Comparitive delusions

The age of the rocks (measured by radioactive decay) is as much of a scientific fact as the hight of the mount Everest is. By your reasoning nothing at all is a fact. of course it would be right to say that nothing is proved in science. but it gets prety tedious after a while to keep saying that over and over again. So yes, scientist will state as facts things that have an OVERWHELMING amount of evidence. And there's nothing wrong with that

So lets get this straight Faith., You made an assertion - that the conclusions of geology are "pure conjecture" and almost entiely based on imagination.You can't back up this assertion. You don't even know if it is true but you keep saying it.You actually argue that your behaviour should be considered acceptable because the work to actually check your claim is more than you are prepared to do.And now - because people disagree with you you are going to call the FRAUDS. All because they object when you present YOUR conjectures as fact.How can you possibly defend such behaviour ?p

Faith,Please address this post, please.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

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That's actually a very good analogy, Schraf.

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Joe Public looks at a particular cliffside and sees rocks of different colours. A trained geologist looks at the same cliffside and sees history, because by the time you graduate with a degree in geology you've been on so many field trips that it's virtually instinctive to look and evaluate and essentially read the formation like a book. So a trained geologist sees, say, a cross-stratified siltstone formed in a stormy coastal environment interbedded with fossil-rich mudstone, and can think about the how and why and therefores that a layman is simply ignorant about.

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Thanks.Another one is taste.After years and years of tasting lots and lots of olive oil, for example, I can taste very distinctive differences in oils. I can often tell what country and region the oil likely came from, and also what variety of olive was used.According to Faith, all that I can do is impossible, and is likely just propaganda.

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I read through the Grand Canyon thread from time to time and that's probably about all I would do on a technical thread about the subject you are proposing. Partly this is because I wouldn't have anything to contribute scientifically

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But isn't it a great opportunity to learn?

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but it's also partly because I've been losing interest in the debate here lately, it's become tedious and unrewarding and I'm worn out with it. Sorry, that's just the way it is right now.

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Yeah.Learning is work, isn't it?I disagree that it's unrewarding, though.

The assertion IS backed up. The point was DEMONSTRATED in the original examples. What you see is what you get. Good grief. The examples speak for themselves. There is no need for extra backing up.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 09:34 AM

You do realise that the issue under dispute is not the question of interpretation against fact. don;t you ?You do realise that it is your characterisation of those interpetations as "pure conjecture" that is disputed ?You do realise that without uknowing aand understanding the evidential basis for the claims referred to you are in no position to say whether they are "pure conjecture" or not ?Because if you do know that then you know that you have NOT backed that point up. At all;. Or even taken the time to discover if it is true or not.n

Thats interesting that you mention that! Sidelined and I often discuss a concept known as "The Dance". I came from a fundamentalist background and have learned a lot about my beliefs since then, but I always believed that life has a purpose and a destiney...in a linear progression. Sidelined disagreed and introduced the concept of living in the present moment and growing and thriving in that realm rather than trying to dig up the past or predict the future. I am growing in my faith and I believe in God more than I did when I was an ardent fundie! I still shy away from "difficult" texts, but I read more than the average...(I think!)

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

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The assertion IS backed up. The point was DEMONSTRATED in the original examples. What you see is what you get. Good grief. The examples speak for themselves. There is no need for extra backing up.

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To reiterate: you asserted that OE theory was conjecture, imagination or just plain made up out of nothing. You asserted that it was all interpretation that could not be falsified or verified.Let's be absolutely clear here, Faith. You have demonstrated, beyond a doubt, that:a) You are ignorant of OE theory.
b) You are not willing to educate yourself about OE theory.
c) You will disregard any evidence presented anyway, in favour of your pet holy book.This suggests a further number of things:i) You are wilfully ignorant.
ii) You are, by definition, biased in favour of one particular holy book.
iii) Despite your claims that you disagreed with OE theory and evolution previously based on the evidence (which lead you to becoming a creationist), (i) may cast some serious doubt as to the kind of effort you made then to educate yourself about said evidence.This is my extrapolation based on the evidence, i.e. your posts. Now, in light of this, we are not likely to take anything you say at face value, no?You have provided no support for your assertation that OE theory is conjecture, etc. other than your own incredulity or because it disagrees with your pet holy book. You are free, of course, to believe it is such because it clashes with your chosen faith - but do not pretend that your assertation is supported scientifically, and do not expect us to be in any way convinced.IRH

