Tracing Efforts Continue : Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory?

Incredulity on Literal Adam and Eve, a Tracing Problem (Quora) · Tracing Efforts Continue : Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory? · Continuing Sci Debate with Marc Robidoux · Marc and Alex between them · My answer to Marc Robidoux' long comment · Answering Pismenny, More Than One Comment

Q answered by Barry Etheridge

Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory?
https://www.quora.com/Given-that-Trent-Session-V-treats-Adam-as-an-individual-man-when-did-modernist-Catholics-start-treating-him-as-just-an-allegory/answer/Barry-Etheridge-1

Barry Etheridge

BA (1st Class Hons) Theology & Philosophy, University of Kent (1988)

Answered May 20

There is nothing in the Session that prevents the interpretation of Adam, the first man, as Adam, all humans (in their original, innocent state until the act of defiance of God) as I read it. It is likely that at the time of the Council, if not before, some priests were already treating the Eden story as metaphorical, albeit privately. One should always remember that all determinations of doctrine are likely to be diluted by the personal conscience of those who are required to work with it, especially where the distance to its source (be it geographical, cultural, or emotional) is great.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 20

“There is nothing in the Session that prevents the interpretation of Adam, the first man, as Adam, all humans (in their original, innocent state until the act of defiance of God) as I read it.”

I’ll quote from it’s decree on original sin to challenge your reading.

1. If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of god, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him,[4] and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil,[5] and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse,[6] let him be anathema.

Now, an immediate loss of holiness means a sin that’s individual. You cannot have a sin that is collective that’s immediate and involves an immediate punishment.

Also, “in paradise” means in a place where all humans did not dwell.

2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his posterity,[7] and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.[8]

This involves two major problems for your position.

We speak of “his posterity” meaning we talk of an individual ancestor.

Also, the council specifically quotes, as uncontrovertible ipso facto dogma since Biblical, the “one man” passage of St. Paul.

One may also presume that a previous innocent state to you may mean pre-agriculture, and this would involve people who died.

But it so happens, death and pains of the body are here in canon two attributed to punishment for Adam’s sin, therefore the human bones you think of must be post-sin.

Btw, here is a link to the document and translation I quoted:

Decree Concerning Original Sin & DECREE CONCERNING REFORM | EWTN
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/decree-concerning-original-sin--decree-concerning-reform-1495

“It is likely that at the time of the Council, if not before, some priests were already treating the Eden story as metaphorical, albeit privately.”

If this is the case, and by “metaphorically” you mean metaphoric rather than historic about the ancestry of mankind, rather than historic about ancestry, metaphoric about Christ, their private or rather secret deviation from doctrine is no such thing as a clue to correct interpretation of the Council.

Barry Etheridge

May 20

Thank-you but I’m fully aware of the wording as I re-read the Session prior to giving my answer. As someone who regularly recites the Apostle’s Creed in church knowing that what I mean by it is not necessarily what the person standing next to me or the minister of the day means by it, I am also fully aware that all such statements are open to private interpretation. I stand by my answer. There is nothing in the Session that prevents a less than absolute literal interpretation of the words “Adam, the first man”, especially given that anyone even slightly aware of the Hebrew text knows that just such an interpretation was intended all along.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

It seems you love the kind of private interpretation that Trent also condemned.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

“especially given that anyone even slightly aware of the Hebrew text knows that just such an interpretation was intended all along.”

Except there is a Catholic Encyclopedia text from 1907, perfectly aware of the Hebrew text, which disagrees with you.

Q answered by others

Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory?
https://www.quora.com/Given-that-Trent-Session-V-treats-Adam-as-an-individual-man-when-did-modernist-Catholics-start-treating-him-as-just-an-allegory

I

Answer requested by

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Alex Pismenny

Catholic Christian.

Answered May 20

I don’t know when exactly. Recently, for sure, my guess would be 20th century. I can guess why: too much pressure from two sides, the skeptics who dismiss the account of Creation completely as contradicting cosmology and evolutionism, and the fundamentalist Protestants who treat everything in the Bible as literal history. Rather than explaining to each 15-year-old that creation of a single man from mud does not imply that there wasn’t millions of years of evolution between mud and Adam it became tempting to just call it allegory and leave it at that.

