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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
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.....we are BOTH using science to evaluate our respective hypotheses on the 'origins issue'!!!daithifleming wrote: »Please stop using science to defend your faith then.
......all logic and observation supports my hypothesis that a supreme intelligence created life....
......you just have the (unfounded) hope that the whole 'kith and kaboodle' just spontaneously designed and produced itself!!!!!
......the scientific evidence is simply too fascinating to ignore!!!daithifleming wrote: »Just say you believe god did it and leave it at that, eh?
I have never made any direct financial contribution to a Creation Science organisation. I have supported them by attending their confereces and buying some of their videos, books and magazines......and the quality of the conferences, videos and publications has been exceptional and well ahead of the Evolutionist equivalents:Ddaithifleming wrote: »Quit lining the pockets of these con-men:0 -
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I have supported them by attending their confereces and buying some of their videos, books and magazines......and the quality of the conferences, videos and publications has been exceptional and well ahead of the Evolutionist equivalents:D
What exactly are the evil-illusionist equivalents of creation science literature?0 -
Originally Posted by J C
the quality of the conferences, videos and publications has been exceptional and well ahead of the Evolutionist equivalents
The excellent quality of Creation Science publications was one of the things that most surprised me when I attended my first CS conference. I thought that because they weren't independently funded they would have 'run of the mill' presentations and literature.....but they were first rate and very professional.:DI severely doubt that. :rolleyes:0 -
And probably as watertight and as full of bull sh1t as the ark.0
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.....the high quality of Creation Science publications is so exceptional that there is no Evolutionist equivalent!!What exactly are the evil-illusionist equivalents of creation science literature?
.....that word "evil-illusionist" is very interesting.......
......OK, the word 'evil' was presumable 'tongue in cheek'......but was the reference to 'illusionist' a 'Freudian Slip'????
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Originally Posted by J C
the quality of the conferences, videos and publications has been exceptional and well ahead of the Evolutionist equivalents
The excellent quality of Creation Science publications was one of the things that most surprised me when I attended my first CS conference. I thought that because they weren't independently funded they would have 'run of the mill' presentations and literature.....but they were first rate and very professional.:D
Oh you meant in terms of presentation? Now I get ya.
Still, having nice binding may win you good marks in your primary school projects. The scientific community on the other hand don't give a crap what font you publish your rubbish in.0 -
......another case of galloping Evolutionist 'Sour Grapes'.......no doubt!!!!:DOh you meant in terms of presentation? Now I get ya.
Still, having nice binding may win you good marks in your primary school projects. The scientific community on the other hand don't give a crap what font you publish your rubbish in.
.....and Creationist literature and videos score on both content and presentation!!!!:pac::):D0 -
Well, your wrong. In fact AiG and other sites like it have clauses in their mission statements that state that no evidence can in fact contradict their interpretation of the Bible. If evidence appears to it is to be disregarded.I gathered they did - just as evolutionists do.
That is exactly what they do. They say that they do not know why this evidence is wrong, but they know it must is because they "know" the Bible isn't.But they just can't pretend the apparent contradiction isn't there.
That is not science.
If they are not prepared to allow something to contradict the Bible they are not acting as scientists. Saying that is looks like it contradicts the Bible but we know it must not, is not science.I said appears to contradict.
Any models based on the Bible must be, like everything in science, falsifiable. If they aren't then it isn't science.0 -
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.....we are BOTH using science to evaluate our respective hypotheses on the 'origins issue'!!!
You aren't doing that. If you were you wouldn't have made those comments about "peer review", or the ones about a "supreme intelligence"
You are acting in a very unscientific manner, and the fact that you appear not to be aware of this once again supports the idea that you aren't actually a scientist, you merely pretend to be one.
That statement is not scientific.......all logic and observation supports my hypothesis that a supreme intelligence created life....
For a start what is a "supreme intelligence", how does one model that? And what did they actually do? Created life how, and when?
What is your model of your hypothesis, and how would you falsify it?0 -
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.....Creation Science publications ...........there is no Evolutionist equivalent!!
