Was Darwin A Christian?
Posted by truthtalklive on 4 March, 2010
And why do churches celebrate him? Just two of the hot button issues we’ll discuss on today’s program.
Our first segment features scientist and prolific author Hugh Ross, Founder and President of Reasons to Believe. Ross is an “old earth” creationist and Christian apologist.
Guest host Alex McFarland , President of Southern Evangelical Seminary also welcomes Bob Griffin who specializes in using Darwin’s own theory to refute the very idea of evolution. You can leave your comments here and you can also contact Bob via email at inference@triad.rr.com.
Stay connected!
534 Comments on “Was Darwin A Christian?”
Old Earth Creationists still exist?
Fascinating.
And in some places, the Shakers still live[smile].
I loved Alex MacFarland’s flattering introduction of Bob, even if he did get his name wrong twice. The irony is that if someone like me had used the very same choice of words EVERYONE who has read our debates would know that they were telling a grand joke, and would have been accused of making fun of Bob.
blurb: Bob Griffin who specializes in using Darwin’s own theory to refute the very idea of evolution
You sure about that? The only things he’s thrown out at me — challenges about how the eye could have evolved and why there isn’t a continuum of biological change — were things that were answered by Darwin himself. Just be sure that his “refutations” aren’t a simple case of reading the question and then neglecting to read the answer to the question.
O Nata Lux: Old Earth Creationists still exist?
Yep. I have to admit that I gave the idea a fair shake before becoming familiar with the evidence in favor of evolution.
John How could your day been better? You got to hear Alex and myself at the same time.
The things answered by DARWIN HIMSELF – I feel much better now.
Bob Griffin: The things answered by DARWIN HIMSELF – I feel much better now.
Come on, now. You know it’s that there were much more than simple answers. It’s just curious that you didn’t have any response for why those answers don’t work.
You also don’t have time to give evidence in a challenge you raised. Why is that?
Why dont you read his book and tell us some of those concrete answers.
Bob, we all know that you know the least about this topic than any of us[accept perhaps Paul, but as he refuses to debate with us we can only speculate on that]. Would you like me to present the past posts within the other show site involving a related topic in which we allowed you to show just how much ignorance you had concerning the contents and interpretation of Darwin’s book[I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are not just deliberately lying about everything.]?
Twoud not be hard for me to find again[toothy smile].
And hearing you and Mr. MacFarland misrepresent all things connected with the Natural Sciences WAS fun, but really….just how boring do you think my days ARE, anyway[smile]?
Besides the fact that you still seem to have trouble understanding how far beyond Darwinism we are these days,… trying to compare/label the modern Natural Sciences/evolutionists to outdated Darwinism is just the only tactic I think people such as you can think of to try and undermine the Natural Sciences/Science. That will only work on a limited audience you know, and you never seem to consider just how horribly it can backfire on Young Earth Christian Creationism when people learn about your mistakes and start to wonder if you are all just ignorant and undereducated…or deliberately trying to be misleading to the common public.
Bob Griffin: Why dont you read his book and tell us some of those concrete answers.
What do you mean by “concrete answers”?
If you mean answers that are never expected to change, science doesn’t deal in those.
If you mean answers that can be empirically tested, which is the best science has to offer, Darwin already answered those for me; I already pointed to them and elaborated a little bit.
If you mean something else, could you clarify?
Naturalism: A Fallacy of Autonomy
(An excerpt from Joel McDurmon’s book Biblical Logic: In Theory and Practice)
Beneath every autonomous worldview secretly rests a belief about reality. This belief masquerades as an assumed answer to the question, “What is real, ultimately”? This assumption can only take two basic forms: naturalism or supernaturalism. All worldviews ultimately fall into one of these two categories, and each category contains many fallacious varieties.
Christian theism can fall under the heading of supernaturalism although it forms a very special case: it constitutes the only viable worldview that involves no indefensible arbitrary assumptions or logical incoherence. In one sense we could categorize all worldviews under the two headings, “Christian theism,” and “Human autonomy,” but I will stick with what I have set up for now. The rest of the category of supernaturalism includes false religions, cults, New Age beliefs, and the like, all of which believe in an ultimate reality beyond the “nature” perceived by the human senses, but all of which fail in various ways. These particular failures lie beyond the scope of this book, and the reader can find them well documented in various places.
