padib said:
Why would you say that? You're jumping to conclusions again. What from that sentence makes you think they don't understand the difference between evolution and abiogenesis? They call it Goo-to-you evolution by lumping it together, it doesn't mean they don't understand the difference... |
Let's assume arguando that they do understand the difference between evolution and abiogenesis. That means that they try to disprove evolution by disproving abiogenesis which is a straw man. So you claim that instead of being ignorant of the difference between abiogenesis and evolution they are being engaged in purposeful logical fallacy.
In other word you say that I am wrong to assume they are ignorant; but the alternative is that they are dishonest. how is that better?
| padib said: See, THAT's your issue. You take one thing, and extrapolate to the other end of the universe. Just because of that one sentence, which you totally misjudged, are you completely discrediting the video, and assuming it's religious propaganda. Talk about an open mind! If that's what being open-minded is, friend count me out of it |
No, I took their sentence as a face value representation of their knowledge. You showed the possibility that it might not be ignorance but intellectual dishonesty (I guess I gave them the benefit of the doubt too much) but either way, their basis being irretrievably flawed, all I needed to invalidate it was to point out the flaw.
As for it being propaganda, given its lack of scientific merit it is the one of two things I can see it being used for (the other being to have a good laugh at their expense). It doesn't mean it is necessarily what it was made for, it just means that it is what would be most useful for.
| padib said: The guy who talks in the video for 50 minutes has a tripple PHD and is a master chess champion. Would you flunk him too? |
Argument from authority, yet another logical fallacy that creationists are fond of. Besides, just having a PhD doesn't mean much.
For one thing, anybody can get a PhD on the internet for some money so the first question would be where did he get his degrees from? Accredited universities or scam operations?
Second, What field are his PhDs in? If somebody has a PhD in French Lit that hardly shows qualification about evolutionary theory. Similarly him being a chess champion has no bearing on his expertise in evolutionary theory and I do not claim that intelligent person cannot subscribe to evolutionary theory.
But ultimately, while a diploma can indicate some degree of knowledge and competence in a field, one should not listen to people because they have a diploma (would you listen to the Wizard of Oz's Scarecrow because he has a diploma? I wouldn't) but they should listen to them if they have good arguments.
Your triple PhD guy doesn't know (or is dishonest about) the difference between evolution and abiogenesis and that by itself is proof enough that he is either not qualified enough or too dishonest for me to bother wasting time listening to him.
Besides, you are not impressed by the numerous evolutionary scientists who have PhDs so why do you expect me to be impressed?
If there are any points in his 50 minutes with which you agree which try to refute evolution by trying to refute evolutionary claims and which I haven't dealt with in my previous posts, feel free to present them individually but don't expect me to spend 50 minutes listening to somebody's whose foundational argument is irretrievably flawed from the outset just on the off chance that there might be something not connected to his basic thesis.
| padib said: I bet you would, even without watching the video. That's great stuff. Good to know I was right all along about your side of the issue. Pure arrogance. Sorry, I don't want to sound offensive, but I hope you understand my gripe |
If I was a teacher and on an free subject assignment a student sought to refute Newton's theory of gravity by refuting Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto I would flunk him too, because even if his refutation of The Communist Manifesto was perfect it still would have no bearing on Newton's theory of gravity and would not invalidate it.
| padib said: Give me one theory of intelligent design that you believe is non-scientific. |
All of them. They all posit a nondisprovable element (an intelligent agent) and are thus nondisprovable, which means they are not scientific.
| padib said: Here's one that is scientific: all intelligent signals require a sender, from information theory (I'm sure they have better ways to formulate it, I don't have it on hand). How is that non-scientific? |
It is not scientific because this time you are falling into the logical fallacy of begging the question. You start from the principle that the signal is intelligent, therefore it was sent by an intelligence.
Guess what, DNA is not intelligence. It can, in the right configuration, lead to intelligence (humans are the prime example) but DNA itself is not intelligent. It is made of information, not intelligence. Your problem is that you seem to be using the political definition of intelligence, like the CIA: Central Intelligence Agency, which would better be name CIA: Central Information Agency but only inconsistently as when it comes to an Intelligent designer I doubt you mean intelligence as in information but intelligent as in capable of abstract thought. I would say pick a definition and stick with it but we are talking about a scientific theory so it makes more sense to use a definition that most scientists would be likely to agree with like this one (Note that intelligence being a complicated matter not every scientist will agree 100% with those definitions but they represent the general ideas that most scientist can accept as a basis for debate).
