I find it hard to believe that creation scientists, allegedly using the same type of “data and scientific facts,” can say the earth is only between 6,000 - 15,000 years old when virtually any other scientist in the world has come up with an answer in the BILLIONS.
What can explain this? If they are truly using the same data and scientific facts, how the hell can we have such an unbelievably large disrecpancy with regard to this question? It seems extremely fishy, to say the least.
[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I find it hard to believe that creation scientists, allegedly using the same type of “data and scientific facts,” can say the earth is only between 6,000 - 15,000 years old when virtually any other scientist in the world has come up with an answer in the BILLIONS.
What can explain this? If they are truly using the same data and scientific facts, how the hell can we have such an unbelievably large disrecpancy with regard to this question? It seems extremely fishy, to say the least.
[/quote]
Simply put, Creation Scientists claim that the earth was created “old,” I believe.
Think about it, if something is created with all the attributes of “old” then it would certainly look like it to those who seek that kind of information/answer.
know what I mean?
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Ummm… Isnt the very definition of Dogma an unquestionable belief/doctrine? From the definition: “… it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from”
The fact that there are Dogma’s doesn’t mean you shouldn’t question ANY of your beliefs, but there are religious Dogmas that are, by definition, unquestionable. Now THAT is an idea worth calling ludicrous.
[/quote]
hmmm… You’re right about the use of the word dogma. I guess the point is that I felt uncomfortable with the initial statement that those who believe in religion do so without prior skepticism (ie dogmatically).
[quote]It should also be noted that the existence of a God wouldn’t necessarily be grounds for worship, therefore whether they could become true believers would depend upon your definition of a true believer.
I’m really not seeing the point to this part either.
We are getting a little too far into religious philosophy here, but the point of the statement was that even if it was proven there was a Creator, a God, a Supreme Being, an Intelligent Designer, that wouldn’t mean anything in terms of whether or not it deserved our worship. I exist, that means absolutely nothing in the way of you worshiping me.
I dont particularly find the whole of the actions and thoughts of the God of the bible worthy of praise myself, but thats just me. [/quote]
I agree that this, perhaps, isn’t the place to discuss the meaining of the possible existence of God.
Since they are “scientists,” do they have any kind of scientific data that would lead them to believe the earth was created “old?”
Or is the convenience of this view that there is no possible way to back it up with any kind of evidence?
[quote]AlphaDragon wrote:
Sneaky weasel wrote:
AlphaDragon wrote:
MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I’d love to learn more about creation science. Please explain.
To all those posts about Creation Science:
I’m no scientist and can only give some layman explanations and examples, but have so little time these days that I cannot even attempt to answer most of the questions/challenges that have come up.
I was merely pointing out an option for those out there who have an open mind to see what other scientists are saying…specifically those tackling Intelligent Design.
Now, I can refer you to some “simple” books that can make things clearer from the Intelligent Design perspective:
-The Case for Creator (by Lee Strobel)
-(or any “The Case for…” books by Lee Strobel)
-“Darwins Black Box” (by Michael J Behe)
-“The New Answers Book” (By Ken Ham)
-“Creation Evangelism for the New Millenium” (By Ken Ham)
-(Ken Ham books in general)
-“Scientific Creationism” (by Henry M. Morris)
(These are the only ones I’m personally familiar with, although there are a pluthera more out there).
Again, I’m no scientist, but I do not have blind faith in a Creator. From an Intellignet Design standpoint, we are designed with a mind and are encouraged (even ordered) to use it.
None of those books (and I am familiar with them, especially Behe’s) constitute science in any conceivable sense of the term. For a theory to be scientific, it must make concrete, testable predictions about the observable world that have a possibility of being falsified, i.e. proven to be untrue with the introduction of new evidence.
“Creation Science” makes no such predictions. Even Behe, who is a very good scientist, makes this error in his book. The “creation science” argument is that “evolution couldn’t possibly have done THIS, therefore god did it.” Do you see how this theory offers no predictions at all? It is only negative evidence. It provides no understanding at all of our world.
This is what truly angers me about the concept of “creation science.” It proposes that we utterly disregard the tradition of empirical investigation that has thus far served us so very well. Would it be reasonable for you to say “I don’t know how an airplane stays up in the air, so I think God did it”? Of course not, and if you had the equipment, you could conduct a series of investigations that would demonstrate the Bernoulli effect, lift, drag, shear, etc. and you would come to a better understanding of how an airplane stays aloft. But if you say “God did it” your understanding stops right there. If you allow God into science, (and I am not saying that the two are irreconcilable, only that science has nothing to say about God) then all need for investigation and understanding STOPS. “God did it,” “God wants it that way,” or “God will take care of it” become the only answers that matter. I cannot say this emphatically enough: THAT IS THE WAY BACK TO THE DARK AGES.