The category of naturalism also contains many permutations which may include even some religions (Confucianism, some forms of Buddhism, Taoism, and some New Age ideas) and broadly describes the belief that nothing exists except “nature.” The most popular application of this idea appears among skeptics and “scientific” minded unbelievers. Among these, “nature” can best be defined by what it is not, namely, a universe beholden to a personal Creator God who sustains it and “interferes” with “the laws of nature” in answering prayers and performing miracles.
Consequently, this group of naturalists believes in a universe that never operates at variance with laws—laws which themselves exist inherently in and because of nature itself. This belief gives rise to a secondary belief called uniformitarianism—the idea the universe and everything in it, for all of history, remains uniform in its operation. The universe has always operated, and will always continue to operate, according to predictable and understandable laws.
Many problems arise with such a worldview. Firstly, it is arbitrary, and thus dogmatic. While the universe does display amazing orderliness, all philosophers will agree that the limitations of human knowledge make it impossible to prove a negative claim such as “no Supernatural God exists.” So while we can trust the orderliness of the universe to a great degree, engage in science, and generate remarkably precise and accurate predictions, we cannot rightfully abstract that activity and conclude that such orderliness is the primary, let alone the only attribute of reality. To do so would be to operate on an unproven assumption, and thus would reveal more about the naturalist’s opinions than about reality.
To maintain his arbitrarily chosen belief about nature, the naturalist “explains away” alternative views from within the confines of, and using the limited tools of, his own worldview. Since he has excluded any miraculous event or supernatural intervention by definition, then no evidence of a miracle could logically change his opinion. Why not? If ever confronted with a miracle—even an extreme miracle, for example, the resurrection of the dead—the naturalist would still attempt to take recourse to a natural explanation. On the one hand he may attempt to offer a “natural” explanation (for example, that the corpse was not really dead to begin with, or that given the right medical circumstances a dead body can be brought back to life by CPR and electromagnetic nerve stimulation, etc.). No matter how weak such an explanation may be, it will have the merit (in the mind of the naturalist) of being “natural,” and thus for him will provide a more plausible scenario than any supernatural explanation. On the other hand, he may consent that naturalistic science currently has no answer to such a phenomenon, but nevertheless “scientists are working on it” and will ultimately arrive at one. The dogmatism of his position stands out at this point: he would essentially argue, in the face of a miracle, that if any explanation is to be given of the event, that explanation can only be a natural explanation.
This shows that even the naturalist’s own criteria of judgment—that is, natural “evidence”—could never change his fundamental commitments even when it contradicts them. Indeed, since he has already predetermined in his own mind that nothing exists except uniform nature, then he will reinterpret any contradictory evidence as somehow not contradictory. This means that “nature” and “evidence” truly do not form the basis of the naturalist’s worldview (despite how much he boasts of this fact); rather, his unproven assumptions form the unchallengeable basis of his worldview.
Jesus speaks of such a problem with unbelievers. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), Jesus teaches about a rich man who ignored God during his life, and after death lay suffering in hell. Shouting to Abraham afar off the man pleaded to have someone sent back to warn his brothers of the torment that waits. The dialogue that follows carries an important lesson about the limitations of miraculous evidence:
Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” But he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!” But he said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:29–31).
According to Abraham, a man unmoved by the supernatural power of God’s word will also remain unmoved by supernatural interventions in nature, even as drastic as a resurrection. Evidence will not move them, for their fundamental commitment is not to nature, but against the Personal Creator God.
From this perspective, the naturalist essentially creates his own intellectual limitations and then arbitrarily (on his own autonomous authority) defines all of reality as falling within those limitations. The old saying applies: “What my net don’t catch ain’t fish.” But this behavior is akin to locking yourself in the closet and then arguing that the rest of the world does not exist because you can’t see it. The resulting condition resembles a fish in his bowl pontificating about the non-existence of everything outside.
