Bonky Posted June 27, 2014 Group: Nonbeliever Followers: 6 Topic Count: 2 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 738 Content Per Day: 0.20 Reputation: 346 Days Won: 0 Joined: 05/28/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 27, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorningGlory Posted June 28, 2014 Group: Royal Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 1,022 Topics Per Day: 0.16 Content Count: 39,193 Content Per Day: 6.11 Reputation: 9,977 Days Won: 78 Joined: 10/01/2006 Status: Offline Share Posted June 28, 2014 Can y'all PLEASE just quote what you are responding to??? Requoting a long, long series of posts every time is confusing and dissuades others from reading your posts (especially when posts are in quotaton marks; it's easier to use the 'quote' feature). It works much better if you delete everything except what you wish to respond to before you post. Just a suggestion.....but it makes it easier for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncn Posted June 28, 2014 Group: Graduated to Heaven Followers: 6 Topic Count: 406 Topics Per Day: 0.09 Content Count: 5,248 Content Per Day: 1.13 Reputation: 1,337 Days Won: 67 Joined: 08/07/2011 Status: Offline Share Posted June 28, 2014 Can y'all PLEASE just quote what you are responding to?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,it makes it easier for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macs Son Posted June 29, 2014 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 261 Content Per Day: 0.07 Reputation: 79 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/07/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 29, 2014 (edited) Can y'all PLEASE just quote what you are responding to??? Requoting a long, long series of posts every time is confusing and dissuades others from reading your posts (especially when posts are in quotaton marks; it's easier to use the 'quote' feature). It works much better if you delete everything except what you wish to respond to before you post. Just a suggestion.....but it makes it easier for everyone. Am I the only one here who thinks that a debate on evolution should have it own thread and not be integrated with a thread on the big bang? It appears to me that we have completely diverged from the named topic - I know this not the first time I have encountered this phenomena in my short stint but it does seem to be somewhat inappropriate, not to mention a very inefficient method on focusing on a single subject. Maybe we can just change the thread name to evolution since this is truly what is being debated? Sorry if I offend - it's just a suggestion.In Christ, Pat Edited June 29, 2014 by Macs Son Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tristen Posted June 29, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 9 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 2,367 Content Per Day: 0.63 Reputation: 1,340 Days Won: 1 Joined: 01/26/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 29, 2014 Can y'all PLEASE just quote what you are responding to??? Requoting a long, long series of posts every time is confusing and dissuades others from reading your posts (especially when posts are in quotaton marks; it's easier to use the 'quote' feature). It works much better if you delete everything except what you wish to respond to before you post. Just a suggestion.....but it makes it easier for everyone. Hey MorningGlory, Sorry if it’s confusing. My responses sometimes take days (or weeks if I’m busy) to put together so I do them in word rather than leaving the webpage open and trusting my computer and the website not to extinguish all my work before I’ve had a chance to post it. It seems easier to cut and paste the quotes into word (I do colour them differently) - then paste them back together with my responses. Also seems like it might be a lot of work to keep hitting the quote button, then deleting the rest of the quote that is not being responded to – especially when there are so many points being addressed. Maybe there’s another way I haven’t considered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 ....Am I the only one here who thinks that a debate on evolution should have it own thread.... ....and not be integrated with a thread on the big bang.... ....It appears to me that we have completely diverged from the named topic.... ....I know this not the first time I have encountered this phenomena in my short stint.... ....it does seem to be somewhat inappropriate.... ....not to mention a very inefficient method on focusing on a single subject.... ....Maybe we can just change the thread name to evolution.... ....since this is truly what is being debated?.... ....Sorry if I offend.... ....it's just a suggestion.... ~ Beloved, The Big Bang Is Today's Corner Stone In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:1-5 Under Girding The Dying Fantasy Of The Evolutionary Mythos And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19 As It Flat Denys The Creation Power Of The LORD Jesus And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Genesis 1:31 So Beloved Please Don't Be Offended And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: Ephesians 3:9 As Believers Show To The World For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:16-17 The Bible's Challenge Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11 To The Big But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10 Bang By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Psalms 33:6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tristen Posted June 29, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 9 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 2,367 Content Per Day: 0.63 Reputation: 1,340 Days Won: 1 Joined: 01/26/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 29, 2014 Can y'all PLEASE just quote what you are responding to??? Requoting a long, long series of posts every time is confusing and dissuades others from reading your posts (especially when posts are in quotaton marks; it's easier to use the 'quote' feature). It works much better if you delete everything except what you wish to respond to before you post. Just a suggestion.....but it makes it easier for everyone. Am I the only one here who thinks that a debate on evolution should have it own thread and not be integrated with a thread on the big bang? It appears to me that we have completely diverged from the named topic - I know this not the first time I have encountered this phenomena in my short stint but it does seem to be somewhat inappropriate, not to mention a very inefficient method on focusing on a single subject. Maybe we can just change the thread name to evolution since this is truly what is being debated? Sorry if I offend - it's just a suggestion. In Christ, Pat Hi Pat, The Biblical creation account incorporates the creation of both the universe and life. The naturalistic models separate these into temporally disparate events. Since the same logic is used to justify both, and since it is this logic I am questioning, it shouldn’t matter whether we are dealing with Standard Cosmology (incorporating Big Bang) or Common Ancestry. Also, the two secular models are related. The history proposed by Standard Cosmology provides the massive time-frames required to make Common Ancestry plausible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tristen Posted