Why Evolution is real science - let's settle this "debate"!

[Stuu]

Which (if any) one of those claims you listed would you say is the truth?

Thank you for the question. Science claims to discover what is probably true, but it does not lay down truth, and especially not Truth with the capital T as religious dogmas do.

My answer is that the earth is 4.55 billion years old. Like all results in science that is to be quoted with its experimental uncertainty, about 1% in this case, and is provisional on the appearance of new,unambiguous, contradictory evidence. Do you have any?

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

<cut>

Stuart

Go read some of these.

https://kgov.com/list-of-solar-system-formation-problems
https://kgov.com/bel/20150724
https://creation.com/nebular-hypothesis

 

[7djengo7]

Science claims to discover what is probably true, but it does not lay down truth

Interesting wording you chose, here. Notice that you did not write:

Science claims to discover what is probably true, but it does not claim to discover truth

Hmmm. Why is that? Why did you choose to not write, "Science....does not claim to discover truth", and to write, instead, "Science....does not lay down truth"?
Answer: Because as a lying weasel, you're making a pathetic attempt at subterfuge.

Anyway, which is the title of the book by Darwin cheerleader, Jerry Coyne?

1. Why Evolution Is Probably True
2. Why Evolution Is True

Answer: Number 2, Why Evolution Is True, is the title of his book.

Now, emblazoned in the very title of his book is Coyne's, and your, and every other Darwin cheerleader's cherished, false claim: "Evolution is true". You see, now you've clarified for us that when you and your ilk go about loudly, proudly claiming "Evolution is true", you're not even speaking on behalf of what you call "science", for, as you have clarified, what you call "science" would not say "Evolution is true", but rather, what you call "science" would say "Evolution is probably true". So, what motivates you to choose to go about saying "Evolution is true", whereas you eschew going about saying "Evolution is probably true"--even though you have just admitted that what you call "science" would do just the reverse of what you choose to do?

Does what you call "science" claim to discover truth? Yes or No?

My answer is that the earth is 4.55 billion years old.

Each of the following, two propositions is the contradictory of the other:

1. The earth is 4.55 billion years old.
2. The earth is not 4.55 billion years old.

Being contradictories, one of these two propositions is true, and the other is false.

You have told me, by your list, that evidence supports proposition 1, and, just the same, you have told me, by your list, that evidence supports proposition 2. So, therein, you have told me that evidence supports a proposition that is false. You have, therein, told me that your thinking about the nature of evidence is utter crap. At any rate, since you say that evidence supports each of these two propositions--if evidence "leads to" each of them--then why do you not "follow the evidence wherever it leads" and candidly tell me, "My answer is that the earth is 4.55 billion years old AND that the earth is not 4.55 billion years old"?

Since, by your list, you've told me that evidence supports the earth being NOT 4.55 billion years old, then why, exactly, is your answer NOT that the earth is NOT 4.55 billion years old?

Like all results in science

It's amusing that you call your parroting of what somebody else (whom you reverently call a "scientist") has claimed, a "result in science". The "scientist" claims it, and his claiming it results in your parroting it.

that is to be quoted with its experimental uncertainty, about 1% in this case,

Ah, bring out more mumbo jumbo, eh? An attempted/failed escape mechanism on your part.

and is provisional

And here, really, once again, you highlight the abysmal worthlessness of the stupidity and irrationality you call "science".

on the appearance of new,unambiguous, contradictory evidence. Do you have any?

According to your worse-than-useless thinking about the nature of evidence, evidence can be for a proposition, P, while, also, evidence can be against that same proposition, P. You're a dyed-in-the-wool irrationalist. Why do you so despise logical coherence?

When you claim that something is "unambiguous evidence", on what (if anything) do you base that claim? On something else you claim is "unambiguous evidence"? If so, then on what do you base that second claim? On something else you claim is "unambiguous evidence"? If so, then on what do you base that third claim? If so, then......

By the way, why did you feel the need to write the phrase, "unambiguous evidence", rather than merely the word, "evidence"? See, now you've laid a burden upon yourself to try to explain why you would say something can be both evidence and ambiguous; you've created another embarrassing category for yourself: "ambiguous evidence".

Do you now wish to propose that the popular, anti-thinking man's slogan, "Follow the evidence wherever it leads", ought to be scrapped, and replaced by a slogan along the lines of, "Follow the unambiguous evidence wherever it leads, but do not follow the ambiguous evidence wherever it leads"?

