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Author Topic:   Creation science II
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 59 of 207 (502025)
03-09-2009 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Kelly
03-09-2009 10:50 AM


Re: I am interested only in first showing
that creation science is a science.
Then why, in 155 posts, do you persistently refuse to do so? Despite our repeated requests for you to do so? So do it already!
It's like the old dirty joke in which a woman who had been married three times but was still a virgin. I forget the reason in the first two marriages, but the third time she was married to a salesman. He kept telling her how wonderful it was going to be, but was nothing but talk. That's what you're doing here: you keep telling us this wonderful thing you're going to do, but you never ever deliver.
In the meantime, we ironically know far more than you do about what "creation science" is (and have repeatedly demonstrated that fact) and what its history is.
Is there evidence for creation? Yes or no. If not, then at least have the basic honesty to admit it. If yes, then why do you refuse to present it?
Disproving the findings of an opposing viewpoint does not prove that the scientific method was not followed or that theirs' is not a science. Two evolutionary scientists can come to different conclusions based on their studies yet one would never tell the other that he wasn't practicing science, would he?
It's not about the conclusions reached, but rather about the methodology. It is in the methodology that the "creation science" fails to qualify as science: if you don't do science, then you cannot claim that you're doing science.
However, does your statement here mean that you do finally realize how false "creation science's" "Two Model Approach" (TMA) is? Again, please, yes or no.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Kelly, posted 03-09-2009 10:50 AM Kelly has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by Kelly, posted 03-09-2009 12:00 PM dwise1 has replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 68 of 207 (502049)
03-09-2009 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Kelly
03-09-2009 12:00 PM


Re: I am interested only in first showing
But that's just the point: "creation science" has a long history of not using the methology of science. They are not doing science. If you truly believe that they are doing science and you want to convince us of it, then show us! Don't just make one empty claim after another (even though that is the "creation science" way), but rather show us that they do indeed use the methodology of science. That is what we have repeatedly requested of you and must continue to request since you keep ignoring our requests. Support your claims and show us.
The "creation science" methodology that we have witnessed with great consistency for 40 years is that they don't do any original research (with very few exceptions), but rather they scour through the scientific literature for anything that they can use. Mostly that literature is more of the popular science variety. When they find something, they lift it out of context and craft their claim around it. That is called quote-mining. With it, they can misrepresent a source, make a false claim and make the further false claim that it's based on a scientific source. In many cases, the surest way to refute a "creation science" claim is to go back and read what their "source" really said.
For example, my first brush with "creation science" was with two claims I heard fresh out of high school in 1970: that a NASA computer had found "Joshua's Lost Day" and that a living mollusk was carbon-dated to be thousands of years old. The first one was obviously bogus, since it tried to invest computers with abilities they simply do not have (this one has generally lost favor, though it still persists on a grass-roots level). The second one is still used. Much later I found the article (I hadn't looked at "creation science" again for about a decade, at which time I was surprise it was still around, assumed that there must be something to it after all so I started to study it, and very quickly found it to be a complete fraud) in either Science or Nature (better than Discovery, but still not of the caliber of a peer-reviewed journal). Turns out that those fresh-water clams were in a stream fed by an underground source in limestone. Carbon-dating depends on the organic material having gotten its carbon from the atmosphere, whereas the clams were instead getting their carbon from the "old carbon" in the dissolved limestone -- well there was some controversy, since some scientists thought that the old carbon could have come from the soil. The article pointed this out, discussed the problem of old carbon, and cited this as illustrating a potential problem for carbon-dating that needs to be watched-out for. None of the creationists using this claim ever mention what the article actually says, but rather just make their claim, maybe give a bibliographic reference to the article, and then announce their conclusions which are contrary to their source. That is a typical example of "creation science" research.
The following came up in another forum discussion and I was developing it into a web page. These are the fundamental differences between scientists and creationists (I hope the HTML works right this time -- sorry, Mod, how can I fix that?):
quote:
There is a public view of science that it is impartial and unbiased. That is an idealized misconception that creation science seeks to turn to its advantage by depicting scientists as being dogmatic, thus eroding public confidence in science. Then when their critics point out that creationists are also biased, the usual response is something like, "Yes we are, but at least we are honest about it."
Now, it is quite true that science is a flawed and fallible human endeavor which has made many mistakes. And it is also quite true that scientists are fallible humans and that they have their biases as do all humans. And it is also true that not all scientists are honest and that some have perpetrated hoaxes. And the same is also quite true about creation science. But that does not put scientists and creationists, nor science and "creation science", on an equal footing.
Although both camps share many of the same human foibles that plague us all and everything that we do, there are still certain fundamental differences between science and creation science and between scientists and creationists on the whole. Fundamental differences that make all the difference in how those two human endeavors approach their research and scholarship, their mistakes, and their hoaxes.














