Thought not!
.....that word "evil-illusionist" is very interesting.......
......OK, the word 'evil' was presumable 'tongue in cheek'......but was the reference to 'illusionist' a 'Freudian Slip'????
It's all tongue in cheek - why settle for one pun when you can have two?! :pac::eek::pac:0 -
Wolfsbane put the following (scientific) issue to me (despite not being here to discuss science, apparently) :
But let me put the missing ingredient into the mix:
Your discovery not only overturns years of consensus scientific opinion on the matter, but it also totally supports the Christian claim that God made the universe 6000 years ago and we are the descendants of the original couple.
My response was to the effect that I would, in part, be Terrified that many will see this as meaning that God has ceased to be supernatural, and instead has become merely a falsifiable part of reality
You've just responded to say that God wouldn't be reduced to scientific theory.
Now...I know science isn't your strong point, and that you're not here to discuss it (apparently), but this is getting ridiculous.
Immediately before you asked the question, I pointed out that science does not say what is, but rather presents models, the predictions of which are intended to match observation.
As part of my answer, I pointed out that I had just explained this immediately before you asked the question, but still stressed it again, because part of my answer was that I would fear that people would mistakenly see science as saying what is.
Your response is...amazingly...to tell me that I'm wrong, because it doesn't mean exactly what I stressed it doesn't mean!!!
Of course God wouldn't be reduced to scientific theory. Scientific theory equally cannot support the existence of something. Rather, scientific theory can present a model which matches observation. That model, in order to be scientific must be falsifiable.
So, if I had scientific evidence which supported a (scientific) Creationist model, then that Creationist model cannot be based on claims that are non-falsifiable. This leaves you with two choices..either the model does not include God, or the God in the model is falsifiable. You explicitly referred to God, so that rules out the first option.
Get it yet? Either you have to allow the scientific model of God to be falsifiable, or you have to exclude God from the scientific model. As neither option is a comment on reality, neither option reduces God to scientific theory.
That is exactly the type of broken reasoning I said terrified me....a direct consequence of people not distinguishing between a scientific model and reality.
I think the problem arises because you want to believe that science can support the existence of God, and the correctness of the bible....but cannot accept that this simply isn't true.0 -
Good post Bonkey, that is an issue I've been thinking about since JC started making his comments that science has proven that life was created by a supreme intelligence.
Creationism is not simply bad science, but it is ultimately not possible for it to be science in the first place because it is not possible to create a scientific model of what they claim happened.
The most science could say is that, from scientific point of view, we don't know, and let religious people believe what they like. One cannot say that science supports the idea of intelligent creation, because that is something that cannot model scientifically without modelling the creator.
By claiming to use science Creationists are simply heading down a cul-de-sac0 -
Does this help? -Given that that is a (rather annoying) conversation between two people that is approx 32 pages (printout) long, perhaps you could narrow down where in that very long discussion they define "information"
In my book, I did not quantify the information gain or loss in a mutation. I didn’t do it mainly because I was reluctant to introduce equations and scare off the average reader. And anyway, I thought it rather obvious that a mutation that destroys the functionality of a gene (such as a repressor gene) is a loss of information. I also thought it rather obvious that a mutation that reduces the specificity of an enzyme is also a loss of information. But I shall take this opportunity to quantify the information difference before and after mutation in an important special case, which I described in my book.
The information content of the genome is difficult to evaluate with any precision. Fortunately, for my purposes, I need only consider the change in the information in an enzyme caused by a mutation. The information content of an enzyme is the sum of many parts, among which are:
Level of catalytic activity
Specificity with respect to the substrate
Strength of binding to cell structure
Specificity of binding to cell structure
Specificity of the amino-acid sequence devoted to specifying the enzyme for degradation
These are all difficult to evaluate, but the easiest to get a handle on is the information in the substrate specificity.
