Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature....
kbertsche
Member (Idle past 2132 days)
Posts: 1427
From: San Jose, CA, USA
Joined: 05-10-2007


Message 661 of 708 (770471)
10-06-2015 10:49 AM
Reply to: Message 660 by PaulK
10-06-2015 2:39 AM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
PaulK writes:
I note that apart from explaining Ross's use of the term you still don't offer any support for the claim that it is "proper" - despite NoNukes objections. Nor do you even really explain how it is such an important part of the scientific method to deserve Ross's treatment of it.
I mentioned this above. Hugh explicitly breaks out factors that are normally included implicitly in taking and interpreting data. His formulation is non-standard, but not "wrong".
PaulK writes:
Of course the proper frame of reference for interpreting both of the Creation stories and the Flood is that they are Middle Eastern myths. That's rather more important than speculations about "authorial perspective. Understanding the nature of the text, and the context in which it was written really is important. Too bad that Ross neglects that aspect.
I agree that all of these things are important.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger

This message is a reply to:
 Message 660 by PaulK, posted 10-06-2015 2:39 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 662 by PaulK, posted 10-06-2015 11:34 AM kbertsche has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 662 of 708 (770475)
10-06-2015 11:34 AM
Reply to: Message 661 by kbertsche
10-06-2015 10:49 AM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
quote:
I mentioned this above. Hugh explicitly breaks out factors that are normally included implicitly in taking and interpreting data. His formulation is non-standard, but not "wrong".
The question is not whether Ross's version can be said to be literally accurate. The question is whether Ross is misleading both by exaggerating the importance of the steps he adds to the usual list, and by misapplying them. Both seem to be true to me - the second obviously so.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 661 by kbertsche, posted 10-06-2015 10:49 AM kbertsche has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 663 of 708 (770485)
10-06-2015 1:49 PM
Reply to: Message 656 by PaulK
10-05-2015 1:18 AM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
Of course it makes sense if you understand that Hugh Ross is starting from the position that Genesis literally describes the creation as he understands it.
I understand Hugh Ross's motivation. But that is not the point of my question regarding whether his interpretation makes sense.
Other than in the same sense that it is meaningful for YECs to claim that there was a canopy of water over the earth until the Flood does it make sense to postulate that Genesis should be viewed as if written by a witness on earth. The question remains as to why or how anyone would write such a description given that most of the events in the description were entirely unseen by any human.
As an example, what if Genesis could be interpreted as an accurate view of what someone might think they were seeing if they were located in a black hole and if we excused distortions of events by noting that reality cannot accurately be recorded from that position? Would it be reasonable to call the description accurate on that basis? What if some of the features attributed to black holes were mere speculation? Just when did the earth's atmosphere become translucent?
What Hugh Ross describes is how a human might be misled by his senses if he viewed creation from a point on earth. And I say mislead because it is clear that the sun and moon were not created on day four under Hugh Ross' despite the fact that Genesis says such. The atmosphere supposedly merely became transparent on that day. Given that there was no such human in that position, how does it make sense to interpret Genesis as if it records a human experience that never happened.
What it seems to say is that God told the authors of Genesis a fairy tale. I find that idea totally unacceptable.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 656 by PaulK, posted 10-05-2015 1:18 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 665 by PaulK, posted 10-06-2015 2:35 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 664 of 708 (770486)
10-06-2015 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 659 by kbertsche
10-05-2015 6:14 PM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
Hugh is a scientist. He has a tendency to re-express theological concepts in scientific language.
Exactly so. We can see that Hugh is not really using the scientific method. He is re-expressing 'creation science' using scientific sounding language.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 659 by kbertsche, posted 10-05-2015 6:14 PM kbertsche has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 665 of 708 (770489)
10-06-2015 2:35 PM
Reply to: Message 663 by NoNukes
10-06-2015 1:49 PM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
It makes sense that Ross would argue like that. Apologetics don't have to make sense when examined with even a remotely critical eye. Unlike science which does have to stand up to close, expert scrutiny. And thus Ross is not thinking like a scientist at all.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 663 by NoNukes, posted 10-06-2015 1:49 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
JRTjr01
Member (Idle past 2955 days)
Posts: 97
From: Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Joined: 08-24-2013


Message 666 of 708 (770612)
10-09-2015 11:50 AM
Reply to: Message 657 by Percy
10-05-2015 7:54 AM


