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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: 'Serious' Creation Science?
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm happy for this to be moved to Dead Horses if necessary, but I don't want it to turn into a for/against thread as such.
I'm not a scientist. I've got an O'Level in Geology but was so arty as a kid that I used to switch off during science lessons so couldn't be bothered with Physics, Chemistry and Biology ... ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
I'm not proud of that.
A very conservative friend has asked me to substantiate a claim I'd made second-hand - from a quite conservative Christian who've studied Zoology at PhD level - that there are no 'serious scientists' who believe that the world/universe is 6,000 years old.
Even I can see that a lot (most?) Creationist websites are kooky, but IS there any serious Creationist science out there and if so, how does it differ from the kooky variety?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Short answer - there is no such entity as "creation science". The words contradict. There is no data to support, with ID - intelligent design - the last great try. It was merely creationism decorated with the language of science. I would rather debate serious "spaghetti monsterism
I'm not sure about it being a dead horse in either the ship or normal sense, but it is not really a debate among people whose schools actually followed a reasonable science syllabus, which I understand is sacrificed to politics in some places.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There are some people, like the NASA rocket scientist on Premier, who think that their savant abilities entitle them to 'opinions'.
I've found the trick with YECists who say that by denying the wooden literal truth of Genesis ... one is denying Christ as personal saviour (and they ALL say that), is that they are cowards denying their need for the same by hiding behind the sins of Adam and not taking full, personal responsibility for them.
To fill in the dots, if you deny woodenism, then you deny A&E's (original) sin and your need for deliverance from that in Jesus. And if you can't believe woodenism then how can you believe in Jesus?
Seriously, they ALL believe that. Those themes always go togther. Now I know sin is a dirty word around good liberal folk, who are perfect and have nothing to repent of and are ready for their entitlement of transcendence right now, but play these blighters at their own game and funnily enough, they melt away.
Seriously Gamaliel, you have to turn reality in to a pack of lies, make God the arch deceiver, to reconcile science with woodenist creation.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
no prophet -
Please define the word 'science'.
Please explain how, in your view, it is supposed to work and therefore how it a priori excludes the idea of an intelligent creator.
Thank you.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
no prophet -
Please define the word 'science'.
Please explain how, in your view, it is supposed to work and therefore how it a priori excludes the idea of an intelligent creator.
I can say how the idea of an intelligent creator a priori excludes the idea that it could be discovered by science. God is not part of creation. God is the creator. Science can talk about differences and distinctions within creation, but God isn't one of those. The only difference God makes within creation is that creation exists.
There is no difference in nature or kind between a created universe and an uncreated universe. Being created is not a property of the universe. If there were a difference in nature, if being created were a property, there would be something God couldn't create - an uncreated universe. But also, God couldn't create a created universe either: if God set out to do so, God would create a created created universe, and so on along an infinite logical redress. Therefore having been created is not a property. Therefore, there can be no empirical or observable properties in the universe from which it could be deduced that it was created.
Cosmological arguments may be valid, since they start not from this or that contingent fact or property, but from the conditions of existence of any facts. But arguments from design can never say anything about a creator.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
Martin PC: can you please explain 'woodenism'?
no prophet:
quote:
Short answer - there is no such entity as "creation science". The words contradict. There is no data to support, with ID - intelligent design - the last great try. It was merely creationism decorated with the language of science.
I agree. Science is mankind's search for knowledge; there is method and it requires rigour. Anyone intending to discover our origins and history starting from a religious document should not be confusing themselves or anyone else by using the word 'science'.
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Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
A very conservative friend has asked me to substantiate a claim I'd made second-hand - from a quite conservative Christian who've studied Zoology at PhD level - that there are no 'serious scientists' who believe that the world/universe is 6,000 years old.
Even I can see that a lot (most?) Creationist websites are kooky, but IS there any serious Creationist science out there and if so, how does it differ from the kooky variety?
I don't think the question in the second paragraph follows at all from the statement in the first paragraph.
A creationist scientist, in this sense, is not someone who studies creation science. It's a scientist who believes in creation.
