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Author Topic:   The Nature of Scientific Inquiry - Contrasted with Creation "Science"
nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 1 of 265 (125442)
07-18-2004 11:11 AM


I'd like to start a new topic in the "Is it Science?" forum in order to discuss the fundamental differences between the nature of true scientific inquiry and that of the pseudoscientific Creation "science".

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 Message 2 by AdminNosy, posted 07-18-2004 11:39 AM nator has replied

  
AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 265 (125445)
07-18-2004 11:39 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by nator
07-18-2004 11:11 AM


some clean up
This is a good topic but I think you can take the "for hangdawg" off the title, I'll do that if you agree
And you could start the topic more fully in the OP. Set the stage, try to limit what is and isn't off topic.

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 Message 1 by nator, posted 07-18-2004 11:11 AM nator has replied

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nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 3 of 265 (125449)
07-18-2004 12:03 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by AdminNosy
07-18-2004 11:39 AM


Re: some clean up
OK, we can remove the "hangdawg."
What I'd like to explore is the very basic ways that both real science and the specific pseudoscience of Creation "science" operate.
Science is evidence-driven. That is, theories are developed from the evidence found in nature; they are frameworks for understanding the evidence.
IOW, Darwin didn't just dream up the Theory of Evolution out of the blue one day, then spend the rest of his life looking for evidence to support it.
The evidence that he kept seeing led him to developing his hypothesis of common descent of organisms--descent with modification. In "Origin of Species", Darwin shows how very scientific a thinker he was, because he lists weaknesses in his theory, and also potential falsifications that, if found, would render his theory incorrect.
By contrast, Creation science begins not with evidence, but with the conclusion; "the bible is fatually correct in all things regarding nature".
This makes Creation 'science' revalatory in nature, not evidence-driven. They believe thay can know the conclusion before they ever even look at any evidence. This is backwards to the way real sciecne is conducted.
Sometimes evidence is presented that looks as though it supports the premise of the Creation 'scientists', but upon further investigation this evidence is shown to be in error, misinterpreted, taken out of context, or other, better-fitting evidence is ignored or handwaved away.
Additionally, there is no way to correct for mistakes in Creation 'science", because there is no way to test the hypothese. In fact, Creation "science" does not propose any new ideas for testing; to them, the idea is not to challenge or test anything about their ideas. They are only interested in cherry-picking evidence to support any assertion they make.
Therefore, it can easily be concluded that Creation "science" is not conducted within the rules of legitimate science, so can be considered a pseudoscience.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 11 by Hangdawg13, posted 07-19-2004 3:28 PM nator has replied
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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 4 of 265 (125450)
07-18-2004 12:06 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
CK
Member (Idle past 4128 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 5 of 265 (125473)
07-18-2004 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by nator
07-18-2004 12:03 PM


Re: some clean up
This is an interesting area, I am going to pose a question that I think is valid and on-topic for this question:
Are there any models that creation science has proposed that has been accepted into a peer-reviewed journal? Even to be refuted?
This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 07-18-2004 02:16 PM

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 6 of 265 (125476)
07-18-2004 4:03 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by CK
07-18-2004 3:05 PM


Re: some clean up
Yes.
Intelligent Design was refuted in journals.
This site has an overview of the theory as well as a pretty comprehensive list of papers, and books refuting the psudoscience.
intelligent design - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 7 of 265 (125480)
07-18-2004 4:17 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Yaro
07-18-2004 4:03 PM


ID
Does ID belong in this thread? That is up to schraf but it is a long way from "mainstream" creation "science" since it accepts almost ALL of the findings of geology, cosmology and biology.
The fact that it can be refuted tends to make it more of a real science. Just a dead end path of research it appears.

