"Creation Science" experiments.

The goalposts didn't get moved. Creationists simply can't aim. They really were not doing science as everybody else understands it.The RATE group, for example. They followed the protocols, ran the lab work, tallied the data, calculated and did everything exactly as I would have done (had I been a professional physicist). And after that, any actual scientist would have concluded "okay, I thought the earth was young, but there's clearly no way to get rid of that heat quickly enough, so either the earth is millions of years old or I screwed up somewhere". They would then go and doubelcheck their working or find evidence to show they were wrong in the first place. And if that didn't work, theyd accept the fact that our planet is old.
But when their results showed there had been millions of years worth of radioactive decay and after explicitly noting that the heat generated would have melted the planet, the RATE guys just turned around and said "Goddidit! We'll find out how later on!".
Their final choice was that even though the evidence showed something else, and despite there being a perfectly rational explanation, they would still stick to their original idea without any evidence to back that decision, even after being given a ton of other experiments and findings that validate the earth being old (see RAZD's Age Correlations thread for an excellent example).That is the best example of any creationist group doing science I've ever heard. And they still managed to fuck it up on the finish line because they couldn't bear acknowledging their initial idea was wrong. Somebody already mentioned this, but: preconceived ideas cannot be allowed to interfere with science. Something must be tested and demonstrated to a reasonable degree of accuracy, to work in any and all conditions which might be relevant, before it can be used as a given for the next experiment.There is a method that gets followed when you do science. Strangely enough, it's called the scientific method. It boils down to not invoking fairies and angels when you don't get the answer you want, but accepting the results or showing why they must be wrong. On the flipside, it means other people can do your work and not need to see the same fairies as you, and if you're right (without using fairies) there is absolutely no reason why they should not accept that fact.Because it would take ages to explain everything and debate what something means, just read this or this. I can almost guarantee nobody will argue too much with you if that's what you call science. If it isn't, then you need to explain what you would.
Which is what everybody has been saying so far...

You want to set the ground rules of what is and is not acceptable to science?Look, fool, ID is trying to get into the schoolroom door through the SCIENCE curriculum. You want to do SCIENCE? The ground rules have already been laid! You want to play in our classroom you play by OUR rules, not your own!Is ID science or not? Put up or shut up.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

That's a real good question Son. Why don't you go ask someone claiming that ID is not a scientific theory like "we" do? And preferably on a thread designed for that topic.

The ID proponents doing the research would say yes to all of the above. And even though I said the "implications" would require a supernatural entity, the researchers make no such conclusions. In fact the theory of ID ends after pointing out that an intelligent source is the more likely of all conclusions. They do not suggest ghosts, ghouls, or goblins. They leave the speculations as to what that intelligent source is, to the theologians. It is the Biblical creationists who take it beyond this point. But my point is that if you do not even allow for the possibility of an intelligent source then you will opt for only natural conclusions no matter how ridiculous or unlikely they are.But this wraps back around to my original point. You will never see evidence for ID, no matter how clearly it is presented, if you refuse to allow for it. And that is all I have been trying to say all along.

Thank you for making my point for me. To you it is not science when the conclusions allow for an intelligent source for life and the universe. As far as your claim that "creationists can not aim," that's an easy assertion made by someone who refuses to clearly define the "out of bounds" line. It kind of reminds me of one of those so called "friendly" games of volley ball on the beach. The other school jocks will goad you into playing, but all of their hits are in while all of yours seem to keep being "out." But none of them seems willing to just take a second to make lines in the sand. It's almost like they are afraid of the outcome, when the rules are fair. But again (for the umpteenth time), I refuse to play until such lines have been drawn. I don't think that is what they said at all. They made a good case to suggest that the evidence for an old earth is not so cut dry "etched in stone" (pardon my pun). They suggest that if several of the "world clocks" suggest a young earth and several suggest an old one, it is not being very responsible to only "cherry pick" the one's that best suits your world view. Of course the RATE team are Biblical creationists and therefor their world view allows for a "Goddidit" as a possible explanation. That doesn't mean they quit the investigation at all. Just that they are not so narrow in their search. But just so you are clear, I refuse to comment on any of their particular findings until those boundary lines are established.So don't try it

Your sentiments are charming, but they don't address my point, or the topic of this thread. Again, that depends on how you are going to define science. If you define it in a way that excludes ID as an explanation from the beginning... well then I guess according to you... not.

