The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Asiaprod

Just found a very good Wiki on creation and evolution. For those who do not already know of the site, here it is
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Main_Page

Son Goku

It's good to see there is a degree course out there which focuses on both cosmology and the eating habits of lions.

Why can't you accept that your explination of how the post-flood animals survived is not only wrong but ignorant and ridiculous

This is what I don't get in particular about JC.

JC, do you not agree that some of your alternative models for certain scientific phenomena are a little on the bonkers side.

J C

Wicknight
like the ancient people of Earth who assigned meaning and purpose to the weather because they didn't understand it properly, you too assign meaning and purpose to the chemical reactions that is life, because you too do not understand it properly

BUT modern scientists DO understand much about how BOTH life and the weather 'works'.
They KNOW that while both phenomena exhibit complexity – weather is UNSPECIFIED while life is TIGHTLY SPECIFIED.

……and this IS objectively verifiable – the wind blows where it may – but living processes are observed to follow specific defined pathways and any digression within these critical cascades will result in death or serious illness.

Weather is an undirected process – while life is directed by very sensitive tightly specified systems.:cool:


Diogenes
A simple half remembered recolection from a primary school textbook does not debunk the entire theory of evolution.

But the point is that Industrial Moth Melanism is STILL believed in as a fact by many people – and Evolutionists haven’t highlighted the fact that it is no longer regarded as valid.

….and YOU cited it as a fact in your post # 2950 – without any qualification that it was “a simple half remembered recollection from a primary school textbook”.

In any event, if something like it were to occur, it would only be micro-evolution due to genetic drift in pre-existing genetic diversity for wing colour in this species – and it would NOT be evidence of macro-evolution between KINDS.


Scofflaw
Oxygen levels in the Palaeozoic (300MYa - 150MYa) are thought to have been up to 35%, as opposed to the modern 21%, and this is thought to have allowed larger insects, although this is only at the hypothesis stage at the moment.

That’s exactly my point – except I would use the term Ante-Diluvian instead of Palaeozoic.

Interestingly, I am aware that higher Oxygen tensions can prolong life in higher mammals – and the probable higher Ante-Diluvian Oxygen levels may therefore also have contributed to longer life-spans among all creatures (as well as accounting for the large fossilised insects).

Schuhart

J C wrote:

the wind blows where it may – but living processes are observed to follow specific defined pathways and any digression within these critical cascades will result in death or serious illness.

Are you suggesting that wind has free will, and life (specifically human life) doesn't?

pH

In the US, there's some concern that Evolutionary Biology has been removed from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.

http://www.orovillemr.com/news/bayarea/ci_4229836

Hopefully it's an administrative error, but needless to say it just seems suspicious.

Diogenes

Some nice pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo so again I say to you, I get a dozen cows stack em up and pour em out to the atlantic ocean with a locator we leave em for 40 days and I could em up as steaks will you eat em?

Yes or No?

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Diogenes
A simple half remembered recolection from a primary school textbook does not debunk the entire theory of evolution.

But the point is that Industrial Moth Melanism is STILL believed in as a fact by many people – and Evolutionists haven’t highlighted the fact that it is no longer regarded as valid.

….and YOU cited it as a fact in your post # 2950 – without any qualification that it was “a simple half remembered recollection from a primary school textbook”.

In any event, if something like it were to occur, it would only be micro-evolution due to genetic drift in pre-existing genetic diversity for wing colour in this species – and it would NOT be evidence of macro-evolution between KINDS.

Diogenes was right to quote it as an example of selection - it is one. You have mistaken a change in emphasis (from "pollution is the sole factor" to "pollution is a major factor") for a 'retraction'. Indiustrial Moth Melanism is a good example of selective pressure at work - even to the point that the darker moths have declined again as pollution has decreased. You are wrong, not Diogenes - you have taken AiG's drivel at face value, and it is incorrect.

Also, you're on a hiding to nothing accusing other people of citing half-remembered facts without qualifying them, Mr "Creation Science can confirm".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Wicknight
like the ancient people of Earth who assigned meaning and purpose to the weather because they didn't understand it properly, you too assign meaning and purpose to the chemical reactions that is life, because you too do not understand it properly

BUT modern scientists DO understand much about how BOTH life and the weather 'works'.
They KNOW that while both phenomena exhibit complexity – weather is UNSPECIFIED while life is TIGHTLY SPECIFIED.