Science / Scientists ...Creation Science / Creationists ...
What they are trying to do:

1a. The scientist is either trying to make a new discovery or to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous discovery, hypothesis, or theory.

1b. A creationist is normally not trying to make a new discovery, nor to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous claim. As rustyb puts so succintly in his signature, "I already know the Truth." There's little use in trying to discover something new about the "Truth" that you already know a priori, nor is there any use in testing it (which would probably be sacrilegious anyway), nor to try to add to its Completeness. Rather, what a creationist is normally trying to do is to come up with convincing claims and arguments against anything that appears to contradict "the Truth" that they already know.
How they measure success:

2a. The success of the scientist's efforts depends directly on the quality of his research and on the validity of the studies that he bases his research on. Therefore, a scientist is motivated to verify his sources and to maintain high standards of scholarship.

2b. It doesn't matter whether that creationist had done a proper job of researching the claim, or had even researched it at all (though it does help to make it more convincing if there's something in the bibliography, even if that source had never actually been looked at -- remember that NASA document?). It doesn't matter if the claim or argument is valid, just that it sounds convincing; after all, the creationist already "knows" that it must be true.
Scholarship

3a. Since scientists depend so much on the validity and quality of the work of other scientists, the scientific community is motivated to police itself against shoddy or falacious research.

3b. When you research some other creationist's claim, you're not depending on that claim being true or valid; you're only depending on that claim sounding convincing.
How they handle dishonesty:

4a. Thus, a scientist who is discovered to be performing substandard or dishonest work loses his credibility and his standing in the scientific community.

4b. And if a claim is discovered to be false or a creationist is discovered to practice questionable methods, none of that matters, just so long as they still sound convincing. A creationist is far more likely to face censure for theological lapses than for shoddy or questionable scholarship.
ditto

5a.

5b. Of course, if a claim starts drawing too much negative publicity, then it is no longer convincing and must be dropped, as quietly as possible, until everybody has forgotten about it, whereupon it can be resurrected and received as a "new" claim.
How they handle mistakes:

6a. Mistakes and hoaxes will still happen in science, but the near-constant scrutiny and testing will uncover them.

6b. Mistakes and hoaxes will also happen in creation science, but in this case there is no mechanism in place to uncover them; indeed, there is much resistence to uncovering creationist mistakes and hoaxes.

. . .
Let us consider what these "convincing" claims and arguments are used for. Creationists can have many different motivations and their claims can serve a variety of purposes; this is actually a far more complex situation than most on either side would think. From the experience and observations of myself and those reported by others, I would say that the primary purposes of these claims are (of course, there are others, but these are the main ones):
  1. to combat the influence of scientific ideas that appear to contradict certain theological ideas.
  2. to protect and strengthen one's own faith and the faith of others from the pernicious influence of scientific depravity, secularism, philosophical materialism, and any assortment of people, groups, and ideas that they perceive to be attacking Christianity.
  3. to proselytize by showing doubters that the evidence really supports Genesis and not science (regardless of whether it actually does or not).
  4. to claim to have scientific reasons to oppose the teaching of evolution and thus circumvent legal barriers against doing so solely for religious reasons and purposes.
  5. to sway public opinion enough in their favor.
  6. to learn how the physical evidence actually does support the literal truth of Genesis.

