I find your condescension increasingly annoying. The translators universally thought that “fruit tree” was the proper meaning in context. You disagree, but with what justification?
All true, and yet oaks are not fruit trees.
I was thinking the same of you.
My point is that the Earth has always[1] had a day-night cycle that humans could entrain to, and has never had a day-night cycle that matches our preferred length.
So any claim that involves a particular historical Earth rotation rate being appropriate for humans is groundless. Your claim is doubly groundless since it involves an era when there weren’t even any humans for it to be appropriate to.
It didn’t start working for us in the past, because the earth does not yet rotate slowly enough to match our natural sleep cycle. Either day 4 hasn’t started yet, or your argument is invalid.
[1] Sailors can spend months living 6 hours on, six hours off.
I’m interested in this, but I’m not seeing strong evidence here.
But humans typically are not deprived of day/night influences, so I’d don’t see this as evidence that a 25-hour day would be more optimal. Is that a point the study authors were trying to make?
Also, I’d be more compelled to see a study showing humans could adopt a sub-23 hour cycle without harm. That would blunt my case. Show me that.
Sure, but if that is just breaking up a 24-hour cycle into 6-hour chunks then that’s not real compelling to me either.
You are the one who is insisting on a narrower definition of the term ‘fruit’ than can be justified.
I appeal to the everyday meaning of the word, as everyone except a botanist would understand it in context, as all the translators in history have understood it, and as I would suppose the original Hebrew writers would have, none of them botanists to my knowledge. What’s your argument?
Thank you for asking.
So, let me start with the “everyday meaning of the word” by trekking over to wikipedia’s definition of a fruit tree. Fruit tree - Wikipedia
Botanical Defintion:
A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by humans and some animals - all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds.
That’s the definition I am using (the botanical definition). Now, the article goes on with a further specification:
Horticultural Definition:
In horticultural usage, the term “fruit tree” is limited to those that provide fruit for human food.
That seems to be the definition you are using (the horticultural definition).
Now, Genesis 1:29-30 says:
29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Now, in v29 fruit trees are given to mankind for horticultural purposes. I grant you that. But that in itself does not imply that all fruit trees God created were ready for horticultural use right from the start.
Here are my arguments for the botanical definition, any one of which I think is sufficient on its own:
v30 “every green plant” given to animals, which will include plants yielding seed and fruit trees, in the broader botanical sense.
Since Day 3 occurs before humans, I don’t think the limited horticultural sense of fruit tree is required by the text. I think the broader botanical sense is appropriate.
The ancient Hebrew people were certainly capable of recognizing that animals consumed kinds of fruit that people do not, and could understand the botanical sense easily.
The Hebrew word for “fruit” has a very broad meaning, encompassing fruit as used by people (horticultural sense) and fruit as only consumed by animals (botanical sense).
If the horticultural sense of fruit tree is demanded, then the text would be silent about the origin of non-horticultural fruit trees, which seems overly restrictive for an encompassing creation narrative.
Modern horticultural fruit trees that most people think about have been highly developed since the origin of agriculture. Adam didn’t have any Honey Crisp apples, for example. Therefore, it’s reasonable to include in “fruit trees” given to mankind those varieties that were not originally used horticulturally, but had the potential to be so developed. This demands a definition broader than the horticultural definition. Horticultural fruit trees are developed from botanical fruit trees, some of which did not originally produce fruit desirable for human consumption.
Horticulture obviously comes after the creation of botanical fruit trees and God instructed
Adam in horticulture in the garden of Eden. So Adam could develop horticulturally some of the varieties that God had created botanically.
All this I say to support my main point:
Botanical fruit trees existed on Earth since the Early Cretaceous which I include with the time frame of Day 3.
I see no conflict with also saying that: Humans can eat some naturally occurring fruit, and furthermore, horticultural fruit trees are descended from botanical fruit trees and were developed on and after Day 6.
It occurs to me that the pollinators do not show up on any day.
No, they were trying to see what our natural sleep cycle was. It’s more than 24 hours.
I suggested one area to look at. Your response:
When your case is blunted, you just invent excuses and ignore it.
If you’re going with botanical senses, “every green plant” includes much more than just angiosperms or even seed plants. So why are you stopping there?