Interesting that on the score of singularity of Adam and Eve science is with the Bible: genetics do show that mankind has a single set of parents.

A new study revealed that all humans are descendants of the same man and woman who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. (Turns out all of humanity is related to a single couple; it is not new either, Newsweek put it on the cover decades ago)

It is also true that some elements of the Creation story are indeed allegorical; it is not hard to imagine a medieval theologian seeing in the two trees of Paradise not botanical phenomena but veiled references to the Cross, the Eucharist and the Last Judgment.

Dismissing the post-Vatican II silliness, the question of singularity of Adam had existed as purely theological question. Printed in 1907, Catholic Encyclopedia admits so much:

In the Old Testament the word is used both as a common and a proper noun, and in the former acceptation it has different meanings. Thus in Genesis 2:5, it is employed to signify a human being, man or woman; rarely, as in Genesis 2:22, it signifies man as opposed to woman, and, finally, it sometimes stands for mankind collectively, as in Genesis 1:26. The use of the term, as a proper as well as a common noun, is common to both the sources designated in critical circles as P and J. Thus in the first narrative of the Creation (P) the word is used with reference to the production of mankind in both sexes, but in Genesis 5:14, which belongs to the same source, it is also taken as a proper name. In like manner the second account of the creation (J) speaks of "the man" (ha-adam), but later on (Genesis 4:25) the same document employs the word as a proper name without the article.

[…]

Considered independently, this account of the Creation would leave room for doubt as to whether the word adam, "man", here employed was understood by the writer as designating an individual or the species. Certain indications would seem to favour the latter, e.g. the context, since the creations previously recorded refer doubtless to the production not of an individual or of a pair, but of vast numbers of individuals pertaining to the various species, and the same in case of man might further be inferred from the expression, "male and female he created them." However, another passage (Genesis 5:15), which belongs to the same source as this first narrative and in part repeats it, supplements the information contained in the latter and affords a key to its interpretation. In this passage which contains the last reference of the so-called priestly document to Adam, we read that God

created them male and female . . . and called their name adam, in the day when they were created.

And the writer continues:

And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

Here evidently the adam or man of the Creation narrative is identified with a particular individual, and consequently the plural forms which might otherwise cause doubt are to be understood with reference to the first pair of human beings. (CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Adam)

I think, we can conclude that the biblical account of Creation truly contains complexities where multiple explanations of what exactly “Adam” or “ha-Adam” signify in each passage, independently of the unfortunate tropes of modernism.

i

with subthreads a and b.

Hans Georg Lundahl

May 20

“the fundamentalist Protestants who treat everything in the Bible as literal history.”

Do you have any document from the Church prior to 1990’s that reject this position?

“Rather than explaining to each 15-year-old that creation of a single man from mud does not imply that there wasn’t millions of years of evolution between mud and Adam”

Where do you get it from that Adam even could evolve, rather than need special creation? Btw, as you say Adam, I hope you mean an individual, I have been adressing people who take it as metaphorical for a collective.

“It is also true that some elements of the Creation story are indeed allegorical; it is not hard to imagine a medieval theologian seeing in the two trees of Paradise not botanical phenomena but veiled references to the Cross, the Eucharist and the Last Judgment.”

I have never denied that.

All of OT is allegorical about NT, mostly about Christ and Mary and the Church and about their enemies (Haman about Antichrist, his tens sons about the ten Antichrist kings and so on).

The thing I adressed is “just an allegory” namely allegorical rather than literal about what the story itself is purportedly about, namely human origins.

Your reference to 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia ends by resolving the doubt in clear favour of Adam’s individuality, except perhaps for Genesis 1, and the idea Genesis 1 refers to pre-Adamites had been raised by the convert from Judaism Isaac La Peyrère whose thesis had then been condemned.

Alex Pismenny

May 20

Adam did not further evolve. We are of his species.

The Fathers of the Church often find allegories, — more often than we do — in biblical stories. But, characteristically, allegory was in their thinking coexisting with the literal rather than displacing it. As you say, it is especially often finding Christian prefigurements. I am not aware of any Church document that specifically condemns literal reading in Fundamentalist style and I hope there won’t be one.

Yes, the Catholic Encyclopedia ends up with singular Adam. I brought it up so that to point out that other theories had existed prior to Vatican II.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

True enough about existing, but the polemics would have been against Protestant (Liberal Protestant) or Jewish (dito) readings.

