Please see Styx thread on the Registered Shipmates consultation for the main discussion forums - your views are important, continues until April 4th.

OT Difficulties - a Dead Horse diversion

123578

Comments

  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    Edit: I'm now in anguish - at the thought that we've persuaded MPaul that There Is Nothing Unbiblical About Slavery And Therefore It Is Permissible.

    Well, that's the danger of claiming the literal infallibility (and infallible literalism) of a text that promotes slavery and geocentrism. Some of the people who claim to take it literally actually take it literally. Still haven't heard @MPaul address my earlier point about Biblical cosmology.
  • Get a tape measure. If you go out to measure some sedimentary beds and still believe in creationism, I guarantee that I will have more respect for your position.

    It's not mockery, it is a sincere belief that the thing you are talking about is utterly utterly demolished with the simplest of experimentation and measurement of the natural world.

    If you didn't want your ideas challenged, why are you here? Why are you attempting to discuss science with people who are trained in science?

    Do you discuss accountancy with trained accountants - and tell them they are wrong based on a 'c' grade school mathematics certificate?

    Do you discuss anatomy with a doctor based on your careful study of Psalms and think it weighs as much as years of medical school?

    If not, what's the difference here?
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    MPaul wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Even if the Earth was crated 10,000 years ago, it still doesn't explain the geochronology of meteorites. Having sat through an AIG 'lecture' on how radiometric dating can be altered by environmental factors - as if my undergraduate geophysics unit hadn't already covered that in nit-picking detail - one simple question from me regarding the startling unanimity of results from chrondritic meteorites (they all fall within 100,000 years of each other, around the 4.65by mark - a result which I still find frankly boggling) leaves the lecturer stumbling.

    It's not that these people don't know of these findings. It's the inconvenience of them that embarrasses them. A bit like slavery in the Bible, I suppose.
    I cannot discuss technical stuff. AIG does have an article on meteorite ages by Andrew Snelling.https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/age-of-the-universe/radioisotope-dating-meteorites-v-isochron-ages-groups-meteorites/

    You cannot do links either. Let us try this one.

    If you have difficulty in reading and understanding the extensive previous material in that link, then I suggest you look at the part of the article headed "A Biblical Perspective". The kindest phrase I can use to describe the rationalisations in that segment of the article is that they require a non-perspicuous and highly speculative interpretation of Genesis 1. And the special pleading associated with speculations about accelerated radioisotope decay. how and when this started, is clearly circular and designed to fit in with a YEC timescale. The argument does not stand up to any serious examination.

    Is Andrew Snelling some sort of extra-biblical authority, but the way. If you cannot discuss technical stuff, then you must be trusting that Andrew Snelling has advanced reasonable arguments. I could find no evidence that his article has been subjected to proper peer review.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Even if the Earth was crated 10,000 years ago, it still doesn't explain the geochronology of meteorites. Having sat through an AIG 'lecture' on how radiometric dating can be altered by environmental factors - as if my undergraduate geophysics unit hadn't already covered that in nit-picking detail - one simple question from me regarding the startling unanimity of results from chrondritic meteorites (they all fall within 100,000 years of each other, around the 4.65by mark - a result which I still find frankly boggling) leaves the lecturer stumbling.

    It's not that these people don't know of these findings. It's the inconvenience of them that embarrasses them. A bit like slavery in the Bible, I suppose.
    I cannot discuss technical stuff. AIG does have an article on meteorite ages by Andrew Snelling.https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/age-of-the-universe/radioisotope-dating-meteorites-v-isochron-ages-groups-meteorites/

    You cannot do links either. Let us try this one.

    If you have difficulty in reading and understanding the extensive previous material in that link, then I suggest you look at the part of the article headed "A Biblical Perspective". The kindest phrase I can use to describe the rationalisations in that segment of the article is that they require a non-perspicuous and highly speculative interpretation of Genesis 1. And the special pleading associated with speculations about accelerated radioisotope decay. how and when this started, is clearly circular and designed to fit in with a YEC timescale. The argument does not stand up to any serious examination.