It's perfectly possible to study a wide range of science without one's creationist beliefs even coming into it. Science is primarily about data, investigating 'how' in the present tense. Material about 'why' is often very tangential to it.
Certainly, you could study a vast amount of biology and obtain massive quantities of fascinating data about life on this planet as it currently exists while avoiding most conversations about how it got to be here in the first place.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've got an O'Level in Geology
Then you're probably better qualified than most YECers.
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
Check out biologos.org.
Science and faith/religion are two very different, but not necessarily contradictory things. Religion examines the questions of who, and why, whereas science looks at how.
That being said, there are Iindeed few if any "credible" scientists who are "creationists" of the literal creation 6000 years ago in one week, with each separate species placed on earth fully formed. One can certainly be a scientist who believes in " creation " in the sense of there being a creator who set the whole thing rolling, and even that said creator may guide the way things go...but the methods this creator uses are those which we observe and can analyze scientifically.
Posts: 764 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Certainly, you could study a vast amount of biology and obtain massive quantities of fascinating data about life on this planet as it currently exists while avoiding most conversations about how it got to be here in the first place.
I'm not sure about that. Riffing off Rutherford's assertion that "all science is either physics or stamp collecting", Williamm McComas countered:
quote:
Without evolution, biology would simply be little more than a kind of 'natural history stamp collecting' in which individual species are discarded, examined and identified as individual entities with no apparent link between them and anything else in the living world.
In other words, descent with modification is what makes biology a systematic body of knowledge instead a collection of trivia.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
No, sorry, I don't agree at all. That might be true at certain 'levels' of biological study, but biology encompasses everything from ecology down to biochemistry and molecular biology.
Having spent my time at university studying the latter two, evolutionary questions really don't come up all that often. Yes, there are times that the questions DO come up, but the quest for understanding how key biochemical processes work can be happily undertaken while barely touching upon the evolutionary questions - not least because some of the really key processes haven't "evolved" much at all, ie they are present in a vast range of organisms.
Only the other week a nature documentary pointed out to me that cyanide is poisonous to insects as well as humans. Now, from my biochemistry study I know WHY cyanide is poisonous, and it was completely fascinating stuff to learn in the course of understanding how cells produce energy, and it's quite vital information in terms of medicine. But it doesn't require any knowledge of evolution.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Frankly, the most obvious demonstration that it's possible to be a serious scientist without believing in evolution is that there were many centuries of serious scientists before the theory of evolution was even written.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
no prophet -
Please define the word 'science'.
Please explain how, in your view, it is supposed to work and therefore how it a priori excludes the idea of an intelligent creator.
Thank you.
Others appear to have responded. There is a wealth of information about science at your fingertips on the googlenet. God is exterior to science, and attempts to prove, disprove or show God's influence are doomed to failure. They are matters of faith. This is further discussed in the scepticism thread currently running. I hold this, and suggest that neither belief nor science should stray from what they are meant for.
'Creation science', that oxymoron, fails because it strays. I think it further fails because it fails to consider how utterly vast and incredible the universe is, in size, in scope and wonder. To think only that life on this little planet was all God has been bothered with ignores the incredibleness of it all. We will fail everytime we attempt to confine God and the universe to our perceptions. Science is the best tool we've ever had as humans to apprise us of its actuality. I prefer to think of those who hold the ideas of "creation science" to be true or possible as "cretan scientists", and related narrow faith based notions of "intelligent design" signifying lack of knowledge and unintelligence. Nothing science ever will propose provides a challenge to belief, if anything, if we are open to consider we haven't but just begun to understand the universe and life, it stands a chance to expand and enhance our beliefs. We will probably have to let go of some unbelievable things to get there. Some of us have started.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Frankly, the most obvious demonstration that it's possible to be a serious scientist without believing in evolution is that there were many centuries of serious scientists before the theory of evolution was even written.
You're having a Bill Clinton verb tense problem. For centuries people thought the sun went around the earth, too. It WAS possible to believe that THEN, and be a serious scientist. It is NOT possible to believe it NOW and be a serious scientist.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Having spent my time at university studying the latter two, evolutionary questions really don't come up all that often. Yes, there are times that the questions DO come up, but the quest for understanding how key biochemical processes work can be happily undertaken while barely touching upon the evolutionary questions - not least because some of the really key processes haven't "evolved" much at all, ie they are present in a vast range of organisms.