Examples of this type of rationalizing abound in the literature of secularists and atheists. For example, atheistic philosopher Daniel Dennett has created a metaphor to describe what types of explanations we should accept when talking about the origins of the universe. What kind of explanation do we need to do our intellectual “lifting”? To answer, he contrasts “skyhooks” with “cranes.” Quoting the Oxford English Dictionary, Dennett defines a “skyhook” as “An imaginary contrivance for attachment to the sky; an imaginary means of suspension in the sky.” Notice the repetition of the word “imaginary” and the inclusion of the word “contrivance.” Dennett adds, “Skyhooks would be wonderful things to have.… Sad to say, they are impossible.” Rather than refer to the supernatural directly, Dennett uses his metaphor to categorize any explanation of nature that does not creep along step-by-step according to Darwinian theory. In other words, any non-Darwinian, non-naturalistic explanation of the universe is by definition (according to Dennett) imaginary, contrived, and impossible. He has defined God away at the start!
Naturalistic explanations, however, he refers to as “cranes.” “Skyhooks are miraculous lifters, unsupported and insupportable. Cranes are no less excellent lifters, and they have the decided advantage of being real.” Of course, cranes can only lift as high as they can reach, so Dennett (as a faithful Darwinian) stretches the metaphor further. Just as sometimes contractors use smaller cranes to assemble bigger ones, we can understand nature using small steps to achieve greater results.
Vast distances must have been traversed since the dawn of life with the earliest, self-replicating entities, spreading outward (diversity) and upward (excellence). Darwin has offered us an account of the crudest, most rudimentary, stupidest imaginable lifting process—the wedge of natural selection. By taking tiny—the tiniest possible—steps, this process can gradually, over eons, traverse these huge distances. Or so he claims. At no point would anything miraculous—from on high—be needed. Each step has been accomplished by brute, mechanical, algorithmic climbing, from the base already built by the efforts of earlier climbing.
Ignoring the very fundamental question that arises from this—Where did the first “step” or “the base” come from to begin with?—Dennett’s naturalistic assumptions stand out here. He further elaborates:
a skyhook is a “mind-first” force or power or process, an exception to the principle that all design, and apparent design, is ultimately the result of mindless, motiveless mechanicity. A crane, in contrast, is a subprocess or special feature of a design process that can be demonstrated to permit the local speeding up of the basic, slow process of natural selection, and that can be demonstrated to be itself the predictable (or retrospectively explicable) product of the basic process.
Dennett reinforces my earlier point that naturalism essentially amounts to a negative position, defined not by what it is, but by what it is not—it exists merely by denying a Creator “mind” from the universe, not by establishing proof of itself. Notice how this assumption infuses Dennett’s explanations: a “mind-first” approach would present an exception to the norm, which is mindless by definition. The “mindless, motiveless mechanicity” of natural selection forms the basis of his worldview. Anything that does not fit this mold he labels as “imaginary.”
You can easily see the arbitrariness of this position. Dennett has no ultimate justification for choosing a natural versus a supernatural explanation for ultimate reality (not minor changes in nature, but the existence of all of nature and nature’s “laws” and constants to begin with). Rather, he chooses his assumption autonomously, based on his own personal experience. With this presupposition of naturalism as the norm in place, he erects the false dichotomy of “skyhooks” versus “cranes” to describe the possible acceptable types of explanations. But his loading of his worldview into the very definitions to start with stacks the deck against anyone countering him. His categories of skyhook and crane do not fairly present the fight between supernaturalism versus naturalism, for they are both naturalistically conceived definitions. To accept his metaphors would be to concede to naturalism up front, and this method simply Begs the Question (more on this fallacy later).