First of all, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see that you took the time (previously) to at least investigate the possibility of Creation Science.
That fact speaks well of your intellect and your willingness to search.
Again, I’m no scientist, nor pretend to be…but in the defense of Creation Science, what other choice is there but to begin with a Creator? You have to begin with a base argument and go from there…a platform, so to speak. Evolution science has a similar thing, but starts from a different platform as a base.
Now, coming from a Creation Science standpoint, all that can feasibly be done is refute evidence presented by evolution scientists. This is true. Yet, they could never “interview” God to ask Him if things were created and how. It simply does not work that way.
They are using all the same data and proven scientific facts in order to refute evolution science because there is no way to understand the designing of things from an All Powerful God.
I wish there was, but there isn’t. You can’t make predictions beyond “God designed it that way.” That pretty much sums up the whole standpoint…simply put, we can’t make a test to see if God created it that way or not.
I think I understand your point, though. Yes, the Creation Scientist refutes the evolutionary theory but kind of leaves your jaw hanging for an explainable and “seeable” and testable answer…and you may feel kind of let down by the rationalization that “God did it that way,” but remember that these are still learned men and women with the same data that evolution scientists have.
They are not stupid, as I believe you know.
They research things too as it’s fascinating to them, and as many of them say, it actually increases their faith in Intelligent Design.
However:
Your example of the airplane and flight is not reasonable, though, for reason that even Creation Scientists would take and collect data to find an answer. IF there was real-world scientific evidence, they would, as scientists, have to conclude it was due to natural laws, etc.
Your example is trying to pass them off as chicken-bone-throwing savages relying on superstitions and overspiritualizing everything instead of actually researching and searching, which is definitely not the case with intellectual types (yes, Creation Scientists believe in God and Intelligent Design, but they still have an intellect and use it). They want answers, not mythology or legend or whatever.
Now, there are numerous people (well learned scientists) that actually have gone so far as to say absurd theories that are simply unthinkable that such intellectual men and women could actually believe (I mean, come on…Aliens???).
It’s been a very long day and I apologize for my poor explanation(s) but I can barely keep my eyes open. Still, I wanted to continue this dialogue as you seem to be open to discussion and not muck-slinging, belligerent or flaming.
[/quote]
I appreciate your desire to continue this conversation civilly. I’ll try to address your points in order.
Creationism and evolutionary theory do NOT begin from the same basis. Creationism begins with: “step 1: assume a creator,” while evolutionary theory begins with DATA–originally, Darwin’s data acquired from his studies of speciation in the Galapagos. Creationism seeks to fit the data to the theory, while evolutionary theory is constantly changing in order to better fit the observed data. One is science, and one is not.
If you acknowledge that “creation science” cannot provide any testable, observable predictions about the development of life on earth, then you do not have a scientific theory. What you have is a dogma. From here we could get into all sorts of debates over why God would have designed organisms in certain ways, but that really goes nowhere.
Your argument that “creation-scientists” are prepared to accept the scientific method in some circumstances and not others is not really reasonable. There are literally hundreds of thousands of pages of scientific evidence supporting evolution–you can’t claim that there is “no evidence” upon which to base evolutionary theory. I’ll quote Orthodox Christian evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” It is intellectual laziness to assume that because our current understanding of evolutionary theory does not completely explain every biological phenomenon on the planet, that it is false, and furthermore, that God did everything. If you are prepared to contend that God is responsible for evolution, then you must also be prepared to contend that God is responsible for every other element of a scientific theory that we do not currently understand. Do you see how absurd that is?
In the 17th century, everyone “knew” that light propagated through an ether. But as that theory became increasingly difficult to square with the accumulating evidence, ‘ether’ was discarded in favor of new theories. If you allow God to intervene at any step of that scientific process, then it all stops–“light surely does propagate through an ether, because God must have made it that way, and we don’t have another answer yet.” Do you see how that completely undermines the basis upon which ALL science operates?
I really do appreciate your desire to discuss this, but the mere fact that some individuals with degrees support “creation science” has no bearing on whether or not it has any truth to it. It is not a matter of how many people agree or disagree with a theory; it is a matter of how well that theory explains the phenomena that we observe around us.
[quote]AlphaDragon wrote:
MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I find it hard to believe that creation scientists, allegedly using the same type of “data and scientific facts,” can say the earth is only between 6,000 - 15,000 years old when virtually any other scientist in the world has come up with an answer in the BILLIONS.
