Healthy Debate (1 Viewer)

[AquaNerd]

since we're on the topic of kanz...


in his class we are learning about the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules. so far, scientists have abiotically made sugars, 17 out of the 20 amino acids, purines and pyrimidines (found in dna), and a ton of other stuff. again, these are all abiotic and done in a lab setting. of course they have to assume the atmospheric conditions of the time, but these assumptions are backed up/confirmed by the presence of the same compound in similar proportions found in meteorites and nebular clouds.

and earlier we talked about the complexity of the cell being proof against evolution. this has been an argument in the past, but cannot work to disprove anything. it would be easy to produce a molecule if you give it enough time and you look at the stepwise process to create it.

why do you think mitochondria have entirely different dna from the cell in which it resides? that's because a long time ago a cell ingested a mitochondria or mitochondria-like organsim and incorporated it into it's body. the cell provides protection and the mitochondria provides energy...symbiotic relationship.

off to class now...yeah genetics .

 

[crvz]

and just because one person exaggerated his findings, should that taint the entire theory of evolution and all the other scientific findings and processes? no, it shouldn't. man is capable of making mistakes, lying, and sometimes being just plain wrong. but you must keep that in mind when you look at the bible as well. both the evolutionary theory and the events of the bible are subject to scrutiny by members of their own respective communities as well as people outside their perspective communities.

You're right that one event shouldn't taint the whole theory, but I've found that this is only one example. We can go back to the history of radiometric dating. I think we all know the fallacies of C14 dating, which was first used to support the aging of fossils. At the rate at which C14 statistically decays (half-life of ~6000 years), and the percentage found in the atmosphere (something small like 0.006% of the atmosphere), there should be no measurable amount of C14 remaining after about something like 8 or 16 half lives (I forget exactly). So that begs the question, why can C14 be found in coal (which supposedly takes hundred of thousands of years to form) and diamonds (which supposedly take millions of years to form)? Why does it take numerous measurements (which vary widely) to age a sample? And why does it still pop up as evidence for dating anything over 40k years old? Maybe you'll grant me that C14 isnt a good method, so lets look at Potassium-Argon dating (K-Ar).

K-Ar dating relies on the decay of potassium at a known rate, and is used assuming that the formation of rock essentially cleared out the argon gas that K decays to (think heat/volcanic explosions, which release the argon gas prior to the cooling of the rock). Measure how much K a sample has, compare it to the Ar, and you can date the sample. This relies on a number of assumptions (one, specifically, is that the sample hasn’t been contaminated, even though it's been shown that soaking a sample in distilled water can remove 80% of the original K content, thereby greatly increasing the age of the rock by this method), but let's grant that it’s legit. An example that applies here is the KBF tuff, which was K-Ar dated at between 212-230 million years old (sometime in the 70's, I believe). Well then someone found a human skeleton under the dated sample. After concluding that there was no evidence to artificially place the skeleton there (burial, earthquake, etc), it was redated using the same method to at most just under 3 million years old. I find this to be quite the trend in radiometric dating; numbers are used only when they work, and they're manipulated/retested or ignored until the right values show up.

and earlier we talked about the complexity of the cell being proof against evolution. this has been an argument in the past, but cannot work to disprove anything. it would be easy to produce a molecule if you give it enough time and you look at the stepwise process to create it.

Well on that same basis, I can say that none of the data provided can be used to prove evolution. In may be used to give broad credence to a particular aspect of the theory, but by no means does it prove it correct. Let's take the fossil trail. Show me, stepwise, how that proves evolution. For me to buy it as evidence or proof, I have to see how each animal changed from one to the other, without holes in the record. And that can't be done (I know I'm setting myself up here, but I'll leave the thought regardless ). Fossils show up out of order, missing links are more than few and far between. I'd also need multiple examples of living things advancing or adding to their genetic structure, which has never been recorded (and observed mutations, even when they're seldom beneficial, are always loss of information).

