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Author Topic:   Creationism Road Trip
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 15 of 409 (678536)
11-08-2012 9:42 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Bolder-dash
11-08-2012 9:05 PM


scientifically educated intelligent design proponents???
...scientifically educated intelligent design proponents
Sorry, there is no such thing. Most ID proponents know nothing of science, and those very few who do know something of science are forced to deny major parts of it.
So why didn't the BBC take a more honest approach the the full scientific debate, instead of just looking at religious fundamentalism, and then pretending that is a debate on evolution?
The scientific debate has already occurred, in the proper place: peer reviewed scientific journals. ID has not been shown to be of any value at all in those journals.
And by the way, religious fundamentalism is the exact opposite of science. It does not follow evidence to conclusions, but rather accepts conclusions in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Bolder-dash, posted 11-08-2012 9:05 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Bolder-dash, posted 11-08-2012 10:56 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(2)
Message 44 of 409 (678609)
11-09-2012 10:32 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by Bolder-dash
11-08-2012 10:56 PM


Re: scientifically educated intelligent design proponents???
The question is no really whether or not you are a member of the moose lodge, the better question is really why you are so afraid to be viewed more critically.
What you folks offer is not meaningful criticism, but ancient religious myth wrapped in semi-scientific terms.
Why do you censor Wikipedia, why do you out professors who don't tow your line, why do you refuse to allow schools to discuss the missing evidence in your theory
We do the same to flat earthers and other cranks. What do you want us to do all these cranks, kiss them?
why does Percy systematically think of ways to convince fence sitters
Ask Percy.
why are Eugenie Scott and Richard Dawkins, and PZ Meyers so afraid of debate
Scientific debate takes place in peer-reviewed journals. Who are creationists so afraid to present their ideas there? (Right, because they aren't scientific.) What evolutionists have learned is not to engage in the phoney public debates with the Gish gallop preachers. Those folks aren't scientists or researchers, they are showmen playing to a stacked audience. Whenever their points are examined and refuted, do they abandon them? No, they didn't reach those points through evidence so they can't be dissuaded from them by evidence. That's the exact opposite of science--but that doesn't bother them as they have no interest in doing science.
why does your side seem so afraid, that they spend so much time creating so obviously uncritical fluff pieces like this BBC fakeumentary?
Why worry about that? If you have evidence for your side, simply present it and line up for your Nobel Prizes. You'll get all the documentary makers beating their way to your door.
If one is a world's leading professor of astronomy, one can't have believes in intelligent design and still keep their university job?
For pretty much the same reason leading brain surgeons don't bring rattles to the operating room and dance around their patients. They know the difference between ancient superstition and modern practices.
These are the people doing the peer reviews? Whoop dee doo! Join the club, lodge brother. Don't forget your secret handshake.
Been in the club for years, even taught evolution once, filling in for a professor on sabbatical. Never learned the handshake though.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Bolder-dash, posted 11-08-2012 10:56 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 75 of 409 (679331)
11-13-2012 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 64 by Faith
11-13-2012 7:27 AM


