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They all take a measure of faith, as none of them are reproducible in any kind of setting. Evolution takes much more blind faith than either of the other two.
Faith? Isn't faith believing in something without evidence? there's no evidence for evolution?
If there's no evidence then what are all these scientists getting all worked up over?
The whole thing seems kind of silly if there is no evidence at all.
Evolution is just nature doing the same selective breeding over millenia that people have managed to do in a couple of thousand years to produce your retriever. How is that hard to believe? Nature is powerful, time is immense. I don't know the answers to the religious side, but none of us do, that's what faith is. Evolution is just a process. I can see a process.
So if you're saying that there is evidence, how is Bo saying that evolution takes more faith than creationism?
shouldn't there be some way to tell which is real and which is not?
Scripture says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. That is true. But we have faith in many things. We have faith that airplanes will fly and cars will move. We have faith that our spouse will be there when we come home. There are many types of faith.
Evolution requires a great deal of faith. Evolution (Darwinian theory) cannot be proved in a laboratory, nor can it be reproduced. Yet many people stake their careers on the belief that it is true. That is a type of faith. They act as if it is irrefutable but they cannot produce irrefutable evidence and get very angry when you bring that point up. They then resort to name calling and questioning your ability to think critically. But the very things they teach, such as abiogenesis teaches that their theory is flawed.
It is no different from the type of faith that a Buddhist has in his concept of an afterlife, or a Taoist, or any belief that requires faith.
The difference between the faith of a Darwinist and a Buddhist is minimal, almost a semantic argument.
we don't have any evidence that airplanes will continue to fly and cars will be able to move?
aren't there laws of nature that people, say engineers, could use to predict whether or not a plane could fly or a car could move?
Well, I have been told that aeronautical engineers determined that it was impossible for a bumble bee to fly. Faith is not the sum total of substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen, there is more to it than that. We have faith that we will be alive when we wake up every morning. There is so much we don't know and cannot predict. When is the last time the weatherman called everyday in the 7 day forecast correctly for all 7 days. Not everything can be quantified.
hmm, its funny you bring up the whole airplane thing, it got me thinking.
Now I don't know much about all this fancy biology stuff, but I am an engineer by training. We engineers don't need any faith at all to know that a plane will fly. We might need faith that the pilot won't fall asleep or that the mechanic did the tune-up correctly, but we can pull out our calculators and use Bernoulli's principle to tell you for sure whether or not the wings will produce enough lift to make the plane fly.
how do we know this? the way I see it, its a 4 step process:
1) someone observed something about the natural world
(in this case, that wing-like shapes tend to fly well)
2) someone came up with a hypothesis to explain the observation in #1
(In this case, that P + 1/2 V^2 is always equal to a constant)
3) thousands of scientists and engineers performed experiments and tests to try to prove the hypothesis in #2 is false.
(this step involved lots of dorky stuff like wind tunnels and pitot tubes)
4) Since no one in #3 could prove #2 wrong, we know that in every situation we could come up with #2 is true. So, we use #2 to design the plane so it will fly.
We don't need any faith that the plane will fly, I don't think I'd fly if it was just faith keeping those things in the air.
so whats wrong with the biologists? why can't they just do something like that to figure out how all this life got here?
Some of what you call knowing is faith. You trust that things will work the way you have been taught that they will. You trust that the bridge you drive over will not fall when you are over a chasm that is hundreds of feet to the bottom. You trust it because you have faith in it.
There was a tightrope walker who had a cable suspended high in the air. He walked it with ease. A reporter watched as the walker got a wheelbarrow and asked him if he was going to walk the wheelbarrow across the cable. He was given an affirmative and the walker asked the reporter if the reporter believed he could. Then the walker asked the reporter to get in the wheelbarrow and go across with him. THAT IS FAITH.
Most people have a measure of faith, they just don't call it that. We have faith that the world we know will continue as it has for as long as we can remember. We have faith that we will not be nuked by some crackpot two bit dictator and be sent back to the stone age. It is all faith. We just don't call it that because it sounds "too religious."
And for those ardent believers of Darwinism, it is a religion. Watch how they respond when their ideals are questioned. They are almost as bad as the Muslims were when the cartoonist in Denmark drew cartoons of Mohammad. But they will do their best to get anyone who questions it to have their credentials pulled. No difference.
Some of what you call knowing is faith. You trust that things will work the way you have been taught that they will. You trust that the bridge you drive over will not fall when you are over a chasm that is hundreds of feet to the bottom. You trust it because you have faith in it.
There was a tightrope walker who had a cable suspended high in the air. He walked it with ease. A reporter watched as the walker got a wheelbarrow and asked him if he was going to walk the wheelbarrow across the cable. He was given an affirmative and the walker asked the reporter if the reporter believed he could. Then the walker asked the reporter to get in the wheelbarrow and go across with him. THAT IS FAITH.
Most people have a measure of faith, they just don't call it that. We have faith that the world we know will continue as it has for as long as we can remember. We have faith that we will not be nuked by some crackpot two bit dictator and be sent back to the stone age. It is all faith. We just don't call it that because it sounds "too religious."
And for those ardent believers of Darwinism, it is a religion. Watch how they respond when their ideals are questioned. They are almost as bad as the Muslims were when the cartoonist in Denmark drew cartoons of Mohammad. But they will do their best to get anyone who questions it to have their credentials pulled. No difference.
but again, with your bridge example, do we really need faith that the equations that govern structural mechanics will work? or do we just need faith that the engineer did his job correctly and that the maintenance crew is doing their job?
You can call it faith or belief or whatever you want, but isn't there a difference between an engineer thinking that force will equal mass times acceleration and the reporter thinking that the tightrope walker won't drop him, or me believing I will go to paradise after I die?
aren't they different? I could do a test to potentially prove that the first one is false, but how could you do that for the other two?
are you trying to say that there's no difference between how us engineers come to conclusions, and how my pastor comes to conclusions when he talks to us about verses from scripture?
They're both incredibly useful, but aren't they a very different kind of reasoning?
If these biologists have such a big question about the natural world why can't they just do the 4 step process we engineers do, like I talked about before?
Everything we believe is either truth or falsehood. We can choose to believe things that we see and find out later it was false. David Copperfield comes to mind. We can see illusions and believe them.There is no difference in the eternal scheme of things as to how we believe scripture or science. It is either true or false. This is where the people who refuse to accept absolutes stumble. Or people who want to find their own way to paradise.
Scripture says now we see through a glass darkly. What we see here and now is only temporal. The world we live in is operating on more planes than can be quantified by science or some kind of empirical measurement.
There are forces that are active that many would deny. There are forces for evil and forces for good. Those who are uncomfortable with this are usually reluctant to be exposed to the light of truth, but prefer to remain in the darkness.
When we try to limit the unseen by our own personal analysis and our experience, we limit ourselves in the world we claim to see.
The spiritual dimension is there. There are those who claim spirituality without truth. Truth is not relative. Relative truth can be changed to fit the need/desires of those who claim to possess that truth. If ti is not true, it is false.
In your profession you would never accept, relative standards. You know that certain metals will fatigue at a certain point. That is an absolute. We know that if a human being experiences a 100G deceleration, he will die. That is an absolute. If an animal or human is subjected to a zero atmosphere they, it will die. If a man's head is cut off, he will die.These are not arguable.
Yet there are those who deny that there can be any absolutes in the spiritual realm because they cannot see it or touch it. It is only experienced by faith. We have faith (we trust) the things we can see and we think we know. But we have a problem as a created entity accepting that the Creator might have instituted absolutes in the spiritual realm. We limit ourselves because we refuse to accept the things of faith.
And faith only comes from GOD. Therein lies the rub. In our situation, we are too afraid we will have to give up something, not realizing that in surrender, we have so much more to gain.
"The world we live in is operating on more planes than can be quantified by science or some kind of empirical measurement."
That's all well and good, but are you saying that we can't use empirical testing evaluate how nature works? That we can't use the knowledge from that testing to predict how systems will behave?
(this is news to me because that's basically what I get paid to do)
and if the 4 step process I described doesn't work, then how come all this technology (these computers, my cell phone, my truck, etc...) that was designed using that process all seems to work?
I didn't say all planes were unable to be quantified. I said "The world we live in is operating on more planes than can be quantified by science or some kind of empirical measurement." That does NOT say we cannot use empirical testing to evaluate how nature works. It says there are things out there that operate in planes that cannot be evaluated by empirical testing. Nature is not one of those planes, even though there are still many things that are in disagreement. Global warming caused by man is one. That is another argument. But there is disagreement in the scientific community and there are those who would excommunicate all infidels of the holy tenet of the green people. Any time they threaten you with excommunication you are close to something, ask Galileo.
But back to topic at hand Before geologists had the black light they weren't able to see how different rocks and mineral looked under black light. It was not possible. Until we were able to do that there were people who said it didn't exist because they couldn't see it.
Under your premise, it did not exist until it was verified. It was there all the time, we just had not found it.
I am not saying that this stuff doesn't work, but at the beginning of the 17th Century if you had brought a television and DVD player to Europe, you would have executed as a witch. The basic knowledge had not yet been found to do that. They did not believe it was possible. They did not have the knowledge/technology to do that. They would have said the same thing that you are saying now, that if it cannot be described empirically, it cannot be real.
For people who are uncomfortable in matters of faith and truth, they always resort to the argument that if it cannot be demonstrated in a laboratory it cannot be real. Forty years ago, an MRI was impossible, we learned and because people believed it could be, they found it. All I am saying is, there are so many things that cannot be explained by what we can see now.
Sometimes we just have to go on FAITH.
"Under your premise, it did not exist until it was verified."
I never said that. I'm trying to have a conversation about a topic I don't know much about (biology) and I'd appreciate it if don't go declaring my premises for me.
but back to the discussion...
would you grant me the premise that there are two types of claims: claims that can in principle be falsified by experiment (like the Bernoulli principle), and claims that could not be falsified even in principle (like my belief in God)
for the sake of the discussion we could call these scientific claims and faith claims respectively?
third line should read =
I'd appreciate it if *you* don't go declaring
...for want of an editor
Okay, I didn't mean to declare your belief there, sorry about that.
There are claims that can be falsified by experiment, happens every day. Sometimes it is deliberate, sometimes it is just an error in reading the results of the data. Even if it is an error, it gives a false reading to the premise asserted.There have been many scientific studies that showed certain things, only to be discredited years later. All that does is prove that often times that which we think we know is wrong. When I was in high school, I took chemistry and I was taught several things that for whatever reason stuck in my head.
I went into the Army, traveled around the world, went to exotic distant land, met exciting unusual people and we...never mind. A little Joke there.
