Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[rjh4 is back]

Oh it was quite a deliberate Strawman, but only to draw a contrast with the previous paragraph, to prevent a slippery descent of the argument.

I am not sure what you mean by this.

As for YEC and ID. What are they claiming then with respect to fully formed animals that do not change through time?

I'm not sure what you mean by this either. My point was that I do not think the typical ID or YEC position would ever assert fully formed kinds do not change or have not changed (i.e., that there is no speciation type change of any sort in the subsequent generations of those kinds).

I do not recognise the "evolution (change)" meme you keep using, please elaborate.

I am trying to draw a distinction between two uses of the word "evolution". The word, when used in the context of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, is generally used to mean "common descent", i.e., all life has a single common anscestor. The word, when used in normal discussions sometimes is being used to mean "common descent" and sometimes to mean "change". While we would agree that living things "change" through generations (evolution throughout generations), I would take issue with the idea of "common descent" (evolution ala Darwin).

I am not convinced that YEC is compatible with evolution I think an expert in evo-devo would claim that the given the mutation rates required would kill the animal outright. But if you know different..I am all ears?

I didn't think we were talking about evolution within a single animal, I thought we were talking about evolution through generations of animals. Anyway, I'm not sure that it is just mutation rates that will kill an animal. I think we generally observe that if any animal has too many DNA mutations, whether inherited or whether induced, it dies. Thus, there seems to be observed limits as to how much a particular type of animal can change. This is, in fact, an argument against evolution (common descent) but not an argument against evolution (change - which is easily observable).

I do not agree that supernatural agency is necessarily undetectable to science. If there is an intervention in our material world it is detectable. The mulitple witnessing of the bodily resurrection of a dead person, would be one such event. If there was no natural explanation we would need to invoke supernaturalism. The trouble is all such events and claims is that they are a) never subject to adequate scrutiny b) are subject to adequate scrutiny and are found to be nothing extraordinary at all let alone supernatural. There are many other tests we can do: the efficacy of prayer, the breaking of the physical laws (eg Gravity), miracle healing...ALL fail if and when put to the test.

Maybe...but wouldn't any conclusion regarding the supernatural then be unscientific by definition?

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Any naturalistic explanation for any discovery can be coopted by presupposing tailored interference by any of an infinite different entity or entities that could be dreamt up with the power to make everything just so. So the fact that one particular such entity (god) can be unfalsifiably claimed do this is no credit to the theory that this entity existed.

I suppose so.

However, while any theory tailored interference can tailor itself to fit any evidence ex post, I am at a loss to think of any theory of tailored interference having demonstratably uniquely anticipated any discovery without surreptitiously resorting to methodological naturalism to make the prediction.

So I challenge you to respond to the assertion that no theory of god is better than any other theory of god, and no theory of god has produced much without surreptitiously resorting to methodological naturalism, and methodological naturalism has no need for any theory of god.

You seem to be implying that the belief in God is somehow at odds with methodological naturalism and somehow inferior to it. However, it seems to me that the whole idea of methodological naturalism arose from the idea that God exists, that He created the universe such that it behaves in a relatively consistent manner, and, therefore we can discover through methodological naturalism how God's creation works. As Statler Waldorf has pointed out, many of the great scientists in the past, including those like Bacon who is considered the father of the scientific method, believed in God. So I will argue that the whole of the scientific method did not arise separate from belief in God, even the Biblical God, but was, in fact, a product of such a belief in the Biblical God. From this, I conclude that because of the history of how the scientific method came to be, that a position that relies upon the Biblical God is better overall as it produced the scientific method and all of the accurate benefits/predictions resulting from it (the scientific method).