Your arguments are often opaque to me for whatever reason, and if I can't see their relevance and can't answer them as a result, what can I do but throw in the towel and admit defeat as I did with Genomicus?
In response to this, I will say that your arguments are better than most and really can't be effectively argued against using just superficial arguments; they require exploration at a deeper level. You have done a good job of explaining much of the superficial facts surrounding these issues. But if you want your ideas to withstand scrutiny, they need to be able withstand scrutiny at a much deeper level than you are willing to go.
HBD, my arguments are simple because there isn't anywhere deeper to go with them, or with any creationist arguments that I know of. Creationists address the claims of evolutionists where we see how to interpret them differently. There's no "deeper" to that, it is what it is. And if the evolutionist claims are scientific, there is no reason the creationist reinterpretations should not be considered scientific too because we're dealing with the same material. I've certainly given up on getting any positive scrutiny for my favorite arguments anyway. In my view if they do the job of successfully answering the evolutionist arguments that's all that's required and there's no reason to say they aren't scientific. But I'm tired of this word war, so if you insist it's not scientific I give up arguing it.
If there are creationists with more scientific knowledge who can put my arguments into more scientific terms, terrific, though at EvC it's usually the case that the creationists have a favorite argument that nobody else is interested in. But "deeper?" I don't even know what that could possibly mean.
I don't see the purpose of such careful definition in this debate, and don't want to participate in it. If you define science in such a way that I can't use it to describe the creationist effort to reinterpret the known evidence that is currently used to support evolution,
The distinction between science and pseudoscience is very important to this discussion. How do we distinguish between those two categories?
Creationist arguments are not pseudoscience.
How do we determine that astrology, perpetual motion, numerology, aromatherapy, colon cleansing, and homeopathy are pseudoscience? None of these things necessarily invoke the supernatural, so in that way they are trying to understand the natural world, so why then are they not science?
I reject the comparison with creationism. I do not see that your examples are "trying to understand the natural world" at all. Most of them are a form of therapy, not science. Nothing to do with science. Period.
You may say it is because they have no basis in reality... but that is the point! How do we know that? In fact, the above listed pseudosciences might be right... aromatherapy may actually work, but it is still pseudoscience because of the way it is practiced - not based on the rightness or wrongness of the results. (Science is designed in such a way that it should weed out bad science, but that is not a prerequisite).
Those things aren't science at all, HBD. To me this is all a completely irrelevant red herring and I have no more to say about it.
The usual YEC approach is to tackle the claimed scientific support for the ToE.
Yes, and that is bogus.
Oh nonsense, it's a perfectly legitimate thing to do and it's exactly what creationism has to do.
Even if the ToE is proved wrong, that doesn't lend support to creationism. In order for creationism to be supported scientifically it needs to stand on its own merits.
That's just so much meaningless verbiage. If creationism successfully reinterprets evolutionist claims that's standing on its own merit right there, and besides, the point is to ANSWER those claims with the reinterpretation that supports the creationist model. This I believe has been done many times over as a matter of fact, by many creationists, and the reason it isn't acknowledged by believers in evolution is that it just IS all a matter of interpretation which you can choose to ignore, since the sciences of the unwitnessed past can't be replicated, tested and proved like regular science. Sorry you don't see it but that's the reason.
We believe that it is scientific, all the efforts to define it away notwithstanding...
Science is an investigation into the natural world such that it would be logically impossible for a creationist not to be doing science when our objective is the explanation of the natural world.
No,that is not enough. Other pseudosciences also try to understand the natural world.
No, that's wrong. None of those you listed are engaged in understanding the natural world. Your comparison is bogus and unfair.
There needs to be something more to the methodology. It is not a matter of me trying to define creationism out of science, it is recognizing the rigors that science requires in order to ensure that results are trustworthy.
Some creationists do that sort of work. Steve Austin is one, Paul Garner and others from British creationism also, probably others. At EvC there have been some scientifically trained creationists in the past, but now it's just us amateurs who like to argue.
The focus is the same nevertheless: reinterpreting the evolutionist explanations. Steve Austin made the case that the nautiloid fossils in the Grand Canyon area indicate mass burial rather than anything remotely like the standard explanation of Time Periods. He did it with lots of scientific tests and reasoning and to my mind proved his conclusions to be right.
Will the opposition even consider that? Nope. In fact what we most often hear about Steve Austin here is how the creationist organization he is part of paid for his Geology degree, hardly anything about his work at all.
And Paul Garner of the British team is studying the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon. I'm sure they'll prove their point too, but of course to the same deafening silence and dismissal. The video he did on the Grand Canyon that I've posted many times here covers many creationist reinterpretations that in my opinion should kill the evolutionist explanations, but it isn't going to happen.
There is no other kind of work creationism could possibly do, and to demand it is nothing but a distraction.
That particular argument is pretty sad, I agree, but that's not the sort of argument made by most creationists and it's really not fair of you to try to make it represent creationism in general.
It was Ken Ham. Although I looked for the link and couldn't find it. I have seen many similar arguments from him. If he isn't the face of creationism, who is?
Then let me guess that you may have misrepresented the argument somewhat, and also that he was specifically addressing Christians, since bringing up the Fall isn't something creationists normally do in debate with evolutionists, unless there is a specific reason for it which wasn't shown in that argument.
I'd like to leave the argument at this point unless there is something in particular you want me to address.
I don't want it to be an argument, I want it to be a discussion. I have raised some honest concerns about the legitimacy of creationism as a science.
I don't regard them as legitimate "concerns," HBD, just the usual attempt to define us away out of evo bias, sorry.
I have asked how can we determine if an investigation of the natural world (a "science") is science or pseudoscience. That is what I would like to discuss and would like a response to.
But as I said, I'm not interested in this discussion. I believe creationist arguments should be addressed without all this which is a side issue at best.
I say we can tell the difference because of the rigorous requirements that science has in regards to evidence, you believe it is something else. What is that something else?
I think most of this comes from the fact that you are doing scientific work as a scientist yourself, and because you believe in evolution you assume your work supports evolution, but there is no reason whatever to make that assumption. So you are confusing the work of a specific science with the scientific work of validating or invalidating the ToE.
Creationists reinterpret the same evidence evolutionists use. This IS the science IN creationism.
I was rather hoping you might make the effort to put the arguments you've already made into simple English.
But if not, I don't see anything in this post to continue discussing myself.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
™ Version 4.2
(1)