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Author | Topic: YEC approaches to empirical investigation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Ben! Member (Idle past 1419 days) Posts: 1161 From: Hayward, CA Joined: |
I think possibly the idea that creationism should be producing hypotheses from scratch is wrong anyway. Creationists don't object to the data itself, or even to the majority of scientific conclusions about the data. The objections are predominantly in terms of the time factor, so creationist thinking goes into accounting for events in a shorter time frame that OE theory says had to take millions of years.) I think IRH's point is that DISAGREEING about the timeframe isn't good enough. You have to build an alternative theory, consistent with known empirical evidence, that supports your position. I think the reason IRH says "start from scratch" is because the theories that YECs have proposed so far have questioned and contradicted very basic theories in the physical sciences, that you're forced to go back to scratch. It's definitely to your advantage NOT to start from scratch, and to work with existing theories. It's hard to "see far" without "standing on the shoulders of giants." But I think it's really unfair to contradict scientists, who have done the work to come up with a theory that accounts for the existing data, by an assertion and not by evidence. Contradiction of purely empirical claims require empirical arguments. But THIS part is heading into another topic... It takes time, lots of questions, lots of learning to put together empirical theories that work. I am really happy to see that you're giving it your best, working through the data, and working through possible explanations of how things work. I think the questioning mind, regardless of the motivations of the questions, is the one that ultimately gains the best understanding of the WHATs and WHYs of the scientific theories they study. Keep up the good work.
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Ben! Member (Idle past 1419 days) Posts: 1161 From: Hayward, CA Joined: |
Jazz,
I never got a chance to thank you for being patient and so willing in your explanations and breaking down of ideas into bite-size pieces. Like I said earlier in this thread, interacting with those outside of a field requires either lots of your time, effort, patience, and (in many cases) breaking things down ultimately to the raw observational data, or a lot of time (asking somebody to read and understand the topic on their own). Thanks for working with this, and thanks for sharing your knowledge.
The only one here who has not been able to tell the difference between fact and theory has been you and Ben so far. Even this mildly amusing attempt of yours to counter the facts one again simply further shows that you don't understand them. I hope that we're starting to understand each other on this. Judging from the way you're responding on this thread, I think we are. The interaction and process looks like an ultimately fruitful one to me. Just wanted to (finally) post my thanks up. Ben AbE: Edit out of AdminMode. That was an accident. This message has been edited by Ben, 09/16/2005 10:35 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Thank you, that is MUCH clearer. Now I have something to work on. I had already seen the first diagram but the second is what illustrates best what Jazz has been trying to explain.
But I have to leave for a while so may have more to say later. This message has been edited by Faith, 09-16-2005 10:35 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I think possibly the idea that creationism should be producing hypotheses from scratch is wrong anyway. Creationists don't object to the data itself, or even to the majority of scientific conclusions about the data. The objections are predominantly in terms of the time factor, so creationist thinking goes into accounting for events in a shorter time frame that OE theory says had to take millions of years.)
I think IRH's point is that DISAGREEING about the timeframe isn't good enough. You have to build an alternative theory, consistent with known empirical evidence, that supports your position. My first thought here is that my first post on IRH's thread should have answered this. Disagreeing about the timeframe is the inevitable position of being a creationist, and it is based on God's authority. God's authority is sufficient, nothing else is required. I hadn't taken this position before that thread. It simply finally became obvious that there is no way to participate in debate if that isn't made the foundational assumption on the creationist side. If it's based on God's word itself, disagreeing very definitely IS enough. The empirical discussion begins at that point, not before it. Naturally atheists and nonfundamentalist Christians and others are going to disagree, but it doesn't work to try to skirt around this fundamental YEC position. The argument goes nowhere. At least if you know the argument originates with God from the creationist point of view, that ought to make it easier to understand why creationists go about it the way they do and why they may seem to be arrogant when it isn't about them at all -- it's about God. God has the right to declare how things are. From the creationist point of view science begins at that point. In any case, building an alternative theory is what I thought even I on my limited level am doing. The alternate theory is the Flood anyway, and to some extent the Fall as well, and with any piece of data the idea is to see how the Flood/Fall might account for it differently than OE theory accounts for it. Creationists have put a lot of reasoning into the Flood theory. They simply keep butting up against the presuppositions of the current paradigm, and in my observation that paradigm wins the argument more by force and custom than reason. Building a new theory wouldn't start with rethinking data from the ground up anyway, as most of it is accepted, as I've said. A nonscientist YEC can't really make use of IRH's proposition as far as I can see, and I'm not sure a geologist YEC could either, but at least in that case knowing where to start would not be the problem it is for me.
