Ken Miller in Cleveland: WEBCAST ARCHIVE URLS

What happened to Dembski? I recall hearing about how this was going to be a debate involving the positive arguments for each side....

Did he become positively scared? positively convinced of his own inanity? positively lost and now wandering in upper Michigan?

In all seriousness, could someone let me know what his excuse for no-showing was?

IIRC, he said he didn't care for the venue. Basically, anybody who speaks on behalf of the DI (as Dembski was to do in this case), has to control the venue site, the rules of debate, etc. Open debates don't work for them, so they always withdraw unless they can control who attends and at least a significant portion of the format.

In other words, unless it's rigged in their favor, they won't participate at all.

On a tangent, Dembski has been withdrawing from public view steadily since his testimony was rejected in Kitzmiller, and even before that in the antievo-sticker case.

He has shut down his blog, and his public commentary on any forum has been rare at best.

Note that this is NOT like the usual Dembski, who can't keep his mouth shut most times. It highly suggests that the DI is keeping a very short leash on him these days, while they try to push the "ID is not religious" slogan, that Dembski in many public comments has seen fit to scuttle himself.

In fact, it seems reasonable to conclude that cross examination of Dembski at trial would have revealed his many public statements of the religious nature of ID, hence that's why his "expert" testimony was not, er "required"...

I hope somebody out there made a library of some of the dumbass stuff Dembski said on UD before it becomes truly "mothballed".

I would have thought dembski was too influential to be leashed at DI. the other likelihood would be that his ego is so connected to his work, which has been so thoroughly attacked in the last few months, that he's feeling too sick to come out and play. seems to me that he is the sort to take his bat and go home, rather than openly accept that his work isn't very good and that he should find something more useful to do with his life.

Ah, who cares? He's a spent force.

R

I'm busy tonight, can someone archive the webcast, or something?

What happened to the 'show up or shut up' debate? If big names like Dembski won't show up, perhaps you could find a local inane, insane Bible-thumper to fill in. If that doesn't work out, Place an empty chair prominently on the stage to repesent the IDC failure to show.

Ah, who cares? He's a spent force.

— RupertG

Comment #67149 Posted by Bayesian Bouffant, FCD on January 3, 2006 09:39 AM (e) (s) What happened to the 'show up or shut up' debate? If big names like Dembski won't show up, perhaps you could find a local inane, insane Bible-thumper to fill in. If that doesn't work out, Place an empty chair prominently on the stage to represent the IDC failure to show.

Comment #67149 Posted by Bayesian Bouffant, FCD on January 3, 2006 09:39 AM What happened to the 'show up or shut up' debate? If big names like Dembski won't show up, perhaps you could find a local inane, insane Bible-thumper to fill in. If that doesn't work out, Place an empty chair prominently on the stage to represent the IDC failure to show.

Here's an idea: why not invite Larry Fafarman to represent the IDC case? That should be entertaining.

What about the evolutionists who failed to show up at the Kansas school board hearings on ID?

Comment #67178 Posted by Flint on January 3, 2006 11:13 AM ****What about the evolutionists who failed to show up at the Kansas school board hearings on ID?***** In a sense, the evolutionists showed up twice. First, they showed up in the standard curriculum recommendations by qualified experts, in the form of a report rejected-before-reading by the creationist Board. Second, they showed up on floor beneath the creationist kangaroo hearings, to make themselves available to provide accurate answers for the media.

Nice to see that my old alma mater is inviting speakers like that. (I got my Ph.D. from CWRU and did my surgery residency there as well.)

None of that other stuff counts. The important thing is that...

— Larry Fafarman

Were scientists really given the opportunity to "testify" to the Kansas Board of Ed? And were they given equal time, audience, and consideration as the IDers who supported the Board of Ed's POV? My understanding is scientists were all but "uninvited" to the Kansas Kangaroo Kourt. There was more discussion on this topic here on PT as recently as a month ago.

The reasonss why the scientists didnt show for the school board is obvious. The school board was trying to use their attentance for a very real and very biased purpose. To legitimize a decision that was already made to teach creationism.

