Eddie,
Scientific American has a great article this month about an entire complex economy existing 2525 B.C. to build the pyramids. Great article.
I still don’t know, because I am not from USA. But of course we all have our opinions. We go with them, make decisions with our opinions. Yes. But Sometimes our inner truth is indecision, indecisiveness… that too is inner truth. Sometimes we do the exact opposite of what we want to do; that is also inner truth. Our inner truth might also paralize us, because it is composed of a variety of conflicting “truths”, or our inner truth might convince us to do morally questionable things which our inner truth tells us are quite okay to do.
Of course, we tend to trust ourselves, but, sometimes we trust someone else’s inner truth more than we trust our own, and so we are susceptible to following someone else who seems to know what they are doing. I think inner truth is a nebulous, fairly useless concept, especially philosophically.
Sure I question prehistory assumptions. But that’s not your problem. You can’t address the generality. If I was to make such a generality as a challenge, I could not defend it. So we can only, and do only deal with specific issues, one at a time. We can use evidence of problems as a caution that other problems might exist, that possibly methodology is not as airtight as made out to be. But we cannot use such evidence to prove that all other conclusions are incorrect, in that I agree with you, nor am I making such a claim. Slowing down at a yield sign is not the same thing as stopping turning around and heading back in the direction from which you came. I am suggesting a yield sign.
If a professor of a non-christian institution holds his own in a historical argument and gets 90% of his peers to agree and accept his conclusions, and then later discovers, they all discover together, that the timeline does not accord with C14 dating, or, as in another case, discover that various events happened at the same time, rather than consequentially… would you apply the same judgemental attitude towards them?
I noticed a comment on fossil fuels (particularly coal deposits) in that they may have formed over relatively short and not long periods (thousands instead of many millions of years). This area is very interesting and also very difficult to provide a complete scientific theory, especially on the type of physical events that may be envisaged. Having said that, coal deposits (particularly low rank coal like lignite) have been shown to form from vegetation undergoing complex processes termed coalification. These processes are very complicated chemistry, and yet it is clear the process would require many million of years to provide the substance that we mine and burn today.
It is clearly not something that can take place over a few thousand years.
GJDS, you have evidence for this “clearly” part?
I think it would be good if you stopped using the term “fundamentalist” professor. I doubt there really is such a category, and it is a misleading point. You argue that it doesn’t matter whether a professor is from a christian or non-christian institution, then yet you single out your perception of a category. So to you it does seem to matter. And the corollary is also pertinent. Professors should be able to convince christian professors and scientists that their perspective and their conclusions are valid. As has been mentioned, mere consensus is never proof of anything, disagreement in science is good, …
sure, but I find this somewhat useless, or maybe too obvious, and yet providing no real insight, no real tangible utility. Everybody must make a decision, even if the decision is indecision (agnosticism). Inner light, emotion, feelings, knowledge, following someone else, following a book, guesswork, flipping a coin. “Narrow, limiting backgrounds” as defined by those who suppose that they are much wiser, broader, and open-minded, refined, cultured, etc., etc. Really? that seems like a very narrow perspective to me.
There are a number of papers on coalification that you can access if you interact with journals such as fuel and geological chemistry. The mechanisms for coalification of lignin have been discussed for a long time and experimental data (and modelling to a certain extent) has been published to show how lignin is changed to lignite (coal mass). Additional data exists for geological formations and the periods these are assessed (this is more geology instead of chemistry).
The data is sufficiently clear that such processes require geological time periods, and also the data requires a specific configuration that would lead to the depth and length of lignite seams such as found in Germany and Australia. If you wish to discuss specifics I will be happy to consider them, although I think the moderator would wish us to commence another topic/thread.
Ditto. As you said.
You understand that narrow as you are using it is pejorative, right? It’s a judgemental term as you are applying it. Broad-minded, as in accepting all or many possible options, is what you seem to prefer. But as a generalization it is a personality trait, not necessarily a useful description of anything. Plus, as written below:
*13“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. * Matt. 7
Many so-called broad-minded people think that ID is a very narrow-minded approach to science. I do not agree with them, but again, you can use these terms in any way you wish… it is entirely pointless. So I do not find it useful to say that Ken Ham is narrow-minded. It is entirely meaningless. And I think it is a rabbit-trail, and has nothing to do with the topic.
Hey John.
I agree with you that disagreement in science is a good thing — but I think it’s rather radical to say ‘consensus proves nothing’. Consensus doesn’t change facts, and there are many things that the world believed that have now been proven to be false.
Be that as it may…
In regards to the overall concensus that civilizations took much longer to become what they are, don’t you find it odd that only a very select group disagrees? One must look at it from an outside perspective. Would you be convinced, were you a Buddhist or atheist, of YEC arguments for high civilizations to arise much quicker then everyone else is proposing?