And same goes with the time needed to "easily" (which is being used very loosely here) create a molecule on chance. The proof used to state that the universe is billions of years old is pretty weak, at best. Redshift can't be used. If it is, how can quasars embedded in nearby galaxies be found with enourmous redshift, supposedly distancing them billions of light years away? The geological column falls apart. How can dinosaur and human footprints be found in the same fossils? How can petrified trees be found growing through coal seams, or through different era's in the column? I think I've made a point about radiometric dating.

Obviously I'm not really providing alternatives, merely pointing out big, currently unanswerable questions with data. What's the point? I find that it take's a lot of faith to buy into evolution, and I don't have that kind of faith in mankind. Am I such a cynic that I think scientists deliberately manipulate information to perpetuate the theory? That I'm not sure of, as it's equally hard for me to believe in complicated/convoluted conspiracies on such a grand scale, but I've run across a number of folks who need it to be true; either for superficial reasons, such as to continue receiving grant money, advance their careers in academia, etc., or more philisophical reasons, often because the alternative is too much to accept.

off to class now...yeah genetics .

And Brandon, with all the classroom and test talk you keep mentioning, you're making me glad to not be in school! Hope class was fun!!

 

[AquaNerd]

i'm really enjoying the topic so far. thanks crvz for fighting the battle.

 

[Guest]

Healthy topic

Camaroracer214 wrote

Quote:

"My question to you regarding evolution is, what do you think about it? What do you believe? Do you feel a conflict between science and religion? Would you like to know more about it (i.e. how it works, why it works, and where it's leading to)? Let's get the ball rolling."

Umm seems as I'm reading more here, this a debate is leaning more
on professionalism of literature of what we have read than our
opinions on science and evolution.

Ever heard of Mind Over Matter.

Well this my saying on the subject at hand...

Mind over matter, if there's no matter than never mind.
Matter being the heart, and mind being the brain.

And does English grammar of what we read or how we say it
constitute facts. UUUUH NO

 

[AquaNerd]

Wikipedia has some great info about this topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating). The half life of C-14 is 5730 years, and is good to use for organic based samples up to 60,000 years old. C-14 is produced by sunlight in the atmosphere. The sunlight causes N-14 to convert to C-14. The amount of C-14 in the atmosphere today is assumed to be somewhat constant, since the same amount of light hits the atmosphere every single day. However, minor fluctuations can occur (seems like everything fluctuates nowadays). The fluctuations are brought about by the altitude at which the nitrogen is converted.

The highest rate of carbon-14 production takes place at altitudes of 9 to 15 km (30,000 to 50,000 ft), and at high geomagnetic latitudes, but the carbon-14 spreads evenly throughout the atmosphere and reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide

.
Items like coal can be carbon dated because they are almost pure carbon (like diamonds). It has also been seen that coal has formed around modern day items like buckets (I even think www.drdino.com has information about how long it takes or doesn't take for coal to form). But if the item found is suspected to be over 60k years old, another method will be used.

Potassium-Argon dating and Argon-Argon dating are used for rocks that are greater than 100,000 years old.

A problem with K-Ar dating is that if there is heterogeneity in the sample, then the aliquots used for determining K concentrations and 40Ar abundances may have different K/Ar. This can lead to an inaccurate date. Argon-argon dating is a similar technique which measures the isotopic content of the same sample, so this problem can be avoided

. The problems brought up about Potassium-Argon dating can be avoided by looking at Argon-Argon dating. And the comment about distilled water skewing dates...where would the distilled water come from? And you are assuming that the rocks were submerged in it. The water of the past certainly wasn't distilled, unless there was a primitive reef keeper who didn't have access to an RO/DI unit .

I find this to be quite the trend in radiometric dating; numbers are used only when they work, and they're manipulated/retested or ignored until the right values show up

.
But what happens when several teams of scientists are given samples from the same specimen and all of them date it to within an agreeable range of each other? There's no perfection in radiometric dating, that's why a bunch of different methods are used. And remember, these dates are supposed to be estimates of the age, not exact ages.