What can explain this? If they are truly using the same data and scientific facts, how the hell can we have such an unbelievably large disrecpancy with regard to this question? It seems extremely fishy, to say the least.
Simply put, Creation Scientists claim that the earth was created “old,” I believe.
Think about it, if something is created with all the attributes of “old” then it would certainly look like it to those who seek that kind of information/answer.
know what I mean?[/quote]
Yes, I know what you mean. But how do they back this belief up? Where is the evidence that the earth was simply created in an “old” state? Is this their mere belief, or do they actually have some evidence to back up the claim that what we see and what we test, was simply created that way?
It seems like an all-too-convenient way of getting around their problem. A Deus ex machina, if you will.
Also, it seems illogical to think that a Creator would create the Earth in a way that merely “looks” old. What is the reason for such a decision? Why not just create an Earth, capable of supporting life, with rocks that show their true age?
Oh yea, because then their theory goes right out the window.
Edit: this all comes down to assumptions. 1) God exists. 2) God created everything 3) God, in creating the Earth and the rocks found on said Earth, chose to make the rocks merely “look” old.
For what, so thousands of scientists around the world can be fooled, and only the faithful will know God’s true intentions? Fishy fishy fishy.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
It doesn’t require several pages to “try to answer” because at the present time it cannot be explained mechanistically.
[/quote]
There are several organic chemical reactions that cannot be explained ‘mechanistically’, but we can still make accurate predictions about exactly how they would proceed, in what yeild, entropy or enthalpy changes, etc.
Agreed. The first thing a scientist does is to admit that which he doesn’t know.
Again, I agree - the same point I tried to make with organic chemical reactions.
The more complex problems have no ‘proof-like’ solutions. Even in mathematics itself, it is increasingly seen that some proofs are only 99% verifiable. But are you going to throw that proof out the window because of it? It’s an interesting question to consider.
I’m not convinced by this analogy because the aliens in this case are arriving at conclusions based on just observations, rather than controlled laboratory experiments.
Certainly, there’s a lot that we don’t know. But you say that we don’t “know what protein changes would yeild these bodyplan changes”. Isn’t this what homeotic selector genes tell us?
[quote]
OK, really last post on this thread, I think I have stated all this as clearly as I can.[/quote]
Sorry for wasting your time.
[quote]AlphaDragon wrote:
MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I find it hard to believe that creation scientists, allegedly using the same type of “data and scientific facts,” can say the earth is only between 6,000 - 15,000 years old when virtually any other scientist in the world has come up with an answer in the BILLIONS.
What can explain this? If they are truly using the same data and scientific facts, how the hell can we have such an unbelievably large disrecpancy with regard to this question? It seems extremely fishy, to say the least.
Simply put, Creation Scientists claim that the earth was created “old,” I believe.
Think about it, if something is created with all the attributes of “old” then it would certainly look like it to those who seek that kind of information/answer.
know what I mean?[/quote]
You honestly buy this? God created the Earth and just made it appear old to test our faith? Did He also put the dinosaur bones there and make them look 65 million years old to test our faith as well? He made the Grand Canyon in a flash but made it look like it would take millions of years just to have a chuckle?
Come on man, think. I dont want to engage in any attacks on ones intellect here… But seriously? This is just straight out apologetic, not science.
What is God trying to do, trick us? Does he act with malice when he tries to deceive us into finding answers that would seem to disprove he exists?
[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I find it hard to believe that creation scientists, allegedly using the same type of “data and scientific facts,” can say the earth is only between 6,000 - 15,000 years old when virtually any other scientist in the world has come up with an answer in the BILLIONS.
What can explain this? If they are truly using the same data and scientific facts, how the hell can we have such an unbelievably large disrecpancy with regard to this question? It seems extremely fishy, to say the least.
[/quote]
Thats because the Creation “Scientists” are not using that evidence. In fact they discard it completely. The evidence they use is the lineage of the people as told in the bible, that is how they arrive at roughly 6,000 years old. They totally throw out the evidence from geology, physics, chemistry, paleontology, and a bunch of other sciences as well. Its almost impressive really.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
AlphaDragon wrote:
MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I find it hard to believe that creation scientists, allegedly using the same type of “data and scientific facts,” can say the earth is only between 6,000 - 15,000 years old when virtually any other scientist in the world has come up with an answer in the BILLIONS.
What can explain this? If they are truly using the same data and scientific facts, how the hell can we have such an unbelievably large disrecpancy with regard to this question? It seems extremely fishy, to say the least.
Simply put, Creation Scientists claim that the earth was created “old,” I believe.