In an open public debate it really doesnt matter who wins or who loses, noone is going to enact or justify policy on it. But when such a debate is a scam to 'legitimize' a decision thats when you need caution. The scientists did morally the right thing by not attending the board hearings . Shame you are too blind to see that.

These public debates are pure PR events; they are *always* rigged. The creationists would be as foolish to show up at a debate organized and moderated by scientists, as scientists would be to show up where creationists run the show.

Comment #67171 Posted by Larry Fafarman on January 3, 2006 10:56 AM (e) (s) What about the evolutionists who failed to show up at the Kansas school board hearings on ID? Was an empty chair set up to represent them?

is this not an argument that our side should sponsor more debates where we control the conditions, and loudly tout the failure of the other side to show up?

None of that other stuff counts.

Flint
right again
The whole proven method that the DI use when debating is to run away or engage scientists in an endless circular argument (stasis)that Larry thinks will last 'til doomsday (well he does have dispensationalist dementia after all).

The way the public see that is ...oh they are debating scientists so there must be something there.

2 things happen
1. They devalue science in the public world view to the point where science just becomes another "idea"

2. Increase the DI's value in the public world view to the point where ID just becomes another "idea" of equal value to science.

The only way to hold them down long enough so that they will cough up the truth is in court where they must move forward and play out the endgame(dynamic).

Any word on the webcast yet? I've never actually viewed one before, and I use That Other Operating System so it'd be good to know what format it's in well in advance. For example, if it's in a Microsoft format then any ability my computer will have to decipher it will be a miracle of reverse-engineering.

I don't know.

The Penguin people are quite clever. You might be surprised.

Or are you that *other* other OS?

I use That Other Operating System

— Corkscreew

Good news! The links to the webcast have been posted here.

I always find MS format webstreams to be a bit unreliable on Linux, although I suspect that has something to so with the .asf wrapper format - seems seriously dodgy.

RealPlayer works fine, and is actually seriously not bad - that company has cleaned up its act so much lately. ISTR that the EULA is a bit ick tho. Will be happier when it's all GPL or whatever.

Bah, have just realised that 7:00 EST == midnight in the UK :( Is anyone out there willing and able to archive the webcast? I was planning to get an early night...

well this is interesting... have figured out how to log the stream to hard drive for morning perusal, but the sample stream they're currently showing seems a little dodgy. With specificity: the Real stream is producing "judders" on the screen when viewed using either mplayer or realplay on linux. Realplayer of course generates no particularly useful error logs, but mplayer is complaining loudly and longly about bugs (presumably in the stream). The error report looks like:

******** WARNING: vpkg_length=3325 > len=501 ********

******** !!!!!!!! BUG!! len=501 !!!!!!!!!!! ********

If you're using RealPlayer you won't see any of this, but can anyone confirm or deny that the stream can't be viewed perfectly with RealPlayer on their computer?

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either. MARSHALL MCLUHAN

Bill Gascoyne -

I am inclined to agree with you.

I would argue that science has ALWAYS been supported by positive and often reasonably accurate PR.

Science is under special attack right now. The reasons for this are political. Here is a very oversimplified analysis of why - the traditional funders and supporters of one particular US political party have been irritated, over the last generation, by scientific investigations of the environment and public health, among other things. They have made an alliance with religious fanatics, who have been irritated for much longer by science's investigations of cosmology and human origins. This is a relatively new alliance; fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for Republican senators to oppose stem cell research or get involved in the likes of the Terry Schaivo case, and unlikely for any except the most extreme fanatics to oppose research on the environment or public health.

Science is largely funded by taxpayers. Granted, a fair bit of it is performed by for-profit entities, but the taxpayer funding of academic research is required for modern science to survive. The taxpayer needs and deserves some understanding of the worth of science.

Having said that, scientists were right not to show up at the Kansas hearing. It was a farce from day one. It had no meaning. Jesus himself could have materialized and condemned ID, and the Kansas school board creationists would have continued to support it. These people are often said to be motivated by "faith", but in practice, they're just heck-bent to win at all costs and no matter what the truth is. Furthermore, the scientific point of view was extremely well-represented by Pedro Irongeray (sp?).

There will possibly be a trial in Kansas (unless a school board election renders the issue moot). If there is a trial, then, of course, scientists will show up. As they should, because a trial provides a relatively unbiased venue, and results in binding rulings.