Re: Evolution is not science creationism does not bring knowledge
From this, and previous posts, you have demonstrated (among other things) that you do not know what a theory is in science.
I have included some definitions below which might help you to better understand these terms.
Most importantly, a theory is not a guess, or, as you seem to imply, a wild-ass guess. If you wish to discuss science, it would be appropriate for you to actually learn something about it, and these definitions are a good place to start.
-----------------------------
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses. Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws.
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific theories from matters of faith.
Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices."
Proof: Except for math and geometry, there is little that is actually proved. Even well-established scientific theories can't be conclusively proved, because--at least in principle--a counter-example might be discovered. Scientific theories are always accepted provisionally, and are regarded as reliable only because they are supported (not proved) by the verifiable facts they purport to explain and by the predictions which they successfully make. All scientific theories are subject to revision (or even rejection) if new data are discovered which necessitates this.
Proof: A term from logic and mathematics describing an argument from premise to conclusion using strictly logical principles. In mathematics, theorems or propositions are established by logical arguments from a set of axioms, the process of establishing a theorem being called a proof.
The colloquial meaning of "proof" causes lots of problems in physics discussion and is best avoided. Since mathematics is such an important part of physics, the mathematician's meaning of proof should be the only one we use. Also, we often ask students in upper level courses to do proofs of certain theorems of mathematical physics, and we are not asking for experimental demonstration!
So, in a laboratory report, we should not say "We proved Newton's law" Rather say, "Today we demonstrated (or verified) the validity of Newton's law in the particular case of..." Source
Speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence). When a scientist speculates he is drawing on experience, patterns and somewhat unrelated things that are known or appear to be likely. This becomes a very informed guess.
Conjecture: speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence); guess: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence; reasoning that involves the formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence.
Assumption: premise: a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn; "on the assumption that he has been injured we can infer that he will not be able to play"

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Faith, posted 11-13-2012 7:27 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Faith, posted 11-14-2012 11:48 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 83 of 409 (679642)
11-15-2012 12:54 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Faith
11-14-2012 11:48 PM


Re: Evolution is not science creationism does not bring knowledge
Coyote, I'm using "theory" as an explanation that has never been proved or disproved, which is the case with evolutionary theory.
If you are discussing science, it is necessary for you to use the terms as scientists use them. You don't get to make up your own definitions.
Go back and read the definitions again, with particular attention to "theory" and "proof."
Neither means the same to scientists as it does in the vernacular, or apparently, to you.
A theory is the highest level of confidence in science. There is no "proof" in science, as there is in mathematics and a few other narrow applications.
In other words we don't go from wild-ass guess to guess to hypothesis to theory to proof to law, or some other imagined order.
In spite of what creationists and other laymen might imagine, theory is the highest level of confidence.
And the theory of evolution is a better explanation for it's supporting data than the theory of gravity is for it's supporting data.
You claim there is evidence for it, I claim the evidence supports creationism as well or better than evolution.
You are talking apples and oranges. Evolution, as I'm sure you have been told repeatedly, is change in the genome over time. Creationism is how that genome came to be.
They are entirely different subjects!
The theory of evolution would work equally well if the origin was:

1) Natural,
2) The result of some "divine" creation,
3) Panspermia, coming from outer space,
4) Time travel, brought from the distant future, or
5) Something else.
Again, your imprecise thinking and definitions are making discussion of scientific matters unnecessarily difficult.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Faith, posted 11-14-2012 11:48 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by Faith, posted 11-15-2012 1:07 AM Coyote has not replied
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(2)
Message 94 of 409 (679742)
11-15-2012 1:58 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by Faith
11-15-2012 1:56 PM


Re: bottleneck
Sorry you don't have DNA from people who lived 4300 years ago, you only think you do.
In my archaeological work I recovered mtDNA from a skeleton 5,300 years old.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by Faith, posted 11-15-2012 1:56 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Faith, posted 11-15-2012 2:11 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 97 of 409 (679747)
11-15-2012 2:43 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Faith
11-15-2012 2:11 PM


Re: bottleneck
So please explain how you arrived at that date.
In keeping with the spirit of the Road Trip show, I'll provide a brief explanation. Much farther would be off-topic.
It was arrived at through radiocarbon dating, along with artifact styles, and the midden constituents and depositional history of the site in which it was found.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Faith, posted 11-15-2012 2:11 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 99 by Faith, posted 11-15-2012 9:37 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(4)
Message 104 of 409 (679826)
11-15-2012 11:45 PM
Reply to: Message 99 by Faith
11-15-2012 9:37 PM