 

[Stuu]

Go read some of these.

https://kgov.com/list-of-solar-syste...ation-problems
https://kgov.com/bel/20150724
https://creation.com/nebular-hypothesis

The first line from the first link reads: List of Problems with Solar System Formation: Taken together, the impressive scientific discoveries that completely falsify the nebular hypothesis of solar system formation include these

This is a classic Gish Gallop, and the one with the gallops appears to be Bob Enyart. For the time being, I will not be reading this any further because it is designed to pull the wool over the eyes of followers who are not armed with scientific defenses against this kind of treatment. Especially, it is dishonest not to explain each point in the depth required to establish what problem it actually represents, if indeed it is a problem. There is quite a bit of creationist mining of scientific reports in there too. The 2014 Nature paper is about addressing one of the questions raised, but Mr. Enyart's website doesn't tell you about the actual science of it, it just wants the title 'Nature' to appear to give it unwarranted credibility. It's really a case of biting the hand that feeds him: take a real scientific paper or report in a reputable publication because you want to appear 'scientific' and then amplify the fact that a scientist is puzzled by a question (that's a scientist's job, to solve puzzles) but downplay, or mock, or fail to even mention the efforts of that scientist to explain or work out an answer.

In your case, from your posting of these references from just one source, I would say you are a victim of his. He may well even be right about some of these points, but this will not be the place where you come to a view based on the balance of probability. He doesn't want you to do that, which is similar to the dishonest tone he takes in his radio show.

So, I would caution you strongly against being taken in by taking this long list of points 'together' as you are supposed to. That's the slight-of-hand of the Gish Gallop. Take them one at a time, and see if each stands on its own merit. Cross out the ones that are actually irrelevant, say, to planetary accretion. Put an asterisk by ones that look like genuine problems, then Google to find out whether there are scientists working on it, in which case don't mock them for doing their day jobs. Remember, these are the people writing the papers that Mr. Enyart needs to run a dazzling-looking website, exploitative though it is. Now, how really impressive is the list? Once you have done this, you learn that science is not combative, it is a collaborative process which routinely involves making an hypothesis on the Monday then disproving your own hypothesis by the end of Tuesday. So, if we don't know an answer, and our last attempts were wrong, let's be honest about that. Mr. Enyart has no respect for that kind of honesty. You would have to ask him why.

But whatever you do, don't commit the intellectual suicide intended by Mr. Enyart, which is for you to become fatigued at the enormity, be impressed by the length of the list but not question the contents of it and just say Goddidit. That is his whole mission. From your point of view, I can't see how your god, if it is worth worshipping, would be happy for you to fall for that.

Tell me what you think I got wrong, and for what reasons. Meantime, I'll keep going with the first video and then will be asking you about your reasons for referring me to it, science-wise.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

When you claim that something is "unambiguous evidence", on what (if anything) do you base that claim?

Good question, although I do remember giving an example at the time. Here is another, based on the skeptical statement if you hear the sound of hooves in the night, first think of horses not zebras. In other words, exhaust the most obvious hypotheses before indulging low-probability ones. As an aphorism it works better for those not living in Africa.

If you hear hooves in the night, and in the morning you find white animal hair left on the road, that is evidence, but it is ambiguous because there are at least two hypothesis for explaining those observations. Horse, or zebra, or maybe a different hoofed animal.

Now, if you get the hair DNA compared with zebra DNA and horse DNA, that will provide unambiguous evidence. There will be only one hypothesis with high probability of being right, that there was a horse not a zebra leaving hair, or else more DNA comparison is required.

That still isn't unambiguous evidence for the source of the sound of hooves though.

Stuart

 

[JudgeRightly]

I don't know much about how one goes about setting up Sandbox, but if you told it that the universe is only a few thousand years old, that would do it.

Definitely not what I did.

What I did was use one of the preset starting scenarios (that has a current (minus Oumuamua) list of objects, and have the program run reasonably accurate calculations of the physics (I say reasonably because while I have a gaming rig, it's not the most powerful, so I didn't want it to take forever, but I still wanted it to be acccurate), and then instead of reversing the velocities, I just hit the reverse time button, and let it run for several days.

I do admire you running simulations though, rather than just saying goddidit, like so many others do here!

:noid:

You will also be familiar with the arguments against a recent global flood. Patterns in dendrochronology, single-handedly, disprove a flood in the last 9000 years or so, and ice core annual counting confirms that back to 800,000 years of no global flooding.

When you start with the assumption that layers (in rock, ice, etc) = long periods of time (hundreds of thousands to millions of years), you inherently exclude the possibility that such was laid down all at once (relatively speaking).

It's simply question begging.

And could I derive all this for myself from reading scripture?

No. But not because Scripture is inadequate, but because Scripture is not a science textbook.

Scripture warns you about tedious genealogies, at the same time as it lays out tedious genealogies.

Cite?

Is it right to be using genealogies to calculate dates?!

Genealogies are not what was used to calculate how long ago the Flood was.

Seriously, if you have this written in book/website form, share the reference.

http://creationscience.com/onlinebook

There are organic molecules in interstellar space 27,000 light years away.

And you know this... How, exactly?

I didn't think it was possible with our current level of technology to see things at a nanoscopic level 27,000 light years away...

Cite please.

How could they have got there

First you need to show me that they are, in fact, there, and the evidence for that claim.

from earth in 5300 years if the light coming from them has been traveling for 27,000 years?

This is question begging.