A number of people in Kansas are making personal efforts to support science education - they are providing PR for science, so to speak. And this is a perfectly appropriate thing for them to do.

In its own small way, PT is, of course, PR for good science. However, it appeals to a rather narrow segment of the population.

Bill and Harold:

Perhaps we're assigning PR to different scopes here. I'm thinking of a much more narrow definition - the kinds of things the DI expends its budget on. Rigged publicized debates, school board campaigns, advertising, pulling stunts like the Privileged Planet escapade (easy to pull on those who act in good faith and assume you're doing the same). The kinds of stuff the DI has hired a public relations company to do for them.

Yes, science gets excellent PR, but very indirectly. It learns stuff, which gets (sometimes) converted into useful technologies. Science is known to give birth to medicine and engineering, which add to our healthy energetic lifespans and give us neat stuff to fill them and make them fun and rewarding. But one thing I'm arguing is that science can't generate this excellent PR no matter how many advertising agencies it pays.

In terms of worldview, science and creationism are fighting for the minds of our grandchildren; current populations are basically hardened into place. And those grandchildren are in turn the progeny of at least one and perhaps two generations of the output of any change we make in our public education today. Keeping creationist pulpits out of science class is only half the solution. The other half is to cover the material in a solid, entertaining way.

And I'm certainly not opposed to putting money behind pro-science school board candidates. But nonetheless, I feel that the national science budget should be targed toward promising research, rather than trying to get crosses removed from city seals.

Problem is that, once the scientific community starts lobbing PR campaigns about, it starts to undermine its own impartiality, which in the long term can only damage its credibility. I can envisage a day when someone discovers an incredible new phenomenon, only to be told by the university PR agency that they shouldn't release their findings cos they falsify the basis of the uni's new PR campaign. Or that they should, despite the shakiness of their findings (iirc, that's what happened with cold fusion).

That's the sort of things that drug companies do, dammit. If science is going to do PR, it's gotta be on its own merits not on the back of the sort of tricks the DI pulls.

Although come to think of it I wouldn't have so much of a problem if the PR was "outsourced" to some sort of charitable foundation. Just as long as there was no way the PR dept could pull a Frankenstein's monster on the scientific community.

Hmm... I may need to hunt down and destroy the company that designed this webcasting system. The feed is dodgy enough that it keeps breaking Mplayer :(

I hope a transcript will be available...

None of that other stuff counts.

I hope this is offered to watch later... I have received more phone calls while trying to watch this then I have in the last week.

Not that I have any influence one way or the other, but:

If the NCSE (for example) were to start considering itself more of a pro-science PR firm and less of an information clearing house, I fail to see how that in and of itself tarnishes the scientific endeavor in any way. At "worst" it could elevate the reputation of PR, if the "dirty tricks" described above were avoided. In fact, presumably its contributor base (us) would be turned off, not on, by those tactics.

And I'm not talking federal dollars here, either directly or indirectly via universities, I'm talking about private contributions, just as exists today. I believe this would qualify as "outsourcing" as Corkscrew suggests. Just a shift in focus and self-image for the NCSE, nothing more.

I wasn't able to view the event on my iBook via RealPlayer, but I'm getting the audio stream just fine using the Mac version of Windows Media Player. Audio alone has served the purpose just fine, since I was cooking a late dinner and could listen while working. (I tuned in late, but have been listening for the past hour.)

Ken Miller rocks, BTW!

Just finished watching the broadcast, thought it was fantastic. Ken Miller is without one of the best advocates for science i've seen. Give that man an award!

Stayed up late to watch this in the UK - and am glad I did - Ken Millar is excellent - makes me wish I could go back to University to study with him..
(A few judders on MPlayer - but could put up with that for the quality of the presentation)
An especially concise and entertaining summary of the Dover trial - and even though I've been following it closely here I got to understand a few aspects I hadn't caught the significance of before.

My god I'm almost looking forward to the Ohio and Kansas things now - although I probably shouldn't.

Thanks Ken! If anyone sees him get him a beer from me...

(was he really a Goldwater Republican? crikey!)