Now, I included that last one because it does exist and, I believe, that most creationists start out with that as their primary purpose. While the exceptional ones, like Dr. Kurt Wise, are able to keep it as a principal, if not primary, purpose, most creationists get lured away by the other purposes and their rhetorics. Even then, many have not completely lost sight of that purpose and would still claim to follow it. However, their actions rarely follow their avowed purpose.
And very early on, you gave us yet another reason:
Kelly (Topic:Best approaches to deal w/ fundamentalism;Msg 32) writes:
If macroevolution were true, I would have to abandon my faith in the God of the Bible. The way I see it, if God can't be accurate in what he has revealed historically or scientifically, I would have no reason to trust what he has said spiritually speaking either. I mean, if God doesn't know that the earth is not flat or that he did not create life instantly, then he doesn't know much of anything, right? How could I put my faith in His promise to raise me from the dead as He did Jesus Christ when the source of this truth is so filled with error?
For people who put more faith in their theology than in God, it becomes important to protect that theology. Especially when that theology requires them to believe things about the physical world that are contrary-to-fact.
BTW, that theology is also wrong about you needing to abandon your faith in God when your Man-made theology is wrong in its claims about what God had created.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Kelly, posted 03-09-2009 12:00 PM Kelly has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 95 of 207 (502138)
03-09-2009 9:12 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Kelly
03-09-2009 5:35 PM


Re: misrepresentation
That is a total misrepresentation of what I actually said.
As I recall, you had done it to him first, so he was just applying some tit-for-tat. If you don't like it being done to you, then you should have been applying the Golden Rule from the beginning:
quote:
Do not to others that which is displeasing to yourself. That is the whole of the Law [ie, of the Torah]. The rest is just explanation.
(Pharisee Rabbi Hillel, 20 BCE, as quoted in the Pirke Avoth, AKA "Sayings of the Fathers". Also cited in the Star Trek:TOS early first season episode, "Dagger of the Mind", albeit scrubbed of overt religious references)
I also pointed out that the evolutionary model in the vertical sense is also not a scientific model.
Mostly it is not, since that "model" is a "creation science" fabrication which undoubtedly misrepresents evolutionary theory greatly. IOW, it looks like it's nothing but a strawman for you to make a big show of kicking around and defeating, all without having to go anywhere near your avowed enemy, evolution itself. The smell of straw is made even stronger with your unique phrasing; I've never before seen anyone else using that "in the vertical sense" qualifier. One of these days you should explain what you mean by it.
There is nothing about true science that says we cannot study created objects and order.
I first encountered that particular buzzwording back in 1970, when the creationist follower was not at all shy about translating it to clear English: true science means those things that agree 100% with the literal interpretation of the Bible. We have ears to hear and eyes to see.
If you want to talk about improbability, Modulous, you should consider the odds that life could somehow just spontaneously generate itself up out of nothing and then proceeded to leap from the most simplest of forms to some of the most complex forms that we see today-- ...
Creationists love to invoke wild improbability arguments in which everything has to fall right into just the right place in one single immediate event. Of course that is extremely improbably, virtually impossible, but it has absolutely nothing to do with evolution and extremely little to do with abiogenesis. OTOH, it does describe creation ex nihilo extremely well. So why are you trying to pin the probability of creation occurring onto evolution?
For example, if we want to generate the alphabet in alphabetical order, the probability of randomly drawing letters and having that work in one single attempt is extremely small, about 1.624410-37. I had estimated that if you programmed a computer to perform a million attempts per second, then it would have to run for about 20 billion years before you'd have a million-in-one chance of success.