Now I've got to get back to studying , but I'll get to cellular complexity next time around .

 

[AquaNerd]

Re: Healthy topic

Camaroracer214 wrote

Quote:

"My question to you regarding evolution is, what do you think about it? What do you believe? Do you feel a conflict between science and religion? Would you like to know more about it (i.e. how it works, why it works, and where it's leading to)? Let's get the ball rolling."

Umm seems as I'm reading more here, this a debate is leaning more
on professionalism of literature of what we have read than our
opinions on science and evolution.

Ever heard of Mind Over Matter.

Well this my saying on the subject at hand...

Mind over matter, if there's no matter than never mind.
Matter being the heart, and mind being the brain.

And does English grammar of what we read or how we say it
constitute facts. UUUUH NO

i'm just glad we are able to talk about it and express to others our thoughts. i say let it lead to where it leads.

i started this to see what others thought in hopes we could discuss the topic in a civilized manner. i feel like this is a very important topic, since either thought (evolution or religion) dominates large portions of our lives. i feel we are expressing our opinions but backing them up with professional literature since none of us is an evolutionary or religious expert (unless we have some priests, minister, pastors, rabbis, or evolutionary biologists, ecologists, biochemists, geneticists, etc as members of this website).

 

[crvz]

i'm really enjoying the topic so far. thanks crvz for fighting the battle.

Any time I can pretend to be smart, I’ll keep at it!

Items like coal can be carbon dated because they are almost pure carbon (like diamonds). It has also been seen that coal has formed around modern day items like buckets (I even think www.drdino.com has information about how long it takes or doesn't take for coal to form). But if the item found is suspected to be over 60k years old, another method will be used.

You’re right that human-made trinkets have been found imbedded in coal seams, and there is some data on that web site discussing this. But I think the point made is that coal does NOT take hundreds of thousands of years to form, and that the right conditions had to be present at some time since the humans began understanding metallurgy (things I’ve seen pulled include small tools and bells made of metal). Following the logic, that means huge amounts of plant matter have to have been under huge amounts of pressure less than ~10k years ago in an area that had been recently occupied by an advanced civilization.

And the comment about distilled water skewing dates...where would the distilled water come from? And you are assuming that the rocks were submerged in it. The water of the past certainly wasn't distilled, unless there was a primitive reef keeper who didn't have access to an RO/DI unit .

I’m ignorant of what all participates in the precipitation cycle, but what is rain water from years past other than pure water? I know these days we’ve got a lot of explaining to do in order to account for what can be found in rain water, but prior to the industrial revolution?

i feel we are expressing our opinions but backing them up with professional literature since none of us is an evolutionary or religious expert (unless we have some priests, minister, pastors, rabbis, or evolutionary biologists, ecologists, biochemists, geneticists, etc as members of this website).

I agree, Brandon, and I don’t think having anyone of those professions participating would change a thing. I wouldn’t trust someone merely because of a title; I’ve got to know them personally before that happens.

 

[Guest]

Debate

Now thats down to level of understanding, like all the theologians
and scholars and their big words of enlightenment and we all go uh :? So since the mad scientist, over kill, or twenty years of research mean a
thing, as far as wording is concern and what has been provided to
use whether news or discovery channel or books. Its like a simple
math problem, and the teachers tell us that 3X9 is 27, well how is
that, well it just is, no, its either 3 9's equaling 27 or 9 3's equaling 27 as
adding that is. Not X (times). so that is proof with out all the big
words of literature. I have this wanna be Quality Control Manager.
And worked his way up from seven years ago as a assembler, to were
he is now. You know how, a lot of big words and talking, but he hasn't
a clue about hands on inspection and the theory of geometric dimensioning
and tolerancing, or for that matter how to read a print. So does since
he's in his position, have the understanding to provide big words of wisdom on the subject. NO

 

[AquaNerd]

forgot to reply to the trees found through rock layers...they are called polystrate fossils and can be explained by natural causes.