Ken Miller did a masterful job. Very lucid. Effective use if Keynote on his Macintosh Powerbook, I might add. I will make him an honorary member of Delta Pi Gamma!

I was unable to tune in live - is there a file I can download somewhere to catch the discussion?

Please, somebody, tell me that was recorded. Case must leave that up for a few weeks at least.

Please, somebody, tell me that was recorded. Case must leave that up for a few weeks at least.

I connected to the RealPlayer link given, but I'm just getting a station jingle for MediaVision over and over again.

I connected to the RealPlayer link given, but I'm just getting a station jingle for MediaVision over and over again.

For the benefit of us who weren't abel to watch, what explanation was offered for the absence of creationist involvement? Did they mention that Dembski was invited but rescinded his acceptance?

Don't remember Dembski getting any mention - why after all - he didn't show up, and didn't have anything to offer in any case.
I thought it was a telling point that Ken made when he said he expected to be challenged on the science - and had spent some time preparing for this. When it came down to it the defence ducked that, didn't challenge the science and instead questioned him about the textbooks he had written - and links to 'ID' sites on his website. (Presumably they were trying to trap him into saying that this was no different to placing 'Pandas and People' in the library and referencing it in the statement.

The introduction merely mentioned that we had hoped to have another participant. There were visible preparations for a second participant -- a second podium with microphone. Since Dembski never actually notified us of the withdrawal of his earlier acceptance of the challenge, date, and venue, but apparently left it to Casey Luskin of the DI to make his excuses, provision had to be made in case he actually showed up.

RBH

No explanation was offered for the 'absence of creationist involvement' because, well, there was creationist involvement - they just called it 'Intelligent Design'. He did point out that whoever thought that phrase up deserved a pay rise - ' it's a marketing man's dream' - nice sounding and unobjectionable to anyone who doesn't know what it means. Seems like 'critical evaluation of evolution' is going to be the next evolutionary step for the creos.
Ken got a lot of laughs when he showed Barbara Forrests graph. - And when he said 'didn't any of these guys learn anything from the Nixon administration? - burn the stuff!' (referring to the early drafts of 'Pandas'). In fact Ken recommended reading Judge Jones judgement because 'it is really funny' - I wonder if this is some kind od first for any judicial decision?

Well, I have a log of it but a) probably wouldn't want to spread it around without permission of the university, b) it's a little large so killing my internet connection is definitely on the "to do" list and c) I left the stream recording all night, which means I have 1.4 gig of mostly MediaVision advertising :(

Whoops! - I misunderstood the bit about Dembski not showing up, as why Dembski didn't show up at the trial.
Still - I guess the reason was the same - Dembski had nothing useful to say.

"What about the evolutionists who failed to show up at the Kansas school board hearings on ID? Was an empty chair set up to represent them?"

Larry makes a fair enough point, in some ways. I think part of the rational was a desire not to dignify the proceedings with a response. But I don't think they'll make that mistake again. I'd like to see three hundred scientists show up everytime this issue is raised in a town hall or school board meeting. The resulting publicity usually turns in science's favor.

So has anyone forwarded these results to the USA Today Columnists (and their Editors) who sparked this debate in the first place?

This has been mentioned before but I'd like to reiterate with my request that the recording of this "debate" be placed on the web somewhere.

I would have loved to watch but only had access to a 24 Kbps dial-up account at the time of the webcast.

Evolution is science? It is admittedly unobservable, lacking fossil evidence, dependent upon scientific consensus, and essentially a belief system about past life on Earth. The following 12 quotes are from leading and well known scientists and researchers. A larger work with 130 similar quotes is available: "The Revised Quote Book", edited by Dr. A. Snelling, PhD, pub. by: Creation Science Foundation, Australia

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."
Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?" Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p. 127

"Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory."
Ronald R. West, PhD (paleoecology and geology) (Assistant Professor of Paleobiology at Kansas State University), "Paleoecology and uniformitarianism". Compass, vol. 45, May 1968, p. 216

"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'."
Sir Fred Hoyle (English astronomer, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University), as quoted in "Hoyle on Evolution". Nature, vol. 294, 12 Nov. 1981, p. 105

