarchies due to the multiple lines of evidence that are available.All you made clear was an inability to grasp a simple point: reproduction in breeding populations produces variations in the following generations, we see this pattern in the world around us, and we see this same pattern in the fossil record. Thus what we see in the world around us explains what we see in the fossil record.Your pots and pans are missing several elements that are part of the picture when it comes to Pelycodus, as an example.The most critical is context in time and space. Being an ad hoc arbitrary compilation of pictures there is no context in time and space of where the individual components were taken from.With Pelycodus you have location in a geographical location that does not vary, and you have a time-line from top to bottom that delineates lineage from older at the bottom to younger at the top.At each level you have fossils of organisms that are the product of reproduction, that had ancestral parents, and they have similarities to the fossils below that show a homologous pattern in their skeletons. This is the same pattern that we see in living populations. It is therefore logical to infer that they are both of the same hereditary lineage and that the lower level is older, ancestral, to the upper level. This holds for every layer in the whole matrix from top to bottom.You cannot infer such a pattern from pots and pans because you have no logical basis to infer hereditary lineage, and you have no context placing them in proximity in time and space. Because the reality is not as simple as your little diagram. In one case you have multiple lines of evidence pointing towards a conclusion, while in the other you have no lines of evidence pointing to any conclusion, because of that simple little difference your analogy fails to represent reality, just your delusion/s. Curiously that does not even begin to answer the question of how the layers of fossils show the evidence of hereditary lineage.Fascinatingly, what I said was that when you have burials by catastrophic events that you do not end up with the pattern seen with Pelycodus, not that such layers are not formed by catastrophic events. Providing examples of catastrophic events that provide multiple layers formed in rapid fashion fails to provide the evidence of burial of animals in discrete layers that are sorted in the manner seen with Pelycodus: they are generally all lumped and jumbled. A linear equation and a polynomial equation can have the same values of y for given a given x, but one or more points in common does not mean that the curves are identical or that one is analogous to the other.Here you are equivocating between such simple equalities and actual identities.If, and ONLY If A ≡ B Then and ONLY then does B ≡ AObviously, for the average reader anyway, your pots and pans are not equivalent to hereditary lineages in living breeding organisms, so you cannot have A ≡ B, and your analogy fails as a result -- because you have parts of B ≠ A ... the parts that apply to living breeding reproducing populations of organisms, the parts that apply to evolution.In one case the pattern seen is arranged in nature due to natural processes, while in the other case the pattern is arranged in your computer by ad hoc selection of images, images unrelated in time and space, images devoid of any context. Sorry, no, you are still confused between assumptions made and conclusions that follow. Mathematics in general and logic in particular are based on assumptions, and these assumptions can be false. As a result the conclusions can always be false.What you have stated here is one of the beginning assumptions, on which further conclusions can be based. It is taken as (assumed to be) fact for the purpose of the argument, but it is still just an intellectual construction and not fact.In logic there are no conclusions that do not rest on assumptions.Asserting otherwise does not make it any more valid than before, as your point has been invalidated, and you should know that any logical statement that has been invalidated is falsified, not fact.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : englss, clrty.

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Hi again Smooth Operator, trying to pull a fast one? Interestingly, the study attached has absolutely nothing to do with accelerated decay. Either you did not read the abstract or did not understand it. The subject addresses the damage to a proposed containing material for nuclear damage by accelerating the exposure of the material to the radioactive decay. This is their conclusion:

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The only significant measured change was an increase of the unit-cell lattice parameters of the plutonium oxide and sodalite phases of the material, but these were very small and did not lead to any loss of waste form durability.

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No change to any rate of radioactive decay of any of the materials in the study was noted.Color me surprised.Enjoy.

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Hi again Smooth Operator, trying to pass off fantasy in place of reality again? Curiously, not only does this paper NOT demonstrate what you claim is actually true, but it doesn't even demonstrate what IT claims is actually true, just that one can fantasize about it in never never land.The problem is that this article is bogus. It is made up fantasy not science.Here we see phaque science at it's most despicable -- pretending to be real to fool gullible people.Amusingly, they started with the assumption that there is a young earth to explain, without providing any evidence for it being so:

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If the age of the earth is measured in thousands rather than billions of years, then how does one explain the isotopic abundances of, for example, uranium, as found in geological samples? If half lives have varied over earth history, then nuclear physics must be altered in some way, and the altered theories could lead to new explanations for the isotopic abundance variations with time (Chaffin, 2000b, 2001). If there has been accelerated decay at some points in earth history, it will be impossible to successfully explain the data without recognizing and modeling this fact. ...

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Then they conclude that physics must have been different at some time in the past to accommodate this young earth fantasy concept.Next they play with mathematics (which can be made to show anything) to pretend to demonstrate something, without having a single piece of empirical evidence to substantiate it.Fascinatingly, they do not show that there is in fact any variation in energy well levels in the real world, nor do they show (the critical part that you need) that this actually occurs without changing the overall decay energy.Note that changing the well depth means you are in effect changing the initial isotope that you are then calculating the alpha decay from. Just a little slight-of-hand bogus science from your typical creationist fraud factory.Here's their conclusion:

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A straightforward biblical interpretation does not rule out a period of accelerated decay early in creation week. Since life does not appear until some time on day three, the cessation of the accelerated decay at that point prevents life from receiving abnormally large radiation doses. The models presented depend on the compactification of extra dimensions, with the compactification being completed early in creation week. Other models may lead to accelerated decay at other points, for instance during the Fall of Genesis 3 or during the Flood of Noah, but it would seem that these other episodes would probably have to be explained using alternative models, and could not allow as much accelerated decay as could be accommodated early in creation week.