Unfortunately, Ratzinger signed such a document in the 90’s.

The problem is not if Adam further evolved, we can be of his kind even if he did. The problem is if he could have resulted from evolution.

Alex Pismenny

May 21

Can you give me a link to Ratzinger’s document?

Yes, a theory that Adam resulted from a divinely controlled evolution is permissible in Catholicism. To the best of my knowledge, literal reading of Genesis 1–2 is likewise permissible.

a

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Really? Catholics can believe in ‘stuff’ in Genesis literally, as long as it is in Genesis 1–2? Wow, that takes picking and choosing to another level, no wonder ‘Cafeteria Catholicism’ is so common.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

No wonder at all.

As best I know, correct, while allegorical interpretations are very much in vogue, the Church does not forbid literal reading in the fundamentalist fashion: 6 24-hour day creation, Adam straight from mud like a clay doll, etc.

I don’t know if I told you, but coming from Orthodox background, I am quite aware of a peculiar Orthodox Fundamentalism (as I would call it). It advises faith that coexists with empirical knowledge but does not feel challenged by it. A Russian engineer might be building airplanes and know the underlying science of air travel down pat, and also believe that when Our Lady died, immediately all the bishops of the worldwide Church gathered around her bier, just as the icon of the Dormition depicts the event (An Interpretation of The Dormition Icon, The Icon of Hope).

The analytical mind of the Western Church, developed by the Scholastics is foreign to the East. However, the West does not oppose Eastern mysticism at all.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

“ A Russian engineer might be building airplanes and know the underlying science of air travel down pat, and also believe that when Our Lady died, immediately all the bishops of the worldwide Church gathered around her bier,”

I see absolutely no contradiction, miracles being miracles. Air planes aren’t built by the levitation of either Our Lord on Ascension or Simon Magus when trying to fool Rome, but on factors that we can humanly regularly manipulate, those factors being non-miraculous.

Btw, I’d rather say the miraculous gathering was of the eleven apostles remaining after St. James the greater had already been martyred, and this time too, St. Thomas was absent, and he opened Her tomb and found the veil and the belt. Not all the bishops.

I don’t see anything in an analytical mind, if Catholic, that contradicts this.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Of course you see no contradiction, “miracles being miracles”, the only contradiction is for us other people who are more inclined to be scientific minded, in that miracles are not real, no evidence exists of any miracles ever occurring, anywhere. Other than that, no contradiction…miracles are miracles.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

I don’t see what a man inclined to atheism has to do on a question relating to Catholics between Catholics.

I mean, by definition, we do believe in miracles, like Christ rising from the dead or bread and wine being invisibly transsubstantiated …

If Alex Pismenny invited you, it would seem he is as happy to turn to an atheist for evolutionist scientific view points as I to some Protestants for creation science.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

Marc and I tend to have prolonged conversations on these topics from thread to thread. He doesn’t need my invitation.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

I enjoy the sport of debating with Alex, he is well read and quite knowledgeable, particularly wrt. Russia and the Soviet Union. We are diametrically opposed on social issues, no doubt , and I admit to sometimes getting carried away in opposition, but we have mostly managed to remain civil to each other.

I have had similar debates in other theistic spaces, surely due in part to my “one-dimensional view on how science and faith interact”.

I must say this is the first time I encounter a Catholic YEC, there’s a feather for your cap Hans…and Alex’s comment above here revealed an aspect of Catholicism I was not aware of, hence the upvote.

My experience with ‘true believer’ Catholics has been in large majority with believers of science within their faith. As I related in another spot on Quora, I once had the pleasure of interacting with a very scientific astronomy professor, who was also a Catholic priest, and his knowledge of the universe was absolutely astounding. He was most definitely not a YEC.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Sorry, but do you think Quora is segregated, and only Catholics should comment on answers related to Catholicism? As Catholicism goes, I have a fair basis to comment as, although I am an atheist, I managed to get married in the eyes of the Catholic Church, so even in your segregationist model for Quora, I would be entitled to comment here as the Catholic church believes me to be a Catholic.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

I agree completely. I was pointing it out for the benefit of Marc Robidoux who, as Atheist sometimes has a one-dimensional view on how science and faith interact.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 23

[to above demand by MR, against segregation : fair enough]

“As I related in another spot on Quora, I once had the pleasure of interacting with a very scientific astronomy professor, who was also a Catholic priest, and his knowledge of the universe was absolutely astounding.”

