The fact that there's no "Evidence of Creation" article makes me doubt Wikipedia's neutrality. That's not the only reason, of course, but it's a significant one related to our current discussion.
Wikipedia has an explicit npov (neutral point of view) policy. Some wikipedians believe strongly that it should adhere to a scientific point of view, but this proposal has been rejected. Anyway, the reason there's no such article is because there is no evidence. Would you really expect there to be an article for Evidence of geocentrism? If you're really curious, you can create the article, and if it doesn't survive, you can find out exactly why.
Dacicus wrote:
I'll explain all of those "comparative <whatever>" ones quickly. You can find the rest on Answers in Genesis. The comparative <whatever> argument is that various organisms, organs, cellular components, cellular processes, etc. from different sources studied in the field of <whatever> are similar or the same, so they must have come from a common ancestor at some point. However, this can also be interpreted as a manifestation of God's omniscience. He created the characteristic in question in different creatures based on a common design. It's like theme and variations in music or standard libraries in programming or using the same materials to make different kinds of buildings, automobiles, books, <insert> or... well, you get the idea.
Except that there's no reason to expect that. Why do species a, b, c, d, e, etc., etc., all have homologous organs when they probably could have been designed much more efficiently if those organs were redesigned for each species? In effect you're saying that god happened to create the species (genera, whatever) to appear exactly as they would if they were descended from a common ancestor. Also, that doesn't solve the problem of vestigial organs.
I'm not going to read through everything on aig, but I will say that I don't see how you can refute the evidence from fossils.
Dacicus wrote:
No, it's not. The most serious issue with it is that you have to assume what amounts of the isotopes in question were originally there. You also have to assume that the amounts were left unchanged from the moment the thing died to the moment it was tested; for non-living things, this means that you assume that the amounts were not increased or decreased since the thing was formed until the testing. If these assumptions do not hold, radioisotope dating is useless.
No, you don't. Read wikipedia's article on radiometric dating. Also, if you do screw up a particular sample, that only means that that sample is useless, and not all the others. Radiometric dating gives results both internally and externally consistent, which can't be explained by systematic error or chance.
Dacicus wrote:
I could question pretty much every sentence in that post, but I'll just stick with this for now. The numbers that Truncated posted earlier show that there is by no means 100% agreement among scientists about the truthfulness of evolution. Furthermore, the numbers are affected by the phrasing of the question(s) in the poll/survey/whatever and how they are being interpreted by the analysts to decide who believes what.
He said the scientific community. Anyway, something like 99.9% of scientists in relevant fields accept evolution as fact, and that's pretty close to 100%.
And how does it affect this claim: "the geological age of the eath (by carbon dating) is far older than the age of the galaxy (based upon its rate of expansion)"?
Dacicus wrote:
The fact that there's no "Evidence of Creation" article makes me doubt Wikipedia's neutrality.
It's because no-one can provide the evidence (provided you understand what evidence means). A book written by people (fallible people, as you would say) who were born long after the events mentioned in it occured, can't be counted as one per se. But as suggested by Bob A, you could try.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
That's rich. I'd say there is a fair division between atheists who were born into believing families and atheists who were born into atheistic families. I'm of the prior. This means I had to counter my family, education, and society. I doubt you were born atheist and reasoned your way to such irrational beliefs. Don't tell me about open-mindedness.
Your statements indicate that you are no longer as open-minded as you may have been previously.
Fabian wrote:
I think Ramzi's point about atheists being raised in believing vs non-believing families is a good one.
There are atheists who were raised in Christian families, and there are Christians who were raised in atheist families. I don't understand what that is supposed to prove, other than that people are capable of changing their beliefs.
Bob A wrote:
Anyway, the reason there's no such article is because there is no evidence.
I've already said that the so-called "evidence for evolution" can be reinterpreted to support Creation. Facts do not, by themselves, nullify or validate any given theory. It is only in the interpretation of those facts that you can judge a theory. Your lack of belief in the existence of evidence does not mean there actually isn't any such evidence.
Bob A wrote:
Except that there's no reason to expect that. Why do species a, b, c, d, e, etc., etc., all have homologous organs when they probably could have been designed much more efficiently if those organs were redesigned for each species? In effect you're saying that god happened to create the species (genera, whatever) to appear exactly as they would if they were descended from a common ancestor.
