Exactly. That is exactly what most evolutionists do. Presuppose the conclusions. That’s why they are so surprised to find organic material, such as distinguishable collagen or Dna in fossils of dinosaurs… Because of their presupposing of conclusions. Then of course, they change the normal characterization of the evidence to fit their paradigm. Of course, I know you don’t believe that, but the whole point is that YEC are not anti-science. It is a lie, and a deception, to say so.
DNA in fossils of dinosaurs? What DNA in fossils of dinosaurs? As far as I’m aware, nobody has found DNA – certainly not sequenceable DNA – in fossils of dinosaurs. If the Earth really were only six thousand years old, we would be finding copious quantities of intact T-Rex DNA everywhere. We’d have sequenced the entire T-Rex genome by now. Why haven’t we?
3 Likes
Proof? Evidence?
Woolly mammoths? Ötzi the Iceman? Tollund Man? Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA? Even by YEC reckoning these are all several thousand years old, yet they’ve all been sequenced completely.
In any case, scientists have studied how long DNA takes to fragment. The paper to read is Allentoft et al (2012). They found that it would take DNA an average of 131,000 years at 15°C, 882,000 years at 5°C, or 6.8 million years at -5°C to decompose to single nucleotides.
3 Likes
Wrong.
Very wrong.
Remarkably wrong.
It is anti-science to presuppose ones conclusions. It’s not bad to have a hypotheses of what you think or expect to find, but then you don’t get to pretend that you’re still right in the face of contradictory evidence.
One does not presume that dinosaurs are found in rock they can be very accurately dated to be older than 65 million years old. You just simply measure ratios of isotopes, using various techniques to eliminate potential errors. It was surprising to find search material and dinosaur fossils not because of any presumption but based upon our best understanding of how various material decays. Now we also don’t actually have any organic material but rather fossilized remnants of such that only occurs in highly oxidizing environments.
There is no measurement of anything ever that is ever returned an actual physical measurement of 6000 years for the age of the universe/ earth or 4000 years for a global flood. Which geological strata should be even try to date for the flood? There is no single strata of the covers the entire world and nobody who holds to a YEC position can actually come to a consensus on which geological layers represent the flood or so on and so forth. There’s nothing in the entire universe that supports this position. If one had to figure this all out from scratch and wasn’t aware of a particular interpretation of the Bible that was reinspired by Seventh-day Adventist founder, Ellen White - nobody could tell that supposedly all the stuff was created a few thousand years ago and that there was a global flood ever.
6 Likes
One of the most godly Christians I have ever met told me that it’s ok to keep a Biblical prejudice because we all have prejudices. That was a mistake, though I still have the greatest respect for him that I ever had for any being.
I used to sit down with my agnostic professor in undergrad and protested that we all have prejudices, so we couldn’t know what truth was. He looked at me, took a breath, and said, “but then, if we stopped trying, we wouldn’t know anything; and that’s not feasible.” I realized that he was saying it’s not good to have prejudices–we should avoid them, and continue asking questions till we get rid of as much as possible. There is no excuse to, as Ken Ham put it, keep our prejudices.
In “Four Views on a Historical Adam,” William Barrick, who argued for the YEC side, said we should not judge the Bible from what we learn in the world; we should read the world through Bible lenses. That’s really scary. Judging from a strict Biblical interpretation, as John Walton reminded us in “The Lost World of Genesis One,” would ensure that we believed that there was a three-tier universe, with flat earth and raqia dome. On the other hand, there was no reason for God to teach new scientific information to his target audience of the time…it had nothing to do with the message and would only confound things. When I talk to my daughter, at 5, I try to explain that the sun doesn’t really rise in the east…that we tilt toward it…but she does not really understand yet. I don’t push it because that is not helpful to her. The ancients were not intellectually immature, but they did not have a worldview that necessitated or would have responded favorably to actual facts about the age of tge earth, etc.
Further, how can we discuss things with people of other faiths? Given Ham’s declaration, there’s no reason to convince a Muslim or Hindu of various interpretations–we can’t use our mind and senses to interpret the world rationally without our holy book’s interpretations, so we can’t communicate over faith or science with any sort of common language.
God’s earth is reliable and good. It is a good place to start reasoning from. Thank you.
1 Like
Wrong. It may not be the best method, perhaps, but it is not anti-science. Otherwise evolutionists would be anti-science, as they appear often to presuppose their conclusions. Driving a vehicle poorly does not mean the driver is anti-driving.
Thanks for using the phrase ‘as they appear often to.’ That is a terrible myth that keeps being repeated by anti-science groups like the YEC science writers, or those that reject anthropogenic climate change, vaccines don’t cause autism, the earth isn’t flat, or many other things in the name of ‘scientists are biased and presuppose conclusions.’
Why do scientists do this? The anti-science groups say things like: money, job security, anti-God/anti-Bible bias, etc. while simultaneously claiming they have true knowledge/science on their side.