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 8 of 265 (125482)
07-18-2004 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by NosyNed
07-18-2004 4:17 PM


Well, ID was touted by creation scientists. Still is. And History of the conflict between evolution and creation science Lists it as part of the evolution/creation debate.
Otherwise, there is a reason most, if not all, creationist work is not accepted in mainstream scientific jurnals. Mainly, because it does not meet up with the standards of science. i.e. the scientific method.
If you can't cross that basic line, then your stuff is going nowhere, period.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 265 (125485)
07-18-2004 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by CK
07-18-2004 3:05 PM


Re: some clean up
Another example that may be close to what you are asking for is Gentry's "polonium halos".
When at atom decays via alpha decay, it emits a helium nucleus (called an alpha particle). The distance the alpha particle travels through the crystal in which the original atom is a part depends on the particles energy. As it travels, it disturbs the crystal structure, which can easily be detected. Different isotopes emit alpha particles at different energies, so if one sees certain rings in the crystal, the size of the ring will be an indication that specks of a certain isotopes are embedded in the crystal.
Gentry claims to have found radio-haloes of a size that indicates certain isotopes of polonium. His claimed isotopes have very short lifetimes -- if one assumes that these isotopes were present at the beginning of the earth, they would have all decayed away by the time the geologic formations which Gentry was studying were formed. His conclusion is that this is evidence is inconsistent with standard geology, as I just explained, and that this fits an alternate theory, that all of these formations, and the included polonium, were all created in situ, all at once, during the Genesis creation event.
His initial discovery of these haloes were duly published in the scientific press. His conclusions were criticized because (1) in practice it's actually very hard to determine which isotope emitted the alpha particles (nothing in real life is perfect), and (2) the formations that Gentry was studying were very close to naturally occurring uranium deposits -- it is very easy for uranium particles to travel via ground water through micro-cracks to the rocks that Gentry was looking at, and polonium is in the decay series of uranium.
Once these alternate explanations were proposed, the "Genesis hypothesis" was then considered unreasonable -- after all, the other proposals are consistent with the vast, huge, immense, overwhelming, JUST ACCEPT IT, DAMMIT! amount of geologic, astronomic, and biologic evidence for an old earth and universe. So I seem to recall that Gentry was still trying to beat a now dead horse, couldn't get his more outlandish claims published, and now cries, "censorship".

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 265 (125522)
07-18-2004 8:59 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by NosyNed
07-18-2004 4:17 PM


Re: ID
quote:
Just a dead end path of research it appears.
More like stillborn. I'm unaware of any real research in this field. From the beginning, the proponents mainly wrote books and articles for popular consumption.

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Hangdawg13
Member (Idle past 751 days)
Posts: 1189
From: Texas
Joined: 05-30-2004


Message 11 of 265 (125721)
07-19-2004 3:28 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by nator
07-18-2004 12:03 PM


Hi Shraf,
First of all, let's make sure we have a conversation and not a shouting match.
I don't know everything about the hydroplate theory and you know less than I do. I can provide the HP theory viewpoint. You can ask questions and I can attempt to answer, and perhaps we can both learn something. I'll refrain from dogmatic statements about the ToE and the HPT if you refrain from doing so as well.
I think the problem comes with the misconception that "creation science" says, "God made everything and that is the explanation. Don't question it.". In reality anyone can easily draw the conclusion that a worldwide flood happened about 5000 years ago without ever reading the Bible.
Let me give you a few examples of the scientific reasons why I think a flood happened about 4800- 5000 years ago.
Practically ever culture worldwide has a legend that there was a worldwide flood in which only a few people survived in a boat.
Several processes indicate a worldwide flood or change about 5000 years ago. For example, the Mississippi has been observed to increase the size of the river delta at a rate of about 262 feet per year for the last 100 years or so. If this rate has been constant, it would take about 4500 years for the river to lay down the delta as it currently exists. Growth rates of coral indicate that no coral reef need be older than about 3800 years. Recorded history begins about 5000 years ago, and these oldest languages are fully complex and in some ways even more complex than today's languages. The Chinese, Hebrew, Mayan, and Inca (I think) callendars have year 0 as somewhere around 5000 to 6000 years.
The world's land mass is mostly covered with sandstone sedimentary layers. These layers are often thin and parallel exhibiting alternating different texture, color, and mineral content. Many places (I have a picture. BTW how do you paste pictures in here?) exhibit bended and folded sandstone layers, which could only be contorted in such a manner and maintain their internal structure if they were wet when bent.
I think that's enough to start with. I've got to go. Please ask questions about these things as they come to your mind and I will attempt to answer.