| padib said: We repeatedly observe [intelligent signals] in the world around us. |
Care to provide us with an example of a signal that is intelligent (as opposed to simply carrying information).
| padib said: But when it comes to the genetic code, all of a sudden it comes by chance. |
Randomness is one of at least three ingredients for evolution. Environmental pressure (that is, natural selection) is the second and iteration of those two processes over extremely long periods of time is the third. I am not claiming they are the only (I am not an evolutionary biologist myself) but they are at the core of evolution as I understand it (it is possible that my understanding of it is flawed, if it is feel free to point out where just like i have pointed out where your understanding of it was flawed).
| padib said: When you see a finger-print, you think "Who's is that?" not "How did that come about by chance?". |
Scientist would not think "How did that come about by chance?" either because it implies that randomness is the reason for its appearance. They would simply ask "How did that come about?" and if the most likely answer in light of the evidence happens to be "by random changes in inherited traits combined with environmental pressure, both over very long periods of time" then they will accept that as the answer until a better answer comes along or some new evidence comes along disproving it.
Creationists on the other hand, when seeing a fingerprint would say "Such a complicated structure could not have happened by itself and thus is proof that it was designed, therefore there must be an intelligent designer".
| padib said: Even evolutionists are ready to admit that Evolution is totally non-conventional, non-trivial |
For nontrivial, that is a given as that means that it is complicated, which evolution certainly is.
As for nonconventional, according to Mirriam-Webster it means "not bound by traditional ways or beliefs" to which I would say that all of science is nonconventional as it is not bound to traditional ways or beliefs but instead tries its best to bind itself to the facts.
If you meant that it was nonconventional in the context of science (that is, that it was not bound to earlier scientific theories) then I would say that it was when first proposed but, as more evidence supporting it came to light, it became more and more conventional until today were evolution is the convention in science.
| padib said: (i.e. it doesn't concord with the facts of life in any way) |
Is that your definition of nonconventional and nontrivial? You might want to open a dictionary. Besides if any scientist made the claim that "evolution doesn't concord with the facts of life in any way" then he can hardly be called an evolutionary scientist, can he? (that would be like calling the pope an atheist).
| padib said: That's why it's of such "beauty" |
Wait! What? You claim that evolutionary theory's beauty comes from not concording with the facts of life in any way?
It is exactly the opposite. The beauty of evolutionary theory's beauty is because it explains so many facts in the world with such an economy of principles.
ID explains complicated thing by positing the existence of an even more complicated thing (god) that cannot be proved or disproved.
| padib said: I'll give you one from the evolutionary model that is non-scientific. The life of the universe. How is the 6 Billion years number scientific? |
Determining the age of the universe is not actually part of the evolutionary model which is a branch of biology but part of physical cosmology.
In fact when the evolutionary model was first proposed one of the biggest critics of it was Lord Kelvin as his calculation for the age of the universe put it between 20 millions and 400 millions years which was too short a time to be consistent with the time scale needed by evolution.
As it turns out it was because he did not account for either convection in the mantle or radioactive decay adding heat. The latter is understandable as science did not know about radioactivity at the time of his calculations.
But to go back to the age of the universe (as Rath pointed out, its current estimate is 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years), the number is scientific because it is based on physical evidence, as explained by Rath.
| padib said: It's based on false assumptions such as static rates (decay, erosion, time, speed of celestial bodies). |
It is based on the evidence we have of the universe's accelerating expansion. Do we assume that the rate are static? Yes! However, you do not claim that it is merely an assumption but that it is a false assumption so I will ask you for your evidence that this assumption is false.
If you have no evidence that the rate of acceleration of the expansion of the universe was different in the past then present it, otherwise in the absence of such evidence then you are also only assuming that the rate was different.
Furthermore, if one was to assume a variable rate of acceleration without evidence of it, one would have to further assume in what way that rate changed so that you now have two assumptions instead of one. Occam's razor therefore dictates to use the theory with the least assumptions as it is the one most likely to be correct.
BTW, we originally thought that the universe was expanding at a constant rate. Further evidence caused us to realise that the rate was actually accelerating so that is what current theories are based on. In other word, science has no problem with changing rates, as long as there is evidence for it. You don't change a theory to include the possibility of changing rates (in what direction? by how much?), you make a theory to explaining observed phenomena and as more phenomena are observed you correct your theories to account for them (or if they disprove your theory you devise new theories that explain both the old facts and the new facts).
| padib said: That sounds to me like indoctrination, ipse dixit, more than anything. And it is taugh as fact in NatGeo, I see it all the time. |
Well, like I just showed, it is based on what is observed, therefore not because of the ipse dixit of science and certainly not because of the ipse dixit of the bible. I guess you could say that it is the ipse dixit of the universe and that science is the search of what the universe tells us about itself.
padib said:
Not at all. You're not a creationist so how would you know our intent? |
From a prominent creationist website:
|
The Bible—the “history book of the universe”—provides a reliable, eye-witness account of the beginning of all things, and can be trusted to tell the truth in all areas it touches on. Therefore, we are able to use it to help us make sense of this present world. |
They take the bible as being literally true so for any scientific theory contradicting it they want the answer to be changed to whatever the bible says (in other words "becaused god made it that way"). Your intent is plain.
