We have previously discussed the struggle that creationists have with the daily disclosures of scientific research, particularly the discovery of fossils and other items that are dates in the millions rather than thousands of years. It is hard to maintain that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. However, Canadian Edgar Nernberg has shown just how easy it is to live in denial. Nernberg was not just confronted with a fossil from over 60 million years ago, but he actually found it in his basement. However, Nernberg does not think God is trying to tell him something. He maintains that “There’s no dates stamped on these things” and it proves nothing if you just reject isotopic dating and basic geology.
The University of Calgary will unveil the five fossils this week and the results of the dating process. These fish lived just after the dinosaurs were wiped out on Earth and are important evidence of the explosion of new species in the aftermath.
Nernberg to this credit recognized the find right away and preserved the fossils. Indeed, he is seeking cast of one of the fish so he can put it on display at the creationist museum.
Well, I think these Young Earth people are just a bunch of nuts. I put them in the same category as Moon Landing Deniers, Holocaust Deniers, Two Citizen Parent Birthers, 9-11 Truthers, Sovereign Citizens, New Age Quartz Crystal Worshippers, Astrology Believers, Trayvonazis, and a good portion of the Progressive Left PC crowd. A bunch of delusional f*ckwitz.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Reblogged this on Public Work.
Fossils are the remains of extict organisms…yes, these organisms, did exist, as we have a geoolgic record of their existence…fossilized wood for example…the magnificent rainbow wood found in the Holbrook region of Arizona, is an example of an extinct conifer, (Araucarioxylon arizonicum), of the family Araucariaceae. It’s closest living “extant” relative would be the Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria heterophyla, found exclusively on Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia, near New Caledonia.
I consider myself a Christian, being called in my heart to follow the teachings of Christ, yet not being particularly impressed any longer by the religions created around his teachings by men.
Similarly – these same religions have attempted to mold God in the image of man.
I am both a scientist and a believer in God and Christ (& many other things as well). Yet I know that the books of the bible were written by men hundreds of years ago who had no way of explaining or knowing any of the things it is possible for us to know today. They have been edited umpteen times by men with agendas. We know the books in the New Testiment were selected from many available at the time to comply with existing Catholic doctrine.
I believe it was possible for God to set the basic values of the universe – the values of quarks, electron spins, Gravity, etc… Let it all go in a “Bang” and know that in some distant corner would evolve creatures that would someday be capable of truly understanding his creation.
To try and limit God to what men 2500 years ago used to explain their creation seems vain on the part of man.
As the Vatican’s Science guy put it so well (paraphrased) – “…My science tells me how, my religion tells me who…”
I don’t try to convince others of anything, I appreciate the same respect. I consider my relationship with God & my Savior on solid ground.
One more thing…if the Earth is as ancient as geologic time is purported by the scientists…that’s cool…God is still the author of this process, whether the Earth was formed in 6,000 years or 6 billion, God instituted the process and all life is because of Him.
The Catholic Church is open to the very “real” possibility that the Earth is very ancient…formed over eons of time…as a devout Catholic I have no trouble believing the earth is far more ancient than approximately 6,000 years, as the fundies, jw’s, and sda’s, would like to believe. Believing the Earth is millions if not billions of years old, is not incongruent with my Catholic faith A wise and holy Catholic priest told me that before man fell, before “original sin”, the lion could lie with the lamb…as told in sacred scripture…but after man fell, the natural order of things changed…animals became predatory, fierce and dangerous through the advent of teeth, claws and venom and other noxious substances they could now defend themselves aggressively, and this animal weaponry could be used offensively, to secure prey items, to kill…. Cobras, tigers, sharks, hornets, et al, (check out Vespa mandarina), these were all deadly now, in fact lethal for man to encounter…Point…before the fall of man, in his original state as Adam, the Earth was devoid of deadly creatures, as well as natural disaster’s and plague of any kind…”the wages of sin are death”…as sacred scripture says…and sadly, I believe, disease, death, human suffering and pain, are but an outgrowth of man’s decision to become disobedient…of course with Our Savior, and His life, death and resurrection, we can now proclaim, “Oh Death, Where is thy Sting”…Praised be Jesus Christ
The reasoning that I have heard from the God Squad is that God put 60 million year old fossils on the earth when he created it 6,000 years ago.
“pretending that there is serious scientific doubt about the ancient provenance of fossils.”
The existence of fossils says nothing at all about their origin, but only that they are ancient.
This isn’t the place to give crackpots equal space to promote creationism as science, but I _do_ think it’s fun to see how many of them think they can still get away with pretending that there is serious scientific doubt about the ancient provenance of fossils. For providing them with the space to make such a spectacle, thank you Jonathan Turley.
@Tony Sidaway: Philip Johnson, author of “Darwin on Trial” is a Harvard graduate and is, or was, a law professor at U Cal Berkeley. You’d have a hard time labeling him a “crackpot”.
He makes a very good case that radiometric dating is an invalid methodology for determining the age of rocks. You should read the book.
There is no substitute for intentional ignorance.
pandiculate – we are all ignorant of something. That does not make us bad people. You can only know so much and you have to decide what to concentrate on. Personally, I am ignorant of the gasoline engine. In theory I know how it works but as a practical matter I have no idea how to fix one.
I am a follower of the Uncaused Cause. The rest is frou frou.
Isn’t it interesting that lawyers, of all people, weigh in on evolution so much?