    Is Andrew Snelling some sort of extra-biblical authority, but the way. If you cannot discuss technical stuff, then you must be trusting that Andrew Snelling has advanced reasonable arguments. I could find no evidence that his article has been subjected to proper peer review.

    Interesting chap. Geologist. Publishes (or used to) in mainstream peer-reviewed geology journals where he uses conventional rock ages, and non-peer reviewed creationist journals where he - doesn't. It's almost as if for real useful scientific work the millions of years schemas actually work, whereas all you get with YEC schemas is stuff to make other YECists happy and give them another silver bullet with which to fail to slay the scientific nosferatu.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    ..Modern science thinks it knows better with its stories of deep space and gravitational attraction across vast gulfs of nothing, but those who take the Bible serious know this is all a desperate fake,
    Not sure who is doing the Gish gallop here but I am hearing the hoof beats. ISTM the Bible does not lock itself into a medieval view of the universe
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    edited October 2018
    hosting

    KarlLB, This is not Hell and you've had one warning already. Stuff like this
    Tl;dr version - you're talking out of the wrong end of your digestive tract.


    is personal insult and breaks C3.

    Please dial it back or take it to Hell if you can't. This is your second warning and if that fails, I usually ask the admins to step in.

    Thanks
    Louise
    Dead Horses Host
    hosting off
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Ah. Andrew Snelling is a mercenary. It did feel as though the portion 'A Biblical Perspective' had been grafted on. Presumably on the ground that it might be the only part of the article that YEC supporters would look at in any real detail.

    MPaul, did you understand the Snelling article? I can tell you that it does not help your argument.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    You cannot do links either. Let us try this one.

    Well, I wasted five minutes of my life reading the abstract.

    "Accelerated radioisotope decay" is an interesting - I use that in the loosest terms - phrase, because I actually spent a couple of weeks modelling it using classical heat transfer equations. Trust me, if we had "accelerated radioisotope decay", the energy generated would have most likely have overcome the gravitational attraction of the planet, and would with absolute certainty have kept Earth a molten ball of rock for a lot longer than 6000 years.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    The cosmology of Genesis is that the world is under a massive vault (NIV) or firmament (KJV), above which there is a massive amount of water. (There's water underneath, too). The sun, moon, and stars are all hanging on this vault/firmament, so they're more or less all the same distance from the earth. Additionally there are floodgates (NIV) or windows (KJV) in the vault/firmament which God can open whenever he feels a little genocidy, allowing the waters above the firmament to flood the earth.

    This image is consistent with other Middle Eastern cosmologies of the time, which posited a flat earth under a dome, with water both above and below. Modern science thinks it knows better with its stories of deep space and gravitational attraction across vast gulfs of nothing, but those who take the Bible serious know this is all a desperate fake,
    Not sure who is doing the Gish gallop here but I am hearing the hoof beats. ISTM the Bible does not lock itself into a medieval view of the universe

    Doesn't it? Here's the opinion of our resident self-declared expert:
    MPaul wrote: »
    Without the flood, the Bible is utterly discredited.

    So the Biblical Flood is so central to the Bible that if it didn't happen as described the whole work is "utterly discredited". Which means that there must be literal windows (or floodgates) in the vault of the sky through which water can pour. Some might claim that's simply poetic language, but you know better. Just because something from the Bible might not match up with what science calls "reality" is no reason to dismiss such a notion.

    And I'd argue that the Bible is actually locking itself into a pre-Mediæval view of the universe.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Croesus: resident self-declared expert:
    OK, so lest we begin trading insults, I am bowing out now.


  • MPaul wrote: »
    Without the flood, the Bible is utterly discredited.
    Why? How?

    This really is a serious question, @MPaul. I struggle to understand why this would be so; it is frankly a foreign idea to me, so I’d like to understand why you think it is so.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Me too, Nick. Plenty of people who take the Bible very seriously regard the first 12 chapters of Genesis as myth that conveys truth without being some kind of factual narrative.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    Without the flood, the Bible is utterly discredited.
    Why? How?

    This really is a serious question, @MPaul. I struggle to understand why this would be so; it is frankly a foreign idea to me, so I’d like to understand why you think it is so.