Yet such unfairness characterizes all worldview fallacies, especially that of naturalism. For example, atheist Richard Dawkins takes Dennett’s metaphor and runs. Dawkins writes, “[T]he very least that any honest quest for truth must have in setting out to explain such monstrosities of improbability as a rain forest, a coral reef, or a universe is a crane and not a skyhook.” This is true, apparently, by definition. He elaborates, exposing his assumption:
The crane doesn’t have to be natural selection. Admittedly, nobody has ever thought of a better one. But there could be others yet to be discovered. Maybe the ‘inflation’ that physicists postulate as occupying some fraction of the first yoctosecond of the universe’s existence will turn out, when it is better understood, to be a cosmological crane to stand alongside Darwin’s biological one. Or maybe the elusive crane that cosmologists seek will be a version of Darwin’s idea itself: either Smolin’s idea or something similar. Or maybe it will be the multiverse plus the anthropic principle espoused by Martin Rees and others. It may even be a superhuman designer—but, if so, it will most certainly not be a designer who just popped into existence, or who always existed.
Apparently, Dawkins will accept any explanation as possible, as long as that explanation does not involve an Eternal Supernatural Creator. Such a Designer he must rule out immediately by his definition.
If (which I don’t believe for a moment) our universe was designed, and a fortiori if the designer reads our thoughts and hands out omniscient advice, forgiveness and redemption, the designer himself must be the end product of some kind of cumulative escalator or crane, perhaps a version of Darwinism or another universe.
“Must be,” you see. Any designer of this universe must be himself the product of a “crane”—a previously existing building block. The most god-like being Dawkins can imagine still must bow before the Almighty dictates of nature. Elsewhere Dawkins puts it more bluntly: he speaks of skyhooks as “including all gods.” In other words, Dawkins, because of his presupposition of naturalism, refuses to even acknowledge the possibility of a supernatural Creator. If any kind of a superhuman being exists, that being must be subject to the same natural laws as we. Such beings must have evolved (according to Dawkins) by the same evolution humans have, the superhuman beings will simply have progressed further in evolution than we.
As arbitrary (and absurd) as this assumption sounds, Dawkins sticks to it. He reveals further implications of his worldview: aliens. He expounds,
I do think that there may very well be, somewhere in the universe, evolved beings which are so far advanced compared to us that we would, if we saw them, we might very well be tempted to call them gods; and it is also possible by the same token that if our species goes on evolving either genetically and/or culturally for a sufficient number of millennia, our descendents might be so advanced that we would be tempted to call them gods. However, I don’t think I would wish to call them gods, because however advanced they are—however ingenious, however intelligent, however their technology would strike us with awe—they would still be evolved beings. They would be beings that had evolved by a process of slow, gradual, incremental evolution.
In the same lecture Dawkins made it clear that only naturalistic science (and thus never God Himself) can provide reasons. He said, “There may be good reasons for believing in a god, and if there are, I would expect them to come from, possibly, modern physics, from cosmology, from the observations that—as some people claim—the laws and constants of the universe are too finely tuned to be an accident.”
Thus, when faced with even pure scientific ignorance on a matter—such as the origins and development of the universe—Dawkins will not remain silent with an “I don’t know,” but he exercises his faith in naturalism. Knowing that physicists have no answer for such a question, he urges, “We should not give up hope of a better crane arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism in biology.” Of course, for those who think Darwinism provides a weak justification for biological origins, then perhaps physics will do good to go a different route. This aside, note Dawkins’ persistence in maintaining—without evidence—that the explanations for the physics of the cosmos must be a “crane”—that is, must be natural.
Other naturalists characteristically (almost stereotypically) commit the same error. They assume their position as true by definition rather than proving it. For example, the Humanist Manifesto II, published by the American Humanist Association, declares that traditional religion does “a disservice to the human species,” because, “Any account of nature should pass the test of scientific evidence.” Alright, then, what about “scientific evidence” itself? By what criteria do we account for that? If by scientific evidence, then the circularity of naturalism grows apparent. Of course, the whole standard is arbitrarily imposed anyway. This Manifesto continues, “Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we now know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural.” At least the document admits its bias up front, and does not attempt to hide it: “As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity.” They begin by assuming that nothing but nature exists. The conclusion follows logically that any new discovery will only reveal more about nature. The assumption itself, however, has absolutely no logical warrant or authority, and therefore presents a fundamental fallacy for those who adopt it.