OTOH, having a computer attempt it using evolutionary methods succeeded consistently within several seconds (much faster now than it did back 20 years ago). The probability of success using evolutionary methods (cumulative selection in particular) rapidly approached 99.999%, near dead certainty.
You should read Richard Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker, particularly Chapter 3 which deals with these probability issues. Until you have read that chapter, you really cannot talk about probability.
... --especially considering the second law.
And you really should stop slinging that Second Law around until you've taken the time to actually learn something about it.
The next time you are tempted to abuse that law yet again, consider this. Evolution is what happens when populations propagate. It's the natural consequences to a population of its members reproducing. It's not something special being done to the population, but rather it's a description of the net effects on the population's gene pool.
Kelly, if evolution truly violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then so does life itself! Therefore, Kelly, by claiming that evolution is impossible because of the Second Law, then you are also claiming that life is also impossible.
Consider that next time.
If we were to throw heaps of electronic peices and parts into the air enough times, we stand a better chance of seeing those parts organize themselves into a computer.
Yes, that tired old false analogy of "a tornado in a junkyard spontaneously assembling a 747". Bolshoi! Did you also get that one from Morris and Parker?
First, it's a false analogy; has nothing whatsoever to do with how evolution works nor how abiogenesis would work.
Second, it's comparing oranges with road apples. Assemble the pieces of a complex piece of machinery, say a carborator (if you can sneak one out of a museum). Put them into a suitably sized metal can, close the top, and start shaking. You'll get deaf from the exercise, but nothing more. Now, gather some chemicals together and pour them into the same container. Chances are that you won't even need to shake or stir them, because they will react with each other immediately.
Do you see the fundamental problem with your false analogy? A complex mechanism will not naturally assemble itself when shaken, whereas chemicals will naturally assemble themselves when they come in contact with each other. Chemicals would be involved in most abiogenesis scenarios. Amino acids will naturally form under many different conditions. Heat those amino acids and they will naturally form into protein-like chains (refer to Sydney Fox' experiments with thermal proteins and microspheres). You need to know just what reactions are taking place in order to assign any kind of probability models to them.
Oh dear! There's that "M"-word again, "model".
Remember, read Chapter 3 of Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker!
PS
Talk about probabilities! I think that what Tag (or Taq; I can't quite tell with that link underline) is trying to point you to is the ERV evidence for human/chimp common ancestry. ERVs are viri that embed themselves into our DNA and tend to destroy individual genes in the process. When they do that to a body cell, it could or could not cause problems, but only for that individual. But if they do it in a germ cell, one that produces eggs or sperm, then that change has a chance to be inherited -- BTW, the only mutations that are of any interest to evolution are those in germ cells and hence are genetic changes; think about that some time.
Someone had pointed us to a YouTube vid examining ERVs. Comparing human DNA with chimp DNA, we find many different ERVs that are the exact same sequence in the exact same place in both genomes. The film starts with one and assigns a probability to that happening just by chance. Then the second one also happening by chance is even more improbable, and so on with the several (I think just under 20) ERVs that are common to both humans and chimps. If "creation science" is right and we are not related and all those identical ERVs just happened to embed themselves in exactly the same places in both our unrelated genomes, then that is even more improbable than the worst probability they can assign to abiogenesis. But if science is right and humans and chimps share a common ancestor, then it would make perfect sense for both of us to have inherited the ERVs in that common ancestor's genome.
Why don't you give Tag/Taq an answer?
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Kelly, posted 03-09-2009 5:35 PM Kelly has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 97 of 207 (502142)
03-09-2009 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by Taq
03-09-2009 9:08 PM


Re: Very good Modulous
Well, here's a corollary short set of questions for Kelly:
Are humans and apes separately created kinds or are we of the same created kind? Yes or no?
Anticipating the answer to be "no", the next question would be:
What were hominids, ape or man?
While evolution would view hominids as transitional, we repeatedly observe creationists claiming that hominids are either 100% ape or 100% human. The next question would be:
By creationist reasoning, shouldn't the gap between ape and man be obvious? Therefore, viewing the hominid fossil evidence, shouldn't it be clear for a creationist which hominid is "100% ape" and which is "100% man"?
I would think that this would be a test of how well "creation science" works with the same evidence that scientists work with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by Taq, posted 03-09-2009 9:08 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by Taq, posted 03-09-2009 9:29 PM dwise1 has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 119 of 207 (502232)
03-10-2009 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by Kelly
03-10-2009 10:34 AM


Re: Not ignoring anything Percy,
You have to remember what my original "assertion" is in the first place and stop trying to drag me into a scientific debate on some subject matter of your choosing and something that I am not really interested in debating.
But in insisting that we must read Morris and Parker's What is Creation Science? in order to discuss anything with you, you have opened yourself up to scientific debate on subject matter that is contained in that book. True, some are jumping the gun a wee bit, but that book does indeed contain many standard creationist false claims so touching on them in advance isn't unreasonable.
Besides, what they are doing is what you should have been doing all along: presenting actual "creation science" research. We're all doing your work for you and all you can do is bitch and moan about it? It's your assertion, so support it already!
And it's not our fault that that actual "creation science" research is so shoddy; it's the creationists' fault. Buck up and take some responsibility! It's your position so you need to support it! And if you won't hold to your position, then denounce it!
But rest assured that when our copies arrive, there will be a topic devoted to examining the claims in that book. Your active participation and contributions in that future topic are fully expected.
OBTW, how far have you gotten with reading Chapter Three of Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. Until you have read it, you cannot raise any probability claims.
Here's another example of "creation science" research, this one performed by Dr. Henry Morris. In his book, Scientific Creationism, on page 152 of the 2nd edition (the current one), Morris repeats his "meteoritic" dust on the moon claim (based on his misrepresentation of an old Scientific American article) and bolsters it in a footnote by citing a "1976" NASA document, "well into the space age" (the standard intonation whenever this document is refered to, as he did in a debate I attended in his response to criticism that creationists use out-of-date sources).
Here's the problem. In that footnote, he gives that NASA document as his primary source, but it isn't. His real primary source was Harold Slusher, the same source for that table of "uniformitarian estimates -- age of the earth" in your book starting at page 288; it's number 36 in the list. Morris have never seen that NASA document, let alone use it as a source. For that matter, I very much doubt that Slusher had ever seen it. Because that document, cited as
quote:
Meteor Orbits and Dust (NASA SP-135, Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics Vol. 2, 1976)
is actually
quote:
Meteor Orbits and Dust (NASA SP-135, Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics Vol. 11, Aug 1965, printed 1967)
How do I know that Morris had never even looked at that document? Because when I pulled it off our university library shelf, the very first thing I saw was the 1965 date and that the volume number was eleven and not two (in Slusher's letter that the ICR sent me when I first inquired about Morris' claim at that debate, Slusher had written in as a Roman numeral II, even though the font on the document's cover clearly reads 11).
Dr. Henry Morris claimed that that NASA document was his primary source. It wasn't, not by a long shot. He lied. Two researchers, Thomas Wheeler and Frank Lovell, corresponded with Morris while his partner, Dr. Duane Gish, corresponded with me. In both sets of exchanges, both men first provided us with Slusher's letter in which he gives his calculations, we found those calculations to be in great error since they both misrepresent their purported source and they include factors that make no mathmatical sense, we also found the original document and immediately noticed the gross error in the citation date, we informed both men of our findings, both men ignored our findings at first and then refused to correspond any further on the matter. Gish was a bit more abrupt, while Morris promised that it would be corrected in future editions of the book (of which there have been none -- they still sell that same incorrect edition as if it's the latest thing; this all went down in the mid 1980's). Both men admitted that they don't check their references; Gish even started whining that they can't afford to since they don't get any grant money -- how would that prevent you from going to the university library and pulling the document off the shelf?
So there you have it. They lie about their sources. And if we can so easily catch them lying about the little things that we can check, how are we to trust them with the bigger things?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Kelly, posted 03-10-2009 10:34 AM Kelly has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 137 of 207 (502313)
03-11-2009 1:20 AM
Reply to: Message 136 by Capt Stormfield
03-10-2009 8:38 PM


Re: This is all arguable, debatable
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Now where did I put my towel?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 136 by Capt Stormfield, posted 03-10-2009 8:38 PM Capt Stormfield has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 170 of 207 (502407)
03-11-2009 12:39 PM
Reply to: Message 159 by ICANT
03-11-2009 11:46 AM


Re: Is it Science?
No, what stiles was saying is that scientists, when they are doing science, must not allow their own personal world-view to corrupt their conclusions. Regardless of what their world-view is. Even those who do believe in creation. That was his primary point.
His secondary point was that what the evidence leads to is evolution. I would myself point out here that evolution does not contradict creation, only certain narrow beliefs about creation.
What we find is that "creation science" is built upon the practice of having one's personal world-view (eg, YEC) dictate one's conclusions. This is completely contrary to his primary point and verifies that "creation science" is not science, since one must abandon "doing science" in order to do "creation science".