"Echoing the criticism made of his father's habilis skulls, he added that Lucy's skull was so incomplete that most of it was 'imagination made of plaster of Paris', thus making it impossible to draw any firm conclusion about what species she belonged to."
Referring to comments made by Richard Leakey (Director of National Museums of Kenya) in The Weekend Australian, 7-8 May 1983, Magazine, p. 3

"The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man."
John Reader (photo-journalist and author of "Missing Links"), "Whatever happened to Zinjanthropus?" New Scientist, 26 March 1981, p. 802

"A five million-year-old piece of bone that was thought to be a collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib, ...He [Dr. T. White] puts the incident on par with two other embarrassing [sic] faux pas by fossil hunters: Hesperopithecus, the fossil pig's tooth that was cited as evidence of very early man in North America, and Eoanthropus or 'Piltdown Man,' the jaw of an orangutan and the skull of a modern human that were claimed to be the 'earliest Englishman'.
"The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone.'"
Dr. Tim White (anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley). As quoted by Ian Anderson "Hominoid collarbone exposed as dolphin's rib", in New Scientist, 28 April 1983, p. 199

"We add that it would be all too easy to object that mutations have no evolutionary effect because they are eliminated by natural selection. Lethal mutations (the worst kind) are effectively eliminated, but others persist as alleles. ...Mutants are present within every population, from bacteria to man. There can be no doubt about it. But for the evolutionist, the essential lies elsewhere: in the fact that mutations do not coincide with evolution."
Pierre-Paul Grassé (University of Paris and past-President, French Academie des Sciences) in Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 88

....groan....

Does anyone have a transcript?

For future reference, Chris, quote mining Stephen Jay Gould is the #1 way to prove how ignorant you are around here.

To Chris (Comment #67541):

I'm not sure what you expect from presenting a bunch of isolated "quotes" to this group. Are we all supposed to immediately start questioning the validity of modern evolutionary theory? Have you bothered to check out the quoted statements in the original references? Over the years I've spot checked quite of number of supposed quotes from Snelling's several compendia. What I've found is consistently bad scholarship with: quotes being taken out of context; quotes missing critical words, phrases, and even sentences; statements that the original author corrected in later writings; and very out-of-date statements dressed up to appear recent.

This is not surprising given Snelling's history. He is a uranium geologist (like myself) but lives a dual life. When he consulted for the uranium mining industry in Australia he very clearly accepted an ancient age for the Earth and current theories regarding geologic processes (and was very successful in predicting new ore occurrences). However, writing as a creationist, he now embraces a young Earth model even to the point of postulating physical impossibilities and absurdities regarding geologic processes. In other words, Snelling gave up an understanding of the world that worked, but was inconsistent with what he wanted to believe, for a belief system that is wholly inconsistent with the reality of the world.

Finally, it should be recognized that attempts to represent a scientific field as complex as evolution through isolated and incomplete quotations is like trying to represent the complexities of Christian theology with isolated and out-of-context Bible quotes. In neither case does the sound-bite approach lead to any meaningful understanding.

One focus of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) project was radiohalos research.1 It was concluded that the uranium (238U) and polonium (Po) radiohalos frequently found in granitic rocks had to have formed simultaneously.2 This implies that hundreds of millions of years of radioactive decay (at today's rates) had to have occurred in a matter of a few days! There needs to have been that much decay of 238U to produce both the visible physical damage (the radiohalos) and the required Po, but that much Po would then have decayed within a few days (because of its short half-lives, that is, very rapid decay rates). So radioisotope "ages" for such granitic rocks of hundreds of millions of years, calculated on the assumption that radioactive decay has always occurred at today's rates, are grossly in error, and these rocks would thus have formed during the Flood year only 4500 years ago. A hydrothermal fluid (hot water) transport model was thus proposed which explained how the Po was separated from its parent 238U and then concentrated in radiocenters close by to form the Po radiohalos.3-5

Another outcome of this research was the discovery of plentiful Po radio-halos in metamorphic rocks.6 Such a finding was predicted, because hydrothermal fluids are generated in water-saturated sedimentary rocks as they become deeply buried, helping to transform them into regional metamorphic complexes.7-9 Thus it was argued that the same hydrothermal fluid transport model could likewise explain the formation of Po radiohalos in those regional metamorphic rocks where an adequate supply of U-decay products occurred.10