……and this IS objectively verifiable – the wind blows where it may – but living processes are observed to follow specific defined pathways and any digression within these critical cascades will result in death or serious illness.

Weather is an undirected process – while life is directed by very sensitive tightly specified systems.:cool:

What you mean by "sick" in reference to people is "functioning abnormally" for systems (although people do use 'sick' of cars, computers, and other personal systems). If the weather does not follow normal patterns, it too is "functioning abnormally". Weather does not die, of course, but weather is part of functioning ecosystems, and they can and do die if the weather changes. That seems to me to be a 'specified' as any human.

Interesting example to use, in these days of global warming.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

J C wrote:

BUT modern scientists DO understand much about how BOTH life and the weather 'works'.

Yes they do, that is the point. Modern scientists know that life is just a set of very complex ordered and specified chemical reactions, that follow the fundamental laws of chemistry, it is not a form of magic as a result of a supernatural interference.

Just like they know that the weather on Earth is just a set of very very very very complex ordered and specified physical reactions, that follow the fundamental laws of physics, it is not a form of magic as a result of supernatural interference.

I'm glad we agree.

J C wrote:

They KNOW that while both phenomena exhibit complexity – weather is UNSPECIFIED while life is TIGHTLY SPECIFIED.

Once again you desplay your ignorance of the subject.

Weather is not random or unspecified. Weather follows very specified and fundamental physical laws, just as life does.

The reason weather appears random or unspecified to lay people such as yourself is because this system is incredible complex, on a much higher level that something like life. We are talking billions of times more complex than a system like your body.

The more complex an ordered and predictable system gets the more likely it will appear to a lay person to be unspecified, so I can understand why you would believe that about the weather systems of Earth. That is why "chaos theory" has been given a term that implies randomness, when in fact chaos theory is actually the study of ordered, but very complex, systems, such as the weather.

J C wrote:

the wind blows where it may

The wind does not "blow where it may" (are you implying the wind has free will as Schuhart asked), once again you demonstrate ignorance on this subject JC.

The wind follows very complex, yet predictable and specified, systems of movement and state change. Humans, using very complex software on hundreds of super computers around the world, can model this movement to a limited degree of accuracy. This accuracy is improving all the time, but we are still a while away from being able to model the system to any high degree of accuracy.

It is strange that you would state the the systems of life are too complex to appear naturally in nature, yet you seem quite happy to accept that systems such as the Earths weather systems can give rise to very complex ordered systems with no need for interference from a higher intelligence.

As I pointed out, that was not always the case with humans, for a long time we could not understand the weather so we attributed the systems are work and the results that appeared to the work of gods or other supernatural intelligences.

Which goes back to a point I made a number of pages ago, the Creationists theory of intelligent design is based purely on ignorance and lack of understanding. It is in human nature to assign intelligence to ordered specified systems in nature that we do not understand. We once did that weather. You and other creationists now do that with the biological systems found on Earth.

In reality, as we learn more and more about these systems, view points like yours will drop off. In fact they already have, very few educated people still hold to the idea that a supernatural force is behind the complex systems found on Earth, be that the weather or life. There are still people like yourself who cannot understand complex systems like life without surplanting an intelligence into the system at some point, just as I imagine there are still people who seriously believe the weather systems are a result of an intelligence as well. But the protests of these people that someone must be controlling the weather, are ignored by scientists and met officers across the globe, just as protest from people who claim someone must have designed life are ignored by scientists.

Eventually these ancient and ignorant ideas will fade as people develop a better understanding of life, as it did with weather. Not a minute too soon

J C wrote:

– but living processes are observed to follow specific defined pathways and any digression within these critical cascades will result in death or serious illness.

Life does not follow "specific defined pathways", it follow the fundamental laws of chemisty.

These laws of chemisty give rise to ordered systems, such as DNA, just as the laws of physics result in ordered systems in weather, such as the gulf stream or mid-atlantic drift.

And if you tamper with these systems the rest of the ordered system does not continue to work as it once did. That doesn't mean they stop. When you are dead you are still a set of chemical reactions within nature, but not the same set you were before. The laws of chemistry do not distinguse between a life animal and a dead one.

If something seriously tampered with the gulf stream it would cease to be the gulf stream anymore. You could (using comparison with the system of life) calim the gulf stream has died, if dead is defined as the ceasing of original functionality and structure in an ordered system. The molecules that make up the water and air in the gulf stream then are restructured into another system, just like your molecules in your body will be when you die.