Think about it, if something is created with all the attributes of “old” then it would certainly look like it to those who seek that kind of information/answer.
know what I mean?
You honestly buy this? God created the Earth and just made it appear old to test our faith? Did He also put the dinosaur bones there and make them look 65 million years old to test our faith as well? He made the Grand Canyon in a flash but made it look like it would take millions of years just to have a chuckle?
Come on man, think. I dont want to engage in any attacks on ones intellect here… But seriously? This is just straight out apologetic, not science.
What is God trying to do, trick us? Does he act with malice when he tries to deceive us into finding answers that would seem to disprove he exists? [/quote]
I’d like to see the evidence that disproves god first off.
Do you believe that matter has always existed randomly or that at some point the laws of physics were violated and something came from nothing?
Neither of those seems any more logically viable to me.
If you accept that something came from nothing, why could existence not have started near the present state?
That doesn’t seem any less viable to me.
As for supposing why god would do this or that, sounds like a man filled with some straw.
If you logically dismiss creation, you have to logically interrogate infinity. Neither way works with reason.
I find that many anti-creationists are okay with the miracle of creation as long as it was around the time of the big bang. For some reason “poofed” existence is acceptable trillions of years ago, and silly millions of years ago.
With existence there is no control, there are no variables, there is no applying the scientific method. To hold the circular logic of existing now because it always did is no more logically sound than creation.
Believe what you want, but with existence I don’t see any logical high ground.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I’d like to see the evidence that disproves god first off.[/quote]
The burden of proof is not on me to show God does not exist, it is on those who make the claim that there is a God to show it.
For example, I claim there is an invisible tea cup floating around the Earth… Now please show me the evidence that disproves it. It cant be done, but that doesnt mean there is ANY reason to believe that the cup is actually there (credit: Bertrand Russel)
[quote]Do you believe that matter has always existed randomly or that at some point the laws of physics were violated and something came from nothing?
Neither of those seems any more logically viable to me.[/quote]
Unfortunately this is one of the more complicated ideas in the whole of physics right now. Results are pending. What I absolutely do not want to have happen is everyone throw in the towel and just say “Well, God must have dont that. Lets all quit looking at.”
To offer a place holding answer to your question: Matter has always existed in some form or another, the Big Bang was the expansion of the singularity, not the creation of it. Without getting too complicated(I’m simplifying here), The Big Bang does not violate any laws of physics, rather the laws of physics are what we use to postulate the big bang.
[quote]If you accept that something came from nothing, why could existence not have started near the present state?
That doesn’t seem any less viable to me.[/quote]
I dont know that I willing to give you the “something from nothing” argument as I dont think that is the current understanding of the universe, however I will address your other poing:
There is nothing less viable about either hypothesis from the beginning, but when you look at the evidence all of it favors one side. At that point it becomes much less viable to believe in the second option. There is also nothing wrong with saying a Giant Snake created everything as we know it today… But there is no evidence for this claim.
As for supposing why god would do this or that, sounds like a man filled with some straw.[/quote]
Umm…The argument posed to me was: God created the Earth 6,000 years ago but made it appear to be 4.5 billion years old. I simply asked WHY he would do such a thing. No straw needed.
I dont logically dismiss creation. There is no violation of logic occurring, I dismiss it due to lack of evidence. When the evidence comes in, I will change my position.
I dont quite understand the infinity reference, since my position is the position of the current understanding of physics, namely that the universe is roughly 14.8 billion years old. I never said it was infinitely old.
[quote]I find that many anti-creationists are okay with the miracle of creation as long as it was around the time of the big bang. For some reason “poofed” existence is acceptable trillions of years ago, and silly millions of years ago.
With existence there is no control, there are no variables, there is no applying the scientific method. To hold the circular logic of existing now because it always did is no more logically sound than creation.
Believe what you want, but with existence I don’t see any logical high ground.[/quote]
I dont know any “anti-creationists” that are okay with the “miracle of creation” to start with… Much less do they become more okay with it as we go further back in the past. Maybe we talk to different people though.
Rather we follow the evidence where it leads (as opposed to starting with a conclusion), mainly that the universe as we know it today started expanded from a single point roughly 14.8 billion years ago. This is confirmed by multiple lines of evidence, I will point you to resources if you are not aware of them.
Again, I am not claiming that we always existed becase we exist now(Humans are barely one-two hundredthousand years old, much less millions). My claim is that, according to the best available scientific evidence, the universe is roughly 14.8 billion years old.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
I’d like to see the evidence that disproves god first off.