June 29, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 9 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 2,367 Content Per Day: 0.63 Reputation: 1,340 Days Won: 1 Joined: 01/26/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 29, 2014 “You speak here as if "this happens all the time" and I don't think that's been supported” The Precambrian pollen is an extreme example (albeit, one that best meets your criteria for evolutionary falsification), however evolutionary range expansions are very common in the scientific literature. I am happy to go through some of those if you think I am exaggerating. I read just the other day that the timeline for homo something-or-other was adjusted a bit because they found evidence of earlier fossils. Is this what you're referring to? “Right and not just by random people, but folks who are experts in the relevant fields. I think that has some weight to it” The logical fallacy you employ here is Appeal to Authority. Authority in itself does not add weight to any claim because of the possibility of scientists being wrong, or lying, or succumbing to confirmation bias etc. Each argument has to be rationally assessed on its own merits. If abused, it would be a logical fallacy. I'm not suggesting mainstream science can't be wrong or they have to be right because they are experts. We send samples or data to experts all the time to have them provide their feedback. So from my point of view, I see a group of people who disagree with an extreme vast majority of scientists in many different fields...but it's not JUST that they disagree, for me it's the reason WHY they disagree. Let's be frank, isn't it because any claim or position that calls scripture into question needs to be categorically denied or excluded? For instance-- "Most importantly, the Bible believing creationist will be careful to confine himself to speculations that are consistent with God's Word." --Dr. David Mention [Answers in Genesis] "The Bible is the divinely inspired written Word of God. Because it is inspired throughout, it is completely free from error--scientifically, historically, theologically, and morally. Thus it is the absolute authority in all matters of truth, faith, and conduct. The final guide to the interpretation of the Bible is the Bible itself. God's world must always agree with God's Word, because the Creator of the one is the Author of the other. Thus, where physical evidences from the creation may be used to confirm the Bible, these evidences must never be used to correct or interpret the Bible. The written Word must take priority in the event of any apparent conflict." --Greater Houston Creation Association "verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings, as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific [sic] and historical as well as moral and theological." --Institute for Creation Research I find this world view to be very suspect, but then, that's my opinion. “When I look at creationist criticisms of mainstream cosmology and other scientific evidences for "deep time", I merely see the questioning of the confidence in the conclusions” Criticising the weakness of an opposing position is a perfectly rational debate strategy. If the criticism has any "teeth" yes. If the rejection is nothing more than "they could be wrong" [as I've seen before] than it can be ignored. “Was there a global flood? I personally think the evidence should be pretty overwhelming. Wouldn't it show up in the ice cores that we retrieve from the arctic regions? Wouldn't the fossil record be a jumbled mess all across the globe no matter where you look?” No & No. These questions demonstrate how a paradigm can hinder our capacity to give objective consideration to an opposing position. According to the preferred creationist model, Greenland ice sheets were accumulated post flood. Creationists also consider sedimentary burial order during the flood to be associated with the habitat and mobility of each organism – so a general pattern of succession is expected in the fossil record. If it was a global flood there are other ice sheets other than Greenland, and they show many many years of seasonal accumulation uninterrupted by any flood. If what you say is true, we should only see what about 4400 years of accumulation? That's a falsifiable claim right? I'm just going to be honest, I'm not sure what to say if I'm understanding you right. Are you suggesting that "mobile" animals will show up at the top of the fossil record and immobile at the bottom? I have to think I'm misunderstanding you. The strongest, fastest animal can't stop itself from drowning and being swept away in a current. For now I'll assume I'm misunderstanding your position. “If we did declare that there was a global flood, would it prove that EVERYTHING in the Bible is therefore true? Nope. So why would anybody ignore this evidence again?” I haven’t accused anybody of ignoring evidence. I have made the case that everybody prefers the interpretation of facts that is consistent with their faith presuppositions. And I don’t have a problem with that (since I do the same). The problem is that most people are seemingly unaware that their preferred interpretations are influenced by unverifiable presuppositions – and therefore feel justified in dismissing other interpretations because they are based on different unverifiable presuppositions. So if the Mormon Bible had a claim that would leave natural evidence and we don't find this evidence, you thing it's perfectly logical to keep believing anyway? “I'm looking at the bigger picture” This is more innuendo. You need to justify the implication that I have ignored the “bigger picture”. I was merely stating that I wouldn't expect issues to arise based on the work you do. I'm looking at the wide range of data in any field that's relevant. You seem a bit edgy and suspicious, I'm not attacking you “To be a young earth creationist, you essentially have to suggest that the extreme vast majority of mainstream science is dead wrong in EVERY area of inquiry that suggests deep time” “Wrong” would be an unscientific claim. I would say ‘highly disputable with interpretations dependent upon unverified naturalistic assumptions’. If I could offer an interpretation of all of those very same facts, individually and collectively, so that they are consistent with the Biblical model, then my model also represents a logically valid “bigger picture”. Not until you've shown that this model is worth anything “I feel that mainstream science seems to be doing something right. After all, we have robots on Mars and we're growing human organs in labs” Neither of which has any necessary reliance upon the truth of any historical model. “I feel pretty confident that mainstream science is collecting and analyzing the data correctly [regarding anything that establishes deep time]” This is another false analogy – comparing operational (or experimental) science with historical modelling. They use logically different methodologies. Legitimate scientific confidence cannot be attributed to historical models without committing the logical fallacy called Affirming the Consequent. Experimental science can attribute scientific confidence through direct and repeated observations. That’s what makes operational science falsifiable, and historical science not. I'm just saying, that your position requires that every test that concludes deep