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 186 of 207 (502447)
03-11-2009 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by Kelly
03-11-2009 12:08 PM


Re: Is it Science?
Let me give you an example. I'll go back to the fossil record. If evolutionists and creationists are honest, we all know that the whole record is sparse at best and that transitional fossils do not exist.
"Evolutionists". Could you please provide a definition of that term? And describe what it's supposed to mean? And what an "evolutionist" is supposed to believe (since Dr. Morris in his other writings has not been reluctant to describe an "evolutionist's" beliefs). You see, it's a term almost universally used by creationists and yet they almost universally refuse to define it or to discuss that definition. Care to break that long creationist tradition?
Anyway, for the large part "evolutionists" are honest about transitionals, while creationists are almost universally dishonest about them. As a matter of fact, that is one of the first things I learned about creationists. Here is my description of that which I had posted on my old web site (no longer hosted):
quote:
I first saw creationists in action one night in 1982 on CBN. A Tennessean host would run various debates (I believe it was David Ankerberg). This particular night, a creationist was debating a scientist (kind of looked like Drs. Morris and Awbrey, though I cannot be sure since I didn't know of either of them at the time). I remember that the scientist showed several slides of hominid fossils, such as knee joints (to show evidence of developing bi-pedalism). Then he showed slides of a human pelvis and chimpanzee pelvis side-by-side. First from the side, then from the top, he pointed out two sets of characteristics that clearly distinguish the one from the other (i.e. whether viewed from the side or from the top, the pelvis could be positively identified as human or chimpanzee). Next he showed both views of a hominid pelvis. From one view it was definitely ape, from the other it was definitely human; thus demonstrating it to be a intermediate form. The creationist then proclaimed the hominid pelvis to be 100% ape and not the least bit human by completely ignoring the human characteristic (even when reminded of it repeatedly by his opponent) and concentrating solely on the view that displayed the ape characteristic. Of course, the host declared this to be a creationist victory and threw in the standard gross misinterpretation of punctuated equilibrium for good [?] measure.
This event made a lasting impression on me. The creationist's steadfast ignoring of the blatantly obvious evidence that was repeatedly pointed out to him is a selective blindness that I have found to pervade much of the creationist literature.
If transitional fossils don't exist, then why are there so many of them? From a reply I had posted on CompuServe back on 08 July 1989:
quote:
As for the fossil sequences themselves, you obviously have not looked very far. You can find many such references in the article "Paleontologic Evidence and Organic Evolution" by Roger Cuffey in Science and Creationism edited by Ashley Montagu (Oxford University Press, 1984). In that article, Cuffey conducted a brief search, by no means exhaustive, of readily available materials to compile a bibliography of about 160 references of transitional fossils, including species of algae, corals, angiosperms, foraminiferans, bryozoans, brachiopods, gastropods, pelecypods, ammonoids, trilobites, crustaceans, echinoids, condonts, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, the crossopterygian-amphibian transition, the amphibian-reptile transition, the reptile-mammal transition, hominids, etc. He listed the references according to the following classifications of transitional fossils (going from more complete to less complete knowledge):

1. Sequences within a single higher taxon which grade continuously
from one species to another without break.
2. Sequences which grade continuously from one species to another
without break and linking across from one higher taxon to another.
3. Series of chronologically successive species within a single higher
taxon which grade from an early form to a later form.
4. Series of chronologically successive species which grade from an
early form to a later form and cross boundaries separating
different higher taxa.
5. Continuous series of higher taxa grading from earlier to later forms,
sometimes crossing from one higher-rank taxon to another
(not usually used to construct transitional-fossil sequences).
6. Isolated individuals (e.g. the most famous example, Archaeopteryx).