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 Message 12 by Loudmouth, posted 07-19-2004 4:07 PM Hangdawg13 has replied
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 Message 14 by crashfrog, posted 07-19-2004 4:21 PM Hangdawg13 has replied
 Message 15 by jar, posted 07-19-2004 4:28 PM Hangdawg13 has replied
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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 265 (125725)
07-19-2004 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
07-19-2004 3:28 PM


quote:
In reality anyone can easily draw the conclusion that a worldwide flood happened about 5000 years ago without ever reading the Bible.
Name one person who has come to the conclusion that there was a global, catastrophic flood 5,000 years ago without knowledge of the story contained in the Old Testament.
quote:
Practically ever culture worldwide has a legend that there was a worldwide flood in which only a few people survived in a boat.
Many cultures also had stories about ships falling off of the earth because it was flat. Does that mean that the world is flat? Also, does this mean that the Noah story supports the accuracy of the Chinese and Asian flood stories? If there are so many flood stories, and each one so much different from the other, they why are you claiming only one of them is true? Also, many of those flood stories were about local floods, not global floods. This falsifies the claim that there was a global flood, according to your logic.
The only way you could come to the conclusion that the other flood stories support the one in the OT is to first conclude that the story in the OT is true. IOW, you assume the conclusion to reach the conclusion. Again, this is not how science is done.

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CK
Member (Idle past 4128 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 13 of 265 (125727)
07-19-2004 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
07-19-2004 3:28 PM


Practically ever culture worldwide has a legend that there was a worldwide flood in which only a few people survived in a boat.
There is a big claim - can you back it up with some examples?
If every culture has one - about ten will be fine (of course not including the christian ones).

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 14 of 265 (125730)
07-19-2004 4:21 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
07-19-2004 3:28 PM


Growth rates of coral indicate that no coral reef need be older than about 3800 years.
My wife is an invertebrate biology graduate student and she described that claim just now as "really stupid." So I guess it would be nice if you could substantiate that claim.
Its a fact that the coral ecosystem, by virtue of its mutualistic symbiosis with a certain algae, cannot live at depths beyond about 30m or so. (So the idea of coral surviving a massive flood immersion is refuted yet again.) Now, certainly, there are coral atolls thicker than 30m - going as deep as thousands of feet. The explanation for these deep reefs was realized by none other than Darwin himself - he realized that the coral began its growth in the shallow seas around a volcanic island. As the islands slowly sank beneath the sea, the rate of growth of the coral proceeded apace with the rate of the sinking, leaving thousands of feet of reef with the living coral still no deeper than 30m. (Animal Diversity, Second Edition; Hickman, Roberts, and Larson, 2000.)
There's no way that the existence of massive coral reefs, like Australia's Great Barrier Reef, can be coherent with a global flood. These reefs are evidence of slowly rising sea levels (or slowly sinking seafloors), not a global flood scenario.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 15 of 265 (125733)
07-19-2004 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
07-19-2004 3:28 PM


For example, the Mississippi has been observed to increase the size of the river delta at a rate of about 262 feet per year for the last 100 years or so.
First, the mouth of the Mississippi and it's course have moved quite often. The delta is also built up, and then washed away by storms.
Growth rates of coral indicate that no coral reef need be older than about 3800 years.
Core samples from the Great Barrier Reef record over 600,000 years of punctuated growth.
The Chinese, Hebrew, Mayan, and Inca (I think) callendars have year 0 as somewhere around 5000 to 6000 years.
The Chinese calendars all date from significant events, usually the establishment of a Dynasty. The Hebrew calendar begins (guess what) with the OT Genesis tale. But regardless, none of those are proof or even evidence of a true beginning. Check out the Hindu calendar as an example.
Practically ever culture worldwide has a legend that there was a worldwide flood in which only a few people survived in a boat.
There are similarities among many myths.
BUT...
there is no physical evidence of a world-wide flood that has been found to date.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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