Ummm, isn't that a result of evolution? That the common use of the hox genes, for example, by a wide variety of species during early development really only seems to make sense in light of common ancestry? In other words, doesn't the idea that "the really key processes" are the same or similar across "a vast range of organisms" derive from the idea of common descent?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
You were right the first time, Gameliel. This is a DH thread.
--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host
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This space left blank intentionally.
Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
In other words, doesn't the idea that "the really key processes" are the same or similar across "a vast range of organisms" derive from the idea of common descent?
The idea of common descent is a (partial) explanation. (*) But the idea that the key processes are the same or similar is a matter of observation rather than deduction.
It's a fair bet that if there is life on other planets, a lot of macroscopic organisms that move through liquid will be fish-shaped, and any sufficiently advanced visual organs will look much like vertebrate/cephalopod eyes. That's due to contraints from physics. It's an open question whether there are other possible chemical bases for life, or whether the chemical constraints mean that what we've got is the most efficient thing. If aliens are poisoned by cyanide common descent won't be the reason.
In general I think common descent shows its true power in explaining variation rather than commonality, and in explaining inefficiency rather than explaining efficiency. Anything can explain why fish are streamlined; only inheritance with modification can explain the shape of the human birth canal.
(*) Creationism is an explanation that's degenerate - it 'explains', but the explanation has nothing further to say.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Having spent my time at university studying the latter two, evolutionary questions really don't come up all that often. Yes, there are times that the questions DO come up, but the quest for understanding how key biochemical processes work can be happily undertaken while barely touching upon the evolutionary questions - not least because some of the really key processes haven't "evolved" much at all, ie they are present in a vast range of organisms.
Ummm, isn't that a result of evolution? That the common use of the hox genes, for example, by a wide variety of species during early development really only seems to make sense in light of common ancestry? In other words, doesn't the idea that "the really key processes" are the same or similar across "a vast range of organisms" derive from the idea of common descent?
But is not creation by God equally a 'common ancestry', in that sense? God is indeed a terribly easy answer for "oh look, this excellent system is consistently used".
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Frankly, the most obvious demonstration that it's possible to be a serious scientist without believing in evolution is that there were many centuries of serious scientists before the theory of evolution was even written.
You're having a Bill Clinton verb tense problem. For centuries people thought the sun went around the earth, too. It WAS possible to believe that THEN, and be a serious scientist. It is NOT possible to believe it NOW and be a serious scientist.
No, you're missing my point. There are large areas of scientific study that people were able to carry out very well without a belief that the earth went around the sun. Astronomy may have been hampered by the error, but was science in general? Was there ever a point where all scientific progress halted until the heliocentric nature of the solar system was recognised?
Similarly, there may well be areas where a creationist would either hit a brick wall or come up with ridiculous results. But I simply don't think that precludes a creationist from being a scientist FULL STOP. It precludes them from being a scientist in those areas.
To treat evolution as some kind of foundational building block of all science is to exaggerate its importance. It simply isn't. It's a very important part of one branch of science - biology - but even there it is NOT the be-all and end-all such that a person disinterested in evolution is precluded from investigating and discovering more about how the world works in the here and now and finding applications for that knowledge.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Ummm, isn't that a result of evolution? That the common use of the hox genes, for example, by a wide variety of species during early development really only seems to make sense in light of common ancestry? In other words, doesn't the idea that "the really key processes" are the same or similar across "a vast range of organisms" derive from the idea of common descent?
But is not creation by God equally a 'common ancestry', in that sense? God is indeed a terribly easy answer for "oh look, this excellent system is consistently used".
It's an easy answer, but not a very descriptive one. If we accept that all life forms were created separately by God, then there should be no reason to expect any correlation between phenotypic similarity and body chemistry. There's no reason that a human (created by God) should necessarily have more metabolic similarity to a chimpanzee (also created by God) than to a pumpkin (still created by God).