I got out, worked for awhile, then went back to school and in a college level Chemistry class the prof stood up and said "we used to think that..." just a few years later, okay it was ten or more, the entire thought on the makeup of the atom had changed. As our knowledge level changes, we take on new ideas that would have been heretical a few years before.
Did the reality change? No, it was our understanding of it changed.
If I say I was in the Army and someone say "I don't believe you," does that change anything. NO, the truth stays the same.
One cannot prove or disprove empirically the existence of GOD. Therefore it cannot be falsified. Beliefs are a matter of faith. But Faith in the wrong thing can be disastrous. It is easy to have faith in false concepts. Jim Jones back in the Jonestown Massacre is a good example. Those people had faith that he had their best interest at heart.
We all accept the things of science on faith and things of faith on faith. We have faith or we trust that what we have been taught is true. That holds true on things of science and things of faith.
When I was actively working in ER, and I gave code drugs we had faith that the drug was going to work. When I retired from ER, we had learned, several years ago that you don't give Sodium Bicarb as a first line drug, you can kill the patient. Thirty years ago it was the first line drug because we thought it would help. Bretyllium was used in cardiac arrhythmias, because we thought it would help. It is not even made anymore because it probably did more damage than it did good. Even science is not without its failures because we will discover next year something we thought was true, isn't and never was. But we had faith that it would work. That was misplaced faith.
you seem to be arguing that human beings are imperfect and that this imperfection often finds its way into conclusions that are called "scientific."
I accept your premise.
I ask again:
would you grant me the premise that there are two types of claims: claims that can in principle be falsified by experiment (like the Bernoulli principle), and claims that could not be falsified even in principle (like my belief in God)
for the sake of the discussion we could call these scientific claims and faith claims respectively?
I accept the first premise that claims can in principle be falsified by experiment, I am not an engineer and do not know enough about the Bernoulli principle to even comment on it. My studies have all been in the life sciences and engineering is Greek to me.
As to claims that could not be falsified, even in principle, could you explain exactly what you mean by that so we can be on the same page?
sorry for the obscure example. The Bernoulli principle is how planes fly. Its about as uncontroversial as a concept can get. I just used it because its a very good example of something that everyone accepts and that you could, in principle, falsify with a single experiment.
As for unfalsifiable claims, there are lots of them. The best example is my belief in God. There is no experiment you could do or observation you could make that would prove god doesn't exist. Therefore, my assertion that God exists is unfalsifiable.
The other example one of my old college professors made was that he had a dragon in his garage. We asked to see a picture, he said it was invisible. We asked if we could take an infra-red picture, he said it didn't give off heat. We asked if we could put wet paint on the floor to see its footprints, he said it was hovering in the air. We asked if we could throw powdered sugar on it to make it visible, he said it didn't interact with normal matter... you get the point, no matter what test or observation we came up with, he could explain away the results with his hypothetical dragon's magical powers.
his dragon was by its very nature unfalsifiable.
The dragon story sound more delusional that falsifying, but then when I was in school, I saw that many of the instructors I had in college were just one buckle short of being in a straight jacket.:-)
I would agree and thought I said as much in one of the earlier posts, that it is impossible to prove God's existence or lack of it in the physical realm that we live in. I believe that there is evidence all around of God's existence as I believe that He created the world we see, but I realize that to a skeptic, those things does not prove the existence of God. We have to want to know God so he can give us the vision to see him. If He does not show us, we cannot see Him or His works in our lives or in the world. We cannot come to Him, unless He draws us.
so, you agree that:
that some claims can in principle be falsified by experiment, and some claims could not be falsified even in principle.
for the sake of the discussion we could call these scientific claims and faith claims respectively?
A Oxford history professor, Samual Jackson also taught at the University of Victoria. He took particular delight in pointing out to his students the great success of the church in Western Civilization in "selling real estate for a place they couldn't prove existed." Western religion is sorely challenged to address the theory of evolution because education calls upon us to question the world around us. Fair to say that anyone who pursues his education will come to question religion as presented to them in the scriptures. As the discussion in this forum unfolded it is clear that neither side is short on intellect, it is a question of belief or faith that separates the views. I believe many who accept the theory of Evolution still find a place for faith in God within their belief system. To have faith regardless of the contradictions between the science and the scriptures is pretty miraculous . I believe those who rest their faith on the scriptures must disavow any and all aspects of evolution because it undermines their beliefs. Interesting that those who look for answers through science in a world full of contradictions can still find peace within their personal faith. The supporters of the Theory of Evolution are not leading an assault on faith. The foundations of the theory have little regard for the impact on religious faith and doctrine, because it is irrelevant to their study. On the other hand the religious point of view must lead an assault upon this Theory as it does threaten the foundations of their beliefs. The discussion I have read in this forum between Outdoor Engineer and Bo raises the bar above the banter that I have read in the past. If you guys got any smarter it would be like St. Augustine squaring off with Bertrand Russell. My comments are not intended to offend anybody, I don't know enough and have my feet too firmly planted on the ground to argue these matters with any confidence. However, I believe my observation is correct in pointing out that one side, out of necessity, is in a defensive position.
Outdoor_Engineer, I will grant you that for the sake of discussion that we call them scientific claims and faith claims respectively, but I will for the record, state that I have some reservations about doing so.
I will agree with Kody on the fact that in order to have faith in Creation there must be an opposition to the Darwinian Theory. I do not believe an assault is necessary, just a true examination of some of the claims and the contradictions that they feel they must minimize as these points do not stand up to critical analysis. Nor do I feel that those who follow the Theory can threaten the foundation of the belief in Creationism.
My reasons for this statement are simple. By anyone stating the Theory is true, does NOT make it so. They is no conclusive evidence that can PROVE it. When faced with this statement, the usual response of the Theorists is to at like the White House talking about FOX News. They will denigrate, malign, slander to take the argument away from the shortcomings of their premise.
Truth is truth, anything is that is in fact true will always be true or it is not truth. There is no truth for someone that is not true for everyone. Relative truth is dangerous and untrue.
If a pilot was told to fly at 9,000 feet, he knows the standard and will obey. He will not try to find his own 9,000 feet which may or may not be the same standard that air traffic told him.
We have been given a rule book and it alone is true. There are others that will say 9,000 is wherever you say it is. They will crash.
I had a professor in college, lo, those many years ago, who started out the first lecture explaining abiogenesis, the concept that life can only come from life. He showed how Pasteur, et al, did experiments to prove that. One entire hour was spent on this.
The next lecture was on how life suddenly sprang into being by just the right circumstances all happening at the right time. I asked him how he was able to synthesize the two different lectures, where he posed 2 premises that were diametrically opposed to each other. His response was to denigrate and to tell me I was of too small a mind to understand his great learning. He never answered the question.
I do not consider myself in a defensive position. I know the TRUTH, and the WAY, and the LIFE. My future is secure and I can rest in that. And the gates of Hell cannot prevail against my Foundation.
I want to continue our main line of reasoning, but I also want to address some of Bo's and Kody's remarks, So I'll split this into two responses.
Main line of reasoning-
If we have come to agreement that:
- In principle some claims are falsifiable by experiment and observation, and are therefore of a scientific nature.
-And that there are other claims could not possibly be falsified, and are therefore faith based.
-Could we then agree that scientific claims belong in science classrooms and faith based claims belong in other classrooms like history, philosophy, theology, etc...?
(bear with me here, I'm trying to present an argument that was made by a co-worker of mine that I was unable to refute)
Other remarks-
Bo-
"The dragon story sound more delusional that falsifying, but then when I was in school, I saw that many of the instructors I had in college were just one buckle short of being in a straight jacket"
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I'm pretty sure you were being tongue in cheek there, there but just to be 100% clear, the professor was not mentally ill, he was illustrating how easily we can trick ourselves into rendering out pet-hypothesis unfalsifiable if we're not careful.
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Kody-
"I believe those who rest their faith on the scriptures must disavow any and all aspects of evolution because it undermines their beliefs"
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I don't really want to get into the theological debate of 100% strict biblical literalism (a la American Fundamentalist Protestantism) versus the metaphor or parable based view(a la Roman Catholic). I lean more towards the former than the latter but to be clear, I am not taking a definite position. I just wanted to point out that there plenty of people, like Catholics, who would say that they rest their faith on the scriptures, but that Genesis is a simplified parable for how the universe was actually created. Again, I am not taking that position, just pointing out that lots of people do.
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"They is no conclusive evidence that can PROVE it"
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For the sake of this discussion, I would like to get away from the notion that we as mortal human beings can "prove" anything to the level of absolute truth. I am not saying that there is ultimate truth (dear God, I'm no postmodernist!) I am just saying that we humans can only have a finite set of knowledge, so it is in principle impossible for us to completely rule out the infinite number of ways a statement could be false. The best we can ever hope to say is "The statement is consistent with all current observations, and as of this time we have been unable to falsify it.
For example, I have a red coffee mug here on my desk. Lets say you were here with me and I wanted to "prove" to you that the coffee mug is red. You can look at it and perceive it as red, but since we are mere mortals we cannot rule out the infinite number of ways in which our perception could be deceiving us.
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For example, the mug could actually be blue, but a divine being is making the two of perceive it as red because he abhors logical thought experiments such as these. Now, it sounds ridiculous, and its almost certianly false, but since you and I are mere mortals with finite knowledge we cannot rule it out definitively and therefore we cannot "prove" the color of the coffee mug to the level of absolute truth.
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Keep in mind, I am not saying that there is no absolute, truthful answer to the question of the mug's color, I am saying that as mere mortals the best you and I can ever hope to say is: "The statement that the mug is red is consistent with all of our observations and as of this time, we have been unable to falsify it."
oh boy, BIG typo!!
Third paragraph from the bottom, third line from the top of that paragraph should read
"saying that there is **NO** ultimate truth"
postmodernists make my skin crawl, so I definitely don't want to come off as one.
(side note: it seems like you've arguing against a little bit of a postmodernist "all reality is subjective" straw-man, that's not my position, so you don't have to worry about refuting it, we're on the same page there)
"-Could we then agree that scientific claims belong in science classrooms and faith based claims belong in other classrooms like history, philosophy, theology, etc...?"
I would have to disagree with that and that will be difficult to explain why I believe what I just said. (I would much rather be sitting face to face at a table with cup of hot tea, where this could be a lively discussion and my thoughts are not constrained by the speed of my fingers as I type this.)