In continued research, a test of this Po radiohalos formation model in metamorphic rocks was proposed. Sandstones often contain some zircon grains, derived from erosion of, for example, granitic rocks and deposited in water-transported sandy sediments. Chemical weathering of such source rocks plus abrasion of grains during water transport destroys all biotite grains, so none are ever present in sandstones. However, when sandstones are metamorphosed, the resultant schists and gneisses usually contain biotite grains, which could thus have only formed via mineral reactions during the metamorphism. Such mineral reactions have been studied in laboratory experiments and in them water is often a by-product.11 At the temperatures of these metamorphic processes such water would become hydrothermal fluids capable of transporting any U-decay products from nearby zircon grains and depositing Po in biotite flakes to form Po radiohalos.

The thick Thunderhead Sandstone (Upper Precambrian Great Smoky Group) in the Great Smoky Mountains along the Tennessee/North Carolina border was deformed and regionally metamorphosed during formation of the Appalachian Highlands, beginning in the so-called Devonian (that is, early in the Flood year).12-14 With increasing temperatures and pressures from northwest to southeast, the regional metamorphism produced in these sandstone layers a series of chemically and mineralogically distinct zones of schists and gneisses.15 These zones are named according to the first appearance of the distinctive metamorphic minerals which characterize them as the intensity of the metamorphism increased laterally---the biotite, garnet, staurolite, and kyanite zones. The boundaries between these zones, called isograds, are where mineral reactions have produced the new minerals because of the progressively higher temperatures and pressures.

When originally deposited, the Thunderhead Sandstone contained occasional zircon grains, but no biotite flakes. This metamorphosed sandstone, however, now contains both biotite flakes and zircon grains throughout all these metamorphic zones. Because they still contain minor amounts of U, the zircons would thus have been a source of 238U decay products including Po. Therefore, if hydrothermal fluids had been generated by the metamorphism, according to the hydrothermal fluid transport model for Po radiohalo formation, those hydrothermal fluids should have transported the Po diffusing out of the zircons into the biotite flakes, where it should have formed Po radiohalos.

In the metamorphosed Thunderhead Sandstone it was found that at the staurolite isograd, the boundary between the garnet and staurolite zones, the mineral chlorite disappears from the rocks and muscovite decreases sharply, whereas staurolite appears and biotite becomes more abundant. This can be explained by the mineral reaction:

54 muscovite + 31 chlorite ---> 54 biotite + 24 staurolite +152 quartz + 224 water which has been confirmed experimentally.16-17 The generation of this water by this reaction at the prevailing high temperatures determined experimentally would thus have resulted in relatively large volumes of hydrothermal fluids in the rocks surrounding this isograd. These would have been ideal conditions for the generation of Po radiohalos in these metamorphosed sandstones, if Po radiohalo formation does indeed occur as described by the hydrothermal fluid transport model.

Therefore, as a test of the hydrothermal fluid transport model for Po radiohalo formation, nine samples of the metamorphosed Thunderhead Sandstone were collected from road-cut outcrops along U.S. Highway 441 between Cherokee, North Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, forming a traverse through the biotite, garnet, staurolite, and kyanite zones of the regional metamorphism as already described.18 The biotite flakes were separated from these samples and scanned under a microscope for radiohalos, using standardized techniques.19-20 The total number of Po radiohalos found in each sample was then plotted against each sample's relative position along the traverse through the metamorphic zones (figure 1).

Figure 1. Po radiohalos for the samples along the traverse through the regional metamorphic zones across the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.

The results of this test were astounding. As can be readily seen in figure 1, whereas seven of the samples averaged around 30 Po radiohalos each, the two samples straddling the staurolite isograd contained 177 and 147 Po radiohalos respectively. This is exactly as predicted. Uranium-bearing zircon grains and biotite flakes are present in the metamorphosed sandstones in all samples along the traverse, so during the metamorphism the minor water originally in the sandstones when deposited has generated some Po radiohalos. However, where the mineral reaction around the staurolite isograd has produced a lot of hot water, large numbers of Po radiohalos have formed.