So, you think it would be evidence against evolution if different organisms had dissimilar structures, instead of homologous ones? Don't you see that evolutionists would just change the theory to accomodate that, if it were the case? Instead of saying that there was one original thing from which everything is descended, they would just say that there were a bunch of them from which different types of organisms were descended, and they would say that evidence against evolution would be homologous structures. Actually, some of them are already saying that there was some sort of community of original things that exchanged genetic information because they've realized that the current diversity of genetic information could not have come from just one ancestor. My point is that this redefinition game prevents the falsifiability of the theory of evolution. Now, if the theory isn't falsifiable, it's not scientific.
Now, to deal with your "inefficient design" argument. You are assuming several things when you say that. One of them is that God designed* the creatures to be most efficient in the world as it is today. That is certainly wrong. The original creation was perfect, and the modern world is not. After the Fall, mutations in creatures' genetic information caused them to lose efficiency, if they didn't cause death before the creatures were even born. This genetic decay has continued until today, so the inefficiency has increased. The Flood is also an important factor. It destroyed the original creation, so that our modern world looks nothing like it in terms of geography, climate, etc. As the creatures were designed for the pre-Flood world, it is no surprise that they are less efficient in the current one. Therefore, you cannot use modern ideas of efficiency to judge the design of creatures that were created for a different world than the one we now know.
*Note: God did not "happen" to create creatures in some way, He purposefully designed them that way.
Bob A wrote:
Also, that doesn't solve the problem of vestigial organs.
Our lack of knowledge about an organ's function does not mean that it no longer has a function.
Bob A wrote:
I don't see how you can refute the evidence from fossils.
In a way, you could say that that's part of the purpose of the site, to show you how. They have a fossil section that you can read, so you don't have to look through everything. There's also a search feature. You can even contact them if you have specific questions.
Bob A wrote:
The article talks about those issues I presented, so they are relevant. The equation they give only works if you know the original ratio of parent to daughter isotope, and if you can show that no environmental factors changed it during the passage of time since the object was formed.
Bob A wrote:
Also, if you do screw up a particular sample, that only means that that sample is useless, and not all the others.
How do you know if you've messed up? If the numbers agree or disagree with what you already believe about the age of the object? That's circular reasoning.
moozooh wrote:
And how does it affect this claim: "the geological age of the eath (by carbon dating) is far older than the age of the galaxy (based upon its rate of expansion)"?
I was merely pointing out a word error. I don't believe his explanation.
moozooh wrote:
It's because no-one can provide the evidence (provided you understand what evidence means).
A book written by people (fallible people, as you would say) who were born long after the events mentioned in it occured, can't be counted as one per se.
Using your argument, anything written by modern people is even more removed from the events that you believe happened, so why should we count it as evidence?
That's rich. I'd say there is a fair division between atheists who were born into believing families and atheists who were born into atheistic families. I'm of the prior. This means I had to counter my family, education, and society. I doubt you were born atheist and reasoned your way to such irrational beliefs. Don't tell me about open-mindedness.
Your statements indicate that you are no longer as open-minded as you may have been previously.
I could agree with this, but framed differently. I am confident in what I believe, and am willing to change provided the right evidence. But nothing I've heard from anyone I've talked to has convinced me, and I'm skeptical that there is a theist with an argument I haven't heard before. I'm sure you're the same way: confident in your beliefs, unmoved by any atheistic arguments. Fact is, at the end of the day neither of us will change despite our willingness to. With that said, we still need to get along. I don't really care what anyone believes in, so long as it's not affecting me.
As for the evolution argument that's been taking place, I'll say there isn't a strict relationship between it and atheism, but a relationship none-the-less. It's kind of like how some companies are so confident in their product they will offer a free sample, knowing you'll love it and buy. I think teaching evolution and the scientific method will lead people to atheism, even if it's never mentioned explicitly.
I don't really care what anyone believes in, so long as it's not affecting me.
How do you know when it affects you or not?
Ramzi wrote:
I think teaching evolution and the scientific method will lead people to atheism, even if it's never mentioned explicitly.
