And no employment. But hey, the air would be cleaner.
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You were saying that my position implies a conspiracy. Something I have never said.
Fraud and conspiracy does occur from time to time as for example in the establishment, say, of the Church of Latter Day Saints where there are over 16 million members. They have their âexpertsâ and documents and assets over over $100billion. Even a university. But no amount of money or expertise can change the fact that the whole edifice is built upon a complete myth. However, fraud is not always necessary for people believing a narrative to be true which is in fact false. It happens all the time in myriad belief systems. Vast quantities of 'experts 'and wealth is involved in many. They canât all be true.
When a worldview narrative is accepted by a community of people and is to some degree either institutionalised or it becomes part of the general social imaginary, then people tend to interpret âevidenceâ in accord with that particular worldview. Not only this, they also exclude others as unorthodox and not part of the clan. The world of the âsciencesâ is no different.
For an evolutionist to even consider the proposition that evolution may not in fact be true will be treated as utterly preposterous. So convinced in his mind will he be, that he cannot conceive it to be anything else but true. This should be expected. Those who do not fall in line will be accused of promoting âpseudoscienceâ.
We have seen this here in this thread to some degree. Itâs just human nature. Itâs tribal.
Regarding mathematical precision- not all mathematicians are on board with the evolution narrative. There as some professional mathematicians who regard it as mathematically highly improbable to the point of being practically impossibleâŚ
Obviously no point naming them. They will be regarded here as promoting pseudoscience.
This is brilliant! So if we put YECs in charge of all oil exploration and drilling, it could be the greenest, most ecofriendly policy the U.S. ever passed! Do you think conservatives would go for it?
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I would guess you are thinking of Dr. Bill Dembski
Remember you heard it here first.
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Unless a rabbit fossil were found in pre-Cambrian rock (I live near some, two sites, fabulous. I have seen Charnia. No rabbits.), why would a biologist question evolution? Nobody trained in biology has any private reason to do so. None of them do. None. Not one. Ever. The internet is safe enough for a bona fide biologist (not an IDot) to protect their identity and question evolution. None do. No disinterested biologists (not prone to the fallacy of incredulity) do. None ever have. Not even Margulis. Find me one, single disinterested biologist who anonymously, anywhere questions evolution. And itâs not Margulis. No amount of ridicule affected her. And she became a 9 11 whack job. And never questioned evolution per se. (Her contribution is enormous but her hubris and obsession ruined her. Like Hoyle.)
Nobody could care less what savant mathematicians, physicists and chemists fallaciously regard as improbable in biology or cosmogony that has already happened. Nobodyâs asking them. And again, if they did, the grown ups, there is perfect consilience. Nothing in grown up disinterested mathematics, physics, chemistry, theology questions evolution. How could it? On what basis? Here we are. Those most prone to incredulity are physicists. I canât think of a single chemist. And even John Lennox doesnât trot out the school boy error post-hoc probability fallacy. Even he knows that evolution operates forwards.
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Speaking of straw men arguments, that is one.
Of course, evolutionists can conceive of YEC as being true. It is not the conception, but the evidence, that banishes YEC to the realm of pseudoscience.
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I know you didnât say that your position implies a conspiracy. I acknowledged that you didnât say that your position implies a conspiracy. But what you did or didnât say, and what is the case in reality, are two completely different things. And it is reality, not what you did or didnât say, that I was talking about. The fact remains that your position cannot account for reality without a conspiracy, and that is the case whether you said it or not.
How many âexpertsâ? Yes they have millions of members, but do they have millions of experts? And what are these âexpertsâ touting? Are they touting scientific theories that make precise, numerical, testable predictions and that have practical real-world applications such as finding oil? Or just something much more woolly that only concerns the vagaries of humans and other living beings?
I think youâre trying to compare apples and oranges here.
For an electromagnetismist to even consider the proposition that Maxwellâs Equations may not in fact be true will be treated as utterly preposterous. So convinced in his mind will he be, that he cannot conceive it to be anything else but true. This should be expected. Those who do not fall in line will be accused of promoting âpseudoscienceâ.
You could say the same thing about any scientific theory which is supported by vast swathes of rock-solid, unambiguous evidence, which has significant practical and commercial applications, and which is foundational to multiple other areas of scientific research. Especially if the challenge against it consists of quote mining, hand waving, sloppy or dishonest measurements, straw man cartoon caricatures (âmacroevolution is a cat turning into a dogâ), tiny samples with huge error bars, and absurd new laws of fantasy physics that would have vaporised the earth if they had any basis in reality. To refer to challenges of that nature as pseudoscience would be totally and completely justified.
Look, itâs as simple as this. If you want to challenge a scientific theory, there are strict rules that you must follow and standards that you must maintain. Standards that have nothing whatsoever to do with âworldviewsâ or ânarrativesâ but that are just concerned with basic honesty and factual accuracy. Standards that apply to everyone, whether they are mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists, geologists, or paleontologists, whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, or bottle nosed dolphins.
What are the rules? Start here:
Not all mathematicians are trained in evolutionary biology or evolutionary algorithms. Those who fall into this category and try to argue against it usually have serious misconceptions about how these subjects actually work.