To estimate the information in an enzyme I shall assume that the information content of the enzyme itself is at least the maximum information gained in transforming the substrate distribution into the product distribution. (I think this assumption is reasonable, but to be rigorous it should really be proved.) We can think of the substrate specificity of the enzyme as a kind of filter. The entropy of the ensemble of substances separated after filtration is less than the entropy of the original ensemble of the mixture. We can therefore say that the filtration process results in an information gain equal to the decrease in entropy. Let’s imagine a uniform distribution of substrates presented to many copies of an enzyme. I choose a uniform distribution of substrates because that will permit the enzyme to express its maximum information gain. The substrates considered here are restricted to a set of similar molecules on which the enzyme has the same metabolic effect. This restriction not only simplifies our exercise but it applies to the case I discussed in my book.
The products of a substrate on which the enzyme has a higher activity will be more numerous than those of a substrate on which the enzyme has a lower activity. Because of the filtering, the distribution of concentrations of products will have a lower entropy than that of substrates. Note that we are neglecting whatever entropy change stems from the chemical changes of the substrates into products, and we are focusing on the entropy change reflected in the distributions of the products of the substrates acted upon by the enzyme.
The entropy of an ensemble of n elements with fractional concentrations f1,…,fn is given by (1)
and if the base of the logarithm is 2, the units of entropy are bits.
As a first illustration of this formula let us take the extreme case where there are n possible substrates, and the enzyme has a nonzero activity on only one of them. This is perfect filtering. The input entropy for a uniform distribution of n elements is, from (1), given by (2)
since the fi's are each 1/n. The entropy of the output is zero, (3)
because all the concentrations except one are zero, and the concentration of that one is 1. Then the decrease in entropy brought about by the selectivity of the enzyme is then the difference between (2) and (3), or
Another example is the other extreme case in which the enzyme does not discriminate at all among the n substrates. In this case the input and output entropies are the same, namely (4)
Therefore, the information gain, which is the difference between HO and HI, in this case is zero, (5)
We normalize the activities of the enzyme on the various substrates and these normalized activities will then be the fractional concentrations of the products. This normalization will eliminate from our consideration the effect of the absolute activity level on the information content, leaving us with only the effect of the selectivity.
Although these simplifications prevent us from calculating the total entropy decrease achieved by action of the enzyme, we are able to calculate the entropy change due to enzyme specificity alone.0 -
I compared one of your peer-reveiwed articles with one of the creationist type, and can't see any 'quantum' difference. Perhaps you will point it out?These 'scientific papers' you are referring to are, at best, review articles. Review articles can be considered journalism, of a technical sort. Good review articles present balanced arguments. Scientists who gather at conferences are there to present the results of novel and original research investigations.
An investigation with an introduction/rationale/hypothesis, description of methods used, the results and a discussion on them. But here's the kicker: to be 'creation research' it has to be about creation. :pac:
Recreating a Functional Ancestral Archosaur Visual Pigment
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1483
The Specified Complexity of Retinal Imagery
http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/43/43_1/retinal_imagery.htm0 -
Good post Bonkey, that is an issue I've been thinking about since JC started making his comments that science has proven that life was created by a supreme intelligence.
Creationism is not simply bad science, but it is ultimately not possible for it to be science in the first place because it is not possible to create a scientific model of what they claim happened.
The most science could say is that, from scientific point of view, we don't know, and let religious people believe what they like. One cannot say that science supports the idea of intelligent creation, because that is something that cannot model scientifically without modelling the creator.
By claiming to use science Creationists are simply heading down a cul-de-sac
I'd put ID in the domain of pseudo-science. Its got good company though with string theory and chaos theory. These use science in their arguments but if only we ever did meet our maker or create something that could make us see or test a string then we would have to call them science. Chaos theory is obviously unfalsifiable and breaks the only assumption that science makes, that the universe follows a set of rules. These things are not scientific because they are inferior to science but because they are bigger than science so theres no reason to feel bad about it.0 -
I compared one of your peer-reveiwed articles with one of the creationist type, and can't see any 'quantum' difference. Perhaps you will point it out?
