Well, Moddy, I will rapidly get bored with this thread if this is the way it's going to go.
You paved the way to a debate about 'just what is a fact?'.
Henry the VIII WAS King of England. That IS a fact.
I'm not sure how you can say it was a fact. Is it something to do with the corroborating evidence? Perhaps you have something else in mind?
And if we have to raise the question, even have whole threads at this late date in the EvC controversy, in order to establish how we can be sure that is a fact, then I say this whole debate enterprise is a pathetic joke (which of course I think anyway).
You're going to need to show how this is a fact and not an interpretation of the evidence. To me, the idea that Henry VIII was King is wild speculation, not a fact. It is a fact that the records show a Henry VIII, and several texts right of him, but us laymen need to be able to distinguish between the facts (the documents) and the interpretation (he was King).
There is NOT enough evidence for it to be unreasonable not to accept the OE interpretation (OR the common-descent-of-all-life-from-common-ancestor-back-in-the-Primordial-Ooze interpretation either).
Obviously your opinion. It runs massively contrary to pretty much every single person that has spent any time examining the evidence. But there you go. Of course, that means nothing, which is why I think it is perfectly reasonable to not accept that either the holocaust happened or the moon landing.
What I have identified as interpretation is clearly imaginative interpretation that has no way of being verified or falsified -- the whole tipsy scheme of long-lived "environments."
I've seen verifications though. Burrows, fossil gradients, radiodating, tree ring data, recorded volcanic activity, visibly eroded surface, cracked riverbed surfaces under other strata. Plenty of it.
But at least for the sake of discussion, although you may think all those interpretations are as sound as fact, the proper thing to do would be to acknowledge the distinction I am making, as it is certainly logical, and I think reasonable (it certainly doesn't exclude the likes of Henry the Eighth from being a fact) and politely spare us creationists the endless certainties that we know perfectly well aren't certainties.
I need to know where the line gets drawn, so I need some kind of method for distinguishing between what you call fact and what you call interpretation. Do you define any event that is said to have occurred more than 10,000 years ago as being speculation? Or do you have some objective criteria for making this distinction?
See, I think my pointing out the distinction was necessary, and that nobody here otherwise was going to recognize it.
I have often tried to impress the importance of fact vs theory. Many discussions have taken place here about just exactly what is a fact. I haven't found any reasonable reason to not accept geology or evolution, just special pleading, incredulity, appeals to consequences, the classic "we can't test the past...unless its forensic science, but that isn't a good analogy" etc etc.
I have blessed with the ability to tell the difference between observed data and evidenced based conclusions on the past, and I see no need to make the distinction any clearer. You are able to see the distinction, so what's the problem?
But hey, if everybody wants to stay in their blurry unverifiable unfalsifiable untestable ToE and OE delusion then carry on among yourselves. I'll just ignore you.
Hey Faith, if you want to continue believing what you do, despite dozens of falsifications tests, and you want to believe some strange idea about global floods creating ordered layers of fossils in such a way as to create congruency between fossil evidence and DNA evidence and radiodating, if you want to believe that the White Cliffs were made in one year despite how that hypothesis has been falsified by pretty much any test going, if you want to believe that layering of sedimentary rock can even begin to occur during a non-supernatural flood...carry on.
Faith, if you want to stay in your unexplained problematic unverified falsified Young Earth/Global Flood delusion be my guest. I may or may not ignore you, it depends if you make any statements about science which are not true or based on a misunderstanding. I hold no hope of convincing you, but hopefully someone reading this that might be taken in by your ideas will think twice.
Wow, making snide comments about your opponent's position is kinda fun. Kind of gets it in the open air a little right?
™ Version 4.2