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I remember asking a creationist why God had made the Algerian nuthatch, a classic case of geographical separation (from the main European population of nuthatches), presumably leading to speciation, and he said, rather disarmingly, 'because it pleased him to'. Ah well.
[ 23. January 2013, 14:33: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Ummm, isn't that a result of evolution? That the common use of the hox genes, for example, by a wide variety of species during early development really only seems to make sense in light of common ancestry? In other words, doesn't the idea that "the really key processes" are the same or similar across "a vast range of organisms" derive from the idea of common descent?
But is not creation by God equally a 'common ancestry', in that sense? God is indeed a terribly easy answer for "oh look, this excellent system is consistently used".
It's an easy answer, but not a very descriptive one. If we accept that all life forms were created separately by God, then there should be no reason to expect any correlation between phenotypic similarity and body chemistry. There's no reason that a human (created by God) should necessarily have more metabolic similarity to a chimpanzee (also created by God) than to a pumpkin (still created by God).
Indeed. More interesting (and tricky for creationists) is the way that fruit bats, for example, are metabolically more similar to blue whales than they are to say parrots, whose gross morphology and lifestyle is actually far more like theirs than the whale's is. You get convergent evolution, but you can always spot the difference - the dorsal fins of whales and fish are superficially similar, but completely different in structure, for example.
Evolution predicts and explains this pattern. Special creation does not.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
How do creationists explain the genetic closeness between different genera and families? I can sort of get how they explain speciation, since God might create a 'kind', and then permit micro-evolution to occur, but how does that pan out with genera? Thus, nuthatches (Sitta) are related to treecreepers (Certhia), but why? This makes you back-track and back-track through nested hierarchies, so that you end up with evolution itself!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Evolution predicts and explains this pattern.
Does it?
Predict it in particular. I mean, in terms of explaining, you can certainly look at the two species, observe the similarities (ie not the gross morphological similarities but the ones that are revealed by deeper observation), and then explain that this is because the species evolved from a common origin and have moved into different ecological niches.
But what is evolution predicting here?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Evolution predicts and explains this pattern.
Does it?
Predict it in particular. I mean, in terms of explaining, you can certainly look at the two species, observe the similarities (ie not the gross morphological similarities but the ones that are revealed by deeper observation), and then explain that this is because the species evolved from a common origin and have moved into different ecological niches.
But what is evolution predicting here?
It predicts that fruit bats would be physiologically more similar to blue whales than to parrots, and that the dorsal fins of stingrays and Tuna would be more alike in fine structure than those of Tuna and Dolphins.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
How do creationists explain the remnants? The once useful, but now less needed bits?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How do creationists explain the remnants? The once useful, but now less needed bits?
They usually claim that one day we'll find out what they're for. TBF, most such bits do have vestigial uses.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Yeah, I guess the hip bones in whales might have been shoved in to redistribute mass. Of course, a better designer might not have needed to cobble on bits...
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How do creationists explain the remnants? The once useful, but now less needed bits?
They usually claim that one day we'll find out what they're for. TBF, most such bits do have vestigial uses.
What about something like the mutated-beyond-use human gene for vitamin C synthesis? Or a similarly useless feline gene for "sweet" taste receptors? No vestigial use there, and it's not like they're genes with mysterious, unknown functions. We know what they do when intact.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
How do creationists explain the remnants? The once useful, but now less needed bits?
They usually claim that one day we'll find out what they're for. TBF, most such bits do have vestigial uses.
What about something like the mutated-beyond-use human gene for vitamin C synthesis? Or a similarly useless feline gene for "sweet" taste receptors? No vestigial use there, and it's not like they're genes with mysterious, unknown functions. We know what they do when intact.
They put those down to Satan I think.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
I think in a lot of cases what happens (and I've seen children do this very readily) is that you simply adjust your theology to perceived reality.
So, for whatever reason, one thinks that the world has a creator, and is a created place. The world contains evolution. Well, evolution is simply part of this created place. Take a soft interpretation to the bits that contradict the new understanding (which is easy because nobody reads the bible as an entirely literal flat document) and it's easy.