1 Like
But the point is whether one is willing to improve or not. To insist on driving on the wrong side of the road despite signs to the contrary is doomed to end in trouble, isn"t it? 
2 Likes
Presupposing one’s conclusions is not the best method of doing science in the same sense that shooting someone in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun is not the best method of performing an appendectomy.
3 Likes
No, but it does mean that the driver is reckless. Driving poorly can kill people.
It’s the same thing with arguments about the age of the earth. If you want to try to fit evidence to your presuppositions, you need to make sure that the way you do so meets basic standards of quality control. If you encourage sloppiness in the historical sciences, you will also encourage sloppiness in the operational sciences. And that, too, can kill people.
Just about every argument for a young earth that I’ve seen fails spectacularly in that department.
2 Likes
Since you continue in your lies that YEC are anti-science, it is difficult to take any of your other statements seriously. The fact that evolutionists appear to presuppose their conclusions is clearly a type of evidence that they do not rely exclusively on the scientific method for their world view. The fact is that they actually do presuppose the generality of their conclusions, when it comes to interpreting the general fossil record, and the significance of similarities of dna between species.
When you add anthropogenic climate change, vaccines, autism, flat earth to the equation, you are using a non-scientific way of reasoning. It’s like saying that anti-science people are afraid of sharks. Its a non-sequitor. Plus, No YEC scientist believes the earth is flat, and so you have ruined your entire argument. And, if you actually listened to the arguments about anthropogenic global warming, you will realize they are diverse; that most scientists who have difficulty with carbon taxes are not debating about climate change occurring, but about the degree of change, the allocation of cause, about the significance of human cause, the arrogance of human power to stop change, the inevitability of change regardless, and about the harm of reducing change compared to the harm caused by the potential change itself. It’s usually about the inadequacy of the soutions, and about the unwillingness to embrace change, rather than trying to fight it.
Exactly right, although your analogy is highly prejudiced and pathetically inaccurate. A better analogy would be to presuppose cancer of the intestine, instead of checking out the appendix first.
Ah see, you have done it again… presupposed your conclusion. You have no idea whether the poor driving is reckless (imputing a motive) or just due to poor vision, or due to lack of traffic on the highway or side streets (so safety is not a concern), or due to a sudden onset of diabetic attack or series of unexpected small strokes.
You have again failed to approach the question from an open-minded scientific perspective.
John, do you know anything at all about driving?
Here in the UK it is ILLEGAL to drive with poor vision. You also have to report any health condition that might affect your driving, such as diabetes or a history of strokes – and some conditions may prevent you from driving altogether. You still have to take due care and attention even when there is a lack of traffic on the highway or side streets. If the weather is bad, you have to slow down and take extra precautions. Safety is NEVER “not a concern” when you are driving.
I’m not presupposing anything. I’m merely pointing out that driving has rules. And so too does science. And YEC simply does not obey the rules.
4 Likes
I think you are projecting here. Many young earth creationists think that that is how science is done and so it’s not a problem that everyone just has their own bias. But alas, science is not done this way, regardless of your insistence.
The same types of tactics are used by all types of science denying groups.
If you say so. But it just so happens that most people in the flat earth movement read the Bible very similarly to YEC and even argue that YEC don’t take the Bible seriously because you include modern knowledge when you read a round globe into the Old Testament.
1 Like
Kierkegaard answered that nicely:
When we see someone holding an axe wrong and chopping in such a way that he hits everything but the block of firewood, we do not say, “What a wrong way for the woodcutter to go about it,” but we say, “That man is not a woodcutter.”
Now for the application. When we see YEC “scientists” doing everything wrong, we don’t say, “What an odd way for the scientist to do the job,” but we say, “That person is not a scientist.”
2 Likes
You have managed to avoid totally the implication of motive, in the term “reckless driving”. Poor parallel parking, or stopping four feet after the white line, or failing to signal when no one is behind you, or driving slowly thru a stop sign when no one is coming across, constitutes poor driving, but would not be classified as reckless driving. Legally. (since you brought up “illegal” as a substitute for something).
You have presupposed that poor driving is always reckless, when it certainly is not.
Of course, Kierkegard was right in his example. Which you have misapplied. The woodcutter who hits the block of wood on every second swing, or the woodcutter who has chopped an enormous pile of wood, but then swings and allows the axe to glance off a chunk of wood and cut into his own leg, are people who are certainly woodcutters, but perhaps not as good as they should be or could be. this applies to evolutionists who seem to get some things right, but then fail to deal appropriately with some very significant concerns and data along the pathway to their conclusions.
In the end, analogies are fun, but do not prove a thing. YEC scientists do not do everything wrong, so Kierkegaard does not apply. If you see them doing everything wrong, perhaps you have poor vision.
That may be so John, but nothing that you have said here challenges my central and most important point. Driving has rules, and similarly, science has rules. If YEC wants to claim to be legitimate science, then it must obey the rules of science. It’s as simple as that.
2 Likes