To nature and the laws of the universe, "dead" is simply a change in state of an ordered chemcial system.

J C wrote:

Weather is an undirected process – while life is directed by very sensitive tightly specified systems.:cool:

JC it is clear you don't understand the terms you are using, so can you limit the "buzzword" responses and take some time to consider the subject you are discussing.

Weather is "directed", as life is, by the fundamental laws of nature. There is no intelligence behind either.

Weather patterns and systems will occur based on external input (mostly heat from the sun) triggering these systems.

Biological patterns and systems will occur based on external input (mostly head from the sun) triggering these systems.

We know that complex self-replicating molecules can develop naturally, this has been observed. Life will develop given certain conditions, it is a predictable response to the laws of chemisty.

Both life and weather are examples of very complex ordered systems arising from quite simple rules and laws that are predictable.

The gulf stream was not created by intelligence, it arose through the natural progress of the weather on Earth. It is a highly complex system, working both in the water and air, that is quite hard to model to any degree of accuracy. We still don't understand fully how it effects the rest of the Earths localised weather systems.

There is no logical reason to believe that because the systems of life are complex and ordered that intelligence must have created them, anymore than believing that because the systems of the weather are complex and ordered an intelligence must have created that too.

The weather on Earth is a far more complex system, equally ordered and predictable as life but on a much large scale, yet no one these days believes that the weather is controlled by an intelligence, as we once did

J C wrote:

That’s exactly my point – except I would use the term Ante-Diluvian instead of Palaeozoic.

Care to detail the physcial system that would change the Earths oxygen from those "antediluvian" levels to the ones we experience now (in 4000 years)?

J C wrote:

Interestingly, I am aware that higher Oxygen tensions can prolong life in higher mammals

It can for a couple of weeks if you are dying of lung diease ... was Noah dying of emphysema?

Zombrex

Schuhart wrote:

Are you suggesting that wind has free will, and life (specifically human life) doesn't?

LOL ... well put

Diogenes

JC

I've noticed you've been quietly dropping your claim that loads of rotting carcesses won't be filled with bacteria or be suitable to eat.

Care to offer proof of this?

Or any evidence of increaed lung capacity among our ancestors.

Scofflaw thanks for the assist....

J C

Shuhart
Are you suggesting that wind has free will, and life (specifically human life) doesn't?

No I am not.
Wicknight is the guy claiming that wind has a mind of it’s own - and we can decipher it if we have enough computing power!! :eek:

I am SAYING that wind is a random chaotic process while ALL living systems are ordered tightly specified processes.:cool:

Free will (which is a strictly Human PHILOSOPHICAL phenomenon) isn’t relevant to this SCIENTIFIC issue.

BTW - how MANY of you (Evolutionists) are out there?
There seems to be a new Evolutionist 'popping up' every second day on this thread – and still only myself and Wolfsbane on the Creationist side.

There now seems to be about forty Evolutionists debating with us.
This is probably a fair ratio.
The Evolutionist case is so hopeless that it would take at least 20 Evolutionists to every Creationist to make ANY impact – and only then because the Creationist run out of the time and the energy to answer all of the ‘own goals’ scored by the Evolutionists!!!!:D

.....and speaking of ‘own goals’…………..

Wicknight
The reason weather appears random or unspecified to lay people such as yourself is because this system is incredible complex, on a much higher level that something like life. We are talking billions of times more complex than a system like your body.

….. and the steam off my kettle has a complexity that exceeds a super-computer and my wheelbarrow is described by equations that are more complex than the ones that are used to launch the Space Shuttle!!!!

Come off it Wichnight!!!
On the basis of YOUR logic your sneeze is more complex than yourself!!!!:D

We are talking about a chaotic random system in the case of weather operating within certain loose parameters – and that is why the Met Office can only predict what is going to happen over the next two to three days with any degree of accuracy.

I can usually match them by looking at the sky, looking at the latest met map and my own barometer!!!!