Would that be Consolmagno, no he’s a brother, not a father, or a Fr Coyne?

b

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.htm

I have commented on it here:

Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994

“Yes, a theory that Adam resulted from a divinely controlled evolution is permissible in Catholicism.”

I was in fact not asking about the permission, but about the possibility. To me, it’s like a permission to think the Earth is flat.

Alex Pismenny

May 22

I read your article with interest.

I also read Cardinal Ratzinger’s (or, rather, Pontifical Biblical Commission’s) paper from the start and down to “F. Fundamentalist Interpretation”. The correct link is The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church | EWTN.

The document represents a polemic in favor of interpretation that is now dominant: a certain synthesis of historical criticism, textual criticism and traditional exegetical methods. It is sharply critical of fundamentalism. It is not, however, a doctrinal statement; if you read in the beginning, it states as its purpose “to give serious consideration to the various aspects of the present situation as regards the interpretation of the Bible—to attend to the criticisms and the complaints as also to the hopes and aspirations which are being expressed in this matter, to assess the possibilities opened up by the new methods and approaches and, finally, to try to determine more precisely the direction which best corresponds to the mission of exegesis in the Catholic Church”.

So, the answer to my question the other day, is there “any Church document that specifically condemns literal reading in Fundamentalist style” seems to be No. Pontifical Biblical Commission did not condemn the “6 x 24” view as heretical.

Moreover, Ratzinger’s criticism (with which I wholly agree) is criticism of specifically Protestant fundamentalism. It does not touch upon much broader “Orthodox Fundamentalism” (I am coining the term), that I attempted to describe yesterday. A typical Orthodox would not say, — it is written “6 days” so geologists are wrong. He would rather say, — it is written “6 days” so in some mysterious sense there were 6 days, and I don’t know and do not wish to reconcile that with geology.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 23

"The correct link" - ah, they changed it, which explains why it didn't show with title last time.

"A typical Orthodox would not say, — it is written “6 days” so geologists are wrong. He would rather say, — it is written “6 days” so in some mysterious sense there were 6 days, and I don’t know and do not wish to reconcile that with geology."

I'd disagree.

The geologists simply are at loggerheads with parts of the evidence. I asked one if there were any place on earth where a pelycosaur lay correctly under a dinosaur (pelycosaurs like dimetrodon can be from "Permian" and dinosaurs more typically from "Jurassic" or "Cretaceous" a "few" million years "later"). Yeah, North Dakota. Turned out, the dino was in one end of ND, the pelyco in the other end and the "above" and "below" refer to hypothetic layers. In each place, several stone or rock layers, but one of them containing actual fossils, which is perfectly compatible with them both being from the Flood of Noah or perhaps a post-Flood landslide.

Btw, nice to hear it isn”t supposed to be a condemnation. It’s still against traditional exegesis, where the “Fundie exegesis” is the first of the four senses. Therefore apostatic. And some over here (in France) are willing to treat Trent’s condemning Sola Scriptura as a condemnation of Fundie exegesis. And obviously the part of “textual criticism” called “higher criticism” is very highly at variance with traditional exegesis.

ij

with subthreads c and d.

Marc Robidoux

May 20

Newsweek apparently didn’t understand the science if they suggested that - “ … on the score of singularity of Adam and Eve science is with the Bible: genetics do show that mankind has a single set of parents.“ - This is categorically false.

Science is not “with the Bible” on this or on anything actually. If you trace back the DNA in the maternally inherited mitochondria within our cells, all humans have a theoretical common ancestor. This WOMAN, known as “mitochondrial Eve” (only labelled “Eve” as a nod to the biblical story), lived between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago in southern Africa. She was not the first human, but every other female lineage eventually had no female offspring, failing to pass on their mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed to offspring through the mother. As a result, all humans today can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to HER. There is no equivalent DNA “Adam”, and there is no equivalent DNA “Adam and Eve” couple. The offspring of “mitochondrial Eve” mated with other DNA lineages and those lineages were passed on in their offspring, but only her female offspring passed on their mitochondrial DNA to female offspring who passed it to a continuous lineage of females and on and on through to today. Your mitochondrial DNA passed along from “mitochondrial Eve” came from your mother, but your own offspring only have it from their own mother, not from you. If you don’t have female offspring, then it stops there, your sons have no way to pass on mitochondrial DNA to your grand kids, but those kids would receive it from their mothers and on and on.