Glad you like my sentiments.Yes, they do address your points and are indeed smack on the topic of this thread. Your attempt at deflection will not work."Science" is well defined and has a basic set of ground rules borne of experience, necessity, utility and efficacy.ID purports to be "science," though the reasoning for this presumption is a sinister attempt to undermine the Constitution.If ID is going to hold itself as "science" it must show itself to the standards of "science."The DI Wedge attempt to redefine "science" in its own image so that the theology of ID can have equal access to public school rooms will not succeed.Your attempt to further that cause here in this forum will also not succeed.If you want to continue to insist that ID is "science" then show us that it fits the ground rules established.Otherwise, concede that ID is theology with no more scientific efficacy than astrology.

That's exactly what they did say. Helium Diffusion Age of 6,000 Years Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay :

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One way to reconcile these two hourglass readings is to suggest that one of them has a "valve" at its bottleneck controlling the trickling rate, a valve that was adjusted drastically in the past, possibly by direct intervention from God.

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Thus our new diffusion data support the main hypothesis of the RATE research initiative: that God drastically accelerated the decay rates of long half-life nuclei during the earth's recent past. For a feasibility study of this hypothesis including God's possible purposes for such acceleration, Biblical passages hinting at it, disposal of excess heat, preserving life on earth, and effects on stars, see Humphreys (2000, pp. 333-379). The last three problems are not yet fully solved, but we expect to see progress on them in future papers.

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(No progress has been reported in the last ten years. They've given the sheeple some scientifikaly-sounding pablum and achieved their goals. There's no more for them to do.) John Baumgardner:

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As to how this relates to the varves issue, what I am saying is that the RATE team believes it has several independent lines of evidence that the standard radioisotope time scale is in seriour error, primarily because the uniformitarian assumption that nuclear decay rates are time-invariant does not hold. The reason is that there is an Agency outside the cosmos Who can and has intervened in the world's physical history (2 peter 3:3-7).

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A Tale of Two Hourglasses:

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On the other hand, changes in the physical laws governing the nucleus of the atom would not greatly affect things outside the nucleus, such as the outer electrons of the atom, chemistry, or life. RATE's hypothesis has been that during several short episodes in Earth history (for example, the Genesis Flood). God changed nuclear forces in order to greatly accelerate nuclear decay, particularly for nuclei that now decay very slowly. I have discussed7 many Scriptures suggesting that God did exactly that.

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RATE in Review: Unresolved Problems:

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Of greater concern to both supporters and skeptics of the RATE project is the issue of how to dispose of the tremendous quantities of heat generated by accelerated decay during the Genesis Flood. The amount of heat produced by a decay rate of a million times faster than normal during the year of the Flood could potentially vaporize the earth’s oceans, melt the crust, and obliterate the surface of the earth. The RATE group is confident that the accelerated decay they discovered was not only caused by God, but that the necessary removal of heat was also superintended by Him as well.

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In the real world, they blundered in so many ways it's impossible to describe in one message. See RATE (Radioactivity and the Age of The Earth): Analysis and Evaluation of Radiometric Dating, Assessing the RATE Project (both put together by evangelical christians) and Creation Science Exposed: Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (a Progressive Creationist Christian website). From the second link, reviewing the second RATE book:

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The authors report that faced with this evidence, a young-earth advocate must address at least two key scientific problems resulting from a one-year period of accelerated decay rates during the Flood. The first is the heat problem. Thermal energy from radioactive processes is a major source of heat in the earth. If those processes were accelerated by many orders of magnitude, the earth would have quickly evaporated from the heat had there not been an extraordinary mechanism of cooling. The authors state:

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The removal of heat was so rapid that it likely involved a process other than conduction, convection, or radiation We believe it may be possible to discover how [God] did it (p. 763).