    The flood is a landmark in the metanarrative of human history.

    It explains history.

    The explanation is two pronged; the two prongs are:

    Creation (what happened before it) and judgement, the flood itself. (It was a catastrophic event.)

    This illustrates both the power of God and the position of humanity.

    Thus the metanarrative moves from history to theology. (judgement is a theological issue.)

    Without the history, there can not be sensible theology.

    Summary:
    In simple Biblical terms you have an explanation of how we got here and what went wrong and what God did about it. This metanarrative creates a platform of redemption and hope, (a forward look.)

    Posit that there was no flood; what do we lose in our metanarrative?

    We lose our basis of history. IOW, our grasp of where we came from and who we are, how we were flawed, our redemptive connection to the creator and our basis for hope.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Now, that was a quick bow, wasn't it
  • We lose the need to throw out science, but we don't lose the concept of God's redemptive power. It's just framed on a non-historical narrative rather than a historical narrative. But so what? Our Lord's favorite way of teaching, according to the Evangelists, was with non-historical narratives. Like Father, like Son.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    The flood is a landmark in the metanarrative of human history.

    It explains history.

    The explanation is two pronged; the two prongs are:

    Creation (what happened before it) and judgement, the flood itself. (It was a catastrophic event.)

    This illustrates both the power of God and the position of humanity.

    Thus the metanarrative moves from history to theology. (judgement is a theological issue.)

    Without the history, there can not be sensible theology.

    Summary:
    In simple Biblical terms you have an explanation of how we got here and what went wrong and what God did about it. This metanarrative creates a platform of redemption and hope, (a forward look.)
    But why do the Flood and the creation account in the Bible have to be literally true for this to work? Most Christians would understand that those stories are telling truths about the power of God and position of humanity. Not the truth, but truths: emotional truth about the power of God, about the smallness of humankind compared to the universe and world, the vulnerability of humanity, the truth of hope that we can triumph after disaster. These stories made sense of things that happened and were beyond explanation at the time.
    Posit that there was no flood; what do we lose in our metanarrative?

    We lose our basis of history. IOW, our grasp of where we came from and who we are, how we were flawed, our redemptive connection to the creator and our basis for hope.

    But I would see the whole point of those stories as explaining exactly this. That we now know the world and universe were created differently doesn't remove the wonder. That we know that there was no world wide flood, but that there were localised floods which devastated those local communities. The fact that we can see evidence of flooding in the geological record suggests that - particularly when we can see the devastation of floods currently across the world. And we still need that hope - that working together we can halt global warming and our destruction of this planet and humanity or that we can help those in trouble.
  • There is absolutely no evidence of a global flood.

    Left with that reality we can do two things; one involves reconsidering our relation to foundational religious myths. The other involves closing eyes and stopping critical faculties and going nahnahnah.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Just reinforcing Louise's Host post. The disagreements are severe but can be voiced without impugning MPaul's intelligence e.g sarcastic swipes such as 'resident self-declared expert.' (Croesos)

    Please remember there is a border between 'that post is stupid' and 'you are stupid'.

    Barnabas62
    Dead Horses Host
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Posting as a Shipmate again.

    I remember MadGeo, a Shipmate geologist, observing that there was indeed evidence of a very severe flood in Black Sea sediments, but making the point that it was a local Flood not a global Flood. And indeed there is a Flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is perfectly possible to argue that both Gilgamesh and the Noah account are mythologised versions of catastrophic local flooding events.

    So far as theology is concerned, I agree with mousethief. And the unscientific speculations in Andrew Snelling's article show the desperate lengths one needs to go to in order to preserve the literal historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. MPaul provided a link which demonstrated the parlousness of the YEC case, as Doc Tor has also exemplified.
  • Oh my, this is an interesting discussion. One seldom encounters the argument that if what's written in the Bible doesn't match what we see in reality then it must be reality that's wrong.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Douglas Adams would be proud of us.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    What do we lose without the literal flood - well, we lose a genocidal deity whose idea of "salvation" is to float one family in a wooden boat while the bloated drowned bodies of babies he's killed bob to the surface around them. Bit of a win, really.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Since Mary Scjhweitzer has been mentioned, this article may be of interest: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/i-don-t-care-what-they-say-about-me-paleontologist-stares-down-critics-her-hunt

    Tellingly:
    "Hi Jack, I'm Mary," Schweitzer recalls telling him. "I'm a young Earth creationist. I'm going to show you that you are wrong about evolution."

