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Last Universal Ancestor/Common Descent of ALL species.

Age of the Earth Age of the Universe The predictions of the age of the earth should come as no surprise since we are aware of stars that are 13 billion light years away visible to the Hubble telescope giving conclusive evidence of a universe at least 13 billion years old [14]. After all it takes 13 billion years for the light to reach earth. The cooling rate since the big bang compared with cosmic background radiation along with extrapolating from what we know about the expansion rate of the universe have all confirmed a universe around 13.8 billion years old [15]. Radiometric Dating The simplest Radiometric dating methods of the earth depends on two conclusions: the radioactive decay rate of elements is constant and that there was no contamination of the sample at the formation of the rock analyzed or since [16]. The first is demonstrable, no extreme variation in the relative decay rates have been observed and the principles that govern decay are firmly understood. The second is not assumed and there are a variety of methods to determine that the starting amount of radioactive material and product can be verified. Ages are cross-checked with thousands of other samples along with geological and stratification techniques to confirm accuracy. Tens of thousand of rocks have been tested to determine the age of the earth yielding wide agreement (of course there are outliers and errors occasionally). Most notably, intense heat and pressure on the deepest rocks can remove all products of decay dramatically reducing the age of a sample. The oldest rocks on earth date around 3.8 billion years but testing of meteorites, that formed in the same time period as the earth, confirm an age of 4.5 billion years. There are many lead isochron dating methods that are self-checking and do not require any assumptions about the initial proportion of elements. They compare various concentrations to verify the amount of both the parent and daughter product of radioactive decay and have reliably estimated the age of the earth at 4.55 +/- 0.02 billion years. - “So how many times does a fish have to become another type of fish before they become a mammal” It’s an important point to make the every generation looks nearly identical to the last. The changes are so small and subtle that you wouldn’t notice them. The morphological changes are measured in darwins, or change in an organisms character by a factor of e (mathematical constant ~2.71) per million years [10]. This value can range anywhere from 0.6 to 32 based on the fossil record. Modern observed values needed to be at least the same rate to confirm and in fact they range from 370-80,000 so changes in appearance can happen rather fast [10]. It’s a well-known fact that all modern dog, even pug chiwawas, were bred from the grey wolf (this was determined genetically). Genetic mutation rates in humans have been well documented and have been studied extensively especially in areas like cancer research. The average DNA mutation rate is from1-5 x 10-8 base substitutions (a change in one of the four nucleotides chat build DNA) per site, per generation. Based on the fossil record we diverged from apes around six million years ago which corresponds with a rate of 2 x 10-8 substitutions per generation. With 500 million years since the first fish and assuming a generation of 10 years (many fish live only around 3 years or less) it takes in the range of 50 million fish generations to make a human but this could vary by quite a bit. If we could rewind the tape there would be no guarantee that we would arrive at any form of life like a human. “Truthfully, many of the speciation events we"vie observed were harmful, not helpful” You have not demonstrated this. The speciation events we have observed are a result of minor changes that do not have a large impact at all, as I mentioned. I’m not very concerned with Darwin. He’s not very relevant to evolution today although he did first discover and popularize the theory, which was a remarkable achievement. “It is a bit humerous to see you quoting AIG,” ‘The moon dust should be deeper after 4.5 billion years’ My point was even hard-core creationists have distanced themselves from this argument. There is no evidence to support that moon dust should be deeper than it is. This was not an expectation for our landing and there is no credible evidence that this is true. If you can present any evidence I’ll add to this topic. Yes, there are many stories of floods and even large floods I’ll concede this. I wasn’t challenging you to establish a Noah’s Ark type scenario. I’m not surprised that there are many flood stories or that survivors escaped on a boat or by getting to high ground. As your article indicates, it’s likely a meteor strike may have caused massive tsunamis and hurricanes inspiring these stories. You will have to provide further evidence that a worldwide flood is a credible explanation for geological phenomena but I still don’t see how this is relevant to the debate. There are many events that could lead to a rapid burial of an animal and this rarely happens. We generally do not have fossils of anything other than bone or other very hard structures so rapid burial most often did not occur. Major geological changes can obviously be explained by earthquakes, meteor strikes, localized floods etc. As an explanation for fossils this does nothing to explain why the simplest organisms are contained in the lowest, oldest rocks. Why does the complexity increase and age of the rock decrease reliably as you go up in sedimentary layers? "According to the traditional evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record, man appears late” That we not discovered a fossil of every ancient animal in each time period is no surprise. That there are mistakes or errors in identifying and dating examples of human ancestors is also no surprise. The United Church of God website is a highly questionable source and certainly not one that should be used for any scientific information. Exceptions to the norm do not discredit evolution and outliers and errors are expected. Your source does not provide any information to verify that any scientist has identified these as issues or that there is a scientific consensus that these represent problems that must be addressed. “We base much of what we know about history on written record.” Much of what we know about human civilization we base on the written record. I still don’t see how this impacts evolution. “my point was they were supposed to go extinct before we got here, and all signs show that we actually lived amongst them." You will have to provide some credible evidence that dinosaurs lived amongst us to justify that claim. Dinosaur fossils and large crocodiles in Australia growing 5-7 meters long are much more plausible explanations for myths about dragons since we have no tangible evidence to believe that humans lived with dinosaurs [18]. ‘The Eye is Irreducibly complex’ You have simply asserted this without a real explanation. That there are several interdependent parts that and you are not aware of how these could have developed is not surprising and is not an argument. Various stages of development of the eye are readily available in living animals that have eyes at various stages, each level being more useful than the last and increasing in complexity like everything else observed in evolution. Here are the stages as seen in nature: light sensitive area, pigment cells, optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells covered by translucent skin, a small deepening impression to provide depth perception, skin covering taking lens shape to focus an image followed by muscles used for depth adjustments [20]. Each broad stage in the process is useful and can be broken down into even smaller increments leading to a gradual climb to complexity. Although it looks like many eyes evolved independently they all share a common light sensing proteins suggesting a common origin for all species that have some form of sight [19]. “Now you are just repeating yourself.” (why are there still monkeys) Let me phrase it another way. The common ancestor of modern chimpanzees and humans is extinct. There are no ancient monkeys anymore. The species split and evolved down many different tracks to respond to different environments. “To say all life shares DNA is like saying all life is alive.” No. There are 102 naturally occurring nucleotides and many more have been synthetically created [5]. Why is the basic information stored in all organisms using only four as in DNA? There are 390 naturally occurring amino acids, why are all proteins in all living organisms constructed using the same 22 all with right and not left handed chirality? This is compelling evidence for common descent of all life. [14] http://www.dailymail.co.uk... [15] http://en.wikipedia.org... [16] http://www.talkorigins.org... [17] http://www.talkorigins.org... [18] http://en.wikipedia.org... [19] http://en.wikipedia.org... [20] http://www.talkorigins.org...