Vague claims with no details or substantiation are worthless.
Multiple vague claims with no details or substantiation that contradict each other within a single paragraph are priceless.
1 Like
That statement is as clear as can be. There is no contradiction or substantiation required other than your input. Can you see the difference between guided and non guided deviations?
Richard
Who is “they”? Popular press journalists? Actual researchers in their publications? Actual researchers in poorly-informed philosophical writings? New Atheists? Three of those sometimes do, the rather important fourth one does not.
The differences are caused (to the extent measurable, i.e., every measurement we have fits this pattern) by mutations or changes in gene expression (yes, most of the inheritable forms of these are from mutations in regulatory regions, but that’s beside the point). The ultimate cause of the mutations is the difference between designed and undesigned. Science cannot detect that without the Divine-o-meter that keeps being referenced.
1 Like
And it is a strawman argument.
The point being that if the initial changes are guided then subsequent “controls” such as Survival have less importance. Also, guidance means that the guider can diagnose and fill voids or ensure adaptions instead of them happening by chance.
Richard
One other likely misunderstanding has come to mind. “The science says” implies what?
If the scientific evidence points in a particular direction, it is not honest to claim that it points in another direction. “Science says”, if true, is the authority for the question “what does science say?”
Science is not, however, the ultimate authority. On many topics, science provides very important components to an understanding. But besides the human limitations of scientists, science is profoundly limited in what it can tell us. It is reasonable to say “Science says ___ but what about this other factor?” Of course, the claims relating to the other factor are subject to scrutiny, just as science claims are.
For example, the scientific evidence clearly and unambiguously supports a vast age for the earth. Claims otherwise are not honest. (The person making the claim may be honest but misled, etc.) Someone might say “That is a problem for a young-earth position, but what about what Scriture says?” We can then discuss what constitutes good exegesis. But it is wrong to say “I believe that the earth is young based on my understanding of the Bible, therefore making false claims about science to support a young earth is OK.”
3 Likes
Your question is phrased deistically. Psalm 104 describes God as feeding the lions and ravens. Natural processes are a part of God’s working. God is distinct from creation, but actively involved in all that happens, not merely in setting parameters and not just below the surface but also at and above the surface.
But expecting science to somehow detect God by just looking at the physical parameters is like the scene in Creatures with the Atomic Brains where the scientist glances at a sample under an ordinary compound microscope and proclaims “radium!” It’s the wrong tool for the job. Given a Christian theological perspective, one can perceive the wonder of creation and thus find science to be pointing to God. But that perception is beyond science’s reach. Flatland is an entertaining short exploration of the limits of one’s perspective.
2 Likes
I don’t. I expect Love to be obvious.
Why?
You seem perfectly content to claim that YECs are lying and wrong! Why should science be immune to such claims? Christianity has been a target of this sort of claim since conception, what makes science any more right than any other?
Your “evidence” is very particular and limited. You now perfectly well that human senses can be fooled and we can misinterpret what we see or sense. What gives anyone the right to claim that their view of Scripture is right or wrong!
Looking at the posts on this website you would never think so! The opposite would appear to be the norm! It may be just linguistics or poorly worded statements but the sentiment is very clear nonetheless.
How many people here call me a science hater because I dare to challenge just one assertion?
Richard
Exodus 20:16; Job 13; Psalm 119:104 (end of Mem, for those with alternate verse numberings), 119:128, and 119:163; Proverbs 11:1, 13:5, 14:5, 20:23; Zechariah 13:3; Ephesians 4:25; I Timothy 1; and 1 John 4:1 are among the many, many passages which condemn making false statements, which suggests that making false statements in support of one’s views is a bad move.
Claiming that completely unpermineralized soft tissues or unaltered red bloods cells, or anything like that is preserved in dinosaur bones is demonstrably wrong. Claiming that angular associations between quasars and foreground galaxies require them to be at the same distance is demonstrably wrong. Claiming that accelerated nuclear decay is a viable physical explanation that doesn’t require deceptive miracles is demonstrably wrong. Claiming that transitional fossils don’t exist is demonstrably wrong. And the list could go on.
Cherry-picking, quote mining, misrepresentation of evidence, fudged measurements, defying rules of measurement, etc. are methods of lying. All of these can be found, with unfortunate frequency, in YEC promotion materials. They can also be found in low-quality scientific papers, and are attacked just as vigorously by reviewers.
3 Likes
And who is deciding what is true or false? Scripture or Science?
If you are going to claim Scriptural backing…
(an H word comes to mind)
That list is from Scripture?
Who has rated these papers?