    "Hi Mary, I'm Jack. I'm an atheist," he told her. Then he agreed to let her sit in on the course.

    Over the next 6 months, Horner opened Schweitzer's eyes to the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution and Earth's antiquity. "He didn't try to convince me," Schweitzer says. "He just laid out the evidence."

    She rejected many fundamentalist views, a painful conversion. "It cost me a lot: my friends, my church, my husband." But it didn't destroy her faith. She felt that she saw God's handiwork in setting evolution in motion. "It made God bigger," she says.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Indeed, how great indeed is God, who some 13.5 billion years ago (I can accept that intellectually but really can't comprehend it) created this universe; the greatest imaginable example of the shining/shekinah.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    For those who have been following the story, here is an explanation of the presence of soft tissue in some very old fossils.

    Note that the explanation was offered by Mary Schweitzer, who seems clearly enough not to be concerned about presenting controversial findings nor rushing to conclusions about the explanation for them. From the report, I'm not sure whether the explanation has been verified or confirmed by other researchers, but that is not really the point. There were those who rushed to the conclusion that because she was an evangelical her findings of soft tissue were dubious since they they might point towards some kind of YEC position. And there were "creation scientists" who rushed to judge that they might indeed to that. But Mary Schweitzer appears simply to have done her best to report the evidence and follow its implications, without being concerned about presuppositions, one way or another.

    I'm sorry that her honest acceptance of the great age of the earth, when shown the evidence for that, seems to have cost her both her marriage and her friendships in the evangelical community she belonged to. I don't know enough to explain what went on, but I find it sad that such a thing should have happened to her.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Curiosity: But why do the Flood and the creation account in the Bible have to be literally true for this to work
    There is no other sort of 'true' in this case because of the claimed historicity of the narrative.
    Mousethief: ..we don't lose the concept of God's redemptive power. It's just framed on a non-historical narrative rather than a historical narrative.

    Then you are left with a 'fictional' redemption from a fictional God who didn't do what he said because 'Science' (which is not really science, says so. Isn't real science, repeatable, and falsifiable? )

    What we have here are merely competing truth stories

    The bottom line of most comments here seems to be that so many experts say the rocks are old that they must be..the whole of academia that has anything to say says the universe is old.

    But consider that the 'whole of academia' has a corner on what they choose to define as science and what they allow to be published and peer reviewed and anyone ..ANYONE who has a contrary voice is mocked, pilloried or if they are a real scientist their funding cut or tenure terminated.
    eg

    https://insidehighered.com/news/2016/10/07/cal-state-northridge-settles-christian-lab-manager-who-said-he-was-fired-creationist

    The inconvenient truth is that the Bible does not agree.



  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    The Bible doesn't agree that the world is round, yet here we are.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    edited October 2018
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    The Bible doesn't agree that the world is round, yet here we are.
    The Bible does not teach a flat earth.
    Job 26:7 He hangs the world upon nothing

  • MPaul wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    Without the flood, the Bible is utterly discredited.
    Why? How?

    This really is a serious question, @MPaul. I struggle to understand why this would be so; it is frankly a foreign idea to me, so I’d like to understand why you think it is so.

    The flood is a landmark in the metanarrative of human history.

    It explains history. . . .
    @MPaul, thank you. I appreciate your response and your laying out your perspective for me.

    Admittedly, I don’t see things the way you do or approach Scripture the way you do. I see things much more like @mousethief and @Curiosity killed have described, and as some others have said, that approach enhances rather than diminishes my faith and my sense of awe at God’s greatness, redemptive power and loving kindness.