In geology, such fossils are referred to as upright fossil, trunks or trees. Geologists explain their formation as being caused by episodes of rapid sedimentation within either an actively subsiding coastal plain or rift basin or by the rapid accumulation of volcanic material on the flanks and around the bases of stratovolcanoes as the result of periodic eruptions. Geologists have long accepted that a layer or set of layers containing polystrate fossils was created by a brief period of rapid sedimentation. Typically, this period of rapid sedimentation was followed by a period of time, decades to thousands of years long, characterized by very slow or no accumulation of sediments. In river deltas and other coastal plain settings, rapid sedimentation is often the end result of a brief period of accelerated subsidence of an area of coastal plain relative to sea level caused by salt tectonics, global sea level rise, growth faulting, continental margin collapse, or some combination of these factors.

 

[Guest]

Debate

So here we are and wondering how did that come about, your asking
your self what the heck was he talking about, just remember this debate
on theories on evolutions and science What I was going to get to so maybe you can understand the 3 9"s equal 27, well as all the professions of literature and math sat around the big table and said, we can't put it in a text book like that, lets call it multiples of 9. So now we're applying multiples of
9, 3 to be exact and now the answer is 27, but what thats still to much
to write, so lets put multiple first and apply second. So now we have
multiples of a number and now we have to apply them . Darn they say
still to long to understand. Hey, lets put the two words together and call
it multiplying, Wow I like that word. but it all came from adding
Boy theory I would love to see if one of these great knowledgeable
scholars have a fish tank in their house be it would probably put mine to
shame with as much money they make deciding great wisdom and
theory.

 

[AquaNerd]

hmmm....seems interest is waining, i'll have to bring up something else to put some life back into the conversation. so i decided to look up the human and dinosaur footprints occurring together. here's what i found:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/fooevo.htm

i know it's a skeptic website and may have some bias, but the only other websites i saw were creationist websites that also have a bias.

but it's interesting to read that the tracks were not as clear as some make them out to be. it's apparently hard to tell that the prints were even primate, let alone human. some people point to the presence of claws, three toes, and different outlines of the feet. it is also shown that the tracks would have to have come from giant sized humans, not your typical modern day man with a size 11 shoe. good reading anyways.

i personally feel that the tracks aren't from humans. i doubt they are hoaxed, but it's always a possibility i guess.

 

[Guest]

Here's another link regarding footprints, just FYI:

http://paleo.cc/paluxy/paluxy.htm

 

[Guest]

Just out of curiosity,does anyone believe the Bible is just another novel/book or a book of vialable facts? Reason being is that if you beleive it as facts(which i do) then everything about evolution becomes null and void. The opening verse states creation.Later it states that animals were again created both land and sea animals.Later in the same chapter it states that God created man to his image.But to beleive in evolution then one has to believe in the big bang theory which is another debate in itself.Life had to have started sometime to evolve.Thats why science question religion.We only rely on the Bible as our source of info.But thats all we really need.There goes that faith issue again.

 

[Guest]

This is a fascinating discussion. I have a couple cents to add, I suppose.

I consider myself a christian scientist who both believes in the bible and in evolution.

One thing I also acknowledge is that language also evolves. The bible was not written in english, and of anything that is several thousand years old has the possiblity to evolve itself over time. (Anyone ever play that lunch line game where you see how a message can get garbled from the begining to end?).

You can't convince me that not a single word in the bible hasn't been altered by accident by fallable human hands since the time it was first constructed. I look at one of those modern bibles (vs one of the old king james ones) and I can hardly recognize some of it. I mean translations are a tricky thing. Just translating from modern german or spanish to english is very hard to keep the exact same meaning... let alone a modern language to an ancient one...

Science also is subject to human fallacies. Data itself has no opinion, theory or bias. It is what it is. When you add the human factor, and then dilute it down to something the average Joe reads on CNN, you get something very different.

