Help Wanted wrote on Aug 20, 2008 8:44 AM:All those of you capable of writting a letter to the editor that has nothing to do with creationalism, humanism, or evolution...or any other faith and value issue please write in.

I am a single, intelligent, funny woman in my 40's, with no children, wanting to read what my community thinks about everyday issues.

Running a Comment Section wrote on Aug 20, 2008 8:58 AM:...is much like running a bar.

There are some rules that don't pertain to the drinking of alcohol...but instead to social grace.

Please refrain from talks about religion, politics and drugs, unless in the faith and values section
...hint,hint.

No name calling...it's all fun until someone get's an eye poked out. Share you air time...comment's can only be so long before and repetitive before someone cut's you off.

to the editor wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:04 AM:Could you PLEASE put these letter disputing evolution in the Faith & Values Section where they rightly belong.

Three D wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:28 AM:Once again, we have to ask letter writers Gail Scott and Rick Kellogg, who are so quick to try to "debunk" imperfections in the fossil record on specific macroevolutionary transitional fossils (completely ignoring the extensive record of such fossils and, more importantly, the absolute DNA record that confirms relationships very precisely), the same question they ask of biological scientists:
Where is the fossil record that confirms objectively the creation account in Genesis?
Which Genesis account are you referring to, since the accounts in chapters 1 & 2 are contradictorily inconsistent?
Please adhere to the same standard you ask of others.
Blessings,
3D

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:33 AM:to Rick Kellogg: You know very well that you've taken Gould's quote out of context.He was making his case for punctuated equilibria versus gradualism. After which he said: "Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:36 AM:to Gail Scott: See my response to Rick Kellogg. All you're doing is spouting the same Creationist cant.
Regards

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:41 AM:to "Help Wanted" & "Running a Comment Section" My apologies. I don't know why the Letters editor isn't consigning the Creationist letters to Faith & Values. There's somewhere else I prefer to see them consigned, but that's up to a Higher Authority.
Regards

Andy wrote on Aug 20, 2008 12:13 PM:To JTB:

Great double entendre on your last post!

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 3:21 PM:The theory that birds, which are warm blooded, were offspring somehow from dinosaurs which were cold blooded (lack nasal turbinate folds) is from a persons' thoughts, not from any data that would support it. All dinosaurs are found around the world at dig sites that are relatively shallow, and yet people proclaim without reliable dating methods that they're of vast eons of age when they were alive. Dinosaur National Monument is best explained where these relatively much more modern animals were simply caught in a slide that buried them upright there. None were found upside down, as would be expected if they were drowned and jumbled and 'eons later' accidentally are now discovered at the surface under virtually no depth of soil at all.

to Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 3:35 PM:Sorry, but I simply don't believe your claims about dinosaurs or the people that study them. Would you please give us the name of the textbooks that support your claim? I'm willing to believe you, but I've come to know that creationists are more than willing to make up or repeat made up claims that turn out to be utterly false. So, please, some sources. Thanks in advance.

Question for Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 3:40 PM:Is there scientific consensus that dinosaurs were all cold-blooded? I seem to recall that was debated. Can you give us some sources for your assertion that this is a settled matter? Thanks in advance.

to Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 3:52 PM:Please, please send your findings in immediately to the error filled scientific journals. Also, be sure to keep learning science from your pastor.

to Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 5:22 PM:In chickens there is a recessive gene, when that gene is switched on -- whalla -- instead of feathers, there are scales. Do your research, the data is there.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 5:25 PM:to Andy: Thanks! I try to use a light-hearted approach -- except when castigating Kellogg.
Regards

another gene wrote on Aug 20, 2008 5:46 PM:which is recessive and when turned yeilds chickens with teeth! I wonder if the folks in PETA want those chickens to be "range free." But not to worry, the earth is still flat.

to Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 5:53 PM:Of course fossils are found near the surface. Hello, its called erosion. The rocks are dateable and old. Old layers are eroded away exposing the fossils. This is pretty basic stuff Richard. And there is a debate going on right now that some dinosaurs were warm blooded, or (wait for it) a transitional between warm and cold blooded.

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 6:52 PM:There are several good scientific modern textbooks on dinosaurs, including Farlow, J. "The Complete Dinosaur", Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, 1997; Rathevich, R. 'Dinosaurs of the Southwest', University of New Mexico Press, Albequerque, 1976; Martin, A. 'An Introduction to the Study of dinosaurs", Blackwell Science, Maldon, MASS, 2001. If I recall the Xray data of dinosaur skulls proving the absence of turbinates was thoroughly reviewed in the Martin reference.
And of course genes can be manipulated artificially. It was at my alma mater where lightening bug genes were introduced into a plant to make it glow at night. But that didn't make the plant a firefly, nor the firefly a plant. So it means nothing to me about whether anything 'macroevolved' from something else. It takes much more than a few genes to be switched to turn a dinosaur into a bird. Sorry.