The burden of proof is not on me to show God does not exist, it is on those who make the claim that there is a God to show it.
[/quote]
I have never seen evidence of the existence of your brain either. Hm… (just an illustrative joke)
There are many things everyone accepts without reason. You cannot make a scientific statement without relying of assumptions void of logic (though observably true).
My point is that existence itself is illogical, you cannot apply scientific principals to an unscientific situation.
I’m aware. I was referring to the anecdotal answer of where the singularity came from. Which is my vary point that science doesn’t tackle existence.
This is one time unrepeatable unverifiable evidence as to the age to the big bang. Not to the time frame of existance.
Asking why in the root sense of the word is not something science really does anyway. But supposing far fetched reasons for the logic of god and attributing it to the other side in order to make their point sound silly is 100% straw man.
Far enough of a why question though. Let me ask one. Why does a moving charged particle emit photons? Thats about as fundamental as science gets. If you can’t explain why, maybe I shouldn’t just accept it on faith. Why are massed particles attracted? Explain to to me the reasons for the nuclear force.
Science leaves out the why question all the time.
Essentially you are saying you have no belief in creation because science hasn’t told you what to believe yet?
Or do you have an answer to when the singularity started 14.80001 billion years ago? Or what set in motion the big bang?
[quote]
I find that many anti-creationists are okay with the miracle of creation as long as it was around the time of the big bang. For some reason “poofed” existence is acceptable trillions of years ago, and silly millions of years ago.
With existence there is no control, there are no variables, there is no applying the scientific method. To hold the circular logic of existing now because it always did is no more logically sound than creation.
Believe what you want, but with existence I don’t see any logical high ground.
I dont know any “anti-creationists” that are okay with the “miracle of creation” to start with… Much less do they become more okay with it as we go further back in the past. Maybe we talk to different people though.
Rather we follow the evidence where it leads (as opposed to starting with a conclusion), mainly that the universe as we know it today started expanded from a single point roughly 14.8 billion years ago. This is confirmed by multiple lines of evidence, I will point you to resources if you are not aware of them.
Again, I am not claiming that we always existed becase we exist now(Humans are barely one-two hundredthousand years old, much less millions). My claim is that, according to the best available scientific evidence, the universe is roughly 14.8 billion years old. [/quote]
I’m saying that people who mock creation run out of breath when you query the fundamentals of what they believe. Science is fundamentally incapable of examining certain aspects of life. It only asks why to a finite limit when the universe is infinite.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I’d like to see the evidence that disproves god first off.[/quote]
Which god?
Obviously, there can be no such evidence to disprove the existence of God, but that’s really beside the point. Scientific inquiry does not assume God does or doesn’t exist. It only assumes that God does not tinker gratuitously with His creation.
Science is the search for an understanding of the physical world around us, and is based on the assumption that the world behaves in a self-consistent manner.
This is known as the “Omphalos Hypothesis” after the 1857 book by P.H. Gosse, which suggested that Adam and Eve must have had navels, even though they had no parents (Omphalos is the Greek word for bellybutton).
The problem is that if you accept the Omphalos Hypothesis, there is no particular reason to pick any one starting point. The universe might have been created some 6000 years ago or 6000 seconds ago (with all our memories already intact and this conversation already underway).
There is no physical evidence or experiment that could possibly distinguish one from the other. That’s why this belief is sometimes lampooned as “Last Thursdayism”, as the belief that the world was created last Thursday.
[quote]
I find that many anti-creationists are okay with the miracle of creation as long as it was around the time of the big bang. For some reason “poofed” existence is acceptable trillions of years ago, and silly millions of years ago.
With existence there is no control, there are no variables, there is no applying the scientific method. To hold the circular logic of existing now because it always did is no more logically sound than creation.
Believe what you want, but with existence I don’t see any logical high ground.[/quote]
Those you call “anti-creationists” are more properly known as “physicists, cosmologists, and scientists in general”. The reason they believe the Big Bang occurred some 13.7 billion years ago, and not last Thursday, is because that’s what the evidence suggests.
Looking at the expansion of galaxies, the fluctuations in cosmic microwave background radiation, the distribution and distance of supernovae, all of these things suggest a universe that is not quite fourteen billion years old, based on our current understanding of how those processes work.
Is it possible that the 13.7 billion year figure for the age of the universe will be revised up or down in the future? Of course, although probably not by much as we have three different measurements that generally agree with one another. Will it be revised to be only six thousand years ago? Almost certainly not, as we have much more evidence that the Earth itself is at least four billion years old.
This is the fundamental difference between science and “Creation Science” - cosmologists did not pick a desired date for the creation of the universe and then look for evidence to support that.