time must be way off. We're not talking about one type of measurement, various methods of radio decay, ice core dating, the measurement of distant stars that shouldn't be visible in a 7000 year old Universe. There are many more but these are just a few. “If we look at things with a young earth view I find serious problems. When did the Chixculub meteor impact earth? There was only a global nuclear winter that devastated life on earth. As a result we have a band [K–Pg] that is global in scale showing evidence of fires and containing iridium. When did this happen in the biblical model of time?” Again we encounter a problem with making such bold claims about what happened in the past. See; http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S24/11/90M29/index.xml?section Claims pertaining to what has happened in the past will always remain subject to adjustments and revision – because the claims themselves were never scientifically observed. LOL, I don't care about the dinosaur extinction and I'm well aware that there are scientists with differing views on that. Using the biblical timescale, WHEN did this meteor impact take place? Did anyone notice the earth was on fire and the sun wasn't shining like it used to? You're also referencing an article that talks about very deep time, I find that ironic. Anyway, I don't care about the extinction, I'm asking how life on Earth just goes on while all hell breaks loose from a meteor impact. Usually this is attempted to be solved by just tossing it in with the global flood event. “I heard about this a while back and in what I was reading there WAS suggestion that iron [i think it was iron] could enable proteins to last that long. After I typed this up I found the article I believe I read a while back:” This further demonstrates the power of the naturalistic bias. What this experiment shows is that proteins soaked in artificially concentrated levels of haemoglobin, in laboratory controlled conditions, can preserve soft tissue for 2 years. This is taken as evidence that tissues encountering haemoglobin at naturally occurring levels, in unideal conditions, can survive for 65-199 million years. Do you seriously contest that secular science is separate from faith? What they showed is that there is a mechanism for preserving tissue. From the article: Dinosaurs' iron-rich blood, combined with a good environment for fossilization, may explain the amazing existence of soft tissue from the Cretaceous (a period that lasted from about 65.5 million to 145.5 million years ago) and even earlier. The specimens Schweitzer works with, including skin, show evidence of excellent preservation. The bones of these various specimens are articulated, not scattered, suggesting they were buried quickly. They're also buried in sandstone, which is porous and may wick away bacteria and reactive enzymes that would otherwise degrade the bone. They are offering a potential way that soft tissue can be preserved, I think you mischaracterize them as if they are just being less than honest or just covering up a problem. If presupposition disqualifies a person from considering the evidence, then every human is disqualified. Presupposition and "personal revelation" aren't the same thing. It's not about starting points, it's about the idea of changing scientific inquiry such that it includes "personal revelation". Then to be honest, I don't know that you've ever suggested clearly what it is that you'd change about scientific inquiry. I'm still trying to get a handle on what it is that you're proposing. There is no contradiction in my position. My paradigm considers the possibility of natural and supernatural explanations. The naturalistic paradigm only considers the possibility of natural explanations, and dismisses the possibility of supernatural explanations. So which perspective is more restrictive when it comes to consideration of truth based on the facts? Your paradigm supports supernatural explanations that would not conflict with scripture, isn't that more accurate? Regarding your desire to include supernatural explanations, Laplace said it best "I have no need for that hypothesis". Hey again Bonkey, You said “As both you and the article admit, there is mechanism that would possibly explain why the pollen is found there. I'm not aware of a mechanism that would explain why a fossilized rabbit would be found there. Pollen is a bit different from a rabbit, pollen gets into all kinds of places because of the fact that it's extremely small grains floating here there and everywhere. I don't know if subduction could cause a fossil to go that far down, that may not even be reasonable at all. So if there isn't a mechanism that is plausible to explain the rabbit fossil, then I'd say that's a separate case.” So to falsify “evolution”, we have to specifically find a rabbit fossil in Precambrian rock. But we are in no sense falling over ourselves to preserve the faith paradigm underpinning Common Ancestry – I.e. by moving and narrowing the goalposts – that’s definitively not what we’re doing. Pollen was not discovered on the rock, but in the rock. The author examined the possibility of contamination and determined that “by no conceivable means could the pollen (and spores) have entered the metamorphosed sediments from the outside. They are dense impermeable rocks compressed by an overburden of hundreds of feet” (Stainforth, Nature Vol. 210, 1966). Bailey (Nature Vol. 202, 1964), who tested these claims, found “The rocks concerned … are physically dense, with no obvious routes (such as natural permeability/porosity or crack systems) through which solid particles might enter them. Yet standard palynological techniques recovered well-preserved fossil pollen from the samples!!!” - so all of the actual observations suggest that pollen entered the layer before it completed forming (allegedly 1.7 billion years ago). I’m not sure how “subduction” could beam pollen fossils into hardened rock. Burial intrusions can explain larger organisms found out-of-place (such as rabbits). It’s much more difficult to extend the range 1.3 billion years without anyone noticing – so we’ll just leave it for now and hope no one brings it up till we find an answer “And if that happens to be the case, then I'd be on your side criticizing the scientists for doing that” Then feel free to join me brother. Nevertheless you appear to have missed my point – which is that the unobserved nature of past claims provides us with the opportunity to employ logical work-arounds to account for contrary observations. Therefore a rabbit fossil in Precambrian rocks is insufficient to warrant the necessary rejection of “evolution”. “Shouldn't we see pollen everywhere in the geologic column? We're bringing up a couple of extreme examples where we find pollen where it shouldn't be, but shouldn't this be the norm if the creation story is true? Like I was saying earlier, pollen gets everywhere!” Just in case you are unaware, the creationist model considers sedimentary layers to represent the flood and post-flood period. I would expect mature pollens to be stripped from a plant early in a deluge. In terms of the geological column, since angiosperms are land organisms, and most plant material floats, I would expect their fossils to be generally above marine fossil layers, but beneath land mammal fossil layers. Note that rather than investigate creationist models, how prone