She’s repeating more misinformation that she got from YEC authors who are telling lies.
Specifically, D. Russell Humphreys, in his Evidence for a Young World and his Creation: Ex Nihilo, took sedimentation rates proposed by V.V. Gordeyev and subduction rates proposed by W.W. Hay, subtracted the one from the other and claimed that he had “proved” that the Earth could not be as old as genuine scientists had proposed. However, when Hay calculated his subduction rates, he looked at the rate that the crust was being subducted and used a level of sedimentation borrowed from another observation (he did not measure the sedimentation, himself). So we have one scientist measuring sedimentation and a different scientist measuring subduction. The scientist measuring subduction simply throws in a “bonus” figure for the amount of sediment subducted without measuring it. Humphreys then ignores the discrepancy and goes on to lie about the actual amount of sediment subducted. If we take the amount of sediment calculated by Gordeyev and apply it to the rate of subduction calculated by Hay, we come out with a level of sediment that does nothing to challenge the 4+ billion year age of the Earth.
Sorry IWLN my previous post wasn’t actually directed at YOU.
However, I can completely understand why some members do (and probably should) enter a thread which goes off course <hijacked> and starts making scientific claims to support their religious beliefs. Especially those claims which are shall we say “unscientific” or as you said “blatantly false”.
So, I agree with you IWLN in that IF a poster claims science proves his belief, then they opened the question to scientists to disprove their claim. But I still stand firm in that, as long as I don’t claim that I can prove GOD exists through science. Then, I should be allowed this consideration and freely debate an issue without being ridiculed.
That being said, I think I’ll leave this thread since the OP is apparently lost interest.
I do agree, mostly. In this setting though, if someone has the opinion that your beliefs are ridiculous, it is certainly not unexpected that they will say so. When I bring up some point about my belief in God here at SDMB, I expect it to be challenged, not validated. That’s why I come here.
I had an episode with some blunt in the Bulldog Cafe in Amsterdam a few years ago where I started to freak and these thoughts came into my mind. I think I broke my brain that night.
Fundamentalists propose that God made mountains complete with fossils and evidence of age and wear, he made star light appear to have come from millions of years ago and he made things look old to begin with. They come to this conclusion because they might entertain facts and reason with regard to anything else but the existence of their God and their interpretation of the scriptures is always off the negotiating table. Maybe Occam’s Razor would be more appealing to folks like Susanann if it was some sort of firearm.
IWLN I’ll try not to hijack this thread too much, but I wanted to respond to your statement. I hope you don’t mind if I just insert my comments bolded into your quote.
Glad to have you too. Maybe IMHO would have been a better forum for this OP?
with utmost respect, t-k
I think I’ll go find some other Dragons to slay…and try not to get burned too badly in my attempt.
I don’t mind at all. Hopefully you won’t mind now if I post it all backwards and show you that the **DEVIL ** is speaking in the text. I do hear what you’re saying, but in all honesty, I saw some slightly “smug” condescension from a theist before anyone else chimed in. It doesn’t matter though. It’s a given that it will happen from both sides, in GD anyway. If someone thinks your ideas are idiotic, this is acceptable; if they indicate that you’re an idiot, then it’s not. If I give my opinion and everyone agrees, I’ve learned nothing. Defending it against attack is where I learn the most. Don’t worry about getting “burned”, it’s kind of a dry heat here.
This is NOT an argument against evolution. Lest you think it is, re-read this reply again and again until you understand that. This is and argument against thinking evolutionary theory will never be replaced.
Scientists have concluded, based on a tremendous of amount of evidence and information, that life evolved from earlier lifeforms. The support for evolutionary theory is amazing in its depth.
However, this does NOT preclude anyone from forming another hypothesis which competes head to head against evolution. The new hypothesis would need only explain all the data we presently have, and in addition be falsifiable (make predictions). Evolutionary theory, in replacing previous theories, passed this test. Creationism does not.
Someday, it is possible for evolution to seem ridiculous and people will wonder how it ever came to pass.
Can you give an example of how science contradicts itself? Science is stated to be incomplete. The contradictions are only if you take the science to be more complete than it actually is.
If you believe that GOD uses something to create and you believe in truth then it necessarily follows that GOD used evolution simply because that’s how things came about. End of story.