You don't have to know the perpetrator of a crime to know that a crime has been committed!The police don't turn up at a murder scene and say "Well, yep, there's a dead, stabbed person, but we don't know who did it and it's in the past so there can't be anything to help us. Let's not bother investigating".From evidence there is much they can recreate about the crime scene, just like there is much that scientists can recreate about the past. It's done using the available evidence.

Faith,Please address this post, please.Mark

Sorry if I've been unclear, but I've been trying to keep this focused on the ancient past, pre-history, pre-human.

See my answer to Trixie above for as much of an answer as I want to give to this post you keep insisting I answer.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-26-2006 08:50 PM

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BUT the argument is that the evidence CANNOT BE TESTED.

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Fallacy..bordering on a lie since you keep repeating an assertion you are unwilling to back up and admit you do not have the patience to back up because it might be tedious...you must have a hungry dog that eats all of your homework for you.The past can be tested hundreds of different ways even if the actual event cannot be observed..one cannot observe an electron either but we know they exist. I know I had ancestors for whom I have no records from analysis of my genes. I ate cereal for breakfast and nobody saw me do it...I guess there is no way to find out what I had for breakfast according to you..hmmmm? I can think of several ways to test for this past event...and it would be the same way one can determine what giant ground sloths ate 20,000 years ago....testable and tested hypothesis...And then you claim that biblical writings are evidence? What tests were done to verify anything in the bible i.e. were are the cud chewing rabbits for example?..chortle yourself.

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Real science starts when you can test your hypothesis and you cannot do that with the ancient past

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How do you know what real science does or does not do? You have admitted that you are too lazy and unmotivated to actually learn anything about science but are prepared to waste incredible amounts of bandwidth repeating the same fallacies over and over...amazing that just out of sheer boredom with repetition that you have never bothered to learn anything...but hey, whatever floats your boat....a chimp does not understand particle physics and can live a full life..I guess fundies can live in complete blind ignorance of science and the natural world and feel happy to.EVERY hypothesis in science is a testable hypothesis...even when it deals with the past. Only ridiculous pseudo-science like creationism or ID are untestable hypotheses. Any scientific hypothesis that is not testable is not a scientific hypothesis. That you are completely ignorant of how hypotheses about the past are tested is a poor reflection on you..but certainly not a deficiency of science.This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 03-27-2006 03:41 AM

Faith, Why must you be so disingenuous all the time? These are responces to points YOU raised in THIS thread. Now you want to keep it on topic? Not good enough, you have been caught in the act of hypocrisy & inquiring minds want to know how you can hold contrary views.The real reason I have had to bump this so many times is because you actually do recognise you have been caught out, but are not intellectually honest enough to admit it.I draw your attention to forum guideline no.4: So please follow forum guidelines & provide reasoned argumentation to the rebuttal.Here it is again: That's not what I or Jar asked. They had evidence, DNA, fingerprints, etc. the stuff those silly, silly policemen are so easily fooled by. In crimes where there are no eyewitnesses should prisoners be released?Since you ignored the main thrust of my last post, I'll repeat it in its entirety: That's odd, Faith, because you also say: What repeatable experiments, which by definition excludes eyewitnesses, do you have in mind?You'll have to excuse us, Faith, if it seems to us that you apply the "can't be known in the past" standard only to things you don't want to accept, yet relax that standard when the conclusion doesn't challenge your religious belief.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't