How do you know the light has been traveling for that long?

It's an unprovable assumption.

But the definition of faith in Romans

Hebrews, not Romans.

Hebrews 11:1.

is the evidence of the unseen.

Like I said, evidence-based faith.

Not blind faith.

How do you interpret that?

It means that faith is evidence of things that are not seen. Such as God's existence.

You still have to have faith that your one choice is the right one, before you then express faith in that one thing.

Uh, no...?

I don't think I have faith in anything.

I think that's a lie.

I do trust people and ideas, but trust is based on evidence, not on what Romans

Supra.

says faith is. You could change my view with unambiguous evidence. How would I change your view?

With evidence.

So far, you've not provided anything convincing.

I think that is rather a dangerous position for a god-fearing person to take. What if you are not supposed to use the book, but your god-given brain instead?

Who say's I'm not using both? You?

What if your god is sitting there lamenting the obvious? What have you made of that talent? Why do you object, on prejudicial interpretation of ancient writing, to the honest efforts of other humans with god-given brains? Is it the contents of that book which makes you so cynical?

I don't know what a god is.

Read the Bible. He describes Himself very clearly.

But I do know what DNA differences are, and endogenous retroviruses, and isotope dating,

Which you have been shown is not as reliable as you think.

and tree-ring counting,

Which isn't very accurate to begin with...

and ice core layer counting,

See my above response.

and fossil morphology are.

Question begging doesn't help your position.

And I know what they say.

Rather, you know what scientists SAY they say, but you have closed off the possibility that they mean something else.

But I can see that you have decided an ancient book is absolute.

Because I have been convinced by the evidence that it is true.

But I haven't closed my mind to being shown that my position is wrong.

That leads you to believe in magical mountain ranges.

No idea what you're talking about. Please clarify.

I don't understand how that is science.

You don't understand my position because you're not willing to understand it.

One can lead an athiest (or agnostic) to truth, but one cannot make him think.

Here's a recommendation. Try to falsify your own position.

You might be surprised to find that it's not all that reliable.

 

[Right Divider]

You don't understand my position because you're not willing to understand it.

He doesn't even understand his own position.

 

[7djengo7]

Good question,

So, why do you refuse to try to answer it?

although I do remember giving an example at the time. Here is another, based on the skeptical statement if you hear the sound of hooves in the night, first think of horses not zebras. In other words, exhaust the most obvious hypotheses before indulging low-probability ones. As an aphorism it works better for those not living in Africa.

If you hear hooves in the night, and in the morning you find white animal hair left on the road, that is evidence, but it is ambiguous because there are at least two hypothesis for explaining those observations. Horse, or zebra, or maybe a different hoofed animal.

Now, if you get the hair DNA compared with zebra DNA and horse DNA, that will provide unambiguous evidence. There will be only one hypothesis with high probability of being right, that there was a horse not a zebra leaving hair, or else more DNA comparison is required.

That still isn't unambiguous evidence for the source of the sound of hooves though.

Stuart

Which is all to say, in your customarily banal way, no more than that you are still totally incompetent to converse with rationally-thinking people, let alone, to answer even the most elementary questions we ask you.

 

[Stuu]

Part I: science

What I did was use one of the preset starting scenarios (that has a current (minus Oumuamua) list of objects, and have the program run reasonably accurate calculations of the physics (I say reasonably because while I have a gaming rig, it's not the most powerful, so I didn't want it to take forever, but I still wanted it to be acccurate), and then instead of reversing the velocities, I just hit the reverse time button, and let it run for several days.

That does sound very interesting, and from what I have seen of Sandbox, probably hugely entertaining.

When you start with the assumption that layers (in rock, ice, etc) = long periods of time (hundreds of thousands to millions of years), you inherently exclude the possibility that such was laid down all at once (relatively speaking).

The point of the ice cores and tree rings is that you really don't need to make any assumptions at all. Just count the years.

And you know [about distant organic chemistry]... How, exactly?

Spectroscopy. All this stuff. This specific case.

It's the same as when you are stopped and breathalysed by the police (if that's a thing where you live). You blow into a little tube and the machine fires a beam of infrared radiation through the breath sample at a wavenumber of exactly 1055cm^-1 (I don't know that's the frequency they use, but it would be if I designed it) because absorption of light at that frequency is characteristic of a carbon-oxygen single bond, and the only reason your breath would contain C-O bonds is if you had been drinking alcohol.

So, just do the same technique but through a telescope, and look at the whole IR absorption spectrum for the fingerprint of each of these molecules. Indeed, alcohol is also found in the Sagittarius B2 cloud! If the molecules are being heated they could also give an emission spectrum. Although the BBC article says it's emission in this case, often they take the light coming from a star in the background and see what is being absorbed. Obviously spectra of mixtures are harder to interpret than those of pure samples.

How do you know the light has been traveling for that long?

27,000 light years is just over 8000 parsecs.