Until Hubble discovered the red shift, most scientists just assumed that the universe had been around forever. It was only when they continued to observe evidence to the contrary that they began to accept that the present universe must have begun at some point in the past, and that the most likely time of that point was 13.7 billion years ago.
[quote]milod wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
I’d like to see the evidence that disproves god first off.
Which god?
Obviously, there can be no such evidence to disprove the existence of God, but that’s really beside the point. Scientific inquiry does not assume God does or doesn’t exist. It only assumes that God does not tinker gratuitously with His creation.
Science is the search for an understanding of the physical world around us, and is based on the assumption that the world behaves in a self-consistent manner.
Do you believe that matter has always existed randomly or that at some point the laws of physics were violated and something came from nothing?
Neither of those seems any more logically viable to me.
If you accept that something came from nothing, why could existence not have started near the present state?
That doesn’t seem any less viable to me.
This is known as the “Omphalos Hypothesis” after the 1857 book by P.H. Gosse, which suggested that Adam and Eve must have had navels, even though they had no parents (Omphalos is the Greek word for bellybutton).
The problem is that if you accept the Omphalos Hypothesis, there is no particular reason to pick any one starting point. The universe might have been created some 6000 years ago or 6000 seconds ago (with all our memories already intact and this conversation already underway).
There is no physical evidence or experiment that could possibly distinguish one from the other. That’s why this belief is sometimes lampooned as “Last Thursdayism”, as the belief that the world was created last Thursday.
I find that many anti-creationists are okay with the miracle of creation as long as it was around the time of the big bang. For some reason “poofed” existence is acceptable trillions of years ago, and silly millions of years ago.
With existence there is no control, there are no variables, there is no applying the scientific method. To hold the circular logic of existing now because it always did is no more logically sound than creation.
Believe what you want, but with existence I don’t see any logical high ground.
Those you call “anti-creationists” are more properly known as “physicists, cosmologists, and scientists in general”. The reason they believe the Big Bang occurred some 13.7 billion years ago, and not last Thursday, is because that’s what the evidence suggests.
Looking at the expansion of galaxies, the fluctuations in cosmic microwave background radiation, the distribution and distance of supernovae, all of these things suggest a universe that is not quite fourteen billion years old, based on our current understanding of how those processes work.
Is it possible that the 13.7 billion year figure for the age of the universe will be revised up or down in the future? Of course, although probably not by much as we have three different measurements that generally agree with one another. Will it be revised to be only six thousand years ago? Almost certainly not, as we have much more evidence that the Earth itself is at least four billion years old.
This is the fundamental difference between science and “Creation Science” - cosmologists did not pick a desired date for the creation of the universe and then look for evidence to support that.
Until Hubble discovered the red shift, most scientists just assumed that the universe had been around forever. It was only when they continued to observe evidence to the contrary that they began to accept that the present universe must have begun at some point in the past, and that the most likely time of that point was 13.7 billion years ago.[/quote]
I’m glad you are willing to admit science makes untestable assumptions too.
Don’t get me wrong I am a scientist of sorts. I use and trust science everyday. I’m not saying we shouldn’t persue science and study the world around us. Or that we shouldn’t use science to the best of our ability.
Great, the evidence points to a singularity 13.8 billion years ago. Put that in text books. Teach it in science class. But do not try and substitute it for an explanation of existance.
What I am saying is that there are limitations and assumptions to science that have to be taken on faith. As stated before the human race is scientifically a blink in the universe. Who are we to suppose with our limited reference that physics has always been physics?
When I say anti-creationists I’m referring to the religion of science. People that base beliefs on it without seeing it’s limitations.
And quit to the contrary of what you are saying the smarter the scientist I meet, the generally more willing they are to accept science’s limitations. This is especially true in areas like quantum mechanics. And the less contradiction they see between science and religion.
I’m not arguing “creation science” at all.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
It doesn’t require several pages to “try to answer” because at the present time it cannot be explained mechanistically.
And I think it was correct of me to say it’s not even close.
There is likely a difference between being a scientist and therefore having a lot of experience and practice in actually having things nailed down and having to demonstrate doing so, and popular idea of what constitutes being fully understood and known without gaps.
For example, towards the end of my degree in microbiology you could ask me any number of environmental changes E. coli might be exposed to, and I could tell you (having been taught, and these being understood matters) at the molecular level how the bacterium sensed the difference and responded to it. Even then knowledge is not complete – e.g., WHY this protein sequence folds this way to yield this enzyme is too hard a problem – but certainly we can explain in great detail just how the bacterium regulates itself to various conditions.