Whereas scientists look at the world and change their models and theories as their understanding of the world deepens, creationists look at the bible and change their theories of why the world does not contradict the bible as science's understanding of the world deepen.
| padib said: If you were able to prove to me with solid truth that you're right, I am willing to deny my faith. I believe in God that much, that I am ready to go that far. |
I have no intention to make you lose your faith in god and I even have said earlier in this thread that evolutionary theory is not incompatible with belief in most gods (including the abrahamic ones).
Now I could make the claim that evolutionary theory is incompatible with a literal reading of the bible but it is more accurate to say that the world itself is incompatible with a literal reading of the bible. To prove creationism you do not have merely to prove evolutionary theory to be wrong, but you also have to prove that the world is wrong as it often goes against a literal reading of the bible (in those parts where the bible describe the physical world anyway).
Besides, there is one possibility that you didn't read my post where I said that you don't prove scientific theories, you construct them to explain known facts and try to disprove them through experiments, as if you had you would know that, evolutionary theory being a scientific theory I cannot prove that it exist, just show evidence supporting it and the lack of disproof (tentative disproofs that are themselves disproved, like just about all creationists claims, are not disproofs).
The other possibility is that you did read that post, told to yourself "Ha ha, he claims it can't be totally and utterly proved. I know how to trip him! I will ask him to do so, watch him fail and claim that his lack of proof means that my belief must be right by default" but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Besides, failing to prove evolution is not a proof of creationism and claiming so would be another logical fallacy: false dichotomy.
| padib said: Ultimately, I believe He would prove himself right to me. |
Unless you mean when you die then no, then I doubt he would, as you said yourself "the bible is clear that without faith one cannot see God". If he proved himself to you you would not need your faith anymore. As for proving (or disproving) at death time, it will be the case for all of us, whether there is no god or whether god is Jesus, Allah, Hades, Yama...
| padib said: Just as you I'm sure do the same thing when arguing with a creationist... |
I am not sure I understand this sentence. Do you mean that you are sure that I believe the world would prove itself to me?
Assuming you do: I don't believe it is the job of the world to prove itself to me. In fact, I don't believe the world has any job whatsoever; it just is. Whether our experimentations upon it and our discoveries about it prove or disprove evolution does not matter either. Evolution is currently accepted because it is the best theory explaining it as we understand it. If the world was to disprove it then it would be no problem s all it would mean was that we do not understand enough of it yet and need a better model of it.
It is quite the opposite, as a discovery/experiment disproving evolution would be extremely interesting from a scientific standpoint as it would tell us things about the world that we do not know yet and lead to a better understanding of it.
For example at the end of the 19th century we thought we had explained most of physics and only had a few phenomena to explain. It turned out that explaining these phenomena (like the blackbody radiation problem) opened the door to the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics which revolutionised science; a very exciting time for a scientist to live in.
| padib said: or are you a hypocrite, expecting that of us but not of yourself? |
Religious beliefs are irrational so I would not expect you to change them based on reason alone and I do not expect the world to confirm scientific theories, simply to reveal (through experiment) how it is. If it supports it, good, it means we probably are right (with the probability rising asymptotically towards 1 without reaching it); if it disproves it, even better, as it will eventually lead to a better understanding like, for example, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity is a better understanding of the world than Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation.
| padib said: Because that's what my faith is based on, Genesis. |
That your faith is based on genesis is not a problem. That what you want to call science is based on genesis is a problem. Science should be based on the world, not on a religious book, or it is not science anymore.
That is the problem with creationist, not that they want to believe in genesis and the rest of the bible (or other sacred text depending on the religion) but that they want to claim that it is science.
From another post:
| padib said: Chance needs an infinite amount of time to create life as we know it |
You do not seem to understand randomness either.
Let's say that there was an infinitely sided die (impossible you say? Let's say that our example takes place in a universe where god exists and he created it, after all he is omnipotent so it is posible for him).
How long would it take to get 42 as a result?
From the sentence I quoted it appears that would say: given that there are an infinite number of possibilities it must take an infinite amount of time.
Well, you would be wrong. At any one throw of the dice every side has the same 1/infinite probability to happen so if your sentence was right each side would take an infinite amount of time to come up and thus not side would ever come up no matter how many time you throw the die.
Now it is obvious that for each throw there is one side coming up, so even though the probability is infinitesimal for the side that came up to do so it still did.
In our example the probability on each and every throw to get 42 is the same 1/infinity, but we might get it on the millionth throw or on the billionth throw or, hell, even on the first throw.
Low probabilities do not mean that it can't happen, just that it is very improbable to happen.
And don't forget that random mutations are only a part of evolution, and a part that even a lot of creationists agree happens, they just disagree that it can lead to new species.
| padib said: For the rest, thanks for confirming what I said, that the age of the universe is based on linear variables (i.e. false assumptions). |
Evidence that the assumption is false please.
| padib said: The same issue exists with carbon dating. From wikipedia |
This is actually an example of how you do things in science.
You start by doing your calculations using what you know (decay-rate of various carbon isotopes) and as little assumption as possible (no variance in the concentration of carbon instead of assuming there is variance in concentration and assuming the amount variation in concentration with no evidence to back it up).
Once more evidence emerges (local variations) use that new evidence (possibly with other evidence) to improve your model and rerun your calculations.
Science doesn't claim to be completely right at every single point in time (religion is the one more likely to claim inerrant truth); but it does claim to do its best to explain the world given known facts and to work to improve its explanations as we get to know more about the world.
| padib said: What I meant was that the numbers have constantly grown over the ages, so it leaves breathing room to the theory. |
Wrong on both counts.
Wrong on the count that the numbers have constantly grown as while it started smaller and were revised up, going at least to 20 billion years at one point, they were also revised down from those estimates to the current estimate of almost 14 billions years.
wrong on the count that it was done to leave breathing room to evolution. The age of the universe is not even determined by evolutionary theorists but by cosmologists and it is not determined to accomodate other theories but it is determined based on the evidence we had available to us at the various times the different estimates were made. For more information on the age of the universe.
| padib said: So anything you pretend I have, such as wanting to fit things into my worldview, or bias, you'll find the exact same thing on the other side, hence the constant need for more time. If the universe is on a different scale, then that's much more breathing space. |
While we are all human and any given scientist is at risk of commiting the error of fitting the data to his theory (as opposed to fitting his theory to the data) at least science strives to fit the theories to the data whereas creationists strive to fit the data to the bible.
| padib said: If you're fair you'll understand what I mean. People have started out religious and have become atheist, some started out atheist and have become religious. Did they get smarter or dumber one way or the other? I don't think so. We're all just looking for answers. Why the prejudice? |
The prejudice is not against belief; the prejudice is against belief trying to pass itself off as science.
| padib said: See? Great use of scientific reasoning on a biblical account. So it is possible to use science to verify biblical claims. Why when using it to counter it's legitimate, but not in defense... |
If a biblical claim can be formulated in a scientific theory then the same scientific tools are available to it. The problem with creationists theory is not that they are pro-biblical, it is that they are not scientific.
For example, the bible claim that the number of Israelites leaving Egypt during the exodus was 600 000 men, not counting women and children. Later most of them camped near the base of mount Sinai. I say most of them because before that they had a battle with the amakelites and I assume some of them died in it. Still, with women and children it is not too much of a stretch to assume that there wehere a million+ human beings camping at the base of mount sinai. In other terms, a tent city with a population between that of Denver and that of San Jose was in proximity of a known mountain.
This is a physical claim about the world that could be proved by discovering archeological evidence of such a city in a strata corresponding to the date range of the event (about 3500 years IIRC). It wouldn't prove all of the bible, but it would support the biblical account that there was such a large city at that time. However it still would not support the idea that god gave the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, only that there was a city at its base at the time where it is alleged to have a happened (in other word it would only verify what the evidence support but cannot verify whatthe evidence cannot support like supernatural happenings).
Given that not everybody agrees that the modern mount sinai is the biblical one, such a finding would also support that position and undermine the position that it is a different mount (unless further evidence proved that said city was not israelite or unless the bible says that israelites similarly camped at the base of another mountain).
The problem arise when someone tries to mix science and the supernatural parts of the bible (like an intelligent agent) as science cannot prove or disprove supernatural things (only prove them to be unlikely) and thus such an attempt is not science.
| padib said: So, apparently there has been a lot of research done on that on the creationist side and in fact they have found many anomalies in the fossil record, things that shouldn't appear in one place appear there in masses. (One reference for now, about fossils appearing in the wrong layer, some in unexpected location. [1]) |
I don't understand, where on the page you link do they claim that?
Besides, I suppose your contention about those fossils and where they are found is likely to be that they can be explained by a catastrophic event (like Noah's flood for example) explaining their apparition in that place but since science does not claim that catastophic events cannot happen (as it would be stupid since catastrophic events happen today) then the same type of catastrophic event that according to creationists would explain these fossils would have the same amount of credibility explaining them in science (that is the credibility would be in function of whether the evidence supports their assertions, not on whether it is proposed by creationists or scientists).
So not only would their explanation for these fossils need to be supported by evidence but it would at the same time be an explanation that contradict current paleontology theories as any valid explanation for those fossil that does not contradict paleontology would not be an invalidation of it.
| padib said: It can mostly be explained due to the washing out by massive waters and depositing them in an unusual region, where you would not expect them (e.g. mountaintops, sea creatures in deserts) |
Mountaintops... do you mean sea creatures fossil at the top of mountain? Have you heard of plate tectonics? Because that is a natural (and non evolutionary) process that can, given the right conditions, uplift a sea floor above see level.
| padib said: Did you also know that the process involved in the flood is an excellent means of fossilisation, if not the best? |
Science does not deny that floods happen. However, to support "the" flood having evidence that floods have happened all over the world is not eough, you need evidence that those floods are synchronised (happened at the same time) and happened almost everywhere as the earth was covered with water (I qualify it with almost to account for natural processes removing such evidence in local places).
| padib said: The other mechanisms explained by the secular model leave place to erosion and predation to destroy the bones and structures found in fossils. Enlighten me here again, I'm limited on the secular explanation of fossils (for now). |
That is why fossils are so rare. There are however mechanisms that protect newly dead animals and vegetals from erosion and predation like tar pits, amber (for small animals), mudslides...
If you want more information on the different processes of fossil formation Wikipedia is a good place to start.
| padib said: Wow, read this if you don't think creation science is actively being repressed. |
Yet another example of creationists trying to pass of their belief as science. Like I said earlier, if you want to play in science's playground you have to play by its rule. You can't just write a book, say it's scientific, and expect scientists to accept it just on your say so.
How would you feel like if a scientist wrote a book on evolution and took it to your creationist church and insisted that it was a religious book based on the bible and that as such it should be given as much air time in your church as creationists book so as to "teach the controversy". It would not be a proper place for such a book, no matter how much it disguised its scientific underpinning and neither is a creationist books' proper place in the science section or in a school science curriculum.
I would agree that asking it to be completely removed goes too far, luckily they suggested the sensible alternative to move it to a more fitting section. Personally I would have done the same, asking for it to be placed in a more relevant part of the shop like the religion section or the humor section.
padib said:
Apparently it exists, and is what is called the Geological column: |
The geological column is not a layer, it is a series of successive layers hundreds of meter deep. If there was hundreds of meter of depth with very few fossils, then a few meters extremely rich in fossils, then the layers above that with very few fossils again, and this all over the world, it would be good evidence supporting the flood.
As it happens the fossils are not mostly concentrated in one specific layer, and pretending it is by saying all the layers of differing rocks are just one layer does not make it so.
Also, if that alleged hundred of meters deep layer was deposited by the flood it means that prior to being deposited most of it would have been in suspension in the floodwater but how did hundreds of miles worth of depth of rock over the entire world get into suspension?
| padib said: More from the same wonderful author. http://www.nwcreation.net/fossilsorting.html |
He states that "The first organisms to be buried were the bottom dwelling creatures, followed by free-swimming marine life forms"
Marine life forms would have been the last to die as their natural habitat is saltwater and would thus only die once the concentration of salt fell below their ability to osmoregulate.
Being the last ones to die we should find their remains mostly in the top layers.
The other possibility is that the amount of sediment in suspension in the water that is necessary to provide the building material of the geological column would keep the mineral salt concentration high enough not to kill saltwater fish.
But it only mean that those fish would have died even later as they would only have started to die when the floodwater receded, by which time most of the sedimentation (according to flood theory proponents) would have taken place and thus they should also mostly be in the top layers, not the bottom ones.
That scenario also means that instead of killing saltwater fish it would kill freshwater fish.
The problem is that god did not tell Noah to take fishes aboard the ark so that if the flood story was right then today we should only have saltwater fish or only freshwater fish (depending on which of the scenarios above happened wrt sea salt levels) but not both as either type would have completely died out during the many months where the salt levels were lethal for them.
| padib said: Anyway, minute 1:36 of movie provided. Strata are in no particular order (point 3). Really? Then why the identification by secular scientists of order pointing to various ages of biological history? |
Context! Context! Context!
In this video he is talking about the rock in which the fossils are found, not the fossil themselves.
If the geological column was indeed deposited by the flood then the particular order of the rocks should be the heaviest (most dense) at the bottom and the lightest at the top, with the density increasing as you went from top to bottom.
The no particular order part comes from the fact that sedimentary rocks are not particularly layered by density. you can have denser rocks on top of less dense rocks.
The order identified by paleotonlogists pointing to various ages of biological history is the order of average complexity of the organisms of different rock layers going from less complex animals in older rocks (regardless of those older rocks' particular density) to more complex animals in younger rocks (regardless of those younger rocks' particular density).
| padib said: For point 2, the layering has been explained by catastrophic models, and has even been reproduced in model environments if memory serves me well |
Link/source please.
| padib said: (Sri Lumpa, isn't that science: to be able to verify a theory given a model and have it play in real time? It may be false (based on false assumptions), but it remains a scientific practice) |
I don't claim that all creationists approach are not scientific, but I do claim that positing a creator (or intelligent agent if you prefer) is not scientific as it is not disprovable and non predictive. If you give me a link to their experiment I may be able to see if they conducted it in a scientific way.
Not all theories and not all experiments are scientific.
Also the model does not necessarily need to be in real time. For example our models of star formations are based on known physical laws and observation of stars in formation in nebulas but we do not run them in real time.
As for the false assumption, if it is an assumption that turns out to prove false through experimentation then no problem, but if it is an assumption that was known to be false before the experimentation then it is not scientific to include known false facts in a theory.
| padib said: The movie is using strawman arguments... Ken Hovind has been repeatedly proven to be a fraud and his material discouraged by creation scientists. |
Ken Hovind is a creationist so it is not a straw man if the question is disproof of creationist flood theories in general. Now you may not believe in his creationist flood theory so it wouldn't necessarily disprove the theory you believe in but until now you did not state specifically which creationist theories you believe in so Ken Hovind, as a prominent creationist was a fair target for disproof.
If you would tell us which creationist theories you subscribe too we could more easily avoid such mistakes through ignorance and narrow our debate down to what you believe. From your earlier posts and championing of flood theories I suppose you are a young earth creationist not of the Ken Hovind kind, but that hardly narrow it down. For example, do you believe in a complete creation in genesis or that god may have continuously modified life over time (which, in your eyes would explain why it looks like evolution happened).
Also, him being a fraud, while it cast the shadow of a doubt on his theories, does not invalidate them in itself. If his theories were right and he was a fraud in other parts of his life, his theories would still be right regardless of his otherwise fraudulent behaviour.
| padib said: You're looking more for pressure systems at very high temperatures to find rapid stratification |
Pressure I can see as it would have been under an enormous amount of water, but where does the high temperature come from to support rapid stratification all over the world atthe same time?
| padib said: The flood model supported by leading creation scientists assume simultaneous cataclysmic events such as large global earthquakes and massive volcanic eruptions. |
Why does it? The bible only mentions water pouring from the sky and coming up from springs but makes no mention of either earthquakes nor volcanic eruptions. it seems strange if the bible is an accurate historical record that it doesn't mention those phenomena too.
Since the volcanic eruptions necessary for this model are not supported biblically how is this theory supporting the biblical account?
Is it a flood theory following the account of the bible or a flood/volcanic theory with no basis in either nature nor the bible?
| padib said: There are always different explanations to natural phenomena. Being closed to alternative theories is opposite to science. |
Yes, there are. Another alternative explanation is that the Flying Spaghetti Monster threw meatballs in the sea causing it so splash and flood the land. But simply being an alternative explanation does not make it a scientific theory, you also need to be supported by evidence.
| padib said: The humilation of creationists is so bad. Not only is it insulting, but it's very hypocritical. If an evolutionist theory were seriously challenged (and many have been in the past), you would hear rushing keyboards to evolution material. Very hypocritical thinking. |
I agree with you on it being hypocritical as both you and I, being laymen, do not remember all the sources for explanations out of hand and thus have to reseach them (I often know the argument I want to make but must research sources to explain it better as I don't catalogue them).
For scientists of the field whose theory was challenged I would expect them to be able to answer most challenges from the knowledge deriving from daily study of their field, the exception being for novel arguments that might necessitate experiment or understanding of a part of the field that they are less familiar with.
| padib said: For the case of rapid stratification in catastrophic scenarios, this resource may be interesting to you, if you're truly open-minded. |
Right off the bat I can tell you why their approach is not scientific: " Creation geology is based on the assumption that the Biblical flood described in the book of Genesis was a real and historical event of global magnitude"
They start from that conclusion and try to prove it. Which is the opposite of the scientific process:
Worse:
| Creation geologists reject radiometric dating because the assumption of deep time (millions and billions of years) is required for the dates of rock layers to be accepted as real. Since the flood and the flood layers are known in creationism to be less than 5000 years old, computed old dates are completely irrelevant to any flood model. |
They purposefully ignore evidence that contradict their claim. I can understand ignoring it if you don't know about it (right until somebody tells you about it). I can accept the odd creationist ignoring contradicting evidence because they are humans and not all of them will be honest (same thing can happen with scientists who are also human) but the way he says it means that they are ignoring it on purpose solely because it disagree with their theory.
How can you claim that this theory is scientific?
| Flood geologists also conclude that land canyons such as the Grand Canyon were most likely formed during catastrophic hot mud slides such as those observed during the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. One particular hot mud slide at Mt. St. Helens carved a canyon 140 ft. deep and 17 miles long in a single day. |
What was the material eroded in the Mt St Helens canyon? Volcanic ash.
What was the materials eroded in the Grand Canyon? Shale, sandstone, limestone.
It would be like if I took ash from a wood stove, put it on a flat surface, used a watering can to simulate pouring rain, saw the erosion of the ash and concluding that if I replaced that fresh, nonconsolidated ash with shale, sandstone or limestone I would get the same speedy result.
Also, they used the depth of ash deposited to demonstrate that meters of sediments can be deposited a day but those ash sediments might start as meters when they are first deposited but further deposition would shrink that depth by applying pressure on top until it would not be meters of low density ash anymore but much shallower amounts of higher density material like tuff.
If they want to argue that the hundreds of meters of sedimentary rock was formed that way in less than a year then they need that hundreds of meter to start as a much higher higher depth of less dense material. How high? I do not know as it would depend on the density of the final material and the density of the start material but an extremely conservative figure would be to simply double the size of the layer as it would represent a simple doubling/halving of the density on average (kinda like stepping on wood ash to make it denser) so that now you need more than a kilometer's worth of material to get deposited. Depending on the density difference betwen starting sediment and end rock the problem of the depth of the sediment becomes worse and worse for higher differences.
| Flood geologists point to the existence of large oil deposits as the result of the accumulation of large amounts of dead plant and animal matter during the flood which were subsequently compressed below the surface. They argue that there is no evidence of fossil fuels being formed today, or any clear mechanism for how it could occur without catastrophe. They argue that the flood provides the necessary catastrophe |
if it was the case that oil fields where formed by a global flood then their repartition should be mostly uniform across the globe as the flood was uniform across the globe (mostly because not all regions will have the same amount of animals). However we have regions of the world that are rich in oil (like the middle east) and others bereft of it "En France on a pas de petrole mais on a des idees".
| padib said: I'm currently reading a very detailed, scientific and high-quality article on the chalk beds mentioned in the video, from a catastrophist view point. I suggest you follow if you want to have a discussion. I read your stuff, you read mine! |
First, I expect you to read my posts if you want to answer to them of course but the links I provide are mostly* to support my position. I try to make the argument here in my own words as much as possible as otherwise it devolves into a link fest. So, I only expect you to read the links I provide if you are interested in further information. If you are not, don't read them.
Second. While I read your posts in their entirety I do not necessarily read your links in their entirety either or try to rebut them in their entirety either as if I did you probably would just bury me in links and expect me to refute decades of creationist writing with little effort on your part.
This is also why I didn't bother refuting the articles you linked in their entirety, showing their overall lack of scientific method is enough for a first pass and if there is a particularly salient point didn't refute that you believe in you can write it here..
* at least one exception I can think of was the Expelled Exposed link, but I did say that I hadn't rad it myself and only gave it because you seemed interested in the other side of the story.
| padib said: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j10_1/j10_1_107-113.pdf |
You said that the reason you were a creationist was because "my foundation is Genesis. If that's not true, the rest is bogus" so i start from the principle that what you advance as your belief must not only support the possibility of a flood but support the possibility of Noah's flood as literally described in the bible.
Unfortunately for you the introduction of your link does no such thing. It claims:
"In this article, I present arguments which suggest that all of the Upper Cretaceous chalk is post-Flood, formed over a timescale measured in decades."
"However, as has been pointed out above, the Chalk is associated in both Europe and the United States with a marine transgression, not a retreat of Flood waters"
So his claim is that the chalk was not deposited during the flood but was deposited in the sea and the sea floor was then lifted (marine transgression) above sea level.
Such a mechanism doesn't need the flood at all to work as it is the same mechanism that science uses to explain it. So while it does not contradict the flood theory it does not support it either.
"This suggests that chalk sediment fell so rapidly that the fish had to retreat to their host, being unable to escape because of the build-up of sediment, and that death was followed by rapid fossilisation. At the very least, these evidences require non-uniformitarian conditions."
This was done in water so even if the body was not buoyant it still would take time for the inoceramus to fall to the ocean floor before being buried in sediment; time that the fishes could have used to escape (note that the rate of descent would not be dependent on the number of inoceramus dying but upon their density which would be lower than clay in the same way that our density is lower than bone). So what is the explanation? I have no idea, but until there is concrete evidence to show that they fell so fast that the fish could not escape (drop a shell so that it fall in water and compare the arate of descent in the air with the rate of descent in a similar amount of water) then there might be another explanation.
"The lack of evidence for a deepening depositional sequence is a further indication that the uniformitarian models of deposition are wanting"
They seem to believe that modern geology is strictly uniformitarian and not catastrophic at all. but as i said earlier, catastrophe exists today andthere is no reason to assume it didn't exist in the past so that phenomenon might be better explained by a catastrophe causes no problem to geology. There lack compelling evidence for a synchronised global catastrophe caused by a flood however (like the K-T extinction for example).
"Estimated maximum rates of formation are 10-30 mm per 1,000 years" for modern chalk.
Their thesis being that it might have been different right after the flood. How different exactly?
They claim that the 100-200m of chalk were deposited in decades so it would be at least 100m in 100 years (1m/years) and at most 200m/20 years (20m/years).
How much more than current chalk formation is that? 10mm/1000 years is 1m/100 000 years and 30mm/1000 is about 1m/33 000 years so chalk would have had to form about 33 000 to 2 000 000 times faster right after the flood as now. What evidence is there for that? Especially given that by restricting himself to after the flood he can't use the excuse that during the flood there would have been the nutrients of the dead plants and animals drowned.
Worse for your argument, it also contradict the flood theory that says that most of the fossils were deposited during the flood as if the cretaceous layers of chalk were deposited after the flood then so were the cenozoic fossils (fund in layers higher than the cretaceous) which means that high number of fossils post-flood is possible under their theory, which means that high number of pre-flood are possible too, which contradicts the premise that most of the fossils were deposited during the flood due to the flood and that therefore there would only be a small number of non-flood fossils.
| padib said: At least you address what is said, not who said it. |
Somehow this sound like a jab at me even though I did my best to refute what was said, not who said it. If it is ajab at me and I failed in that could you point out where so I can either correct it or correct your misunderstanding of it if it was a "what was said" case that you read as a "who said it" case.
| padib said: Do be fair though. It's not because you found an exception case here and there that you discredit the whole article. The guy makes a point, I'd like to see if it holds water. |
I would not expect creationism to explain everything any more than I would expect science to explain everything but if the basis of their reasoning is faulty then that is reason to, if not dismiss the whole article then not waste time in sifting what is not invalidated by the faulty basis from the rest (like I did with the video whose faulty basis was to try to refute evolution by refuting abiogenesis).
If you feel such an article has got some redeeming point you can advance it yourself.
BTW, at least part of his point (buoyancy) was discredited in the second part of the video whose first part was linked here as it pointed out that dead animals either float or sink but do not stay seperated in layers so that you might not have only one layer of animals but you still would have at most two layers, one of buoyant dead animals and one of non-buoyant dead animals. Another part (animals moving further from the flood with higher intelligence) was also discredited (why are they intelligent enough to move away from the flood to start with but stupid enough to stop afterward). Besides it is not like the flood was supposed to be instantaneous, it supposedly took 40 days for the water to rise so the animals could move gradually and you should find more in higher altitude, not necessarily in a higher strata.
**skipping a post because it answers to Allfreedom's post so I will try to remember to deal with it then**
| padib said: Not all creationists are trustworthy sources of science, believe me. |
I have absolutely zero problem believing you 
.
| padib said: Sri Lumpa mentioned it "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.", or smthg similar. |
Well, I don't totally subscribe to the saying as a disease can debilitate you (making you weaker) without killing you but in the case of scientific theories it often is the case, though you can have new facts that make a theory less likely (weaker) without disproving it outright.
So it is more of a general principle, not a rule or anything.
"I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"