The hydrothermal fluid transport model for Po radiohalos formation has thus been tested and verified. Neither the Po nor the biotite flakes were primordial. The biotite flakes were formed in the sandstone only during the metamorphism early in the Flood year, and the Po was derived from 238U decay in the zircon grains. And where extra water was generated during the metamorphic processes, many more Po radiohalos were formed. This successful verification only serves to spur on continuing research, because the time scale implications for the formation of the Po radiohalos and these metamorphic rocks are only consistent with a global Flood on a young earth.

Chris, since you didn't write that, why don't you give the appropriate attribution. Or better yet, stop cutting and pasting nonsense from ICR.

So is the goal here to just cut and paste large blocks from creationist webpages at random?

Can ads for herbal viagra be far behind?

And btw, anybody know what the f*ck "the Geology Department at the ICR Graduate School" is?

from ( http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=2467 )

Psst... Chris... you can't just copy and paste images into the comments field.

What's sad is that, clearly, nothing has happened in biology for 23 years...You guys should do some research or something.

I am only trying to point out that Evolution is not the only way to explain things. Admit it, do your evolution scientists have an answer for the above mentioned radio halos? When creation scientists offered to have a debate with evolution scientists over the origin of the earth, it was turned down for the soul purpose that they had no answer for these radio halos.

I am sorry that I didn't drag the copy cursor all the way to the bottom to pick up the author of the halo article

here he is:
Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D.

Chris ain't nothing but a 'cut and paste troll' -since he's C&P the exact same stuff on another thread I think he can be barred on the grounds of 'multiple posting' - plus being wildly 'off-topic'.

If, however, you want to see a real geologist ('faded_glory') taking on the Creationists on their own turf then look at this thread at 'ARN' : How do creationists find oil?

With pictures, diagrams and very polite posts he tears them apart and puts them in the bin.

Here's at least one geologist prepared to join the fight for reason - and on the creo's own ground. I'm going to join the site just to cheer him on!

Ken Millar did make a couple of little jokes about geologists in his talk - they may have come late to the party but let's remember they have some really good stuff ;)

Admit it, do your evolution scientists have an answer for the above mentioned radio halos?

Chris, you are posting crap. The very first thing you posted was an out-of-context quote from Stephen Jay Gould. Why should anyone here take you seriously after that?

As for radiohalos, they are well-refuted here.

I sense this comment field is about to turn into a troll-feeding fest. Unlike my pro-PR suggestions, this is the type of venue where such things should not be dignified by a response. 'Bye.

Chris,

Rather than getting into a C&P war, please decide which creationist argument you want to promote. Then check your argument against the TalkOrigins Index to Creationist Claims list.

If your argument is not discussed there (or you'd like to engage in further discussion), then feel free to bring it up here.

You can do this for any number of arguments you wish to put forth.

It'll save everyone (especially you!) a lot of time.

chris, did you even watch/listen to the broadcast or are you simply trolling?

And we are all pretty familiar with intelligent design creationist propaganda, no need for you to copy and paste that unscientific, religionist garbage here. We know plently of sites to visit when we need a good laugh.

So, what did you think of Miller's talk?

Admit it, do your evolution scientists have an answer for the above mentioned radio halos?

And btw, anybody know what the f*ck "the Geology Department at the ICR Graduate School" is?

— steve s

From the ashes of "intelligent design" rises the phoenix of Flood Geology?

It's starting to feel like that gopher game. Gimmie a mallet!

I am only trying to point out that Evolution is not the only way to explain things. Admit it, do your evolution scientists have an answer for the above mentioned radio halos? When creation scientists offered to have a debate with evolution scientists over the origin of the earth, it was turned down for the soul purpose that they had no answer for these radio halos.

— Creationist Chris

From the ashes of "intelligent design" rises the phoenix of Flood Geology? It's starting to feel like that gopher game. Gimmie a mallet!

I personally am eagerly awaiting more information on Ken's talk. I missed the whole thing.

And btw, anybody know what the f*ck "the Geology Department at the ICR Graduate School" is?

I imagine it's similar to the Philosophy Department at the University of Woolloomooloo.

Since this has degenerated into troll bait I'm going to close it. I invite Chris over to Infidels where he can get the attention deserves.

URLs for the archived Miller talk are in the OP above.

RBH