you are to applying silly assumptions to our position; presuming to provide us with an overly simplistic model. In order for pollen to get “everywhere” (ignoring for a moment all the hydraulic and geophysical forces in play during a global flood – and just sticking to the issue of pollen), we would have to assume that an abundance of angiosperms were releasing pollens from mature flowers at the start of the deluge. The vast majority of angiosperms are pollinated by other organisms (e.g. insects) – very few angiosperms are wind pollinated. If the rain started early or late in the day, then most flowers would be closed; all the time assuming that the flowers were in season. Many flowers utilise temporal maturation separation between stigmas and anthers etc. So your pollen-“everywhere”, creationist model assumes an awful lot of things about my model, that my model doesn’t actually claim. “I suppose if the evidence shapes up 99% of the time and you find an example or two where things are what you expect it may be viewed as an unsolved anomaly” And there we have the logical ‘out’ for any contrary evidence discovered – rendering the discovered facts to be meaningless. What does “if the evidence shapes up” mean? Does this concept incorporate all those times where contrary evidence forces a redesign of the hypothesis? Does it consider the context of the very same facts being consistent with a completely different hypotheses? The ever-present possibility of “an unsolved anomaly” entirely makes my point about all historical models being unfalsifiable. Faith means high confidence in a claim; independent of our capacity to verify the claim “That seems like a definition that differs from the dictionary and the Bible. Are you aware of that?” So you would like me to justify my definition of faith – Ok then. I’m not overly concerned with unsupported claims about dictionary definitions. If you look hard enough, you’ll usually find a definition skewed to your own beliefs. E.g. atheists like to denigrate faith by defining it as confidence in the absence of evidence. I would call that blind-faith. Christianity does not promote blind faith. The Bible admonishes Christians to "test all things", to think about (“meditate on”) why we believe what we do, to pursue knowledge, truth and wisdom, to question the validity of human philosophies, to apply “reason” to the defence of our beliefs etc. Even without external support, the Bible itself is a form of recorded testimony, and therefore qualifies as evidence. So there is a rational distinction between faith, and blind-faith. Belief is a general term covering a broad spectrum of confidence – so in some contexts can be used interchangeably with faith (high confidence). The Greek word pistis is the main word translated as “faith” in the New Testament. Most Greek dictionaries define pistis simply as trust. I don’t see any inconsistency here with my definition. My definition contains extra information to distinguish it from blind faith. The Bible sometimes uses the phrase “the faith” – which can mean ‘the Christian belief system’. The meaning is pretty obvious when read in context (see 2 Corinthians 13:5, Galatians 1:23, Colossians 2:7, 1 Timothy 4:1, Jude 1:3 etc.). I don’t think I’ve used faith this way during our discussion. Faith is distinct from knowledge; which is confidence based on strong evidential support (as determined by the claimant). So what term would you use to describe “high confidence in a claim; independent of our capacity to verify the claim”? “If supernatural causes can't be verified, then why would anyone suggest them?” - Because of the logical possibility of them being true - Because they are consistent with a preferred faith paradigm Naturalistic causes for historical claims cannot be verified. They are “suggested” for the same reasons. “I'm pointing out that when faced with a troubling mystery, he resorting to supernatural explanations and Laplace showed they weren't needed. … I don't have anything against there being a creator God that created our Universe, I'm just not convinced that we need one to explain the Universe.” You are confusing two concepts; the existence of a logically plausibe natural explanation with verification of God’s non-involvement. Just because you can formulate a logically plausible story to account for a past claim doesn’t mean it actually happened that way. ‘God isn’t logically required’ is a different logical construct to ‘God wasn’t involved”. You also speak as though we commonly default to a god-of-the-gaps strategy – which is just another strawman misrepresentation of our position. We have a model of reality that permits supernatural explanations – I don’t think that is in dispute. But we are only permitted to dogmatically appeal to the supernatural when the claim is explicit in our model. We cannot claim God’s involvement with any confidence unless the Bible tells us that God was involved. So there is no logical reversion involved (i.e. we don’t dogmatically claim God was involved because we have no other explanation. We may suggest the possibility, but it doesn’t truly represent our position unless solidly supported by scripture). “To demand that I should be convinced is asking me to resort to an argument from ignorance” I have not demanded you be “convinced” by anything. Neither have I utilised argument from ignorance in any of my positions. I haven’t even claimed my position to be true. And I certainly haven’t based my confidence on lack of evidence to the contrary. I can interpret all of the facts to be consistent with my preferred model of reality. Therefore my model is validly available to objective consideration and scrutiny. Likewise, the secular community can interpret all of the facts to be consistent with their preferred model of reality. And therefore their model is also validly available to objective consideration and scrutiny. The only issue here is that the secular community thinks their model is the only valid model because it’s the one that agrees with their preferred faith perspective. “Who knows what the true nature is of our Universe and why it's here etc etc...I can imagine the answer being something that surprises us all” Or maybe the Biblical God really is the eternal Creator of the universe and has communicated its nature to humanity through the Bible. “If you were to "fix" scientific inquiry how would you do so? Explain what this would look like if we were to consider non-naturalistic [or whatever] sources of data” I’m not trying to “fix” anything. My goal is to provoke advocates of secular models to consider the quality of the logic underpinning their position - to the end that they are capable of giving fair and objective consideration to other positions. The only kind of observation available to science is current, naturally occurring phenomena. The only way to test claims about either the past, or supernatural, is through indirect methods such as modelling. The secular community is happy to use this method to investigate the past but baulks when it comes to applying identical logic to examine supernatural claims. The logical weakness of indirect modelling is the same across the board; namely that confidence attributed to the initial claim necessarily requires the application of the logical fallacy Affirming the Consequent. “Okay, so I'm at a complete loss on what it is your suggesting we do to make scientific inquiry