So according to this, from the Holy Wikipedia, the techniques used on Sagittarius B2 would be calibrated using cluster cephids, which are pulsing stars that have a reliable correlation between their luminosity and period of pulsation. If you know the luminosity apparent on earth, and you know the actual luminosity of the star from its pulsation period, you can quite easily work out how far away it is. And, although it doesn't quite feel right saying it, 27,000 light years isn't that far away..! It is within our galaxy, so relatively close...

Stuu: But I do know what DNA differences are, and endogenous retroviruses, and isotope dating,

Which you have been shown is not as reliable as you think.

I don't remember that. But I do recommend reading about them. It isn't astonishing evidence, because it's what we pretty much knew already, but it is still astonishing to see. Trees of life appear independently from ERVs, molecular clocks and fossil morphology, and the three trees are essentially identical. Science doesn't use the word proved, but in common parlance, that's common ancestry proved beyond any doubt. There is no science to be had in 'common design' because there is no pattern that demonstrates that. You only have two options left, common ancestry or intentional divine deception.

[and tree-ring counting]Which isn't very accurate to begin with...

In what way is it not accurate?

[and ice core layer counting] See my above response.

Please see my above question.

You might be surprised to find that it's not all that reliable.

Given how much of science is publicly funded, scientists have a social contract with the public to be impartial. Their job is to apply the principles of science, including the probability of being right, no matter whether they like the outcome or not. Creation scientists are privately funded by fundamentalist Christians. They do not have the same social contract with the public, theirs is very specifically work tailored for that audience, who demand that the Answers are the ones in Genesis, no matter what the evidence might have said.

Science is not about whether you like the unambiguous conclusions. I for one, don't like the outcome of Darwin's work. It may be elegant, but it is also blind, brutal and uncaring when it comes to living things. My squeamishness is irrelevant, because it's just a fact that living things have evolved from common ancestry. That interpretation of the data must represent 99.9+% of the probability. So, my challenge to any creationist would be to forget about what they would like to be true and concentrate on doing the job of the scientist, which is to come up with hypotheses then try to disprove them. I acknowledge that you have suggested this point about trying to disprove your own ideas too in your post.

So a specific challenge here would be for adherents to the hydroplate hypothesis to try to disprove it. What are the big problems with hydroplates? Does Mr. Brown outline this in his book? You might say that the biggest problem with planetary accretion is the angular momentum 'problem'. I disagree, I would say the biggest problem is the one metre problem: accreting small lumps is easy, accreting large lumps into larger ones is easy. My understanding is it is difficult to explain how you get from lumps a few cm across to many metres across.

What should be done if either of those 'problems' is confirmed as resistant to investigation? In the case of the hydroplates I would say that the problems include a large number of assumptions, contradictory physical evidence (for example a major difficulty with the Widmanstatten crystal forms in meteorites, and from recent discussion in this thread, apparently, a difference between uranium abundances in the crust and in meteorites), and a lack of a really good reason to have made that hypothesis in the first place. That is a harsh thing to say perhaps, given the whacky history of scientific discovery, but Mr. Brown has failed to displace plate tectonics from it's large body of evidence, which should be his primary job.

Do we do as Mr Enyart suggests, and just discard the whole planetary accretion theory and plate tectonics in favour of an alternative model that requires events of much lower probability, which match relatively none of the physical evidence? Since we have photographs of planetary accretion happening, and we have continental drift demonstrated by contributions of evidence from many different lines, maybe we should have a go at resolving the 'problems' instead of giving up and invoking a non-explanation of divine intervention. The one metre 'problem' should be easy to solve, but apparently isn't. The angular momentum 'problem' looks challenging, but it looks more like a case of teasing out the relative importance of several different factors, each of which is reasonably challenging. So it's complex, but not a killer to planetary accretion. We should not be thinking of zebras when there are still enough horses to explain the sound of hooves.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

The point of the ice cores and tree rings is that you really don't need to make any assumptions at all. Just count the years.

If only it worked that way. Your assumption of gradualism is wrong.

 

[Stuu]

Part II: Creationism

Hebrews, not Romans. Hebrews 11:1. is the evidence of the unseen.

Yes, first up, my apology. You said to know the opposing position, and you are right, and I should not have got that wrong. Good grief, I have quoted it often enough.

Genealogies are not what was used to calculate how long ago the Flood was.

As far as I am aware, that's pretty much all there is. Biblical genealogy and a little bit of interpretation of text.

Try this for one description: https://creation.com/the-date-of-noahs-flood and this https://creation.com/biblical-chronogenealogies.

Young Earth beliefs in general started with Bishop Ussher adding up ages in biblical genealogies. 'Creation science' was started in the 1960s in the US, but there is not nearly as much interest in it in other Western countries. I think it is true to say that by a 1982 supreme court decision regarding school science curricula, creation science is legally not science in the US because its purpose was determined to be the advancement of a particular religious belief.

It means that faith is evidence of things that are not seen. Such as God's existence.