    But I asked the question of you in good faith—not to set-up a “gotcha,” but to understand as best I can where you’re coming from rather than to make assumptions about where you’re coming from—so I don’t intend at this point to try to argue the issue. I accept that you are trying to be faithful and take Scripture seriously, even while I don’t agree with your interpretation. I would simply encourage you to recognize, if you don’t already, that we Christians who understand Scripture differently from you are nevertheless also trying to be faithful and take Scripture seriously, even while you don’t agree with our interpretation.

  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    1. I agree with Nick Tamen. Somehow or other we need to disentangle the issue of scriptural exegesis from the issue of scientific findings.

    2. On the latter issue, the link you provided re Mark Armitage does not demonstrate what you claim. His published article in the peer reviewed journal made no reference to any claim of the age of the fossil. Entering into debate with his students about the age of the fossil, which he clearly believed supported his YEC, crossed the boundary between teaching science and teaching religion. That did deserve a reprimand. He was asserting before his students a position which went beyond the claims in his own paper. If he had published those claims in the peer reviewed article that would have been another matter.

    You should also note that the link I published re the survival of soft tissues in fossils post dates the article you linked and provides an explanation consistent with such fossils having a great age. These comparatively rare findings of very small quantities of soft tissue in fossils are certainly a curiosity but they are not being sat upon by scientists and are subject to further research and peer review. They do nothing to invalidate the great age of the earth, or the almost universally accepted great age of dinosaurs.

    I note you have not responded to either me or Doc Tor re the evidence of meteorites and lunar rocks (evidence without fossils) which give the age for solid rocks in the solar system as over 4.5 billion years. As Doc Tor observed, the claim in Dr Andrew Snelling's article re the possibility of accelerated radioisotope decay is ludicrous because of the energy release involved. Indeed that part of Dr Snelling's article is little more than a reworking of the old 'Did Adam have a navel' supposition. God could have created all this apparent and consistent evidence of great age in rocks and fossils as part of some purpose of His own (as He could have made Adam with a navel). But that does not get round the moral argument that if that is true God has created an inherently deceptive earth and universe with ubiquitous evidence of great age.

    Marvin is right. It is the same claim that the fictional publishers of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy make in Douglas Adams' very funny books. If the contents of this book conflict with reality, then reality is wrong. That in essence seems to me to be the position you are defending.
  • No. We end up with real redemption from a real God who is teaching us using stories, just like Jesus did.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Barnabas 52: the latter issue, the link you provided re Mark Armitage does not demonstrate what you claim
    I made no claim. The court decision says it all. It And elsewhere, Armitage has also looked at the possibility that iron can account for the preservation of soft tissue in fossil bones concluding that it is ludicrous. Really, the scrambling over this and the determination to ignore the obvious possibility..the bones just ain’t that old, is telling. It shows how much attitude is invested here.
    you have not responded to either me or Doc Tor re the evidence of meteorites and lunar rocks
    What response do you expect?
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    No. We end up with real redemption from a real God who is teaching us using stories, just like Jesus did.
    Well I disagree. You cannot posit a real God on the basis of a fictional story. The Bible clearly distinguishes between types of story. The flood story is neither myth nor parable.
  • I don't posit God from the first nine chapters of Genesis.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Of course, finding dinosaur proteins would be cala
    MPaul wrote: »
    Barnabas 52: the latter issue, the link you provided re Mark Armitage does not demonstrate what you claim
    I made no claim. The court decision says it all. It And elsewhere, Armitage has also looked at the possibility that iron can account for the preservation of soft tissue in fossil bones concluding that it is ludicrous. Really, the scrambling over this and the determination to ignore the obvious possibility..the bones just ain’t that old, is telling. It shows how much attitude is invested here.
    you have not responded to either me or Doc Tor re the evidence of meteorites and lunar rocks
    What response do you expect?

    Well, the ideal one would be "you're right; I need to reconsider my position." but one other option is to refute mainstream science. Of course, good luck with that. A final option is to declare that God created the appearance of age but then you have to deal with the apparent deceptiveness of God. Not good options any of them really, but, well, you've been sold a pup with YEC, I'm afraid.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    No. We end up with real redemption from a real God who is teaching us using stories, just like Jesus did.
    Well I disagree. You cannot posit a real God on the basis of a fictional story. The Bible clearly distinguishes between types of story. The flood story is neither myth nor parable.