I am sorry but you cannot actually win this argument as long as you claim science does not come above Scripture!
I do not care whether the current theology is against YEC. It is “Consensus” theology.
Whether I believe it or not. Scripture says that i do not have the authority challenge another person’s faith over “minor” details.
Unless, of course, you are going to claim that Evolution is not minor, and neither is OE.
When will you (et al) understand what the Christian message and faith really is?
Richard
Because YECists regularly lie and misrepresent and get things wrong.
It isn’t – it has to meet the same standards of evidence and reason that YEC does.
The difference is that science operates by those standards.
2 Likes
Given that you think that the basic claims of Christianity aren’t even true, I don’t think you’re in any position to ask such a question.
1 Like
What I said was that excusing lying on the grounds that it supports one’s view was wrong. Most creation science claims accuse scientists of lying. To condone their accusations while complaining about accusations in the other direction is not being consistent. Creation science is usually taking existing research and trying to put a young-earth spin on it, and so is directly attacking other research. Creation science rarely takes care for accuracy. Even when they do research, the results are often misrepresented in crucial details in order to make it fit the message that they want to provide. For example, in recent claims that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited by water, young-earthers did experiments on how different forms of transport affected sediment. They found that mica was broken into tiny pieces by wind but then claimed that wind should completely destroy mica in their popular account. That is a lie; they knew it was untrue but claimed it anyway because it would sound like the young-earth position had scientific justification.
Senses can be fooled, and we can misinterpret things. But that does not justify ignoring what our senses tell us, nor dismissing interpretations that have been extensively tested for centuries. And it does not excuse misrepresenting what the current prevailing interpretation is.
The evidence on the age of the earth is extremely extensive. I have catalogued fossils from all continents for museums and have collected fossils in a dozen countries, besides reading about what other people have found. Of course, that is still quite limited compared to omniscience, but it is a large set of data to work with. Numerous separate lines of evidence all strongly support a minimum age of millions to billions of years. Putting exact numbers depends heavily on radiometric dating, once it’s not possible to count Milankovitch cycles backwards (between the lack of continuous sequence and the gradual shift in Milankovitch cycles over time). Young-earthers are welcome to try to think of a young-earth model that matches the data, but are not welcome to insist on accepting a model that consistently disregards the data. Every single young-earth scientific argument I have encountered is not good. Not “explains the data if you start with a different point of view”. They are no good, and any young-earther should be opposed to them because they discredit the young-earth movement by their poor quality, dishonesty, and incoherence. Note, however, that relativity tells us that time depends on the speed of the observer. From the viewpoint of an observer travelling near the speed of light, you can get the age of the earth as short as you like. Or a young-earther can admit that the science doesn’t seem to fit with a young earth while hoping to have a way to resolve the issue, or try to find a good reason to suppose that the scientific evidence is not actually a good way to determine the age of the earth. There are honest options for a young-earth approach, but the modern creation science movement simply is not one of them.
If I read “the apostles were all in one accord”, and I conclude that it is a biblical mandate to drive a Honda, my understanding of Scripture is wrong. Interpretation does inherently involve our subjective judgements. But that does not mean that all interpretations are equally valid. Some are wrong. Interpretations should seek to the original intent, rather than imposing our views on the text. (Of course, one can have all sorts of inspirations from a text, but that should be distinct from interpretation.) For example, a study found a fossil whale showing some characteristics intermediate between toothed and baleen whales. They stated that the transition from toothed to baleen whales used to be a puzzle, but this find helped fill it in. “Creation Moments” cited the study and claimed that this showed that it was impossible for toothed whales to evolve to baleen whales. That is not an honest interpretation of the paper’s text. A few years ago, someone posted to the BioLogos forum a claim that fossil whale bones were evidence of rapid burial in the Flood because whale bones break down in under 50 years when sitting on the seafloor. The young-earth source for that claim cited a paper that studied the breakdown of dead whales on the seafloor. In the original paper, it was stated that they didn’t know how long bones could last on the seafloor, because the oldest specimen they had data for was only fifty years old and it still had a long ways to go before reaching the final stage that could be seen from fossils. In other words, the original paper said “must be way more than fifty years” and the young-earth source claimed that it said “no more than fifty years”. Again, directly misrepresenting the source.
Discussing how to interpret Scripture may lead to agreement on criteria for better interpretations, whereupon we can discuss how well a particular interpretation meets those criteria.
Looking at the posts on the forum, I would think that science is not the ultimate authority. Although anyone can post, I do not assume that people are claiming that science is the ultimate authority unless they say that.