The reason that weather APPEARS to be undirected is BECAUSE it is undirected.:)

The weather is also somewhat amorphous and locally variable – the infamous forecast of “rain followed by showers and sunny spells” covers almost any weather from downpours of (almost) Diluvian proportions to a local heatwave!!!:D


Wicknight
The wind follows very complex, yet predictable and specified, systems of movement and state change. Humans, using very complex software on hundreds of super computers around the world, can model this movement to a limited degree of accuracy. This accuracy is improving all the time, but we are still a while away from being able to model the system to any high degree of accuracy.

There is a fundamental difference between the NON-SPECIFIED complexity of weather and the SPECIFIED complexity of life. Weather may require high capacity computers to MODEL it but DNA requires super computers to DECODE it.
Weather is caused by RANDOM processes but life is objectively the result of INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

SIMULATION of random systems is very EASY – just incorporate a random number generator into the Model.
PREDICTING a truly random system is IMPOSSIBLE – otherwise I could predict next weeks Lotto numbers.

Weather Forecasting is somewhere in-between in difficulty, as weather patterns are NOT fully random – but follow complex interactive patterns as well as having a considerable amount of random impactors.
Could also I point out that the accuracy of long range weather forecasting rapidly declines beyond a few days – even with the use of supercomputers due to the increasing impact of random phenomena over time.

Living systems are NOT observed to be random – they are tightly specified and entirely predictable, with enough knowledge and data.
The enormous size of the computing power required to ANALYSE living processes IS indeed a measure of their scale and QUALITY – whereas the use of super computers in weather forecasting is merely a measure of the effort required to push out the timeframe over which accurate PREDICTIONS can be made – before random impactors confound the forecast (as well as the super-computers).

Zombrex

J C wrote:

Wicknight is the guy claiming that wind has a mind of it’s own - and we can decipher it if only we have enough computing power!! :eek:

The wind has a mind of its own is a direct quote from you JC. I was arguing the exact opposite.

You seem to be getting confused now as to what argument you are even making.

J C wrote:

I am SAYING that wind is a random chaotic process

And I am explaining to you that it is not, it only appears random and chaotic to you because you don't understand it

J C wrote:

and still only myself and Wolfsbane on the Creationist side.

ummm ... i wonder why that is ... :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

….. and the steam off my kettle has a complexity that exceeds a super-computer

No, not really. I have seen computer models that model fluid dynamics of systems larger than your kettle quite well.

But imagine the area of the steam off your kettle and now multiply that for the entire surface area of the Earth and the hight of the upper atmosphere and you will see the complexities in a system like the weather on Earth

J C wrote:

On the basis of YOUR logic your sneeze is more complex than yourself!!!!:D

No my basic logic is that the weather system of the Earth is more complex than myself, which is true.

I've no idea where you got the sneeze part from

J C wrote:

We are talking about a chaotic random system

No we aren't

J C wrote:

Met Office can only predict what is going to happen over the next two to three days with any degree of accuracy.

No it isn't. Given enough computing power Met Eireann could predict the weather systems on Earth for the forseeable future.

The reason they can't is because the system is too complex.

J C wrote:

The reason that weather APPEARS to be undirected is BECAUSE it is undirected.:)

The weather is directed by the physical laws of nature, just as life is directed by the chemical laws of nature. Both are directed systems, and both are directed to the same degree.

J C wrote:

There is a fundamental difference between the NON-SPECIFIED complexity of weather and the SPECIFIED complexity of life. Weather may require high capacity computers to MODEL it but DNA requires super computers to DECODE it.

Decoding of DNA is done with a chemical bath and a laser, not a computer, super or otherwise.

Super computers are used to model the DNA data once it has been decoded, just as super computers are used to model weather systems.

And the systems used to model the Earths weather are far more complex and advanced (by a high order of magnitute) than anything being used on the Human Genome project. For a start we cannot even model weather to a high degree of accuracy yet, despite the hundreds of super computers around the world working together, where as the human gnome can be modelled perfectly by one super computer.

J C wrote:

Weather is caused by RANDOM processes but life is objectively the result of INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

Neither of those statements are true.

Weather is caused by the ordered and predictable interaction of molecules in an enclosed environment (ie the Earth).

Life is caused by the ordered and predictable interaction of certain molecules in an enclosed environement (ie the Earth)

J C wrote:

PREDICTING a truly random system is IMPOSSIBLE – otherwise I could predict next weeks Lotto numbers.

Exactly, the weather isn't random.

It follows an orderd defined set of physical laws, just as life does

J C wrote:

Weather Forecasting is somewhere in-between in difficulty, as weather patterns are NOT fully random

They aren't random at all, they are just very complex, much more complex than biological systems.

