BS: Young Earth Creationism Eureka--Contd...

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 May 12 - 05:48 PM

Don, I did go on to celebrate the fact that revision would always be necessary. But the central tenet of evolution will not be revised, which is that it takes place. I think I was suggesting that your sentence was not quite brave enough.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 01 May 12 - 05:41 PM

"evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science.evolution is promulgated as an ideology,a secular religion-a full fledged alternative to christianity,with meaning and morality.i am an ardent evolutionist and an ex christian,but...the literalists are absolutely right.evolution is a religion"
michael ruse prof of philosophy and zoology
national post 13 may 2ooo.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 May 12 - 05:13 PM

""But the sentence contains a hidden proviso, that, once those limits are conquered, there may have to be some revision.""

Not may Steve, WILL. If one single scientific fact has been known since the dawn of empiricism to the technology of today, it is that there are always revisions.

An oak tree trunk may stand for eight hundred years, but there are always new branches, twigs and leaves.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 May 12 - 05:01 PM

Shall I try? Pete, ordinary carbon has an indefinite lifespan. There's ordinary carbon around that was formed not long after the Big Bang (and don't start...) Carbon 14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon. It's an unstable variety of carbon that breaks down over tens of thousands of years until it isn't carbon 14 any more. Most carbon, though, is not carbon 14, so we're safe. Carbon 14 is constantly being formed, taken in by living things (because plants use carbon dioxide from the air, and some of that carbon dioxide will have carbon 14 in it instead of ordinary carbon - then we eat the plants, etc...) and breaking down. When you die, you stop taking in carbon 14, so the level of carbon 14 in your body slowly falls as it breaks down. The amount left in your body is an accurate measure of how long ago you died, because it breaks down at a very steady rate. This is useful up to about 60,000 years after the creature died. After that, there isn't enough carbon 14 left to give a reliable measure any more. But none of this has anything to do with diamonds, etc. They are made of nearly all ordinary carbon, as they are very old and any carbon 14 they had to start with has virtually all broken down. Cheers.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 01 May 12 - 04:24 PM

pete asks:

"if diamonds are millenia old, why can carbon be found?"

To which I can only respond:

"Is it hotter in the summer or in the city?"

and:

"What is the difference between a duck?"

pete, it is totally impossible to discuss science with you. No offense, but we are talking totally past each other. You have no clue what the scientists are talking about, and we clearly don't understand you...

=unproductive discourse.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 May 12 - 03:02 PM

Well Don. "Proven" is another of those words, innit! Yeah, I'm perfectly happy to see evolution, in its general thrust, described as (shall we say) "established to the limits of current scientific knowledge." With that I couldn't possibly disagree. But the sentence contains a hidden proviso, that, once those limits are conquered, there may have to be some revision. I'm up for accepting, nay, wanting there to be revisions, but there can only be revisions within. The fact of evolution, that is to say, that it definitely takes place, is rock-like. It can't be overturned. There is far too much interlocking evidence (of the scientific kind) for any process of reasoning, honestly applied, to be able to contradict it.

As for using the word truth, well I've sort of been using it one way or another all my life. I googled the word and read the wiki article on the word and I couldn't bloody understand half of it! I use the word to mean something unassailable, arrived at by having good evidence (in the scientific sense, though you don't have to keep harking back to science every time you talk about truth) which was interpreted using, honestly, reason. A creationist misuses the word. There is no evidence, of the scientific kind, for creationism. Reason cannot be applied to no evidence or faux-evidence (hearsay, witness, tradition, teachings, myth, ritual, dodgy ancient manuscripts) in order to arrive at truth. You cannot arrive at truth via blind faith. All the machinations of an elaborate belief system, with all its theology or whatever orthodoxy, can't get one iota nearer the truth. Creationists who talk about their truths are misusing the word. They have not hijacked the word, like the computer age has hijacked "spam." So that shouldn't stop me from using it. It should merely make me tell them that they are misusing it. My using the word does not put me in their territory. What puts me in their territory is saying things like "I don't believe in God." Or even "I am an atheist." That defines me by their standards. You can't say that if I use a word that they blatantly misuse.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 01 May 12 - 02:48 PM

I'm sorry, but: the obvious limitation of current scientific knowledge is precisely that it ignores the truth of the WORD of GOD.
Which is to say, there is really no use worrying about what fine point of phrasing you use when debating with a stone wall.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:20 PM

Steve, nobody is disagreeing with your conclusion, but it seems to me a very contrary act on your part to insist upon using the only word guaranteed to give YECs the smug self satisfied illusion that you are simply describing an opposing belief system.

Why not simply say Evolution as an overall process is "proven to the limits of current scientific knowledge", both succinct and unambiguous.

Slack usage of terminology in the search for one word descriptions has destroyed many an otherwise perfect thesis.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:15 PM

In the words of Descartes, I can doubt EVERYTHING--except the fact that I doubt.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Stringsinger
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:13 PM

Ideas can become addictive, an intellectual drug, the addict being wedded to a certain "truth" or viewpoint that when taken away creates a negative reaction.,

Creationism is such a drug. Evolution is an antidote because it tears down the wall of addiction and forces inquiry and rational thinking to replace dogma. Evolution is not a religion, a cause celebre, a political football, it is scientific fact embraced by those who really know science. Knowledge for it is evolving itself. It is not an absolute but a method for understanding scientific biological principles.

It has been falsely accused of stringent religious principles by those who can't conceive of any other way of looking at ideas. Evolution evolves by physical observation whereas religious tenets about it evolve through speculation which often turns to addictive dependency.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:08 PM

Because I feel very strongly about it and it was unanswered in the original thread.