I think the reason IRH says "start from scratch" is because the theories that YECs have proposed so far have questioned and contradicted very basic theories in the physical sciences, that you're forced to go back to scratch. It's definitely to your advantage NOT to start from scratch, and to work with existing theories. It's hard to "see far" without "standing on the shoulders of giants." I don't understand this point. I don't see that "very basic theories" have been questioned perhaps, except the old earth framework itself. Anything that can be seen, tested, measured isn't questioned and that's the vast majority of geological (and biological) data. But again, creationists HAVE a theory they are working on -- the Flood. A new one isn't needed. What the Flood did and how it did it are the continuing focus. The data already accumulated are accepted. There's no need to start back at square one accumulating data. However, if there were thousands of YEC geologists out there doing the kind of work IRH does, it might happen that new angles on the problem would be discovered. That would be very nice. But not being a geologist, I'm not going to be doing that myself. I just like to ponder alternative YE explanations in the place of old earth explanations, and circumscribed design-limited genetics against genetic descent explanations, on a very broad scale. So I'm not the one to be assigned IRH's task. A geologist is needed there.
But I think it's really unfair to contradict scientists, who have done the work to come up with a theory that accounts for the existing data, by an assertion and not by evidence. Contradiction of purely empirical claims require empirical arguments. But THIS part is heading into another topic... One tries to avoid this as much as possible, and I may not do the best job of it, but the direct collisions occur because a Biblical creationist has to put God's authority above scientists where there is a demonstrable conflict. This is exactly what I finally recognized and spelled out so explicitly at the beginning of IRH's thread. Science cannot contradict God. If that makes dialogue impossible, it would be better to recognize it sooner rather than later. Wow, speaking of tectonics, 8:10 AM in the Sierras we just got a LONG jerky and then rolling sort of earthquake. I hope San Francisco is OK. This message has been edited by Faith, 09-16-2005 11:22 AM
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
There were two in that area in the last hour. Looks like a 3 and a 2 between Carson City and South Lake Tahoe.
AbE: Magnitude 3.8 - local magnitude (ML)Time Friday, September 16, 2005 at 8:09:44 AM (PDT) Friday, September 16, 2005 at 15:09:44 (UTC) Distance from Johnson Lane, NV - 15 km (9 miles) E (92 degrees) Gardnerville, NV - 19 km (12 miles) ENE (57 degrees) Minden, NV - 20 km (12 miles) ENE (64 degrees) South Lake Tahoe, CA - 38 km (24 miles) ENE (72 degrees) Sacramento, CA - 174 km (108 miles) ENE (72 degrees) Coordinates 39 deg. 2.0 min. N (39.033N), 119 deg. 33.7 min. W (119.562W) Depth 5 km (3.1 miles) Location Quality unknown Location Quality Parameters Nst= 62, Nph= 62, Dmin=0 km, Rmss=0 sec, Erho=0 km, Erzz=0 km, Gp=0 degrees Event ID# nn00162500 Magnitude 2.6 - local magnitude (ML)Time Friday, September 16, 2005 at 8:06:26 AM (PDT) Friday, September 16, 2005 at 15:06:26 (UTC) Distance from Dayton, NV - 14 km (9 miles) S (180 degrees) Carson City, NV - 17 km (11 miles) ESE (104 degrees) Johnson Lane, NV - 17 km (11 miles) NE (56 degrees) South Lake Tahoe, CA - 42 km (26 miles) ENE (59 degrees) Sacramento, CA - 177 km (110 miles) ENE (68 degrees) Coordinates 39 deg. 7.5 min. N (39.125N), 119 deg. 33.8 min. W (119.563W) Depth 0 km (0.0 miles) Location Quality unknown Location Quality Parameters Nst= 42, Nph= 42, Dmin=0 km, Rmss=0 sec, Erho=0 km, Erzz=0 km, Gp=0 degrees Event ID# nn00162499 This message has been edited by jar, 09-16-2005 10:23 AM Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Do you watch the earthquake reports? I sometimes look them up when one hits.
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Only when someone mentions them.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The local ones don't matter, but we felt the last big one in San Francisco, and that's the main concern.
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Well there was just another little one slightly further west so it looks like a cluster with aftershocks.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Been reading through this thread and decided to break my silence briefly to disagree with this forensic model of the problem.
