I don’t know. While I don’t see the Bible as a science book, I do enjoy listening to Hugh Ross who works very hard to line it up. And I do think he is self consistent with the Scriptures and the science even if I don’t think they are so closely related.
The scriptures clearly states that God clothes the grass of the field yet we (and even more so all the farmers Jesus was talking to) know that there is a natural process of seeding.
The answer is that whether God does something supernaturally or does it through the nature he created supernaturally it is still God that does it. (Like when I would tell my younger child to tell my older child to do something - it was still me telling them.)
So if the scriptures makes no distinction on whether God does something naturally or supernaturally then how can I pretend it claims how God did so?
We should not be in the business of telling God how He can or cannot do something.
No problems except with basing knowing on something I merely accept instead of on evidence and logic.
This would include using an unequal balance for one side or another. And never silencing those who disagree.
“That was then this is now” seems to me to be a non-answer. Wouldn’t a fair look into why scientific consensus was so wrong be a better method to ensure we aren’t making the same type of mistakes now?
The change in the scientific support of eugenics didn’t just “evolve”, It seemed to be more from the common person’s revulsion of the evil committed by it that ended it - not a new scientific consideration that came to a consensus. But then, although we do include empirical evidence in considering moral issues I know of no mechanism in empirical evidence to establish anything as moral or immoral.
A meaning of a word needs at least a consensus of two for communication to happen. Words are just the vehicle for the thoughts to be shared. I can think on many things without having a word. I just cannot communicate it well.
It is a analogy fallacy to equate a consensus area of language with a natural physical event such as climate change.
Neither one nor one billion opinions decides the reality of a phenomenon. It is real or not regardless of anyone or everyone’s opinion.
When a consensus changes does it change the phenomenon?
That’s not a problem I have. I have absolute confidence in the scales of evidence and logic. Unfortunately those who disagree with social injustice are always silenced by the howling mob of turkeys gobbling for Christmas.
I’m not aware of any scientific - i.e. since Galileo - consensus that was wrong on the basis of the evidence and logic of the time. As our evidence gathering has improved by multiple orders of magnitude and our thinking has followed we are able to critique the necessarily flawed scientific thinking of the past, as in the development of heliocentrism.
The development of morality always lags that of science due to our entirely natural Humean nature.
Oooh! So you do know evolution and global warming! Great. You have no problem with knowing them.
And, of course, eugenics is at least as old as man. And making an unstoppable come-back.
Bailey’s book, or any popular press title, will be too may generations of pubication away from any primary research to be of actual use. I asked for
I am asking you to provide citations to the studies that Bailey probably claims to have used, or more likely someone Bailey quoted claims to have used, that would prove your claim that the apocalyptic enironmental predictions of the ‘70s were almost all wrong by orders of magnitude.
In short, I’d like you to produce the actual evidence that backs up this claim.
This will entail:
- identifying the apocalyptic environmental predictions of the ‘70s — all (or maybe only most) of them.
- Identifying and finding the primary research on which those claims were made
- Finding subsequent primary research that refutes each apocalyptic prediction.
- Following up on that research to make sure IT was valid
As you can see, it’s a huge task to prove or disprove a claim like that. The kind of thing that’s part of the lit-review process of writing a dissertation.
When Bailey claims (I’m assuming the claim you’re talking about came from him) these predictions have all been refuted, have you checked up to keep him honest? Have you checked to see what or whom he is citing? If he isn’t citing the primary research, did his sources check and cite? And so on. The book in your hand may be many generations away from any meanful research.
Additionally, what is meant by “orders of magnitude?” 1 could qualify. And what is the base? 1? 3? 975579? “Orders of magnitude” is a great way to make it sound like “innumerable apocalyptic claims”, but it could really be: 4.
Do you see how easy it is for someone with an agenda to pull the wool over eyes, if we let them? However, often these days, because the misinformation is so poorly conceived, just following the paper trail of claims about a research article back to the article itself is enough. When I have done this, I have found the claim in an article that claimed to be based off of a study, had nothing to do with the study.