J C wrote:

Could also I point out that the accuracy of long range weather forecasting rapidly declines beyond a few days – even with the use of supercomputers due to the increasing impact of random phenomena over time.

You could point that out, but the reason you give is wrong.

The reason the accuracy declines is because of the lack of resolution of the models themselves. Each model of time is based on the previous model. As you move through time the error amount, because each error in the previous model will cause greater ones in the next.

J C wrote:

Living systems are NOT observed to be random

Neither is the weather.

J C wrote:

The enormous size of the computing power required to ANALYSE living processes IS indeed a measure of their scale and QUALITY – whereas the use of super computers in weather forecasting is merely a measure of the effort required to push out the timeframe over which accurate PREDICTIONS can be made – before random impactors confound the forecast (as well as the super-computers).

JC it is pretty clear you don't know what you are talking about here.

The need for both super computers in the analysising of biological systems and weather is due the complexity of both systems. They are almost exactly the same in the challanges faced. Random impactors have almost nothing to do with it.

samb

Wicknight wrote:

Weather is caused by the ordered and predictable interaction of molecules in an enclosed environment (ie the Earth).

Life is caused by the ordered and predictable interaction of certain molecules in an enclosed environement (ie the Earth)

Well to be pedantic wicknight can I remind you that both systems (biosphere and atmosphere) are not closed systems and are influenced by electromagnetic radiation from the sun. The quantity and nature of this radiation is dependant on complex subatomic events within the sun-activity that may well be chaotic and random.

The weather is directed by the physical laws of nature, just as life is directed by the chemical laws of nature. Both are directed systems, and both are directed to the same degree.

But sorry JC, as usual he is right on the important stuff.

Zombrex

samb wrote:

Well to be pedantic wicknight can I remind you that both systems (biosphere and atmosphere) are not closed systems and are influenced by electromagnetic radiation from the sun.

You are prefectly correct, but you will notice I said enclosed not closed

The Earths atmosphere extends for a finite distance above the Earth, the range of interaction within this system is not infinate. It is therefore an enclosed system as it is surrounded by a different type of system (ie space)

This isn't the same as a closed system, though I apologies for not explaining that futher as the terms are similar sounding.

jc

No it isn't. Given enough computing power Met Eireann could predict the weather systems on Earth for the forseeable future.

You need almost infinite(or even infinite) knowledge of the initial conditions to be able to predict it beyond a few days, because after that you're working with a new set of conditions instead of the initial ones...
that's what I remember from lectures anyhow

jc wrote:

There now seems to be about forty Evolutionists debating with us.
This is probably a fair ratio.
The Evolutionist case is so hopeless that it would take at least 20 Evolutionists to every Creationist to make ANY impact

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: <- barely begins to sum up my reaction to this completely absurd statement.

Scofflaw

bluewolf wrote:

You need almost infinite(or even infinite) knowledge of the initial conditions to be able to predict it beyond a few days, because after that you're working with a new set of conditions instead of the initial ones...
that's what I remember from lectures anyhow

Yup. "Sensitive dependence on initial conditions" - or Chaos. It's a feedback system, so an error of 0.0001% in your starting number grows to an error of 100% quite swiftly.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

Yup. "Sensitive dependence on initial conditions" - or Chaos. It's a feedback system, so an error of 0.0001% in your starting number grows to an error of 100% quite swiftly.


cordially,
Scofflaw

I tended to nod off in my chaos lectures until we got to fractals and Mr Cantor.

son goku wrote:

It's good to see there is a degree course out there which focuses on both cosmology and the eating habits of lions.

Giblet

J C wrote:

BTW - how MANY of you (Evolutionists) are out there?
There seems to be a new Evolutionist 'popping up' every second day on this thread – and still only myself and Wolfsbane on the Creationist side.

There now seems to be about forty Evolutionists debating with us.
This is probably a fair ratio.
The Evolutionist case is so hopeless that it would take at least 20 Evolutionists to every Creationist to make ANY impact – and only then because the Creationist run out of the time and the energy to answer all of the ‘own goals’ scored by the Evolutionists!!!!:D

No, that's because there are more evolutionists on boards.ie than creationists, probably because more technology saavy/educated people use the internet who don't rely on blind faith and convoluted facts.

