On the contrary, I have read the entirety of this thread. I noted your "hammering away". What I felt was missing was a basic description of each premise, and considering that this thread is all about those premises I thought it a significant oversight on both sides that they were not provided.
I've said it many times, but perhaps it hasn't been clearly enough headlined or something. I've been keeping it to the most minimal statement that pinpoints the fatal conflict at EvC, that is: The YEC puts the authority of God in His word above anything science has to say or thinks it has proved, while science according to Evos puts the authority of science above God and His word. That's it. That's the two premises, inevitably in conflict to the death.
Unfortuntely, I feel this is not the case. So much of science overlaps or is interconnected - for example, the entire field of biological research is involved in evolution. To preclude evolution is to render it mostly descriptive and generally useless. Equally, the entire field of geology is based on the evidence of an old earth - take that away, and we are left again with a purely descriptive discipline.
Yes that is the evo view. The YEC view is that everything that is done in the service of evolution that is observable, replicable, measurable, is valid science, and that's all the data itself, all the actual phenomena, but we know that evolution is false.
But they are not the only scientific areas to be affected. Much of modern physics is called into question by the Flood, which would have a knock on effect of disrupting many practical applications - for example, space exploration.
Yes this too is the evo view. The YEC view says the Flood occurred and all of the supposed science that says it couldn't have is simply wrong. It's simply a matter of finding the right scientific view of it as we know it happened and the evo view is therefore wrong. All of it is speculative because it is in the distant past anyway, and utterly without the possibility of proof one way or the other. It's not as if anyone KNOWS exactly what would have happened. You postulate and assume it WOULD be a certain way -- based on very little information. You guess at volumes and temperatures, and who knows what other factors are involved that never occur to anyone. Nobody is questioning physics, merely the guesses as to what the situation was during the Flood as if any of us knew. Notions about what goes on in the present where data is abundant need adjusting all the time, how much more anything that went on in the distant past.
There are more far-reaching effects as a result of this. Let's just take geology. The field of mineral exploration is hamstrung, because there is no geological field study predictions to base its efforts on. Palaeontology and anthropology become a waste of time. With the death of plate tectonics, earthquake and volcano prediction becomes an even more shaky affair.
So what? If the Flood occurred, it occurred, period, and since God's word said it did, it did. But I'm surprised to see you claim it would involve "the death of" plate tectonics and volcanic action as these are usually considered to have been inaugurated by the Flood catastrophe and discussed as part of the YEC speculations about it.
I think there is a strong case to be made for a domino-style effect, where to remove or discount a portion of science is to disrupt or invalidate a much larger portion.
But the Flood happened. That puts you in the odd position of claiming that false science does a better job of stimulating scientific work than true science. I suppose it might be true. Perhaps some benefits could be credited to the false theory of evolution that otherwise would not have occurred. Stranger things have happened, but it is not much of an argument for holding on to a false theory.
I do not think I missed any crucial points. In fact, I think there has been a slight disconnect on this point in particular.
I do not think anyone asks for the bible itself to be subjected to the scientific method. It's a book; what exactly are scientists supposed to do with it? No, I think there is a different matter on hand here - that of faulty science based on the bible.
All you are doing is simply stating once again the evo premise (Science trumps the word of God) and continuing the debate instead of appreciating the overview we are looking for on this thread. You are so convinced of your presuppositions you have a problem standing back from them and seeing them in the overall context here. Science is your premise and science trumps the Bible. Mine is that God's word is inviolable, God has spoken, we may not contradict Him. You can't see my premise at all. The Bible most certainly IS subjected to Science here. If you read this thread, IRH, you did not grasp much on it, which I find rather astonishing since I do think I was very clear.
You see, many creationists do not have your strength of faith, and resort to using shaky and inaccurate studies dressed up as science as a means to shore up their belief. They present it as the real deal, hence evolutionists demand that they conform to the same standard as any other scientific endeavour.
Yes, well my aim is to see if the FUNDAMENTAL processes that are involved in this can be illuminated and spelled out. Certainly there is bad scientific thinking on the YEC side (and no doubt the evo side as well). Certainly on both sides there is every degree of scientific understanding, of faith and lack of it and theological difficulties galore to be taken into account if we are thinking about individuals. But I'm trying to boil this down to the pithiest statement of the most basic conflict between YEC and evolutionism. I am sticking to YEC too because all the other versions of creationism only muddy the picture for this purpose. Between YEC and Evolutionism I think the conflict is most neatly stated as between the Evo premise that the word of God is to be subject to science and the YEC premise that science is to be subject to the word of God.
What I have been running into, and your response is a good example of it, is that the scientific premise is so taken for granted that it isn't even recognized as a premise. This is part of the picture this thread aims to spell out as it explains why YECs can't breathe in this environment at times.
EvCForum would not exist if creationists did not try to back up the bible with science. But to play in the stadium of science is to play by its rules, and this necessarily means suffering the criticism of other scientists. Creationists may not like this, but they are the ones who want to do this kind of research to support their claims.
Yes, I'm sure that some of the problem comes down to Creationists thinking this game can be played on scientific principles alone, not having recognized the effect of the fundamental conflict between the basic presuppositions on both sides. I started out quite sure that all the scientific questions can be argued without reference to the Biblical premise, and in fact that is true, but what happens is that I think through the scientific questions on the basis of that premise, as all YECs do (and I'm not claiming to have any scientific ability in this regard, only the YEC methodology itself) and since this is not how evolutionist science is conducted it turns out that the conflicting premises make the debate impossible, and this needs to be recognized, which is what this thread is about. What I decided earlier in the thread is that the model that best describes the YEC approach to science is an archaeological dig. We are engaged in coming up with scenarios to discover the equivalent of a long-buried city or sunken ship, while evolutionists are engaged in a completely different kind of science. It IS science, but it's a different procedure and it's based on believing God's word, and Evos can't abide it.
Yes, but you make it sound like this is about all science, but that is not the case. This only applies to Evolution,
Like I said, I think there may be a domino effect...
And like I said, if it's false science I can't really care a lot about a possible domino effect.
Evolutionary theory is science. It was produced using scientific methodology and is still tested every day using the same methodology. You may call it what you will, but this does not change the fact that if it isn't science (based on how it was produced and still tested), then neither is the theory of gravity, or any other modern advance you can think of.
You can test the theory of gravity, you cannot test evolutionism, all you can do is feed it data, very little of which actually supports the theory but is merely absorbed into the theory as if it did. It may be science in the sense that it derived from scientific thinking, certainly, but it is false science because evolution did not happen and the Flood did.
(As an aside: Again, this is something in the realm of science, unless you state that it is merely your personal opinion. We have agreed on the premise of science - to show that evolutionary theory isn't, you would have to show how it does not begin with that premise or it does not follow scientific methodology. In other words, if you want to argue for something within the realm of science, you must play by the rules of science.)
And again you merely state the evo premise which is that science trumps God. God says if you want to argue for something upon which He has spoken, you must play by His rules. No, I DON'T have to play by science rules if they contradict God.
While we're talking about all this, could you provide a quick description of the methodology of creationism? I think the scientific methodology is well known by now.
As I've said, I suggest that it has most in common with the archaeological model, discovering the evidence of something you know on excellent authority occurred in the past -- and our authority is better than most archaeology works with.
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