So, citations, please.
And you should be requesting the very same from Bailey.
Sure but that’s not what young earth creationist and intelligent designers argue though. They argue it’s clearly god 100% and why. That it’s evidence for god. If all they said was that somehow yet unknown to science god may be involved in every activity but that they accept it then it would not be a problem.
But what’s argued is that instead of things like geological layers folding up over millions of years because of continental drifting showing massive prices of land together resulting in the mountains and so land that use to be under water is now hundreds of feet above it , they argue that a global flood is the only reason marine fossils are found in mountains.
The issue is now believing god is involved, but that they reject what scientific evidence we do have in favor of pseudoscience.
That could be the case for individual factoids, but I’m thinking of something a lot more extensive when I talk about foundational science. Take for example electromagnetism and quantum mechanics – these are foundational to modern electronics and solid state physics, without which we wouldn’t be able to build computers. Another example is the fundamental constants of nature, such as the speed of light, the fine structure constant, and so on. These crop up in equation after equation after equation after equation after equation in physics, and so govern and predict all sorts of physical phenomena that we can measure directly, such as the physical and chemical properties of matter, nuclear decay rates, the energy output of the sun, and so on and so forth. If these were to change then everything else would change and the consequences would be very, very far reaching. That’s why YEC claims about varying nuclear decay rates, or a varying speed of light, are some of the most preposterous arguments that they come up with.
I know exactly what you mean. I work in IT myself – I’m a software developer, and it never ceases to amaze me just how much pseudoscience and outright quackery there is in the industry. It seems that everywhere you turn there are so-called “best practices” that are based on nothing but buzzwords and sound bites said by some well known computer scientist taken right out of context and completely misunderstood. I recently read a blog post by a professor of computer science pointing out that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that Agile or Extreme Programming – virtually a religion among software methodologists these days – actually provide the benefits that they claim to offer. But I guess that’s a rant for another time…
I’m confused about what you are trying to say. In the first 2 sentences of your post, you say that philosophical naturalism “is a belief that science consensus is built on”. But science is based on methodological naturalism and interpretation of physical evidence, not philosophical naturalism. Yes, some scientists (as people) may hold to philosophical naturalism as their worldview but many others, like myself, do science (the method) but are not philosophical naturalists. You seem? to agree with this because later in your post you say " naturalism is not science but a belief". But that statement seems to disagree, then, with the beginning of your post…
Yes, the largest group of YEC is the Answers in Genesis (AiG) group. At least their premise is clearly stated in the name of the organization unlike those of the naturalist faith who also try to bastardize science with their faith. But the AiG group routinely overrun actual evidence and logic because of their own interpretation of scripture. However there are some names such as Jay Wiley and John C Sanford who are YEC and yet seem to be honest about the empirical science. I have a respect for them even though I see no need to hold to a YEC based on Scripture. Also, logically I see it possible that God created a mature universe a few thousand years ago. But I don’t see that it is a reality myself as the driving force seems to be expecting Scriptures to be a science text. Like expecting your cat to be a dog it is just a non sequitur to me.
I haven’t seen Intelligent Design (ID) or Hugh Ross’ group Reason to Believe (RTB) doing such. The ID is merely the notion that it is a scientific claim to be able to infer intelligence in nature. I’ve read (most) of Meyer’s new book The Return of the God Hypothesis. He seems to be very careful to not go beyond the logical inference of a designer which he then purports as the best inference to the evidence and logic by his comparing the other major areas. Agree or not it is an interesting read.
RTB does seek a “medium concordance” of science and scriptures which is really very strong. I don’t see the need for the strong connection but I do enjoy hearing Hugh Ross as a brilliant and logically self consistent scientist.