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 7:07 PM:I don't know any pastors who are knowledgeable about turbinate folds in mammals, so I don't understand your comment. The Xray data is definitive on dinosaur skulls, again, as in the previous post, check the Martin, 2001 review textbook. People in the GOP denounce Barack Obama because he was 'in cahoots' with his pastor who was 'a traitor'. They refuse to apologize and are as far as I'm concerned altering the course of an election illegally. Likewise, to criticize statements I make that are scientific and accurate as though they were brainwashed into me from another person doesn't even deserve this reply.

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 7:31 PM:There are no studies I'm aware of that demonstrate any dinosaur skulls having anything other than nasal passages viewed on Xray that are smooth, with no turbinate folds characteristic of warm blooded mammals. Sorry.
I'm fully aware of the typical textbook views about erosion of Mesozoic layers that are assumed to have existed above ALL Paleozoic layers, no matter their location. I've never agreed with that interpretation of the data. The Paleozoic Grand Canyon was upthrusted due to likely collisions between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate, which stopped deposition of layers in that region while at the same time deposition continued to the non-upthrusted regions around it that people refer to for convenience as Mesozoic. The dating methods have far too many assumptions required to assign actual definitive dates. Again, materials present on top of a particular layer, if that layer is buckled, do not prove that the upper layer is eons younger than that upon which it is layered or that the exposed surface layer was ever theoretically covered with the upper layer in the first place. I don't trust the interpretation and instead rely on my visit to Dinosaur National Monument to make my judgment. The layer they are in is hardened likely with the decomposed oils of the animals and again all are upright near the banks of the Green River. No one can disprove the idea they were trapped in a landslide, and in fact several Park Rangers now prefer that view over the old ideas, that they used to be deep underground, then were turned sideways and accidentally happened to end up now at the bank of the river.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 7:39 PM:to Richard: We presumed a Creationist perspective when you said "All dinosaurs are found around the world at dig sites that are relatively shallow, and yet people proclaim without reliable dating methods that they're of vast eons of age when they were alive." That is straight out of the Creationist handbook. Or can you cite a different source for us?
Regards

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 8:59 PM:Too many to mention. Even recent newspaper articles. For example that describe the largest dinosaur ever discovered. It was in Spain, uncovered by a farmer expanding his garden. A paleontologist visited days later and, without measurements of any kind, decided it was a hundred million years old when it had been alive. I disagree. Visit for example the Johnson farms exhibit that opened in 2001 in the middle of St. George, Utah. This is the largest dinosaur surface trackway in the world as far as is currently known. There are imprints that even show detials of surface skin contour. The entire massiv eocmlex was under only a few inchies of soil and there is not eroded mateirasl that are piled anywehre else in the region to fitk in my ioiin, with the old view that there must have been layers in the past that became eroded and by accident the trackways are now at the surface, all horizontal, as they would be if they had been made recently. I don't buy the science text typical argument that they are exposed now after much erosion of layers we cannot see now nor have evidence of being moved elsewhere either. But this view is not because of Creation texts. It is my own observations and analysis I rely on. Others' arguments are interesting but always suspicious to me.
Again, the curved geologic layering in the Grand Canyon indicates that layers referred to as Mesozoic are right now as we speak at a lower elevation above sea level than layers that are called Paleozoic. I'm unimpressed and always have been with the textbook descriptions that uplifting occurred possibly after layering rather than concurrent with it or before it. We're just not that smart.
And I know of no dinosaurs uncovered that were not near the surface, all over the world. This flies in the face against the idea that these animals are vast eons of ages old. A recent Nature article finally concluded that mammals and dinosaurs coexisted, rather than the old idea that there was a pre-mammal age of dinosaurs. Interpretations change, data, if not tampered with, don't.

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 9:22 PM:If you need an additional source perhaps you could look at . Notice how many tracks and even long trackways regularly follow modern riverbanks, all at the surface today and all horizontal, i.e. perpendicular to gravity. Check the sauropod trackway at Canyonlands National Park. These surface tracks are surrounded by miles of plateau land and yet they are on rock surface land of today. Check the nearby dinosaur feet and ankles in the Morrison surface layers that are about a mile form there. The legs are vertical and at the surface. The Paluxy river trackways follow the course of today's river. Rivers don't course and uncover trackways of long distances like that, rather than the converse, that the tracks are not eons of age and instead were formed whenever the Paluxy River already existed, at whatever prehistoric time that was. The list of source data is quite substantial actually. It's just that the widely held view of macroevolution and ancient dinosaur eras is you must admit pretty ingrained so you won't find many texts you would consider non-Creationist talking like I do. And I don't like labeling people, who are infinite in their thoughts and experiences, so just because one believes in Creation does not deserve overextending to the notion that they must by definition be wrong in having an opinion that dinosaurs are not of vast age anyway. Science can neither prove nor disprove macroevolution in the past; the scientific method just doesn't have the power, no matter who of us uses it. Prospective methods with controls can't determine what happened eons ago, and I have rights to feel that the above opinions are not only viable but in my view are better than opinions typically presented in most biology texts we're all familiar with.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 9:49 PM:To Richard: Thanks for verifying your argument from ignorance. Here are the difficulties I see with your “interpretations”.

In the following, “R” is for Richard, “JTB” is for John the Baptist:

R: “There are no studies I'm aware of that demonstrate any dinosaur skulls having anything other than nasal passages viewed on Xray that are smooth, with no turbinate folds characteristic of warm blooded mammals.:
JTB: no one here has said that any dinosaur fossil –. so far -- has clearly demonstrated warm blooded traits, only that a dinosaur and birds have a common ancestor.

R: “[the era] that people refer to for convenience as Mesozoic.”
JTB: Saying it’s a convenience to refer to a geologic era by its name is like saying language is a convenience. Geology was a science and the geologic column was in development before Darwin’s time.

R: “The dating methods have far too many assumptions required to assign actual definitive dates.“
JTB: Try telling that to the US Geological Service, which has thousands of validated radiometric age dated samples.

R: “Again, materials present on top of a particular layer, if that layer is buckled, do not prove that the upper layer is eons younger than that upon which it is layered “
JTB: Doubly wrong. When you say “buckled”, do you mean an overfold? Geologists are able to recognize such occurrences. Otherwise, no one says the upper layer is eons younger, only that it IS younger. Your position is an attempted refutation of superposition, which has been a bedrock principle of geology since 1669!

R: “or that the exposed surface layer was ever theoretically covered with the upper layer in the first place”
JTB: no one ever said it was. Whether a stratum was ever covered by a younger stratum is irrelevant to the age of the stratum.

Regards

Richard wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:35 PM:It was just posted that changing a gene in a bird makes them have teeth and another turns scales into feathers, implying that birds descended from dinosaurs. If you prefer the position that that they had a common ancestor instead, do as you wish. Again, monkeys and humans have some sequence similarity depending on which fragment you look at but have different numbers of chromosomes and the similarities mean neither that one came from another, or that both came from an unobserved unknown common ancestor, or that both have existed as separate genera for all time since their existence. Biochemical data cannot prove descent of one distinct genera from another, in spite of the opinions of most biology textbook writers who want it to be so.
You have agreed with their opinions, I have mine. In my view the fact that the Paleozoic layers span from the Tonto platform to the Kiabab, where the top of the Grand Canyon now is, is out of convenience. I never said geology wasn't in existence prior to Darwin. Where did you get that? And language many argue was indeed developed for convenience.
Sorry, but I did not refute the principle of superposition. Again, the Grand Canyon is buckled, not folded on top of itself. The North Rim is about 1000 feet higher than its corresponding layers on the South Rim due to uplift. Everyone agrees with that. But in my opinion that buckling happened before the Mesozoic layers were deposited on top of the Kiabab layers further North, thus my opinion that the Grand Canyon Kiabab never had Morrison or other layers deposited on top of it on the North Rim. But the Mesozoic layering that took place near Zion and further North continued being deposited on North Kaibab but not further South, like shoreline deposits now are occurring yards from me while I sit here at my desk at the same contemporaneous time period. No big deal and no refutation of superposition.
Of course the US Geologic Survey has volumes of radiometric data. They follow the assumption that others do, that there was a time that can be known when a particular isotope became unstable in the first place and that on top of that the ratio of decayed to undecayed daughter isotope can also be known precisely. Otherwise without these assumptions no date could be assigned any materials with this method in the first place. The USGS is entitled to their opinion of what their data mean, just like I am entitled to my opinion of what it means or doesn't mean. I know full well the claims made. I disagree with them and always have because I choose to make no such assumptions when it's on a question of this importance that has massive philosophic, legal and moral implications. I want the truth like everyone else should, and nothing but.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 20, 2008 11:30 PM:to Richard: The recent fusing of two chromosomes in man is well known. the advent of genomic analysis provides further evidence of man's recent break from his common ancestor. I'll leave you to your other Creationist musings. I'm a theistic evolutionist: the only philosophic implications I see is that my position refutes a literal reading of the Genesis creation account.
Regards

Cathars wrote on Aug 21, 2008 5:12 AM:Fools!