Recreating a Functional Ancestral Archosaur Visual Pigment
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1483
The Specified Complexity of Retinal Imagery
http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/43/43_1/retinal_imagery.htm
The first details a method used to reconstruct a putative gene for a dinosaur eye pigment. Using available evidence, the investigators proposed the most likely gene sequences then transfected cells with the gene to produce the pigment and tested the pigment for function. The results are then presented for your appraisal and discussed.
The second is an essay, no actual experiments were performed and, hence, no actual results are presented. there are lots of hypothetical data and statistics to make it look 'sciencey' though. :pac: The author rounds things up with an incredible conclusion, completely unsupported by his hypothetical speculation:
Only a designing creator can create the visual systems capable of seeing and interpreting the information contained in the light that He created. Today’s scientific research on visual systems shows that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
If you honestly can't tell the difference between an investigation and an essay, then all I can say is wow. Science does not support your position. I really don't know why you persist in trying to claim its authority. If faith alone is enough, why? WHY? :pac:0 -
I'd put ID in the domain of pseudo-science. Its got good company though with string theory and chaos theory.
I wouldn't put ID in such august company.
Chaos theory is a mathematical system, independant of its applications in modelling.
String theory also is a mathematical system, which may also be a scientific model. I say it may, because it currently fails to meet the scientific system as it has made no testable and falsifiable predications which have not already been made. Whether it can make such predictions is the question yet to be answered.
Chaos theory most certainly does not break that assumption. Chaos theory describes certain types of deterministic systems - systems which absolutely and strictly follow a set of rules.Chaos theory is obviously unfalsifiable and breaks the only assumption that science makes, that the universe follows a set of rules.These things are not scientific because they are inferior to science but because they are bigger than science so theres no reason to feel bad about it.
These things are not scientific because they do not make falsifiable predictions.
One of them (chaos theory) shouldn't make such predictions, as it is a mathemtical system. Its application in the real world, however, most certainly does make such predictions, as they predict that certain apparently-random events are not random and follow a pattern which can be discerned. Any pattern offered as a predictive, scientific model can therefore be falsified.
String theory, on the other hand, makes plenty of testable, falsifiable predictions....unfortunately they're all predictions that have been already made. It is arguably scientific-but-useless on these grounds...we have simpler-to-use systems that produce the same predictions. Those working on String theory are still trying to get to that Holy Grail - a testable, falsifiable prediction.0 -
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eoin5 is also ignorant of the fact that physics has advanced so much in the past 30 years that it has outpaced the technology required to test its newer theories. So now people are waiting for the technology to catch up.0
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daithifleming wrote: »eoin5 is also ignorant of the fact that physics has advanced so much in the past 30 years that it has outpaced the technology required to test its newer theories. So now people are waiting for the technology to catch up.
I'm not sure that I'd agree entirely that this is a valid criticism.
If we're waiting for technology to catch up in order to test something, then whatever that something is remains untested. Testing is generally seen as the final hurdle in acceptance of a hypothesis. If you can't test it yet, then you can't (or shouldn't) fully accept it. At the very least, anything which assumes it to be correct would have to be couched in language that makes it clear that it assumes the untested holds true.
The main reason I object to ID being classed with something like String Theory or the scientific applications of Chaos Theory is because ID makes no falsifiable predictions whatsoever. It makes no predictions which can ever be tested. Indeed, its not designed to do so. It is sophistry, masquerading as a scientific argument, presented in a similar style to a scientific argument, designed to lead to a non-falsifiable conclusion. Ultimately, the entire ID argument is misdirection to lead one away from this critical flaw. It makes no testable, falsifiable predictions.
A good analagy, which was (at least) once brought up here were the various interpretations of certain aspects of Quantum Field Theory. There's the multiple-reality interpretation and so on. The thing is that QFT makes no comment on which of these interpretations (if any) is correct. It merely shows that any of these interpretations would suffice to give rise to the QFT model. These interpretations may some day become scientifically useful, if we can figure out a manner in which they differ in prediction of something that is falsifiably testable.