I agree with that. However, I think it will be a result of the evolutionary part of the teaching, not the scientific method part. In other words, the students will only be able to use the scientific method to look at the world from an evolutionary viewpoint because they haven't learned any other viewpoint. Should they be taught Biblical Creation and the scientific method, I think you'll see them turn to Christianity. Should they be taught the scientific method without any theory of origins, they'll probably use it to justify whatever theory they already believe or favor. In other words, I don't believe the scientific method by itself can generally convince people that one theory about origins is better than another, but that the philosophical background upon which the scientific method is built does that.
I don't really care what anyone believes in, so long as it's not affecting me.
How do you know when it affects you or not?
Ramzi wrote:
I think teaching evolution and the scientific method will lead people to atheism, even if it's never mentioned explicitly.
I agree with that. However, I think it will be a result of the evolutionary part of the teaching, not the scientific method part. In other words, the students will only be able to use the scientific method to look at the world from an evolutionary viewpoint because they haven't learned any other viewpoint. Should they be taught Biblical Creation and the scientific method, I think you'll see them turn to Christianity. Should they be taught the scientific method without any theory of origins, they'll probably use it to justify whatever theory they already believe or favor. In other words, I don't believe the scientific method by itself can generally convince people that one theory about origins is better than another, but that the philosophical background upon which the scientific method is built does that.
I guess everything affects me if you want to be technical. Chaos butterflies, and the like. Even you have a force of gravity on me. But typically I mean something affects me if it stops me from the living the type of life I want to. Two gay dudes having sex somewhere does not affect me. Saying they cannot have sex with each other because it's immoral does affect them.
What do you mean "the philosophical background upon which the scientific method is built"?
I've checked them out, some of the articles I've read seem pretty valid. Why don't you make an article for that?
Dacicus wrote:
Using your argument, anything written by modern people is even more removed from the events that you believe happened, so why should we count it as evidence?
Everything (well, almost) written by modern people can be proven using the same (or better) methods as described by those people, for everyone willing to do that, which probably is the main part of my point. That's why I have much more confidence in that, than in the events that could be described ONLY (!) by someone who actually was there when they happened, and as far as I know, there wasn't anyone to see and write all that down. Thus, I don't see how can such a thing be trusted.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
As this is primarily a board about video games, I must ask if you're referring to chaos theory or to some sort of monster from a game I haven't played.
Ramzi wrote:
Two gay dudes having sex somewhere does not affect me. Saying they cannot have sex with each other because it's immoral does affect them.
If you only care about things that affect you, and this action does not affect you, why do you care about people saying it's immoral?
Ramzi wrote:
What do you mean "the philosophical background upon which the scientific method is built"?
I mean the other assumptions added to the fundamental assumptions of the scientific method. I've listed some of the fundamental assumptions of the scientific method before, but I'll do it again:
1. The universe exists, as do we.
2. The universe is organized, i.e., it consistently follows rules/laws in its natural state.
3. Our senses can be trusted to give us accurate information about the universe.
4. There is a correct way to analyze/interpret the information.
5. We have reason that we can use to correctly analyze/interpret the information and learn about the universe.
These seem trivial, but science would be much different if any of them were changed. If you think that any of them are not essential, I guess we can argue about them, or about their wording.
Now, some additional assumptions that one could add to those, which affect how one uses the scientific method, are:
1. There are(/are not) beings(/forces/whatever) that are not confined to the universe and/or by its rules/laws.
2. The universe was(/was not) created by an omnipotent, omniscient God*.
3. The processes that we observe today have(/have not) been the same throughout the history of the universe(/earth).
4. It is(/is not) possible to learn everything about the universe using our senses and our reason.
5. The universe has(/has not) always existed.
These assumptions are not exhaustive by any means, nor are they all--to my knowledge--from one specific belief system.
*The lists of the attributes/characteristics of God could go on.
moozooh wrote:
Everything (well, almost) written by modern people can be proven using the same (or better) methods as described by those people, for everyone willing to do that, which probably is the main part of my point.
I hope you don't take this (too) offensively, but the idea that modern methods, technology, reasoning abilities, etc. are always better than older ones is primarily derived from evolution-related thought. I cannot say that I completely agree with that.
moozooh wrote:
That's why I have much more confidence in that, than in the events that could be described ONLY (!) by someone who actually was there when they happened, and as far as I know, there wasn't anyone to see and write all that down. Thus, I don't see how can such a thing be trusted.