The reason there is no apparent "impact" on your side, is because you don't accept arguments, you just pile on absurdity. Speaking like you are winning the argument is yet another absurdity.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

Hmm. If we look back to the recorded beliefs of very early Christians, they were not only opposed to using the sword to enforce Christianity, but to using the sword full stop. It's one of the reasons that many who would be expected to perform military service (or other public services likely to involve sinning) often delayed baptism until the end of their lives.

I agree with much of that, but doubt the reality of the religion in those who lived a lie for the sake of their careers. Also it is to be remembered that the practise of the post-apostolic Church became increasingly corrupted by error and compromise, so we cannot take their standards as if it were pure New Testament theology.

We can sympathise with the difficulty of those who had a career in the army back then. Christians respected the State as God-ordained and knew that it had the authority from God to restrain evil by the sword. But the State also was very wicked and often went beyond its remit from God. It would be one thing for a soldier to capture or kill a robber, but quite another to enforce heathen worship. We are used in our modern democracies to the idea that the police and army are the good guys, enforcing righteous laws, so most moral people have no problem joining up.

What happens when the police and army start oppressing the innocent? Do we keep quite for the sake of our careers? Hardly. This generation may well face that decision.

To be fair to the "apostate church" (by which I take it you mean the Roman Church), the theory of crusading was that the secular nobility conquered the lands of the pagans (to which they were given title by the Papacy), but in exchange had to allow the Church access to the conquered pagans. In addition, there were generally (theoretically) strong constraints on the secular conqueror by way of not killing or mistreating these potential converts.

That would have been the mildest approach. The general history of the Papacy was one of exercising dominion over the secular power, ordering them to do its dirty work for it. The Inquisition is the prime example. Failure of a king to exterminate the heretics would lead to him being deposed.

Zombrex

bluewolf wrote:

You need almost infinite(or even infinite) knowledge of the initial conditions to be able to predict it beyond a few days, because after that you're working with a new set of conditions instead of the initial ones...
that's what I remember from lectures anyhow

Not really, the laws of fluid dynamics and other physical reactions are well known. The issue isn't knowledge of what happens, it is modelling it to such a scale as to be meaningful for any length of time. As scowflaw says any error will quickly effect the accuracy of the model, as each state of the model is based on the previous, possibly incorrect, model

Also the main issue becomes unforseen events, such as a sun spot explosion, that you cannot model from your inital starting point. These will effect reality but not the model, so eventually your model will get out of sync.

I would point out that this happens with all models, including models of life.

The whole point of the weather comparison is to show JC and wolfbane that there exists ordered by very complex natural systems out there. We once believed the weather was controlled by Gods because we couldn't imagine how it could work otherwise. We now find Creationists coming up with the same idea for life. But just as with weather, it is their ignorance and missunderstand that is the issue, not the subject itself

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

It is interesting, of course, that you are so certain where a metaphor was intended, and where a literal meaning is intended.

Mostly it is very clear. Historical narrative is not the normal setting for metaphorical interpretation. Prophecy is.

It's "suppressed" because it's bad science. At that, all that "suppressed" means here is "not published in peer-reviewed scientific journals" - a new and startlingly narrow definition of the word.

Of course it goes beyond that narrow definition too. Discrimination in employment against the scientists who hold Creationists views is also occuring. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v9/i2/suppression.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0301letter.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0114dini.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i4/nobel.asp

As to 'bad science', if it were so bad, it would be easy for the journals to publish the articles and debate them, exposing their flaws. But they don't want to admit that real scientists are having doubts about the current dogma.

I've done my best to read all the provided links (virtually all to AiG) that set forth the 'scientific case' for Creation, and I haven't seen piece of good science - not one. It's not bad science because it's Creation Science, it's just bad science - poor methodology, over-interpretation, non-repeatability, sloppy write-up, the works. It wouldn't pass muster at the Leaving Cert.

I suggest your bias is blinding you to any interpretation other than evolution. Other scientists have had their eyes opened.

You reckon without the enormous fame that would accrue to a scientist who could disprove evolution.

The word you are seeking is infamy. He would be derided as the champion of religious dogma, his research be rubbished as opposing the known truth that has been held by generations of his peers.

There are thousands of research teams, all over the world, and they're mostly small enough that if you really had a case against evolution, you could swing the rest of the team.

