Who's Held To Higher Standards At EvC?

Are you SDA, Buz?
Shabbat Shalom!
God bless and keep you.
George

It isn't totally incomprehensible since many have given their life to help forge the kind of society that they wish to see. I'm not sure why you say this. I won't "live and let live" if someone doesn't want to reciprocate, that's true. But I don't have any disagreement with you holding your beliefs as you've laid them out. I think we can peacefully co-exist rather easily.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-18-2004 12:39 AM

I don't actually think you are necessarily doing that. For me, however, the diametric opposition between the way science approaches the acquisition of "knowledge" (and I use the term advisedly), and the way religion in general approaches it presents the most obvious dichotomy - and serves as a very useful point of departure for discussion. I didn't mean to imply you were stuck on that issue. I'd like to pursue this, but I think you're right that it belongs elsewhere. It might make for a very interesting topic. I'll wait for you to decide how you want to proceed.

Thanks for that blessing, Pecos! The same to you! I'll need it for the debate. I attend a 7th day Baptist church regularly, but not a member.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz

Are the words below yours?
Unless I misread your contingency, then they carry a contingency.
If I don't dance to the music you play, you'll do what?-------Au contraire! If the creationists will stay out of the classrooms and in their churchs then we will all (almost I must admit) be glad to live and let live.However, the creationists are the ones who have a problem with the live and let live idea.-------Creationists are the ones that have a problem........geez, Ned, why don't you lump them all together. It's evident you've encountered each and everyone of them with identical results....and I just told you I couldn't care less what you believe. If it makes you happy, then I'm happy, too.This message has been edited by PecosGeorge, 12-19-2004 05:27 PM

Sorry, I should stick to the word "literalists". If one has to use a single word that is probably closest. If that is the form of 'creationist' we are talking about then a lumping together isn't, in my opinion, too unfair. There is, I suggest, a majority of them that are very ready to interfere in the classroom.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-19-2004 05:44 PM

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Science is the ultimate handicapper. It doesn't matter how foolish either of us is. If data falsifies a theory, then the theory must be dropped. Period. If there is no data supporting your theory or hypothesis, it must be dropped. Period. The only foolishness involved is arrogance, believing that you are correct in the face of falsifying evidence.

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Why is it insufficient to claim a cell (for example) as evidence, based on its clear design and conlude that it was designed? I understand that it is a subjective opinion that it was designed, but it is also apparent. Just as it is apparent to many of you that fossils farther down in the rock layers are older, I am saying that a cell that looks designed is designed. How is this fundamentally different?

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This is why I want you to read my thread on ERV's.

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I did actually read the thread on ERV's, and I think it is quite good. The data itelf doesn't really convince though, you are just drawing subjective conclusions from it. IMHO.

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The normal creationist reaction to this type of challenge is to cry "unfair, unfair".

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Yes, that is probably true. I don't think it is unfair, but I tend to think that if you reject everything other than human observation of experiments, you are likely to miss truth. Again, IMHO.

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Under solipcism, all knowledge may be equally untrustworthy, but scientific knowledge is the only knowledge that's at all useful. You sure you want to go there?

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Probably not. I don't even know what solipcism is. But, I don't mean to suggest that scientific knowledge isn't useful, just that it isn't the only useful knowledge. IMHO

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Maestro232 rejects the standards of science, but hasn't proposed what standards he would use in their place.

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Whoops, I responded to a few posts before I got to Admins. I will try to stay on topic more carefully. I guess the best way is to go back to this thought as you put it. It was a partially incorrect characterization of my opinion, so I'll elaborate on it a bit.1) I don't reject the standards of science, but I do question 'science' as we are thinking of it as the best and only way for us to know truth.Why?1.a) It is my perception of science through history that many incorrect things were taken as truth which were not. This introduces a fair amount of doubt into the scientific process.1.b) There is, IMHO, enough subjectivity built into the scientific process that I suspect individual and corporate tampering and stacking of scientific experimentation takes place (on either side of this debate).1.c) There is too much of an avalanche effect in proving theories. i.e., assumptions built on assumptions built on assumptions slowly turn to fact and are used as such to justify other hypothesis. This results in no consideration of something completely different from evolution. It is taken for granted that evolution happened, so all of the evidence will tend to support it as scientists mold their story ONLY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF EVOLUTION. But, perhaps all the evidence could also mold a non-evolutionary story, but scientists will not consider it, because they're interpretation of data is already trapped within an evolutionary context. Put simply, science tends to limit our thinking more narrowly than the truth might lie.What of a solution then?2) A process of seeking truth which explores both spiritual and scientific realms.Why?2.a) We ARE spiritual beings, so we should not neglect that realm2.b) As a principal, widening our scope of information gathering should only include our likelihood of finding truth.Conclusion?3) Because we are talking about evolution and creation, and those typically on the creation side find spiritual, philosophical, and other non-scientific realms as useful to the debate, we should not be so limiting in this debate as to only accept experiments as our support for our theories.