Besides, I donât think that you understand what I mean by precision here. Iâm not talking about the probability of abiogenesis. Iâm talking about the sizes of error bars on the respective measurements and how closely they correlate with each other.
You do know what error bars are, do you?
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Might you please consider that to be massively ironic?
Come on all you shy, disinterested, biologists who consider the proposition that evolution may not in fact be true. No, no, no, not merely consider, because I can do that and the consideration doesnât last a moment. I want to hear the scientific doubts, the scientific disbelief in evolution from atheist, agnostic and other non-Christian biologists. When I say scientific I mean scientific.
Ah, but this just proves @eyeillustrationâs point doesnât it!? If you disinterestedly study biology youâre doomed, trapped, brainwashed, biased by your nature and that nurture! Only those ignorant of biology can have a free unbiased thinking opinion on evolution.
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Aye, forwards.
Do you believe it to be absolutely certain that it is? Thereâs the question. At least I readily admit that mine are âbeliefsâ.
The real irony is the MO of Biologos who believe they can marry a form of practical, methodological atheism to Christianity and still remain with a fully coherent belief system without everyone having to resort to a kind of Orwellian âdoublethinkâ.
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Best thing you have said for a long time. 
As poor âprofessionalâ Dr. Dysartâs dilemma-
'Do you really imagine you can account for me? Totally, infallibly, inevitably account for me�
A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave. It sniffs, it sucks, it strokes its eyes over the whole countable range. Suddenly one strikes. Then another. Then another. Why? Moments snap together like magnets forging a chain of shackles. Why? I can trace them. I can with time even pull them apart again. But why at the start they were ever magnetized at all, why those particular moments of experience and no others, I do not know⌠and nor does anybody else!
And⌠if I donât know, if I can never know⌠what am I doing here?
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Asserting meaningless meaning. As Viktor Frankl - a true professional if ever there was one; IN Auschwitz - found.
Yes, they have loads of âexpertsâ who approach things scientifically. Not really apples and oranges either as you might think. There are teams who devote their whole lives towards defending something that you and I would believe never happened.
Consider also the work of Thomas Furguson and his legacy, (although not a formally trained archaeologist) https://www.science.org/content/article/how-mormon-lawyer-transformed-archaeology-mexico-and-ended-losing-his-faith
I read the link about âHow to challenge a scientific theoryâ although it still doesnât add up to âevolutionâ as being a fact. The fact remains -itâs still a theory i.e. a human postulate with itâs origins in naturalism.
This is what it says about âerror barsâ
One such rule, for example, is that measurements have error bars. Error bars are determined by taking a range of measurements and using a formula called the standard deviation to determine how tightly they cluster around the average value. This gives an indication of precisely how reliable (or unreliable) your measurement is. You cannot claim that your measuring technique is significantly more unreliable than that.
I am prepared to believe that this is a very good scientific approach but are you sure that it is necessary to believe in human evolution from previous life forms to find oil? I donât see the connection.
This is not science. Mormon Studies is simply the study of different aspects of the Mormon religion. At least two people in your list, Gerald and Sandra Tanner, are openly hostile to the Mormon religion!
The Book of Mormon teaches that ancient Jews sailed to the Americas and became the ancestors of the native Americans. The BoM was supposedly written in âReformed Egyptian,â a language nobody has heard of. Mormons started a rumor that archeologists used the Book of Mormon as a guide in studying ancient American history. This rumor has no basis in fact. The church even told its adherents to stop looking for archaeological evidence for the BoM.
Yes- I know. This does not deter belief in the book of Mormon. They have their own (so-called) âexpertâ apologists and âscholarsâ defending the belief that it is authentic- which was my main original point.
There is also the case of the âBook of Abrahamâ and the book âBy His Own Hand upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smithâ. The authenticity of which was approached methodologically. Although nothing can be found that you and I would believe confirms its authenticity- Mormon âscholarsâ still defend it as an important aspect of their belief system.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/His-Own-Hand-upon-Papyrus/dp/0962096326
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/evidences/Category:Book_of_Abraham
I refer back to the life of Thomas Furgusson which has basis in widely accepted historical record by Mormons and non-Mormons.
Furgusson found nothing to confirm that the book of Mormon was true. To make it clear- Iâm not defending Mormonism- far from it. Just the fact that having many âscholarsâ and âexpertsâ promoting and defending something does not necessarily make that thing true⌠which was my original point. Mormon belief was an illustration of that point. Also testimony to the fact that human beings tend to interpret evidence according to their established belief system or worldview. You and I are no different. This is not to say that there are not exceptions and people donât change their minds but as a general rule of thumb.
No. But oil is exemplary in that the techniques and methodologies of geological science are sound, and those are integral in understanding evolution.
I take it then that if scientists were to extract all understanding of human evolution from that of geological techniques and methodology, then they wouldnât be able to find oil. Which is strange because when I studied geology, alleged human evolution had nothing to do with it.
Yes, like I believe in gravity and that the earth is approximately spherical. (You donât perchance believe that the earth is flat, do you?)