Re: age of skeleton
Just please confirm that you did actually subject this particular find to carbon dating, send it to a lab or whatever you do for that purpose, and that you got back absolutely unambiguous results.
Of course we sent the sample of human bone to a laboratory--the most experienced one in the country. In addition to this radiocarbon date, we had 30 others to work with. And any time we got results we did not understand, we sent additional samples until we did understand what was going on.
Also please indicate what weight you put on the various methods of dating. How important is artifact style compared to "depositional history" and so on. And wasn't "artifact style" originally dated by the other things on your list anyway?
The different methods of dating must all agree or something's wrong. For example, one thing we look for is superposition, with older materials on the bottom and younger ones toward the top. Of course, burials are almost always intrusive, so we take that into consideration. We use the various methods I mentioned.
Another example: in one area of this site we had a date come back a bit over 7,000 years old. That was 1,500 years older than anything else we had. We would not accept that date until we had some confirmation, so we submitted a series of additional radiocarbon samples from that same area. Eventually we got three additional dates in close agreement with that old date. With that additional evidence we could accept those dates as representing an older component to the site.
The "depositional history of the site in which it was found" would of course meet with nothing but eye rolls from me.
Sorry to hear that. Proper study of soils and their contents can tell you a great deal.
I know there is every kind of weird creationist notion about when the Flood supposedly occurred, many of them based on a compromise with what they think science knows, and I'm probably the only one here, or maybe that ever was here, who believes the ENTIRE geological column was formed in the Flood in the time period traditionally understood to be identified in the Bible. So I understand if "creationism" comes across as just anybody's wild guess, which it pretty much is for some reason among those who post here.
Creationists have claimed the flood occurred anywhere between about 4,000 years ago and 250 million years ago and beyond. It is like they are terrified to pick out one specific time because then that time would be subject to examination for the telltale signs of a flood. And in fact, all of the time periods suggested for the flood have been examined and there is no evidence of a global flood at any of those times.
Including my own guesses of course. I can't see how any, some, many or most of the strata could have been formed by the Flood and the rest formed by some other means. They are all identical as to their basic horizontality, demarcation from layers above and below, etc etc etc. They show NO disturbances until recent time when tectonic forces distorted them, cut canyons into them or whatnot, they just lie there as a full stack. What is called "erosion" between the slabs such as in the GC, is a little roughing up, minuscule compared to what real erosion does on the surface of this earth, easily accounted for by runoff of water between the layers as the stack dried out after the Flood. Etc. etc. etc.
Check with the geologists and sedimentologists on this one.
Sorry, I DO respect you scientists a great deal -- when you stick to the work of science, not when you are conjuring up ages of time you can't possibly really know anything about and calling it fact and jeering us Biblical creationists for not accepting it because we have a better testimony to time.
No, you do not respect scientists, nor the scientific method, at all. You feel free to pick and choose what you accept and to denigrate those scientists who come up with answers contrary to your beliefs, beliefs, incidentally, not based on scientific evidence at all. Sorry, you don't get to do that. If you accept the scientific method, you have to accept the results whether you like them or not. And scientists use the same basic methods, with some adjustments for the nature of their particular data, across all fields.
Seems to me that as long as certain kinds of science, such as archaeology and paleontology, work as oh, say, entomologists do, mostly by scrupulously identifying and cataloging pure phenomena/fact including location, conditions or whatever, rather than treating things like dating as fact that really depend on a bunch of accumulated speculations and NOT actual fact, then they are doing true science that I'm not going to dispute. Unless there is reason to suspect a hoax, and hoaxes are not unknown in science to say the least.
I would suggest that there are far more hoaxes, distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies peddled by creationists than scientists. I have messaged some of the creationist sites with simple errors that they have made reading the scientific literature, and so far they have all refused to correct those errors. They BELIEVE and that has clouded their judgment completely. I think the same applies to you.
A part of this is the phony dichotomy creationists try to establish between evolutionary sciences and "real" science. That's nonsense invented to try to prop up beliefs that have been disproved by the scientific method.
There is overwhelming evidence that our dating methods are at least pretty good, within, say 10%. Tree rings agree pretty closely with corals, and both agree with glacial varves, and so on. Bristlecone pines from southern California agree closely with European oaks. Newer radiometric dating using different methods and materials are also providing remarkable similar results. RAZD has several threads exploring these correlations.
You can't just say you don't accept them and retain any credibility. You have to present evidence why they don't work, and to explain away the multiple correlations. So far no creationist has been able to do that. Even the RATE boys were forced to backtrack on a lot of their initial ideas in the face of scientific evidence that they themselves produced--and this is after spending over a million dollars of creationist money.
Yes, I know the dating methods SEEM pretty open and shut to you. But even with RAZD's dendrochronology and his whole list of supposed proofs, which I've seen him post many times here, I reject it as science. Sorry. Because you cannot know the past as you think you can and I do happen to have a trustworthy source of historical knowledge that I'm not going to yield over to the mere cogitations of mere human beings, however nice, smart and honest you might be.
You are just hand-waving away solid scientific information based on your belief in ancient myths. Now, you can believe what you want, but what I don't understand is how you can keep trying to fool yourself--apparently quite successfully--in the face of the massive amounts of evidence that we present to the contrary.
Go through RAZD's thread and there is a lot more than dendrochronology. There are a lot of different methods of dating, and they are all in pretty close agreement--certainly close enough that there is no room for a young earth or for a recent global flood.
So here we are recreating the Creationism Road Trip. Folks who are familiar with the various fields are presenting evidence, which creationists just hand-wave away. Same as always.
(See signature.)