Like the Humanist Manifesto II, atheist Richard Carrier argues “if anything exists in our universe, it is a part of nature, and has a natural cause or origin, and there is no need of any other explanation.” It wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if he acknowledged the limitations of “nature”; even if he defined “universe” up front as natural and then admitted there may exist something beyond, I would have no problem. But he lets naturalism rule his worldview completely and therefore says that if anything exists it has a natural explanation and does not require any other explanation. This is a pure assumption.
Carrier quickly denies this charge that his worldview rests on a prior assumption: “This belief is not asserted or assumed as a first principle, but is arrived at from a careful and open-minded investigation of all evidence and reason.…” Of course, since his standards (evidence and reason) for arriving at this belief themselves lie within the worldview of naturalism, and are therefore subject to the limitations of that system, then the conclusion he arrives at should hardly surprise anyone. Again, the fishbowl limits the fish’s knowledge as well as the range of assumptions it can make about all other knowledge. The difference comes in the fact that the naturalist self-imposes his own intellectual limitations. Thus, Carrier depends upon his naturalistic standards which he has derived from his assumption about naturalism, in order to define and support his naturalistic worldview. Reasoning does not get any more circular than this.
Like Dawkins and Dennett, when faced even with what he does not know, Carrier imposes his faith in naturalism:
Likewise, there are certainly other physical “laws” besides those we know—which may even permit things beyond our imagining, things we would otherwise call miraculous, just as a tribal shaman would call a jumbo jet’s flight—but these would be no different than the laws we already know: brute properties of the universe that describe how its dimensions and materials manifest and behave. And the cause and origin of all these things we believe to be natural in turn: a simple, non-sentient fact.
Echoing the basic commitment of naturalism, Carrier believes that whatever overarching basis for the universe we may find, that basis will without question be natural and therefore “non-sentient”—that is, not an intelligent Creator or Mind. Like the other examples above, Carrier arrives at this point because he started at this point. The assumption of naturalism leads to the standards of naturalism which drives to the “conclusion” of naturalism.
Yet, given the limitations of his position—just as we have seen with Dennett above—he cannot escape the inherent arbitrariness of holding to a “nature only” worldview. These atheists have no justification for rejecting the Creator God by definition, they just do so. They have no authority for such a decision; they rely solely on their own experience and standard. The ultimate authority for such a standard lies in the individual, not any transcendent or objective fact.
This understanding of naturalism therefore exposes the fact that despite the naturalist’s claims to scientific objectivity, his worldview (and his behavior) reveals him logically as a subjectivist. Just as his worldview rests on an unproven assumption about the universe as only natural, so do his claims that the universe presents a predictable and uniform order rest on an unprovable assumption. Both are assumptions that he himself makes independently and autonomously and thus can represent only his opinion about the universe. Since he cannot prove his worldview without first assuming it, then he cannot communicate it definitively to other people and it cannot stand as authoritative independently of him. This does not mean he cannot persuade others to believe it, for indeed he may and does; but persuading is not logically proving (as this book will expose over and over), and to the extent that other people join the naturalist in his naturalism they will only be making the same assumptions (and thus the same leaps of logic and faith) that he does. Thus the naturalist will only succeed in creating an army of self-deceived subjectivists with his skepticism.
So we have seen that naturalism relies on unproven assumptions about nature (not even just nature itself) in order to uphold its worldview. These assumptions render nearly any criticism or contradiction of the position futile since the naturalist will reinterpret even the most outstanding evidence against his view as somehow fitting within his view. The only way to confront the naturalist, then, is to attack the faultiness of the assumption he has made up front—expose the fallacies of the assumption itself. Finally, we recognize that his arbitrary assumptions and his inconsistent treatment of evidence both point to the subjectivism inherent in his worldview: his worldview originates and terminates with his own mind and carries no further authenticity or authority. From here we move from this fallacious authority to see its fallacious effects on all of life.