You use the analogy of the mug. The problem with that argument is that everything we know as science is built on certain principles that do not change. For Life to continue, there needs to be metabolism, both catabolism and anabolism, the breaking down and the building up inside the cells. In each of our cells, there is the movement of Potassium and Sodium ions for those cells to work. Our eyes all work the same, the rods and cones in our eyes all work the same, the only variance would be that in truly color blind individuals they lack the ability to see certain hues. That is a genetic determination. All things being equal, if basic principles apply, we will all see colors the same. (Men will anyway, women will see many more colors than any straight man.Trust me on this, I have been married 29 plus years, she sees many colors that I still don't believe exist.);-)
If the principles of life are consistent, then we all see the same. If they are not consistent, then there would have evolved life forms which use other elements that iron as an oxygen carrying molecule OR there would be other life forms which do not require Oxygen, other than anaerobes which are single cell entities. This is also a primary argument against the Darwinian arguments. There are anaerobes that do not require O2 but they exist only as single cell entities that never evolved beyond the single cell. Maybe it was created that way.
If those principles are true, our sensory perception as a necessity for our survival must be the same.
There is a book I read a number of years ago, "The Day The Universe Changed." It gave me a completely different take on our "modern" education. and how lacking it is. There is a distinct lack of critical thinking skills being taught.
I throw that in because the more we try to separate the different areas into science and philosophy or faith, we lose the essence of critical thinking. If we cannot synthesize these together, we have completely compartmentalized aspects of our lives that cry out to be together.
Can you prove anything to anyone. Only if they are open to being persuaded. Look at Pelosi, she is not open to any common sense, she will not listen, does NOT want her mind cluttered up with facts. There are logical points that can be made and when synthesizing all of the information, people who have not been trained to look the other way in matters of faith can be shown facts that will alter their view of their world. If their perception has been corrupted with a closed mind. they will not see. They will say that cup is BLUE, most of the time they will claim their blood is what is blue, but that is another discussion. Blue blood means too little oxygen leading to brain damage and my point is made. Most of the people I know who think they can think critically cannot,because they are locked in the modern educational indoctrination that prevents them from seeing what is plainly there. They have been told arguments against what they have been taught are only used by small minded people who cannot see things for the way that they really are. Can you say the Emperor's New Clothes?
".... This is also a primary argument against the Darwinian arguments....."
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This is a red herring at this stage of the discussion. I am not making any claims about Darwin or evolution right now. The question at hand is whether or not science class should be restricted to scientific claims.
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Keep in mind, the question is NOT asking if science class should teach that science claims are true and faith claims are false. (this seems to be another slight straw man you are arguing against) The question is asking if there should be any mention of faith based claims at all in science class. The unstated premise being the while people need not be agnostic when it comes to faith based claims, science needs to be agnostic towards them since they cannot be falsified.
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So, it appears as though you are advocating the teaching of faith-based claims in science classrooms. (please correct me if this is not your assertion) I do not understand this position, given that by their very definition faith based claims are not amenable to the scientific method and therefore outside the realm of science. Given this, can you please justify your assertion.
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(keep in mind, the terms "scientific claims" and "faith based claims" used above are intended to mean the exact definition as was mutually agreed upon)
A young man sat before the monk was frustrated in his attempts to gain some wisdom from his teacher. The monk began to fill the young man's cup with water. He poured until the water overfilled the cup and spilled onto the student and the floor below him. "What are you doing?", exclaimed the student. The monk replied, "Like this cup you are overfilled with your own thoughts and speculations. If you are ever to discover the true meaning of life, you must first empty your cup."
Would that not be a suitable conclusion to this discussion Bo and Outdoor Engineer?
I think the reservations that I stated earlier are showing themselves. When we compartmentalize the entire discussion into science based and faith based, I believe we lose the essence of education and real knowledge, and also lose the ability to synthesize the information together in the one place that it is imperative that they work together. That is part of the critical thinking that I was talking about.
Our scientific knowledge changes daily as we learn more. What we thought we knew yesterday is not going to be true tomorrow.
I am not advocating teaching faith based claims as science classrooms. I don't have to. My problem is much of what is called science is faith based, and I object to the premise of the faith that being taught and being taught as science. That is why my original statement was that evolution required more blind faith than creationism. I have heard too many profs teach their faith and pass it off as science.
The truth be told there is precious little HARD science, because as I said, what we think we know today has a good chance of being blown out of the water tomorrow. In areas where I have the most experience, the life sciences, the things that we are learning every day are almost incompatible with things I was taught just a few year ago, okay many years ago. In a true hard science, that would not happen. Math is the only subject that, in my mind that I can think of in this moment, can be considered to be a hard subject, and I don't mean difficult hard, but something that does not mold itself around the current thought of the day. 2+2 will always be 4, except in the public schools where it will be whatever makes everyone happy. But Math doesn't change that much. It is very predictable unless you get into some of the bizarre abstract stuff. Calculus has not changed much since Newton used it to figure out the things he wanted to. It has expanded in its scope, but not really changed a great deal.
In spite of the protestations of the great minds of science, and body of knowledge that is constantly in a state of flux, science is more like a gas than a solid. Gases are soft and fill the space and conform to the shape of the container they occupy, only solids can be hard.
Science uses a scientific method,granted, but it is subject to the filters people use to assess the data. Some people put out data to come to the conclusion they want, others do not. Only if the person analyzing the data is perfectly honest can a reproducible conclusion be arrived at. No one can operate outside of their belief system for long, because it will always be their default position and when all else fails they will return to it for guidance. Which is why I say that much of what is passed off as science is faith based, making the separation of the two to be intellectually dishonest.
That is not a problem for those who like being dishonest, so they will claim integrity in their actions, but there can be no integrity when the entire premise and values system is based upon dishonesty.
Kody, we have not yet begun our real discussion.;-D
several thoughts-
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So are you revoking your statement that in principle claims can be separated into those which can be falsified and those which cannot be?
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you seem to be spending quite a bit of energy arguing that humans are imperfect (a premise I granted you already) and that science does not produce absolute metaphysical truth (something I asserted myself). We are in agreement on both of these points, there is no need to argue them anymore.
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The issue at hand is NOT whether or not some science teachers currently teach faith-based claims. I will grant you the premise that indeed they do. The issue at hand is whether or not they SHOULD tech faith based claims.
I don't believe that I am revoking my claims, I am stating my reservation that I told you about when I said I had reservations but for the sake of discussion I would agree to those terms. I believe I would have been dishonest if I had not stated my reservations. We probably do agree in most points, but the semantics of the discussion seem to have clouded the issue. The issue of science teachers teaching faith based claims, the system is set up so they have no choice to do anything but that, they must teach the predominant faith and God forbid they violate the separation of church and State.
That's why we homeschooled. And for the record, my daughter was a 4.0 student, Summa Cum Laud, 3 majors, two degrees, in 5 years. Not that I am proud of her or anything. :-)
so, should faith based claims be taught in science class?
Just a quick note to let you both know I am enjoying your debate.
Should they be taught? Probably not, but that would remove most of the curricula in the public school setting.
can you firm that up into a clear statement that:
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"faith based claims should not be taught in science classrooms"?
in return, I will gladly agree to oppose the teaching of anything currently being taught in science classes that would meet our mutually agreed upon definition of "faith based"
Yes I can agree that "faith based claims should not be taught in science classrooms". But I also oppose war in general, but believe that we are in a war that we must win. These seem to be mutually exclusive but alas, we live in a world where the shoulds in our world are only a best case scenario and will never really have a place in the world of reality.
I have enjoyed this. As I said earlier, this was a conversation that would have been much better sitting at a small table by a fireplace, drinking hot tea or cider and carrying on this conversation face to face. But it was still good. We should do this again sometime.
I have also been enjoying this, and I think things are about to get interesting.
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can you think of an experiment or observation that could falsify intelligent design?
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(my coworker put this to me and I was unable to)
No, I don't think it can be done because creation can not be replicated in any kind of setting that would start out with a blank slate. If you have a blank slate, you won't be there, or else it is not a blank slate. Chicken or the egg concept.
the question is not whether or not you could replicate the process, the question is whether you can think of an observation or experiment that would falsify the hypothesis that the process happened.
I am unable to think of anything that could meet the bill.
so we have now mutually come to the conclusion that Intelligent design should not be taught in science classes. The logic went like this:
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faith based claims are claims that cannot be falsified
faith based claims should not be taught in science classes
Intelligent Design cannot be falsified
therefore Intelligent Design is a faith based claim
therefore Intelligent Design should not be taught in science classes
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So, then the natural next question is whether evolution can be taught in science classes. This leads to asking "can evolution be falsified?" When this argument was made to me my original thought was "no."
what do you think? could evolution be falsified by experiment or observation?
Much of the information that was given to "prove" evolution was falsified. Examples that were given were fraudulent. I do not have the specific examples where I can cite them but I have read much over the years which demonstrated a willingness to ignore facts if it did not support the theory of evolution. There were fossils which were portrayed as something they were not and the "educators" doing it knew they were false. Yes the record has been falsified and demonstrably so.
I believe that the theory of Evolution is a faith based claim. It is essentially a religion. The god is nature and they have made up most of what this god has done. Therefore, if we are to be intellectually honest, evolution, being a faith based claim, should not be taught in school. It has been shown to be intellectually dishonest and without integrity. The major reason its adherents continue on is they believe it takes God, the real one, out of the picture. It is amazing, like a two year old that thinks when he covers his eyes you can't see him, they believe that if they say there is no God enough times, it will become true. Psalms says The fool has said in his heart "there is no God..." Couldn't have said it better, myself.
I agree with you on the flaws of godlessness, so we can put that matter aside along with the other things we have agreed upon.
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I however am troubled by an apparent flaw in your logic.
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First we established that faith based claims are those which cannot be falsified.
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Then you said that it was possible for evolution to be falsified.
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Then you said that evolution was a faith based claim.
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There seems to be an internal contradiction in your logic, can you explain that for me?
This is a side point, but something else I was thinking about as I read your post.
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The first half of your post seems to be addressing some fossil hoaxes. You seem to be implying that the existence of these hoaxes rules out any possibility of evolution being true.
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This is an interesting line of thought, I did not bring this up with my aforementioned coworker.
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However I am troubled by something. My pastor once told us that during the middle ages, every church in Europe had a chunk of wood that they claimed was a piece of the true cross. If you added up all the pieces, it was enough wood to fill the cargo hold of a ship. Obviously the true cross was not nearly that big, so the majority of these pieces had to be hoaxes. So does that mean that the existence of these hoaxes rules out any possibility of true cross ever existing at all?
If you remember I said I could agree to those items only with reservations, then I stated that I did not know of any ways a faith based claim could be falsified or rather that I could not think of any. I was referring to Intelligent design or Creationism. I do believe the evolution doctrine has been falsified, there is plenty of evidence.And evolution has its underpinnings in the falsified data.
