What is good science?

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I said your ideas violate physical laws and are mind-poppingly unbelievable. I also said that rational and logical thought and a good grasp of the possible and reasonable are important to performing good science. If you'd like to respond to this in English then I'd be glad to discuss it with you.

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I actually made it a little more simplified than how it is presented in the books and papers I have read on scientific logic. What you should understand is that the logical structuring, justification, and acceptance of theories isn't just some humdrum topic. I briefly explained the concept and relevance of auxiliary hypotheses (or auxiliary assumptions) to test implications (statements of potential falsification) of theories (like CPT) largely because of your assertion that CPT "violates physical laws" among other faulty conclusions."CPT violates physical laws" would be the hypothesis of the logical schematic of confirmation/disconfirmation I gave in my post such as follows:if (CPT violates physical laws) then (TI)
we determine (TI)
therefore (CPT violates physical laws) is confirmedI couldn't be certain what your test implication would be (you keep saying 'physical lawS', being a pluralization I don't know what you are refering to), but since you were claiming confirmation, I was pretty sure that there would be an auxiliary hypothesis that was not included in your deduction that makes your conclusion unconfirmatory.You've claimed to have a good grasp of scientific logic and reasoning and the (logical, I presume..?) determination of what is 'possible' and 'reasonable'. So much so, in fact, that you've put yourself in the place to judge and prosecute based on what you have determined to be logically fallaceous. I don't know about you, but I think that if you are going to put yourself in that position you really ought to have a such an understanding. Otherwise you just look silly and your credibility plummets.That CPT is "mind-poppingly unbelieveable" doesn't really mean anything. The universe is mind-popping unbelieveable to me, but I can't put it into an equation that suggests the universe does not exist. Many YEC's claim that the ToE is mind-poppingly unbelievable, but it is mere incredulity.

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Roxrkool has made the key point about CPT requiring evidence that is not just the same as the evidence for mainstream geology, and you appeared to agree, but the next paragraph descended into unintelligibility.

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What is so unintelligible? Have you considered the possibility that it is just over your head? I'll consider the possibility that it is over mine, but it is up to you to deduce that.

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You also talked a bit about wanting to gather your own evidence, which is a good thing, but it also further substantiates the fact that you understand you don't have evidence right now.

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Well I do have some of potentially diagnostic evidence, but it begs a few more questions which need to be worked out. Nevertheless, I understand that there isn't much if any such evidence.

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What is the point of badgering people to accept something as scientific that is unlikely in the extreme and for which you have no evidence?

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Here again you've illustrated your misunderstanding of what science is and how it is determined. There is so much wrong with this I don't know where to start. You seem to think that a theory with yet to be determined diagnostic evidence equates to being unscientific. Are you serious? There is no logic in this.

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The foundation of scientific theory is objective evidence. This means evidence that is available to anyone with sufficient training and expertise. You agree with this, right? And you understand you have no evidence for CPT that is any different from the evidence for mainstream geology, right?

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Thats a bit of an oversimplification (that "the foundation of scientific theory is objective evidence"), and in fact can be argued to be very wrong because the foundation of the justification of scientific theories is basically to evade disconfirmation. But Im not that dogmatic of a Popperian, so I consider confirming evidence fairly significant. Nevertheless, i'll agree that there is yet not too many instances of confirmation of CPT.

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And you know that CPT requires matter and energy to behave in ways not consistent with the evidence of physics, chemistry and geology, right?

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With the exception of yet unresolved radioisotopic decay issue, NO! Re: accelerated decay i've said in an earlier post:

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I wish we could just get passed the arguments regarding the problems of accelerated decay. Like the origin of the universe, ultimately this will probably never be solved. In fact the origin of the universe is probably a really good analog. The origin of the universe will probably never be solved, however the existence of the universe is evidence that there was an event that occured which birthed the universe. Similarily, the origin of an accelerated decay rate will probably never be solved, so whether or not CPT occured would be evidence that such an even event occured. Unfortunately determining that CPT was a real historical event is a lot more difficult than determining that the universe exists.

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To which you basically responded saying that there were "inherent" fallacies in it that you were not going to explain...

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Given this, your continued attraction to the theory is hard to understand.

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You would probably have a very big problem with proponents of non-nebular theories of the origin of the solar system.