How does something 'not seen' constitute evidence? It's not the kind used in science, history or geography, for example.

Stuu: I don't think I have faith in anything.

I think that's a lie.

It is my genuine opinion. I can't think of anything I do that depends on faith in the sense Hebrews describes it. Can you think of something that isn't actually a case of my brain collecting observations and making deductions? Does anyone need faith to know they are loved? I don't think so, it's a matter of all the subtle evidence that leads you to that conclusion, and so on.

Stuu: You could change my view with unambiguous evidence. How would I change your view?

With evidence.

I'm not sure how that would work. There is no unambiguous evidence for a god to begin with. I rather think that is the point, you can't make your god testable, because that denigrates the concept of the need for faith. You might recall how many times absolute, testable claims have been made for the actions of various gods, and when the test has disproved the claim, that so-called god-of-the-gaps has died. Creation science is a particularly interesting example to me, for two reasons. Firstly, they are honest enough to say that science should be addressed, but they end up making one huge god-of-the-gaps. It would be nice to think also, they were honest enough to admit when a bit of that god has died through disproof. Secondly, with a book full of 'supernatural' events to defend, why bend science out of all recognisable shape to find 'natural' mechanisms? Why not just say, Stuu, the flood was a divine intervention so you'll never know by your puny naturalistic science the means by which the world looked that way then, and this way now?

Read the Bible. He describes Himself very clearly.

The bible doesn't even say whether it is possible to see or hear this god. It says in some places that it has been seen and heard, and in other places that this is impossible.

This reminds me of my (not very robust) argument against the existence of a deity. The universe appears beautiful to me. Part of that beauty is the innocence of its origins: what you see is what happens when physical principles such as the properties of space-time are played out in practice. If there is a divine meddler pulling the strings where no one can see, then the universe is not knowable, and an important part of the beauty is the fact that the universe can be known. After all, it's quite remarkable that it made something (us) capable of thinking about itself. Of course things could be either way, but the meddled version is less beautiful for being the deception it must be, and the universe looks far too full of beauty for that.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

If only it worked that way. Your assumption of gradualism is wrong.

That's one of the great things about ice cores and tree rings. Claims of gradualism, or non-gradualism are completely irrelevant. It is independent of slow changes, or the lack of them. It's a purely seasonal effect, not far off being a boolean variable; digital rather than analogue information.

Stuart

 

[7djengo7]

How does something 'not seen' constitute evidence?

In other words, you're saying that whatever you would call "evidence" must be something you would say is "seen". No? So, what (if anything) do you mean, here, by "seen"?

It's not the kind used in science, history or geography, for example.

What (if anything) did you intend as the antecedent of your pronoun, "it"? What's not the kind of what"used in science, history or geography"?

 

[Stuu]

Part III: er, other things

Rather, you know what scientists SAY they say, but you have closed off the possibility that they mean something else.

That's why you pay attention to unambiguous evidence. They do know the difference, it is a basic part of the scientific method to remove assumptions and control variables until there is only one explanation left with a high enough probability. Those probabilities are even quoted in many biology papers, especially in pharmacology. Science makes many mistakes. Most are never published, but many are. There is quite a severe and rude correction mechanism though, in peer review and competition for reputation and prestige. If you knew how to disprove plate tectonics, for example, what you should do is explain it to a young geologist so they may benefit from all the prizes and attention. There could be no more better career boost, to say the least.

Of course, your passed-on evidence would have to be capable of withstanding the most perishing scrutiny because of the size of the old egos involved in geology. And that's what the modern scientific consensus consists of: it is the result of many years of territories fought over, egos played out, constant attempts to tear to shreds any evidence claimed, and occasionally even respectful international cooperation with robust discussion...so eventually the theory is finally agreed because it is logically watertight and based on unambiguous evidence.

[rant] It is also chilling to note that 'public' creationists don't try to give presentations to staff in university geology or biology departments, who have the knowledge to balance out whatever arguments are presented. No, these particular creationists are despicable cowards because they know they will be demonstrated wrong, so instead they have targeted schools with young people unarmed to defend themselves against the torrent of intellectual sewage and sleight-of-hand those particular creationists have made their trade.

At least adults can turn off Bob Enyart's show, or if it's piped into rest homes then the elderly residents can bash the radios with their sticks [/rant]...but I digress.

I know of no example of a creation scientist correcting a mistake in non-creation science. Surely there must be some. Do you know of any?

Because I have been convinced by the evidence that it is true.

I recommend not doing that. Use unambiguous evidence instead.

Stuu: Tell me how the hydroplate hypothesis keeps the Himalayas up?

No idea what you're talking about. Please clarify.

Well, the massive height of the Himalayas and large extent of the Tibetan plain is due to subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian plate. The reason this kind of large-scale, high force action is possible is because tectonic plates are moved across the mantle by convection in magma, which is a sort of liquid that moves at about the rate of fingernail growth, and has reasonable traction as its constitution is a bit like plasticine. In the case of the Indian plate, a faster rate of movement could be due to it being a thinner plate, in turn due to the action of a hotspot, so the details make this a slightly exceptional case. But wayway, crucially the Indian plate has also been dragged under the Eurasian plate by the action of subduction.