Or in medicinal chemistry, in many cases we can do just that with regard to how a drug works (and are quite aware when this cannot be done, as also is often the case.)
Or studying physics or chemistry, one is used to either being able to provide a mathematical-proof-like solution of why and how a given thing is so, or not being able to do so.
Whereas to the non-scientist, the fact that scientists can name something that is involved is I think commonly taken as being that it is already known how something works right down to the fine details or must be close to it.
Sort of like aliens listening in on Earth radio transmissions, and upon one of their scientists saying it is uncertain to their science, at the detailed level, how profound muscle growth occurs in adult humans, and expresses that their race is not close to understanding how this occurs in humans: and a non-scientists replies “Well it would take several pages to explain but barbells go a long way towards explaining it. So see, we ARE close to fully understanding what happens in detail.”
Yes, barbells are involved (typically) but simply knowing that they are is not close to understanding it at a mechanistic level. And in fact barbells are not in and of themselves sufficient.
Lastly – and this will really be my last on it – one ought to consider information concerns. It will not happen that a change of a letter here, a letter there, will modify a book with large amounts of added valid, complex information.
There is rather clearly a large information difference between a viable fish-type heart and circulatory system and that of an amphibian.
A suggestion that changes of a few letters of DNA sequence – that is to say, a few mutations – or doublings of some of it or omissions of some of it naively (IMO) omits the consideration of how much information needs to be added. We don’t know exactly how much it is, but it’s a lot.
Again my point is not that we know it is impossible for this to occur via chemical processes and natural selection, but rather, to assert that we know that it IS possible is not true. We can’t say that we know that given protein changes would yield these bodyplan changes, we can’t even specify how much information change is needed, how many genes would need to be changed how much, etc, or I think even give a rational sounding explanation of how the first creature with this type of system successfully propagates its new genes what with the fact that it is the only one of its kind, or even if it is born with a twin sibling or that sort of thing.
As for an earlier post giving a suggestion that it sounds like I’d be interested in a text on developmental biology: What is the underlying assumption you are making? It is incorrect.
OK, really last post on this thread, I think I have stated all this as clearly as I can.[/quote]
The assumption that I was making by suggesting a developmental biology text is that you were really open to learning such mechanics.
I find it odd that you point out how a scientist “knows” something, yet feel you have kept up on the last 10-15 years of research in developmental, molecular and evolutionary biology and genetics enough to comment on these topics.
For instance, this is copied from a website designed for intro college students/highschoolers, and is a rational explanation of how the first creature would propagate:
Hermaphroditic Fish
* Hermaphroditism: Some fish individuals are both males and females, either simultaneously or sequentially. There is no genetic or physical reason why hermaphroditism should not be present. About 21 families of fish are hermaphrodites.
* Simultaneous hermaphrodite: There are some instances where being a member of both sexes could have its advantages. Imagine all the dates that you could have! In the deep sea, the low light levels and limited food supply make for a very low population density; meaning that potential mates are few and far between. Members of the fish family Salmoniformes (eg salmon) and Serranidae (hamlets) are simultaneous hermaphrodites; they can spawn with any individual encountered.
* Sequential hermaphrodite: Very strange life histories develop in species whose individuals may change sex at some time in their life. They may change from being males to females (protandry) or females to males (protogyny).
An example of protandry is found in the anemonefishes. The fishes live with anemones in a symbiotic relationship; the anemone provide the fish with shelter and protection from predation, and the fish supply the anemone with food.
Groups of fishes will live with one anemone, and will not switch anemones. Only the two largest will mate; the largest female and the second largest, the male. With the female being the largest, she can produce the most eggs. When the female dies, the largest male will change sexes and become the female. The rest of the fish are immature males.
A classic example of protogyny is found in the wrasses and parrotfishes. The males in these species form harems, with one large male sequestering and defending a group of smaller females. The male enjoys spectacular reproductive success, as it has many females to mate with.
The females also enjoy a limited reproductive success, producing as many eggs as they can, all fertilized by the one male. The male has the advantage over the females; it has many females producing eggs for him to fertilize, whereas the females only have themselves. It is great to be the king!
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Asking why in the root sense of the word is not something science really does anyway. But supposing far fetched reasons for the logic of god and attributing it to the other side in order to make their point sound silly is 100% straw man.
Far enough of a why question though. Let me ask one. Why does a moving charged particle emit photons? Thats about as fundamental as science gets. If you can’t explain why, maybe I shouldn’t just accept it on faith. Why are massed particles attracted? Explain to to me the reasons for the nuclear force.