So far I have seen nothing that directly contradicts the meat and bones of the bible. If anything, science (to me) only shows a possible method. After all, if God created physics and chemistry and all that, why couldn't he use them as his tools? Of course if laws are made to be broken...If he breaks the law of thermodynamics, does that make god the original criminal? 8O

THe process of evolution happens all around us. We would not be afraid of the bird flu, if it wasn't for evolution. Evolution is simply the accummulation of mutations in our DNA, that survive beacuse it makes that particular animal, bacteria, flu more "healthy" than those that do not have those changes in their DNA. Our generation is what, 50 years? Bacteria have offspring every 30 minutes. So its like evolution on crack. Why do we get flu shots every year? Because the flu evolves. The same rules that effect the flu, also apply to us. Therefore it is plausable that humans have also changed over time. The problem is that we don't have a complete enough record to actually see what we looked like thousands of years ago, but I have no doubt we did not look exactly how we do today. Just look at inter-racial marriages... eventually will we get to a point where we can't tell someone's racial background? Thats evolution also.

What will really make your head spin, is that some "evidence" is that modern human is "less evolved" than most species of apes and other primates. What do I mean by "less evolved"? Our body structures and anatomy is less specialized than that of other primates (evidence by our bone structure and teeth). We are not fast, nor strong, nor able to climb trees. There are lots of extinct types of primates that had very interesting, specialized abilities that they evolved to fit into their environments. However in giving up their flexibility to become so specialized they became senstive to change. (Think of Pandas and other endangered animals that can only live on 1 type of food... if that food goes poof, so do they).

Humans are specialized generalists. Our great gift is that we did not evolve down an over specialized path that would wipe us out with the next ice age. I guess our brains allowed us to make up for our physical shortcomings and therefore we survived. Does that make god a physical weakling with a big brain too? I guess neither the bible or science can answer that one.

 

[AquaNerd]

One thing I also acknowledge is that language also evolves. The bible was not written in english, and of anything that is several thousand years old has the possiblity to evolve itself over time. (Anyone ever play that lunch line game where you see how a message can get garbled from the begining to end?).

You can't convince me that not a single word in the bible hasn't been altered by accident by fallable human hands since the time it was first constructed. I look at one of those modern bibles (vs one of the old king james ones) and I can hardly recognize some of it. I mean translations are a tricky thing. Just translating from modern german or spanish to english is very hard to keep the exact same meaning... let alone a modern language to an ancient one...

the language barrier is a huge thing to overcome. i know for a fact that in job 40:15-24 you can see completely different language use from the king james version to the niv version (and they use the same language...english). in the king james version it says behemoth and in the niv version i believe it says hippo or an elephant (it names a specific animal). there is even speculation that the number "666" was actually something else like "626" or something similar.

So far I have seen nothing that directly contradicts the meat and bones of the bible. If anything, science (to me) only shows a possible method. After all, if God created physics and chemistry and all that, why couldn't he use them as his tools? Of course if laws are made to be broken...If he breaks the law of thermodynamics, does that make god the original criminal?

the entire theory of evolution is in direct conflict with the bible from the first sentence in genesis chapter 1. and since almost all science has ties to evolution somehow, i feel there is a huge conflict between science and the bible. astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, etc. all have ties to the belief that the earth is billions of years old and the universe is even older.

Just out of curiosity,does anyone believe the Bible is just another novel/book or a book of vialable facts? Reason being is that if you beleive it as facts(which i do) then everything about evolution becomes null and void. The opening verse states creation.Later it states that animals were again created both land and sea animals.Later in the same chapter it states that God created man to his image.But to beleive in evolution then one has to believe in the big bang theory which is another debate in itself.Life had to have started sometime to evolve.Thats why science question religion.We only rely on the Bible as our source of info.But thats all we really need.There goes that faith issue again.

the difference between the big bang theory and creation from a diety is the amount of observations that can be made. you cannot see god creating this, that, or the other. no one was even around to see it and the story was verbally passed down for hundreds of years until someone finally wrote it down. but to be fair, no one saw the big bang happen and no one was there to take notes. but we can see some after effects of what happened as evidence for the event.