Some indeed have been convinced, but for the rest fear of the consequencies or fear of the need to change their world-view keeps them quiet or blind.

The funding bodies don't really care, and it would be really easy to get the work published if it was done right.

The funding bodies are just as susceptible to peer-pressure and prone to defend their presuppositions as the rest of us.

Read the history of western science, and you'll see Christians struggling not to have to ditch the Biblical account. I've pulled you up on this one before - it's a rotten lie, and a smear on men (and some women) who agonised over their faith in the light of the evidence.

Sure, some Christians buckled under the philosophies of men, rather than re-examine asserted 'facts' to see if they are so or are just mistaken presuppositions. The same thing happened in the fields of Biblical history and textual criticism. The accuracy of the Bible was dropped by some Christian scholars. I wonder what they thought when archeology subsequently verified the Biblical account? http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html

Had some of the Christians who swallowed evolution been around to see the scientific challenge to evolution being mounted by this past generation, they would be ashamed to have tampered with the Biblical account so easily.

But many of the 'Christians' were not the authentic type in the first place, and more than Bishop Spong is one today. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1119.asp

Actually, that's funny. The 'stumbling block' to my acceptance of Christianity is the Bible. The more true it is, the less I want to have to do with Christianity, or any of the Abrahamic religions.

OK, but for many folk it is the other way around. Glad you have clarified that for me.

Yes, but you are not a qualified geologist, and I am. Dreadful as that sounds, it means that I am capable of examining the evidence for myself. You are wrong - there is no scientific case for the Flood, whatsoever. Not the slightest bit of it makes sense, or tallies with what's found - not the slightest bit. It's complete rubbish.

I wasn't suggesting I was as competent as you to speak on the science of the Flood. You are much better qualified. But then so are the geologists who support the Flood as a real event: example, John R. Baumgardner, Ph.D. Geophysics/Space Physics http://www.globalflood.org/biography.html
See his site: http://www.globalflood.org/

Wolfsbane, it's not necessary to prove your God's existence to me. I got over that kind of atheism a few years in (during my teens). I don't regard God's existence as silly, or impossible, or somehow "disproven" - which gets me into a fair number of arguments with "other atheists". I'm an alatrist - a non-worshipper.

That's a new one on me, but I see the clear indentity it marks out. Good term.

If your God exists, if the Bible is 100% true, if I watched the Rapture - not one of these things means anything, or changes my position. I don't worship the OT God because he's a particularly vile sort of dictator. I don't accept Christianity, because it's just brown-nosing that self-centred, vindictive, insane dictator - humbling yourself before him, and grovelling out how unworthy we all are. If the Bible is correct, then I'm going to Hell - and even then, I'll still be morally better than your God. I reject him outright.

There now - if I'm going to break the forum charter, I'm going to break it good and hard.

I appreciate your honesty and know you are not being offensive to Christians on the thread.

I know how you will (must) interpret my rant above. You have to say that because God is real, and we all know that in our hearts, I secretly fear the Bible being proven true (because I truly fear God's punishment), and therefore cannot let myself see the real evidence for Creation. Whatever works for you.

Yes, that about covers it. Your opposition to the God you know in your heart to be real, manifests itself in your case by the adoption of the bold position of alatrism. But whatever the particularity that is used to blind one, God is able to remove it.
2 Corinthians 4: 3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

wolfsbane

Sapien said:

No, Wolfsbane, I am not. You were simply wrong, uninformed, incorrect. Communist Russia officially rejected Darwinian Evolution as being wrong. They rejected genetics. They rejected genetic inheritance of any kind. They did not believe that Lamarckian adaption operated in, or merely in the mechanisms of social change. They accepted Lamarckian adaption as the mechanism by which biological organisms change, and rejected Darwinian evolution. I don't know how much clearer I can be.

Darwinian evolution was not a "given" in Soviet Russia - it was denounced and rejected. They did not believe that it supported their world-view, they believed it was fundamentally in conflict with it.

You could be clearer by actually answering what I said, rather than invent a straw-man. I did not say Darwinian evolution, I said in any event evolution provided the scientific cover for communism's atheism., so unless you can prove the Soviets did not believe in and preach biological evolution, my case is proved.

robindch

> Only the elite were accused of Nazi-like tactics. But many of the rest of
> you seem happy enough with it, so some guilt lies with you too.

So you believe that I support Nazi tactics, do you?