Alex Pismenny

May 20

Thanks. Maybe someone versed in genetics can comment.

c

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

In fact, I have some grounds in genetics.

True, this science has not identified the first woman.

There is in fact a Y-chromosome Adam, who is not Adam. Arguably Y-chromosome Adam is Noah. All other males on the Ark descend from him.

Mitochondrial Eve can very well have lived before the three daughters in law of Noah without being Eve herself.

Theoretically, there could even be one daughter in law of Noah ousting the others after the Flood.

As to the places and times presumed, we deal with a reconstruction I obviously dispute as Biblical Creationist.

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Well, if we bring the variables of Noah and the Ark into this, that is quite a bit removed from anything known in genetics. There is no genetic choke point where humanity was down to a single male within the last 200000 years, and any Y-Chromosome Adam would necessarily have been co-existing with a lot of other male humans at the same time. Noah couldn’t possibly be the progenitor of all humanity today even if he was ‘vigorously active’ throughout his purported 900yrs and that was business he was exercising 100000 years ago.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 21

“within the last 200000 years”

I dispute the reconstructions behind that dating.

Datings of old genes are off, and molecular clock is adapted to agree with that, plus presumes larger populations than we had immediately after the Flood.

“any Y-Chromosome Adam would necessarily have been co-existing with a lot of other male humans at the same time.”

Feel free to make a discourse on why … “necessarily”?

“Noah couldn’t possibly be the progenitor of all humanity today even if he was ‘vigorously active’”

He wasn’t. He had three sons and three daughters in law, surviving the Flood. Any son born after the Flood would have had a problem finding a wife.

So, obviously, feel free to say why “couldn’t possibly”?

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Why?

Well, if you want to deny scientific evidence in your ‘grounds in genetics’, you have to deny the verified fact that small populations below ~100 individuals have been shown to eventually die off due to inbreeding. A population of 3–10, would definitely be insufficient to seed a proper gene pool for sustained growth. How many humans would it take to keep our species alive? One scientist's surprising answer https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/how-many-humans-would-it-take-keep-our-species-alive-ncna900151 You would only need to consider all that if you actually managed to believe there was a global flood and all the animals and plants we see today, Kangaroos, Koala bears, Polar Bears etc. etc. we’re all brought together on an ark within the last 10000years. I’d add that some creationists actually believe there was dinosaurs on that ark as well, but belief is not evidence. There is no evidence, of any kind, for a global flood, or a genetic choke point, for any species at all, at any time, not 200000 year ago, not ever.

“Datings of old genes are off“, feel free to provide any scientific reference to evidence for this.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

“small populations below ~100 individuals have been shown to eventually die off due to inbreeding.”

It so happens:

• the observation has been made by bigger populations living next to them and probably as often as not putting them under pressure and diluting them;
• it has also been made after the genes were deteriorated to make for lower life spans.

“You would only need to consider all that if you actually managed to believe there was a global flood and all the animals and plants we see today, Kangaroos, Koala bears, Polar Bears etc. etc. we’re all brought together on an ark within the last 10000years.”

Polar bears would certainly have evolved from the bear couple on the Ark since then. Like there was one hedgehog couple, ancestral to 16 hedghog species in 5 genera, and perhaps also to another 5 genera of gymnures and therefore to a total of 25 species.

" I’d add that some creationists actually believe there was dinosaurs on that ark as well, but belief is not evidence. There is no evidence, of any kind, for a global flood,"

Except fossils all over the world (ok, some would be from post-Flood floodings like Lake Missoula Flood).

" or a genetic choke point,"

Except after c. 40 000 BP carbon dated (which would be reducible to the real date of the Flood) we don't see any more body parts of any Neanderthals. I know Gorham cave has a date of 28 000 BP, but that is from charcoal in the cave entrance. Similarily, no pure Denisovans exist after this point.

"feel free to provide any scientific reference to evidence for this."

Datings of old genes, definition:

• Neanderthals in El Sidrón carbon dated to 40 000 - 50 000 BP
• their genomes mapped by Svante Pääbo.