Are you 100% certain???
Dear Percy,
Great hearing from you again.
Percy writes:
we can never be 100% certain in what we think we know, which in science is a principle known as tentativity.
Agreed, there is a Philosophy of Science that states that we can never know anything with 100% certainty; and Ringo seems to think that since we can’t know anything with 100% certainty we cannot know anything at all.
However, I have a problem with the idea that we can never be 100% certain in what we think we know and basically it’s the same argument I gave Ringo when he said: There are no absolutes.
That is this: If it were in fact true that we could never be 100% certain that we know anything then we could not know that we could not be 100 % certain about anything.
This is a self-defeating statement; for to know we could never be 100% certain of anything is to be certain of something we could not possible know.
With that said, I can agree that when doing Science we should restrict the certainties of our conclusions to something less than 100%. Why, because we never have all of the evidence. Just like in a court case, there will always be a missing piece of evidence, always a piece of evidence that seems to not fit with any reasonable hypothesis.
However, Science is not all in compassing; that is, there are thinks we know that cannot be scientifically studied. Science itself cannot be ‘proven’ scientifically but we trust in it, in many respect, with our vary lives. We cannot scientifically test if ‘1+1=2’ is true or not.
These I would call ‘Brut realities’; that is that there are ‘Basic Beliefs’ that are either self-evident axiom(s) or incorrigible. One such axiom is Ren Descartes's axiom, Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"). Incorrigible (lit. uncorrectable) beliefs are those one can believe without possibly being proven wrong.
{Please note here that when I refer to ‘Belief’ I am using these definitions: noun 2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief. 1. a principle, proposition, idea, etc, accepted as true}
So, I can say (pardon the pun) with absolute certainty that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e.g. the two propositions " A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive. This is known as the ‘law of non-contradiction’.
The ‘law of non-contradiction’ is an ‘Absolute Truth’ because it cannot be proven wrong according to the doctrine of ‘Basic Belief’.
Percy writes:
How do you know any idea is an absolute truth? Further, how do you know there even *is* anything like an absolute truth?
This is, I think, one of the most fundamental questions of all time; and it is a question that has been plaguing mankind since Eve eat the forbidden fruit.
If there is ‘absolute truth’ how do we know it is ‘absolute’??
If you are interested, as I am, in discussing this further; I would like to purpose this as a new topic.
Maybe we could start off with how do I ‘know’ something/anything?
Hope to hear from you again,
JRTjr
P.s. Thanks for the message info.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 657 by Percy, posted 10-05-2015 7:54 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 671 by Percy, posted 10-09-2015 3:55 PM JRTjr01 has not replied

  
JRTjr01
Member (Idle past 2955 days)
Posts: 97
From: Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Joined: 08-24-2013


Message 667 of 708 (770614)
10-09-2015 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 658 by ringo
10-05-2015 12:18 PM


Re: What Do you Mean???????????
Dear Ringo,
Hope this message finds you in good health.
Ringo writes:
JRTjr writes:
The fact that you suggest that there is a difference between a "real" Bigfoot and a guy in a Bigfoot suit shows that even you can distinguish, with some accuracy, the difference between something that is ‘real’ and something that is ‘Fake’.
I'm not suggesting that.
I'm not the one who claims to be able to tell the difference.
Are you now claiming that there is no difference between a "real" Bigfoot and a guy in a Bigfoot suit??
Because it is defiantly implied in the question itself that there is a difference between a "real" Bigfoot and a guy in a Bigfoot suit
Hope to hear from you again,
JRTjr

This message is a reply to:
 Message 658 by ringo, posted 10-05-2015 12:18 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 668 by ringo, posted 10-09-2015 12:33 PM JRTjr01 has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 668 of 708 (770615)
10-09-2015 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 667 by JRTjr01
10-09-2015 12:25 PM


Re: What Do you Mean???????????
JRTjr01 writes:
Are you now claiming that there is no difference between a "real" Bigfoot and a guy in a Bigfoot suit??
I'm not claiming anything. I'm asking how YOU would tell the difference.
JRTjr01 writes:
Because it is defiantly implied in the question itself that there is a difference between a "real" Bigfoot and a guy in a Bigfoot suit
We KNOW there are guys in Bigfoot suits. We see them on TV, etc. We DON'T know whether or not there is a real Bigfoot - i.e. a non-human who is NOT wearing a costume.
So again: How would you tell the difference?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 667 by JRTjr01, posted 10-09-2015 12:25 PM JRTjr01 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 670 by JRTjr01, posted 10-09-2015 1:32 PM ringo has replied