> His organization is a religious one, not a scientific body.

So why do you refer to him, time after time, for information on biology?

> Religious bodies have religious standards.

That, I'm afraid, is the core problem we are dealing with -- belief in fairy-stories painted as fact.

> [AiG] do not permit the fundamental beliefs of their body to be questioned.

In that, they're a bit like the Nazis themselves, wouldn't you agree?

> AiG uses scientific argument to show the Bible is not at varience
> with science. But it makes it clear that it is a religious body.

No, AiG lies, distorts and dissembles in order to show that Ham's childish view of the world is in line with Ham's childish view of the bible. And of course, his outfit makes a hell of a lot of money out of it in the process -- Ham's earned $186,000 in 2004 -- not at all bad for somebody who says he runs a charitable organization!

> That is my objection - religious dogma controlling the scientific arena.
> I would be just as opposed to Creation Science suppressing arguments
> for evolution

My irony-meter just redlined. Do you really, genuinely, believe what you wrote there?

> Again, the prestigious international body who issued the recent statement
> on evolution - we discussed it here. Everyone of those who formulate
> such defences of evolution and present them as the indisputable truth,
> they are part of the elite.

Have you read this recent statement? I presume you haven't, because you would have read the following on page two:

While acknowledging current limitations, science is open ended, and subject to correction and expansion as new theoretical and empirical understanding emerges.

Anyhow, here's a question for you: do you ever consider that AiG may be suppressing information?

robindch

> in any event evolution provided the scientific cover for communism's atheism
> so unless you can prove the Soviets did not believe in and preach
> biological evolution, my case is proved.

Strange that this keeps coming up again and again and again. Anyhow, rather than cut'n'paste, here's a reply for which I wrote the initial text for TO a few weeks back:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_2.html

Note that it quotes Stalin on evolution directly.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

I said in any event evolution provided the scientific cover for communism's atheism., so unless you can prove the Soviets did not believe in and preach biological evolution, my case is proved.

Everyone believes in biological evolution, even the Young Earth Creationists ... the YEC theory of specialisation is a form of evolution, unless you have a better term to describe 8,000 species to 2 million in a few decades (other than "nonsense" of course)

Your comparision is pointless unless you are talking about neo-darwin evolution

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

It is also a rather silly argument to state the the big bad evil atheist communist supported evolution as if to suggest a link between evolution and evil empires.

What one thinks about the value of man determines how we treat him.

The shinny happy God fearing Americans after all developed atomic weapons and boiled to death an entire city in Japan around the same time.

There is no real difference between atomics and any other means of war. It kills. If the killing is justified - which many would argue for, as well as against, in the case of the Japanese example - then one must see if more humane methods are possible. In the Japanese case, that seemed unlikely, the estimates for a last-ditch defence scenario giving a greatly increased number of casaulties and the horrors of prolonged suffering and death for most.

But the real point is that the West still felt constrained to a significant degree by the Christian Just War theory. Christianity was no longer the actual belief of most, but the heritage of conscience was there.

Absolutely no idea what that quote, about social and cultural evolution (which is quite distinct from biological evolution) has to do with this topic ....

If you had read it carefully you would have seen it was to show that the other forms of evolution you mentioned were not instead of biological evolution, but alongside it and underpined by it: It explains the cardinal difference between our past, purely biological mode of change, and our current, maddening acceleration towards something new and liberating - or towards the abyss."

BTW, I am working on many of your previous posts, as they go over several issues a few times and I want to deal with them in one go if possible. Apologies for the delay.

robindch

> What one thinks about the value of man determines how we treat him.

What do you think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

http://www.ipplc.com/ipplc/commitment/ourcommitment/policies/undhr/

> If the killing is justified

There's plenty of justification for murder in the bible, isn't there?

> But the real point is that the West still felt constrained to a significant
> degree by the Christian Just War theory.

Could you back up this quite extraordinary and quite Orwellian claim with some evidence, please?

robindch

Ahhh, the 3000'th post. We must be getting somewhere, mustn't we?

wolfsbane

robindch said:

Note that it quotes Stalin on evolution directly.

Yes, Robin, I did note what was written. I especially noted that Darwinian evolution was used instead of evolution or biological evolution, the impression being that evolution was not a fundamental pillar of the Soviet system. Fools those who shouldn't be out without their mommies. A nice illustration of smoke and mirrors.