YEC Problem with Science Above and Beyond Evolution

It is a question to the scientists. You are to describe how workaday science would be affected by the loss of evolution and old earth theory. I have not claimed any knowledge or experience, just an impression that facts and data, the stuff of daily work, shouldn't depend on this theory. That's ALL that's under discussion. Practical science has never been a problem for YECs.

I'm not interested in your theories, I'm interested in practical daily science as scientists engage in it.

Thank you for that very long detailed description of your work. Very interesting.Just as I suspected there is absolutely nothing in it dependent upon evolutionary theory. At least a. and c. concern normal genetics or population genetics, which are associated in people's minds with evolution but without justification. There is nothing more here than the usual "micro" evolution that YECs have no problem with. We are well aware that there is enormous variability possible within species.I don't really follow the use of fossils that you describe in b., however, and wonder if you could explain that better so that I can see what if anything it has to do with evolution. Thanks.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I did read it. I copied it out to read it. What is in your quote is just microevolution as far as I can see. Nobody's asking you to give that up. A lot of facts that YECs have absolutely no problem with are subsumed under evolution with no justification. One reads up on population genetics,say, and all the terminology of evolution is there, but there is nothing in the actual facts that implies evolution beyond microevolution. You are calling this Whittaker work evolutionary theory, but so far I have not seen that anything you actually have to deal with calls on anything but observable population genetics which YECs have no problem with. All those considerations are not evolutionary theory. Microevolution is involved, population genetics etc etc. Nothing to do with macroevolution that I can see. {Edit: Again, many things are CALLED evolutionary theory that aren't, many facts subsumed under that label that have nothing to do with it. The actual work of science does not depend on evolutionary theory.} All you are doing is asserting that. So far you have not shown me that there is anything about "biogeography" that a YEC would not accept as microevolution or other things not even related to evolution at all. I have no idea how fossils relate to biogeography, but I haven't seen anything about biogeography from what you've said to lead me to see any necessary connection with macroevolution or old earth theory.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Length never changes, but radioactive decay, so I've heard, occurs at different rates under different circumstances. You also have to know the original quantity of the substance that is decaying. I don't claim to understand much of this, but I have the impression there are many variables involved that don't fit with the uniformitarian assumption. Again, this is all speculative about the distant past whose conditions we can only guess at, and who knows how many other variables should be taken into account that are being overlooked.

You asked me some questions that relate to my beliefs based on teh Bible and I answered you, but I don't see how this is related to the topic of the thread.My YEC assumptions can be taken as a given in this context. The question is then to what extent science would have to change to accommodate them. My claim is that getting rid of evolutionary theory and old earth theory would not change most of what is done in practical everyday science. Radioactive decay MAY be an exception, or astronomy, which I noted in my first answer to the OP, but I'm not even sure about that. So far my impression is confirmed that ordinary useful science really doesn't depend on evolutionary theory much at all.

I think what would really help you understand the YEC position is to take my answers seriously so far. I see no need to supply specific numbers that obviously only relate to the speculative stuff about the past that really has nothing to do with workaday science, which I understand to be the topic, since we YECs claim workaday science shouldn't be much affected by the elimination of evolutionary and old earth theory.

I specifically excluded astronomy from my considerations in my answer to the OP.I don't know the exact numbers for those events. I'd have to spend time looking them up, and even then exactitude wouldn't be possible. Use whichever ones are familiar to you. Try a range of possibilities.

Either acknowledge that nothing you said involves macroevolution or old earth theory or prove that it does.

I understand that you may not have a clear idea of what I as a YEC regard as microevolution as opposed to evolution, but really, most of it. I think I can say that I've never read anything about actual studies of species and populations that requires macroevolutionary theory at any point in the understanding of them. I've said a lot about this on various threads but of course you may not have read them. But I am moving no goal posts. What I see being done by biologists does not require any notion of macroevolution or an old earth. It is the same with your examples.You could show me wrong by finding an examples or that single paragraph that proves that these concepts are useful in any aspect that kind of work.I think you simply take the ToE for granted and assume all these ways of thinking about populations and species derive from it. Most people do. In fact I don't think they have any necessary connection with it at all. It's all a matter of habitual association, and not actuality.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not really. I'm trying to show that scientists don't depend on the ToE as much as they think they do, if at all.

This has absolutely not been shown and in fact I've shown that it is not true at all. You cannot just assert this. You have to prove it. The only case I know of in Geology is the search for oil. And even there the concepts from the ToE are not really essential but window-dressing since location is what matters.Physical anthropology is based on it, yes. So is paleontology. But these are not useful or practical sciences, they are purely theoretical or speculative, and in my opinion plain false science. Well talk about hand-waving away. {Actually you're verifying it I see} I'm trying to show this and everybody's denying it. Great. It has nothing to do with most science, just as I've claimed. Then the claim that getting rid of it would make this huge difference has been falsified and the YEC claim in the OP is verified. No that is not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is that YECs claim that science would not be appreciably damaged by the loss of evolutionary theory and you pretty much just agreed that that is so. Oh well, nothing like just claiming as fact what is under question.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, it is highly speculative. Which is why all these calculations about how this or that couldn't have happened during the Flood or the Fall, that are offered in rebuttal to YEC speculations, are meaningless. Many many unknown variables involved. You can't measure something that is unknown. They are measuring their own uniformitarian assumptions about the past, not the past itself. I have no clue what Last Thursdayism is.

Do you have anything to contribute to the topic of thread, about how the ToE is not actually of any use in the useful sciences?

What I said in answer to Quetzal was that nothing he mentioned involved anything having to do with the ToE. You are merely asserting that it does, laid the groundwork etc., without proving it. However, I'm happy to concede that much of modern science was done UNDER the rubric of the ToE, inspired by it, but I think that was mostly accidental. Nothing essential depended on it. And you have shown nothing to prove me wrong. One thing at a time please. It's a big deal to get across to anyone that science really is not dependent on the ToE as you all think. It can only confuse matters to get all caught up in the whole other frame of reference of YEC.I think I've proved that Quetzal's work has nothing to do with the ToE -- except for that bit about the fossils which he has declined to explain so I don't know how to answer it. But my proving that has yet to be recognized by anyone here and in fact is still being disputed I assume, as Quetzal said he was looking for more quotes.But let's not go on to what YEC would substitute for all of it. WAY too premature for that in this thread. Of course not. That's where this always goes. You won't consider that what I've already said could be true, that at least what Quetzal's science does is not dependent on the ToE as he thinks. I'm saying that the knowledge he works with, that he calls evolutionary theory, simply isn't evolutionary theory. This isn't doubting his expertise in working with it, it's a matter of unconscious assumptions and habitual labels. I would suggest instead that you try to understand what I am saying. Yes, please apply yourself to that. I am not addressing the scientific particulars except as they impinge on this overarching notion about the ToE and I believe it is quite clear that they have nothing to do with the ToE on this practical level, and I think YOU should think about THAT.NOBODY has as yet proved to me that the ToE is REALLY of use in practical science. It's merely assumed.