This is an argument on the manner in which theorires are replaced. You sum it up by saying that any alternative theory needs to 1)explain all data and 2)be falsifiable. Sure, I’ll go along with that.
How much of evolutionary theory is just data? I would contend that the observed fact that life evolved from earlier lifeforms is simply data. In other words, it cannot be overturned by any new theory, but any new theories need to take into consideration this observed fact.
I’m simply inclined to say this is just as likely as someone finding out that heat transfering from a hot body to a cold body seems ridiculous. Observed facts do not get overturned by new theories, as you point out. The evolution of new lifeforms from earlier lifeforms is observed fact.
This is even more likely to be true about religion, as more and more people require some kind of evidence. Many parts of evolution have been empirically proven, not so with religion.
I suppose you claim to understand everything science has put forth? Not hardly. However, I said confusing in the sense that the scientific method is not about proof. It is about disproof. Hypothesis are subject to being disproven and when they are (if they are) they are then subject to change or perhaps dismissed entirely. As technology advances many of todays accepted scientific theories will also be disproven. New discoveries will promote new theories and so on. There is no absolute fact, yet some “scientists” like to pretend they know the truth. If you are one of those scientists, then you are very confused yourself.
(I should probably intervene here and say, the theories themselves aren’t disproven. The hypothesis on which they are based may disproven which in turn may effect the theory.) That’s beter. just a little prepost edit
Surely you aren’t asking me for cites in which science has made discoveries which contradict or even disprove the paradigm? It is not ME who is claiming science to be more complete than it is.
How about light? Is it constant or not? Wave, particle, or both? Wanna talk about dark matter? (BTW: I wrote my physics thesis on Hawking) Or perhaps you’d like to get into quantums…do monopoles exist or not. Does a neutrino have mass even though it has energy? Can you explain spin theory without confusing everyone? See I studied all this too and have been an avid reader all my life. We can debate these things as well, if you like. But not here.
I was attempting to answer a question posed by Faucet based on religion NOT science. If he had put forth the question in scientific terms my answer would have been different.
Think of it this way JS We can have an intelligent debate about Plato and his ideal plane. We can discuss and present evidence appropriate for the subject. That doesn’t mean we necessarily accept HIS conclusion. If you are just out to prove people wrong, I’m afraid you’re pissing up a rope.
The idea of GOD’s nemesis interfering with HIS creation is just as possible as the creation itself. Those who believe in creation are more subject to discuss the “science” behind evolution if you don’t call them kooks in the beginning.
and FYI… I’m not aware of anyplace in this thread where I claimed this to be my personal belief. It is just another point of view.
An added bonus just for you. I’ve been working on something for my wife and daughter, who both have MD. I’ve recently been researching the effects of different antioxidants and their ability to reconstruct certain defects found in mitochondrial DNA. So far the mechanisms aren’t fully understood. Perhaps we’ll start a thread and see where it goes.
How long was a day before god created light? Who or what created god? If as the Bible says god said, it was good, was it good because god said so, or did god say so because it was? If it was good because god said so does that not just beg the question? And if it was good and god merely recognized the fact, does that not also beg the question?
I need to take a step back and say, for the record, I’m an atheist and I firmly believe evolution explains our existence, not creation.
Having said that…
No one has observed a human evolving from other lifeforms. No one. There is, however, ample evidence that one lifeform does evolve into other forms, and based on the fossil record we can conclude humans did evolve from other lifeforms. But it is not an observed fact.
Once again, human evolution is not an observed fact. It isn’t even a fact.
Attraction of bodies is an observed fact. Go drop an apple on your head. Gravity was a perfect explanation. But wait, sometimes objects push each other away. Why? Ah… magnetism. Gravity is still there, but magnetism is sometimes stronger. In this case, the original theory (gravity) needed to be refined or something new added to explain a new observation.
Someday, we might find a situation where the cold body transfers heat to a warmer body. In that case, a new theory on heat transfer might be needed which explains why in some situations heat transfers hot-> cold and vice versa.
Look out your window. Does the Earth look flat or round? To me it looks pretty flat. Is this an observational fact? Of course not. Why? Because what we think we are observing is not really what is there. The scale of the Earth is so big that it just appears flat from this perspective. Observational “facts” can and do change as new evidence is brought to light.