Evolution is in the same position, though: How can we trust anyone if they weren't actually there to see and write it all down? Any argument you use will most likely involve one of those additional assumptions that I listed, or possibly one that I didn't list. Actually, the Bible says that God was there when He created the universe, so that's better than what evolution says about witnesses.
Dacicus is pulling a heavy load here, having to debate basically the rest of us.
>galaxy
This was completely my mistake. Fix: The Milky Way is calculated to be around 13.6 billion years old. Still no discrepancy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_way
>The numbers that Truncated posted earlier show that there is by no means 100% agreement among scientists about the truthfulness of evolution.
No, "only" 99.86% agreement. Few fields of academia could hope for so much agreement in a supposedly undecided topic.
That's in the US, where skepticism about evolution is higher than in any other industrialized country - in the rest of the world I suspect it's even lower. Teaching evolution is not an issue here.
I hope you don't take this (too) offensively, but the idea that modern methods, technology, reasoning abilities, etc. are always better than older ones is primarily derived from evolution-related thought. I cannot say that I completely agree with that.
I did not say it is always better. But it is reliable to a point so that two different persons will have the same result based on the same input data, like you and me trying to solve 2+2.
If a modern scientist makes a discovery, has it reproducible and describes the input data, I would expect another scientist to be able to do the same (like how we can conduct interesting experiments at, say, chemistry classes).
Dacicus wrote:
Evolution is in the same position, though: How can we trust anyone if they weren't actually there to see and write it all down? Any argument you use will most likely involve one of those additional assumptions that I listed, or possibly one that I didn't list. Actually, the Bible says that God was there when He created the universe, so that's better than what evolution says about witnesses.
Not quite the same. An example: I am alive, it is common knowledge that all the alive persons were born (let's disregard the other ways of having a child for this example, it's not the point), there's a documented evidence that I was born. The same is for my parents: I know that they were born at some point in the past even though I myself wasn't there at that moment. The same is for my grandparents, and so on. We don't have to be there to have a theory on what was there at that point, as long as it doesn't conflict with the common sense (such as my great-grandparents being born in an octopus or a horse family). Every step that increases the depth of that theory has at least a valid reasoning behind it, or else it would've been disproved in no time.
At the same time, there's no way to prove that one of my ancestors has said "I am a little teapot" somewhere long ago in the past. And the evolution theory doesn't even try to make us believe otherwise. However, the Bible does. How am I supposed to believe that God said what he said, if no-one was there to write it down? Reading that in a book written by fallible people? I don't know and can't determine if it all wasn't made up at all!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
- Chaos theory.
- I picked an example randomly. Christianity really hasn't stopped me from doing anything I want to do, personally. What I'm going for is, I don't care to fight Christians unless it affects me. I don't care if they do stuff that affects other people, except indirectly. That is, if I tolerate an action against a certain group of people, perhaps in the future they will try to do something similiar to me.
- Though I feel they strongly imply atheism, if you accept them and remain a theist, they do not strictly imply atheism. Do you take issue with any of them? If so, which ones, and which would you change, and why, to be more theist friendly?
I did not say it is always better. But it is reliable to a point so that two different persons will have the same result based on the same input data, like you and me trying to solve 2+2.
If a modern scientist makes a discovery, has it reproducible and describes the input data, I would expect another scientist to be able to do the same (like how we can conduct interesting experiments at, say, chemistry classes).
I want to quote this for emphasis. I so strongly agree with this, that I'll boldly claim that even theists have to accept this. Without going into "what is logic/math" or "what is science" or "why is math/science trustworthy" let's just say that it is. Evolution is a sore topic, yeah, fine. But even theists have to agree that math is valid and so is science (as it pertains to un-blasphemic things such as chemistry and geology and gamma rays.) However, faith does not have this trust, or universal seal of approval. The only people who trust faith are the faithful. One's faith in Christianity doesn't convince the Jew or Muslim. One's faith in Islam does not convert the Christian. Even without appealing to numbers, or democracy, or whatever... theists know this is true. I don't expect an answer, I am just saying it to provoke thought. Why is a math proof acceptable, but someone's story of his faith is not? How do you distinguish the honest from the liars or dellusion? You'll see it comes back down to science in the end.