You’re picking a meaning to match what you want. You reject both broad and narrow senses, and you equate “green plant” with “plant bearing seeds” with “fruit tree”. And of course Day 3, in the story, is only 3 days earlier than the creation of humans, hardly a significant gap. Note also that you have both plants with seeds and plants with fruit in that sentence, and they’re different things. My reading is that both of those are intended to be angiosperms, just different angiosperms. Fruit tree, in other words, is not the same as angiosperm.
You need more than that. You need also to realize that a grain of wheat is a fruit (or has a fruit as its very outer layer), which I doubt they knew or cared.
Now that would help you if it’s true. Of course “fruit consumed by animals” still isn’t necessarily fruit in the botanical sense. It might refer to berries but not to nuts. You just don’t know. But do you have evidence for this meaning of a Hebrew word?
Where are non-horticultural fruit trees mentioned? The only mention of fruit is what is given to humans. The animals are given “every green plant”.
How do you know that? (I don’t mean Honey Crisp specifically.) Why didn’t God plant highly derived varieties in the Garden? I doubt the ancient Hebrews knew that plants and animals hadn’t always been domesticated from the beginning.
That’s not obvious at all.
Certainly true. But that’s entirely irrelevant to the actual story as told.
With strong light, humans can entrain to 23.5 hours or 24.65 hours, per Plasticity of the Intrinsic Period of the Human Circadian Timing System - PMC
But according to this study, Intrinsic near-24-h pacemaker period determines limits of circadian entrainment to a weak synchronizer in humans - PMC , 23.5 hours and 24.6 hours are near the limits of human circadian entrainment.
This study, https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(16)30333-5.pdf, claims that "Range of entrainment: clocks can entrain to non-24-h zeitgeber cycles but only within given limits. The human circadian clock, for example, cannot entrain to 22 h or 26 h cycles.
Your claim that humans can entrain to 25 hours is faulty: “Early research into circadian rhythms suggested that most people preferred a day closer to 25 hours when isolated from external stimuli like daylight and timekeeping. However, this research was faulty because it failed to shield the participants from artificial light.” per Length of Circadian Cycle in Humans - Circadian Sleep Disorders Network and Stability, precision, and near-24-hour period of the human circadian pacemaker - PubMed
So, you have not cited any evidence to knock down the idea that 1) 23.5 hours is near the minimum of what the human circadian rhythm can entrain to with normal daylight exposure.
And, you haven’t knocked down the idea that 2) the rotation rate of the Earth was about 23.5 hour 100 ma.
Those are really my only two premises in the discussion here, and you seem to not like these assertions, but have no credible counter arguments. Why is it so important to you to try to invalidate these statements?
Why do you think the human circadian rhythm is what it is? What is special about 24 hours?
It’s obvious that the length of a day was carefully tailored to match the human circadian rhythm, just as our noses were carefully designed to support glasses. I rely on that great sage, Dr. Pangloss.
There is good evidence the day lengths were shorter in the past - the deeper in the geologic record, the shorter the day.
Thus, a prediction of creationism would be a shorter circadian rhythm than 24 hrs, as we should have been created with a matching shorter circadian rhythm when days were shorter.
You’re quoting a site that is just parrotting Wikipedia - without either noting that it’s from Wikipedia nor including Wikipedia’s note that the information comes from a dubious source. Nor is the reason given - that participants could use artificial light - particularly convincing. So it’s your attempted rebuttal that’s faulty, not my claim.
I have never objected to the idea that the rotation rate was 23.5 hours 100mya, nor will I.
That is a straw-man argument that you invented.
Indeed. Day is lengthening by about 2 milliseconds per century (wiki - Tidal Acceleration). I can handle daylight savings time, I think I can adapt to this.
That works only for young-earth creationism, and it also depends on how they correlate the 6th day to the geologic time scale. And of course it also depends on acceptance of geological evidence for day length, which, if most sediments were deposited during the Flood, can’t be believed.
But I believe William Rogers isn’t a YEC or even (maybe) an OEC.
That is illogical.
Old earth creationism accepts an old age for the earth, and thus proponents of OEC are more likely to accept shorter days in the past.
OECers who believe God created humans rather than evolved humans would then have to explain why we have a 25 hr circadian rhythm instead of a shorter length if God created us when days were shorter.
Don’t blame me for that.
I don’t think OECs think that God created us when days were shorter. Your problem only exists if there were humans in the Cretaceous, and only YECs (and Hindu creationists, but never mind that) think so, and they think the Cretaceous exists only as a level of the Flood, so day length makes no sense.
Although, see a counter-argument here:
This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