So would you recommend personal revelation or sacred texts as a preferred alternative support.Surely if the problem is, as you suggest, that the scientists mind set is predisposed to find evolutionary patterns, then those working in creation science should be emminently suited to produce significant worthwhile research which could disrupt the current evolutionary paradigm, but they have yet to produce any such research. This is true to an extent but only in a limited sense, one of the advantages of science is that the methodology tends to force one inexorably towards the 'truth' and leave less and less room for incorrect pet theories. Occasionaly this does require the dismantling of some previous structures of thought, but the fact thjis has happened many times previously should give you more rather than less faith in science, although not neccessarily in any particular theory.What actual evidence do you have that we are spiritual beings?Your principal, (that widening our scope of information gathering should only include[sic] our likelihood of finding truth) is correct in principle but in the short term the more irrelevant noise is thrown into the equation the longer it is going to take to find any worthwhile or meaningful conclusions.TTFN,WK

The design doesn't happen to be so clear. It happens to look a lot like the kind of result we would get from a process that is know to produce apparant designs. Saying something is obvious is, in this case, not helpful. We have an alternative that has been shown to work. You have not shown the designer or how it would have designed.The rock layers being taken as older if underneath others isn't the same. Do you have an alternative explanation? (I am talking about relative age here remember.) Since there is no working alternative explanation the best we can do is reach a conclusion that a rock layer that is lower is old. How much older we will leave till later. Then describe the alternative conclusion that you would make and show the logic connecting it to the available evidence just as others have done with their ideas. You are starting to sound like someone who is closed up tight and rejecting anything you don't happen to like just because you don't like it. No other reason. You have been asked to show an example using other methods for arriving at conclusions about the natural world. Use an example or two to demonstrate how it works and why it is better.

Good luck. This is precisely the nature of the challenge I posed to him - I even gave him the examples to discuss. So far, it appears he is indisposed to discuss them.

Let's contrast the two. It's apparent, not just to me but to everyone, including you, that lower layers must have been deposited before higher layers (geologic actions can rotate layers, including complete inversions, but these are later events not related to the original formation of the layers). I don't want to appear patronizing, so I won't explain the logic behind the Law of Superposition, which is the formal name for this principle, but if it truly isn't apparent to you then we can discuss it.How is design apparent in biological structures? I ask this not to change the topic, but more to highlight that the way you know biological structures are designed is not based upon evidence. I think you're confusing two different kinds of truth. There's the truth of science, for example, the truth of how objects are affected by gravity, or the truth of how the boiling temperature of water is affected by atmospheric pressure. But these are not spirtual truths, and most scientists don't refer to such findings as truths at all. Genuine truths are timeless and unchanging, while science is tentative and not tied forever to any interpretation or perspective. Science doesn't uncover truths, it develops theories that strive to make sense of our universe.You're talking about a different kind of truth, a truth that speaks of man's relation to the universe and with God. You say you think the approach of science will miss truths, but it isn't looking for these kinds of truths, so of course it will miss them. To return to the gravity example, when measuring the changing velocity of an object in a gravitational field, God isn't really a factor. Or to take a more mundane example, the next time you're trying to figure out what's wrong with your car, let me know how you're including the search for truth and your relationship with God.Staying within the confines of the realm of science, if you still think the scientific method is missing something scientific, I think it would help if you could provide an example of the kind of things you think it is missing.--Percy

Wounded King,You do raise some good points. I will respond to them as best I can.

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So would you recommend personal revelation or sacred texts as a preferred alternative support.

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Not as alternatives, but as supplements. For example, if we were to look at some of these sacred texts such as Isaiah, where Isaiah claims to be a prophet speaking the words of God, and we examine his claims and then find his predictions to come true later in history, perhaps this tells us that something otherworldy was indeed going on here. Perhaps this tells us that Isaiah is trustworthy. What I mean is, to the extent that we can verify that texts are likely correct, they should be reasonable to include in the scope of our discussion. And, to the extent that we see a pattern of correct predictions from a particular persons revelations come to pass, we can have some measure of faith in their revelations that have not come to pass.I would say, 1, we can look at texts and revelations and hold them up to scrutiny and if they are trustworthy, trust them and include them in the discussion, and 2, that there are other things in the list besides texts, revelations, and experiments that might be useful to include.

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Surely if the problem is, as you suggest, that the scientists mind set is predisposed to find evolutionary patterns, then those working in creation science should be emminently suited to produce significant worthwhile research which could disrupt the current evolutionary paradigm, but they have yet to produce any such research.

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I think your assertion is correct. However, I find that creationist's assertions have been rejected. That we say we can verify an intelligent being through scientific research is not accepted by much of the scientific community. Behe, et. al. do not get an ear. I know the claim is that they haven't proven anything, but we find their hypothesis quite logical and shown to be so through their research. What can I say, if they are rejected, it doesn't change that they believe they have been delivering a sufficient case.

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What actual evidence do you have that we are spiritual beings?

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What physical evidence do I have that we are spiritual? This could be a difficult discussion. Nonetheless, if historical accounts lend any support, then I would say we have the Gospels in the Scriptures which evidence it.

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What actual evidence do you have that we are spiritual beings?

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True, as it was our designers choice to include some wonder and mystery in His creation, but I would still claim that it seems apparent by looking at this world. We can agree to disagree on that though.

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You have been asked to show an example using other methods for arriving at conclusions about the natural world. Use an example or two to demonstrate how it works and why it is better.

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By the nature of this forum, because I am proposing non-scientific arguments, the response will be that they it is invalid because it is unscientific. ( That is my spiritual prediction )Nonetheless, because you fairly asked:Let us say that we are questioning the natural aspects of circumcision. Science might conclude that it is pointless. Yet, if we were to step away from science and instead use the scriptures as a barometer, we would see that God spoke to His people and told them to circumcize their baby boys on the eighth day. Interestingly enough, it just so happens that babies vitamin K shoots up miraculously on the eighth day only to accomodate this procedure so the wound can close and heal. The non-scientific explanation for this is that God built this in to His design to accomodate His command. None of this really makes any contextual sense in science though, because it would just look at the procedure and say, "This is not useful."What I am trying to show with this example (I hope successfully), is that Holy commands have some mystery to them that science could not discover. Yet, once we have seen that God commanded it, science can then verify the scientific process occurs in the babies to accomodate His command. God gives science context. Otherwise, it is meaningless!IMHO.