    You might want to contemplate the use of parables in the gospels.

    Of poetry. Of storytelling.

    The idea that you can't posit what God is like based in poetry, story and fiction is disproved by the Bible itself.

    Unless you are trying to tell me that God really is a chicken.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    There was no court decision, MPaul. There was an out of court settlement, for legal costs reasons. And there was no admission of guilt. The question of wrongful dismissal on grounds of religious freedom remains an unanswered question.

    Armitage's opinion that the iron argument is 'ludicrous' is an assertion, rather than a refutation. The rare occurrence of soft tissue evidence does not overturn the evidence that dinosaur fossils are millions of years old. It is a conundrum which I would think is still being explored, as I said in my post. Scientists explore conundrums, advance hypotheses, test them. It's a slow, patient process.

    So far as the evidence of the age of rocks (meteorites and lunar rocks) is concerned, there is a scientific dimension and a moral dimension. The scientific dimension is whether the radioisotope dating stands up to scientific scrutiny. The Snelling article does not disprove it and the argument re accelerated radioisotope decay definitely is ludicrous for the reason Doc Tor gave. It is special pleading, not peer reviewed science. By all means feel free to discuss the merits of the scientific findings on their own terms. You have not done that so far.

    Leaving aside the science, I am also interested in your opinion about why there is this massive amount of confirmed evidence that the universe is billions of years old and the earth is too. Why should God create a universe and an earth 6K years ago with evidence in it from geology, radioisotope findings, and astronomical observations (all different areas of scientific exploration) that they are aeons older than that? Why should God wish to confound honest enquiry by creating such a plethora of deceptive evidence?

    The argument that God, being omnipotent, could somehow 'rig' the evidence for mysterious purposes of His own (the extension of the Adam's navel argument) seems to lack moral credibility on the grounds of wholesale deceptiveness. Why should He want to fool us?



  • MPaul wrote: »
    Barnabas 52: the latter issue, the link you provided re Mark Armitage does not demonstrate what you claim
    I made no claim. The court decision says it all. It And elsewhere, Armitage has also looked at the possibility that iron can account for the preservation of soft tissue in fossil bones concluding that it is ludicrous. Really, the scrambling over this and the determination to ignore the obvious possibility..the bones just ain’t that old, is telling. It shows how much attitude is invested here.
    you have not responded to either me or Doc Tor re the evidence of meteorites and lunar rocks
    What response do you expect?

    The thing is that one obviously can pick up on disagreements between scientists.

    But unlike creationists, scientists accept that there are disagreements (sometimes ongoing and loud) without this undermining the whole basis of the science.

    As I alluded to before, there is an ongoing disagreement about how to define species. At last count there are more than 10 different ways to define a species with some vocal proponents of different views. I'm not sure it has quite got as far as court cases, but this isn't an entirely unknown scenario between different groups of scientists.

    Anyway, one could, from the outside wave arms around and declare that a lack of agreement means that the edifice of biological classification is bunk. That this shows that it is all made up.

    But -

    First, unless you have a deep engagement with the arguments, you are not in a position to criticise them or make statements about what they mean.

    Second, you can't, with any credibility take a single finding out of context and declare it to be a smoking gun. Not unless you are a scientist from within that academic community, and most of the time not even then.

    Third, those who do these things can and should be dismissed as intellectual mercineries, hungrily lapping up any little scientific disagreement for their own agenda. It's hard to see that as any kind of good faith argument.

    Who cares what creationists think about dinosaur bones? Nobody except creationists.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    MPaul wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    The Bible doesn't agree that the world is round, yet here we are.
    The Bible does not teach a flat earth.
    Job 26:7 He hangs the world upon nothing.

