I'm puzzled. Why does this club exist?

@wsswan fascinating background you have and thanks for discussing forams (my chair was a palynologist, also very useful for biostratigraphy).  My own work is primarily in invertebrate paleontology (particularly trilobites) but not exclusively and I've done a variety of different field work from geologic mapping to biostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy, paleosalvage for construction companies, invertebrate and vertebrate paleo (turtles, mammoths, whales, sharks, oreodonts, etc.--a little bit of everything), stromatolites, ichnology, taphonomy, etc., etc.  Personal interests include studying large scale trends, coordinated stasis, faunal succession and turnover (especially benthic marine assemblages) and nothing imho beats the satisfaction of being able to go out and determine the paleoenvironmental context and history from the paleo, biostrat, sedimentology, vertical/lateral facies changes, etc.  

It's great to have your contribution and I imagine your experience is similar to mine when it comes to the general public (and even many biologists) who have a very poor understanding of what the fossil record is really like (starting with the fact that it's not archaeology nor all about dinos as you mentioned!)

Because they always seem to date in the right order, to keep Evolution in the running. 

All it would take is say, a rodent fossil dating back to the Cambrian, to turn Evolution on its head. And ID would be taught in schools today, by default.

But that fossil is never found.

Instead, species always pop up in the geologic ladder, in same order as they would in a world where Evolution did happen.

I ain't never been more serious.

We tried junk science like Young Earth-ism, once before.

And the result of this experiment, Christianity handed over half the planet to Islam, on a silver platter.

Including, but not limited to, the Middle East, Anatolia, Egypt, all of North Africa west of Egypt, the Balkans, Greece, and most of Iberia.

Since the Enlightenment, we have gotten some of it back. Most of it however, is still firmly in Muslim hands.

I am in no mood, to try that very same mistake twice, and hand over even more.

Was there some questionnaire sent out of some people who thought the earth was young, so they went on a rampage? You have to explain this one to me, please be specific in your reasons, I am a young earther, but I find the age of the earth something I feel no need to defend. I cannot prove it either way, and if I'm wrong, it doesn't change anything important to me in how I view anything at all.

You have not given me a lot of evidence to support this so far. Yes, fossils were found in the ground, and they were where people thought they would be. I'm willing to bet that isn't totally and entirely true; what has occurred some were found where people thought they would be. There appears to be a rather large number of fossils in one period that cannot be explained.


Another issue with just having fossils found, how do you know they were related by ancestry to anything found later or sooner, proving they changed over time? What if the times they were found were correct, but they had nothing to do with any other creature with regards to ancestry, how would you know?

I am an old earther and and I have spent many years studying the earths sedimentary data. I was raised as a young earther. There is so much fossil evidence (especially when it comes to foraminifera) and polarity of the different rock strata as the Earth aged showing the continental drift theory is probably factual. I read somewhere that God is not the author of confusion. So why did God create a young Earth with so much data showing that the Earth is old. Did He do it just to fool people with a scientific mind so they couldn't see the truth? I don't think so. I do believe people can be so rooted in a dogma they can't see the truth. This is an argument started long ago and will not end until the end.

The age of our planet, in terms of many hundreds of millions of years, was put beyond dispute quite some time ago & those who cling to the idea it can be measured in mere millennia are little better than flat-earthers.

There was a decision to reject Science, and replace it with Mysticism.

And the brilliant idea by the Western World, resulted in a thousand years of mediocrity.

Then it finally figured out it's mistake, and embraced  Enlightenment once more, and became the predominant power on the planet.

Now, those who wish to discredit scientists and have their valud theories removed from our children's textbooks, jeopardize those children's education. 

And jeopardize the security of the Western World.

And jeopardize the security of Christianity itself.

As a modern example, the idea of a young earth if very popular on Iran.

Today, they still struggle to build an atomic/nuclear bomb, with the aid of supercomputers. 

Something we did in the 40's, using slide rules!

Now explain again, why science education is not relevant. 

There are always reasons to disbelieve anything, there are very few things that we can are beyond all doubt. I think it a fantastic explanation that the reason you can accept it, because you don't see any reason not to.

Not all reasons for (propositional) belief or disbelief are equally well justified. It's best to pay close attention to what the available evidence is telling us.

And we should admit that our undertanding of how all kinds of natural systems work is far from complete. I'm often reminded by the conclusions of Quantum Physiscs that this Universe is a stranger place than we yet know.

But within the scope of human understanding (to date), there's nothing that can't be explained by naturalistic means - many aspects of the way the Universe works really do resemble a clockwork mechanism. So it's quite sensible, in those areas where there're gaps in our knowledge, to search first for naturalistic explanations. At the very least, such explanations will fit within the framework of current understanding.

One thing that can not be explained within the scope of human understanding is why God breathed His Spirit into mankind and that is what makes mankind different than animals.

You are asking me why God did something you think means this and not that? You jumping to conclusions can be done without anyone trying to trick you, true or not? You looked at fossils in the ground, you believe the ground and the fossils show you age by your dating methods, correct? That is what you are putting you trust in, you believe these things are true? This is why those that may not agree with you are being dogmatic, they simply don't understand, they are ignorant in the ways of reality? You don’t think you can be a little dogmatic here too?

Yes, I agree we need to pay close attention to all of the data, all of the theories, and we should pay close attention to truth claims about each. The thing about truth claims, if we are making a real truth claim, it will be true no matter what anyone thinks. If the earth is billions of years old, it doesn’t matter what I think about it; it is what it is. If conclusions about fossils showing they all came from a common ancestor  is true, it will be true, if I agree with it or not. The same thing is true if it goes the other way too. I think we all can; as you have pointed out towards those that accept a non-naturalistic beginning, we can some times see what we want, and not what is there. We all share that weakness.

The best way I think to deal with this is not accusing someone or belittle them because they don’t agree with us, instead just look at the truth claims and see if what is true or not can be. Motivation mongering where all we do is suggest, “you only say that because” is not helpful and only diminishes the person without addressing the arguments.

I am of course only talking about things I have seen and experienced that have no other explanation than something different working. These things were real to me and I am convinced. If they happened around you would know there are some phenomenon we, at least I can't explain.

No other explanations? Really, that is a singular truth statement if I have ever seen one. I think every single one of us can make claims about what we believe about what we have seen. We (all of us) rely on our faith to sort them out they way we think they should be. That doesn't mean we are always right, only that we tend to sort things out as we think they should be, to make them fit our world views.

When I was around 10-12 years old one of my cousins had a multitude of warts. Her hands were almost covered, they were on her wrists up to her elbow. She had warts and scars in other places too. She even had warts with warts on them. She had them as long as I can remember. One night after bedtime she came out and said, "Jesus came into the room and said He is going to take my warts away," Her parents said we know Jesus is going to take them away sometime so go back to bed. The next morning she had no warts anywhere. All that was left was one little scar she said was to remind her of what had happened. We pulled her bed apart figuring to find a pint to a quart of warts. There were none. They were completely gone. Can you explain that, I can't and I have 2 degrees and 4 minors covering biology, geology, chemistry, psychology, physics, and astronomy.

 Nope, that is quite the claim.

Neither can I and even done some reading about warts and have found no rational reason for it to have happened.

If she was telling the truth that is a rational reason, extraordinary doesn't mean irrational.