Taken to a logical extreme, I think this leads to something like ignosticism, but most people don't like to take things to logical extremes.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
So, for whatever reason, one thinks that the world has a creator, and is a created place. The world contains evolution. Well, evolution is simply part of this created place. Take a soft interpretation to the bits that contradict the new understanding (which is easy because nobody reads the bible as an entirely literal flat document) and it's easy.
Taken to a logical extreme, I think this leads to something like ignosticism, but most people don't like to take things to logical extremes.
Why?
Isn't what you've described a fairly good approximation of what most people think, or am I missing something?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But what is evolution predicting here?
It predicts that fruit bats would be physiologically more similar to blue whales than to parrots, and that the dorsal fins of stingrays and Tuna would be more alike in fine structure than those of Tuna and Dolphins.
That's not a prediction - the reason for thinking fruit bats are closer to whales than to parrots is the similarity of structure.
On the whole, it would be a problem for Darwinian evolution if fine-level anatomical similarity weren't a reasonably good predictor of genetic similarity. But isolated counterexamples (*) don't leave the whole structure on its head.
(Tuna and dolphins are in fact closer to each other than they are to stingrays. But dolphins are descended from terrestrial ancestors more recently than the latest common ancestor.)
(*) e.g. on the basis of anatomy, condors, vultures, eagles, hawks and falcons were all traditionally grouped together. According to wikipedia, one genetic studies in the past twenty years suggested that condors are closer to storks; another disagreed but suggested that falcons are closer to blackbirds and parrots. There doesn't seem to me a consensus on either point yet, but nobody (other than a creationist) would think either result falsfied evolution.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Take a soft interpretation to the bits that contradict the new understanding (which is easy because nobody reads the bible as an entirely literal flat document) and it's easy.
While that may be true as an unexamined statement, in practical terms, it is not entirely accurate.
There are a significant number of people, some on this very site, who take the vast majority of the bible as a literal, flat document. Saving only the most egregiously false, such as the Earth being fixed in the firmaments, as being figurative.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Isn't what you've described a fairly good approximation of what most people think, or am I missing something?
Most people where? 50% of Americans seem to think the world is 6000 years old.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Take a soft interpretation to the bits that contradict the new understanding (which is easy because nobody reads the bible as an entirely literal flat document) and it's easy.
While that may be true as an unexamined statement, in practical terms, it is not entirely accurate.
There are a significant number of people, some on this very site, who take the vast majority of the bible as a literal, flat document. Saving only the most egregiously false, such as the Earth being fixed in the firmaments, as being figurative.
Then they have exceptions. And my statement, examined, is kissing close.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Hmmm ...
Here's a more specific question following on ...
A PhD Zoology student who was a very conservative charismatic evangelical, but by no means a YEC-ie, once told me that certain Creation Scientists had played fast and loose with evidence, not only ignoring data that didn't fit their schema but also not amending their publications as new information came to light.
My YEC-ie friend insists that it's the evolutionists who are inconsistent and who keep moving the goal-posts.
To be fair, I've come across examples online where Creationists have 'dropped' particular examples from later editions of their books as new evidence has come to light to challenge their findings/assertions.
However, I still notice that the Paluxy River tracks - allegedly brontosaurus and human footprints in the same rock strata - still appear on Creationist websites:
http://www.icr.org/article/81/
I've read elsewhere on line that this story had been debunked as far back as 1961 and that some Creationists had dropped it from their literature.
This debunking site suggests that debunking came later on.
http://www.badarchaeology.com/?page_id=178
At any rate, I remember a 'Creation Scientist' giving a lunchtime talk at university way back in 1981 and presenting this 'evidence' as an irrefutable effect - to groans and jeers from the Biology and Zoology academics and students who were present.
My question is: Are 'Creation Scientists' any better/worse at handling scientific evidence?
Is there any substance in their charges that the academic world is discriminating against them and not offering 'tenure' to Creationists in Biology departments?
Are they deliberately overlooking inconvenient facts or are they working with integrity within their particular paradigm?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But what is evolution predicting here?