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Faith, posted 11-15-2012 9:37 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by Faith, posted 11-17-2012 1:12 AM Coyote has seen this message but not replied
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 11-17-2012 1:47 AM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(5)
Message 135 of 409 (680052)
11-17-2012 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Faith
11-17-2012 1:47 AM


Re: age of archaeological finds / carbon dating
As the topic is the Creationism Road Trip, during which experts explained their methods and data to creationists, I'm going to venture into what otherwise might be off-topic and attempt the same approach here. Even so, I'm only going to hit the most pertinent points.
...The fact that you chose the most experienced lab means that there are other inexperienced ones and that it TAKES experience, which implies a subjective component to the test, or at least I have to wonder what kind of experience is needed. Where to look in the bone fragment for the best carbon 14 or are you looking for the decay products? Anyway extracting whatever you're looking for so you can measure it sounds like it must involve some trial and error, subjective judgment, etc. The neec for experience also implies that all the less experienced labs could be regularly producing unreliable results, which doesn’t inspire confidence in the method overall.
But since all 31 samples we submitted for this project went to the most experienced laboratory, which as done over 300,000 samples last I looked, your objections are unfounded in this case.
Further showing the uncertainty involved is that you sent so many other samples. I’m sure you’re convinced that your final result is trustworthy and that the further tests are a guarantee of greater trustworthiness, but you should understand that from the point of view of a nonscientist it doesn’t look all that trustworthy if it takes so many trials and errors to get a result that makes sense to you. And the idea that you might not understand what was going on from earlier readings and have to have additional tests until you did understand doesn’t inspire confidence either. Of course I understand that 100% reliability in almost anything is a lot to ask but it sounds like there’s an awful lot of slippage in this department of science, a lot more than I expected for sure. All this doesn’t prove your results are wrong, it just raises doubts.
It raises doubt because you are predisposed to not accept either the method or the results. The reason for sending so many samples is we were dealing with a large and complex site. There were four separate components there, and we wanted to establish the age and range of each one.
And we prefer to submit too many samples rather than too few. For the kind of work we do we want to understand what's going on, and that's one of our best tools for doing so.
Apparently the inventor of the process had amazing results with some organic items of known date but it sounds like that’s the exception rather than the rule and, well, it makes a person wonder. Seems to me the lab technicians could wonder how come their own results aren’t all that predictably perfect, since his were, his name was something Libby I think?
Willard Libby, of the University of Chicago. And no, the testing of materials of known dates is done all the time as a means of correcting for atmospheric variation and other potential problems. That's what the calibration curve that RAZD posted above is! By taking items of a known age, and dating them, you can see the variation from actual ages that results from atmospheric fluctuation. Tree rings are a perfect material for this; they are organic, nicely wrapped up to limit contamination, come with actual down-to-the-year ages, and are plentiful. This lets you repeat the process in a variety of different areas. Using standing dead bristlecone pines from the White Mountains of southern California they have counted tree rings back some 12,000 years and dated them in 10-year increments. They have done the same for European oaks going back about twice as far. The two calibration curves agree! And those curves agree with several others using entirely different materials. Corals, for example.
