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Not at all, but then, as we have discussed elsewhere, and as even Dawkins has admitted, science had many of its roots in religion, and back when the one was slowly drawing itself as distinct from the other, many men of science were raised with religion and held onto it as a sort of social grace. Certainly, today, scientists need not appeal to the great goblin in the sky for people to take their work seriously, and had those men and women been born today, it is very likely that a large number of them would either have abjured religion as a whole, or kept it a quiet affair, as appeal to it would only lessen their work's importance.
Fun strawman, though.
So you are admitting those men were scientists despite what your little Wiki article claimed? Not a straw man at all, you claimed that creation science was pseudo-science, I refuted this claim by pointing to some of the greatest minds science has ever known who also believed in six day creation (with the exception of Owen who was an old earth creationist).
Actually if we are speculating, I would say none of them would be atheists today because they all presupposed that scripture was the word of God and would not allow for fallible science to disprove this because to do so would be absurd. So when did creation science become pseudoscience? Who determined this? Give me a precise date please and who determined this to be the case.
I wish we could both agree that censorship and black listing are wrong, but I guess you are not willing to take that step yet.
(June 29, 2011 at 6:26 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Side note, but related, Statler: Would you consider Newton a Christian if he was an Arian?
Not up to me to decide. I have never seen a definite consensus that he espoused to Arianism, though it is possible. However, he seemed to exercise saving faith and trusted in Christ, not sure if that would even be possible apart from saving grace. Doesn't change the fact that he was a creationist and scientists though.
June 29, 2011 at 6:36 pm (This post was last modified: June 29, 2011 at 6:38 pm by Epimethean.)
I owe you an answer regarding when creationism came to be considered pseudoscience. That required the full development of science as separate from religion, and it seems to have achieved that status around the time of the development of the science of geology, which came to be creationism's archnemesis, scientifically speaking. This came to pass in the late 1800's, but really was the result of Hutton's work 100 years earlier. So, we could say that creationism lost its scientific standing in the 1800's, or rather a while after most of that list of distinguished religious scientists you listed.
(June 29, 2011 at 6:36 pm)Epimethean Wrote: I owe you an answer regarding when creationism came to be considered pseudoscience. That required the full development of science as separate from religion, and it seems to have achieved that status around the time of the development of the science of geology, which came to be creationism's archnemesis, scientifically speaking. This came to pass in the late 1800's, but really was the result of Hutton's work 100 years earlier. So, we could say that creationism lost its scientific standing in the 1800's, or rather a while after most of that list of distinguished religious scientists you listed.
Not all scientists agree with the concept of non-overlapping magisteria so I do not agree with you that is what made creationists not scientists. Von Braun was the head of NASA's Apollo program and a creationist, was he not a scientist because this was in the late 1960s? In fact there are still creationists working at NASA today and the MRI was invented by a young earth creationist, are they not scientists? I think you are taking a rather silly position, and I think you should just address the evidence and arguments rather than playing this game.
Most people in the 17th and 18 centuries were creationists. The men whose studies formed the basis for the science of geology were often upset to find that their discoveries kept contradicting the bible, but rather than try and twist the facts to fit their dogma, they decided that the dogma must not be literally true. In other words they were honest, in sharp contrast to modern creationists, who seem to believe everything in the bible without question, with the obvious exception of bearing false witness.
Whenever today's creationists claim those believers of previous centuries as kindred spirits, I just point and laugh.
June 29, 2011 at 7:00 pm (This post was last modified: June 29, 2011 at 7:02 pm by Statler Waldorf.)
(June 29, 2011 at 6:48 pm)DaveD Wrote:
Most people in the 17th and 18 centuries were creationists. The men whose studies formed the basis for the science of geology were often upset to find that their discoveries kept contradicting the bible, but rather than try and twist the facts to fit their dogma, they decided that the dogma must not be literally true. In other words they were honest, in sharp contrast to modern creationists, who seem to believe everything in the bible without question, with the obvious exception of bearing false witness.
Whenever today's creationists claim those believers of previous centuries as kindred spirits, I just point and laugh.
Secularists love to say things like this but Lisle (a Lawyer) who is responsible for a lot of the geological principles used to day was not a Christian when he was making these discoveries, so I do not feel your assertions here are supported by the facts. He merely presupposed a global flood never occurred and so all of these mountains of rock laid down by water had to be accumulated over millions of years. If you can't see how Lisle’s anti-biblical assumptions were driving the interpretation of the evidence then I can’t do much for you.
(June 29, 2011 at 6:44 pm)Epimethean Wrote: What is the evidence to which you seem to be elusively pointing?
Many of it is the same evidence you use to support your secular models. The fossil record, natural selection, and modern genetics.
June 29, 2011 at 7:29 pm (This post was last modified: June 29, 2011 at 7:35 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Please propose a manner in which the theory of a worldwide flood ( as described in the bible) would be falsifiable.
Before you even ask...if you could present us with an example of an anatomically modern dog, fossilized next to a T-Rex, and dated to the same period in time (even if we dont accept the dates accuracy, its only important that they have similar dates associated) and I would concede that to me, that seems to suggest that a dog and a T-Rex may have been caught up in some sort of flood together.
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Please propose a manner in which the theory of a worldwide flood ( as described in the bible) would be falsifiable.
Before you even ask...if you could present us with an example of an anatomically modern dog, fossilized next to a T-Rex, and dated to the same period in time (even if we dont accept the dates accuracy, its only important that they have similar dates associated) and I would concede that to me, that seems to suggest that a dog and a T-Rex may have been caught up in some sort of flood together.
I am trying to keep up with your posts, it's not an easy task :-)
I think it would be easier and more practical for you to tell me why you believe it is not feasible and then I can address your points, fair?
A modern dog? Modern dogs were not around at the time of the flood so I would not expect to find them in flood layers of strata.