Excuse me Mr. Spence (see below), but the WWW reference you quote, which I
checked out, is hardly an example of "the scientific method at work", but
is rather a fairly typical example of creationist drivel, employing a
combination of distorted half-truths, quotations out of context, and
extremely twisted reasoning in an attemt to support a position that is
scientifically and logically untenable.

As to the age of the universe, your argument requires that all objects in
the universe must be less than 7,000 light years from the earth, which is
absurd, and/or that the speed of light is variable, which it is not, and/or
that the universe just APPEARS to be very much older than that, I suppose
so that God could test our faith in him, or some such nonsense. There are
numerous records of supernovae outside our galaxy, and the LMC galaxy,
mentioned so often in your article, is, itself, well over 100,000 light
years from here -- which means that those supernovae occurred more tan
100,000 light years ago, which means that the universe is a hell of a lot
older than 7,000 years! To paraphrase a noted evolutionary biologist, if
the universe is not ancient, God sure went to a lot of effort to make it
appear that way! The usual creationist age for the earth, based on biblical
"events" and calculated by Archbishop Usher, is more like 6,000 years, and
there are trees alive on the earth today that predate that version of
"creation".

As to avian evolution, the fossil and biochemical records are abundant and
clear as to the FACT that birds evolved from reptilian ancestors; the only
question still under serious scientific discussion is what precise route
that evolution followed. And, as Kevin Padian's lecture illustrated, the
evidence is steadily shifting toward the dinosaur to bird route, which is,
actually, a valuable illustration of how science is open to and encouraging
of theory modification when CREDIBLE evidence is presented to document the
need for such modification!

By the way, THANK YOU to Tom Cotner for his post summarizing Padian's
lecture -- I had hoped to attend but couldn't.

Finally, I would suggest to creationist Tweets that we stick to the TOPIC
of our group, maybe the one thing we have in common and on which we can
agree -- that birding is a worthwhile past-time!

Mark



>The two major requirements for species evolution are millions of years of
>time to allow the process to do its work and a continous shift in an
>environment that favors one group of individuals within a species over
>another.
>
>Please see "Super Nova Remnants - How old is the universe anyway?" - by
>Keith Davies, B.A., Dip.Ed. at http://www.creation.on.ca/cdp/snrart.html for
>an excellent example of the scientific method at work minus any emotional
>baggage.
>
>
>Dave Spencer
>merdave at televar.com


- Mark Egger
9521-49th Ave. NE
Seattle, WA 98115-2627

megger at home.com