And then there’s the human factor. Are the samples totally blind at the labs or do the technicians know things about them such as where they’re from and the history of work at that site or whatever? I can easily imagine a technician saying "OK we’re looking for a date somewhere in the range of" whatever that site has been finding. And it would be quite kosher to do that, no fraud involved, no conscious fraud anyway, just a help in doing the work, but it could skew things without anyone intending to.
When we submit our samples to the laboratory we send in the site number, the type of material (bone, shell, charcoal), and the weight. (And money.) That's all, and that information is for our own records. The laboratory has no way of checking on the site and it wouldn't do them any good anyway as there is no information in the literature on most of the sites we test anyway! That's the reason we are doing the test, is to find out those things. So the laboratory technicians have no idea what date to "produce." They just run the test and come up with the date and we have to live with what they find.
Perhaps the same date could keep turning up for a particular site just because the particular technician who happens to have been the one testing the samples from that site has a particular way of working peculiar to himself, a particular kind of experience and whatnot, and without having the slightest intention to do so just keeps turning up a certain kind of result due to his/her style of working, extracting, or whatever is involved And so on and so forth. There’s just a LOT of room for slippage
No. You are just looking for doubt, any doubt, to try to bolster up your beliefs. Grasping at straws would be a better description of what you're doing. These large laboratories process 50 or more samples a day, every day. The technicians have a method they follow, and they are only concerned with their part of the operation--making sure the sample is clean, appropriate for the tests they are doing, pretreating as needed to remove contamination, and processing it correctly. They are not interested in archaeology at all! Nor do they have any training in it. They don't care what the dates are! They just send us the information they come up with.
In the end you are asking me to take on faith something that involves so many ifs and buts even the best scientists must have trouble sorting it all out. I can get some grasp on DNA and of other things in science, but how this process could work with all the variables involved leaves me mystified and frustrated. And always your dates are older than the Bible’s, if even only by a thousand years or so, but you want me to abandon the Bible for such an unreliable way of measuring time as yours.
Our dates have run from as recent as the mid-1800s back past 12,000 years. (The oldest few were not cultural, but were done to establish the age of a particular mud flow.) Some of the more recent dates are on materials from early missions, and I'm sure you would have no problem trusting those. I think what you are really trying to tell me is that you'll accept recent dates but after a certain age you won't accept them. This is what I meant by picking and choosing--for entirely non-scientific reasons you are rejecting older dates produced by the exact methods as more recent dates. That's not science. In fact, that's the exact opposite of science.
So far you have not raised any accurate objections to the C14 method, just spurious "what-ifs." I've seen this tactic on the part of creationists for years now, and it's whack-a-mole. When one objection is explained and put to rest, another pops up. Round and round we go and eventually we'll be back at the first one again.
The problem is that you're neither looking for evidence, nor willing to accept evidence, unless it supports your existing beliefs. When it contradicts your beliefs your defense mechanisms cut in and you start producing "what-ifs."