If you would like to purchase this book go here: http://www.americanvision.com/biblicallogicintheoryandpractice.aspx
I would have been far more interested in hearing from YOU…Paul. You know, the individual?
John Ill check out my copy of the Origin tonite and give you some of Darwins earthshattering rebuttals to his own doubts.
Paul (quoting Joel McDurmon): Christian theism can fall under the heading of supernaturalism although it forms a very special case: it constitutes the only viable worldview that involves no indefensible arbitrary assumptions or logical incoherence.
Really?
What do you mean by “indefensible”? It would seem that Hebrews 11:6 places a requirement on faith. If your requirement for believing in something is that its existence must be parsimoniously supported by empirical evidence, where is the “defense” for God, and what does this “defense” mean with respect to faith?
Logical coherence? The idea of the Trinity is not, in itself, logical; a thing cannot be one in essence and yet three in essence simultaneously. Christians appeal to incomprehensible mystery to resolve the paradox, but how is that different from things people of other faiths believe that appear illogical?
Let’s dig deeper into his assumptions. Since when does giving a naturalistic explanation for things — e.g., gravity, or the diversification of life — preclude a supernatural existence? Does the supernatural only exist in things that remain unexplained? As we learn more, does the supernatural shrink? Why does a natural explanation of something mandate a belief that the Universe behaves only according to itself?
Paul (quoting Joel McDurmon): This belief gives rise to a secondary belief called uniformitarianism—the idea the universe and everything in it, for all of history, remains uniform in its operation. The universe has always operated, and will always continue to operate, according to predictable and understandable laws.
Would you agree that if something happens — natural or supernatural — that the evidence we have left behind will be consistent with whatever happened? For example, even though the sort of rigid naturalism McDurmon is setting up as a strawman argument would not allow water to become wine, after the wedding Christ attended in Cana, would the jugs really have wine in them, or would they only have appeared to have contained wine?
Contrary to what McDurmon asserts, the meritorious thing of an explanation is whether or not it is consistent with reality, not whether or not it is “natural”. And parsimony enters it, of course, since one could always invoke aliens or the Illuminati or God. But ultimately, if the most consistent, parsimonious explanation is a supernatural one, why not?
Paul (quoting Joel McDurmon): Of course, for those who think Darwinism provides a weak justification for biological origins, then perhaps physics will do good to go a different route.
So much is wrong with this sentence that indicates that McDurmon really has no idea what the ideas he’s trying to refute really claim.
* Darwinism never attempted to provide any kindof justification or even explanation for biological origins. All Darwin’s work did was to try to explain what happens to life once it’s here.
* Modern biology does not accept “Darwinism”. Darwin had some useful ideas, but the Modern Synthesis has long eclipsed Darwin and anything he was capable of analyzing or understanding. (The Modern Synthesis doesn’t try to justify or explain the presence of life, either.)
* No form of evolution demands “nature only”, unless you believe that the supernatural can only act in things which we have no explanation for. (If you drop a ball, I can tell you how long it will take to hit the ground and how fast it will be going when it gets there — for any “ground” in the Universe. Does that mean God is absent? The same force ordains the positions of the Sun, Earth, Moon, and stars; is God absent in their motions? Does our ability to predict the path of a hurricane mean that God is not involved in its ferocity and the resultant destruction?)
Bob post 13,
It is good to hear from you once again Bob. How was your big race?
You skipped my post #9, didn’t you. If not, then why would you think that these “earthshattering rebuttals to his own doubts” within Darwin’s book will carry any power in our debates at this point in the game? However, if it pleases you to do this, then I shall be happy to read it, however since I have the book myself[as you already know from our debating in the past] and understand it’s contents better than you then you really need not bother, unless you simply wish to do it for the benefit of any new readers who may happen upon this thread.
MattF. post 14, I was tempted to respond to Paul’s interesting post but as we are not actually debating with Joel McDurmon himself, and because Paul seems to be in the habit of ignoring my posts to him for some reason, and because I thought that he would just answer me with more quoted material from one of his favored websites, I considered it best to just wait and see if you take the time to comment on his post and see if he responded to you[smile]. Thank you for your efforts. And I’m finally emailing you those tree root photos this evening.
