[QUOTE=dropzone]
As for [Bob’s], [Alex’s], and DSYoung’s philosophical statements, most, while perfectly suitable for college bull sessions around a pitcher of beer and a bong, are simplistic and inappropriately applied here. They are neither good science nor good philosophy.
[/QUOTE]
Thou hast spoken truly!
[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
Some of you profess that such ideas are beer and bong philosophy. Underserving of consideration. Philosophers such as Descart would very much disagree.
[/quote]
Waiter? Could you please bring Descart so we can see what’s for Desertes?
[QUOTE=Bob55]
Wow, I didn’t realize this was The Pit, nor did I realize my credentials were on trial here.
[/quote]
Why wouldn’t they be when you make the kind of anti-scientific or at least massively under-informed assertions you’ve made in this thread? Why shouldn’t we question the credentials of, say, someone who claims to have an M.D. who claims things like that all the body’s organs switch places every night unless you’re looking at them? And that opposing views are no more than “theories” (see below) and so one view is no better justified than any other?
[QUOTE=Bob55]
I have successfully solved the atomic structure of many proteins involved in cancer metastasis, and I’ve published this work in Nature, the top science journal. Please tell me how my “totally fallacious understanding of how science actually works” has inhibited my research?
[/quote]
Huh? Why do you think we would think your massive malunderstanding of the philosophy and epistemology of science prevent you from “solving the atomic structure of many proteins involved in cancer metastasis”? That doesn’t necessarily make you a scientist rather than a skilled technician.
[QUOTE=Bob55]
I’m able to be very practical and analytical when it comes to science, but I also enjoy the philosphical arguments.
[/quote]
Then why not first try to actually learn some genuine, academic philosophy? Because the “philosophical arguments” you’ve actually made show zero evidence of such learning. You don’t have to go back to school to get a doctorate in actual academic philosophy (as opposed to a “Doctor philosophiæ” in some branch of science), just read a couple of good, introductory texts at least, at least one of which addresses the philosophy of science.
[QUOTE=Bob55]
If you’d reread my posts again you’d see that I clearly stated I believe the earth is 4 billion years old, but my point was you cannot discount the other side’s argument because there is no proof, just theories.
[/quote]
I’ve already pointed out your previous misuse of the term “theory”, which “proves” you don’t understand science, which is why we question your credentials. Non-scientists and scientists who don’t understand science use the word just the way you do: as a synonym for “conjecture” or “guess” or maybe even “hypothesis”. But people who genuinely understand science know that a scientist uses the term “theory” to describe an explanatory structure or model which is falsifiable and empirically testable and can generally be used to make testable predictions. Contrary to popular misunderstanding or ignorance, there is NO progression from hypothesis -> theory -> fact. A “fact” is NOT a “confirmed theory”! (I’m afraid the esteemed MEBuckner doesn’t use this language correctly in his/her post above, either. But then I don’t know if he or she has claimed to be a scientist. I’m certainly not, though). Something can be a theory and a fact at the same time, and all scientific theories are based on facts.
[QUOTE=Bob55]
If you’d reread my posts again you’d see that I clearly stated I believe the earth is 4 billion years old, but my point was you cannot discount the other side’s argument because there is no proof, just theories. Some theories are more logical than others and contain more supporting data, but in the end they remain theories.
[/quote]
The problem here is that your argument seeks (or at least appears to seek) to place all theories on the same shelf. Because “absolute proof” isn’t possible, you give equal weight, or at least within the same magnitude, to any theory. This is fine for the sophomore dorm room bull sessions everyone compares the OP to, but it’s the antithesis of good science, which gives greatest weight to the hypothesis that is in combination best falsifiable and yet withstands inquiry and test. In the case of the OP, the established age of the Earth (at ~4.6Byr) is in agreement with diverse fields of geology, geophysics, planetology, astronomy, stellar evolution and astrophysics, et cetera. Essentially every answer we get from scientific inquiry is in the same ballpark and serves to refine our existing estimate.