And obviously, the carbon date on any Catholic pov would be that of the Flood with a real date 2957 BC (give or take a few centuries).

But perhaps by “scientific reference” you meant excluding all young earth creationist interpretations of the evidence? If so, you are an enemy of scientific actual debate.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Oh so you don’t believe in inbreeding???

But you do beleve a single pair of polar bears was the genetic source for all polar bears that ever came into being?

And you do believe kangaroos somehow managed to hop over oceans to make it down to Australia after the flood?

By Scientific reference, I mean pointing to actual science, backed up by scientific evidence. There is no “young earth creationist interpretations of the evidence”, science doesn’t work like that. You propose a scientific theory (such as in your case ‘The earth is young’ ) and then look for evidence to support your claim (in your case, there is none). There is very solid evidence that the earth is 4–4.5Billion years old, read all about it here

Faure, G., 1986. Principles of Isotope Geology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley.

YEC sites, and other facsimile science (science deniers) purveyors are fond of making scientific sounding claims (which you call ‘creationist interpretations of the evidence’), but never submit any scientific material for examination by independent third parties (aka peer review).

That is how you end up with folks like Ray Comfort claiming bananas were designed for the human hand, have a look at this:

https://youtu.be/BXLqDGL1FSg

Embarrassing, I know…

Actual scientific evidence is the basis of knowledge that drives achievements such as this:

[Pic of process behind vaccination]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

"Oh so you don’t believe in inbreeding???"

I do believe it can be founder events if genetic material at its base is sound. I also believe it can be deleterious, if otherwise.

"But you do beleve a single pair of polar bears was the genetic source for all polar bears that ever came into being?"

No, I believe a single pair of BEARS was the genetic source for all post flood either polar or grizzly or brown bears, and probably lots more than just these three.

"And you do believe kangaroos somehow managed to hop over oceans to make it down to Australia after the flood?"

It seems you are very behind the times since you arguably use an anti-creationist argument from 80's without checking for refutations since. Sahel-Sunda rings a bell? Well, YEC usually, me too, put Ice Age at post-Flood centuries. There would have been a fairly short stretch of water to cross by reed rafts or even with the post-Flood men coming to Oz.

"By Scientific reference, I mean pointing to actual science, backed up by scientific evidence."

Yeah, OK ...

"There is no “young earth creationist interpretations of the evidence”, science doesn’t work like that."

It does. Science very regularly deals with conflicts of interopretations of same evidence. Was just looking at a conflict between Behar and Elhaik on Ashkenazi Y-chromosomes.

// You propose a scientific theory (such as in your case ‘The earth is young’ ) and then look for evidence to support your claim (in your case, there is none). There is very solid evidence that the earth is 4–4.5Billion years old, read all about it here Faure, G., 1986. Principles of Isotope Geology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley. //

You have heard of the rebuttal that U-Pb and Th-Pb are ill equipped since some Pb could come from original make up of sample? I'll add that the halflives are so long they cannot (unlike C14) be tested against datings of objects with historically known age.

"YEC sites, and other facsimile science (science deniers) purveyors are fond of making scientific sounding claims (which you call ‘creationist interpretations of the evidence’), but never submit any scientific material for examination by independent third parties (aka peer review)."

Mark Armitage got his C14 dates of dino bones precisely from independent third parties. By the way, Evolutionists do not submit their material to examination by third parties independent of Evolutionism : which is why YEC sites examine it anyway.

"That is how you end up with folks like Ray Comfort"

Ray Comfort is first and foremost a preacher, not very much even of an amateur creation scientist. A level higher, Kent Hovind is at least a good amateur scientist. And higher than that you have references like those you omitted, AiG and CMI. Or Mark Armitage.

"Actual scientific evidence is the basis of knowledge that drives achievements such as this:"

I note you took an example from what Creation Scientists like to call "observational" or "operational" science, and omitted "historic science" or forensics, which is where the conflict lies. I also note you bow down to Med corps and their vaccines, even if aborted feti were used at some stage.

Marc Robidoux

May 22

Sigh, the Sahel bridge, yes during the Pleistocene, ( 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago) right, that’s how the kangaroos got down there from Mt Ararat. You’re a real hoot. I’ll have to take your word for it I guess that the dating is off.