So, as I understand it, the way all that land 'stays up' is because the plate collision is still going on due to convection in the mantle, and subduction at the plate boundary, with the plate falling back into the magma. This has happened quickly in plate tectonic terms, over only a few tens of millions of years.

But in Mr. Brown's hypothesis, if I have it right, the Himalayas are made of three hydroplates that glided across lubricating water over a matter of hours and pushed each other up at the edges. Perhaps we would agree on this diagram from Wikipedia (which describes plate tectonics, but perhaps hydroplates too):

So my question is, if the Himalayas are the result of hours of collision of water-lubricated sliding plates, even with draining of water, what stopped the hydroplates from being lubricated to slide away from one another again? We are not talking about trivial amounts of elastic energy stored in the rocks in that collision: the forces acting in the direction opposite to that of the collision are probably too much even for convecting magma to hold up, let along lubricating water, without the effect of the subduction zone pulling on the plate.

So, therefore, how did/do the Himalayas stay up?

I have another, more theological question about the hydroplates. Why would the god of the Judeo-christian scriptures build in a flood mechanism during the creation of the earth, before the events of Genesis 3? Did this god know already what would go wrong with creation, and what wide-scale slaughter by drowning would be required?

You don't understand my position because you're not willing to understand it.

I don't think that is a fair criticism. I think I have given you every opportunity to be convincing, and will do so in the future.

One can lead an athiest (or agnostic) to truth, but one cannot make him think.

Or, you can lead a non-believer to the Kool Aid but cannot make him drink? Let's not forget the religious motivation of the victims of the Jonestown delusion. I don't see atheists and agnostics behaving like that, motivated by their non-belief.

Here's a recommendation. Try to falsify your own position.

I do, all the time. Very often I will type something here, then pause and go to the best sources of contradiction and opposition I can find, to check I am not just regurgitating urban myths and so forth. And I have been shown to be wrong before, and I have apologised and corrected. No doubt I will be wrong again, and I am always keen for people to point mistakes out to me so I may learn more.

Stuart

 

[Right Divider]

That's one of the great things about ice cores and tree rings. Claims of gradualism, or non-gradualism are completely irrelevant. It is independent of slow changes, or the lack of them. It's a purely seasonal effect, not far off being a boolean variable; digital rather than analogue information.

Stuart

I'm sorry to break it to you, but those "rings" are NOT always annual or seasonal. Your gradualism is a myth that suits your needs.

 

[Stuu]

I'm sorry to break it to you, but those "rings" are NOT always annual or seasonal. Your gradualism is a myth that suits your needs.

What they count is annual. Otherwise you think they are idiots or conspirators. Would you care to explain?

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

what (if anything) do you mean, here, by "seen"?

I mean detected by use of the senses, either with or without the extensions provided by modern technology.

Stuart

 

[7djengo7]

That's why you pay attention to unambiguous evidence.

What must something do in order for you to call it "evidence"? For the proposition, P, what must something do in order for you to say about it, "That is evidence for P"?

What must something do in order for you to call it "unambiguous evidence"? For the proposition, P, what must something do in order for you to say about it, "That is unambiguous evidence for P"?

What must something do in order for you to call it "ambiguous evidence"? For the proposition, P, what must something do in order for you to say about it, "That is unambiguous evidence for P"?

They do know the difference, it is a basic part of the scientific method to remove assumptions and control variables until there is only one explanation left with a high enough probability. Those probabilities are even quoted in many biology papers, especially in pharmacology.

Is what you call "probability" truth?

What you call "the scientific method" is worse than useless if, as you admit, it is not concerned with truth. What is not true is not known. Without truth there is no knowledge. So, what you call "science" has, by your own admission, nothing to do with knowledge.

Science makes many mistakes.

Only non-reflective, shallow folk could apply the word, "science"--which simply means knowledge--to mistakes, and to the making of mistakes. Knowledge is neither mistakes, nor the making of mistakes.

Most are never published, but many are. There is quite a severe and rude correction mechanism though, in peer review and competition for reputation and prestige. If you knew how to disprove plate tectonics, for example, what you should do is explain it to a young geologist so they may benefit from all the prizes and attention. There could be no more better career boost, to say the least.

See, "prove" and "disprove" are just two, more words that flow easily, but meaninglessly, out of the parrot beak of the "science" enthusiast such as yourself. I mean, I get that "proof", "prove", "disprove", "evidence", and many other words and phrases are all a part of that bag of slogans cherished by "science". But, your problem is that you, a friend of "science", cannot even answer the most elementary questions about such words. For instance, you cannot answer questions about what (if anything) it is to "prove" the proposition, P, nor about what it is to "disprove" the same. But, because of your refusal to think rigorously, and deal honestly, you don't let a "little" lacuna like that get in the way of your plowing on ahead and saying such words, pretending like you really mean something by them. That's what makes you a parrot. I wish I could say that you're unique in your irrationality, but, alas, you're right out of the same mold as the rest of the children of darkness.