Because someone sold pieces of wood purported to be the cross, does nothing to deny the existence of the cross. It obviously was not the cross. Those pieces of wood were not proof of the existence of the cross, they were sold as holy relics by a group of hucksters that figured out they could make some money by conning people.There are some fossils which have been used to "prove" evolution which on closer examination do no such thing but the proponents of the theory continue to preach that it does. That takes faith. If one goes to trial using a convicted perjurer as his primary witness, he has no credibility because his witness is known to NOT tell the truth. Anyone who uses false data to make his point is no better than say Obama, who has told more lies than, well you get my point. You can't win your case unless you are John Edwards by using falsified data, (If you are John Edwards and you channel dead babies, you win your case and get millions of dollars.)
There are a variety of faiths. People will try to tell you that there are many paths to enlightenment. They cannot all be right. They have been falsified. So as part of the previously mentioned reservations I will have to say that it apparently is possible to falsify faith claims, it is not easy but it has been done, and if it has been done, it is therefore possible.
I realize that we were originally talking about origin of life, but the scope has widened and in widening the scope I believe we have altered the parameters that we were discussing and also changed the concepts we thought established. I also believe that in trying to narrow the scope, which was the intent, we changed the focus of who was discussing what and we were looking at the single trees not the forest.
instead of revoking our original premise, and removing the definitions of faith claims and science claims, thereby setting us back to square one, could this be the argument you're driving at:
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Evolution can be falsified
therefore evolution is a science claim
Evolution has been falsified, but still has adherents
therefore, these adherents are clinging to a falsified claim.
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(To be clear, I am not taking this position, I am suggesting it as a possible clarification for your position)
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One could say normally that they have "faith" in that claim, but given our strict definition of the term for this conversation I would like to stay away from that usage.
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Perhaps, for the sake of this conversation we could call adhering to a science claim that has been falsified a "foolish" claim instead of a "faith" claim?
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given that they are in fact two different phenomena I think this is fair.
I guess we could try that.
so, to clarify, our new and slightly refined definitions would be:
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Faith claims:
Those claims which cannot ever be falsified by experiment or observation.
(i.e. God exists)
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Science claims:
Those claims that could be falsified by experiment or observation but as of this time have not been.
(i.e. the earth is roughly spherical in shape)
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foolish claims:
Those claims that could be falsified by experiment or observation and have been.
(i.e. the earth is flat)
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We have also agreed that of these three types, only science claims could be taught in science classes. Also, that ID is a faith claim and therefore should not be taught in science classes.
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We have also established that evolution is falsifiable by experiment or observation. So the question we are now left with is whether evolution is a science claim or a foolish claim.
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You seem to be asserting that hoaxes only disprove a claim if all the evidence supporting that claim is based on a hoax. (i.e. the true cross is not disproven because it has evidence in the bible, completely independent of the pieces of wood in the European churches) I agree to this premise.
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You also seem to be claiming that evolution is a foolish claim because both the evidence that Darwin originally based it on, and all the pieces of evidence currently being presented by biologists are hoaxes. Furthermore, that the biologists know all these pieces of evidence are hoaxes and continue to present them as true.
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Do you agree to what I have outlined above?
sorry, didn't see that last post of yours before I posted that!
If what you say about Darwin and modern biologists intentionally perpetuating hoaxes that comprise all of the evidence for evolution is true, then this little argument I'm having with my coworker will be over rather quickly! That's quite the knockout blow.
Can you cite some sources or give some examples so that I have proof when I present this to him?
Can you email me at bjsundling@gmail.com? I am trying to gather some resources for this discussion, but I am time crunched in some other areas. I can give you some resources that should meet the needs that you specify.
Good stuff think i can have a cup of tea also. I just want to say wish we had more people like the two of you in this world. This is just my belief that god knew life would be dull if nothing could change or have a chance for evoloution. Also the reason we cant figure out how we are created because he dont want us too if he did want us to know he would of left us the blueprint of creation down the line.
Bo-
I'd really rather keep it all on the message board if we can so that everyone can read whats going on.
unless for some reason it is something that you can't post to the message board. In that case, just let me know.
I've done some research on my own and I could find a couple of fossil hoaxes, but only a few of them. It appears as though these hoaxes comprise the vast vast minority of the fossil evidence.
furthermore, every single hoax I could find information on was exposed as a hoax by an evolutionary biologist. Why would these people expose the hoaxes if they had sinister plans for them like you claim?
One great resource is is the inexpensive paperback book, "The Evolution Handbook". Evolution Facts in Altamont, TN. Phone 931-692-5777, at This is a 900+ page book which cost around five bucks. It is a terrific EvolutionBuster! There web site is
http://evolution-facts.org/
I am trying to run down some books that I used to have. One is something like "Evolution, the fossils say NO" bu a Dr. ED Blick, I have it some place and I was going to use it for a resource but I cannot find it.
As to why people expose these things, NOT everyone who believes in this stuff has sinister motives. Many people believe in ti until they begin to see the evidence pile up. The ones who don't want to accept the evidence are the ones who could be said to have sinister motives. Many people have been fed this stuff and believe it because that is all they have been exposed to. It is not really their fault.
I will continue to look for the information that I have.
But right now, I am getting ready to go out into the wilds at oh dark thirty in the morning to watch deer play in the area they think they are safe, My hunting area. I hope to see a bunch there and get some idea of their movements. Gun season is only 10 days and 10 hours away from the time I write this. I am salivating at the thought of filling my freezer. Nine days later pheasant season starts. I can't wait.
But if there is evidence independent from the hoaxes doesn't that make the hoaxes a mute point?
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Just like having evidence from the bible made the true cross hoaxes irrelevant, doesn't fossil evidence independent from the hoaxes make them irrelevant? especially if there really are some well meaning biologists out there like you say?
you there bo?
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anyone else want to take bo's place?
Just a note, I have been unavailable, will be back as soon as I can. I am so far behind on my online stuff.
While there is a break - Outdoor Engineer perhaps you could provide some general background on yourself. By your profile this is the only activity you are involved in on OL.
Are you hunter or fisherman? Some other outdoor activity?
Why did you pick OL to start this discussion?
It is interesting - just looking for some context.
Charlie-
"Are you hunter or fisherman? Some other outdoor activity?"
Many, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, off-roading, sport shooting,...
"Why did you pick OL to start this discussion?"
I thought this would be a good place to have some balance. This is a place filled with generally smart, conservative people who are not necessarily going to be as ideological as ones on strictly pro-creationism or pro-evolution web sites.
Bo-
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I've been doing some reading during our little time out here, and It appears as though Biologists have a great deal of evidence completely independent of the fossil hoaxes to support their position.
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I am also a little troubled by some sloppy logic being employed at the "evolution-facts.org" web site you gave. For instance, they try to conflate cosmology (the big bang theory) with biology (evolution).
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Though I can see why an atheist would need to be heavily dependent on both, their validity as scientific, testable hypotheses is in no way linked.
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Though I want to be sympathetic to the web site's arguments, this appears to me to be sloppy thinking at best and intentionally deceptive at worst. That throws up a pretty big red flag for me.
They threw up another BIG red flag when they started talking about thermodynamics. I am a mechanical engineer by training and the three laws of thermodynamics are as central to my work as the Hippocratic oath is to a doctor's work or central as the Bible is to the faith of a devout Christian. In other words, I know the laws of thermodynamics well, I apply them on a daily basis.
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The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy of a closed system cannot decrease over time. They draw the EXTREMELY false conclusion that entropy is equal to randomness. Then they conclude that this means complex structures (like animals) could not have arisen without the intervention of God.
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While it may be true that these structures were created by God, the second law DOES NOT support that argument. Firstly, the equation of entropy and randomness is completely fallacious. For example all high temperature gasses are extremely random, they are comprised of millions of particles buzzing every which way at high speeds. Yet high temp gasses can have either high or low entropy depending on their pressure.
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Secondly, there's that whole bit about a closed system. It is in fact easy to decrease a system's entropy by adding energy to it. (this of course, makes the system no longer "closed") This is how all gas engines, steam engines, turbines, and jets work.
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Obviously, life forms are not closed systems, we are constantly exchanging energy with our environment. You couldn't even call the earth as a whole a closed system since it is constantly being bathed in energy from the sun. So the whole thing is a moot point because they aren't even applying the second law to the correct type of system.
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This was a blatant misuse of one of the fundamental principles of engineering. I am left to conclude that whoever made the argument was either poorly educated on the subject that he is claiming to be an expert on or that he is intentionally being misleading. This is a BIG red flag for me.
I also use statistics quite a bit in my line of work in order to analyze the outcome of validations tests. I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that a few of the statistical statements they make are highly suspect (to put it kindly). My old undergrad statistics professor would have surely flunked them out of the class. Again, it doesn't mean anything on its own, it just throws up another red flag for me.
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So really, in summary, I want to be sympathetic to the arguments made on that web site, but the arguments they make in the fields with which I am familiar are so shoddy that I am hesitant to accept any of their claims in the fields with which I am not familiar. Do you agree?
oh boy,
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I Just read a little further down on the "evolution facts" site. They attempt to refute the "open system" objection to their second law claim that I gave earlier.
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In so doing they further betrayed the fact that they either have no experience applying these laws or they are being intentionally misleading.
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I won't bore everyone with the details (unless you want me to), but real quick their 2 main points are:
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1) it doesn't matter because adding heat to a system increases entropy
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This is just blatantly false. Steam engines, coal power plants, and many other devices operate precisely because they decrease the entropy of a system by adding heat.
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2) Technically, nothing in the universe is a closed system so if the "open system" critique were valid then the second law would be useless.
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While he is right that technically there is no such thing as a closed system, there are LOTS of systems that are really, really, really close to being closed.
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In these systems, the amount of energy crossing the system boundary is negligible compared to the energy levels within the system. Those are the only systems to which we can apply the second law; and earth certianly does not qualify as one.
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And to give you an idea of just how childish this is, everything I just talked about would be taught in a 1st year undergrad engineering course.
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I was really hopeful for that website at first, but after seeing all of this intellectual dishonesty I don't think I can trust them.
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I'd love to believe evolution has been falsified, but so far I've yet to see a single argument (that I understood), that legitimately falsified it.
Outdoor Engineer are you the same one who started this same topic over on F&S?
Backlash and Blowback
Evolution / Creationism / Intelligent Design
Uploaded on November 01, 2009
Is Creationism / Intelligent Design science?
http://www.fieldandstream.com/forums/backlash-and-blowback/evolution-cre...
