We have the bones of "Lucy" at our museum and they are over 3 million years old.?

Question

Does that conflict with the age of the earth and the universe from Biblical scriptures?

Answer 1

Well, yeah! But some christians will tell you that god put the fossil record on Earth to test our faith...They have an answer for everything, don't they?

Answer 2

Here is why certain things MUST happen -

The way to understand our origins is to remember that living organisms are in a state of constant change - It's not that evolution *can* occur, but that it *must* occur, simply because there is no mechanism in living organisms to ensure perfect, flawless reproduction for ever.

Suppose you could study a population of chimpanzees in the jungle, on a timescale of millions of years. Clearly, each individual only lives a few decades, so the population is constantly being succeeded by individuals which are different from their parents, because reproduction is imperfect - and remember, this is *inevitable*. It can't *not* happen. All the time this population is inter-breeding, the genes are getting mixed together, and only genes which work well with all other chimpanzee genes will tend to get passed down to successive generations (because individuals with genes that don't work well together will tend not to survive and reproduce).

However, suppose that circumstances arise which cause a group to become genetically isolated from other chimpanzees. This could be as a result of an accident of geography (e.g. an impassable river) or breeding preference or simply great distance. There will develop two distinct groups of chimpanzees which can never again exchange genes, because they have become different enough that mating will not produce viable offspring. This is what biologists define as speciation - i.e. the population has forever split into two distinct groups. Biologists have observed many instances of speciation, so there is no doubt that it occurs.

Assuming that both groups continue to survive, it is again *inevitable* that they will diverge genetically - There is no possible way that both groups, isolated and independent from each other, can change in exactly the same ways, and the longer they continue to breed, the more different they will become. Over millions of years, given that the rate of genetic change via mutation tends to remain fairly constant, the two groups will become as distinct as today's chimpanzees and humans are from each other, and from their most recent common ancestor.

All this is based on what we *know* is true - it's not supposition or guesswork, and remember it's not just possible, it absolutely *has* to happen, because there is no mechanism in biology to make reproduction a 100% perfect, flawless process.

NB: The reason we're classed as apes is that there is no valid way to group all the other apes together that doesn't also apply to humans. In other words, whatever criteria you use to define what is an ape, in order to include chimpanzees, gorillas, orangs and gibbons, humans will also fit those criteria. Indeed, chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas, and gorillas are more closely related to humans and chimpanzees than they are to orangs, so any classification that separated humans out from those other apes would not make any sense.

Answer 3

Quite.

There are plants alive TODAY (11,000+ years old) that conflict with Biblical creationism, which 'dates' (completely arbitrarily, of course) the entire Earth at 6,000 years old.

Answer 4

Depending on the museum you're at, they might be replicas making them maybe only 10 years old.

Answer 5

Thats amazing!
Charlie Brown, Linus, and Pig Pen, are holding their age well.

My favorite is still Woodstock!

Answer 6

Remember God created the earth with age. Adam and Eve were not created as babies but as full grown adults. Also remember that carbon dating is not an exact science. Rocks that are only 20 years old have been dated older. And Lucy is an extinct chimpanzee not a missing link.

Answer 7

they can't be Lucy Ball's bones because she hasn't bee dead for 3 billion years! lol

Answer 8

You must be in Houston. And it sure does.