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Author Topic:   The Nature of Scientific Inquiry - Contrasted with Creation "Science"
AdminAsgara
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Message 16 of 265 (125734)
07-19-2004 4:29 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
07-19-2004 3:28 PM


To paste a picture on the site here, first it needs to be a web picture. (if the picture you want to include is on your computer, you can upload it to a site such as ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs which will host your picture and give you the code to post it on the forum.
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If the picture is large, you will probably want to use the html and add the width to the tag like this

This helps keep the page sizes reasonable

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


Message 17 of 265 (125829)
07-20-2004 12:30 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by AdminAsgara
07-19-2004 4:29 PM


Thanks for the help.
This is the picture I tried to put on here before:
Sandstone cracks and crumbles when compressed and contorted. Many places such as this exhibit such smooth curves and no cracks indicating that these layers were compressed when wet. Of course I am lacking in knowledge of geology, but this makes a lot of sense to me.

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


Message 18 of 265 (125837)
07-20-2004 1:03 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Loudmouth
07-19-2004 4:07 PM


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.
You got me. I'll humbly resign my statement to the status of an opinion.
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?
From a legend of inner China's Miao tribe: After God created the world, the Earth became evil, and he resolved to destroy humanity...
So it poured forty days in sheets and in torrents,
Then fifty-five days of misting and drizzle.
The waters surmounted the mountains and ranges.
The deluge ascending leapt valley and hollow.
And earth with no earth upon wich to take refuge!
A world with no foothold where one might subsist!
The people were baffled, impotent and ruined,
Despairing, horror stricken, diminished and finished.
But the Patriach Nuah was righteous.
The Matriarch Gaw Bo-lu-en upright.
Built a boat very wide.
Made a ship very vast.
Their household entire got aboard and were floated,
The family complete rode the deluge in safety.
The animals with him were female and male.
The birds went along and were mated in pairs.
When the time was fulfilled, God commanded the waters.
The day had arrived, the flood waters receded.
Then Nuah liberated a dove from their refuge,
Sent a bird to go forth and bring again tidings.
The flood had gone down into lake and ocean;
The mud was confined to the pools and the hollows.
There was land once again where a min might reside;
There was a place in the earth now to rear habitations.
Tim Lahaye and John D. Morris have compiled a list of over 200 cultures that have a similar tale of a great flood.
In 1847, H.R. Schoolcraft wrote after a study of native Americans commisioned by congress:
There is one particular in which the tribes identify themselves with the general traditions of mankind. It is in relation to a general deluge, by which races of men were destroyed. The event itself is variously related by an Algonquin, an Iroquois, a Cherokee, a Muscogee, or a Chickasaw; but all coincide in the statement that there was a general cataclysm, and that a few persons survived.
A summary from from James Perloff's book Tornado in a Junk Yard:
The ancient Greeks knew of the great Flood; both Aristotle and Plato referred to it. Flood legends also existed in the ancient cultures of Ireland, Wales, Norway, Lithuania, Romania, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Persia, India, Russia, China, Indonesia, Polynesia, Hawaii, and Mexico; it was told of by ancient Celts and Incas; aboriginal tribesmen of Formosa and Indians of the Aleutian islands; and scores of other cultures, great and small.
Many cultures also had stories about ships falling off of the earth because it was flat. Does that mean that the world is flat?
No. I don't think ancient cultures are very good at predicting the future or science. But they can preserve historical events to some degree in legends. I think most legends have SOME basis in reality. Especially when such legends are shared by so many separate cultures.
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?
I believe only one of them is true as a matter of faith. However, I have not claimed that only one is true in this thread. I have only stated that so many VERY similar stories from so many separate cultures all over the world indicates that these stories are tied to an actual event.
Also, many of those flood stories were about local floods, not global floods.
I'm sure there are many legends of local floods as there would be many local floods in subsequent centuries after the great flood as naturally formed lakes burst their dams. The indians native to the Grand Canyon area (forgot their names) have such a legend about how the Grand Canyon was formed from this local flood.
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.
Again, I have not stated that I assume the flood story in Genesis is the one true story or the most true story. I am merely stating that these widespread similar stories may indicate a tie to an actual event.

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


Message 19 of 265 (125838)
07-20-2004 1:08 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by CK
07-19-2004 4:12 PM


Thank you for your reply.
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).
Right. Perhaps I'm not prepared to back up "practically EVERY" but certainly many world wide. I addressed this in my response to Loudmouth.

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


Message 20 of 265 (125848)
07-20-2004 2:09 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by crashfrog
07-19-2004 4:21 PM


Oops looks like I've been the victim of bad science again. I checked it out and the evidence so far is very dubious.
However, I have been told dogmatically that it takes hundreds of millions of years for stalgtites and stalagmites to form, yet I know they can form in a matter of decades, so I am still skeptical of the dogmatic statements about ages of coral reefs.