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 11-17-2012 1:47 AM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 158 of 409 (680260)
11-18-2012 9:42 PM
Reply to: Message 155 by Faith
11-18-2012 9:02 PM


When is the flood?
I don't understand why we are searching through deep geological time for evidence of the flood.
The consensus of biblical scholars places it far more recently, in historic times. Here are some of the opinions for the date of the global flood:
2252 BC -- layevangelism.com
2304 BC -- Answers in Genesis (+/- 11 years).
2350 BC -- Morris, H. Biblical Creationism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993.
2370 BC -- TalkOrigins.com
2500 BC -- Biblical Chronology
2522 BC -- Dr. Gerhard Hasel
2978-3128 BC -- http://www.asa3.org/archive/ASA/199605/0162.html
3537 BC -- Setterfield (1999)
These are just a sample of the biblical scholars who place the flood in historic times, well after dinosaurs and having nothing to do with geologic time millions to hundreds of millions of years ago.
But apparently there is a vast disagreement among creationists over when the flood occurred, spanning virtually the entire age of the earth. Now it occurs to me that if creationists can't read and interpret the bible to any narrower time frame than about four billion years for 1) the date of the flood, and 2) consequently the age of modern humans, it occurs to me that there is nothing in what they say that we need to take seriously.
And why is there such a span for these events, the flood and modern humans? I suggest it is because creationists are relying on belief (scripture, dogma, revelation, etc.) rather than evidence. In fact, most creationists avoid evidence like vampires avoid garlic!
But when there is a disagreement among various points of view, it is precisely evidence that can help to determine which (if any) of those point sof view might be the most accurate. This has led, over time, to the scientific method where evidence (facts or data) is the primary determinant of theory (explanation). If significant evidence contradicts your theory, the evidence wins out and your theory is out!
Given all of this, perhaps creationists could retreat to their lounge and debate this issue among themselves, and when they have reached consensus then get back to us with specific proposals, and we'll see how those ideas fit with the evidence?
Fair enough?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 155 by Faith, posted 11-18-2012 9:02 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 160 by Faith, posted 11-18-2012 9:53 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 166 of 409 (680276)
11-18-2012 10:57 PM
Reply to: Message 160 by Faith
11-18-2012 9:53 PM


Re: When is the flood?
Well, we AREN'T "looking through deep time" for the Flood. It DID occur about 4300 years ago -- and the Bible itself is the source of the calculations. I don't know why there are those other dates, either, it's depressing that there's so much discrepancy. I go with Morris. It's all recent time. It's just that the entire geological column was laid down IN THE FLOOD around 4300 BC, so it isn't "deep time" at all.
Ay, there's the rub!
The geological column was not laid down around 4,300 years ago (nor BC either!). On this point the evidence is unambiguous.
You just keep making up "what-ifs" so that you can support your beliefs in spite of all of that evidence against you.
If you can't accept evidence, what use is there presenting it to you? Your mind appears like a steel trap: rusted shut.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 160 by Faith, posted 11-18-2012 9:53 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 168 by Faith, posted 11-18-2012 11:31 PM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(5)
Message 220 of 409 (680369)
11-19-2012 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 206 by Faith
11-19-2012 7:28 AM


Another claim goes "poof"
The Catholic Church murdered some 67 million "heretics" over a six-century period of the Inquisition, most of which were Bible-believing Christians.
You really need to check the "facts" you ask us to believe. A quick google search shows that the above claim is off by a factor of 5,000-10,000x. I think some of the sites you are frequenting are outright lying to you and you need to be more cautious about accepting their "facts" without verifying them yourself.
If we add the figures, we find that the entire Inquisition of 500 years, caused about 6,000 deaths.
http://askville.amazon.com/...ed-Inquisition/AnswerViewer.do
But according to Professor Agostino Borromeo, a historian of Catholicism at the Sapienza University in Rome and curator of the 783-page volume released yesterday, only 1% of the 125,000 people tried by church tribunals as suspected heretics in Spain were executed.
Historians say Inquisition wasn't that bad | World news | The Guardian
I checked a little more and one site estimates the population of Europe, in AD 1500--from Scandinavia to Greece--was about 50 million.
http://www.tulane.edu/~august/H303/handouts/Population.htm