The RTB site was the best presentation on radiometric dating evidence that I’ve read to date. (https://storage.googleapis.com/reasons-prod/files/articles/non-staff-papers/roger_wiens_radiometric_dating.pdf) Do you have something here on it? I don’t need to look at it for myself but would love to have another clear presentation of the evidence and logic supporting it to be able to share.
I defined naturalism in the OP as what seems to be more specified as philosophical or ontological naturalism. - “Naturalism to be defined as only the physical is real or known to be real.”
It was meant as only an example of what some scientific consensus is built upon that is NOT evidence and logic.
Yes, thanks, I understand your definition of philosophical naturalism then, but not how “scientific consensus” can be based on it. Because science is defined as methodological naturalism. A “scientific” consensus then is based on physical evidence, then and does not go beyond it. Perhaps you mean that some scientists (as people) are philosophical naturalists and have a consensus among themselves that natural process are all that exist? But that is not making a comment about the science, then, but them making a comment about their own philosophical stance.
I look to the evidence and logic on any truth statement.
A rejection of consensus as a basis for truth does not mean that I look to a consensus and dot he opposite which the question seems to be begging. I follow the evidence and logic regardless if it is the consensus or not.
I am follower of the Lord Jesus Christ because I read the eye witness accounts and find that testimony to be true.
I don’t accept any person as the arbiter of truth or a lord. Sadly the consensus (here in the USA at least) is that their leader is gifted to “lord”.
I do gather with believers in various small groups of various denominations or more open home gatherings where we can share with each other.
So I think you may have assumed too much about “my church” being built on consensus. But if there is something I am missing that you see please continue.
I do have to step out for a while now but I did mention in a response last night the example of Sara Walker saying there must be a natural arising of the living cell at least once because we exist.
I find naturalism often as the reason to accept life coming from non-life. Of course this is the circular reasoning issue.
In the forum I provided several references to authors who are scientists. I myself am a scientist and have had a marvelous career, yielding a Google H-index of 40 which puts me in the top few percent of scientists based on the impact of their work. I’ve served in executive positions with organizations promoting science and have read widely. You can make a priori assumptions to disqualify any argument but if your actually believe you need to defend consensus statements by scientists because they are scientists or because it is a consensus you really do need to look more closely at the history of science and the many times it has taken the wrong road.
How do you know that about Bailey’s book or any other without having read it?
Well, Sara Walker may or may not be taking a philosophically naturalist stand based solely on that comment. For example, some Christian theists (not all) believe that God created the initial conditions of the universe and the natural laws etc., such that eventually, they would cause the formation of cells from non-life…and voila, we are here. But that just gets into questions of primary and secondary providential causation etc… My point being that the concept of life arising from non life per se, entails nothing about one’s philosophical stance on the existence of the supernatural.
There is no purported scientific inference - which you cannot go beyond logically, being as it’s a conclusion, i.e. an end - of a designer as there is no evidence of one to apply logic to. No amount of comparison with the other major areas, whatever they are, can make up the evidence that does not exist.
I’ve already mentioned that you wanted to see actual studies preferably in peer-reviewed scientific literature. (Crickets)
Orders of magnitude are powers of 10. So one order of magnitude is 10X, Two orders of magnitude make 100X and so forth. So orders (plural) of magnitude means at least 100X, So yes, it’s a claim that should be explained!
So who are you if your career has been marvelous?
Interesting question.
But it doesn’t get around the hard work of heading off misinformation.
I don’t believe I have ever handled a book that contains all the primary sources used. Normally there are at least footnotes. Does Bailey’s book contain the primary sources? If so, have you varified them to ensure they are accurately reproduced in order to examine the data that he should provide to back up his claims? Otherwise, does it have footnotes, and have you varified that the studies he references actually verify his claims?
Since you recommended the book, I need to know it’s reliable by good information standards, before I spend time with it. I have wasted so much of the last few years doing the homework other people should have done, before passing me some article or book they never bothered to vet.
I just don’t have that time or patience now.
Go forth and practice excellent information literacy skills.