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


Message 21 of 265 (125851)
07-20-2004 2:14 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Hangdawg13
07-20-2004 2:09 AM


Actually, the ones like the Great Barrier Reef are pretty new. Like I said, they may be as young as 600,000 years. But then there are the ones that make up the several of the limestone layers of the Cambrian Era.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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


Message 22 of 265 (125852)
07-20-2004 2:14 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by jar
07-19-2004 4:28 PM


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.
Can you please provide some backup info for me to check it out? This growth rate is well known. The state of Louisiana gets visibly larger every year. Secondly, the silt may be washed away, but it would still remain in the gulf. Thirdly, where are the Mississippi's other deltas that it left when changing course?
there is no physical evidence of a world-wide flood that has been found to date.
What would you consider evidence? BTW I'd appreciate it if you asked questions or provided more information to the debate rather than making dogmatic statements such as these which do not help at all.
This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 07-20-2004 01:18 AM

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 Message 15 by jar, posted 07-19-2004 4:28 PM jar has replied

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


Message 23 of 265 (125856)
07-20-2004 2:21 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Hangdawg13
07-20-2004 2:09 AM


However, I have been told dogmatically that it takes hundreds of millions of years for stalgtites and stalagmites to form, yet I know they can form in a matter of decades, so I am still skeptical of the dogmatic statements about ages of coral reefs.
Ok, but you're talking about two entirely different things. The rate of growth of these calcite formations is directly linked to the amount of water flowing through the area, so while it's true probably that most of the really spectacular formations took ages to form (judging from the rate of water flow over the formation), there's probably no reason why, under the right circumstances, you couldn't form one quickly. (Like icicles.)
Coral reefs are immeasurably more complicated than that. First off the coral polyp is itself several organisms combined in mutualistic symbiosis. Moreover the polyp is very fragile; even slight changes in temperature, oxygen content, light level, salinity, or slit density can spell doom for a coral reef.
So any condition you might propose that would "speed up" coral growth would probably actually destroy the reef. Moreover the active part of the reef has very strict limits about where it can grow; it can't live deeper than 30 meters and it can't grow any taller than the sea level at low tide. So any extreme rate of coral growth would kill the coral, again, unless the sea floor it was growing on was sinking at exactly the same prodigious rate.

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


Message 24 of 265 (125863)
07-20-2004 2:39 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Hangdawg13
07-20-2004 2:14 AM


Here's some info on the Mississippi River.
Six delta lobes or delta complexes have been identified in coastal Louisiana: the Maringouin, Teche, St. Bernard, Lafourche, Plaquemines (or Balize), and Atchafalaya (Fisk 1944; Frazier 1967; Penland and Boyd 1985; Autin et al. 1991). During the past 5,000-6,000 years, formation of a new delta lobe has begun roughly once every 1,000 years in response to major changes in the Mississippi River's course to the Gulf of Mexico. The formation and aging of delta lobes are accompanied by changes in habitat types and plant communities (Neill and Deegan 1986).
That is from USGS
What would you consider evidence? BTW I'd appreciate it if you asked questions or provided more information to the debate rather than making dogmatic statements such as these which do not help at all.
I'm sorry but it is very hard to point to an example when there simply is "No Evidence".
What would I consider evidence of a world-wide flood? Well, floods do leave some pretty good evidence. There are many many examples that have been found over the years. But they have all been localized and the causes pretty well understood. The last really big one that wouold have been close to world-wide would have been after the last ice age but it would still have been coastal in nature and certainly didn't cover mountains.
But there are also many examples that absolutely falsify a great world-wide flood and many of those have been pointed out to you. For example, the Australian Great Barrier Reef shows that there has not been a major flood, particularly one that changed the salinity of sea water to fresh water in at least 600,000 years.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 25 of 265 (125927)
07-20-2004 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Hangdawg13
07-19-2004 3:28 PM


Actually, hangdawg, I do not want to talk about any specific evidence.
I'd like to talk about the differences in methodology between Creation science and methodological naturalism/the scientific method.
I have provided my descriptions in the OP.
Perhaps you can point out where and why you think I am wrong?

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 Message 11 by Hangdawg13, posted 07-19-2004 3:28 PM Hangdawg13 has replied

Replies to this message:
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nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 26 of 265 (125930)
07-20-2004 1:15 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Hangdawg13
07-20-2004 2:14 AM


Hangdawg, let's test your hypothesis.
You propose that a worldwide flood covered the entire earth 5,000 years ago, killing everything on the planet except for a few people and animals on a boat.
Based upon your hypothesis alone, What are your predictions of what we will find when we go out to look at the evidence in nature?
What should we find if your hypothesis is reflective of the evidence?
What would falsify your hypothesis?
This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-20-2004 12:17 PM

This message is a reply to:
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nator
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 27 of 265 (125935)
07-20-2004 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Hangdawg13
07-20-2004 12:30 AM


quote:
Sandstone cracks and crumbles when compressed and contorted. Many places such as this exhibit such smooth curves and no cracks indicating that these layers were compressed when wet. Of course I am lacking in knowledge of geology, but this makes a lot of sense to me.
What are some alternative explanations of the causes of these folds?
Have you looked for any, or considered them?
Are any of the alternate explanations more or less consistent with other Geologic evidence from around the world?
These are the questions one asks when conducting real scientific investigation.
What you seem to want to do is pick and choose evidence that fits your preferred outcome instead of considering all explanations and picking the one that fits the evidence best while making the fewest assumptions.
In other words, no Creationist has ever proposed "My global flood hypothesis predicts that we will find folded sandstone in the geologic layers, and here's the explanation as to why..."
Instead, Creationists have just combed the Geological evidence for formations that they consider anomalies and retrofit them to their purposes.

