This comes straight from my home province of Alberta in Canada. It probably has the highest number of Creationists in Canada, as it’s the most conservative province, at least religiously.
A Creationist from Calgary was digging in a basement when he found what is probably a completely new species of fish dating back to 60 million years ago. This is a problem. According to him, they’re only 4,500 years old. How does he know? Noah’s flood. He’s sure they were deposited there by the flood. This guy actually helped build the Big Valley Creation Science Museum. Creation Science. Something that contains not one bit of science.
He’s also interested in having Alberta schools teach Creationism. He hasn’t directly asked the government, though. I have a problem with that. Creationism is religion. Public schools are secular. If anyone thinks that Creationism should be taught in science classes as an alternative to evolution, they are completely wrong about what science is. I would have a big issue if a science or biology teacher started teaching Creationism in class.
But back to this discovery. This dates back to 60 million years ago, which is extremely significant. This was only a few million years after the K-T mass extinction, which wiped out non-avian dinosaurs and most other species. These fish lived in a time when life was recovering from the devastation of the extinction and asteroid impact. We know it’s this old because of several methods of dating, which all agree with each other (fossil record, palynostratigraphic, and magnetostratigraphic).
It’s not 4,500 years old. At that time, Mesopotamia and Egypt both had civilisations uninterrupted by a giant flood. It didn’t happen. So, how can a great flood wipe out everything but a small group of humans and the animals of the Ark, yet the civilisations continued on without even acknowledging this flood? Sounds fishy. Oh yeah, Egypt started building pyramids around that time. He says that he has come to “accept the fact that we all have different opinions.” Too bad evolution and science are not opinions. They don’t care what people believe. They just are.
I Read Encyclopedias for Fun 
Well, I’ll give him credit for not simply destroying the thing.
He wouldn’t. It’s actually one of his hobbies, collecting fossils. He likes them.
So I have my own biases about creationism but in an attempt to be fair, I ask does creationism have any physical method of dating things other than comparing it to when it might happen in biblical times. Like actually taking a piece of the object in question and testing in some way, I’ll admit I genuinely have no idea.
They don’t use any of the recognized scientific methods for dating, because they don’t believe in paleontology (or geology, for that matter: “This rock can’t be millions of years old, ’cause the world hadn’t been made yet!”).
I remember my clone’s stories about the “fun” of being on a paleontology dig with a Young Earth Creationist in the group. (Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?) Imagine finding fossilized dinosaur bones and then hearing some nutter go on and on about how it’s fake, not really a fossil or not as old as it seems to be, put there by the devil to make people doubt god or maybe put there by god to test someone’s faith… *shakes head*
That would be infuriating to have to go through all of that. What nice about being in Japan is that pretty much everyone accepts things like evolution, plate tectonics (well, considering it’s the most earthquake-prone country in the world), and climate change. They don’t use religion as a way to be ignorant.
They have no way of testing, nor do they do any testing of any kind. They start with a conclusion, and make the evidence fit in any way they can.
Well then it’s more philosophical,idealogical, religious than scientific then in that light.
Yes, and often they’re unwilling to listen to anything that’s different than their views.
*sigh* I love paleontology. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with dinosaurs – If I think about it, I find it amusing that now as an adult I love birdwatching since, well, they’re kind of the next step after dinos. So yeah, I too am glad he didn’t destroy the fish he found, and on the other hand am in agreement it probably is muuuch older than he’s insisting it is.
I’m the same. I loved palaeontology so much I almost studied it in university. I also enjoy birdwatching, though I find it difficult to get the time to do it now.
He didn’t destroy it because he likes fossils. It’s kind of his hobby.
Ken Hamm and everyone like him (Creationists) seem to not understand the difference between religion and science. Science can proven or disproven. Religion is simply debatable. I’m sure you saw the debate between Ken and Bill Nye..Bill always had multiple sources to support him while Ken only quoted the bible. I don’t have anything against religion. I just wish people would let them co-exist. Lastly, the day the school board tells me creationism is in curriculum will be same day I resign.
I actually didn’t see the debate. I thought it would hurt my head having to listen to Ken Ham. I’ve seen so many debates on youtube like that, I just don’t have the patience for it anymore. Not going to change their minds, so I’m not even going to pay attention to that kind of thing now.
It was interesting. Science is willing change, religion is not. It was tough to listen to Ken and felt more like a publicity stunt for his museum than an actual debate.
Yeah, all he wants is money, I’m sure. I’d like to visit his museum, though, and make comments about how wrong everything is. I’d probably be asked to leave, though.
Lol, that makes two of us.
The one in Alberta is far more accessible for me, so I may want to drop by and see what it’s like.