Percy writes:
All scientific evidence is eyewitnessed as scientists conduct experiences and make observations, but science goes beyond that and requires multiple eyewitnesses (replication of experiments and observations) and documentation (papers in scientific journals), as well as review and consensus building.
That sounds good, until we realize the imperfection of human endeavors. In the late 60’s, early 70’s there was a pretty sizable scientific scare about population explosion. Predictions of mass starvation and many other terrible consequences by the turn of the century if government wasn’t permitted to grow enough to control the masses. It was largely spearheaded by a young biology professor named Paul R. Ehrlich from Stanford University. In the words of author Pamela Winnick; Few in the scientific-intellectual community or in the media challenged Ehrlich’s claims or the coercive methods he suggested. Those who did were treated like heretics. He was eventually exposed, but it took too long, and no one can say that the propaganda he polluted many peoples’ minds with was completely erased. Just like no one can say that the 40 year existence of the Piltdown man hoax didn’t do irreversible damage.
Central to Christianity is the mistrust of human wisdom. From thousands of years ago to today, it's not hard to find its blunders.
"Central to Christianity is the mistrust of human wisdom." But no mistrust of theology, which is human wisdom. Indeed, for fundamentalists, their own human wisdom must trump reality.
There are two insurmountable obstacles to my ever being able to even begin to consider accepting fundamentalist Christianity. The second and more minor one (intellectually speaking, though hugely influential) is highly personal (ie, that I would need to become an unspeakable monster in accepting a foreign belief in the eternal damnation of my son), but the first is far more pertinent:
the requirement to believe in human infallibility.
The problem for you, marc9000, is that your position requires belief in human infallibility, which is an absolutely ridiculous position to attempt to maintain.
You maintain an
absolute position from which you cannot even begin to consider to compromise.
Based on what? Based on what your minister told you?
Is he supposed to be infallible? No, it was based on what
his teachers had told him! So
they were infallible? No, that was based on
their teachers and
their teachers on back countless generations. And those teachings are supposed to have been perfectly transmitted through generation after generation of fallible human handling? What kind of sense is that supposed to make?
Did you learn
everything that your teachers had taught you
without any error?
Answer that question with complete honesty! No, you did not! Nor did your teachers from their teachers. Nor they from theirs, etc through all the generations. But what you
must believe because of your theology is that they did indeed learn
absolutely everything absolutely
perfectly! Which requires human infallibility, which fundamentalist Christianity
says it rejects,
as do I (only I actually do reject it), but which fundamentalist Christianity absolutely depends upon.
Theology, while claiming to have Revelation as its core, is still nothing more than
fallible human interpretations. For that matter, we have
Thomas Paine's observation (oh, please, please challenge Thomas Paine!):
quote:
Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.
No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.
It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.
Theology is a purely human invention. Even if we were to grant certain core assertions to be Revelation (since they are merely communicated to us from unknown predecessors to be "Revelation", even though they are now hearsay many times over regardless of their origin), the interpretations of which are
of fallible human origin. For that matter, all translations are a product of
fallible human interpretation -- personal experience: before becoming a student of computer languages, I was a student of human languages: every act of translation from one human language to another is an act of
interpretation. Every time you read a translation, you are reading the translator's fallible human interpretation.
So then,
your theology (which is your own fallible human attempt to copy your teachers' own fallible human attempts, down a long, long chain, of copying their own teachers' misunderstandings of what they were being taught) depends completely and entirely on
human infallibility over
two millennia! And that fallible theology must take precedence over reality? You may be able to embrace human infallibility, but I cannot!
Just like no one can say that the 40 year existence of the Piltdown man hoax didn’t do irreversible damage.
Let's take a brief look at this example you offered, since it tells a very different story than you think. It actually demonstrates how science is self-correcting and it serves as a sharp contrast to creationism's and fundamentalism's resistance to self-correction.
Piltdown Man was a deliberate hoax in which scientists were the victims, not the perpetrators (ie, the discoverer was not the perpetrator). The reason why it persisted for 40 years was that access to the original "fossils" was restricted. Scientific skepticism from the start, along with actual fossil discoveries that make Piltdown stand out more and more as an anomaly, led to scientists performed a chemical analysis of the original followed by microscopic examination which revealed the file markings, it was exposed as a hoax and Piltdown was not longer used by scientists. Indeed, only creationists use it anymore.
Nebraska Man is a similar case, only this time it was a mistake instead of a hoax. The find was a pig's tooth that had been rotated in its socket, which created an unusual wear pattern that resembled a typical ape/human tooth, which led to its misidentification. Many scientists were skeptical about the find. The next year, the discoverer returned to the site where further finds revealed his mistake. Upon discovering his mistake, he published the correction and Nebraska Man was no more. Except among creationists where he lives on.
Both of these cases illustrate a fundamental strength of science. Like all human endeavors, science is not immune from error nor from deliberate hoaxes.
Nor is religion or creationism immune! But in science, everything is subject to testing and verification, nor is anything held sacred and exempt from testing and verification. Since every scientist's own research is based on the research of others', there is strong motivation to verify that that other research is correct. There's even a path to fame if you are able to show an accepted idea to be wrong, so that's even more motivation to test the findings of others. This drives the self-correction mechanism in science, such that while mistakes and hoaxes can happen, they will eventually be weeded out.
In contrast, creationism and religion are much more motivated by the need to convince themselves and others. This inhibits the testing and verification of claims. Indeed, most religious claims cannot be tested or verified except through logic based on untestable religious premises and axioms. But even when dealing with claims that are testable, such testing is avoided. I started writing a page that compares the motivations and actions of scientists with those of creationists:
Fundamental Differences Between Scientists and Creationists:
Here is a classic example of how creationists typically deal with learning that their claims are false:
An unsuccessful attempt to correct an error on a young-earth creationist website. The error in question is Walter Brown's "leap second" claim which, from the use of
leap seconds in official timekeeping (brought to the fore by the GPS system that went online in 1980) to correct for the lengthening of the day due to the slowing of the earth's rotation, took a rate at the earth's rotation is slowing down and extrapolated back to show that millions of years ago the earth would have been spinning at an impossible speed, hence the earth must only be thousands of years old. Because he didn't understand what leap seconds really are, Brown came up with a rate of slowing that is thousands of times higher than the actual rate (which we monitor constantly and
directly through the
International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS)).
The earliest presentation of this claim that I've found is from 1979 and it was soundly refuted in 1982 (
As the World Turns: Can Creationists Keep Time? by William M. Thwaites and Frank T. Awbrey,
Creation Evolution Journal Vol.3, No.3, Summer 1982). While Walter Brown appears to have dropped this claim (even though he continues to use his
rattlesnake protein deliberate lie), you will still find it plastered all over the Web on countless creationist sites, despite it having been refuted
thirty years ago. How soon after Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man were found to be false did they stop being used?
Immediately! And yet creationist claims continue to be used
unabated for
decades after they had been refuted. You put on such a hypocritical show of heartburn over it having taken 40 years for Piltdown to be exposed and yet you (pl) continue to use a multitude refuted claims for nearly as long after you had learned that they are lies.
That page I linked you to,
An unsuccessful attempt to correct an error on a young-earth creationist website, is a case-study in which that group found about 15 creationist websites that repeated that long-refuted leap-second claim and contacted the web-master of each site, explained the facts to them, and asked for corrective action to be taken. Most did not respond and most of the ones who did respond refused to make any corrections. As I recall, one did promise to look into it, but never made any correction. The conclusion of that attempt is:
quote:
Conclusions:
As of 2011-FEB, no further responses have been received; none are expected.
None of the 15 websites has been changed. Persuading the webmasters of these creation science websites to correct their error appears to be quite impossible. In fact, dialog seems to be hopeless.
One author, a supporter of an old earth, commented on the continuing use of the deceleration/pancake "proof" by creation scientists, even though their error has been pointed out to them many times. It seems applicable here:
"I really don't blame them for making this mistake initially. We are all entitled to a few mistakes. But this does not justify keeping this claim going for years and years. My question is, why is this claim still being made?"
. . .
The experiment has convinced the author that meaningful dialog is probably impossible. Supporters of creation science -- at least the 15 contacted -- seem to be totally resistant to change. Attempts to correct these websites are probably not worth pursuing.
The same page reports on the prevalence of this known-false creationist claim on the Web:
quote:
Unfortunately, by mid-2005, many of the URLs have since been broken. Some websites have been closed down; others have been reorganized with different file names. So, many of the hyperlinks are not valid today.
You can still find them by Googling pancake earth rotation. On 2005-JUL we found about 2,750 hits. A bunch of them are young-earth creationist websites. On 2011-FEB we repeated the search and found about 20,400 hits. In spite of the belief being clearly in error, it seems to be becoming more widespread.
marc, have you ever actually read the Bible or do you just depend on reviews? Maybe you've heard something about fretting over the splinter or mote in someone else's eye while ignoring the beam or boulder that is in your own eye. The fuss you made over the Piltdown Hoax while ignoring what creationists are doing is a prime example of that teaching. Take care of the beam/boulder in your own eye.
Edited by dwise1, : minor reworking, plus added final section on Piltdown
™ Version 4.2