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Future research is suggested along the lines of Russell Humphreys’ idea of volumetric cooling based on relativistic principles even though this known phenomenon, the basis for red-shifting of starlight, does not apply to bound particles such as the earth. It is acknowledged that this approach, even if it were valid, has the difficulty of being uniform rather than selective as would be needed to cool only radioactive material and not, for example, the oceans. In other words, the authors acknowledge that accelerated decay requires a most unusual heat removal mechanism that is outside the known laws of thermodynamics. The second unresolved problem cited in the book is the radiation problem. How did Noah and his passengers survive a year in which radioactivity was one million times greater than it is today? No known solution exists, they state. Nevertheless, The RATE group is confident that these issues will be solved

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5. Current Optimism about Future Resolutions

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The leap to the conclusion is never made clear. Confidence in a future resolution of extraordinary scientific contradiction moves smoothly to a message to Christians in general to encourage them regarding the reliability of the Bible (p. 768). In other words, the expectation of a future solution to a major scientific impasse is being translated into conferences, books, and videos proclaiming the good news that the RATE project has demonstrated the scientific validity of a young earth.

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The conclusions of the RATE project are being billed as groundbreaking results. This is a fairly accurate description since a group of creation scientists acknowledge that hundreds of millions of years worth of radioactivity have occurred. They attempt to explain how this massive radioactivity could have occurred in a few thousand years but admit that consistent solutions have not yet been found. The vast majority of the book is devoted to providing technical details that the authors believe prove that the earth is young and that radioisotope decay has not always been constant. All of these areas of investigation have been addressed elsewhere by the scientific community and have been shown to be without merit. The only new data provided in this book are in the category of additional details and there are no significantly new claims.

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In this book, the authors admit that a young-earth position cannot be reconciled with the scientific data without assuming that exotic solutions will be discovered in the future. No known thermodynamic process could account for the required rate of heat removal nor is there any known way to protect organisms from radiation damage. The young-earth advocate is therefore left with two positions. Either God created the earth with the appearance of age (thought by many to be inconsistent with the character of God) or else there are radical scientific laws yet to be discovered that would revolutionize science in the future. The authors acknowledge that no current scientific understanding is consistent with a young earth. Yet they are so confident that these problems will be resolved that they encourage a message that the reliability of the Bible has been confirmed.

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{emphasis added}

The scientific method has already been defined. If there are experiences that confirm ID, show them. If you believe the current science unfairly excludes ID, then we're back at the last message I posted for you. The thing is it depends on what you think. If you think ID is science, post experiments, otherwise, say that it isn't science.

You ask for some ground rules to identify what would be considered science.I lay them out for you.Yet, you STILL duck, dodge and refuse to lay out some experiments?Is it safe to say you cannot identify for us a single experiment using the ID/creation scientific method? Are all of your posts going to be more crying about how "you secularists wouldn't accept the results anyways". You seem to be the only person in this thread who has no clue what science is or how it works. Message 1 has some examples of secular science if you are still having trouble. In this thread, you ARE the ID proponent. If the ID/creation method cannot provide experiments that a layperson can replicate, it is not a replacement for science. I would absolutely LOVE for you to start a thread detailing how IDists are not creationists in sheep's clothing.

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"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