more fair or open to other possibilities and do so in a way that gets us anywhere” I’m only suggesting that we apply objectivity to the process. Operational science is a separate issue since it can only utilise currently available, natural facts (until we invent a time-machine or spirit-o-metre – so we can make the necessary observations required to attribute legitimate scientific confidence). Science is the main way we pursue knowledge. Science is supposed to be objective (i.e. it is not the pursuit of naturalistic knowledge, but knowledge; regardless of the faith preferences of those involved). The facts can be interpreted to support (at least) two contrary models of reality. Therefore both have equal scientific legitimacy. Both have strengths and weaknesses in logic and evidence. Some evidence better supports one over the other and vice versa, though this somewhat subjective. Therefore the dismissal of one model from consideration can only be justified by faith preference. Such a dismissal is not justified through scientific reasoning. “Would you say that the existence of God is an absolute "must be true" fact?” No “If you say "no" then we're back to this God needs to be established first before we worry about referring to it/him when establishing scientific theories.” Why? – The specific purpose of hypothesis formulation is an attempt to explain what is not known. No one has “established” that reality is independent of God. No one has “established” that the Big Bang ever occurred, or that a subsequent inflationary event occurred, or that dark matter and dark energy actually exist – yet these claims are fundamental to the prevailing naturalistic model of the history of the universe (i.e. Standard Cosmology). It has always been difficult for naturalistic faiths to comprehend that their foundational claims about reality and God are as much faith as foundational religious claims about reality and God. They oddly never feel quite so compelled to ‘establish’ the faith limitations of their own perspective before engaging in investigation. Simple observations such as causality, order, function and complexity provide justification enough to hypothesise the existence of a Creator. “The gospel Matthew goes spends a lot of time trying to establish Christ as divine and he does so by referring to the power he was able to exhibit” Actually, Matthew focusses comparatively little on divine power (i.e. compared to say, the gospel of John). Matthew’s main argument is to demonstrate Jesus’ legitimacy through His fulfilment of Old Testament Messianic prophecies, and by linking Jesus to Messianic promises made to Abraham and David, and by establishing His royal lineage. Matthew 7:22-23 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 1 John 4:1 4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Clearly, the Bible teaches that supernatural power is insufficient to establish that a person represents God. Mind you, it’s compelling evidence – but deeper scrutiny is required. "being born of a virgin and rising from the dead doesn't establish that everything you say will be true or that you are the Son of any God. That's not the topic here, I just wanted to throw that in b/c if Hitchens is right, technically the Creator embraces illogical arguments" ... The Bible is very clear that not all who operate in supernatural power represent truth or God. The problem here is that you (and Hitchens) are making assumptions about our beliefs that are over-simplistic and untrue “I don't see why Hitchens or myself is way off base” You are off base because you have accused the Bible of being “illogical” based on an argument that the Bible doesn’t actually make; i.e. based on a misrepresentation of our beliefs (aka a Strawman fallacy). “Also, if incredible displays of power don't establish truth, then doesn't that put any claim in the Bible into question [especially new testament miracles etc and what they mean]?” Every claim is always open to “question”. The point you appear to be missing here is that there are other lines of evidence are used to establish Jesus’ legitimacy – on top of the manifestations of divine power. Just for added information, the power Jesus manifested on earth was from the Holy Spirit, not Himself. To qualify as our Saviour, Jesus had to live as a human. So the miracles were accomplished by faith – not Jesus’ divinity. I think you have missed my point which is – Historical claims are all logically unfalsifiable. So no evidence could immediately warrant the surrendering of faith in any historical model “If the historical claim states that the Earth rests on a giant turtle, it's absolutely falsifiable. So yes, depending on what the claim is, it is falsifiable.” But this is not an historical claim. An historical claim would be phrased ‘The earth rested, at some time in history, on a giant turtle’. There is no way to falsify that claim. You could point to its logical weaknesses, but never confirm its untruth. “Also it's not just about whether facts can be interpreted to mesh with a model of reality, one needs to establish that the model of reality is trustworthy” Comparing the model to the facts is how the trustworthiness of a model is established. “I've watched documentary on tribes in the Amazon, they believe the jungle is literally alive. They can probably interpret facts that are consistent with their model but that doesn't do anything to establish the model is any good” I wouldn’t presume to know the quality of their model before hearing their arguments. You however have prejudged the outcome before giving any consideration to arguments. The Gaia Hypothesis sounds similar in some respects – and is unusually popular among secular scientists (though many are also highly critical of it). “You provided an example that differed from my request, you provided an example that involves pollen and isn't a solid case because of the agreed upon possibility of contamination” You mean the purely speculative possibility of contamination which has no basis in evidence whatsoever; and contradicts the actual observations. You have tried to move the goalposts, but failed due to your being unaware of the various ways larger fossils can legitimately find their way out-of-place (e.g. the various kinds of intrusion burials). The reason “evolution” is unfalsifiable is because the absense of observation for historical claims leaves any contrary find open to being labelled “an intriguing geological mystery”. I provided evidence which you have poorly criticised, but you have failed to provide any argument as to why this same logic could not be applied to a “Precambrian rabbit”. It’s not so much about the pollens, but about the way the evidence can be rendered logically meaningless due to the temporal gap between claim and observation. With regards to past claims, we can always logic our way around the facts. evolutionary range expansions are very common in the scientific literature “I read just the other day that the timeline for homo something-or-other was adjusted a bit because they found evidence of earlier fossils. Is this what you're referring to?” This does sound like a range expansion – though I wouldn’t waste your time with random examples. I’d highlight those examples that forced major revisions of the Common Ancestry story (e.g. having to move and rearrange tetrapod evolution). “If abused, it would be a logical fallacy” So what was the implication of your “not just by random people, but folks who are experts in the relevant fields. I think that has some weight to it” comment, if not to imply that alternative arguments should defer to their expertise. I have no problem with experts weighing in, but their expertise doesn’t undermine my right to scrutinise their arguments. So a general, unsupported comment about the experts agreeing with you, thereby adding “weight” to your claims, is an Appeal to Authority. “it's not JUST that they disagree, for me it's the reason WHY they disagree. Let's be frank, isn't it because any claim or position that calls scripture into question needs to be categorically denied or excluded?” All you’ve demonstrated here is that the creationist faith paradigm also has limitations. Under the naturalistic faith paradigm, non-natural explanations are “categorically denied or excluded”. Under the Biblical faith paradigm, anything that directly contradicts the claims of scripture is scrutinised and disputed. Both paradigms contest and dismiss claims that fall outside of their established purview. In reality, the only dispute arising from these paradigm limitations is regarding unverifiable, unfalsifiable, unobserved, historical claims whose truths only impact the underlying faith premise upon which each paradigm is formulated. In practise, none of these boundaries inhibits any scientific advancement. The logic might slow down the pace of some advancement (as when the evolutionary assumption of vestigiallity delayed research into organs later found to be functional). But there is little other practical impact of these paradigm limitations. Criticising the weakness of an opposing position is a perfectly rational debate strategy “If the criticism has any "teeth" yes. If the rejection is nothing more than "they could be wrong" [as I've seen before] than it can be ignored.” On all sides of the debate you’ll find people who are informed, and others – not so much. I think we’ve established that you haven’t had much opportunity to consider the informed creationist position to any significant degree. Nevertheless, mitigating exaggerated confidence in a claim through pointing out its assumptions and speculations remains a perfectly rational strategy. The scientific method does not mandate that an alternative hypothesis be provided before the right to scrutinise has been met. Each hypothesis must be assessed on its own merits; regardless of the existence of an alternative explanation. According to the preferred creationist model, Greenland ice sheets were accumulated post flood. Creationists also consider sedimentary burial order during the flood to be associated with the habitat and mobility of each organism – so a general pattern of succession is expected in the fossil record “If it was a global flood there are other ice sheets other than Greenland, and they show many many years of seasonal accumulation uninterrupted by any flood” Yes, I am most familiar with the GISP2 ice cores because they are the only ones I’ve studied in any detail. But there are Antarctic cores as well. In both cases, secular models presume them to be millions of years old, and creationist models presume them to be post-flood. “If what you say is true, we should only see what about 4400 years of accumulation? That's a falsifiable claim right?” No it’s not falsifiable. The assumptions of each model determines how we interpret what we find. Under the creationist model, the initial (deeper) ice sheets represent around 700 years of rapid deposition followed by around 3800 years of compression. Therefore we would interpret the lower layers to be metres thick; containing evidence of sub-annual storm deposition. Under the secular model, lower ice sheets represent a presumed ‘standard’ deposition under hundreds-of-thousands to millions of years of compression. Therefore the lower layers are interpreted to be paper thin. The issue in question is – how do we determine what represents each year of deposition? The assumptions of oxygen isotope markers are agreed upon by both parties, but only work for the first few hundred metres. [Noting that this agreement does not necessarily make those assumptions universally accurate.] I don’t know how much detail you want to go into. For now I’ll quote one of the GRISP2 studies; “Fundamentally, in counting any annual marker, we must ask whether it is absolutely unequivocal, or whether non-annual events could mimic or obscure a year. For the visible strata (and, we believe, for any other annual indicator at accumulation rates representative of central Greenland), it is almost certain that variability exists at the sub-seasonal or storm level, at the annual level and for various longer periodicities (2-year, sunspot, etc). We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year or missing a weak indication of a summer and thus picking a 2-year interval as 1 year” (Alley et al. 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 102) -which is a wordy way of saying ‘we have assumed that the markers we have selected represent annual layers, but that is not necessarily the case’. So they have, to their credit, acknowledged their assumptions. It’s also interesting that the first layer-count did not conform to the expectations of the secular model (i.e. at 2800m was ‘out’ by 25000 years/layers). So they went back and tweaked their instruments till they ‘found’ the 25000 extra layers between 2300m and 2800m (Meese et al. 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 102). So to answer your original question, we have to make assumptions about what we expect to find, then make assumptions about how the markers we select equal layers of deposition, then assume that every layer of deposition equals one year. The method relies on too many assumptions to be falsifiable. “Are you suggesting that "mobile" animals will show up at the top of the fossil record and immobile at the bottom?” What I presented was a very small example of a highly complex model – to give you an idea of the reasoning employed. Under the flood-based model, we would expect sediment deposition to generally be reflected by early stages of the flooding. For example, the first sediment deposition would occur through run off in the deeper oceans. So at the lowest layers we would expect to find things which live under the ocean floor – like marine worms – then deep ocean sedentary creatures (plants/algae and corals etc.), then mobile creatures with a greater capacity to escape the initial inundation. We would subsequently expect that general pattern to be repeated for shallow habitats and on land. Obviously, this is still a very general representation of a much broader and more complex model. It doesn’t address for pre-flood fossils or prokaryotes or species abundance or terrestrial-marine overlap or the capacity of an organism to float or swim etc. Fossilisation also requires very specific conditions, so we likely lost most of the drowned organisms to decay. “The strongest, fastest animal can't stop itself from drowning and being swept away in a current” I would suggest to you that birds are better adapted to survive a flooding event than moss. Therefore, I think it is rational to assume that birds would remain alive in the air, or on flotsam, or on higher ground, or in high trees long after the mosses had been entombed in sediments. And therefore it would be surprising for a creationist to find a bird deeper in the fossil record. You need to justify the implication that I have ignored the “bigger picture” “I was merely stating that I wouldn't expect issues to arise based on the work you do. I'm looking at the wide range of data in any field that's relevant. You seem a bit edgy and suspicious, I'm not attacking you” And apart from some pre-existent creationist stereotype, why should you assume that I am incapable of “looking at the wide range of data in any field that's relevant”. Innuendo is a strategy that attempts to use unstated insinuation to undermine an opposing position. Therefore I will call it where I see it. I didn’t take it personally, though I am now “suspicious” that you are trying to misrepresent me as overly precious. If I could offer an interpretation of all of those very same facts, individually and collectively, so that they are consistent with the Biblical model, then my model also represents a logically valid “bigger picture”. “Not until you've shown that this model is worth anything” I have made a testable claim that creationists can interpret all of the very same facts the secular models uses, but to be consistent with Biblical creationism. There is no point to me presenting random evidence of my position because 1) you will just demonstrate that there is a secular interpretation (of which I am already aware) and 2) random examples have no capacity to undermine your naturalistic presupposition. The best way to test my claim is for you to provide facts which you think cannot be accounted for by my model, and for me to demonstrate otherwise – as we have started to do with ice cores and Chicxulub. “I'm just saying, that your position requires that every test that concludes deep time must be way off. We're not talking about one type of measurement, various methods of radio decay, ice core dating, the measurement of distant stars that shouldn't be visible in a 7000 year old Universe. There are many more but these are just a few.” And yet I am not disputing any fact produced by these tests. But age cannot be directly measured. All of these methods require hefty applications of assumptions – which in turn are dependent upon faith presuppositions. On top of which, the propaganda that all these methods are in broad agreement does not accurately represent the data – as can be evidenced in the scientific literature. With each method there are ways of logically rejecting contrary “ages” – so as to give the impression that all “ages” agree (since all ‘accepted’ ages agree – and can you guess what determines whether or not an “age” qualifies as accepted?). If we look at things with a young earth view I find serious problems. When did the Chixculub meteor impact earth? There was only a global nuclear winter that devastated life on earth. As a result we have a band [K–Pg] that is global in scale showing evidence of fires and containing iridium. When did this happen in the biblical model of time? Again we encounter a problem with making such bold claims about what happened in the past. See; http://www.princeton...dex.xml?section Claims pertaining to what has happened in the past will always remain subject to adjustments and revision – because the claims themselves were never scientifically observed. “Using the biblical timescale, WHEN did this meteor impact take place?” What “meteor”? What we have is a crater. Ravilious (2004, New Scientist, Vol. 182) has proposed that such craters could result from flood basalt Verneshot events. Keller et al. (2004, PNAS, Vol. 101) has demonstrated that the Chicxulub crater formation does not align with the other evidence you proposed. “You're also referencing an article that talks about very deep time, I find that ironic” Unjustifiably so. I am able to make the fundamental scientific distinction between the empirical and theoretical. I can distinguish between facts and hypotheses and interpretations and assumptions and presuppositions – as should any moderately trained scientist. If I refused to consider secular sources of information I would be accused of ignoring facts. I am sometimes accused of that anyway by virtue of being a creationist. “I don't care about the extinction, I'm asking how life on Earth just goes on while all hell breaks loose from a meteor impact” You’ll have to send me the video. “Usually this is attempted to be solved by just tossing it in with the global flood event” Presumably you understand that pre-stating an opponent’s position doesn’t actually undermine it in any logical sense. According to the creationist model there are three possibilities; pre, intra or post flood. The global flood model incorporates massive geological upheaval – as one would expect from the massive hydraulic forces produced by a global flood. I would suggest that the crater probably appeared (by meteor or Verneshot event) late during the flood – since it was not filled-in with sediment. “What they showed is that there is a mechanism for preserving tissue” What they actually showed is that there is a mechanism for preserving tissue for two years in artificial laboratory conditions; conditions which do not resemble what is found in nature. “They are offering a potential way that soft tissue can be preserved, I think you mischaracterize them as if they are just being less than honest or just covering up a problem” I didn’t address their motivations – I addressed the ridiculous disparity between the evidence and its suggested implications. It is not credible to suggest that this evidence provides a plausible mechanism of such long-term preservation. Extrapolations of such ridiculous magnitudes are only ever embraced when required in support of naturalistic models (e.g. radiometric dating methods do the same). There is nothing in this study that would make such long-term preservation of tissue plausible. If this evidence is acceptable, why not just say that dinosaurs had formaldehyde running through their veins? It’s a more efficient cross-linking preservative than iron – but only preserves soft tissue to a magnitude of hundreds of years (and therefore is disqualified as a naturalistic tissue preserver). But apparently the less efficient preservative (and the one that hasn’t been observed for hundreds of years) has some undiscovered and undescribed property allowing it to preserve tissue for hundreds of millions of years. I do think the nonsensically exaggerated application of this research speaks volumes about their motivations – which you obviously do as well by how you have interpreted my comments. It is entirely grasping at straws. It’s only plausible to those who are desperate to defend the naturalistic time frame. A more obvious interpretation is that these tissues are much younger than the secular story permits. No need to appeal to the mystic properties of iron. “Presupposition and "personal revelation" aren't the same thing. It's not about starting points, it's about the idea of changing scientific inquiry such that it includes "personal revelation". Then to be honest, I don't know that you've ever suggested clearly what it is that you'd change about scientific inquiry. I'm still trying to get a handle on what it is that you're proposing” I haven’t said anything about “personal revelation”. I haven’t proposed any change to “scientific enquiry” – apart from correcting the popular bias based on allegiance to the naturalistic faith paradigm; such