  
JRTjr01
Member (Idle past 2955 days)
Posts: 97
From: Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Joined: 08-24-2013


Message 669 of 708 (770617)
10-09-2015 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 652 by Percy
10-04-2015 8:15 PM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
Dear Percy,
Thank you, once again, for your comments.
Percy writes:
I didn't claim my version is "the correct one." What I said in Message 631 was, "You can find many satisfactory characterizations of the scientific method on the Internet, but here's my own version.
Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. In Message 631 you gave us ‘your version’ and then in Message 640 you said Any reaction to the correct description of the scientific method? so I thought it only logical that you were speaking of the one you mentioned in your previous message.
So, If you were not speaking of yours as being ‘the correct’ one to which one were you referring??
Hope to hear from you again soon,
JRTjr

This message is a reply to:
 Message 652 by Percy, posted 10-04-2015 8:15 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 672 by Percy, posted 10-09-2015 4:02 PM JRTjr01 has replied

  
JRTjr01
Member (Idle past 2955 days)
Posts: 97
From: Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
Joined: 08-24-2013


Message 670 of 708 (770620)
10-09-2015 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 668 by ringo
10-09-2015 12:33 PM


Re: What Do you Mean???????????
Dear Ringo,
I love your post; they always bring a smile to by face.
Ringo writes:
We KNOW there are guys in Bigfoot suits. We see them on TV, etc. We DON'T know whether or not there is a real Bigfoot - i.e. a non-human who is NOT wearing a costume.
You got it, You finally figured it out. Thank for having the guts to acknowledge it..
O’ wait, why are you asking me how I ‘tell the difference?’ You just laid out the difference plainly and succinctly.
Since you KNOW there are guys in Bigfoot suits. And you Know that they (the guys in the suits) are not non-humans who (are) NOT wearing costume(s). Then the only logical conclusion is that guys in Bigfoot suits are not Real Bigfoots.
As I explained in Message 607, and again in Message 654.
The fact that you have been unable to grasp this is the reason that I have been trying to get you to accept some common definitions of words. This way we can nail down what seems to be confusing you.
So, how about it? Are you finally ready to start with the basics and dust off your dictionary??
Hope to hear from you again,
JRTjr

This message is a reply to:
 Message 668 by ringo, posted 10-09-2015 12:33 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 673 by Percy, posted 10-09-2015 4:10 PM JRTjr01 has not replied
 Message 674 by ringo, posted 10-10-2015 11:52 AM JRTjr01 has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 671 of 708 (770623)
10-09-2015 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 666 by JRTjr01
10-09-2015 11:50 AM


Re: Are you 100% certain???
JRTjr01 writes:
Agreed, there is a Philosophy of Science that states that we can never know anything with 100% certainty; and Ringo seems to think that since we can’t know anything with 100% certainty we cannot know anything at all.
You've misunderstood what Ringo was saying. You guys were discussing absolute truth. Ringo wasn't saying we cannot know anything at all. He was saying we can't know anything with absolute certainty, and that therefore there can't be anything like absolute truth.
That is this: If it were in fact true that we could never be 100% certain that we know anything then we could not know that we could not be 100 % certain about anything.
And you can't be 100% certain of your own statement, either. You're embarking down a philosophical path that will only tie you in knots and get you nowhere. The reality is uncertainty.
With that said, I can agree that when doing Science we should restrict the certainties of our conclusions to something less than 100%. Why, because we never have all of the evidence. Just like in a court case, there will always be a missing piece of evidence, always a piece of evidence that seems to not fit with any reasonable hypothesis.
Agreed, mostly. Are you doing science or religion?
However, Science is not all in compassing; that is, there are thinks we know that cannot be scientifically studied. Science itself cannot be ‘proven’ scientifically but we trust in it, in many respect, with our vary lives. We cannot scientifically test if ‘1+1=2’ is true or not.
I'm pretty sure you can. And you can prove it mathematically.
So, I can say (pardon the pun) with absolute certainty that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e.g. the two propositions " A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive. This is known as the ‘law of non-contradiction’.
The ‘law of non-contradiction’ is an ‘Absolute Truth’ because it cannot be proven wrong according to the doctrine of ‘Basic Belief’.
And yet Schrodinger's cat can be both dead and not dead.
If you are interested, as I am, in discussing this further; I would like to purpose this as a new topic.
Maybe we could start off with how do I ‘know’ something/anything?
Neither is the thread's topic. They're both digressions. Do you see one as an appropriate digression and the other not?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 666 by JRTjr01, posted 10-09-2015 11:50 AM JRTjr01 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 672 of 708 (770624)
10-09-2015 4:02 PM
Reply to: Message 669 by JRTjr01
10-09-2015 12:48 PM


