YEC vs. EVO presuppositions / methodology

Just as long as you hold Faith to the same standard.But I will abide.

No film at 11?

I suppose it presupposes the validity of the scientific method.

Probably true, originally, but the success of millions of experiments and applications surely validates the approach?

Define success, and define what the approach is being used for.I'd say that the scientific method has been shown to be useful for generating an ability to produce models that allow for refinement, allow us to manipulate our world and create tools. In other words, it's been shown to be useful.Anything outside of that? I'd be interested to see your viewpoint on it.Ben

Gravity and science are not the same thing. Any form of testing involves some presuppositions. Robinrohan is correct in stating that the validity of the scientific method is a presupposition, and incidentally a flawed one.The scientific method is dependant on technology which gives us the abilty to test for things. So the scientific method is less than valid when there is a lack of technology.That doesn't mean it is not a good tool, but it does mean science should not form the entirety for the basis of one's beliefs since science is so limited.Getting back to gravity, I don't think we have been able to test gravity directly in the sense of observing gravity waves or whatever causes gravity.On the subject of presuppositions, there are always a lot of them involved in analysis. For example, most data is analyzed with the belief that the past is non-changing, but that may or may not be true.

You didn't pick this up from Wheeler? Mass causes gravity.

Direct observation? We know mass is related to gravity, and maybe gravity waves have been discovered. I have heard it both ways, but we don't know how, presumably, mass causes gravity, do we?What's the mechanism involved?Edit to add, Crash, on second thought, this is really off-topic, have to correct myself here.This message has been edited by AdminRandman, 11-21-2005 09:02 PM

No, it demonstrates the validity of the scientific method over and over again.In the last version of this thread you guys seemed to be getting close to some important stuff, but then it turned into a debate about how much stuff one can conceivably pile into a "different debating styles" excuse. Honestly, it is semantics that have gone wrong, yes, but not some crappy semantics where if I just chose the word you like you would agree with me of the sort favored by con artists. Actual real vocabulary needs to be reimagined.Faith I am going to borrow your archaeology analogy to try to help with this boggle. Heinrich Schliemann had an Idea, the idea was that the fabulous prehistorical grandeur of Ancient Greece as recorded in Homer wasn't just the moonshine and superstition that modern science by his time had definitively "proven" it to be. But that wasn't his Theory, not yet. It wasn't even his Hypothesis, or he would have had to set out to disprove it.His initial Hypothesis had to be something like, to test the idea that "there is little hope of finding treasure by digging in secondary local candidates for mythological cities." *wink wink* He can explain that he's a scientist, and all scientific theories eventually get disproven. And the fact that he was able to fund such ventures is a tentative, preliminary indication that will be a good theory to test throroughly. Finding all that freaking treasure though, that is really the great conclusive disproof.Then the scientist modifies that theory. Perhaps it is that "these very primitive ruins of people who can't seem to work any metal but gold and use pictograms to communicate are all the foundation there is to Homer's work." A bit more digging disproves that one, as well. Slowly but surely the hypotheory is modified, always in the direction of the Idea, until progress seems to stop. Then find another place to dig.So the Flood or the Fall can never be a theory for the fundamentalist, because they don't care to work to disprove it. They have to pick some piece of common knowledge that is actually shaky and test it empirically, that's what science can do. If they get results, it will move human knowledge in the direction they want to go. If they don't, no harm done, pick another suspicious postulate somewhere and see if it will push over.But the problem with doing this is that you will sound like a real flake, you will sound like that Jonah guy who wanted to share how a man could fit into a whale just fine. The only difference between you and that guy, from the viewpoint of normal uninterested observers, is how professional you look and act.Von Daniken is a great example. He looks just like Schliemann to the casual audience listening to the pitch. But if you come from any kind of decent academic background (never left school) then you can see the difference already right then! You have inside information, as it were, it's obvious to you. Schliemann digs, Von Daniken tours. Schliemman is an archaeology guy who knows some marketing, Von Daniken is a marketing guy who knows some archaeology.Eventually though, the regular masses can tell the difference too. Von Daniken is lying, because he has never produced any actual alien treasure. He should shut up.Now I realize nobody here is going to actually go dig. If you were, we wouldn't still be looking for Noah's ark. All we need is a large 3-story wooden structure suitable for stabling animals. Any 3 story stable will do, they make things like that in the ancient world out of wood, this isn't rocket science. But no, we are going to do Einsteinian "thought experiments" here on the net and then see how plausible they sound.