Post a Reply (200 characters or less)
Just a quick note to let you both know I am enjoying your debate.
They all take a measure of faith, as none of them are reproducible in any kind of setting. Evolution takes much more blind faith than either of the other two.
Faith? Isn't faith believing in something without evidence? there's no evidence for evolution?
If there's no evidence then what are all these scientists getting all worked up over?
The whole thing seems kind of silly if there is no evidence at all.
So if you're saying that there is evidence, how is Bo saying that evolution takes more faith than creationism?
shouldn't there be some way to tell which is real and which is not?
Scripture says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. That is true. But we have faith in many things. We have faith that airplanes will fly and cars will move. We have faith that our spouse will be there when we come home. There are many types of faith.
Evolution requires a great deal of faith. Evolution (Darwinian theory) cannot be proved in a laboratory, nor can it be reproduced. Yet many people stake their careers on the belief that it is true. That is a type of faith. They act as if it is irrefutable but they cannot produce irrefutable evidence and get very angry when you bring that point up. They then resort to name calling and questioning your ability to think critically. But the very things they teach, such as abiogenesis teaches that their theory is flawed.
It is no different from the type of faith that a Buddhist has in his concept of an afterlife, or a Taoist, or any belief that requires faith.
The difference between the faith of a Darwinist and a Buddhist is minimal, almost a semantic argument.
we don't have any evidence that airplanes will continue to fly and cars will be able to move?
aren't there laws of nature that people, say engineers, could use to predict whether or not a plane could fly or a car could move?
Well, I have been told that aeronautical engineers determined that it was impossible for a bumble bee to fly. Faith is not the sum total of substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen, there is more to it than that. We have faith that we will be alive when we wake up every morning. There is so much we don't know and cannot predict. When is the last time the weatherman called everyday in the 7 day forecast correctly for all 7 days. Not everything can be quantified.
hmm, its funny you bring up the whole airplane thing, it got me thinking.
Now I don't know much about all this fancy biology stuff, but I am an engineer by training. We engineers don't need any faith at all to know that a plane will fly. We might need faith that the pilot won't fall asleep or that the mechanic did the tune-up correctly, but we can pull out our calculators and use Bernoulli's principle to tell you for sure whether or not the wings will produce enough lift to make the plane fly.
how do we know this? the way I see it, its a 4 step process:
1) someone observed something about the natural world
(in this case, that wing-like shapes tend to fly well)
2) someone came up with a hypothesis to explain the observation in #1
(In this case, that P + 1/2 V^2 is always equal to a constant)
3) thousands of scientists and engineers performed experiments and tests to try to prove the hypothesis in #2 is false.
(this step involved lots of dorky stuff like wind tunnels and pitot tubes)
4) Since no one in #3 could prove #2 wrong, we know that in every situation we could come up with #2 is true. So, we use #2 to design the plane so it will fly.
We don't need any faith that the plane will fly, I don't think I'd fly if it was just faith keeping those things in the air.
so whats wrong with the biologists? why can't they just do something like that to figure out how all this life got here?
Some of what you call knowing is faith. You trust that things will work the way you have been taught that they will. You trust that the bridge you drive over will not fall when you are over a chasm that is hundreds of feet to the bottom. You trust it because you have faith in it.
There was a tightrope walker who had a cable suspended high in the air. He walked it with ease. A reporter watched as the walker got a wheelbarrow and asked him if he was going to walk the wheelbarrow across the cable. He was given an affirmative and the walker asked the reporter if the reporter believed he could. Then the walker asked the reporter to get in the wheelbarrow and go across with him. THAT IS FAITH.
Most people have a measure of faith, they just don't call it that. We have faith that the world we know will continue as it has for as long as we can remember. We have faith that we will not be nuked by some crackpot two bit dictator and be sent back to the stone age. It is all faith. We just don't call it that because it sounds "too religious."
And for those ardent believers of Darwinism, it is a religion. Watch how they respond when their ideals are questioned. They are almost as bad as the Muslims were when the cartoonist in Denmark drew cartoons of Mohammad. But they will do their best to get anyone who questions it to have their credentials pulled. No difference.
but again, with your bridge example, do we really need faith that the equations that govern structural mechanics will work? or do we just need faith that the engineer did his job correctly and that the maintenance crew is doing their job?
You can call it faith or belief or whatever you want, but isn't there a difference between an engineer thinking that force will equal mass times acceleration and the reporter thinking that the tightrope walker won't drop him, or me believing I will go to paradise after I die?
aren't they different? I could do a test to potentially prove that the first one is false, but how could you do that for the other two?
are you trying to say that there's no difference between how us engineers come to conclusions, and how my pastor comes to conclusions when he talks to us about verses from scripture?
They're both incredibly useful, but aren't they a very different kind of reasoning?
If these biologists have such a big question about the natural world why can't they just do the 4 step process we engineers do, like I talked about before?
Everything we believe is either truth or falsehood. We can choose to believe things that we see and find out later it was false. David Copperfield comes to mind. We can see illusions and believe them.There is no difference in the eternal scheme of things as to how we believe scripture or science. It is either true or false. This is where the people who refuse to accept absolutes stumble. Or people who want to find their own way to paradise.
Scripture says now we see through a glass darkly. What we see here and now is only temporal. The world we live in is operating on more planes than can be quantified by science or some kind of empirical measurement.
There are forces that are active that many would deny. There are forces for evil and forces for good. Those who are uncomfortable with this are usually reluctant to be exposed to the light of truth, but prefer to remain in the darkness.
When we try to limit the unseen by our own personal analysis and our experience, we limit ourselves in the world we claim to see.
The spiritual dimension is there. There are those who claim spirituality without truth. Truth is not relative. Relative truth can be changed to fit the need/desires of those who claim to possess that truth. If ti is not true, it is false.
In your profession you would never accept, relative standards. You know that certain metals will fatigue at a certain point. That is an absolute. We know that if a human being experiences a 100G deceleration, he will die. That is an absolute. If an animal or human is subjected to a zero atmosphere they, it will die. If a man's head is cut off, he will die.These are not arguable.
Yet there are those who deny that there can be any absolutes in the spiritual realm because they cannot see it or touch it. It is only experienced by faith. We have faith (we trust) the things we can see and we think we know. But we have a problem as a created entity accepting that the Creator might have instituted absolutes in the spiritual realm. We limit ourselves because we refuse to accept the things of faith.
And faith only comes from GOD. Therein lies the rub. In our situation, we are too afraid we will have to give up something, not realizing that in surrender, we have so much more to gain.
"The world we live in is operating on more planes than can be quantified by science or some kind of empirical measurement."
That's all well and good, but are you saying that we can't use empirical testing evaluate how nature works? That we can't use the knowledge from that testing to predict how systems will behave?
(this is news to me because that's basically what I get paid to do)
and if the 4 step process I described doesn't work, then how come all this technology (these computers, my cell phone, my truck, etc...) that was designed using that process all seems to work?
I didn't say all planes were unable to be quantified. I said "The world we live in is operating on more planes than can be quantified by science or some kind of empirical measurement." That does NOT say we cannot use empirical testing to evaluate how nature works. It says there are things out there that operate in planes that cannot be evaluated by empirical testing. Nature is not one of those planes, even though there are still many things that are in disagreement. Global warming caused by man is one. That is another argument. But there is disagreement in the scientific community and there are those who would excommunicate all infidels of the holy tenet of the green people. Any time they threaten you with excommunication you are close to something, ask Galileo.
But back to topic at hand Before geologists had the black light they weren't able to see how different rocks and mineral looked under black light. It was not possible. Until we were able to do that there were people who said it didn't exist because they couldn't see it.
Under your premise, it did not exist until it was verified. It was there all the time, we just had not found it.
I am not saying that this stuff doesn't work, but at the beginning of the 17th Century if you had brought a television and DVD player to Europe, you would have executed as a witch. The basic knowledge had not yet been found to do that. They did not believe it was possible. They did not have the knowledge/technology to do that. They would have said the same thing that you are saying now, that if it cannot be described empirically, it cannot be real.
For people who are uncomfortable in matters of faith and truth, they always resort to the argument that if it cannot be demonstrated in a laboratory it cannot be real. Forty years ago, an MRI was impossible, we learned and because people believed it could be, they found it. All I am saying is, there are so many things that cannot be explained by what we can see now.
Sometimes we just have to go on FAITH.
"Under your premise, it did not exist until it was verified."
I never said that. I'm trying to have a conversation about a topic I don't know much about (biology) and I'd appreciate it if don't go declaring my premises for me.
but back to the discussion...
would you grant me the premise that there are two types of claims: claims that can in principle be falsified by experiment (like the Bernoulli principle), and claims that could not be falsified even in principle (like my belief in God)
for the sake of the discussion we could call these scientific claims and faith claims respectively?
third line should read =
I'd appreciate it if *you* don't go declaring
...for want of an editor
Okay, I didn't mean to declare your belief there, sorry about that.
There are claims that can be falsified by experiment, happens every day. Sometimes it is deliberate, sometimes it is just an error in reading the results of the data. Even if it is an error, it gives a false reading to the premise asserted.There have been many scientific studies that showed certain things, only to be discredited years later. All that does is prove that often times that which we think we know is wrong. When I was in high school, I took chemistry and I was taught several things that for whatever reason stuck in my head.
I went into the Army, traveled around the world, went to exotic distant land, met exciting unusual people and we...never mind. A little Joke there.
I got out, worked for awhile, then went back to school and in a college level Chemistry class the prof stood up and said "we used to think that..." just a few years later, okay it was ten or more, the entire thought on the makeup of the atom had changed. As our knowledge level changes, we take on new ideas that would have been heretical a few years before.
Did the reality change? No, it was our understanding of it changed.
If I say I was in the Army and someone say "I don't believe you," does that change anything. NO, the truth stays the same.
One cannot prove or disprove empirically the existence of GOD. Therefore it cannot be falsified. Beliefs are a matter of faith. But Faith in the wrong thing can be disastrous. It is easy to have faith in false concepts. Jim Jones back in the Jonestown Massacre is a good example. Those people had faith that he had their best interest at heart.
We all accept the things of science on faith and things of faith on faith. We have faith or we trust that what we have been taught is true. That holds true on things of science and things of faith.
When I was actively working in ER, and I gave code drugs we had faith that the drug was going to work. When I retired from ER, we had learned, several years ago that you don't give Sodium Bicarb as a first line drug, you can kill the patient. Thirty years ago it was the first line drug because we thought it would help. Bretyllium was used in cardiac arrhythmias, because we thought it would help. It is not even made anymore because it probably did more damage than it did good. Even science is not without its failures because we will discover next year something we thought was true, isn't and never was. But we had faith that it would work. That was misplaced faith.
you seem to be arguing that human beings are imperfect and that this imperfection often finds its way into conclusions that are called "scientific."