Genesis 1 assures us that everything is part of God’s creation, not acting independently. In other words, the components of the universe should behave in regular patterns. Also, it tells us that humans have the task of ruling creation. Competent rulers (in contrast to plenty of actual ones) must be able to determine what effects their actions are likely to have. In other words, Genesis 1 tells us that we can and should do science. Of course, there is abundant empirical evidence that science works pretty well for a lot of things, also. And once we get to Genesis 3, we see that our ideas are likely to be incorrect. But this sends us back to the importance of looking at the data and examining ideas to determine what are the best understandings of whatever we are examining. As Augustine noted, Christians making foolish claims about science that are supposedly based on the Bible makes Christianity look bad.
7 Likes
Evolution is not a theological essential. But claiming that young-earth creationism is a theological essential is a serious error.
The modern young-earth creation movement expanded from a fringe view, held only by a few groups from the latest 1700’s through the mid-1900’s. Old-earth ideas go back at least to the early church. Young-earth is not the Christian consensus, though many of the false historical claims are uncritically accepted from “Enlightenment” fiction intended to discredit Christianity rather than being invented by the young earthers. The marketing of young-earth creation has been quite successful in misleading conservative Christian circles, in part because the focus on marketing has not been accompanied by concern for accuracy.
2 Likes
Such as?
This is all a dominantly Bible Belt American issue. Why is that? What historical, cultural forces have been at work? Apart from the obvious?
Exactly!
I suppose there’s one difference between YEC and some of the other approaches: some others are honestly seeking to figure out the truth.
1 Like
You should perhaps take the time to make somewhat longer replies; your antecedents are not always clear. What all is a part of your “this all”? (Good chance you can find problematic antecedents in my posts, too.)
The claim that Christians held exclusively to a young-earth view until science came along is one particularly important false claim that originated in Enlightenment efforts to misrepresent the history of science and faith. Like other claims that scientists were examples of “reason” overturning “superstition”, this is quite thoroughly debunked (Dal Prete, On the Edge of Eternity is a key source on the particular question of the age of the earth; the History for Atheists website is a good resource on bad historical claims, by an atheist who wants people to use good arguments https://historyforatheists.com/ . Though I wouldn’t trust Bart Ehrman on several topics, having known a fair number of people who took his classes.)
The modern young-earth movement has its roots mostly in Seventh-Day Adventism, which in turn grew out of movements centered in the northeastern US to eastern Canada but which had significant trans-Atlantic influence as well as elsewhere in the Americas. In turn, the US has major global influence, and the modern young-earth movement has been spread globally.
Obviously, someone who does not care what the Bible says will not be swayed by claims that a particular teaching is biblical. Young-earth and antievolutionary ideas have largely been marketed as being more theologically sound than alternatives, so the market is largely those who seek to be theologically sound in some way, whether it is the antievolutionism of Hare Krishnas (curiously abetted by young earthers even though the Hare Krishnas are definitely old earthers), the Islamic claims of Harun Yayha, the atheistic space alien cult of Raelians, the Korean-rooted cult of the Unification Church (now somewhat disunified after the death of Rev. Moon).
Of course, the false claims that science means rejecting religion also tend to make religious people more receptive to bad claims about science. There’s plenty of blame that goes to the promoters of science-faith warfare myths, no matter which side they claim are the good guys.
3 Likes
Prhaps one day some people will see the disitnction between arguing and promoting a position or argument and claiming it is right and everyone lese is wrong.
I have never made that claim.
(see above)
see above
Richard
I have found that the quickest, easiest and most effective way to refute YEC and ID arguments is to:
- Quote what the YEC or ID argument says about its sources
- Quote what the sources actually say
- Highlight the difference.
This works almost all the time. It works so frequently that the initial response to anyone posting a YEC or ID argument that they have copied from a YEC or ID website can legitimately be to ask them whether they have read the sources that are cited and, if they haven’t, request that they do so.
5 Likes
Great general link, thanks, any particular threads within? That show
false historical claims are uncritically accepted from “Enlightenment” fiction intended to discredit Christianity
I’ll have to dig obviously.
I critiqued Ehrman whilst subscribing. But the good far outweighs the bad. He can be a tad vague, hand waving, surprisingly. He has no good will to the text, which is intellectually valid, although not exactly postmodern. I do have goodwill, to the whole process and exercise, and to Jesus as a posited real, natural, historical person. As the ultimate what if. What if, apart from supernatural claims (with no material evidence or need whatsoever), he, his remarkable mother’s son, acted, believed in good will, all the way.
Long enough?