Of course, your passed-on evidence would have to be capable of withstanding the most perishing scrutiny because of the size of the old egos involved in geology.

By your phrase, "the most perishing scrutiny", all you mean is the rigid predetermination, on the part of Darwin cheerleaders, to remain, no matter what, attached to their irrationality and error--to their Darwinism.

And, of course, as you obviously can't speak meaningfully about your use of the word, "evidence", much less are you going to be able to speak meaningfully to the question of what it would be for evidence to "withstand scrutiny".

And that's what the modern scientific consensus consists of: it is the result of many years of territories fought over, egos played out, constant attempts to tear to shreds any evidence claimed, and occasionally even respectful international cooperation with robust discussion...so eventually the theory is finally agreed because it is logically watertight and based on unambiguous evidence.

What you call "the modern scientific consensus" is enmity to the laws of logic, and is entirely in despite of all concern about the most fundamental, epistemological questions, and of any concern for logical coherence in one's world view.

[rant] It is also chilling to note that 'public' creationists don't try to give presentations to staff in university geology or biology departments, who have the knowledge to balance out whatever arguments are presented.

Here, you contradict yourself, because the fools you revere as "staff in university geology or biology departments, who have the knowledge to balance out whatever arguments are presented", have, by your own admission, no knowledge at all. Rather, what you say they have is something you call "probability".

No, these particular creationists are despicable cowards because they know they will be demonstrated wrong,

Here, again, you show yourself to be an irrational idiot. For one to know that he "will be demonstrated wrong", he would need to know that he is wrong. And, what is it to be wrong, if not to believe what is false? So, he would need to know that what he believes is false, in order to know that he "will be demonstrated wrong". And, only an irrational idiot could say that a man can simultaneously believe the proposition, P, and know that P is false.

so instead they have targeted schools with young people unarmed to defend themselves against the torrent of intellectual sewage and sleight-of-hand those particular creationists have made their trade.

Let's see, here. Who is it that targets, from the earliest age, young people unarmed to defend themselves against the irrationality, falsehood and nonsense that is Darwinism, and that is falsely called "science"? Ah, that's right: it's your friends in the public compulsory "education" establishment. And, you do it at the expense of taxpayers. And then, when your public schools turn out, through "graduation", wave upon wave of irrational dolts from the same, banal mold out of which your own mindset has been formed, they've been thoroughly well-groomed to sit pliantly and worshipfully at the feet of those Darwin cheer-leading, pontificating irrationalists you call "staff in university geology or biology departments"--and that, again, at the expense of taxpayers.

So, yeah. Not only are you a shallow fool, but you're a rank hypocrite, as well.

At least adults can turn off Bob Enyart's show, or if it's piped into rest homes then the elderly residents can bash the radios with their sticks [/rant]...but I digress.

Hey, that's really the only kind of "demonstrating" you and your ilk are all about: raging and bashing things (especially other peoples' property). The only difference between you and many more like yourself is your verbosity; it is that you feel you need more space than a mere 2' x 2' piece of cardboard to make the same, meaningless noise as a cowardly, masked rioter making a clown of herself in a downtown public square with a snot-nosed attitude, a sharpie, and a protest sign that reads, "HOORAY FOR SCIENCE!"

I know of no example of a creation scientist correcting a mistake in non-creation science. Surely there must be some. Do you know of any?

By "correcting a mistake" in Darwinism, do you mean causing a Darwin cheerleader, such as yourself, to confess the truth that he or she is in error by saying, "Oh, I am in error"? See, you've drunk so much of the Kool-Aid poured out for you by other Darwinist cheerleaders--and you've, in turn, poured it out to others, hoping they'd drink it up, too--and you've plumed your vain, satanic pride, and become such an intellectual dud, and a rank hypocrite, that you have dedicated yourself to never, under any circumstance, confessing that you are in error, and a fool. Creationists can only, and do, share the truth: we can't cause you to stop being stupid.

I do, personally, know of many, many, many, examples of Darwinist fools such as yourself, on TOL, being forced to stonewall against myriad Darwinism-damning truths and questions put to you by myself, and others. You, for instance, are such a pantywaist poser when it comes to questions of epistemology. You NEVER get back to the questions I put to you concerning the most elementary things such as evidence, proof, and knowledge. You're one more cookie-cutter poser concerning epistemological questions.

I recommend not doing that.

JR said he's been "convinced by the evidence" that such and such is true, and you react by saying he shouldn't be convinced by the evidence. See, even though you stonewall against my questions to you about what you call "evidence", you sometimes leave your guard down, and in some other context, you inadvertently reveal things about your use of the word, "evidence". Here, for instance, by telling someone that you recommend they not be convinced by evidence, you are revealing that your doctrine of evidence is such that you think that evidence for a proposition, P, does not convince a person that P. You are revealing that your doctrine of evidence is such that a person has a choice to not to be convinced by evidence.