""Pete's truth is "the bible is true and everything was created in seven days 6000 years ago!"

Why use a word which puts your argument on the same level, when you have myriad other words to describe scientific progress?

Don T.""

So, somebody, anybody.........WHY insist upon that particular word above all genuinely scientific (and please don't tell me that "truth" is a scientific word) alternatives???

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:00 PM

""I could only answer Stringsinger's last two questions by saying "Maybe, and I really hope so".""

I'll second that!......and subscribe. Where do we sign up?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 May 12 - 12:45 PM

Er, right. Anyone will tell you what a simple man I am. When I say that evolution is true, here's what I mean. Someone comes up to me and tells me that evolution is not true, that is, it doesn't happen. It's all an illusion, or a dream, or something, or (worse) they give me all that creationist crap. So what do I say? What does any scientist say? I say, you're wrong. Evolution is true (that is, it takes place). I'm not telling you that in a brow-beating sort of way, or because I'm the king of the mountain and won't hear otherwise. I do listen to people who don't think evolution occurs (I wouldn't be a scientist otherwise), but what I'm listening out for is their evidence, then I want to hear their reasoning predicated on their evidence. I have to make one condition: that the meaning of the word "evidence" has to be the scientific meaning. Not tradition, myth, hearsay, or witness. Science is about looking for the truth, and we can't get there if the only evidence we have can't get over that bar. Also, we can't get there if the evidence we do have is improperly subjected to reasoning that goes beyond it (as with the phlogiston chaps. They had to make an assumption that a substance could exist that had negative mass. They were guilty of inventing a parameter for which they had no evidence, so their reasoning went beyond the evidence, in the proper scientific sense, that they did have). Now I am not aware that anyone has ever presented evidence, in the scientific sense, that evolution does not occur. I've heard plenty of notions expressed to that effect, but none has been supported by scientifically-gleaned evidence. I've heard people say that some species have not changed in millions of years, so have not evolved, but any evolutionary biologist finds it very easy to defeat that very narrow view. Not only that, but I also know that we have a mass of proper evidence in favour of evolution taking place. Each individual piece of evidence is up for scrutiny (that's science for ya), but the totality of the evidence has, by now, gone way beyond the stage at which we can dismiss it as a body. It is no longer possible for anyone to come along and overturn the whole body of evidence. There is far too much of it for that, and the different elements within that body of evidence all support each other as well supporting the overriding idea that evolution takes place. Now you may say that that's just my judgement. That's true, but I am saying that my judgement (that, according to all the evidence we have, evolution definitely occurs) must be the same as that of any other person with sufficient understanding of evolution and the scientific evidence. It is only a consensus in a non-optional sense. It isn't possible for a scientist employing evidence and reason to refute it. It isn't a consensus by majority vote. You can't vote against or even abstain. And it isn't me who's the king of the mountain. It's the evidence. And please note that, throughout all this, I am talking about evolution in its overall thrust, not every nut and bolt, nothing like.

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 01 May 12 - 12:14 PM

I could only answer Stringsinger's last two questions by saying "Maybe, and I really hope so". The staunch fundamentalist has a definite answer: "No, because since Adam and Eve sinned, all of us inherit an evil nature that can never be entirely eliminated, only forgiven by God if we accept the cleansing blood."

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: Stringsinger
Date: 01 May 12 - 11:56 AM



Scientific knowledge is a consensus of opinion by scientists, not theologians or anyone who doesn't have the scientific discipline and information. Any other "truth" is silly and hypothetical because there is no physical evidence to support it. Without this evidence,
there is no approximation of truth. Truth is a relative idea, there can be no absolute truth despite the propaganda offered by religious advocates. That absolute "truth" is unsupportable by scientific physical reality.

What scientists know about evolution is evolving itself. The study of the human brain helps to clarify the role of evolution in influencing how we think about such matters as religion, politics, or evolution. Behavioral studies show how the conditioning we have in our lives influences how we think about topics such as evolution. Because of the brain-changing doubling down of certain behavioral patterns which are based on a rigid authoritarian view of life, there can be no rational discussion about these issues until mankind evolves beyond this limitation. The discussion becomes not a vehicle for sharing information but a "King of the Mountain" approach that dismisses any idea not held by the arguing party.

Until new ideas are discussed from the vantage point of seeing a different perspective, one based on openness and unclouded by prejudice, the same rancor continues.

Evolution as a discipline is an attempt to perceive and clarify a scientific idea which in an non-authoritarian society can be allowed to flourish and enlighten.

Will there come a time when ideas can be evaluated on the basis of their usefulness to society, a nurturing of genuine intellectual curiosity rather than a pounding of the table by pundits who atrophy in their self-righteous opinions? With this new enlightenment, can we eliminate war and violence to each other and evolve to a better understanding of our species?

Subject: RE: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: frogprince
Date: 01 May 12 - 11:34 AM

"There are no other truths, apart from those we can observe."

I have no intention of "going snail" over a statement, but I did pause at that line. Should I just say to self, "this discussion is about the discipline of science, and in that context the statement makes sense to me"? My mind doesn't want to stay compartmentalized.
One thought is, there is "observed", and there is "observed" - there is scientific observation, and there is eye-witness observation which can easily be misleading. Another thought (I may wish I hadn't gone here in this context) is, is it true that some of us love some of the rest of us? I could say that that's "observable", but can anyone make that "observable" in a scientific sense?

Subject: BS: YEC Eureka--Contd...
From: saulgoldie
Date: 01 May 12 - 10:50 AM

Cause the old thread is BIG and takes a while to load. OK, have it at, again, still.

Saul