Re: Who needs a stinken Scientific Method?? ;-}
JRTjr01 writes:
Percy writes:
I didn't claim my version is "the correct one." What I said in Message 631 was, "You can find many satisfactory characterizations of the scientific method on the Internet, but here's my own version.
Sorry, I must have misunderstood you. In Message 631 you gave us ‘your version’ and then in Message 640 you said Any reaction to the correct description of the scientific method? so I thought it only logical that you were speaking of the one you mentioned in your previous message.
So, If you were not speaking of yours as being ‘the correct’ one to which one were you referring??
As I said, there are many satisfactory descriptions of the scientific method on the Internet. They're just worded and partitioned into steps differently. The only one I've seen recently that was actually wrong was the one you provided from the Biblical Paradoxes lecture series.
You reported that you Googled "the scientific method", so now that you've read a number of different descriptions of the scientific method, you understand it doesn't include identifying a frame of reference or determining the initial conditions. I was just trying to help you see that the description you took from Biblical Paradoxes lecture series was bogus.
But that wasn't my main point. I was mostly just trying to encourage you to cease being evasive and begin engaging the discussion.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 669 by JRTjr01, posted 10-09-2015 12:48 PM JRTjr01 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 680 by JRTjr01, posted 10-25-2015 4:07 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 673 of 708 (770625)
10-09-2015 4:10 PM
Reply to: Message 670 by JRTjr01
10-09-2015 1:32 PM


Re: What Do you Mean???????????
JRTjr01 writes:
Ringo writes:
We KNOW there are guys in Bigfoot suits. We see them on TV, etc. We DON'T know whether or not there is a real Bigfoot - i.e. a non-human who is NOT wearing a costume.
You got it, You finally figured it out. Thank for having the guts to acknowledge it..
O’ wait, why are you asking me how I ‘tell the difference?’ You just laid out the difference plainly and succinctly.
Since you KNOW there are guys in Bigfoot suits. And you Know that they (the guys in the suits) are not non-humans who (are) NOT wearing costume(s). Then the only logical conclusion is that guys in Bigfoot suits are not Real Bigfoots.
You've misunderstood things again. I forget - did we already establish whether English is a second language for you?
Ringo was just providing a little more information, not describing a different problem. The additional information is that we do have evidence of people in the past dressing up in Bigfoot costumes. The question he's asking is when faced with a new Bigfoot sighting, how do you tell whether it's a person in a Bigfoot costume or the real thing? This comes back to the question of how we establish what we think is likely true about the real world, i.e., the scientific method.
But as I said before, the original issue was about absolute truth. What evidence to you have that there is any such thing?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 670 by JRTjr01, posted 10-09-2015 1:32 PM JRTjr01 has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 674 of 708 (770646)
10-10-2015 11:52 AM
Reply to: Message 670 by JRTjr01
10-09-2015 1:32 PM


Re: What Do you Mean???????????
JRTjr01 writes:
Then the only logical conclusion is that guys in Bigfoot suits are not Real Bigfoots.
But that doesn't tell us anything about the ones we don't know.
We know there are "X" and we know there are "Y". The question is: How do we know whether the specimen at hand is "X" or "Y"?
Suppose we have a video of a furry creature about the size of a man walking through the woods. What process do you use to decide whether it's a guy in a Bigfoot suit or "something else"?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 670 by JRTjr01, posted 10-09-2015 1:32 PM JRTjr01 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 675 by Straggler, posted 10-11-2015 7:04 PM ringo has replied
 Message 677 by JRTjr01, posted 10-25-2015 2:23 PM ringo has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 675 of 708 (770660)
10-11-2015 7:04 PM
Reply to: Message 674 by ringo
10-10-2015 11:52 AM


Re: What Do you Mean???????????
From a video - Probably not.
But if we used the video evidence to track, locate and capture the creature in question could we then determine whether the specimen at hand is X or Y?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 674 by ringo, posted 10-10-2015 11:52 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 676 by ringo, posted 10-13-2015 11:38 AM Straggler has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024