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Now you seem to be using vocabulary and grammar as a tool of obfuscation. People who actually have something meaningful to say are usually much easier to understand than you are.

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I take it you do not read much in philosophy of science? Hence, I probably shouldn't ask if you've actually thought much about science itself.Percy, I have no problem if you don't really understand how science works as much as you've said. I would be happy to explain to you these concepts as I far as I understand. Just don't keep pretending that you have such a 'good grasp' of philosophy of science--as the methods of science are philosophical.-Chris GroseThis message has been edited by TrueCreation, 07-21-2005 12:16 AMThis message has been edited by TrueCreation, 07-21-2005 12:16 AM

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"...research [is] a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education. Simultaneously, we shall wonder whether research could proceed without such boxes, whatever the element of arbitrariness in their historic origins and, occasionally, in their subsequent development." Kuhn, T. S.; The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp. 5, 1996.

CPT may not be "just speedy PT", but if there are other major differences between CPT and mainstream plate tectonics then it seems that they are also issues you refuse to address.

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If we keep alluding to the competing theory having no evidence or having no motive for any analysis for potential confirmation or disconfirmation, we cannot progress.

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Science can't investigate every logical possibility, it must restrict itself to those that seem likely to be productive. Waiting while every concievable alternative was comprehensively developed and refuted would be a massive waste of time and resources. So far as I can see if we want to make progress we should abandon CPT, since it has contributed nothing and has no reasonable prospect of contributing anything to our scientific knowledge.It seems to me that your whole point here is to present CPT as a "rising alternative" to the mainstream - when you know full well that it isn't. If it were then the novel parts of CPT - and evidence that they explained better than the mainstream view - would be at the forefront of your argument. Instead you try to hide them like a guilty secret.

Hi Chris,This is your opportunity to improve your understanding of what is desired from you in order to continue participating here. If you're convinced that I don't understand science, then because to a large extent it is me that sets the standard for what constitutes legitimate scientific discussion here, EvC Forum must seem a loony bin to you and I don't know why you would want to stay. If this is truly the case then I suggest you go to other boards where the administration has a firmer grasp of scientific principles.But if you'd like to remain here then I suggest you cease squandering this opportunity and begin discussing constructively. I have a full time job, a wife, two kids in school, a house, a mortgage, one sport and two websites, and I don't have a lot of time to work my way through what appears to me as obfuscation and evasion. Stop evading and lecturing and start listening. You're a kid who has accomplished nothing and couldn't even get into UF. You've got the chutzpah of youth and a good head on your shoulders, a dangerous combination, so don't kid yourself that you know more than you really do because it will only lead you to grief.I've criticized you for not having a good sense of the possible and reasonable, and I've used accelerated radioactive decay as the example. Let's stick to that topic. You're elevating the problem of accelerated radioactive decay to a lofty status alongside the other great mysteries of science without even having any evidence that it has ever happened. On the basis of your understanding of how science should work, how do you justify this as good science?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

See now, I don't buy that.Part of building scientific models is because you want to explain something - usually observational evidence in geology. CPT was suggested because YECs could no longer discount plate movement. So Baumgardner devised the only logical thing - accelerated PT - sans any actual evidence because he's not a geologist and has no clue what such evidence would even look like.And since the reasonable assumption is that there should be observational differences between CPT and PT, it's up to the YEC geologists, and you if you think it's a possible viable alternative to PT, to find evidence that supports CPT and NOT PT. It's not up to mainstream geology to disprove CPT. We already have a model that works perfectly well. CPT today would be a waste of time to investigate.Chris, if there was evidence that supported CPT, we'd have heard about it years ago. And if not years ago, definitely today. And that evidence wouldn't be found in one or two sentences on some obscure website, but an actual TECHINCAL paper published for the world to see.Additionally, the 'flexibility' of mainstream geology is the result of 200+ years of geologic research that is congruous within itself and with other sciences - that's a GOOD thing. This robustness, of course, requires a whole hell of a lot more work on the part of YECs if they want to overturn mainstream geology. And frankly, it's not going to happen. If you don't know what predicitions CPT makes, then how are you critically evaluating it? Or are you?Why WOULDN'T we expect more volcanics? This is the sort of answer you must provide to support your position. Subduction zones are all associated with magmatic systems. Is this simply a coincidence? We don't have to know exactly why things happen to know they're related in some way. If you're subducting a whole lot of crustal material, it's got to go somewhere. So either the earth is expanding or it's coming up as volcanics or plutons.The point is, anyone promoting CPT (or critically analyzing it) should be able to predict the effects of CPT as well as find the evidence to support it in the surface geology.