    I said flat, not balanced on the back of a giant turtle...
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    Barnabas 52: the latter issue, the link you provided re Mark Armitage does not demonstrate what you claim
    I made no claim. The court decision says it all. It And elsewhere, Armitage has also looked at the possibility that iron can account for the preservation of soft tissue in fossil bones concluding that it is ludicrous. Really, the scrambling over this and the determination to ignore the obvious possibility..the bones just ain’t that old, is telling. It shows how much attitude is invested here.
    you have not responded to either me or Doc Tor re the evidence of meteorites and lunar rocks
    What response do you expect?

    The thing is that one obviously can pick up on disagreements between scientists.

    But unlike creationists, scientists accept that there are disagreements (sometimes ongoing and loud) without this undermining the whole basis of the science.

    As I alluded to before, there is an ongoing disagreement about how to define species. At last count there are more than 10 different ways to define a species with some vocal proponents of different views. I'm not sure it has quite got as far as court cases, but this isn't an entirely unknown scenario between different groups of scientists.

    Anyway, one could, from the outside wave arms around and declare that a lack of agreement means that the edifice of biological classification is bunk. That this shows that it is all made up.

    But -

    First, unless you have a deep engagement with the arguments, you are not in a position to criticise them or make statements about what they mean.

    Second, you can't, with any credibility take a single finding out of context and declare it to be a smoking gun. Not unless you are a scientist from within that academic community, and most of the time not even then.

    Third, those who do these things can and should be dismissed as intellectual mercineries, hungrily lapping up any little scientific disagreement for their own agenda. It's hard to see that as any kind of good faith argument.

    Who cares what creationists think about dinosaur bones? Nobody except creationists.
    That is a beautiful balanced statement. It has the balance of reason,the cadence of poetry and the polemicism of preaching.

    It says and seems to imply questionable things though..viz:

    You have to be a scientist to have a reasonable opinion of things touched by science otherwise no 'deep engagement' with the arguments is possible.

    People with expertise who disagree with the mainstream, have no credibility, whatever findings they may come up with, because they are out of step.

    People such as creationists have so little credibility, they can be safely dismissed.

    Essentially, this seems to promote 'scientism', the belief that Science has or is finding solutions for the rest of us to the really big questions and these are out of our league. I can't question biological or palaeontological conclusions because I lack the competence.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited October 2018
    MPaul

    I'm not a scientist either. I lack the competence to do scientific research. My field of professional expertise was IT but that has moved on such a long way since I retired that I've moved from practitioner to not-so-intelligent user!

    But I can follow arguments, check out logical consistency, in most fields of human enquiry. Critical processes are pretty much the same in all fields and it is possible to work through the difficulties presented by technical language.

    If scientism means an unwarranted extension of scientific findings and hypotheses outside of the fields of enquiry in which they arose, then I am suspicious of it too. But I didn't think mr cheesy was suggesting that. Why do you think he was?
  • MPaul wrote: »
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    Barnabas 52: the latter issue, the link you provided re Mark Armitage does not demonstrate what you claim
    I made no claim. The court decision says it all. It And elsewhere, Armitage has also looked at the possibility that iron can account for the preservation of soft tissue in fossil bones concluding that it is ludicrous. Really, the scrambling over this and the determination to ignore the obvious possibility..the bones just ain’t that old, is telling. It shows how much attitude is invested here.
    you have not responded to either me or Doc Tor re the evidence of meteorites and lunar rocks
    What response do you expect?

    The thing is that one obviously can pick up on disagreements between scientists.

    But unlike creationists, scientists accept that there are disagreements (sometimes ongoing and loud) without this undermining the whole basis of the science.

    As I alluded to before, there is an ongoing disagreement about how to define species. At last count there are more than 10 different ways to define a species with some vocal proponents of different views. I'm not sure it has quite got as far as court cases, but this isn't an entirely unknown scenario between different groups of scientists.

    Anyway, one could, from the outside wave arms around and declare that a lack of agreement means that the edifice of biological classification is bunk. That this shows that it is all made up.

    But -

    First, unless you have a deep engagement with the arguments, you are not in a position to criticise them or make statements about what they mean.

    Second, you can't, with any credibility take a single finding out of context and declare it to be a smoking gun. Not unless you are a scientist from within that academic community, and most of the time not even then.