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 206 by Faith, posted 11-19-2012 7:28 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 222 by Faith, posted 11-19-2012 1:49 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 231 of 409 (680422)
11-19-2012 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 222 by Faith
11-19-2012 1:49 PM


Re: Another claim goes "poof"
I need to get back to studying the history of the Inquisition, but one thing I've been gathering is that you cannot trust any statistics or descriptions of it written since about 1920 because of a well organized effort to alter the truth. Internet sources are not going to be reliable at all. You have to dig for this information. I am trying to get hold of some old books, which I keep hearing quoted, but my finances aren't the greatest. This went on OFFICIALLY for 600 years, and unofficially a lot longer than that. At the number I gave that would be about 110,000 deaths a year.
Why are you so willing, indeed eager, to believe things that are just demonstrably untrue?
My training is as a scientist, and I hate being wrong! I go to great lengths in my professional writings to avoid making errors.
What is your training or background that you embrace so many things are are demonstrably wrong, and are so reluctant to admit having made errors?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by Faith, posted 11-19-2012 1:49 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 232 by Faith, posted 11-19-2012 2:24 PM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 313 of 409 (680719)
11-20-2012 9:43 PM
Reply to: Message 312 by Faith
11-20-2012 8:56 PM


Re: The Flood dissolved stuff but ROCKS? Hardly
Perhaps the word you are looking for is not "dissolve" but "(soil) liquification?"
Dissolve: to cause to pass into solution, e.g. dissolve sugar in water.
Soil liquefaction describes a phenomenon whereby a saturated soil substantially loses strength and stiffness in response to an applied stress, usually earthquake shaking or other sudden change in stress condition, causing it to behave like a liquid.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 312 by Faith, posted 11-20-2012 8:56 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 314 by Faith, posted 11-20-2012 10:13 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(5)
Message 318 of 409 (680730)
11-21-2012 12:28 AM
Reply to: Message 314 by Faith
11-20-2012 10:13 PM


Re: The Flood dissolved stuff but ROCKS? Hardly
It’s an ordinary English word that says well enough what I mean; there’s no need to insist on a particular technical meaning of it.
Yes there is. You are dealing with scientists here, and we insist on precise definitions. Sloppy thinking and sloppy definitions may be accepted in religious apologetics, but perhaps you should keep them there. Science has no place for them.
Dictionaries normally include all meanings for a word. In almost all cases only one of those meanings is correct for a given situation.
When you say "dissolved" the normal meaning would be what sugar or salt does when exposed to water--"to cause to pass into solution."
Now rock isn't going to do that very easily. Most rock isn't going to do that at all.
I offered you the "soil liquifaction" as a meaning more closely associated with flooding and downhill movement of soils.
But you seem to reject that in favor of all meanings of "dissolve."
You made this mess, you better figure a way to straighten it out.
Trying to play games with definitions, as creationists are often forced to do, just isn't going to cut it.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 314 by Faith, posted 11-20-2012 10:13 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 320 by Faith, posted 11-21-2012 12:43 AM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(2)
Message 379 of 409 (680969)
11-21-2012 7:11 PM
Reply to: Message 376 by Faith
11-21-2012 7:02 PM


Re: The Flood dissolved stuff but ROCKS? Hardly
In my ordinary world, mud is dirt dissoved in water.
What you believe doesn't make it so in the real world.
You really do damage to what little credibility you have left by making such foolish statements and then insisting that scientists have to accept your non-scientific definitions.
And then continuing to argue about it.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 376 by Faith, posted 11-21-2012 7:02 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 381 by Faith, posted 11-21-2012 7:14 PM Coyote has not replied

  
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