I accept your premise.
I ask again:
would you grant me the premise that there are two types of claims: claims that can in principle be falsified by experiment (like the Bernoulli principle), and claims that could not be falsified even in principle (like my belief in God)
for the sake of the discussion we could call these scientific claims and faith claims respectively?
I accept the first premise that claims can in principle be falsified by experiment, I am not an engineer and do not know enough about the Bernoulli principle to even comment on it. My studies have all been in the life sciences and engineering is Greek to me.
As to claims that could not be falsified, even in principle, could you explain exactly what you mean by that so we can be on the same page?
sorry for the obscure example. The Bernoulli principle is how planes fly. Its about as uncontroversial as a concept can get. I just used it because its a very good example of something that everyone accepts and that you could, in principle, falsify with a single experiment.
As for unfalsifiable claims, there are lots of them. The best example is my belief in God. There is no experiment you could do or observation you could make that would prove god doesn't exist. Therefore, my assertion that God exists is unfalsifiable.
The other example one of my old college professors made was that he had a dragon in his garage. We asked to see a picture, he said it was invisible. We asked if we could take an infra-red picture, he said it didn't give off heat. We asked if we could put wet paint on the floor to see its footprints, he said it was hovering in the air. We asked if we could throw powdered sugar on it to make it visible, he said it didn't interact with normal matter... you get the point, no matter what test or observation we came up with, he could explain away the results with his hypothetical dragon's magical powers.
his dragon was by its very nature unfalsifiable.
The dragon story sound more delusional that falsifying, but then when I was in school, I saw that many of the instructors I had in college were just one buckle short of being in a straight jacket.:-)
I would agree and thought I said as much in one of the earlier posts, that it is impossible to prove God's existence or lack of it in the physical realm that we live in. I believe that there is evidence all around of God's existence as I believe that He created the world we see, but I realize that to a skeptic, those things does not prove the existence of God. We have to want to know God so he can give us the vision to see him. If He does not show us, we cannot see Him or His works in our lives or in the world. We cannot come to Him, unless He draws us.
so, you agree that:
that some claims can in principle be falsified by experiment, and some claims could not be falsified even in principle.
for the sake of the discussion we could call these scientific claims and faith claims respectively?
A Oxford history professor, Samual Jackson also taught at the University of Victoria. He took particular delight in pointing out to his students the great success of the church in Western Civilization in "selling real estate for a place they couldn't prove existed." Western religion is sorely challenged to address the theory of evolution because education calls upon us to question the world around us. Fair to say that anyone who pursues his education will come to question religion as presented to them in the scriptures. As the discussion in this forum unfolded it is clear that neither side is short on intellect, it is a question of belief or faith that separates the views. I believe many who accept the theory of Evolution still find a place for faith in God within their belief system. To have faith regardless of the contradictions between the science and the scriptures is pretty miraculous . I believe those who rest their faith on the scriptures must disavow any and all aspects of evolution because it undermines their beliefs. Interesting that those who look for answers through science in a world full of contradictions can still find peace within their personal faith. The supporters of the Theory of Evolution are not leading an assault on faith. The foundations of the theory have little regard for the impact on religious faith and doctrine, because it is irrelevant to their study. On the other hand the religious point of view must lead an assault upon this Theory as it does threaten the foundations of their beliefs. The discussion I have read in this forum between Outdoor Engineer and Bo raises the bar above the banter that I have read in the past. If you guys got any smarter it would be like St. Augustine squaring off with Bertrand Russell. My comments are not intended to offend anybody, I don't know enough and have my feet too firmly planted on the ground to argue these matters with any confidence. However, I believe my observation is correct in pointing out that one side, out of necessity, is in a defensive position.
Outdoor_Engineer, I will grant you that for the sake of discussion that we call them scientific claims and faith claims respectively, but I will for the record, state that I have some reservations about doing so.
I will agree with Kody on the fact that in order to have faith in Creation there must be an opposition to the Darwinian Theory. I do not believe an assault is necessary, just a true examination of some of the claims and the contradictions that they feel they must minimize as these points do not stand up to critical analysis. Nor do I feel that those who follow the Theory can threaten the foundation of the belief in Creationism.
My reasons for this statement are simple. By anyone stating the Theory is true, does NOT make it so. They is no conclusive evidence that can PROVE it. When faced with this statement, the usual response of the Theorists is to at like the White House talking about FOX News. They will denigrate, malign, slander to take the argument away from the shortcomings of their premise.
Truth is truth, anything is that is in fact true will always be true or it is not truth. There is no truth for someone that is not true for everyone. Relative truth is dangerous and untrue.
If a pilot was told to fly at 9,000 feet, he knows the standard and will obey. He will not try to find his own 9,000 feet which may or may not be the same standard that air traffic told him.
We have been given a rule book and it alone is true. There are others that will say 9,000 is wherever you say it is. They will crash.
I had a professor in college, lo, those many years ago, who started out the first lecture explaining abiogenesis, the concept that life can only come from life. He showed how Pasteur, et al, did experiments to prove that. One entire hour was spent on this.
The next lecture was on how life suddenly sprang into being by just the right circumstances all happening at the right time. I asked him how he was able to synthesize the two different lectures, where he posed 2 premises that were diametrically opposed to each other. His response was to denigrate and to tell me I was of too small a mind to understand his great learning. He never answered the question.
I do not consider myself in a defensive position. I know the TRUTH, and the WAY, and the LIFE. My future is secure and I can rest in that. And the gates of Hell cannot prevail against my Foundation.
I want to continue our main line of reasoning, but I also want to address some of Bo's and Kody's remarks, So I'll split this into two responses.
Main line of reasoning-
If we have come to agreement that:
- In principle some claims are falsifiable by experiment and observation, and are therefore of a scientific nature.
-And that there are other claims could not possibly be falsified, and are therefore faith based.
-Could we then agree that scientific claims belong in science classrooms and faith based claims belong in other classrooms like history, philosophy, theology, etc...?
(bear with me here, I'm trying to present an argument that was made by a co-worker of mine that I was unable to refute)
Other remarks-
Bo-
"The dragon story sound more delusional that falsifying, but then when I was in school, I saw that many of the instructors I had in college were just one buckle short of being in a straight jacket"
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I'm pretty sure you were being tongue in cheek there, there but just to be 100% clear, the professor was not mentally ill, he was illustrating how easily we can trick ourselves into rendering out pet-hypothesis unfalsifiable if we're not careful.
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Kody-
"I believe those who rest their faith on the scriptures must disavow any and all aspects of evolution because it undermines their beliefs"
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I don't really want to get into the theological debate of 100% strict biblical literalism (a la American Fundamentalist Protestantism) versus the metaphor or parable based view(a la Roman Catholic). I lean more towards the former than the latter but to be clear, I am not taking a definite position. I just wanted to point out that there plenty of people, like Catholics, who would say that they rest their faith on the scriptures, but that Genesis is a simplified parable for how the universe was actually created. Again, I am not taking that position, just pointing out that lots of people do.
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"They is no conclusive evidence that can PROVE it"
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For the sake of this discussion, I would like to get away from the notion that we as mortal human beings can "prove" anything to the level of absolute truth. I am not saying that there is ultimate truth (dear God, I'm no postmodernist!) I am just saying that we humans can only have a finite set of knowledge, so it is in principle impossible for us to completely rule out the infinite number of ways a statement could be false. The best we can ever hope to say is "The statement is consistent with all current observations, and as of this time we have been unable to falsify it.
For example, I have a red coffee mug here on my desk. Lets say you were here with me and I wanted to "prove" to you that the coffee mug is red. You can look at it and perceive it as red, but since we are mere mortals we cannot rule out the infinite number of ways in which our perception could be deceiving us.
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For example, the mug could actually be blue, but a divine being is making the two of perceive it as red because he abhors logical thought experiments such as these. Now, it sounds ridiculous, and its almost certianly false, but since you and I are mere mortals with finite knowledge we cannot rule it out definitively and therefore we cannot "prove" the color of the coffee mug to the level of absolute truth.
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Keep in mind, I am not saying that there is no absolute, truthful answer to the question of the mug's color, I am saying that as mere mortals the best you and I can ever hope to say is: "The statement that the mug is red is consistent with all of our observations and as of this time, we have been unable to falsify it."
oh boy, BIG typo!!
Third paragraph from the bottom, third line from the top of that paragraph should read
"saying that there is **NO** ultimate truth"
postmodernists make my skin crawl, so I definitely don't want to come off as one.
(side note: it seems like you've arguing against a little bit of a postmodernist "all reality is subjective" straw-man, that's not my position, so you don't have to worry about refuting it, we're on the same page there)
"-Could we then agree that scientific claims belong in science classrooms and faith based claims belong in other classrooms like history, philosophy, theology, etc...?"
I would have to disagree with that and that will be difficult to explain why I believe what I just said. (I would much rather be sitting face to face at a table with cup of hot tea, where this could be a lively discussion and my thoughts are not constrained by the speed of my fingers as I type this.)
You use the analogy of the mug. The problem with that argument is that everything we know as science is built on certain principles that do not change. For Life to continue, there needs to be metabolism, both catabolism and anabolism, the breaking down and the building up inside the cells. In each of our cells, there is the movement of Potassium and Sodium ions for those cells to work. Our eyes all work the same, the rods and cones in our eyes all work the same, the only variance would be that in truly color blind individuals they lack the ability to see certain hues. That is a genetic determination. All things being equal, if basic principles apply, we will all see colors the same. (Men will anyway, women will see many more colors than any straight man.Trust me on this, I have been married 29 plus years, she sees many colors that I still don't believe exist.);-)
If the principles of life are consistent, then we all see the same. If they are not consistent, then there would have evolved life forms which use other elements that iron as an oxygen carrying molecule OR there would be other life forms which do not require Oxygen, other than anaerobes which are single cell entities. This is also a primary argument against the Darwinian arguments. There are anaerobes that do not require O2 but they exist only as single cell entities that never evolved beyond the single cell. Maybe it was created that way.
If those principles are true, our sensory perception as a necessity for our survival must be the same.
There is a book I read a number of years ago, "The Day The Universe Changed." It gave me a completely different take on our "modern" education. and how lacking it is. There is a distinct lack of critical thinking skills being taught.
I throw that in because the more we try to separate the different areas into science and philosophy or faith, we lose the essence of critical thinking. If we cannot synthesize these together, we have completely compartmentalized aspects of our lives that cry out to be together.