    Third, those who do these things can and should be dismissed as intellectual mercineries, hungrily lapping up any little scientific disagreement for their own agenda. It's hard to see that as any kind of good faith argument.

    Who cares what creationists think about dinosaur bones? Nobody except creationists.
    That is a beautiful balanced statement. It has the balance of reason,the cadence of poetry and the polemicism of preaching.

    It says and seems to imply questionable things though..viz:

    You have to be a scientist to have a reasonable opinion of things touched by science otherwise no 'deep engagement' with the arguments is possible.

    People with expertise who disagree with the mainstream, have no credibility, whatever findings they may come up with, because they are out of step.

    People such as creationists have so little credibility, they can be safely dismissed.

    Essentially, this seems to promote 'scientism', the belief that Science has or is finding solutions for the rest of us to the really big questions and these are out of our league. I can't question biological or palaeontological conclusions because I lack the competence.

    That's not Scientism.

    You don't get to redefine terms.
  • On the substantive point - nobody would claim that an amateur was qualified to critique a complex area of law or accountancy.

    And yet, creationists with absolutely no training or relevant qualifications - and, it appears, no desire to actually investigate the available evidence for themselves - think that they somehow have a credible platform to discuss complex areas of science.

    No.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    To be fair, the ones who take the time to understand the science - really understand it, study it academically, do actual research, tend not to stay creationists.

    The point about finding explanations for ancient soft tissue is not about there being a lot "at stake" maintaining the millions of years paradigm - it's that a young age contradicts mountains of other evidence that places non-avian dinosaurs bang in the mid to late Mesozoic, no later than around 65 million years ago. A young age conclusion would also have to explain why all that is also wrong.

    A creationist canard is that evolution needs deep time so geology is interpreted to enable it. This is arse about face; geologists were increasing the lower limit on the age of the earth based on various observations for a century before Darwin; early palaeontology was already aware of the existence of palaeoflora and fauna that differed from modern forms. It's no surprise that Darwin and Wallace had both reached the same conclusions at much the same time - the stage was set, the underpinnings were already there.
  • @MPaul, laying aside evolution for a moment, you seem to think the Bible requires the Earth to be young. What's your scriptural basis for that, exactly?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    @MPaul, laying aside evolution for a moment, you seem to think the Bible requires the Earth to be young. What's your scriptural basis for that, exactly?

    Isn't that one obvious? World created in six days, Adam created on the sixth, full genealogy to Jacob moving the family to Egypt, ages of patriarchs when they procreated given in Genesis...
  • I suppose it is also about the Bible 'lying' if there were additional generations unmentioned in the genealogies.

    I don't accept this notion of truth.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    The section headed "History" is quite informative about the various young earth dates which emerged from calculations based on the internal statements of age found in the OT and NT.

    And here is an interesting article re the methods applied by Archbishop Ussher (probably the best known name amongst the young earth chronologists.

    What is clear is that in all the methods used, the stated chronologies in scripture were regarded as authoritative, though not all that easy too string together.

    I think the arguments in this thread and others similar in DH have always been about the extent to which Creation itself "speaks" of its age, and whether fallible human beings can "hear" what it says about itself. There is no doubt of the vast array of findings, peer reviewed and replicated, in many fields of scientific research into the earth and the cosmos which seem to honest observers to "speak clearly" about the very old age of the earth and the even older age of the observable universe.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote an excellent short essay on Ussher, his work in general and on the calculation of the day of creation in particular. There can be no doubt that Ussher applied vast reading and learning to the task (at the cost of administering his province). Having completed his great task found a mistake about halfway through and had to redo the calculations. Totally wrong by our present day knowledge - but who's to say that in a couple of hundred years an error will not be found which puts the age at 15 billion years ago, or even more. Perhaps a billion or 2 less.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    What is clear is that in all the methods used, the stated chronologies in scripture were regarded as authoritative, though not all that easy too string together.

    The bolded part is why I'd like to hear @MPaul's answer rather than those of his detractors.
This discussion has been closed.