Nothing–absolutely nothing–in nature appears to indicate that the planet, much less the cosmos, is 10kyr old. Oh, except for that book; the one in which the Great Booming Voice From Beyond says, “Let there be light!” and the world is thus created, then populated by one human of each gender in contravention to all we know about biology and genetics. It is, in fact, impossible to take the Biblical story of Genesis literally unless you are also willing to cast aside the entire foundation of human knowledge of nature, on the flimsy premise that genuine Truth resides in a heavily edited, repeatedly transcribed and translated book containing highly contradictory moral lessons and often conflicting stories (including the two versions of Creation).
Our theories on the age and creation of the Earth may be “just theories”, but they’re ones that are in line with everything else we can observe; and our theories allow us to predict the results of future experiments and observations. That puts them a couple of tiers above theology in the “figuring stuff out” category.
[QUOTE=Bob55]
I’ve avoided reposting because this isn’t Great Debates or The Pit, and I’ve already stated my side and let people take their shots at me uncontested. But I am now posting to let you know that attacking my Ph.D. is off topic and in my opinion an unwarranted personal attack, especially with my research and publication record. If you can’t post something that contributes to the discussion and can only think of a way to put me down, please just do not post.
[/QUOTE]
It was you who brought in your credentials into this discussion as if this added weight to your argument. Given how contrary your statements are to the current thinking on the philosophy of the scientific method and that they are essentially a rehash of religious Fundamentalist arguments against the validity of science, it’s no wonder that other posters have questioned your credibility as a scientist. This does not excuse blatant ad hominin attacks like “he really needs to consider going back to the school that bestowed the degree, and ask for a refund,” but the proceding statement, “If he managed to earn a science doctorate while still maintaining this totally fallacious understanding of how science actually works,” is an apt, if blunt, observation. If you think otherwise, then perhaps you should educate yourself further on the topic of the philosophy of science, starting with Charles Pierce and Karl Popper.
Stranger
I’ve been lurking on this thread since almost the beginning. With some hesitation, I’m going to wade in with a few thoughts.
Frankly, I think there’s something to the OP, though not necessarily what the OP had in mind. The question, IMHO, isn’t whether Young Earth is valid science. Obviously it isn’t. Science is testable. YE isn’t. QED, ain’t science. Rather, the question is: How do YEers manage to hold onto the belief in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence? The answer, I think, is something very much like what the OP posits. I doubt that many people here dispute this.
It bears mentioning that there’s a certain sensibility to the YE disregard of science. After all, whether the Earth is old or young affects our lives in no tangible way. I’m reminded of a famous early exchange between Holmes and Watson, in which the former declares that he cares not whether the Earth revolves around the Sun or vice versa because “What the deuce is it to me? … [Y]ou say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” IOW, to YEers, faith and inerrancy are critical, present day concerns. The age of the Earth is of almost no significance. Small wonder, then, that they find dissembling apologetics to be persuasive.
In passing, I can’t resist pointing out that YE is crappy theology. The Jews - whose book this is, after all - have NEVER considered it to be literal history. That’s why there are two creation stories. Genesis was simply a stitching together of oral traditions and, since they were just stories, no one cared that they contradicted. Fundamentalists disregard all that because, to them, inerrancy is everything. Overlooking, meanwhile, that the whole Christian interpretation of, say, Isaiah, is distinctly nonliteral. I guess, as Emerson said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
[BTW: As I’ve mentioned before, I’m an atheist (or strong agnostic, depending on how one defines terms). My mother is a YEer (became one after I left home). We don’t discuss these issues.]
Way back in the 5th century, St. Jerome (the chappie who translated the Bible into Latin) called the early part of Genesis “a folk tale”).
But, of course, he was one o’ them thar EEEVIL Roamin’ Cath’lics, so what would he know?
[QUOTE=PBear42]
[/QUOTE]
The age of the earth is significant to them precisely because of faith and inerrancy - not because of the actual age. Otherwise they wouldn’t make such a big stink about it.