Science leaves out the why question all the time.[/quote]
You seem to be suggesting that things in nature have “motive”… That massed particles WANT to attract each other. Rather, thats just the way it is. Science can explain the HOW of the matter, I dont know that I ever said it explains the why, or that that is even a valid line of questioning.
That seems a little more like Philosophy or Metaphysics than science to me.
As I understand it, the expansion of the big bang was an expansion of Space-Time, so to speak of something happening “before” the big bang is really not the correct way to phrase it since time itself started with the Big Bang.
I’m well aware that science has limits, it is merely a method for examining the world around us, thats all. It is a quantitative system, not qualitative. It assigns no value to anything. It explains how things are, not why they are that way.
What about the universe is infinite? It has both a starting point and boundaries… There is nothing infinite about it.
[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
wtf?
how is evolution a fact, theres black people and white people. there were no white people 80,000 years ago.[/quote]
lol what?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I’m glad you are willing to admit science makes untestable assumptions too.
Don’t get me wrong I am a scientist of sorts. I use and trust science everyday. I’m not saying we shouldn’t persue science and study the world around us. Or that we shouldn’t use science to the best of our ability.
Great, the evidence points to a singularity 13.8 billion years ago. Put that in text books. Teach it in science class. But do not try and substitute it for an explanation of existence.[/quote]
What are you even talking about when you say “existence” ? The Big Bang is nothing more than the theory of the expansion of matter some 14 billion years ago from a single point. Thats it. I dont really know what you mean when you say science “explains existence.”
Such as?
This is very short sighted. This is akin to saying “How do we know, with our limited reference, that the Earth was here before humans were around to see it?”
The laws of physics are not mediated by time. If the laws were any different, the universe would be different. The fact that the laws have never, ever, ever been violated is relatively good data to suggest that they never have been in the past either.
[quote]When I say anti-creationists I’m referring to the religion of science. People that base beliefs on it without seeing it’s limitations.
And quit to the contrary of what you are saying the smarter the scientist I meet, the generally more willing they are to accept science’s limitations. This is especially true in areas like quantum mechanics. And the less contradiction they see between science and religion.
I’m not arguing “creation science” at all.[/quote]
Ahhh, the tired old “Religion of Sciece”, and to top it off you even invoke Quantum Mechanics. I knew it was only a matter of time before they got used.
Science is NOT about belief. It is about knowledge. A scientist may hold any number of beliefs, it does not make them scientific, nor does it make them “religious.”
There is no inherent contradiction between Science and Religion, the problem comes when the two both offer different claims on individual topics. The Bible says God created man some 6000 years ago. Science has conflicting information, thus there is a contradiction. The conflicting data are examined on a case by case basis, not a Science V. Religion basis.
Exactly, religion and science are different fields of inquiry. You cannot mock one using the other.
I consider existance and the fundamental laws of the universe evidence that there is something more. I can’t say the same for the teacup.
I was not aware that space and time itself (both of which are essentially relative/man made quantities) were supposedly started by the big bang.
It was my knowledge that it only dealt with the matter of the universe. and further that one of the fundamental assumptions of the big bang is that universal laws of of the universe are unchanging. That seems contradictory.
Are you supposing space, is finite as well as time? I’m curious as to the scientific reasoning for this.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
I’m glad you are willing to admit science makes untestable assumptions too.
Don’t get me wrong I am a scientist of sorts. I use and trust science everyday. I’m not saying we shouldn’t persue science and study the world around us. Or that we shouldn’t use science to the best of our ability.
Great, the evidence points to a singularity 13.8 billion years ago. Put that in text books. Teach it in science class. But do not try and substitute it for an explanation of existence.
What are you even talking about when you say “existence” ? The Big Bang is nothing more than the theory of the expansion of matter some 14 billion years ago from a single point. Thats it. I dont really know what you mean when you say science “explains existence.”
[/quote]
exactly, yet it is touted as somehow disproving god.
science has no answer to why any atom in my fingernail exists.
the whys.
You don’t know that. how do you know big G was always exactly big G. hell, we can’t even measure it exactly. recent launches by nasa suggest our formulation of orbit is slightly off. Much less cosmic expansion of all matter.
What is the evidence that they have “never” been violated? never is a strong word when dealing with infinity or even 14 billion years.
No, science should not be about belief. It is for many people. I was not evoking quantum. I was just saying I happen to have known some quantum physicists that are indeed religious. and don’t think science applies to their religious beliefs.
Now you are confusing god with the Christian God as interpreted through the Bible by certain people. But anyway, lets take the Christian god as presented by the Bible. Point to me where it says how old the earth is.