Oh hell no it's not off-topic. This is directly related to the topic. Theory of gravity is only being used as a example to illustrate a point that is essential to the topic. Nothing off-topic about it.

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"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you."-George W. Bush, Gulfport, Miss.,
Sept. 20, 2005.

Well you've sunk to personal remarks and I lose interest at that point. Also my defense that the God of the universe has the right to judge science IS a defense and Evos do treat science as their unquestionable premise, the position from which everything is judged and judgeable. We can debate the premises elsewhere, yes, but that is not the point. They are nonnegotiable premises. I'm not interested in what individuals may think, as there are shades and degrees on both sides of the argument. So if you think you could entertain the idea that God trumps science (?) -- the point is that the Evo side of this argument does take a hard line on science as their given.

Convince us.Provide the evidence.edited to fix sub-titleThis message has been edited by jar, 11-21-2005 10:20 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The archaeology model was proposed as a better model for YEC thinking than the forensics model Ben had proposed, that is all. We don't have to get all perfectionistic about making it fit. It merely says that rather than start from "data" as Ben had proposed, we start from what the Bible tells us happened. We are not trying to fit in with science. We are trying to define the DIFFERENT approach of YECs which Ben has found to have a validity that usually goes unrecognized by the science sticklers. The Fall or the Flood are not a Theory but a GIVEN, that is what I have been saying. That is how a YEC takes it. These are NONNEGOTIABLES. We don't care if "Science" doesn't proceed this way. It MUST proceed this way with anything that is known to have existed but where and how is not known.OK, try a similar model to make the point clearer. Say we know that a hundred years ago a ship of a certain type sank in a certain area. This is a known, there is no doubt about it. Or a WWI plane went down in a certain region. There was a steamboat that went down in the Missouri River about 150 years ago and they had to reconstruct the changing course of the river over that period of time in order to find it. But they found it. A city that has been buried for a millennium or more is the same model merely removed farther back in time.Finding these things, starting from the knowledge that they occurred, IS science. And it is a decent model of how YECs proceed.Please let us stay focused on the objective of defining the YEC methodology in order to illuminate what YECs and other creationists experience as a stacked deck against us here at EvC.(The YEC position is the only one that reads Genesis as straight history, so I'm not sure how far the methods I'm spelling out work for other kinds of creationism, but I've ONLY been referring to YEC.)

Follow the conversation, jar, I was responding to something crashfrog said and said it appeared to be individual with him and not representative of the EvC assumption.

Then why did you make it personal? No, it's just a restatement of your premise. You need to support your premise with argumentation supporting the idea that there is a God, that he's the author of the Bible, and that his intent for Genesis is as a literal history.Or, don't support those things. But don't claim to be defending your premises when all you're doing is restating them. The fact that you frame the discussion this way proves to me that you already recognize the inherent unsupportability of your premises; you know that there's no way you could successfully support them with argumentation and evidence.Take them on faith, if you like; no skin off my nose. But don't insist that we accept them the same way, or complain when we don't. You're not willing to do what it takes to convince us or defend your position. What right do you have to complain when we simply point that out? But we don't take it as a given; that's a conclusion that we support with evidence and argumentation. We've succesfully defended that position against all challenge. It's not simply accepted without question; it's a position that has stood the test of evidence and debate.Something that your position has never been able to do.