ID presents an interpretation of the data which says that a Creator could have started everything off. It tries to argue that this is the only conclusion we can logically draw, but thats not science as its neither testable nor falsifiable. Generally speaking, its also logically flawed when one looks close enough....but thats not so important, to be honest. The strategy of seeking acceptance for ID involves getting away from its two base failings...that it makes no falsifiable predictions that cannot be made in its absence, and that it is unfalsifiable. By allowing a proponent of ID to redefine the argument in any other terms can only serve to further whatever non-scientific agenda is being persued. If one is persuing a scientific agenda, then the first hurdle one must cross is the question of whether or not one is dealing with science.0 -
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I'm not sure that I'd agree entirely that this is a valid criticism.
If we're waiting for technology to catch up in order to test something, then whatever that something is remains untested. Testing is generally seen as the final hurdle in acceptance of a hypothesis. If you can't test it yet, then you can't (or shouldn't) fully accept it. At the very least, anything which assumes it to be correct would have to be couched in language that makes it clear that it assumes the untested holds true.
I didn't say anything to the contrary.0 -
daithifleming wrote: »eoin5 is also ignorant of the fact that physics has advanced so much in the past 30 years that it has outpaced the technology required to test its newer theories. So now people are waiting for the technology to catch up.
How do you figure that? Is there anyone with a notion as to how were going to test string theory? I'd call it unforseeable (as opposed to impossible) and so would most other scientists. Maybe well get a Fourier type genius breakthrough some day to help us do it but until then...0 -
How do you figure that? Is there anyone with a notion as to how were going to test string theory?
Not yet, no.I'd call it unforseeable (as opposed to impossible) and so would most other scientists. Maybe well get a Fourier type genius breakthrough some day to help us do it but until then...
I'd call it unforseeable that String Theory in its current state will be tested. The String Theorists, of course, are trying to advance their work to the point where it makes predictions that can be tested.0 -
I'd call it unforseeable that String Theory in its current state will be tested. The String Theorists, of course, are trying to advance their work to the point where it makes predictions that can be tested.
Thats true, the breakthrough would probably involve a change in the theory.
(btw i was totally wrong about chaos theory, my bad)0 -
From today's Nature:Nature wrote:Creationists fail in bid to offer 'science' degrees
A religious group has had its application to offer Master of Science degrees rejected by Texas authorities.
The Institute for Creation Research — which backs a literal interpretation of the Bible, including the creation of Earth in six days — was seeking a certificate to grant online degrees in science education in Texas (see Nature 451, 1030; 2008). But the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board voted unanimously last week not to grant the institute's request, following the recommendation of Raymund Paredes, the state's commissioner of higher education.
“Religious belief is not science,” Paredes said in his recommendation. “Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing.”
The institute has 45 days to appeal or 180 days to reapply.
Not even Texas agrees that creationism is science. :pac: I still don't get why creationists are so desperate to claim scientific authority?? What difference will it really make?0 -
I think these two bits may help more:Does this help? -
<sniiiiip>First of all, I note that of these five components, you have suggested for only one-specificity with respect to the substrate-how you would quantitate its contribution to the information content of the protein. In discussing this component you state:
To estimate the information in an enzyme I shall assume that the information content of the enzyme itself is at least the Maximum information gained in transforming the substrate distribution into the product distribution. (I think this assumption is reasonable, but to be rigorous it should really be proved.)
You may think that this assumption is reasonable, but I think that it is totally unreasonable. This assumption forms the basis for almost your entire argument, yet even you admit that it has not been proven, which would be necessary for your analysis to be rigorous, as you state. You therefore agree with me that your analysis is not rigorous, but based an unproven assumption.
Secondly, you omitted any description of how the other components you listed would be used to assess information. Yet, you have claimed that because the mutations in the ribitol dehydrogenase system suggest a decrease in the substrate specificity component of information, the mutation represents a loss of information. But how can you claim this when you have not evaluated quantitatively all the other components that you say contribute to information? To me, for you to make a judgment about the quantitative information change due to the mutation when you have left out an evaluation of four of the five components of your proposed information metric is a rather serious lapse, especially for one who accuses others of “conclusion jumping."