Can you prove anything to anyone. Only if they are open to being persuaded. Look at Pelosi, she is not open to any common sense, she will not listen, does NOT want her mind cluttered up with facts. There are logical points that can be made and when synthesizing all of the information, people who have not been trained to look the other way in matters of faith can be shown facts that will alter their view of their world. If their perception has been corrupted with a closed mind. they will not see. They will say that cup is BLUE, most of the time they will claim their blood is what is blue, but that is another discussion. Blue blood means too little oxygen leading to brain damage and my point is made. Most of the people I know who think they can think critically cannot,because they are locked in the modern educational indoctrination that prevents them from seeing what is plainly there. They have been told arguments against what they have been taught are only used by small minded people who cannot see things for the way that they really are. Can you say the Emperor's New Clothes?
".... This is also a primary argument against the Darwinian arguments....."
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This is a red herring at this stage of the discussion. I am not making any claims about Darwin or evolution right now. The question at hand is whether or not science class should be restricted to scientific claims.
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Keep in mind, the question is NOT asking if science class should teach that science claims are true and faith claims are false. (this seems to be another slight straw man you are arguing against) The question is asking if there should be any mention of faith based claims at all in science class. The unstated premise being the while people need not be agnostic when it comes to faith based claims, science needs to be agnostic towards them since they cannot be falsified.
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So, it appears as though you are advocating the teaching of faith-based claims in science classrooms. (please correct me if this is not your assertion) I do not understand this position, given that by their very definition faith based claims are not amenable to the scientific method and therefore outside the realm of science. Given this, can you please justify your assertion.
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(keep in mind, the terms "scientific claims" and "faith based claims" used above are intended to mean the exact definition as was mutually agreed upon)
I think the reservations that I stated earlier are showing themselves. When we compartmentalize the entire discussion into science based and faith based, I believe we lose the essence of education and real knowledge, and also lose the ability to synthesize the information together in the one place that it is imperative that they work together. That is part of the critical thinking that I was talking about.
Our scientific knowledge changes daily as we learn more. What we thought we knew yesterday is not going to be true tomorrow.
I am not advocating teaching faith based claims as science classrooms. I don't have to. My problem is much of what is called science is faith based, and I object to the premise of the faith that being taught and being taught as science. That is why my original statement was that evolution required more blind faith than creationism. I have heard too many profs teach their faith and pass it off as science.
The truth be told there is precious little HARD science, because as I said, what we think we know today has a good chance of being blown out of the water tomorrow. In areas where I have the most experience, the life sciences, the things that we are learning every day are almost incompatible with things I was taught just a few year ago, okay many years ago. In a true hard science, that would not happen. Math is the only subject that, in my mind that I can think of in this moment, can be considered to be a hard subject, and I don't mean difficult hard, but something that does not mold itself around the current thought of the day. 2+2 will always be 4, except in the public schools where it will be whatever makes everyone happy. But Math doesn't change that much. It is very predictable unless you get into some of the bizarre abstract stuff. Calculus has not changed much since Newton used it to figure out the things he wanted to. It has expanded in its scope, but not really changed a great deal.
In spite of the protestations of the great minds of science, and body of knowledge that is constantly in a state of flux, science is more like a gas than a solid. Gases are soft and fill the space and conform to the shape of the container they occupy, only solids can be hard.
Science uses a scientific method,granted, but it is subject to the filters people use to assess the data. Some people put out data to come to the conclusion they want, others do not. Only if the person analyzing the data is perfectly honest can a reproducible conclusion be arrived at. No one can operate outside of their belief system for long, because it will always be their default position and when all else fails they will return to it for guidance. Which is why I say that much of what is passed off as science is faith based, making the separation of the two to be intellectually dishonest.
That is not a problem for those who like being dishonest, so they will claim integrity in their actions, but there can be no integrity when the entire premise and values system is based upon dishonesty.
Kody, we have not yet begun our real discussion.;-D
several thoughts-
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So are you revoking your statement that in principle claims can be separated into those which can be falsified and those which cannot be?
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you seem to be spending quite a bit of energy arguing that humans are imperfect (a premise I granted you already) and that science does not produce absolute metaphysical truth (something I asserted myself). We are in agreement on both of these points, there is no need to argue them anymore.
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The issue at hand is NOT whether or not some science teachers currently teach faith-based claims. I will grant you the premise that indeed they do. The issue at hand is whether or not they SHOULD tech faith based claims.
I don't believe that I am revoking my claims, I am stating my reservation that I told you about when I said I had reservations but for the sake of discussion I would agree to those terms. I believe I would have been dishonest if I had not stated my reservations. We probably do agree in most points, but the semantics of the discussion seem to have clouded the issue. The issue of science teachers teaching faith based claims, the system is set up so they have no choice to do anything but that, they must teach the predominant faith and God forbid they violate the separation of church and State.
That's why we homeschooled. And for the record, my daughter was a 4.0 student, Summa Cum Laud, 3 majors, two degrees, in 5 years. Not that I am proud of her or anything. :-)
so, should faith based claims be taught in science class?
Should they be taught? Probably not, but that would remove most of the curricula in the public school setting.
can you firm that up into a clear statement that:
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"faith based claims should not be taught in science classrooms"?
in return, I will gladly agree to oppose the teaching of anything currently being taught in science classes that would meet our mutually agreed upon definition of "faith based"
Yes I can agree that "faith based claims should not be taught in science classrooms". But I also oppose war in general, but believe that we are in a war that we must win. These seem to be mutually exclusive but alas, we live in a world where the shoulds in our world are only a best case scenario and will never really have a place in the world of reality.
I have enjoyed this. As I said earlier, this was a conversation that would have been much better sitting at a small table by a fireplace, drinking hot tea or cider and carrying on this conversation face to face. But it was still good. We should do this again sometime.
I have also been enjoying this, and I think things are about to get interesting.
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can you think of an experiment or observation that could falsify intelligent design?
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(my coworker put this to me and I was unable to)
No, I don't think it can be done because creation can not be replicated in any kind of setting that would start out with a blank slate. If you have a blank slate, you won't be there, or else it is not a blank slate. Chicken or the egg concept.
the question is not whether or not you could replicate the process, the question is whether you can think of an observation or experiment that would falsify the hypothesis that the process happened.
I am unable to think of anything that could meet the bill.
so we have now mutually come to the conclusion that Intelligent design should not be taught in science classes. The logic went like this:
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faith based claims are claims that cannot be falsified
faith based claims should not be taught in science classes
Intelligent Design cannot be falsified
therefore Intelligent Design is a faith based claim
therefore Intelligent Design should not be taught in science classes
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So, then the natural next question is whether evolution can be taught in science classes. This leads to asking "can evolution be falsified?" When this argument was made to me my original thought was "no."
what do you think? could evolution be falsified by experiment or observation?
Much of the information that was given to "prove" evolution was falsified. Examples that were given were fraudulent. I do not have the specific examples where I can cite them but I have read much over the years which demonstrated a willingness to ignore facts if it did not support the theory of evolution. There were fossils which were portrayed as something they were not and the "educators" doing it knew they were false. Yes the record has been falsified and demonstrably so.
I believe that the theory of Evolution is a faith based claim. It is essentially a religion. The god is nature and they have made up most of what this god has done. Therefore, if we are to be intellectually honest, evolution, being a faith based claim, should not be taught in school. It has been shown to be intellectually dishonest and without integrity. The major reason its adherents continue on is they believe it takes God, the real one, out of the picture. It is amazing, like a two year old that thinks when he covers his eyes you can't see him, they believe that if they say there is no God enough times, it will become true. Psalms says The fool has said in his heart "there is no God..." Couldn't have said it better, myself.
I agree with you on the flaws of godlessness, so we can put that matter aside along with the other things we have agreed upon.
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I however am troubled by an apparent flaw in your logic.
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First we established that faith based claims are those which cannot be falsified.
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Then you said that it was possible for evolution to be falsified.
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Then you said that evolution was a faith based claim.
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There seems to be an internal contradiction in your logic, can you explain that for me?
This is a side point, but something else I was thinking about as I read your post.
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The first half of your post seems to be addressing some fossil hoaxes. You seem to be implying that the existence of these hoaxes rules out any possibility of evolution being true.
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This is an interesting line of thought, I did not bring this up with my aforementioned coworker.
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However I am troubled by something. My pastor once told us that during the middle ages, every church in Europe had a chunk of wood that they claimed was a piece of the true cross. If you added up all the pieces, it was enough wood to fill the cargo hold of a ship. Obviously the true cross was not nearly that big, so the majority of these pieces had to be hoaxes. So does that mean that the existence of these hoaxes rules out any possibility of true cross ever existing at all?
If you remember I said I could agree to those items only with reservations, then I stated that I did not know of any ways a faith based claim could be falsified or rather that I could not think of any. I was referring to Intelligent design or Creationism. I do believe the evolution doctrine has been falsified, there is plenty of evidence.And evolution has its underpinnings in the falsified data.
Because someone sold pieces of wood purported to be the cross, does nothing to deny the existence of the cross. It obviously was not the cross. Those pieces of wood were not proof of the existence of the cross, they were sold as holy relics by a group of hucksters that figured out they could make some money by conning people.There are some fossils which have been used to "prove" evolution which on closer examination do no such thing but the proponents of the theory continue to preach that it does. That takes faith. If one goes to trial using a convicted perjurer as his primary witness, he has no credibility because his witness is known to NOT tell the truth. Anyone who uses false data to make his point is no better than say Obama, who has told more lies than, well you get my point. You can't win your case unless you are John Edwards by using falsified data, (If you are John Edwards and you channel dead babies, you win your case and get millions of dollars.)
There are a variety of faiths. People will try to tell you that there are many paths to enlightenment. They cannot all be right. They have been falsified. So as part of the previously mentioned reservations I will have to say that it apparently is possible to falsify faith claims, it is not easy but it has been done, and if it has been done, it is therefore possible.
I realize that we were originally talking about origin of life, but the scope has widened and in widening the scope I believe we have altered the parameters that we were discussing and also changed the concepts we thought established. I also believe that in trying to narrow the scope, which was the intent, we changed the focus of who was discussing what and we were looking at the single trees not the forest.
instead of revoking our original premise, and removing the definitions of faith claims and science claims, thereby setting us back to square one, could this be the argument you're driving at:
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Evolution can be falsified
therefore evolution is a science claim
Evolution has been falsified, but still has adherents
therefore, these adherents are clinging to a falsified claim.
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(To be clear, I am not taking this position, I am suggesting it as a possible clarification for your position)
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One could say normally that they have "faith" in that claim, but given our strict definition of the term for this conversation I would like to stay away from that usage.