Never in His preachings did Christ proclaim that in order to gain entrance to His Kingdom, did one have to ponder and accept a doctrine on creation.

"He who believeth and is baptised shall be saved," whehter he believes he is an ancestor of Adam and Eve or a quadraped.

The argument over evolution is a worldly concern, and will cease at your earthly demise. Whereas your concerns over the spiritual will dictate your life everlasting.

So, argue what you think is important. The Father will sort it out in the end.

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 6:33 AM:It is not changing a gene, the gene is already there. Its just off. Got it!

Andy wrote on Aug 21, 2008 8:30 AM:To Richard:

You wrote "All dinosaurs are found around the world at dig sites that are relatively shallow, and yet people proclaim without reliable dating methods that they're of vast eons of age when they were alive."

So, I am confused. Some friends and I spent last week canyoneering in Zion National Park. While traveling down the popular route of the Left Fork of North Creek one can see numerous Grallator tracks imprinted on a layer of sedimentary rock. Above this layer, the sandstone cliffs rise up another 400 feet before the present day top or ground level. My point being, I was looking at these tracks, that were at least 400' below the surface!

Please explain your theory on this, or am I missing something?

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 10:13 AM:Yes Christ does not require anyone to believe in Creation. We have graciously been given free wills and salvation through no works of our own. Let's get that out first and foremost. The discussion though of how life came to exist does have importance to me, in that false conclusions that are proclaimed as facts and are believed can confuse people about not only Christianity but also when I get sick I prefer my doctor were a Christian man who understands that our body parts have purposes and that they didn't accidentally get there, where a back protrusion is known to be abnormal requiring repair, not something 'normal' because a gene was turned back on to produce a tail like a monkey has. And I don't think God objects to our trying to understand history. To me, it's a lot of fun.
The difference between my view is that most geologists believe that at one time the mesozoic and cenozoic layers used to exist over the entire surface of the earth on top of the paleozoic and that where any layer is now exposed (i.e. the paleozoic top of the Grand Canyon and the vast regions of Morrison and other mesozoic in the U.S. Southwest) must have been due to erosion. Where all that material has gone is unexplained. My view is that vast surface regions never had layers ever deposited on top of them, because we still today see that, selective deposition in one region and not another nearby. This does not mean that erosion or sedimentation never covered any tracks. Surface tracks seen in Zion where there is a mountain near them doesn't detract from that view. Were they at one time covered and in that location washed away to expose them? I don't know. Were they the last layer ever deposited and they are still there as they were when first made (other than tectonic tilting and shifting) and the mountain was there when the dinosaurs walked next to it? I don't know. But this does not detract from the idea that the greater Southwest doesn't have to be assumed to have been under layers in the past and happens now to be not under such layers.
Turning genes on and off does not explain to me how one genera form of life could have emanated from some primordial ancestral one. No such species (an archebacterium or whatever) contains all genes to be turned on and off to generate the organisms now living here so the theory is incomplete at best. The argument that chromosomes fused turning monkey to man is no better than the opposite, that chromosome splitting turned man to monkey or again, that monkey and man have similarities, as do all species, but have always retained their genetic identities.
Fusion? Splitting? I say it is what it is. Monkeys are not human and vice versa, no matter how many genes are comparable in function. Prospective experiments with the scientific method always find that anything ever born is the same genera and species as its parents, while nevertheless always having traits distinct from those parents at the same time, from selective gene use after differentiation.

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 10:25 AM:To help explain why I think as I do, notice how most people are told by Grand Canyon Park Rangers that the Colorado River carved the Canyon from top to bottom as the ground uplifted. This story contains a falsehood. The Canyon was probably for the most part formed by plate tectonics when that section of the Suothwest simply cracked after plates collided. Most of the exposed layers have a nearly vertical slope and in many places (presumed to have been carved by washing) that are now above the river level are not polished smooth in the slightest. At Toroweap it is obvious that a huge section of the North Rim wall simply cracked and separated from it. Yes the River did its own part in eroding various layers, as evidenced by the banked slopes in some of them, but cracking in my opinion was the principal player. Again, we all want the truth but sometimes it seems necessary to discuss opposing descriptions of the same data or else it's too easy to fall into the idea that one view is now suddenly a 'fact'.