Thirdly, you have not specified whether all the five components in your list should be given equal weight. If you do not give them equal weight, please explain your weighting system and justify it.
Fourthly, you imply ("sum of many parts, among which are") that there are additional parts that might contribute to the information content; but you never specify what these are.
Fifthly, you have not justified why any of these parameters should be considered in a metric quantitating the information of a protein. One might argue that the information content of the wild type and mutated ribitol dehydrogenase proteins were the same because - regardless of the substrate specificities-the amount of information necessary to define their amino acid sequence has not changed.
Your analogies (the 20 questions game, or zip codes) that encourage you to proclaim that Specificity = Information don’t clarify anything about the information of a protein in that a 200 amino acid protein A that has high levels of all of the components of your information metric can be specified by exactly as much information as a 200 amino acid protein B that is low in all your components. Indeed, I believe most scientists who have considered the information represented by genes or enzymes would conclude that a large complex protein involves much more information than a short polypeptide. Certainly it requires more information to specify the sequence of a large protein. Yet in your list of five components of information you have completely omitted that one parameter that most scientists would consider most important in comparing information content.
In summary, you have only one of your five components of protein information quantitatively, and that analysis you admit is not rigorous,
you have not yet defined how four of your five parameters would be quantified, you have not yet described how the parameters would be weighted in combining them into a measurement of information, you have not presented a justification of why each parameter should be included, you have not specified whether there are other parameters that need to be included, and you have not justified the exclusion of the parameter most scientists would include in an information estimate; these are the reasons I considered your formulation vague and non-quantitative and not supported by clear logic.
and
These readers should be aware that your theories have not met the normal criterion for a scientific idea to be worthy of serious consideration, namely publication in the peer-reviewed professional scientific literature. Although a computer search of the literature showed me that you wrote exactly two papers on information and protein sequences that were published in peer-reviewed journals, both more than 30 years ago (J THEOR BIOL 7 : 412, 1964; and NATURE 226: 48, 1970), neither of these papers contains discussion of your estimate of information content of a protein as measured by the parameters listed above. As far as I have been able to determine (and please correct me if I am wrong) the latter ideas were published only in your book, a non-peer reviewed publication; and the ideas from the book have been mentioned in the peer-reviewed professional literature only once, in a recent paper (Schneider Nucl Ac Res 28:2794, 2000) that disputes the validity of your analysis. The fact that your information metric has not been published in the peer-reviewed professional literature does not in itself make the analysis wrong, any more than the absence of flat-earth papers in the professional planetary astronomy journals or the absence of Holocaust denial papers in the professional history literature makes those two theories wrong. Each theory stands or falls on its merits (or lack thereof). But readers should know that you have not undertaken a novel application of a generally accepted metric to draw novel conclusions that confound evolutionists; rather, you have applied an eccentric metric never accepted by the science community, and not surprisingly have drawn eccentric (and in my view invalid) conclusions.
If anyone cares to check, they'll see that Spetner basically dismisses these critiques with what amounts to annoyance and handwaving, as though expecting peer-review and rigorous establishment of the basis of one's claims were unreasonable things to ask for in science.
So in short, I'm not really any further in finding out what this information is that cannot be gained. It seems that even its most ardent supporters refuse to define it clearly.0 -
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So you think the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is run by Christians? Not the liberal/agnostic/atheistic elite who run the rest of academia?From today's Nature:
Not even Texas agrees that creationism is science. :pac: I still don't get why creationists are so desperate to claim scientific authority?? What difference will it really make?
Anyway, to answer your question: the only reason creationists make a scientific case is to answer objections to the veracity of the Bible. If the current materialistic explanation of the cosmos (evolution being a central constituent) did not challenge the basis of the Christian faith, then we would not bother. The scientists among us would no doubt be intersted in arguing various scientific theories, but the rest of us would stick to the spiritual issues.
Since the Bible is being challenged, we seek to show that science is not opposed to the Biblical account - that a recent creation is in line with the evidence.0
This discussion has been closed.
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