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Perhaps, for the sake of this conversation we could call adhering to a science claim that has been falsified a "foolish" claim instead of a "faith" claim?
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given that they are in fact two different phenomena I think this is fair.
I guess we could try that.
so, to clarify, our new and slightly refined definitions would be:
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Faith claims:
Those claims which cannot ever be falsified by experiment or observation.
(i.e. God exists)
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Science claims:
Those claims that could be falsified by experiment or observation but as of this time have not been.
(i.e. the earth is roughly spherical in shape)
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foolish claims:
Those claims that could be falsified by experiment or observation and have been.
(i.e. the earth is flat)
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We have also agreed that of these three types, only science claims could be taught in science classes. Also, that ID is a faith claim and therefore should not be taught in science classes.
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We have also established that evolution is falsifiable by experiment or observation. So the question we are now left with is whether evolution is a science claim or a foolish claim.
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You seem to be asserting that hoaxes only disprove a claim if all the evidence supporting that claim is based on a hoax. (i.e. the true cross is not disproven because it has evidence in the bible, completely independent of the pieces of wood in the European churches) I agree to this premise.
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You also seem to be claiming that evolution is a foolish claim because both the evidence that Darwin originally based it on, and all the pieces of evidence currently being presented by biologists are hoaxes. Furthermore, that the biologists know all these pieces of evidence are hoaxes and continue to present them as true.
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Do you agree to what I have outlined above?
sorry, didn't see that last post of yours before I posted that!
If what you say about Darwin and modern biologists intentionally perpetuating hoaxes that comprise all of the evidence for evolution is true, then this little argument I'm having with my coworker will be over rather quickly! That's quite the knockout blow.
Can you cite some sources or give some examples so that I have proof when I present this to him?
Can you email me at bjsundling@gmail.com? I am trying to gather some resources for this discussion, but I am time crunched in some other areas. I can give you some resources that should meet the needs that you specify.
Good stuff think i can have a cup of tea also. I just want to say wish we had more people like the two of you in this world. This is just my belief that god knew life would be dull if nothing could change or have a chance for evoloution. Also the reason we cant figure out how we are created because he dont want us too if he did want us to know he would of left us the blueprint of creation down the line.
Bo-
I'd really rather keep it all on the message board if we can so that everyone can read whats going on.
unless for some reason it is something that you can't post to the message board. In that case, just let me know.
I've done some research on my own and I could find a couple of fossil hoaxes, but only a few of them. It appears as though these hoaxes comprise the vast vast minority of the fossil evidence.
furthermore, every single hoax I could find information on was exposed as a hoax by an evolutionary biologist. Why would these people expose the hoaxes if they had sinister plans for them like you claim?
One great resource is is the inexpensive paperback book, "The Evolution Handbook". Evolution Facts in Altamont, TN. Phone 931-692-5777, at This is a 900+ page book which cost around five bucks. It is a terrific EvolutionBuster! There web site is
http://evolution-facts.org/
I am trying to run down some books that I used to have. One is something like "Evolution, the fossils say NO" bu a Dr. ED Blick, I have it some place and I was going to use it for a resource but I cannot find it.
As to why people expose these things, NOT everyone who believes in this stuff has sinister motives. Many people believe in ti until they begin to see the evidence pile up. The ones who don't want to accept the evidence are the ones who could be said to have sinister motives. Many people have been fed this stuff and believe it because that is all they have been exposed to. It is not really their fault.
I will continue to look for the information that I have.
But right now, I am getting ready to go out into the wilds at oh dark thirty in the morning to watch deer play in the area they think they are safe, My hunting area. I hope to see a bunch there and get some idea of their movements. Gun season is only 10 days and 10 hours away from the time I write this. I am salivating at the thought of filling my freezer. Nine days later pheasant season starts. I can't wait.
But if there is evidence independent from the hoaxes doesn't that make the hoaxes a mute point?
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Just like having evidence from the bible made the true cross hoaxes irrelevant, doesn't fossil evidence independent from the hoaxes make them irrelevant? especially if there really are some well meaning biologists out there like you say?
you there bo?
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anyone else want to take bo's place?
Just a note, I have been unavailable, will be back as soon as I can. I am so far behind on my online stuff.
Evolution is just nature doing the same selective breeding over millenia that people have managed to do in a couple of thousand years to produce your retriever. How is that hard to believe? Nature is powerful, time is immense. I don't know the answers to the religious side, but none of us do, that's what faith is. Evolution is just a process. I can see a process.
Some of what you call knowing is faith. You trust that things will work the way you have been taught that they will. You trust that the bridge you drive over will not fall when you are over a chasm that is hundreds of feet to the bottom. You trust it because you have faith in it.
There was a tightrope walker who had a cable suspended high in the air. He walked it with ease. A reporter watched as the walker got a wheelbarrow and asked him if he was going to walk the wheelbarrow across the cable. He was given an affirmative and the walker asked the reporter if the reporter believed he could. Then the walker asked the reporter to get in the wheelbarrow and go across with him. THAT IS FAITH.
Most people have a measure of faith, they just don't call it that. We have faith that the world we know will continue as it has for as long as we can remember. We have faith that we will not be nuked by some crackpot two bit dictator and be sent back to the stone age. It is all faith. We just don't call it that because it sounds "too religious."
And for those ardent believers of Darwinism, it is a religion. Watch how they respond when their ideals are questioned. They are almost as bad as the Muslims were when the cartoonist in Denmark drew cartoons of Mohammad. But they will do their best to get anyone who questions it to have their credentials pulled. No difference.
A young man sat before the monk was frustrated in his attempts to gain some wisdom from his teacher. The monk began to fill the young man's cup with water. He poured until the water overfilled the cup and spilled onto the student and the floor below him. "What are you doing?", exclaimed the student. The monk replied, "Like this cup you are overfilled with your own thoughts and speculations. If you are ever to discover the true meaning of life, you must first empty your cup."
Would that not be a suitable conclusion to this discussion Bo and Outdoor Engineer?
While there is a break - Outdoor Engineer perhaps you could provide some general background on yourself. By your profile this is the only activity you are involved in on OL.
Are you hunter or fisherman? Some other outdoor activity?
Why did you pick OL to start this discussion?
It is interesting - just looking for some context.
Charlie-
"Are you hunter or fisherman? Some other outdoor activity?"
Many, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, off-roading, sport shooting,...
"Why did you pick OL to start this discussion?"
I thought this would be a good place to have some balance. This is a place filled with generally smart, conservative people who are not necessarily going to be as ideological as ones on strictly pro-creationism or pro-evolution web sites.
Bo-
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I've been doing some reading during our little time out here, and It appears as though Biologists have a great deal of evidence completely independent of the fossil hoaxes to support their position.
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I am also a little troubled by some sloppy logic being employed at the "evolution-facts.org" web site you gave. For instance, they try to conflate cosmology (the big bang theory) with biology (evolution).
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Though I can see why an atheist would need to be heavily dependent on both, their validity as scientific, testable hypotheses is in no way linked.
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Though I want to be sympathetic to the web site's arguments, this appears to me to be sloppy thinking at best and intentionally deceptive at worst. That throws up a pretty big red flag for me.
They threw up another BIG red flag when they started talking about thermodynamics. I am a mechanical engineer by training and the three laws of thermodynamics are as central to my work as the Hippocratic oath is to a doctor's work or central as the Bible is to the faith of a devout Christian. In other words, I know the laws of thermodynamics well, I apply them on a daily basis.
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The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy of a closed system cannot decrease over time. They draw the EXTREMELY false conclusion that entropy is equal to randomness. Then they conclude that this means complex structures (like animals) could not have arisen without the intervention of God.
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While it may be true that these structures were created by God, the second law DOES NOT support that argument. Firstly, the equation of entropy and randomness is completely fallacious. For example all high temperature gasses are extremely random, they are comprised of millions of particles buzzing every which way at high speeds. Yet high temp gasses can have either high or low entropy depending on their pressure.
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Secondly, there's that whole bit about a closed system. It is in fact easy to decrease a system's entropy by adding energy to it. (this of course, makes the system no longer "closed") This is how all gas engines, steam engines, turbines, and jets work.
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Obviously, life forms are not closed systems, we are constantly exchanging energy with our environment. You couldn't even call the earth as a whole a closed system since it is constantly being bathed in energy from the sun. So the whole thing is a moot point because they aren't even applying the second law to the correct type of system.
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This was a blatant misuse of one of the fundamental principles of engineering. I am left to conclude that whoever made the argument was either poorly educated on the subject that he is claiming to be an expert on or that he is intentionally being misleading. This is a BIG red flag for me.
I also use statistics quite a bit in my line of work in order to analyze the outcome of validations tests. I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that a few of the statistical statements they make are highly suspect (to put it kindly). My old undergrad statistics professor would have surely flunked them out of the class. Again, it doesn't mean anything on its own, it just throws up another red flag for me.
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So really, in summary, I want to be sympathetic to the arguments made on that web site, but the arguments they make in the fields with which I am familiar are so shoddy that I am hesitant to accept any of their claims in the fields with which I am not familiar. Do you agree?
oh boy,
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I Just read a little further down on the "evolution facts" site. They attempt to refute the "open system" objection to their second law claim that I gave earlier.
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In so doing they further betrayed the fact that they either have no experience applying these laws or they are being intentionally misleading.
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I won't bore everyone with the details (unless you want me to), but real quick their 2 main points are:
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1) it doesn't matter because adding heat to a system increases entropy
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This is just blatantly false. Steam engines, coal power plants, and many other devices operate precisely because they decrease the entropy of a system by adding heat.
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2) Technically, nothing in the universe is a closed system so if the "open system" critique were valid then the second law would be useless.
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While he is right that technically there is no such thing as a closed system, there are LOTS of systems that are really, really, really close to being closed.
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In these systems, the amount of energy crossing the system boundary is negligible compared to the energy levels within the system. Those are the only systems to which we can apply the second law; and earth certianly does not qualify as one.
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And to give you an idea of just how childish this is, everything I just talked about would be taught in a 1st year undergrad engineering course.
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I was really hopeful for that website at first, but after seeing all of this intellectual dishonesty I don't think I can trust them.
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I'd love to believe evolution has been falsified, but so far I've yet to see a single argument (that I understood), that legitimately falsified it.
Outdoor Engineer are you the same one who started this same topic over on F&S?
Backlash and Blowback
Evolution / Creationism / Intelligent Design
Uploaded on November 01, 2009
Is Creationism / Intelligent Design science?
http://www.fieldandstream.com/forums/backlash-and-blowback/evolution-cre...
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