another thought, how can you explain the fact that we can see stars said to be so many hundreds, thousands, or even millions of light years away? it's been shown that light can be slowed down, but can it be sped up as well? einstein and the rest of physics would tell you no.

here's some info about what we can use to prove the big bang theory:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0317_060317_big_bang.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbangredux.html
http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/The Big Bang Theory.htm

 

[AquaNerd]

A big argument that creationists/intelligent design proponents use is the complexity of the eye. The following image is that of modern day organisms and how each eye gets more advanced with a more complex animal. The top left is a chiton, followed by a limpet, all the way down to the octopus/squid eye in the bottom right. All of these organisms are related to each other.

http://www.utdallas.edu/~kzk031000/images/eye_evolution.jpg[/img

more:
[img]http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=79543&rendTypeId=4

 

[Guest]

debate

Hey that kind looks like our eye could be a big zit just
kidding now thats proof in the pudding, captured process of
an organism. hope you guys have a great weekend I sure will
hoping the Colts beat the Pats in Sundays game. I have a bet against
the Pats. Pats beat my team. Go Dallas!!!

 

[crvz]

and since almost all science has ties to evolution somehow, i feel there is a huge conflict between science and the bible. astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, etc. all have ties to the belief that the earth is billions of years old and the universe is even older.

And this is what bothers me. Why does science, which is supposed to be simply knowledge based on facts and observations, so often presume or conclude that the world is so old? That's not a fact. Sure, there's some meat behind the idea, but I've never seen conclusive evidence to prove it as truth. It's only been in the last 100 years that it's even been thought that the earth is more than 40k years old, and the exact age changes almost annually.

Point being, any scientist that closes their mind to the idea that the earth is younger than conventionally believed, or that evolution may not be true, must be listened to with extreme caution.

another thought, how can you explain the fact that we can see stars said to be so many hundreds, thousands, or even millions of light years away? it's been shown that light can be slowed down, but can it be sped up as well? einstein and the rest of physics would tell you no.

There are a few biblical references which could be used to solve this idea, where God "stretches out the heavens." Don't make me find the verse, though, but if things were close by and then were moved away, you'd have a light trail as it happens. Not an idea I'd be very dogmatic about, but it's something I've heard.

But two questions I would have about this topic. First, there's reason to question that C is not constant. You point out that it can be slowed down, and I think it's even been stopped. You also state that the physics community will say it can't be sped up, but why? The evidence they use is because it's never been observed, and there's no human means of doing it. Einstein was a skeptic of the atomic bomb, too (this book is awesome, if you've got the time). And as long as they continue to use an atomic clock (which relies on C being a constant to measure time) to measure the speed of light, they'll never see it change, as any delta will be swallowed by their measuring device.

The other question I have is how reliable are their distance measurements? I've read that triangulation is used, using basic geometry and taking measurements when the earth is at different locations in it's orbit around the sun. For things that are relatively close, I'd buy into that, but for something that's suposedly billions of light years away I lose all confidence in the tecnique. Redshift is bogus too, but I think I mentioned that a while back.

eyes are evolving!

Alright, so maybe that's not exactly what Brandon said, but I'm too lazy to get a real quote. I tried to look for the first picture, but I couldnt get it to pull up. But assuming we're looking at B in the shown picture, I don't conclude anything other than different animals have different levels of complexity in their eyes. It doesnt show me how one can go to the other.

And even assuming this does show the progression of mollusk eyes, why are there holdouts? Why arent they all fully developed into the most complicated (and best?) eye structure?

I know, once again all I've got are questions, but I'm not a proponent of evolution and have no need to search for these answers.