It predicts that fruit bats would be physiologically more similar to blue whales than to parrots, and that the dorsal fins of stingrays and Tuna would be more alike in fine structure than those of Tuna and Dolphins.
That's not a prediction - the reason for thinking fruit bats are closer to whales than to parrots is the similarity of structure.
Yes, exactly.
The relationship is a conclusion based on the available evidence. Treating it as a prediction just gets circular and is again giving evolution the kind of magical universal powers that people pooh-pooh creationists for assigning to God.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The relationship is a conclusion based on the available evidence. Treating it as a prediction just gets circular and is again giving evolution the kind of magical universal powers that people pooh-pooh creationists for assigning to God.
Not really. The predictions about genetic matching between species (e.g. humans have more genes in common with chimps than with wolves, and all three have more in common with each other than with spirogyra) were made well before gene sequencing was an available technology. Why doesn't this count as a "prediction"?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The relationship is a conclusion based on the available evidence. Treating it as a prediction just gets circular and is again giving evolution the kind of magical universal powers that people pooh-pooh creationists for assigning to God.
Not really. The predictions about genetic matching between species (e.g. humans have more genes in common with chimps than with wolves, and all three have more in common with each other than with spirogyra) were made well before gene sequencing was an available technology. Why doesn't this count as a "prediction"?
I would agree that counts as a prediction. But that wasn't what I got out of Karl's original comment.
And I still don't entirely think that counts as a prediction specifically enabled by evolution. It's more of a prediction made on the basis of the existence of the theory - ie, if things are more closely related, they will have more closely related genomes. And I'm absolutely fine with that.
I actually find the genetic analysis far more interesting in the cases where the predictions are wrong - where people have looked at morphology and organs and so on and made conclusions about what is related to what, and the genes have not backed up the conclusions made.
If evolution was specifically enabling the predictions to be made, then this shouldn't happen. It's actually evolution that enables the predictions to be falsified by using the genetic evidence to disprove the visual assessments to be made.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I actually find the genetic analysis far more interesting in the cases where the predictions are wrong - where people have looked at morphology and organs and so on and made conclusions about what is related to what, and the genes have not backed up the conclusions made.
If evolution was specifically enabling the predictions to be made, then this shouldn't happen.
That would be true if we didn't know about convergent evolution.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
When did we know about convergent evolution, though? Before genetic studies told us about it?
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Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
When did we know about convergent evolution, though? Before genetic studies told us about it?
Of course.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
No, you're missing my point. There are large areas of scientific study that people were able to carry out very well without a belief that the earth went around the sun. Astronomy may have been hampered by the error, but was science in general? Was there ever a point where all scientific progress halted until the heliocentric nature of the solar system was recognised?
Similarly, there may well be areas where a creationist would either hit a brick wall or come up with ridiculous results. But I simply don't think that precludes a creationist from being a scientist FULL STOP. It precludes them from being a scientist in those areas.
To treat evolution as some kind of foundational building block of all science is to exaggerate its importance. It simply isn't. It's a very important part of one branch of science - biology - but even there it is NOT the be-all and end-all such that a person disinterested in evolution is precluded from investigating and discovering more about how the world works in the here and now and finding applications for that knowledge.
The OP was about 6,000 year old universe. That affects biology, astronomy (how do you explain stars, galaxies, etc. that are more than 6,000 light years away?), geology (all those layers), chemistry (half lives of radioactive elements), archaeology (need to explain Çatalhöyük and even older sites). The fields where one can ignore an old Universe are not many.
It is however impossible to say there are no scientists now who believes in a 6,000 year old universe. One problem is enumeration; how do you determine a person is a scientist. Another is that in certain narrow fields it is possible to ignore the problems that a 6,000 year old universe causes. This can go two ways. One a person may be a creationist but never depends upon it when doing research. Or the person may be employed by a YEC institute and have to say they are a creationist even when they aren't to keep their job but again don't depend on a 6,000 year earth (or any other Bible 'fact') when doing legitimate research.
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And I still don't entirely think that counts as a prediction specifically enabled by evolution. It's more of a prediction made on the basis of the existence of the theory - ie, if things are more closely related, they will have more closely related genomes. And I'm absolutely fine with that.
