RE: Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)
November 12, 2010 at 9:01 pm
(This post was last modified: November 12, 2010 at 9:04 pm by Statler Waldorf.)
Now you are just playing games with semantics. You are right, a person can’t use personal opinion to demonstrate an argument, it’s a good thing I didn’t use personal opinion though right? I used observation. I have never observed a textbook that represents Oort clouds as only a working theory; they all pass it off as a known validated fact. Now you will probably tell me that observation is not part of Science, but that is of course wrong.
Yes comets do represent one unknown factor in the current old Universe model; however they represent just one among numerous unknown factors with that model. It looks to me like we need to adopt a new model. This really isn’t proper scientific reasoning either since it can be used to fit any model. I could just as easily say, “Well distant starlight and background radiation are just two unknowns in our young universe model, but just because we have unknowns does not make our model invalid.” However, Creation Scientists have far better explanations for these two things than the the ways old universe guys try and explain comets. I find it also interesting you would use the background radiation and starlight issues to support your argument. The Big Bang model has its own starlight problem. Using this model the universe is not nearly old enough to explain the uniformity in background radiation that we observe. So to use evidence that disagrees wtiht he current model to argue against the creation model is hardly appropriate. However, since creationists can explain the “comet problem” with their model, it is very appropriate to use this as evidence against the current old universe model.
Now you are committing the very fallacy you claimed I committed. You said you believe it is plausible for the existence of an Oort cloud. This is obviously just your personal opinion since there is no observed evidence for the existence of any such structure.
You are right, “Develop a model, and test the model”. However, you test through observation, and since we cannot observe an Oort Cloud, Dark Matter, or Dark energy these are not good components to have in your model.
Absolutely not, argument not refuted. Being eternal is just one of the attributes that makes something God. So to call that assuming the proof would be like saying the following syllogism is invalid…
Premise 1: All cats have cat DNA
Premise 2: Fluffy has Cat DNA.
Conclusion: Fluffy is a cat.
You would turn around and say, “Sorry! You are assuming that all cats have Cat DNA, can’t assume that!”. Well of course I can assume it because it is what makes a cat a cat. Being eternal is one of the atttributes that makes God, well God. You may not agree with the premise that God is eternal, but disagreeing with a premise does not make an argument invalid logically.
Sounds like a good book actually. Well you’ll notice that I was not saying, “The Bible is historically accurate so therefore all of it is true.” I was arguing against the claim that the Bible is not historically accurate, which of course it is. So I agree with you on this, however I do not believe I was trying to make that argument.
Well several studies have been done demonstrating this problem. Unfortunately Creation guys are the only guys who actually consider doing these tests, it’s kind of sad that the secular community would use methods without first cross checking their validity. The tests are always done by Secular labs who are blind to the groups predictions so the data is legitimate. I would encourage you to pick up the peer-reviewed work done by the RATE Group that came out in 2008 I do believe. It is pretty complicated, but if you have a background in Geology it should be no problem. Let me see if I can find some other articles for you to look at.
If you want a secular source, this article as many P/Ar dating “muck ups” for rocks of known age…
40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6:47–55, By G.B. Dalrymple
Here are some creation guys who have done more recent tests and found similar data….
Snelling, A., Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years, Creation 22(1):18–21, 2000.
Austin, S.A. (ed.), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California, pp. 111–131, 1994.
Like I said earlier too, the RATE Group has work published too from 2001-2008 that shows many more cases of these erroneous ages.
We have to go back to the “nature of evidence” discussion again? You can’t support your assumptions by saying the evidence supports them when you used these very assumptions to interpret the evidence. If you look at ice cores for example you will find that only the first couple thousand years have obvious annuals, where after that the layers appear all “squished” and almost as one solid layer. Secular scientists just assume though, “Well this rate of annual accumulation has been constant so we will just keep counting using our assumed annual accumulation measurement.” Whereas the Creation Scientist says, “Well that’s exactly what we would expect because the huge amount of ice that all is devoid of annuals is a result of the ice age that post dates the global flood.” Using anti-biblical assumptions to interpret data, and then using this interpretation to argue against Scripture is assuming the proof. We see this done all the time with the fossil record, radiometric dating, and radio-carbon dating. That’s why I have said many times that this really comes down to Worldviews and not the useless platitude “well the evidence says”, evidence itself says nothing.
Well then you have not been reading all the literature on the subject. You should pick up literature on the subject written by Creationists and see what they consider evidence for a global flood. I think you will find it very interesting and I think it is more intellectually honest than a lot of the secular geologic material printed today. I think the fossil record is some of the best evidence for a global flood available.
Yes, it took me a couple hours (while watching football of course) to do all of the citations. I really appreciate your intellectual honesty on the matter and am also grateful that you took the time to read what I had written instead of just blowing it off as some do on here. I will be the first to admit that the peer-review system is important. It’s very important when checking data quality and control . I just have a beef with it when it borders on censorship or becomes kind of like the “cool kids” club. I think articles should be anonymous and should also not include a submitter’s university. A lot of people act like something becomes more “true” when it appears in the journal and I don’t think this is necessarily the case.
Well the Creation Peer Review system is fairly new (25 years or so) so yes Dr. Lisle is most likely correct, it is still working out some kinks. Though I don’t think I am giving them “blind” trust, I pointed out that I was trusting them on their track record, which to this point is very good. There was even a fraudulent article written (by Evolutionists trying to prove the Creation system was not valid) and submitted to the Journal of Creation (may have been the Answers Journal, can’t recall) that was rejected, I thought this was pretty cool that they caught it. I use the review system on both sides more for assurance that the calculations and data quality and control have all been checked, not a lot more than that really.
I was using that quote more to illustrate some of the dishonesty that these editors use. Claiming to be a place of intellectual honesty and fairness but then allowing a bad book review to stand and denying the author a chance to respond just because they are a Creationist is neither honest nor fair. The mentality this editor is taking is to me quite frankly disturbing. Science is not based on consensus, and this is a good thing. Could you imagine if this approach had always been used? “Well this Einstein guy wants to publish work on his relativity theory, but all the current work in the area disagrees with him so we will reject his submittal and then let a bunch of other Scientists bash on him in our journal and not let him have the chance to respond.” It’s kind of sickening people don’t just let the Science stand on its merit. So that was more of my point. Which Biblical Scholars are you referring to? The ones that I read tend to lean towards the YEC camp. It was actually interesting; ICR actually did a statistical study on the book of Genesis and the usage of the Hebrew verbs to determine whether it was written as historical narrative or just figurative allegory. The study came out conclusively that it was intended as historical narrative.
I did read that article but I can’t say I agree with its author much. He strikes me more as someone who got caught on shaky logical ground so he is trying the old “Despite my bad logic you still need to address the issue! So meh!” This of course is not true. I was taught in formal debate that if someone addresses you with an logically invalid argument you are in no way obligated to respond to the argument, just point out the fallacious use of logic and you win. You will see this in formal debates all the time. In fact, it is inappropriate to not point out problems in the other side’s logic because you then give credence to their bad arguments. A person must first present a valid argument before they can present a sound argument. All sound arguments are valid, not all valid arguments are sound. So if I can demonstrate the argument is invalid, then I have also demonstrated the argument cannot be sound. This is a very effective way of debating and I am not surprised that Dr. Lisle has frustrated a few people by using it.
Well I am gotting off here for the weekend, have a good weekend!
Lol, ah the old "Appeal to Common Sense" fallacy, nicely done. Well it's a good thing I don't have "half a brain", but rather I have a whole one. So to those of us who have whole brains it is not non-sense. Argument stands unrefuted, I win.