A new theory which explains why lifeforms change without using evolution is a possibility. It will always be a possibility. We can only surmise (guess, albeit with a high degree of confidence) where humans came from. Today, the best guess we have is evolution. It explains A LOT, but that doesn’t guarantee it will always be.
How can it make anymore sense to profess Atheism than it does to profess faith? I mean you are claiming to have FAITH that God does not exist.
Personally, I am comfortable with the understanding that somethings, are beyond my understanding. I am neither Agnostic, Atheist, nor Believer, I do not know whether God exists, nor do I care. He/She/It has seen fit to leave me alone and I will return the curtesy.
The fact is that species die out and are replaced by other, similar species which weren’t there before.
This phenomenon is called evolution, and it is an observed fact. The Theory of Evolution is an explanation for this fact, and has withstood over a century of attempts by some of the world’s finest minds to find flaws in it.
Arguing about the observed fact of species extinction and the subsequent appearance of different species, over the course of millions of years, is as absurd as arguing about the shape of the Earth.
This thread is not about “disproving God” in any way. It is about debunking factual claims which are clearly false, such as that grass is older than the Sun or that the Earth is mere millennia old.
Why, askeptic, you sound like you are actually using skepticism. Is it permitted for self-identified skeptics to actually practice isosthenia instead of disbelieving?
Everything that science puts forth is, however, comprehensible from the standpoint that it is simply models and observations. It’s not involved in things that aren’t empirical like theology, for example.
Just because things get disproven does not mean there is no absolute fact. A statement of humankind’s limitations is not a critique of science. It is a critique of humankind’s limitations only. No self-respecting scientist will claim or pretend to know the absolute facts of the way nature works, but we DO know how to explain phenomenon in terms of models which are consistently correct.
It depends. Light is constant in a vacuum. There has never been a theory offered that said otherwise.
Both.
Absolutely. And by the way, Hawking has little to nothing to do with the developments of dark matter theory in astronomy.
Monopoles may or may not exist. This doesn’t change the fundamental nature of quantum field theory.
You are confused here. Every object that has mass has energy. Massless objects also have energy. Neutrinos have mass as discovered from the recent Superkamiokande experiment.
If you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach.
I think your snowjob proves my point precisely. These are things that are KNOWN by science. They are observed things that are explained by theory. That’s ALL I was saying.
Except the question asks about the creation of Earth/universe: which is manifestly known because of science.
I’m out to fight ignorance and offer observations that explain reality. That is all.
No argument here. That’s just not what I’m talking about when I’m commenting on some of the issues that arise from taking a nexxus between science and religion as you have. I’m not blaming you: I’m simply pointing out pitfalls.
I mentioned the fact I’m atheist lest people think I’m arguing against evolution. I’m not. I’m arguing against the notion that evolutionary theory will persist forever. For now, at least, we have a theory (which is about as close to a fact as you can get in scientific terms) that explains things pretty damn well. But that doesn’t mean something better won’t come along as new facts arise.
You can call atheism faith, if you so choose. But then what you profess is just another faith in an of itself. You just have FAITH that whatever higher power exists, should it even exist, is not interested in interacting with you.
Actually I believe equipollence may be a better term as far as verb tense goes. But show me a skeptic that claims not to believe something and I will show you a fraud. You clearly understand that skepticism is not about not believing. (double negatives and all)
Exactly. Which is exactly why the observed fact of evolution in the details might be incomplete but the major points are still valid. Similar to gravity.
We alreday have one: a refrigerator. This does not mean that the OBSERVED FACT of heat transfer is incorrect or disproven. It just means that there are amplifications to theory that need to be considered.
Same thing applies to evolution.
Which is why human beings being descended from earlier apes that were different species will not change though the details of the speciation process are somewhat prone to tuning.
This is a good example of an observational fact. The horizon appears flat because the curvature of the Earth is a matter of scale. This is an observed fact. Plain and simple. Don’t claim that the Earth appearing flat is not an observational fact: it is a very important fact. It is, for example, the reason we can get a constant acceleration due to gravity. Again: observed fact.
No it is manifestly not. It will need to explain the evolution that is seen. Period.
Evolution is manifestly NOT a guess. I’d be more comfortable with this sort of treatment from talkorigins:
