| Please don't respond to this until I'm completely done, or you'll overwhelm me, really. |
I will respond to a few of them that I consider important, like clarifying on Occam's razor, or small things that are unlikely to need a follow-up, but I will try to avoid overwhelming you (or at least try to avoid overwhelming you further 
).
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padib said:
I'll start this by just mentioning I'm not as rigorous as you are in quote-posting
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There is an insert new table button in the tools when you quote a post. It helps with it. I quote that way because I find it more readable.
| Sorry for the disordering, but it's the order in which I want to present my view on it that matters in my reply post. |
No problem, if it helps you organise your thoughts.
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Allow me to put this issue on pause for now, I'm a little overwhelmed. Let me take time to think about this before I go more in depth. I might make another post or thread for this.
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No problem, take as much time as you need to digest it. Beside, I suppose that just like me you have other things to do in your life so let's not treat this as a race.
| What I meant to say by nonconventional is that it defies common sense |
Most of science defies common sense. If the structure of the world was so simple that we could comprehend it simply with our everyday senses and experiences we would not need science.
For example our common sense tells us that the Earth is flat and the Sun turns around it. of course, today, common knowledge tells us otherwise because we teach our children about the spherical nature of the earth (ok, not quite spherical but close enough for kids) and can show them satellite imagery but if I go outside I can see that the earth is flat, that's just common sense.
I would go as far as suppose that new scientific theories are more likely to go against common sense as if they did go with it we probably would have incorporated that common sense in a theory ages ago. It is just a hunch though, or a belief if you prefer, so don't expect me to debate it in depth.
| No, you're totally right, I shouldn't say it's a false assumption, I should just say it's an assumption that could, by definition, be false. |
Sure, but you wouldn't call it a true assumption just because by definition it could be true. Just call it an assumption until it is resolved, at which point it woud either be confirmed and thus not an assumption anymore or found to be a false assumption and the model(s) that incorporated it either changed with the new knowledge or possibly abandoned if the false assumption was too central to them to do so.
| Anyhow, I don't believe your rewording of Occam's razor is complete, as I'm sure many complex theories bear more assumptions than more basic ones while both are understood by a vast majority to be true. |
You are totally right, I took the part about the theory needing to explain the evidence as being self-evident, obviously I shouldn't have. A simpler theory that contradict some of the evidence is not going to be more likely to be correct, it will be incorrect . My mistake, sorry. Let me try to restate it more carefully.
Let's examine 4 cases (not necessarily the only ones):
1. Theory A explains part of the evidence but not all of it and also contradicts some of it.
2. Theory B explains part of the evidence but not all of it.
3. Theory C explains part of the evidence and is simpler than B.
4. Theory D explain all of the evidence.
5. Theory E explains all of the evidence while being simpler than D (as in less assumptions/elements or more likely assumptions).
You don't want to have a theory like A because it contradicts the evidence and thus cannot be correct (though it could form the basis of a theory derived from it that is correct).
Ideally you would want a theory like D or E (especially E) but with so many data points it is unlikely that a single theory will explain everything it pertains to.
So let's concentrate on B and C.
B can be useful to have a starting model (it's better than nothing) but will need revising so that while theory B2 (the successor to B) might be correct B itself most likely isn't.
If both B and C explain the same set of evidence then C is more likely to be correct as it is simpler (that's the Occam's razor part) and thus has less assumptions (if not then it is not simpler).
If a B type theory is more complicated than a C type theory then it might still be seen are more likely to be correct if that particular B theory also explains more evidence than that particular C theory. These are just general principles, the specifics have be weighted when considering specific theories.
But this is the reason why you should favor theories with the most support from evidence and the least assumptions possibles. The less evidential support and the more assumptions the more likely a theory is incorrect.
Also, with new evidence a theory can go down a few pegs if the new evidence is not explained or contradicts the theory.
But depending on how central an assumption is or how deeply a piece of evidence contradict a theory you might be able to formulate a new theory based on the old one so that even if the old theory became an A theory after new discovery the new theory without the assumptions could be a B or C theory.
This is of course a very idealised view of things but I hope it helps you see how to judge a theory's merits.
| For the moment I don't adhere to Occam's razor, but maybe I need to understand it better. |
Or I need to explain it better.
It is not a foolproof method either, as you will see from another paragraph in my full response, but it is a pretty good rule of thumb.
| But even then, since both assume for the same variable a different dynamic (one static, the other dynamic), how is one assuming more than the other? |
Because if you assume a static value you only assume one thing:
Assumption 1 - this value is static.
If you assume a variable value you have to assume two things:
Assumption 1 - this value is variable.
Assumption 2 - the value varies in this way.
The first one is not a problem because it is a yes/no assumption but the second is a problem because there is potentially an infinite number of ways the value could have varied over time and in the absence of evidence you simply cannot determine in what way it did vary.
For example you can fit an infinite number of curves with only one data point.
If you have evidence of it varying then you have a second datapoint that limits the number of possible curves. Even if the number of curves is still infinite it would be a smaller infinite like the set of all integers is a smaller infinite set than the set of all reals, even though they both are infinite.
Do you now understand why assuming something is constant in the absence of evidence it isn't constant is the right thing to do to minimise assumptions?
I already responded to it in another post.
| So I was right in the first place about the variability of said parameters in the first place? |
Were your right that some parameters can be variable? Sure, but I didn't deny that. The problem is determining beforehand which one(s) will be variable, if any, and even more difficult, in what way they will vary.
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Please enlighten me. So was the Occam's Razor argument pure rhetoric and just a tool used to push your viewpoint? How is that honest?
So the current view holds that the rate is variable, yet earlier you were discrediting my point because it involved more assumptions. How is that fair? That's the kind of rhetoric I don't approve of.
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I think the earlier paragraphs about Occam's razor answer that. To recap: It wasn't pure rethoric because until there was such evidence there was no way of knowing whether it was variable, and if assuming that it was variable there was no way of knowing in what way the variable parameter changes/changed.
Please tell me if you still think I was being unfair in light of that (and in what way).
| But if you want to argue creationist content and communities with me, for now I really only trust this website: creation.com. I haven't been around that much, but these guys are thorough to the bone. |
From their about us "The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel"
In other word, while they try to be scientific they are primarily a religious outfit, which makes it hard to do science when your beliefs clash with our understanding of the world.
However, from the page "Arguments we think creationists should NOT use", which IIRC you linked earlier, I must give them props for not championing some of the worst creationist arguments like "Darwin recanted on his deathbed", "Darwin’s quote about the absurdity of eye evolution from Origin of Species" (talk about taking out of context) or "Einstein held unswervingly, against enormous peer pressure, to belief in a Creator" among others.
They still are not perfect as they claim about c-decay "most of the evolutionary counter-arguments have been proven to be fallacious". Huh what? So pointing out that the guy took imprecise measurements (due to the limits of the instruments of the time) and used them as if they were precise; that he threw out a lot of data points in order to curve-fit the remaining data points; that his favourite curve was one of many fitting the remaining data points despite him saying otherwise... is fallacious?
Also they still champion Humphrey's cosmology as a viable solution when Humphrey himself abandoned the core of his theory (incidentally, one of the authors of that article, Mr Conner is a fundamentalist christian).
Still, thanks for that as it allows to frame the debate better.
| The key phrase in the quote is: "on all areas it touches on". For all else, there is science, and it plays a huge part on explaining origins. The genesis account is full of questions waiting to be answered scientifically. |
The problem is that there are plenty of areas where the bible "touches on" the physical world that clashed with science's understanding, from the shape of the earth to the age of the earth to the origin of species...
If your belief is right then I am sure that eventually science will come to understand the world that way (with values varying millions-fold to accommodate the flood, a few thousand years old earth...) but it might take a long time for it to discover such evidence and it would not be scientific to assume said values not only varied but varied in the exact ways necessary for the biblical story to be possible in the absence of evidence for those variations.
If creationists were to say something like:
"We believe in the literal truth of the bible and in the genesis account of creation.
We realise that science's current understanding of the world contradict it but we have faith that in the fullness of time, as science gets a deeper understanding of this world, it will eventually come to the same explanation of the world as given by genesis"
I could totally respect that as just because science understand the world one way does not mean that it is so. Science is more like the art of being wrong in useful ways as it constantly has to revise or replace its theories describing its understanding of the world as more evidence is known (which would be the "being wrong" part) but also gave us a lot of tools to manipulate this world, far more than any other system of thought has to my knowledge.
But no, creationists are both a patient and an impatient bunch who can wait 2000 years (more or less) for their messiah to come back and validate their belief yet cannot wait that long for science to do the same.
| The gaps left by the bible are so vast that there is ample room for creation scientists to do the exact same: "to look at the world and change their models and theories as their understanding of the world deepens". |
Sure, in the gaps. But outside of those gaps they have a need to reconcile their belief with the world and thus add assumptions on the sole basis of them being necessary to reconcile the world with the account of genesis. Doing so is not scientific.
I do not claim that no scientist has ever done something similar to fit the world to his pet theory (I would say that Darwin's theory on how traits are inherited is a prime candidate for that) but as a whole the scientific community recognises that trap and as there will be a number of competing theories about the same subject (until the amount of evidence available prunes it to a handful of competing theories) there is a good chance that even if a scientist does it others with competing theories will not be wedded to it and will thus treat it objectively.
The difference with creationists is that they all believe the same base theory (the literal truth of genesis) and thus do not have as much back and forth on a scientific level as scientists do. They still can have such a back and forth, but accepting the same set of assumptions reduces it, often to the level of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (i.e. debate their theories not on scientific grounds but on theological grounds).
| Then why all the musing at faith as a whole? Why all the references to the Flying Spaghetti Monster? |
The musings on faith (at least those in response to your posts) are to try to make you understand the difference between faith (believing things in the absence of evidence) and the scientific approach (deriving the best theory we can from the evidence we have and testing it).
The reference to the FSM were to show you that just because a theory is an alternative to science does not mean that it is scientific.
| Why all the ridicule and ostracising? There's something not honest here, but maybe I'm just paranoid. |
Ok, read the whole response until the next quote as you might find some things offending at the start but not necessarily at the end.
In creation.com's arguments creationists should not use they mentioned "NASA faked the moon landings" and part of their argument was refuting claims of that theory.
The thing is, the whole creationist endeavour is similar to the moon hoax conspiracy in that moon hoaxers also try to reinterpret known things in extravagant* ways to fit their world view, see themselves as persecuted by the scientific establishment, often trot out long discredited claims and tend to advance them in a very irritating manner.
So if you have ever been in an argument with a moon hoaxer (or a flat earther) then you have an idea of the view I have of creationists. They (moon hoaxers and flat earthers) see their arguments as valid and scientific but the science community doesn't.
So that is how I entered this debate, with the addition that creationist can also be prone to threaten hellfire on the unbelievers.
However, regardless of my initial feelings about any given group I hold that one should always be ready to change their opinion for one particular individual if they do not fit that preconception (and change the preconception of the whole group if a great number of individuals do not fit it as either the preconception was wrong or the group changed and the preconception does not hold anymore).
While I think a lot of it fit to you (reinterpreting things in outlandish ways to make it fit your worldview and the feeling of persecution) you have refrained (and so does creation.com) from the more egregious examples like "Einstein believed in god", "Darwin recanted", "Darwin said the eye could not evolve" ... These are egregious because they have no bearing on whether evolution is correct or not and/or are taken out of context to give it the opposite meaning.
But most importantly, even when you are** you are not doing it in a dogmatic way but with a tone of seeking to understand. You have yet to try to advance your point by saying I am going to hell (even if you believe I am) or that I must be immoral as I do not accept jesus as my saviour...
In other word, you are nice and trying to understand why science sees things the way it does; a refreshing change in creationists debates.
So in the future I will try to refrain from such snide remarks, but if I fail, do not take it personally but more as applying to those creationists I described above.
* for example moon landing hoax conspiracy theorists often have the extravagant claim that Stanley Kubrick created the footage from Apollo 11. Creationists often have the extravagant claim that hundreds of meters of sedimentary rock was deposed in less than a year.
**for example "The new species we are finding isn't due to new ones evolving, its due to an already existing species existing that we have just newly discovered", which even creation.com partly disagree with:
‘No new species have been produced.’ This is not true—new species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model. But this speciation is within the ‘kind’, and involves no new genetic information.
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Ok, I think that will be more than enough for this post. I will respond to the rest in another post when you have finished your response, as you asked.
I hope it will help clarify things.