That seems like needless hairsplitting, akin to arguing that using irregularities in the orbit of Uranus to discover Neptune isn't "a prediction specifically enabled by [gravity], it's more of a prediction made on the basis of the existence of the theory [of gravity]".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Another is that in certain narrow fields it is possible to ignore the problems that a 6,000 year old universe causes. This can go two ways. One a person may be a creationist but never depends upon it when doing research.
This is pretty much what I had in mind.
As to narrowness, though, I honestly don't think it comes up as an issue as much as people seem to think. I did a whole science degree with a focus on biochemistry, and while I may have lost my memories in the haze of last century, I really can't think of many examples of how something came to be the way it is being a major focus of discussion. Some, yes, but not many. There is quite enough detail to be learnt/investigated about how it is, now, in the present.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And I still don't entirely think that counts as a prediction specifically enabled by evolution. It's more of a prediction made on the basis of the existence of the theory - ie, if things are more closely related, they will have more closely related genomes. And I'm absolutely fine with that.
That seems like needless hairsplitting, akin to arguing that using irregularities in the orbit of Uranus to discover Neptune isn't "a prediction specifically enabled by [gravity], it's more of a prediction made on the basis of the existence of the theory [of gravity]".
Sorry, I don't think the analogy holds. Because it's the mathematics involved in gravity that enables you to look for Neptune. Without it you have no method for even looking, as far as I can see.
Evolution does not provide you with the tool to look at and dissect specimens of species and make comparisons. The main tool for that is eyes. People were perfectly capable of looking at the carcasses of whales and bats and what have you and noticing any similarities long before the theory of evolution existed. Indeed, noticing the similarities was probably a prerequisite for developing evolutionary theory, not the other way around.
What evolution does is tell you to give priority to the genetic similarity over the other evidence about function, morphology etc. It tells you that the genetic similarity is a better guide to relationships. It provides a different basis for interpreting the data you get. It doesn't provide the data.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Not really. The predictions about genetic matching between species (e.g. humans have more genes in common with chimps than with wolves, and all three have more in common with each other than with spirogyra) were made well before gene sequencing was an available technology. Why doesn't this count as a "prediction"?
What would follow if such a prediction were falsified? To use an example I used up thread, we would predict that falcons have more genes in common with hawks than with wrens. The most recent study has falsified that prediction. Assuming other studies confirm the result, does that cast doubt on evolution? Not at all.
Systematic pervasive failure of genetics to follow anatomy would be problematic. But it would be hard to define at what point that would be reached. As it is, occasional failure of anatomy to match genetics is a more powerful argument against creationism than a complete match would be. You can understand an alien designer who matched genes to function systematically. You can understand, less well, an alien designer that was completely unsystematic. But an alien designer that is systematic with exceptions is just incomprehensible.
But it's not true that classification needs Darwin. Our classification schemes are still built on Linnaeus' foundations. And I don't think Linnaeus believed in any form of evolution.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
[QBIt is however impossible to say there are no scientists now who believes in a 6,000 year old universe. One problem is enumeration; how do you determine a person is a scientist. Another is that in certain narrow fields it is possible to ignore the problems that a 6,000 year old universe causes. This can go two ways. One a person may be a creationist but never depends upon it when doing research. Or the person may be employed by a YEC institute and have to say they are a creationist even when they aren't to keep their job but again don't depend on a 6,000 year earth (or any other Bible 'fact') when doing legitimate research. [/QB]
I am not doubting you that these people exist, but it does boggle my mind. That one could attain an advanced degree and do research and still be so ignorant is difficult for me to process. Perhaps a close examination of related fields is not necessary,but why would one be ignorant of such? I do admit my generalist approach might bias, but to be unaware? To not question? Fascinating.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
But it's not true that classification needs Darwin. Our classification schemes are still built on Linnaeus' foundations. And I don't think Linnaeus believed in any form of evolution.
And indeed, Linnaeus was one of the people I had in mind when intially reacting to the notion that you can't do proper science without evolution.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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