Thank you for showing that once again creationists prefer quotemining to actually arguing the point. Read the rest of the post: I laid out clearly why that specific example was not science, and that reasoning holds for any general creationist "experiment" or "paper".Do not presume to think you know what I would and would not consider science. Unless you're going to read the links, in which case anything that fits the description is what I would consider science.
But you obviously didn't read the links, because you continued to complain that nobody has drawn those lines in the sand. They've been there for decades, moron, and every so often we give them a fresh dig to make sure they're visible to everybody. Creationists are the ones pretending they don't exist, not us. Once again, read the links and if you have questions after that we could actually make a useful discussion out of this. Then what the hell is this if not commenting on their findings: JonF has already pointed this out, but just for closure, I'll repeat it: that is exactly what they said. Read the conclusion and analyses he provided in message 218. If you know something about that paper that was not released to everybody else in the world, now is a very good time to share it.
They found no evidence whatsoever that a young earth was possible; they acknowledged that all of their work demonstrated an older earth than they wanted to believe. They found exactly what they've been told by scientists for years. Our planet is millions of years old. Despite it being the entire point of their experiments, they could not present a single fact to contradict this.No evidence to say a young earth. "Goddidit!" to defy the evidence of an old earth. Yep, creationists not doing science.

Which is purest hypocrisy, because just what they are doing. Having got conflicting results, they propose that the results they don't like were faked up by God using a series of miracles.Which is stepping outside the boundaries of science, because it makes all observations irrelevant. Someone who can do that can also believe that God made pigs with wings but that he also deludes everyone into not being able to see them ("God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie", 2 Thessalonians 2:11). Everything then becomes a matter of opinion -- or faith, if you will.And of course it would be no less (or more) legitimate for a believer in an old Earth to do the same thing in reverse. Whenever a YEC claimed to have evidence for a young Earth, they could say: "Ah, well, God did that by a miracle for reasons that we mere mortals cannot understand, it has nothing to do with the natural processes by which we measure the real age of the Earth". But they do not do so, do they? Because they don't need to. Instead, they look at the question scientifically and find out where the YECs went wrong in the production of their "evidence" --- something that is not usually at all hard to do.

If it was as well defined as you think, then there would not be people like me claiming that creation and ID are scientific theories (and yes even Richard Dawkins the atheist admits it), and then people like "Jar" (in post #15) clearly saying they are not.This is why I insist on having the person I am discussing "science" with, define exactly what they view as science. I will not waste a single second chasing all of their crazy passes, only to have them called "out of bounds" when I catch them. I'm sorry if you can not appreciate this, but you know what the "kitty said when the milk ran dry." I agree that some had ill intents in the ID community. But to throw the baby out with the bath water is not a fair reaction. You and I both know that some in the "Evolution camp" have not all been on the up and up. That of itself would not be a fair reason to invalidate the theory of evolution. That would be like refusing to ever ride in Joseph Cugnot's 1769 invention of the automobile, simply because some used the thing for sinister purposes. Likewise you can not use peoples sinister motives for using ID, as a reason to disqualify it as a scientific theory. Again I will be glad to do so just as soon as you define what you mean by "science" and I see that it does not exclude ID as a possibility even before we get started.

No you didn't. What you laid out were examples of scientific experiments. But you did not define what qualifies as science in your eyes. And this is what I seem to not be able to convey to you people. Your beginning post of this thread lays out the question like the old childhood school bully who asks, "Does your Daddy know your so dumb?" The very question postulates itself in such a way that a plain yes or no answer sets up the person to fail either way. To answer no means that the kid is admitting he is dumb but just that his daddy doesn't know it.You are doing the same thing in your request for "creation/ID science experiments." On the one hand you are asking for the experiments, but on the other you define science in such a way as to exclude ID or creation as even being a possibility. If that is not true then you would have no problem just defining science in a way that does not exclude ID or creation.

One ultimate test of the validity of any idea is through the American-originated philosophy of pragmatism.One question I have repeatedly asked of all ID/creationist proponents that they seem unable to answer is the simple "what has this stance done for me" or indeed done for anyone and everyone?Norman Borlaug, the world's most unsung hero, saved between 1 and 2 billion lives, how many has AIG saved?John Snow, by using statistics, identified the cause of cholera, which used to kill by the millions as being fecal contaminated water, how many disease vectors have the Discovery Institute identified?Benjamin Franklin (deist) founded the first public library in the USA, what has Hovind (jailbird) done to educate the populace?ID is a disease, a parasite that feeds on ignorance. Indeed it even promotes disease and ignorance.So the question remains, what has ID done for me?

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen