Discovery or Ignorance: The Choice Is yours?

I hope you appreciate that for anyone reading this forum with John's outlook, he has indeed won, and has demolished every argument raised against him by EvC's scientific collective. This is what is truly scary...

It is sad also. He sucks the fun right out of this. He has not even tried to debate, just repeated himself over and over. The picture I have of him in my mind is a kid with his fingers in his ears, yelling I'm right, I'm right, I'm right.John and others with his outlook will never educate themselves about science or evolution because they are afraid just learning about the subjects would irreversibly contaminate them. It is a sin for them to even consider it. They are afraid that if it is true that they are biologically connected to all the life on the planet through common decent that they will lose their sense of self-worth. It would make them lose their sense of specialness.

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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty PythonYou can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

Fair enough. This is arguably the definition of the difference between science and engineering.
Engineers apply well founded and established scientific principles in the creation and working of technology.But how do you think those scientific principles become established and well founded?
They become established and well founded by means of prediction, testing against the realities of nature and a methodological process of verification.I can tell you with absolute certainty that the principles on which the nuclear power plant near you safely runs were not established or discovered via the creationist version of science!!!! A methodology where no experimentation is undertaken, no conclusions are tested and no new discoveries are made!!!So, given this, how can you possibly claim that creationist "scientists" are undertaking anything of any worth at all?

John
You do not actually seem to be presenting any argument against the foundation of my OP that creationist "science" makes no new conclusions, undertakes no investigation into the unknown and is inherently unable to make predictions and thus discoveries of new physical phenomenon.Is that a fair summary?Your argument, such as it is, just seems to be to present dictionary type definitions of science that you feel exclude evolutionary theory and, possibly, include creationist methodologies.Is that a fair summary?If so we need to establish what the overarching aim of science is and to then see how this is best undertaken so that we can then see if either creationist "science" or evolutionary theory meet these criteria.The role of science as far as I am concerned is to establish the most reliable conclusions regarding the natural world.Do you disagree with this statement?

Using this method of yours how do we discover anything new?Can you decsribe the process for me as I am having trouble understanding?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

If you do not have a hypothesis how can you possibly be undertaking scientific investigation? If the ID/creationist theory is wrong what do you do........?

The science that I know is all about discovering/proving things are as they are or how they came to be as they are. Scientists who spend their time dealing with speculations, such as the evolutionary model, are just wasting their time.The scientists who spend and have spent their time discovering/proving things are as they are or how they came to be as they are are the true scientists who have discovered something that mankind can then use for the good of all. Scientists who have discovered/proved the truths of God's creation can then work with builders, engineers, doctors, farmers, etc. to take this knowledge and create all manner of wonders for medicine, industries, energy production, farming, etc.Show us one thing the so-called evolutionary science start-to-finish model has done for mankind, other than to turn people away from seeking our creator God?

The mere fact that you are unable to understand that science isn't about proving tells me that there's little point in trying to explain anything to you.Science is not about proof because all of science is tentative. There is absolutely nothing that science has discovered that may not be completely discarded tomorrow if new evidence is found disproving what science previously understood to be true.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

OK, let's consider the fission of atoms. While investigating uranium, Fermi and his colleagues in 1934 bombarded unranium with neutrons and found interesting results that were not correctly interpreted until several years later by Frisch & Meitner in 1938. Once they discovered/proved that unranium bombarded by neutrons had been transformed into different elements, they knew the uranium atom was splitting into lighter weight elements as result of neutron bombardment. From this discovery/proof of the way unranium reacts to neutron bombardment, the Manhatten Project developed nuclear bombs which ended WWII, and nuclear fission has been engineered to power ships and commercial power plants.The evolutionist's problem with not understanding what the scientific method really is lies with wanting to apply it to the evolutionary start-to-finish model, when in fact it never can be.

The bottom line is this: There are a number of truths and absolutes in this world that can be scientifically proven and will not change. You want to live in a world where there are no truths or absolutes. That's not the kind of world God created.

The bottom line is this: There are a number of truths and absolutes in this world, but scientists are sensible enough to realise that they are mere fallible human beings who are prone to making mistakes, even when the scientific method is specifically designed to eliminate error, so they do not make absolute statements, preferring instead to hold all scientific knowledge as tentative.Do you believe that you are impervious to error?You seem to want to live in a world where you have unfettered access to ultimate truth. That's not the kind of world we live in, regardless of whether God created it or not.

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Mutate and Survive

These are called facts. Facts differ from theories. As I think I have posted before, facts by themselves lack meaning and usefulness. Theories provide that meaning and usefulness. If you are dealing with science, there is as of yet no evidence for the supernatural.Now, you can believe what you want, but don't try to pass your particular religious belief off as science (hey, there's a nice tagline in there somewhere!).

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Hi, John 10:10.You present an experiment run by nuclear physicists on uranium, and cite this as a perfect example of your "true science." Please explain how the experiment you mention is any different in terms of the scientific method from the experiment Rrhain provided you in message #151, involving E. coli and the T4 phage, which I have personally seen repeated in a classroom.Both involved exposing a test subject (uranium and E. coli, respectively) to some treatment (neutron bombardment and T4 phage, respectively) and observing the end result. In both cases, further investigation/testing yielded a theoretical framework that gave a good explanation to the observed phenomenon (nuclear fission and evolution by natural selection, respectively).How can you rationally accept one as "true science" while simultaneously rejecting the other as "speculation"? What "start-to-finish" model, John? Rrhain's E. coli just proved evolution: we don't need anything else to prove that ToE works in the real world. Evolution is as easily observed and well-founded as nuclear fission, and we've seen it work just as many times as you've seen nuclear fission work. Here is bluegenes's thread about one of many hundreds of examples of evolution being observed in action.Perhaps you're referring to natural history, and not evolution? To clarify, natural history is the history of life on Earth inferred from the principle of evolution in conjunction with millions of fossil and geological evidences. Note that natural history is a separate entity from evolution, even though it is based mostly upon the ToE. So, even if we can't prove that the natural history we've compiled from ToE and the fossil record is correct "from start to finish," as you demand, you've still got no commentary on ToE whatsoever: it still stands, supported by the exact same kind of evidence you presented for nuclear fission.But, we're just applying what we've learned about biology from our laboratory observations to the real world, just as nuclear physicists and engineers are applying what they've learned about nuclear fission from their laboratory observations to the real world. Nuclear fission leads to A-bombs and nuclear power plants, while evolution leads to natural history. Yet, for some reason, you're willing to trust one line of reasoning, but not the other, even though they have the exact same foundation and have followed the exact same pattern from start to finish.You also make claims about "applying for the benefit of mankind." I'll have you know that science is not all philanthropism: it's not just a tool for engineers to make new technologies with. It is also the world’s only truly honest search for truth.Edited by Bluejay, : Didn't push the space bar when I should have.

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Darwin loves you.

Ooooooh!That's gonna leave a mark!

Hi, Coyote. And I say that as a religious person, too. I'm a devout Christian and an elder in my church. When I was first learning about my religion by myself, it was an honest and simple (if non-objective) search for God through prayer and scripture study and all that. Now, after having received my "special witness," the search is essentially over. All the other truth that I can learn now is little details that just fill in how I'm supposed to live my life and exactly what is the best analogy for God's love toward me.I honestly feel that we would be better off having no knowledge of anything except of the tools for learning than we would be having been given all the answers. Intelligent Design would have us ignore these tools in favor of the "sure thing," which essentially stifles our ability to learn and, frankly, makes us more stupid. If God is opposed to my honest attempts to learn, I am opposed to Him, even if He's real, and I personally wouldn't want to live for eternity in heaven with the people such a God would prefer.

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Darwin loves you.