If you want me to give you a few of the references, I will be more than happy to do so, but I do balk at typing all 160 references. For that you should track down the book yourself. It also contains a number of other interesting articles, describes the events surrounding the Arkansas "Balanced Treatment" law, and contains the decision of the court.
I had given you a link to that court decision. Have you read it yet? What about Chapter 3 of The Blind Watchmaker?
Also on that same forum on CompuServe, though a few years later in 1993, I met a remarkable creationist, Merle Hertzler. He was the first honest creationist I had encountered -- and I think the only one. He would honestly try to respond to questions and honestly engage in discussion. He was one of "creation science's" better and more coherent advocates. But honesty can have its price. He found his position to be indefensible and within a year went over to the side of evolution. This appears to be why we find so few honest creationists, because they eventually find that they cannot defend something as dishonest as "creation science".
Merle's site is at No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.geocities.com/questioningpage/index.html. He's no longer a Christian, but it's far more the fault of "creation science" than of evolution. On his "Did We Evolve?" page at No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.geocities.com/questioningpage/Evolve2.html, he describes how his creationist position kept evaporating as he actually examined the evidence. In much abridged form, so as to not create a massive post, here's what he wrote about transitional fossils:
quote:
Years ago I was fighting the good fight of creation on the Internet. ... My favorite illustration was the difference between mammals and reptiles. The differences between living mammals and reptiles are substantial. Mammals all have hair, mammary glands, a four-chambered heart, and the distinct mammalian ear, with three little bones inside. These features are found in no living reptiles. I argued that this is because there is no viable intermediate between the two, that an animal could have either the reptile genetic code or the mammal code but could not be in the middle.
An evolutionist disagreed with me. He told me that in the past there had been many intermediates. ... He gave a reference to an essay in Stephen Gould's Ten Little Piggies . ... Perhaps [Gould] made it up. But there was one little footnote, a footnote that would change my life. It said simply, "Allin, E. F. 1975. Evolution of the Mammalian Middle Ear. Journal of Morphology 147:403-38." That's it. That's all it said. But it was soon to have a huge impact on me. You see, I had developed this habit of looking things up, and had been making regular trips to the University of Pennsylvania library. I was getting involved in some serious discussions on the Internet, and was finding the scientific journals to be a reliable source of information. Well, I couldn't believe that a real scientific journal would take such a tale seriously, but, before I would declare victory, I needed to check it out.
On my next trip to the university, I found my way to the biomedical library and located the journal archives. I retrieved the specified journal, and started to read. I could not believe my eyes. There were detailed descriptions of many intermediate fossils. The article described in detail how the bones evolved from reptiles to mammals through a long series of mammal-like reptiles. I paged through the volume in my hand. There were hundreds of pages, all loaded with information. I looked at other journals. I found page after page describing transitional fossils. More significantly, there were all of those troublesome dates. If one arranged the fossils according to date, he could see how the bones changed with time. Each fossil species was dated at a specific time range. It all fit together. I didn't know what to think. Could all of these fossil drawings be fakes? Could all of these dates be pulled out of a hat? Did these articles consist of thousands of lies? All seemed to indicate that life evolved over many millions of years. Were all of these thousands of "facts" actually guesses? I looked around me. The room was filled with many bookshelves; each was filled with hundreds of bound journals. Were all of these journals drenched with lies? Several medical students were doing research there. Perhaps some day they would need to operate on my heart or fight some disease. Was I to believe that these medical students were in this room filled with misinformation, and that they were diligently sorting out the evolutionist lies while learning medical knowledge? How could so much error have entered this room? It made no sense.
. . .
This is only the briefest of overviews of these strange creatures. In reality, there are thousands of species that span many millions of years, with many intermediate stages of many different features.
Now what on earth was God doing? ... Did God learn from past experience and introduce new creatures with improvement every several thousand years or so? Creationists would cringe at that suggestion. Then why do we find this progression? It is difficult to escape the all-too-obvious conclusion: God allowed the first mammal to evolve from reptiles through a process involving many millions of years. As a Creationist, I finally came to the point where I considered that possibility. ... Think for a minute of all of the varieties of mammals that you know--elephants, tigers, mice, dogs, and whales, to name a few. Did all of these descend from a sequence of mammal-like reptiles? Is there any other way to explain all of these intermediates?
The impact of that day in the library was truly stunning. I didn't know what to say. I could not argue against the overwhelming evidence for mammal evolution. But neither could I imagine believing it. Something had happened to me. My mind had begun to think. And it was not about to be stopped. Oh no. There is no stopping the mind set free. I went to the library and borrowed a few books on evolution and creation--diligently studying both sides of the argument. I started to read the evolutionist books with amazement. I had thought that evolutionists taught that floating cows had somehow turned into whales; that hopeful monsters had suddenly evolved without transitions; that one must have blind faith since transitional fossils did not exist; that one must simply guess at the dates for the fossils; and that one must ignore all of the evidence for young-earth creation. I was surprised to learn what these scientist actually knew about the Creationist teachings of flood geology, of the proposed young-earth proofs, and of the reported problems of evolution. And I was surprised at the answers that they had for these Creationist arguments. And I was surprised to see all the clear, logical arguments for evolution. I read with enthusiasm. I learned about isochrons, intermediate fossils, the geologic column, and much more.
I would never see the world in the same light. . . .
Within days, I had lost interest in fighting evolution. I began to read more and speak less. When I did debate, I confined my arguments to the origin of life issue. But I could no longer ignore what I had learned. Several months later I first sent out an email with probing questions to a Creationist who had arrived on the scene. He never responded. I have not stopped questioning.
Kelly, "creation science" is lying to you about transitional fossils. In many testimonials given by atheists, I found the most common reason for their having become atheists was discovering that their religion and religious leaders had lied to them. It's not evolution that turns people into atheists; for many it's the teachings of "creation science".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by Kelly, posted 03-11-2009 12:08 PM Kelly has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 188 of 207 (502454)
03-11-2009 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by Kelly
03-11-2009 12:08 PM