It’s a real shame you can’t access a library to check on the validity of your YEC refutation of radiometric dating, here’s a link from the Web maybe you can read up on it

A Radiometric Dating Resource List

If you could make it to a library, maybe you could find:

Becker, B. and B. Kromer, 1993. The continental tree-ring record -- absolute chronology, 14C calibration and climatic change at 11 ka. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 103 (1-2): 67-71.

…even in France…

I think you may be referring to the finding by Cook in 1966 (an absolute eon ago by YEC standards) that PB decay models were off. His actual finding was that an ore dated to 622 million years by conventional methods should be dated to 70 MILLION years. That’s a bit off your YEC timelines…

Cook, Melvin A. 1966. Prehistory and earth models. London: Max Parrish.

“Evolutionism”, wtf is that? There is Biology, there is Paleontology, there is Geology, there is Physics, there is Chemistry etc etc. and all those science fields confirm evidence for each other. And all the evidence for evolution crosses these fields and is peer reviewed across them. If YECs have claims they should have them peer reviewed by experts in all the relevant fields, but they never do. There is no "observational" or "operational" or "historic science" separations of these fields of science, achievements in biology come from evidence based knowledge of biology.

Have you read anything from Dr Mark Armitage at all? He doesn’t actually make any claims about dinosaurs being 6000 years old, if he made such claims they are outside scientific artifacts reviewed by scientific peers.

Soft sheets of fibrillar bone from a fossil of the supraorbital horn of the dinosaur Triceratops horridus

I do bow down to medical science, as it is evidence based. I’ll take vaccine over dying from Covid thank you very much.

[Pic of Ricky Gervais]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 23

“I’ll have to take your word for it I guess that the dating is off.”

Let’s put it like this …

I have seen the best non-YEC resource on tree rings online, it is not reassuring. Not all that far back.

I made a model (after 2005 when this list was last updated) on carbon 14. During the Flood the level would have been still as low as 1.444 pmC. At carbon date 11 600 years ago (just some after Sahel Sunda disappeared on your view) I’d say it had risen to c. 43 pmC. Meaning the real dates would be 2957 BC for “40 000 BP” and 2607 BC for “11 600 BP / 9600 BC”.

And any method with higher halflives than C14 has halflives that are uncheckable. The lab check for C14 was 5568 years, the check with historically dated things or tree rings (for closer years, when they are more reassuring) gave a correction to 5730 years. They are called Libby halflife and Cambridge halflife. Such a check cannot be done for these higher halflives.

“He doesn’t actually make any claims about dinosaurs being 6000 years old, if he made such claims they are outside scientific artifacts reviewed by scientific peers.”

He gives the dates given by labs, vastly lower than the pretended millions of years, then adds we know this is too high an age too, but thanks to the labs for proving the other age is too high.

"There is Biology, there is Paleontology, there is Geology, there is Physics, there is Chemistry etc etc. and all those science fields confirm evidence for each other."

And in each field, there are evolutionist and yec positions about certain things.

"And all the evidence for evolution crosses these fields and is peer reviewed across them."

By evolutionists. Sure, YECs provide a post-publishing review too, but you prefer to ignore it.

"If YECs have claims they should have them peer reviewed by experts in all the relevant fields, but they never do."

Oh, they do have a peer review, where claims are reviewed by YEC experts in all the relevant fields - but you'd prefer evolutionists to get peer review from evolutionists only and YECs also to get peer reviews from evolutionists only.

"There is no "observational" or "operational" or "historic science" separations of these fields of science, achievements in biology come from evidence based knowledge of biology."

I'm sorry, but the distinction is fairly obvious. Historic science cannot quite well be checked by achievements in technology.

I don’t think most people would die if not taking the vaccines. And some did die after taking them. Duke of Edinburgh got a jab, got ill, got better, and was dead a month later. There are stories from Sweden and Norway where the delay was way shorter.

EDIT : no, I was not referring to Cook 1966. I was referring to a common sense objection.

d

Marc Robidoux

May 21

Maybe someone versed in genetics, I’m sure you mean someone who actually believes in the scientific evidence that backs up genetics, can comment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

May 22

I certainly believe in the scientific evidence from genes shown now, but the problem is, it doesn’t back up your genetic clock theory, as has been pointed out by YEC sites.