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Since God is the origin of physical principles, it would be wrong to state that He must act in a certain way. However, Scripture is a reliable record of His actual creation. The models considered here merely point out some unnecessary assumptions involved in interpreting radioactive decay: half lives may not have been constant.

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In other words, god-did-it, pull out the magic rabbit, but not a fact to be had to support a single word.And do they show how this magic increase in decay rate could actually occur? By changing the whole universe? Sorry, but somehow I missed the relevant evidence for such fantasy.Here's a clue that this is bogus fantasy wish fulfilling writing rather than a logical conclusion based on facts:

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Examples of constants which are no longer considered to have remained constant over the history of the universe are found in great quantity in recent physics literature. A common denominator of many of these examples is multidimensional string theory.

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Do you know why? The quote is complete - what is missing?Where is your skepticism for this (not good for toilet) paper?What this in effect proves is that the Uranium halos are evidence for an old earth, or else you need to turn physics inside out with magic to then produce fake evidence of an old earth, and that as a consequence your god is a joker, a jester, a prankster.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : ...

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Hi Theodoric, It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic, and transparent a denial of reality.Not only to post something that does not say what he claims, but then to try to argue that it does say what he claims. Another display of his stunning inability to deal with reality.Enjoy.

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Hi Smooth Operator, still struggling with reality? Please refer to this paper for the details of what this paper is based on and don't try to change the topic to something else. It is rather explicit:

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The study was designed to investigate the physical and chemical durability of the waste form after exposure to 238Pu alpha decay. The alpha-decay dose at the end of the four year study was approximately 1.0 1018 decays/gram of material.

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There is absolutely no mention of accelerating the rate of decay by any mechanism:

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After four years of exposure to alpha decay, the investigation observed little alteration to the CWF. Specifically, the 238Pu-loaded CWF maintained its physical integrity, the density remained constant, no cracking or phase debonding was observed by microscopy, and the material's chemical durability did not change significantly over the duration of the study. The only significant measured change was an increase of the unit-cell lattice parameters of the plutonium oxide and sodalite phases of the material, but these were very small and did not lead to any loss of waste form durability.

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There is no mention of any change in the rate of decay of the plutonium. Now it seems, that not content with fabricating fantasy physics for yourself, you are fabricating what the researchers in the original paper you cited were using in their study of the effect of four years of (normal) plutonium decay on the proposed containment materials.There is no link between the paper Plutonium-238 Alpha-Decay Damage Study of A Glass-Bonded Sodalite Ceramic Waste Form, Journal of ASTM International (JAI) Volume 2, Issue 1 (January 2005) ISSN: 1546-962X Published Online: 3 January 2005 by Frank, SM, DiSanto, T, Goff, MK, Johnson, SG, Jue, J-F, Barber, TL, Noy, M, O'Holleran, TP, and Giglio, JJ and the invention of Barker that I could find.I did a little background check on this "invention" to see if I could find any mention of it. What I found was interesting ...Adept Alchemy (Robert Nelson): Cold Fusion Transmutations

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Adept Alchemy
Part II
Modern Arcana
Chapter 9
Cold Fusion
(1) Cold Fusion Transmutations
(2) Nuclear Waste Remediation
(3) References
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ooo it's cold fusion time?Andhttp://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BarnhartBtechnology.pdf

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If nuclear reactions in LENR experiments are real and controllable, ...

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So far they have not been shown to produce any marketable result. Wonder why?I also found that this patent is about to expire: United States Patent 5,076,971 Barker Dec. 31, 1991, Method for enhancing alpha decay in radioactive materials,Inventors: Barker; William A. (Los Altos, CA). Assignee: Altran Corporation (Sunnyvale, CA). Appl. No.: 400,180, Filed: Aug. 28, 1989.This invention is 20 years old and has not been used for anything practical, nor has it been studied further.So much for the gay art of cloud riding.Now perhaps you could prove me wrong by citing the journal published information on the actual documented change in the rate of decay in plutonium from the Frank et al paper, but I won't hold my breath.And just for chuckles, even if your Barker invention is the real thing, what they would have done would have changee the energy of the alpha particles, thus still leaving you with the problem mentioned before:Change the decay rate and you change the alpha energy.
Change the alpha decay energy and you change the halo diameter.Aside from the problem of somehow pretending that a massive world wide Van de Graaff generator big enough to affect the whole world magically operates in a natural universe.Fantasy is like that.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : citation fix

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The numbers are where they peed in the snow, it just happens to look like numbers, because obviously woolifs can't write.

Sorry AZPaul, but this is the source of this knowledgeMethod for enhancing alpha decay in radioactive materials - Altran CorporationIt is the effect of the electromagnetic field from the Van de Graaff generator at different voltages that causes the apparent color of the numbers as well, similar to the way that oil sheens appear to be colors due to the effect on wavelength interactions.Obviously you did not understand the article or you would see this.enjoy.

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