One of the most significant critiques of evolution in the last 25 years was written by Philip Johnson, a law professor at Berkeley:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_on_Trial
The Wiki article is really biased. I read the book a long time ago and it’s pretty devastating to the theory of macro-evolution.
I just find it hard to believe so many things in the Roman Bible. Come on, Emperor Constantine created the Council of Nicaea to establish a single government controlled religion. The various factions were causing political discourse and that is not good for any empire. The Gnostics as an example, are similar to what is called Unitarianism today, considered Jesus as their leader. The Gnostic Gospels say very little of Jesus however. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic_Gospels – They surely did not consider him the begotten Son of God, unless all human being are considered as such.
I understand It was Constantine himself who coined the name Jesus Christ. If you take this literally, it can mean, the chosen one whom is supposed to liberate the people; the Messiah. At the time, The entire region was under Roman rule, thus Jesus was the one who was supposed to lead the Jews to overthrow the Roman Empire. If you take it spiritually, it could mean to lead the people to eternal life. Constantine would of course influence the later belief system.
How do you get all the living land creatures on an ark? It’s physically impossible, thus the Roman Church had to accept hocus pocus acts such as the resurrection, walking on water, tuning water to wine, living in a fishes stomach, parting the Red Sea and the burning bush as God, as factual events.
I found the book by Sir Lawrence Gardner, Bloodline of the Holy Grail, a nonfiction, as one of the more interesting analysis of the life an times of Jesus. Supposedly, Gardner a Genealogist, was doing one of the Royal families of Europe when he discovered the Jesus was literally the King of the Jews, had they not been under Roman rule, a direct descendent of King David. As with the Bible there is little unbiased historically proof of this period in history as the various governments have tried to cover up or destroy the history.
For so many so-called miracles to have occurred during the biblical years, it is interesting that I have yet to see one nor has their ever been scientific proof of one.
It is a belief system that requires one to take the proverbial leap of faith, just like the big bang theory. It is interesting none the less to discover so much knowledge, whether right or wrong, that we have access to today. Hopefully one day, society can shake all the lies and misinformation created by the various major institutions. I put the atheist and Christians in the same category. How can one be so sure that there is no God or that God believes only as you do and all other beliefs are wrong. How can you prove God doesn’t or does exist? For me, as a gnostic, I know my belief lacks verifiable evidence and I can live with that. How can it be so bad to believe in an unknown higher power? If I am wrong it is my fallacy which harms no other.
I wrote a post and had some constructive discussion in comments with people who disagreed here:
https://strikelawyer.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/evolution-is-as-evolution-does/
Briefly, though, radiometric dating is highly questionable, and all the extreme ages bandied about by the theory of evolution depend upon radiometric dating. In turn, the theory of evolution itself is definitively falsified unless those extreme ages are a fact.
They may be a fact, but they also may not be. In any case, the contention that they are a fact is completely unproven if there are any legitimate questions about the validity of radiometric dating as a method.
I appreciate DavidM’s point that rejecting the theory of evolution doesn’t automatically place you in the “creationist” camp. There are a lot of alternatives between 6,000 years old and 4.5 billion years old. Nevertheless, even if we could be absolutely certain that the earth was 100 million years old, the theory of evolution falls apart.
Holmes, the answer was in the article.
How can he be a “collector of fossils” who has any idea of what they really are if he thinks there needs to be a date stamp on them to prove their age. I bet he collects them for other reasons…..selling them perhaps to “infidels” who think they are millions of years old.
Fossils per se are not dispositive on the question of the origin of species.
Atheists seem to find this story humorous, but ignored the facts that:
1. Creationist Nernberg is “an avid collector of fossils and old specimens”
2. Because of his experience with fossils, “Most people would have overlooked these — when these were uncovered, Edgar right away recognized them.”
3. Young earth and old earth creationists both explain fossils differently (the latter no different,y than the evolutionists), but neither deny they exist.
This story is only cute/funny/ironic if you ignore 1-3, and assume Nernberg is an idiot.
Very weak article. How does finding these fish fossils falsify the creationist model? And why is the assumption made that all creationists are young earth creationists? I am an old earth creationist so I do not appreciate that assumption.
Young earth creationists are on the better side of science in one aspect in that at least they acknowledge the assumptions of radiometric dating. Articles like this one assume that radiometric dating results are facts of science. I noticed from the source article that they are waiting for the results of radiometric dating. In other words, it has not been done yet. So how then do they say the fossils are 60 million years old? Usually from index fossils, they have an a priori belief of the age of the strata in which they were found. So it will not be surprising when they come back with radiometric dating results that match their expectations. There is little doubt that circular reasoning and confirmation bias is at play here.
Edgar Nernberg is right when he says that the find does not disprove creationism. It is all the same data, just interpreted from a different paradigm.
The Bible never stated that the Earth is less than 6k or 7k years old. However, the Bible does gives us clues that the Earth could be millions of years old via the Genesis Gap Theory. For more on this, please read the following interesting article:
The Bible: Genesis & Geology. The History of the Genesis Gap Interpretation and Its Basis in Bible Doctrine
http://www.kjvbible.org/gap_theory.html
If this “creationist” finds a dog fossil in the cellar then we hope he sends it off for forensic examination. We dogs want verification that God Sent Dog To Earth On The Eighth Day To Watch Over Humans and Give Guidance To Them. We just want the date, not the reason why or whether God spelled backwards is Dog.