that other faith paradigms can be subjected to objective consideration. “Your paradigm supports supernatural explanations that would not conflict with scripture, isn't that more accurate?” My paradigm considers the logical possibility of both natural and supernatural explanations. Yes, my paradigm has limitations (as discussed above), but it still encompasses the possibility of natural explanations within those limitations. “Regarding your desire to include supernatural explanations, Laplace said it best "I have no need for that hypothesis"” And I have no need of naturalistic stories about the unobserved history of life and the universe. You have an explanation and I have an explanation. The difference is – I can disagree with your explanation without marginalising it as irrational, invalid, illogical, dangerous, ignorant or unscientific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tristen Posted June 29, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 9 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 2,367 Content Per Day: 0.63 Reputation: 1,340 Days Won: 1 Joined: 01/26/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 29, 2014 Hey again Bonkey, I thought it might save us some time if I summarise my perspective on a couple of points we’ve discussed. (A) I have proposed that all historical claims are unfalsifiable. You responded by claiming that Common Ancestry could be falsified by finding a rabbit in Precambrian rock. My argument is that even if you found a rabbit in Precambrian rock, that fact would be insufficient to force a rejection of Common Ancestry; namely because there is always the logical possibility of the rabbit entering the rock after the rock had formed by some currently unknown, undescribed method. That is, we could always say, “Yes – we found a rabbit fossil in Precambrian rock, No – we don’t know how it got there, But there remains the logical possibility that the rabbit entered the rock, subsequent to the rock’s formation, by some (yet to be determined) means” Then I presented evidence of this logic being employed to account for pollen found in Precambrian rock. - Yes – we found pollen fossils in Precambrian rock OR “The rocks concerned are unquestionably ancient (Precambrian) … Yet standard palynological techniques recovered well-preserved fossil pollen from the samples” - No – we don’t know how it got there OR “by no conceivable means could the pollen (and spores) have entered the metamorphosed sediments from the outside” - But there remains the logical possibility that the pollen entered the rock, subsequent to the rock’s formation, by some (yet to be determined) means OR “it remains an intriguing geological mystery” Now you have criticised the example, but what is required is that you explain how such a find would logically force the necessary rejection of Common Ancestry (i.e. falsify Common Ancestry). Without that explanation, Common Ancestry remains unfalsifiable. (B) We are debating two versions of reality; Faith premise 1: God has interacted with the universe in accordance with the Biblical account Faith premise 2: No God has interacted with the universe - A model (including sub-models) of unobserved history has been formulated within the parameters of faith premise 1 (model 1) - A model (including sub-models) of unobserved history has been formulated within the parameters of faith premise 2 (model 2) - All of the currently available evidence can be rationally interpreted to conform to model 1 - All of the currently available evidence can be rationally interpreted to conform to model 2 - None of the historical claims underpinning model 1 have been scientifically observed - None of the historical claims underpinning model 2 have been scientifically observed - Therefore model 1 is logically unfalsifiable - Therefore model 2 is logically unfalsifiable Now advocates of model 2 claim that their model is the only scientifically valid model. Since the same logical methodology is applied to both models throughout, and since the only point of difference is the fundamental faith premises, I have to assume that this claim of exclusive validity is founded in faith, rather than objective scientific reasoning. Hope this clears up my position a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macs Son Posted June 30, 2014 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 261 Content Per Day: 0.07 Reputation: 79 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/07/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 30, 2014 Can y'all PLEASE just quote what you are responding to??? Requoting a long, long series of posts every time is confusing and dissuades others from reading your posts (especially when posts are in quotaton marks; it's easier to use the 'quote' feature). It works much better if you delete everything except what you wish to respond to before you post. Just a suggestion.....but it makes it easier for everyone. Am I the only one here who thinks that a debate on evolution should have it own thread and not be integrated with a thread on the big bang? It appears to me that we have completely diverged from the named topic - I know this not the first time I have encountered this phenomena in my short stint but it does seem to be somewhat inappropriate, not to mention a very inefficient method on focusing on a single subject. Maybe we can just change the thread name to evolution since this is truly what is being debated? Sorry if I offend - it's just a suggestion.In Christ, Pat Hi Pat, The Biblical creation account incorporates the creation of both the universe and life. The naturalistic models separate these into temporally disparate events. Since the same logic is used to justify both, and since it is this logic I am questioning, it shouldn’t matter whether we are dealing with Standard Cosmology (incorporating Big Bang) or Common Ancestry. Also, the two secular models are related. The history proposed by Standard Cosmology provides the massive time-frames required to make Common Ancestry plausible. The Big Bang says the universe had a beginning and we have evidences that there was a great universal expansion. That is the same thing that Genesis maintains; "yes it had a beginning". It also follows many other Scriptures, such as the Lord stretched the heavens out - stretching and expansion being the same things. So I guess I fail to see how the evidence of "a big bang" so called - no scientist worth their salt calls it an explosion, it was an expansion and that expansion can be in the waves and ripples that permeate space. So I have yet to hear any Scripture that negates that. And I have not heard what logic determines the that the theory of evolution and the Big Bang evidence are linked. I myself do believe there was a beginning and the evidence of that is in much of what we call the Big Bang but I do not believe in evolution as Darwin defines it. Of course I do believe that we, whether passed from this life are still living when the Lord comes back will physically change our nature but that is by an act of the creator changing us from mere men to have bodies like Christ, the Son of Man, impervious to death and our spiritually new nature manifests itself in the physical. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." -1Corinthians 15:52-54 In Christ, Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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