Take an example from Mormon theology. To my understanding they believe that Jesus spoke and visited with the Native Americans in the past. They believe that there was thousands of cities in North America, as is explained in the Book of Mormon. Pressed for a lack if evidence of these claims made by their prophet Joseph Smith Jr., it’s only Mormons that believe this. I’m assuming that most people on this site are not Mormons, so I ask… Would you consider the Mormon’s claim that Jesus visited with the Native Americans, and set up thousands of cities, of which we have no evidence, a “disagreement in science” or a religious conviction?
If you’re a Mormon you might be more inclined to say the former, but if you’re a non-Mormon, then the latter.
I don’t know if it’s so much about being narrow-minded versus broad-minded, as it is about making good argumentation. The fact is, if people of various backgrounds, from all different religions, to agnostics, and atheists, all have commonality in certain beliefs, then those beliefs are much more likely to be true.
My advice is to take concensus with a grain of salt. Ask yourself… Why does the mass majority of people believe in this certain thing? No matter what anyone believes, it says nothing about what is actually true, but if varied groups from all different backgrounds are reaching similar conclusions then the burden is on the dissedent to convince others of the contrary viewpoint with a compelling case.
-Tim
Then may I request that you stop using the labels “neo-Darwinist/ian” in all future comments and instead discuss specific evolutionary mechanisms? That would help a lot.
Thanks in advance!
Beautifully expressed, Eddie.
I would say that it’s just rhetoric masquerading as science, not even qualifying as an approach to science.
You might be interested also in what Dr. Sarfati has to say about literalism in a discussion with TN:
TN - I thought you people (by which I mean literalists) didn’t believe in evolution,
Dr Jonathan Sarfati replies I don’t know any literalists, as explained to Joe M., United States, 16 July 2012 (above).
JS I can’t speak for ‘literalists’, but I as a representative of the historical-grammatical/originalist/textualist hermeneutic school certainly don’t. Indeed, I’ve written books with titles Refuting Evolution and Refuting Evolution 2 which should provide substantial evidence.
In fact, this is something I was not aware of until today.
His comment to Joe M was:
I don’t know who these biblical literalists are, but I am a biblical originalist who follows the historical-grammatical approach. You also need to study the Church Fathers yourself, since they—including Augustine—accepted a global flood. Fathers like Basil the Great had no time for fanciful allegorization:
"I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel” [Romans 1:16]. (Hexaëmeron 9:1)"
Anyway, you have no idea how silly such ipse dixits sound to real Ph.D. scientists like me who are Christian believers.
I don’t disagree. But you are still putting your own confidence in consensus. Someone who disagrees does not put their confidence in the consensus. Thus using consensus as an argument is useless. Paul and Silas in prison did not put their confidence in consensus. Neither did Galileo put his confidence in consensus. The fact that they were persecuted (forced to acknowledge consensus) did not change the facts, and did not even change their view of the facts, although in Galileo’s case, it caused him to lie.
I seem to sense a certain discontinuity in your reasoning. Earlier you wrote that there were 500 flood stories from around the world with similarities to that of Noah. You then elaborated that either all of these stories are wrong, or a flood really happened. In that case it seems you appealed to concensus, when the concesus agreed with your position. But in the case of ancient historians, where the concensus is not in your favor, you say it’s a disagreement in science. Could I not also say that “either the majority of ancient historians are wrong or it’s really true that it does take more than a couple hundreds years to develop high civilizations.” …?
My main point is to simply come up with a good reason why the concensus is wrong or why it is the concensus thinks the way it does. I’m not saying that “consensus proves truth”, but I’m rather saying that consensus is based on the information available. If people spend their whole lives studying Egypt and their history, then what they have to say on the matter must count for something. In the case of Galileo his ideas were rather radical at the time, wouldn’t you think? The main thing he had going for him was moons that orbited Jupiter, and an observation of Venus that had phases like the moon does — both of which were rather surprising observations at the time. But even then they still had the problem of actually seeing the sun move in the sky, and the idea that if the earth was in motion why do we not experience some sort of wind across our faces, as the earth goes through space? Even Galileo’s current observation could be explained through the Tychonian Model, which proposed a slightly complicated view of the universe: all the planets orbiting the sun while the sun orbits earth. This satisfied all observations while still keeping the earth motionless. In the case of Paul and Silas being imprisoned, they were called to preach a rather radical new teaching into the world. It’s understandable that they became imprisoned… People weren’t used to the kinds of things they were teaching, and it made them afraid, while for others it brought enlightenment.
From where I stand the current concensus regarding ancient history is compelling. That doesn’t mean my views won’t change in the future — all sorts of theories are subject to change. But I need a good reason to go against the grain … A good argument that shows that most historians are wrong on this issue. Galileo went against the grain in his day. And after centuries of people arguing about it, people eventually saw it Galileo’s way. Maybe someday the same will happen with the date of the global flood …
-Tim