Re: Is it Science?
Creationists then add in the additional information from their world view to skew their findings into a particular conclusion.
Evolutionists do the same thing. It is the nature of the beast, really, since none of us were there in the begining.
Science doesn't do that.
I am not sure who you mean by this? Evolution scientists? They certainly do. The nature of operational science is the only kind of science where we do not need to use any kind of guesswork.
. . .
That's what "science" means... that everyone comes to the same answer. World views do not enter into the picture.
Ideally, yes, that would be great. However, in historical or origins science, we really can't help it. Guesswork is a criteria.
Therefore it is very misleading to say the two are "on equal footing." Because they're not. They're very different, one is science and the other is not.
I do not believe that you have shown me how evolution is different from creation in the study of origins. Both sciences are based on their particular worldviews of what might have occured in the begining.
You may wonder why creation scientists do not come to the same conclusions that all other scientists (across the entire world) come to. And the answer is very simple... creation scientists are not doing science, they are allowing their world-view to corrupt their conclusions.
Actually, creation scientists study in all different scientific fields and when it comes to things observable, there is little disagreement. The argument will usually stem not from what is observed, but what it means--the interpretation?
Or, as leading creationist writers have stated (Gish, I'm pretty sure of, though I think also H. Morris), of course they're biased, but at least they admit it whereas "evolutionists" are just as biased but don't admit it. You're just repeating that recurring creationist rant, so let's take a look at it.
There is an element of truth that the scientific world-view does come into play. We have been stressing that scientific work is based on the evidence. But Kelly and other creationists see us as starting off with certain "assumptions". As Sir Isaac Newton wrote:
quote:
If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants
Scientists don't start at the very beginning in every experiment, but rather build upon what others have done. For one thing, this is what demands the high standards of scholarship in science, because everybody else's work depends on yours so everybody wants to make sure you get it right. That is why shoddy work or perpetrating a hoax is such a career-stopper, unlike the situation in "creation science".
Also, more practically, you don't want to have to start from scratch every time you conduct research. It would be like having to re-derive the Quadratic Formula every single time you want to use it -- well, actually, I have done that, though for fun as well as from being too lazy to go look it up. Or like having to write a C compiler from scratch every time you want to compile a C program.
So this "bias" of scientists, the scientific world-view, is something that has been developed over the centuries. It has been built up from observation and experimentation and tested and verified and improved over and over again by countless scientists. The more fundamental and foundational experiments are studied and repeated by most all science students. The history of each facet of the scientific world-view has been written and studied and the reasoning behind each facet has been studied and is available for anybody to read and examine. The scientific world-view has been built up based on the evidence and through the use of the scientific method. It serves to direct research by giving us an idea of what still needs to be discovered, some idea of what we can expect it to be like and where to look for it. And it does provide us with a starting-point to proceed from as we continue to develop and improve it in accordance with the evidence that we find.
In contrast, the "creation science" world-view is derived not from the evidence, but rather directly from a narrow religious interpretation of a religious text -- and very common one particular version of that text as translated to a non-biblical language. And it remains unresponsive to the evidence, seeking only to use some of the evidence which can be twisted into appearing to support its a priori conclusions and ignoring the rest of the evidence, even to the point of denying that evidence's existence.
To the charge of bias, we find that the "bias" in the scientific world-view is in favor of the evidence, whereas the self-admitted bias of the "creation science" world-view is against the evidence and based solely on religious dogma.
The scientific world-view is indeed scientific. And the "creation science" world-view is the antithesis of science.
Edited by dwise1, : added second-to-last paragraph

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by Kelly, posted 03-11-2009 12:08 PM Kelly has not replied

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