Andy wrote on Aug 21, 2008 11:15 AM:Ok Richard, now I understand. I was under the impression that you were arguing facts based on some sort of proof or even on-going analysis. However after reading your last post, your comments prove otherwise.

"most people are told by Grand Canyon Park Rangers"

"probably for the most part"

"in my opinion"

You are just spouting YOUR "one view" and it is a view that not unlike the Grand Canyon conspiracy, is chock full of cracks.

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 12:17 PM:I don't see the cracks. I'm interpreting data and thus not stating that as proven fact. On the contrary, those espousing that warmblooded birds and cold blooded dinosaurs arose from a common ancestor and that it was through gene on/off switching, while not stating these as opinions, as though they are suddenly facts, have the larger cracks. But of course this is my opinion, of course.

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 1:25 PM:Another reason I debate this stuff is because there are huge sums of federal research funds taken from taxpayers to pay for researdch that is often completely unfounded and a waste, like in my opinion the work putting firefly genes into a plant. Funds coughed up by poor taxpayers should be used very exclusively and wisely, not on experiments that can't possibly prove what happened in the past or research tries to turn one animal genera into another, as though we need this information to survive and therefore the taxpayers must fund it. People who want to study things like that should use their own personal money. Again, that's just my opinion.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 21, 2008 2:10 PM:to Richard: You say: "... The difference between my view is that most geologists believe that at one time the mesozoic and cenozoic layers used to exist over the entire surface of the earth on top of the paleozoic." The only geologists who hold that view, if they still do, are Flood Geologists. Professional geologists, or even someone who has taken Geology 101, knows better than that.
Regards

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 2:25 PM:Thanks for the comment. If most geologists now don't hold the view that the Grand Canyon was covered with Mesozoic and later eroded to expose its surface today, then that's good news. The idea that dinosaurs found on the surface now are there because that layer was also exposed back when they lived on it, isn't as cracked as some claim.

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 4:00 PM:What if life is found on other planets? What if life is only found to exist on Earth? Isn't either finding so exciting?

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 6:40 PM:Life isn't found on other planets. NASA has used that prospect for decades as an excuse to continue getting funds to explore space, to mars and beyond, always with the same story that life might be there, all at taxpayer expense that I object to. The moon Titan is a case in point, with vast sums spent to send a craft there to analyze the composition of the surface and atmosphere there with expensive spectroscopic analytic equipment. What they found was lots of benzene, which is poisonous to all forms of life, but their interpretation of course was that since benzene contains carbon then maybe it's on the way to 'becoming life'. It's not interesting enough for me to volunteer funds for when we as a nation are already broke over this Iraq trillion dollar quaqmire.(again, in my opinion). And sorry for taking too much space today.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 21, 2008 8:12 PM:to Richard, re your post of 8/21, 2:25 PM: That doesn't represent what I said. The point is that deposition is not occurring continuously over the entire earth. It should be obvious that whenever there is deposition somewhere, there has to be erosion to provide the sediment. And those are exactly my sediments as well.
Regards

Richard wrote on Aug 21, 2008 9:20 PM:Layering in the Grand Canyon was not by deposition of eroded material from other places. It was for most bulk living sea creatures that died and layered the bottom third. The central portions were fresh water dead creatures, the upper third were salt water creatures again. These grew in the aquatic environment they were in, they weren't transported there from other locations.
One central layer though is due to erosional deposits in a desert climate as you stated.

John the Baptist wrote on Aug 21, 2008 10:51 PM:to Richard: How about the sandstones and shales?

Richard wrote on Aug 22, 2008 9:40 AM:Agreed, but I emphasize the substantial volume of shellfish carbonates because they are solids that came literally from the air from carbon dioxide. And by the way, my view is that erosion of carbonates also as the Canyon formed led to their reintroduction into the atmosphere back as carbon dioxide again. Canyon deposits I've measured along the river for example near Laughlin, when mixed with water of only slight acidity, even now bubbles out residual carbon dioxide from the bicarbonates in the sand that formed from erosion of the carbonates form the shellfish that had been deposited in the Canyon. You don't hear that in textbooks other than mine, but oh well, I believe what I believe. Sorry.