It is not that YECs "have some data and a known conclusion" and "work at determining what's in between." When it comes to the Flood, I think a better comparison would be with the archaeological approach to finding where an ancient city is buried. That is, we KNOW there was a worldwide Flood from an ancient document just as an archaeologist may know from ancient documents that there was once a city in a certain place and set out to find it. The physical clues in the document may be frustratingly sparse and the area very broad where the city's ruins might most likely be found, but there is no doubt it existed and theoretically could be found. My position on this thread and the previous one opened by IRH titled Attention Faith... was that for debate to be possible at all, the YEC premise that there WAS a worldwide Flood is not to be challenged on threads designated for the debate about the interpretation of the data. Other threads may be used for that purpose, but concerning the signature debate of this forum, HOW certain geological phenomena can reasonably be explained by a worldwide flood or not is all that is open to argument. As I said over and over, this probably makes debate impossible here, although it is the ONLY basis on which it would be fair at all. Cheers. This message has been edited by Faith, 11-15-2005 10:00 PM
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
My position on this thread and the previous one opened by IRH titled "Attention Faith..." was that for debate to be possible at all, the YEC premise that there WAS a worldwide Flood is not to be challenged on threads designated for the debate about the interpretation of the data. False premises must always be challenged. Two plus two does NOT equal five. AbE I would like to expand on this because your message is the classic example or willfull ignorance. You say "for debate to be possible at all, the YEC premise that there WAS a worldwide Flood is not to be challenged ". I can not think of any statement that might show the total backruptcy of the YEC position. While there is absolutely no reason that you cannot try to use suppositions such as a flood as a basis of your discussion, to then say that it should not be challenged simply shows how weak that position is. There is no position in science, no theory, no hypothesis or even piece of evidence that is not open to challenge. All must be questioned. All must be independantly replicated. This is why the YEC position will NEVER be science, or even good theology. It can only be the weak rantings that will drive anyone capable of rational thought away from Christianity. This message has been edited by jar, 11-15-2005 07:41 PM Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: I have to say that this comparison is misleading both as it relates to archaeology and to YEC flood beliefs. Firstly an archaeologist would not assume that an ancient docuemnt would be completely inerrant. For instance if the city was described as implausibly large he would not assume that that aspect was literally true. Thus if YECs were acting like archaeologists they would not assume anything more than a large localised flood need have happened. Secondly YECs routinely invoke the flood to "explain" the geological record and especially the fossil record. There is nothing in the idea of the flood per se which requires this - rather it is the necessity to explain away the evidence of geology and paleontology that contradicts YEC beliefs. The claim to "know" that there was a flood is also strictly speaking false - "strongly believe" would be more correct. And I must add that full discussion of the interpretation of the data does not require the assumption that Noah's Flood actually happened. If that question is relevant to the debate then ruling out the opposing position simply biases the debate in the favour of YECs. If it is not relevant then the question should not arise.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The usual nonsense jar. If God said it, it is not only good theology it is an ironclad scientific premise. You don't have to believe God said it, and you may argue it on threads dedicated to that purpose, but to argue the scientific questions fairly with YECs who do believe God said it, you have to grant the assumption or there is no meaningful debate. As I'd been pointing out for some time to the usual deaf and biased ears, you simply insist that your premise prevail and that's stacking the deck.
Cheers, Faith
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Irrelevant as usual PaulK. What archeologists assume about an ancient text or the particulars about any supposed city, have nothing whatever to do with the fact that YECs take the Bible as inerrant. The analogy I made does not concern the premise of inerrancy but the conduct of the inquiry from that point, whatever the premise is. My point was that the model of archaeology is more descriptive of YEC methodology than Ben's model of forensics and that remains true.
Those who truly know the God of the Bible DO KNOW that the flood occurred and that is not for you to judge. Argue it on threads for the purpose if you like where YECs are free to ignore you. And I already acknowledged many times in this argument that a genuine acceptance of the YEC premise would indeed weight the argument on the YEC side and this is why time after time I said that this debate is impossible if conducted fairly.
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You are free to try to support your assertion that a world-wide flood occured. But you must be able to support that. You must be able to show that not only does the idea of some great flood explain ALL of the evidence, you must show that it explains it better than the existing theories.
You don't have to believe God said it, and you may argue it on threads dedicated to that purpose, but to argue the scientific questions fairly with YECs who do believe God said it, you have to grant the assumption or there is no meaningful debate. Utter nonsense. Your basic premise must also stand up to being challenged. To say that it is somehow exempt from challenge is absurd. It is a sign of exactly how totally broken, irrational and quite frankly, insane the YEC position is.
As I'd been pointing out for some time to the usual deaf and biased ears, you simply insist that your premise prevail and that's stacking the deck. Once again you misrepresent what others say. No one has insisted that there position is sacrosanct except the YECs. You are free to challenge any position held be any Evolutionist, and have even been encouraged to do so. The fact is that the YEC position has failed miserably and so is falling back on the idea that their imaginings must be accepted before discussion can take place. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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