Without evidence or argument, all religious faiths are unconvincing to me. And some would argue "faith" based on evidence is not faith at all, and so God doesn't make it obvious because he wants you to believe without seeing. This personal faith will not convince anyone else.
I've already said that the so-called "evidence for evolution" can be reinterpreted to support Creation. Facts do not, by themselves, nullify or validate any given theory. It is only in the interpretation of those facts that you can judge a theory. Your lack of belief in the existence of evidence does not mean there actually isn't any such evidence.
No, but creationists' inability to produce such evidence does.
Dacicus wrote:
So, you think it would be evidence against evolution if different organisms had dissimilar structures, instead of homologous ones? Don't you see that evolutionists would just change the theory to accomodate that, if it were the case? Instead of saying that there was one original thing from which everything is descended, they would just say that there were a bunch of them from which different types of organisms were descended, and they would say that evidence against evolution would be homologous structures.
That's quite presumptious to say what scientists would say in hypotheticals like that.
Dacicus wrote:
Actually, some of them are already saying that there was some sort of community of original things that exchanged genetic information because they've realized that the current diversity of genetic information could not have come from just one ancestor.
Not any that I'm aware of.
Dacicus wrote:
My point is that this redefinition game prevents the falsifiability of the theory of evolution. Now, if the theory isn't falsifiable, it's not scientific.
No such game exists. Science simply makes whatever theories fit the evidence. The theory of evolution is falsifiable; according to richard dawkins, "If there were a single hippo or rabbit in the Precambrian, that would completely blow evolution out of the water."
Dacicus wrote:
Now, to deal with your "inefficient design" argument. You are assuming several things when you say that. One of them is that God designed* the creatures to be most efficient in the world as it is today. That is certainly wrong. The original creation was perfect, and the modern world is not. After the Fall, mutations in creatures' genetic information caused them to lose efficiency, if they didn't cause death before the creatures were even born. This genetic decay has continued until today, so the inefficiency has increased. The Flood is also an important factor. It destroyed the original creation, so that our modern world looks nothing like it in terms of geography, climate, etc. As the creatures were designed for the pre-Flood world, it is no surprise that they are less efficient in the current one. Therefore, you cannot use modern ideas of efficiency to judge the design of creatures that were created for a different world than the one we now know.
My argument was about homologies, not inefficient design. Are you saying that the species/genera/whatever started out without apparent hologies, and then evolved them? Also, there's no evidence for a "fall" or a global flood. The idea that a flood radically change the climate and so forth contradicts everything we know about geology. If your theory is based on nothing but bronze age myths, then it's not scientific at all.
Dacicus wrote:
*Note: God did not "happen" to create creatures in some way, He purposefully designed them that way.
So god purposefully designed creatures to make us think they descended from a common ancestor? That's even worse!
Dacicus wrote:
Our lack of knowledge about an organ's function does not mean that it no longer has a function.
Vestigial does not mean functionless. You obviously don't know what you're talking about.
Dacicus wrote:
In a way, you could say that that's part of the purpose of the site, to show you how. They have a fossil section that you can read, so you don't have to look through everything. There's also a search feature. You can even contact them if you have specific questions.
Again, I can't read through the whole thing. Apparently, all they do is say things like that Archæopteryx wasn't a "dinosaur", australopithecus wasn't bipedal, and so forth. It's all pseudoscience, of course, since none of it has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Anyway, I still don't see how you can refute the evidence from fossils, not only because of radiometric dating, but also the fact that they're all in the right order.
Dacicus wrote:
The article talks about those issues I presented, so they are relevant. The equation they give only works if you know the original ratio of parent to daughter isotope, and if you can show that no environmental factors changed it during the passage of time since the object was formed.
Yes, and geochronologists know those things. They're not stupid, and they wouldn't waste thousands of dollars on a process they know is worthless.
Dacicus wrote:
How do you know if you've messed up? If the numbers agree or disagree with what you already believe about the age of the object? That's circular reasoning.
No. Geochronologists take pains to make sure the samples aren't contaminated and so forth. Again, they're not stupid.