[QUOTE=ambushed]
(I’m afraid the esteemed MEBuckner doesn’t use this language correctly in his/her post above, either. But then I don’t know if he or she has claimed to be a scientist. I’m certainly not, though). Something can be a theory and a fact at the same time, and all scientific theories are based on facts.
[/QUOTE]
Well I guess I just meant that I don’t know that “Earth is about 4.5 billion years old” is a theory; more of an (indirectly deduced) fact. It’s not a whole explanatory framework; just a statement of fact. We have Earth rocks that have been dated to before 3 billion years old; and Moon rocks older than that. Those dates of course are made in the framework of theories we have about, for example, how radioactive decay works. The “Refined Nebular Model” or whatever the hell they call it would be a theory about the formation of the Solar System, including Earth, with supernova explosions billions of years before the formation of the Solar System and a nebula and a protostar and accretion disks and so forth, which theory would include the detail that all this happened four or six billion years ago, not five or ten thousand years ago.
Well, of course. That was implicit in my comment. What I’m saying is it they can get away with being so wildly wrong about to the age of the Earth (staking out a position with vanishingly small scientific plausibility) because it doesn’t affect their day-to-day lives. This is as distinguished, say, from fundamentalists who reject medicine in favor of prayer. Now, that’s a decision where getting it wrong has consequences.
Bumping this thread to say that Cecil’s column on Americans’ views of the Young Earth theory is cited in The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (a tongue-in-cheek 2007 guide to fundamentalism and religious dictates, which I recommend highly). Check in the acknowledgements section, which is on p. 336 (re: Day 40 of his project) of my hardcover edition.
I actually found that book to be terrible, but you’re right that it does mention the SD.
I wonder if the eventual owner of the Dope tracks this stuff.
Just realized this is a very old thread other than the bit on the new book… What makes it terrible to yellowjacketcoder yet Elendil’s heir likes it so much?
I found the author smug and pretentious, who spends most of the book going “who knew these religious nuts did such wacky things!” and generally aping people that are trying to teach him something. Plus he tries “follow the rules” as an excuse to be an asshole.
A specific that comes to mind: The book is supposed to be about following the laws and commandments of the bible to the letter for a year. Remember how there’s a commandment to not lie (I believe it is actually “not to bear false witness” which is quite different)? When he and his wife meet and old friend of hers and the wife wants to invite her to dinner, upon being asked if he minds, his response is along the lines of “Nah, your friend’s boring and I’d rather play some video games tonight”. He says this in front of the friend.
The whole book is littered with anecdotes like that.
EDIT: I don’t know why specifically Elendil’s Heir likes it, but since Mr. Green rudely makes fun of a lot of religious people, I can see why some people would like it. This atheist thinks it’s in bad taste, though.
I just thought it was boring. One of those full books that needn’t be longer than a magazine article, so it gets padded.
I’m a Christian myself, and thought the book was funny, informative, sometimes even touching, and not at all offensive. He spent a year trying to obey all of the 700-some rules set forth in both the Old and New Testaments. He admits that he often fell short, but also that the structure of those rules gave him a sense of purpose and connectedness, and an awareness of the holy in everyday life, that he’d never had before.
I did not think he “rudely makes fun” of anyone. He’s a humorist, and notices and writes about what’s funny everywhere he goes, but he also finds something good and admirable in just about everyone he meets, including Orthodox Jews, the Amish, Pentecostal snake-handlers, Samaritans, the Christian Right, etc. etc. etc.
I’m not challenging your credentials or research with this next statement, BUT going to your core statemnet of “knowing” …
How would you feel if someone read your paper and said, "Ho hum. Whatever. It’s not like he *saw *any of those atoms or mollycules.’
That was posted in 2006, and the poster hasn’t been here for over a year.
Once again, this is a conversation from back in 2006.
This is such a perfect post.
And no need to blow your whistle at me, Czarcasm, I know how old the thread is.
For just a second I thought DSYoungEsq was back.