 

[Guest]

debate

:? :? You know I was watching the rerun of the presidential debates
the other day, and tell me if I'm wrong but didn't see them reading
from a book. Sure I will tend to believe who has their head in the
subject, which will be Brandon. Why you ask, because his mind is
fresh on the information at hand. And I don't label him, because of the
way he states his info or ideas. Heck I know I press buttons in here
and you know what, when someone presses mine, I have to step back
and look at the big picture and do some divine intervention and see
why my buttons or emotions where surfaced. And 99 percent of the time
I have some issues I need to address. With all do respect from everyones
statements and opinions or facts, be it from a book or whatever, what has
really been hitting home, is this process of bringing the ocean to our
living rooms. And is this a natural way to do what we do as reefers. Change what we see in our tanks which is a ego system that is natural in the sea. Sure you guys can show me books tell me to do this and do that. At this stage of my hobby, its not about the money its about a constant everyday thing. and the more I think about it, the more I want to say heck
I going to give this up till I have a big tank, big big tank Because, maybe I'm wrong but I hear less troubles with bigger tank hobbiest than the smaller tanks. I'm hoping their problems aren't just bigger problems 8O

And another thing I think this debate, and I hope other people feel the same way, has gone great, considering the obvious that we don't
really know each other and maybe we wouldn't even get along in person,
and all probably came from the sea
brother and sister.

 

[AquaNerd]

And this is what bothers me. Why does science, which is supposed to be simply knowledge based on facts and observations, so often presume or conclude that the world is so old? That's not a fact. Sure, there's some meat behind the idea, but I've never seen conclusive evidence to prove it as truth. It's only been in the last 100 years that it's even been thought that the earth is more than 40k years old, and the exact age changes almost annually.

science is simply knowledge, but a lot of different fields of study point to an old age for the earth. the bible (interpreted literally) puts the earth at only being 6k years. and if the bible were true, then all the sciences would point toward a young earth. but this doesn't happen. almost every field of science (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) and even social sciences like anthropology point toward ages much older than 6k years.

The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock's age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other. Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only1% or so.

First, there's reason to question that C is not constant. You point out that it can be slowed down, and I think it's even been stopped. You also state that the physics community will say it can't be sped up, but why? The evidence they use is because it's never been observed, and there's no human means of doing it. Einstein was a skeptic of the atomic bomb, too (this book is awesome, if you've got the time). And as long as they continue to use an atomic clock (which relies on C being a constant to measure time) to measure the speed of light, they'll never see it change, as any delta will be swallowed by their measuring device.

they have slowed light down by passing the beam through temps that were close to absolute zero. but since absolute zero hasn't been reached yet the light is only slowed down and not stopped. but can light be sped up? i'm sure science has tried to speed it up since they were successful at slowing it down. i've read that science has manipulated light in optic fibers, but can that be applied to space? can light coming from a star pass through an interstellar medium that causes it to speed up? wouldn't that medium have to be less dense than the space surrounding it? if you pass light from air to water it slows down slightly and bends (refracts) because it is hitting a more dense medium. but is there something less dense than empty space in a vacuum?

I tried to look for the first picture, but I couldnt get it to pull up. But assuming we're looking at B in the shown picture, I don't conclude anything other than different animals have different levels of complexity in their eyes. It doesnt show me how one can go to the other.

octopus and squid all came from lower gastropods like snails. both the snails and cephalopods have ringed ganglia surrounding their esophagus. the octopus brain is obviously more advanced, but they share a similar layout in that they ganglia of the snail and brain of the octopus are both surrounding their respective esophagus. squid and cuttlefish also have internal shells that are evidence of their relationship to shelled gastropods, like the snail.

And even assuming this does show the progression of mollusk eyes, why are there holdouts? Why arent they all fully developed into the most complicated (and best?) eye structure?

there are holdouts because the animal they came from don't need anything more to survive. if a snail needed a complex eye like that of an octopus or squid, it would have it by now. octopods actively hunt while snails and chitons obviously do not.

animals only evolve when there is a selective pressure that causes them to evolve. if a snail doesn't need a complex eye it won't evolve one, no matter how much time has elapsed.