Correct me if I'm wrong here (I'm not a geologist).Would not the friction generated by the rapid movement of tectonic plates on the scale being discussed (at minimum, millions to billions of years of plate movement occurring in only 6000 years) fry the surface of the Earth to a crisp and make it totally uninhabitable?If it happened specifically during the Flood period, the results would be even worse, adn the oceans would be vaporized along with any and all life.

well, that's abit of a fantastical creationist-style argument. perhaps with numbers it would be better. anybody got any figures of thermal activity caused by tectonic action, dependant on rate of travel?i suspect you're probably right, though.

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אָרַח

I apologize for not including calculations and evidence. I was looking for actual numbers, but apparently not many people calculate this sort of thing.Here are some numbers.Approximate energy of a magnitude 9 earthquake: 10e25 Joules.
The energy of an atomic bomb test at Bikini Island in the 40s was roughly 10e12 Joules.Lets assume for a LOWER limit that such a catastrophic event would only be as significant as a magnitude 9 quake going off everywhere in the world at once. For the sake of calculation, let's use 1 quake per 10 square kilometers.The area of the earth is 5.1e14 square meters, so 0.0051e11 square kilometers.At 1 quake per 10 square Km, that means 5.1e7 magnitude 9 earthquakes.That would be a total of 5.1e32 Joules released by such an event.
That's enough energy to VAPORIZE about 2.28e26 Kg of water.There are approximately 1.35e18 Kg of water on the Earth.In other words, catastrophically moving the tectonic plates around in such a short period of time should release enough energy to boil all of the water on the planet. Almost twice over.I think that would do a pretty good job of killing everything.I'm going to go and not do any math for a few hours. Please, somebody doublecheck me - I'm not used to calculating world devastation.

lol. ok that sounds a little better.

lol

I'm a geologist, math is evil. hehWell, I suppose if you're having to produce so much crust so fast, which means a lot of heat, which means you might be boiling the oceans away, which means not a whole lot of water to act as a lubricant... so sure, maybe it's possible.

LOL Looks good to me.

One of the complaints of Creationists is that they're excluded from mainstream science journals and conferences simply because their views are not mainstream, and not because of the quality of their science. EvC Forum represents the opportunity for Creationists to make this case. Here they can present their views just as they would present them in a mainstream journal to show how the only difference is in the conclusions and not in the approach.What we instead see are painful illustrations of just how bad Creationist ideas about science really are. Some can describe the concepts and principles of science accurately, some cannot, but none adhere to them while exploring their Creationist ideas.I intend that EvC Forum have all the requirements of mainstream science journals and conferences, but without any of the rigor (unless you want to). There's no need here for abstracts or detailed references or footnotes. Just support your ideas with evidence and rational argumentation. That's it. That's all it takes. EvC Forum will not entaintain ideas with no evidence or whose supporting arguments can't pass a simple sanity check. This is not a haven for loons and half-wits.For someone who is persistent in pushing their ideas in an unscientific manner, the EvC Forum equivalent of a journal's rejection is temporary suspension. The idea is that just as continued journal rejections encourage efforts toward improving a paper's scientific quality, continued suspensions encourage the same in someone's thread.Unlike science journals, I see no harm in EvC Forum entertaining highly speculative ideas, and in fact I encourage this. But it must be done in a scientific manner, meaning, for instance, that the evidence needed to turn speculation into theory is enumerated. I think this good advice for the CPT people to follow.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Not to split hairs or anything but 2.28e26 is actually almost 2e8 times bigger than 1.35e18.that makes 200 million times the amount of heat required to vaporize the water presently on the earth.
I didn't check the rest of the math.

Feel free to split hairs. You just proved my point better than I did, anyway.So even if my assumptions were way off (in terms of earthquake severity or frequency as analogous to CPT), the energy release should STILL have been adequate to erase all life on Earth.Sound right?

Totally!