So now, you'll recall the question I asked you, above:

What must something do in order for you to call it "evidence"? For the proposition, P, what must something do in order for you to say about it, "That is evidence for P"?

Of course, you know as well as I that you can't answer this question, and that, thus, you won't answer it; yet, we see, now, that, according to you, what something NEED NOT DO in order for you to call it "evidence for P" is to convince someone of P.

Use unambiguous evidence instead.

"unambiguous evidence": at best, a redundancy. However, redundancy is meaningful, and I don't assume you mean anything by your phrase. After all, you've never answered the questions I asked you about it.

I think I have given you every opportunity to be convincing, and will do so in the future.

You just got done recommending that JR not be convinced by evidence, which, again, is for you to admit that you think that it is a matter of a person's will for that person to be convinced by evidence. So, here, by saying "I have given you every opportunity to be convincing", you've just admitted that it is impossible for somebody to, by any means, convince you against your will. So much for your idiotic, hypocritical pretense of the value of open-mindedness to your "science".

Or, you can lead a non-believer to the Kool Aid but cannot make him drink?

Ah, but you're already glutted and stupid-drunk on your own Kool-Aid, the Kool-Aid handed out by you and all other Darwin cheerleaders. You know, the Kool-Aid that you and your ilk demand all children to be force-fed from the earliest years, in your compulsory state indoctrination establishment--the public schools. And, you hypocrite satanists insist that rational people--those who do not want your Kool-Aid, and who want to keep their children safe from your humanity-destroying Kool-Aid--you insist that your Kool-Aid is funded by their own, unwilling tax dollars! You truly are a scourge to Western civilization.

Let's not forget the religious motivation of the victims of the Jonestown delusion. I don't see atheists and agnostics behaving like that, motivated by their non-belief.

Jim Jones, like Hitler, was one of your ilk. These were not Christians. They, as you are, were children of the devil. Like you, they were anti-Christians. Remember, you're the one who cherishes, and speaks flippantly, the idea of Christians being eaten by lions:

I have to disagree there. For example, compare these three phrases:
- John the christian was swallowed by the lion
-John the christian was eaten by the lion
-John the christian was consumed by the lion

You, of course, have no rational basis for saying that what those monsters did was evil; in fact, you just admitted that you have none by your cherished phrase, "non-belief". Why was it evil for Jones and Hitler to want people slaughtered, but it is somehow not evil for you to want people--people who are Christians--slaughtered? Jones and Hitler did whatever they desired to do, and felt they could get away with doing--just like Aleister Crowley. And, they certainly were not acting in accordance with any Biblical precepts. Of course, nothing in your bumper-sticker-depth "non-belief" shtick debars any anti-Christian from lying, and pretending to be a Christian. Did you know that it's possible for one to lie, saying that he or she is a Christian, and not be a Christian?

Anyway, just like Jim Jones and Hitler, all you "non-belief" nihilist clowns are motivated solely by your lusts, and your rage: you're sheer opportunists.

I do, all the time. Very often I will type something here, then pause and go to the best sources of contradiction and opposition I can find, to check I am not just regurgitating urban myths and so forth. And I have been shown to be wrong before, and I have apologised and corrected. No doubt I will be wrong again, and I am always keen for people to point mistakes out to me so I may learn more.

Stuart

Spare me.

 

[7djengo7]

How does something 'not seen' constitute evidence? It's not the kind used in science, history or geography, for example.

In other words, you're saying that whatever you would call "evidence" must be something you would say is "seen". No? So, what (if anything) do you mean, here, by "seen"?

I mean detected by use of the senses, either with or without the extensions provided by modern technology.

So, you mean seen with one's eyes, heard with one's ears, felt with one's touch, etc.? Senses most people would call "physical", or "material"?

In other words, whatever you neither see with your eyes, hear with your ears, feel with your touch, smell with your olfactory, nor taste with your taste buds, you deny to constitute evidence?

Your anti-intellectualism knows no bounds, man! No wonder you despise truth and logic so deeply; truth and logic can't be seen with one's eyes. And, guess what: you've further revealed the foolishness of your doctrine concerning evidence. For, since you consider material things, and only material things, to be evidence, and since truth and logic are not material things, you are handing us that, according to you--whatever you do happen to call "evidence"--what you definitely do not call "evidence" is truth and logic. Bravo!

I'll eagerly take truth and logic all the time over your "evidence" and your "science".

 

[Stuu]

Is what you call "probability" truth?

I think truth is as much a reference to ones own codes of belief as it is to demonstrating something is a fact or a reality. It is many people's Truth that Jesus walked again after being executed. This is an event with essentially a zero probability, so it may constitute Truth, but it is not reasonable to claim it as a true account of history.

Stuart