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jt
Member (Idle past 5596 days)
Posts: 239
From: Upper Portion, Left Coast, United States
Joined: 04-26-2004


Message 28 of 265 (125943)
07-20-2004 1:49 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by nator
07-18-2004 12:03 PM


Re: some clean up
First, I'm going to define "Creation Science" as I see it. "Creation Science" is the attempt to use scientific principles/facts to falsify evolutionism. (note: Creation scientists may do their own research to discover principles/facts to falsify evolution. That research is identical to that undertaken by all science, and as this debate is concerned with the differences between creationism and evolutionism, that research I will ignore for now.)
It is impossible to directly show that the earth was created in seven days, that is a historical event that is unobservable. However, since evolution is the only alternative, showing evolution to be impossible shows creation to be likely, if not necessary.
Science is evidence-driven. That is, theories are developed from the evidence found in nature; they are frameworks for understanding the evidence... By contrast, Creation science begins not with evidence, but with the conclusion; "the bible is factually correct in all things regarding nature".
There are two parts of scientific method that are relevant here -- hypothesizing and falsifying. Both are equally important. Creation Science is dealing with the falsification of a theory, which is every bit as important as making a theory in the first place.
Additionally, there is no way to correct for mistakes in Creation 'science", because there is no way to test the hypothese.
If you define creation science as trying to prove that God created the earth in seven days, you are right; that is an untestable hypothesis. However, that is not the nature of creation science as I see it. Creation science tries to show evolution impossible; the seven day creation must be accepted on faith. But if evolution is the only alternative to creation, and evolution is shown impossible, the leap of faith is not too difficult.
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.
You aren't talking about creation science, you are talking about "them," by which I take you to mean all creation scientists. Even if all creation scientists were like that, that would not reflect on creation science. One is a group of people, the other is a branch of scientists. If all 13th century Samoan anthropologists were completely batty, would that mean that the field of 13th century Samoan antrhopology study was "un-anthropological"?
Therefore, it can easily be concluded that Creation "science" is not conducted within the rules of legitimate science, so can be considered a pseudoscience.
How research in a field of science is conducted has no bearing on the validity of the field of study; it has bearing on the level of scientists in that field. Creation scientists could, to a one, be complete psuedoscientists, but that would not make creation science a pseudoscience.
You are not attacking creation science, you are attacking creation scientists, and lumping the bad ones with the good ones; attacking the weaknesses of the bad scientists, and calling the whole field "pseudoscience."
Attacking creation scientists when the topic is creation science is an ad hominem attack and a red herring, putting all creation scientists in the same boat is a hasty generalization, and the conclusion turns out to be a non sequitor.
(edit)In this post, I am not making any claims about the general quality of science in either creationism or evolutionism; for this post I assumed the worst for creationism and the best for evolution. I just wanted to make sure nobody misunderstood me.(edit)
This message has been edited by JT, 07-20-2004 12:53 PM

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Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by CK, posted 07-20-2004 1:51 PM jt has replied
 Message 36 by pink sasquatch, posted 07-20-2004 2:30 PM jt has replied
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CK
Member (Idle past 4127 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 29 of 265 (125944)
07-20-2004 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by jt
07-20-2004 1:49 PM


Re: some clean up
So can you give us an example of a "good" creation scientist? We could examine the methodologies that person uses and try and work from there.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by jt, posted 07-20-2004 1:49 PM jt has replied

Replies to this message:
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jt
Member (Idle past 5596 days)
Posts: 239
From: Upper Portion, Left Coast, United States
Joined: 04-26-2004


Message 30 of 265 (125952)
07-20-2004 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by CK
07-20-2004 1:51 PM


Re: some clean up
So can you give us an example of a "good" creation scientist? We could examine the methodologies that person uses and try and work from there.
The quality of the reseach currently occuring in a field has nothing to do with the potential for quality research in a field.
Example: For centuries/millenia, the field of medicine was dominated by quackery, superstition, and tradition. Fairly recently, the field of medicine became scientific, and incredible research has taken place. We have gone from bloodletting and other atrocities to modern hospitals and non-invasive surguries.
The field of medicine is a valid area for scientific inquiry. For a really loooooong time nothing came out of it, though. That has no effect on the validity of the field of medicine. Do you see my point?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by CK, posted 07-20-2004 1:51 PM CK has replied

Replies to this message:
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