Basically, I’m looking to say; “Well, if you believe the Bible is right about ‘X’, then perhaps you should stop using ‘Y’, because we found out…”
I’m not in any debate currently, I’m just wondering what could be listed if this tactic were used. 
Thanks for your time!
Genesis 30:37-39 has some distinctly non-Mendelian ideas about heritability of traits:
Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.
Of course it could just be argued that this was some sort of miracle, but it is presented as simple cause and effect.
It’s especially weird because the verses following that do seem to talk about heritability:
Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
So it’s pretty clear that it’s saying: strong animals have strong offspring, and if they happen to glance at something stripey while they are getting it on, they have stripey offspring.
There are Old Testament ideas about the ‘firmament’ and the rotation of the Earth relative to the Sun that would make plane flight or the orbits of satellites non-workable if it were true.
But really, people who use the bible to justify stuff are very, very used to cherry-picking only what they want to believe or is convenient to use as justification for whatever, and ignoring the rest. So I don’t think using science as a ‘gotcha’ would be at all effective an argument against biblical cites for those inclined to use them.
There’s also OT stuff like, if a man rapes a young unmarried female, all can be made copacetic if he agrees to marry her and pay her father off with a certain amount of silver. Or if your children are incorrigible, it’s OK to stone them to death in the town square. You don’t hear much preaching about those ideas these days.
Yet.
Those naughty, naughty tigers!
The “science” in the Old Testament, which is where the Biblical story of creation resides, is thousands of years old. Trying to justify the existence of God using that is utter nonsense but, on the other hand, criticizing it with the view of disproving the existence of a creator makes no sense, either. Theology is the story of “who”, and science is the story of “how”. Theology is based on belief and faith, and science is based on proven facts and rational theories.
Right. It’s pretty clear the authors, like pretty much everyone pre-telescope, thought “the heavens” were just a shell around the earth with tiny dots of light that fall to earth as meteorites.
But, in general, ancient myths don’t make very clear empirical claims so knockouts of so and so technology being incompatible are not so common.
Obviously evolution is a clearcut example (forming the foundation of all modern biology and therefore biotech) but we’re all familiar with the apologetic for that – microevolution (I.e. the thing that’s demonstrable and useful) is real, but macroevolution (the point at which the claims of genesis are conflicted, but no one can state how a line is drawn with microevolution) is not.
One of my BILs once asked me as a ‘gotcha’ type question “if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?”. I said “we didn’t evolve from apes, we and apes both evolved from a common ancestor”. BIL: “uhhhh…”.
I could have also said that just because one evolutionary branch forms, it doesn’t mean the original line automatically dies off, as in the case of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos islands evolving differently shaped beaks, while mainland finches remained as they were. But I had already locked up his brain with the ‘apes’ thing.
The Flood did not happen. Turns out sea shells stuck in mountain top rocks can be explained with far less drama.
Exactly. That’s just like saying to a person who says they have Irish ancestry: “If you descended from Irish people, why are there still people living in Ireland?”
Another answer, which would have freaked him out even more, is that humans are apes.
Almost all flat earthers are Biblical literalists (though not all Biblical literalists are flat earthers) so if you run across one of them telling them that they shouldn’t be using GPS seems appropriate. Or Sirius radio. Or satellite TV. Or looking at weather reports.
Science can be used to disprove only certain kinds of god belief, like that in a literal intepretation. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone claim that science can disprove all kinds of gods - except as an apologist strawman, that is. And I’ve been doing this online for just about 50 years now.
One that I’ve heard brought up is the “Biblical” value of pi.
1 Kings 7:23 , describing the huge basin called the “Molten Sea”, describes it as 10 cubits in diameter, with a circumference of 30 cubits. That seems to imply that pi is 30/10 = 3. If you want to be consistent with the Bible, then, you should use “3” as your value of pi.
For most people, this won’t make a big difference. It’s a 4.5% error.
But I suspect that the people who made the calculation used the Cooper’s method of measuring. Coopers (barrel makers) would asemble the staves first and then measure the size of the circular piece needed to close off each end. They’d do this by “walking” the points of their compass around the slot cut into the inside of the barrel near the end, and would adjust the angle between the arms until they could “walk” the points around precisely six times. Then they’d use that setting to lay out the circular barrel end and cut it out, and it would fit perfectly.
Of course, when you use a compass with the points set that far apart you aren’t really measuring the proper circumference of the end – you’re measuring the perimeter of an inscribed regular hexagon. But it’s the same set of ,motions you use for measuring a straight line with your calipers, so hat’s the problem? And it will give you the correct fit for the barrel end, since the perimeter of regular hexagon divided by the longest distance across it through the center IS precisely 3.
I evolved from my mother, but she’s still around, too.
More to the point, it’s only a problem if you consider all of the digits to be significant. But unless indicated otherwise, 30 and 10 should both be taken as having only one significant digit, and to one significant digit, pi does equal 3.
But if you really want to nitpick it, you could also point out that the object in question was bowl-shaped, so if you measure the “diameter” along the base of the bowl, and the circumference around the edge, their ratio will naturally be less than pi.
It’s funny, and quite telling, that it freaks people out.
No one has a problem with saying we’re vertebrates, or placental mammals, or eukaryotes.
But the idea of us being apes (or indeed, Animals) is offensive and must be wrong.
Reluligion FTW. Promoting irrationality since Day Zero.
Not everyone. Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos proposed a heliocentric solar system around 300BC (so, about 1800 years before Copernicus).
His fellow Greek smart guys rejected this with what seemed like sound reasoning: If the Earth orbits the Sun, in 6 months it would move a huge distance, enough to produce a noticeable difference in the apparent relative position of stars (which they believed were Sun-like objects).
They were of course wrong, having no idea of the enormous distances involved (the nearest star is ~269,000 times as far away as the Sun). With a good telescope and some care, stellar parallax is apparent.
Good summary, but of course this is why I said pretty much everyone.
…Ugh. Why don’t they just invest in sexbots if they don’t want women with agency. Instead they’re like: “I’m dumb, and you have to be dumber than me!”