John I did catch the post and reconsidered looking up Darwins profound words. It would be a waste of time for me. What did you think about the topic of the show?
PS The new motorcycle is fast and fun.
Hello again Bob[smile].
I thought it was alright, if not a little “old hat” and irrelevant in this day and age when discussing the Natural Sciences save for as an interesting foot note involving the history of this branch of science. I have a copy of his diaries, so it seems pretty clear to me that he was not a Christian by the definition that people such as you, or most Christians for that matter, might apply to the word/label. I would have labled him as a “spiritual Agnostic”, but he’s dead now, and HE is the only person outside of his wife that would have REALLY known what his personal beliefs on this matter would have been.
Don’t cripple or kill yourself on that expensive toy of yours, Bob. If you did, then I would miss you.
John Are you sitting down? I agree with post 17.
More people get killed in cars than on bikes every year. Be careful driving.
This morning I awoke to the sound of Angels singing F. Handel’s Halaluia Chorus from “The Messiah”, but I didn’t know why……………until now[grin].
MattF/Crocodile Dundee For your last post 275 : Why are southern beeches found in Australia?
Was that you again, in post number twenty, Bob?
You know, every time I see you call Matt F. that I get confused for a second because I think you’re talking to me, and I’m like “How does he know?”[grin]. Those reading who know me best will understand.
Why are southern beeches found in Australia? Is this a trick question?
You may find this helpful to type in and look up Bob, even if you chose not to believe it[smile].
PLoS Biology: Dispersal or Drift? More to Plant Biodiversity Then Meets the Eye.
Anonymous: Why are southern beeches found in Australia?
It’s not by drifting across the ocean; the nuts sink, and are killed by salt in any case. Fortunately, fossilized pollen from southern beeches dates back to 100 million years ago, when all the countries where the Nothofagus genus (that is, the southern beeches) now grows were a single land mass (Gondwanaland). Normal seed scattering and continental drift adequately account for the pattern of relationships we currently observe. (Yes, all thirty-odd species.)
Read The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees, Timbers and Forests of the World to learn more.
#20 was me. I forgot they had to reformat(?) our computers and my normally saved info was gone. The point is you can make a case both ways for MattFs post 275.
Bob Griffin: The point is you can make a case both ways for MattFs post 275.
I don’t remember addressing southern beeches in post #275. Regardless, what explanation does creationism offer for the distribution of southern beeches that we currently observe? What explanation does it offer for the examples that I did address, and which you still haven’t?
MattF: Regardless, what explanation does creationism offer for the distribution of southern beeches that we currently observe?
I have to admit that I’m really curious about this one, Bob. It seems to me that if the flora of the planet is largely wiped out by a global deluge, and there are plant seeds/spores/whatever that are very sensitive to salinity levels and that don’t transport well over water, there’s no reason they should survive at all. If by some miracle they do survive, there’s no reason they should have a geographical preference in their distribution (unless the normal scattering process is interrupted by an unsupportive environment or something). What explanation does creationism offer? What testable predictions does it make? What corroborative, observable evidence does it appeal to?
How did animals like the Duckbilled Platypus of Australia or the flightless Kiwi Bird or New Zealand end up where they are today if the Noah/Biblical Flood story is accurrate? How were they able to both leave Australia and New Zealand to get to Noah’s boat in the Middle East, and then get back home again after the flood waters receided[not to mention the problem of wondering where all of that water went to afterwards, considering that the whole world's ocean was already overflowed enough to submerge every existing land mass. Do you think it all just evaporated?]? How does
Young Earth Christian Creationism explain why there are a species of Alligators in China AND in the Americas?
Bob Griffin: The point is you can make a case both ways for MattFs post 275.
Can you show this “both ways”, Bob? All I’ve seen so far is the question and my surface-level explanation that science offers for your question. What does creationism have to say?
Something interesting that I found while looking up some of the Discovery Institute’s latest stuff: Casey Luskin and a few others are keen to divorce intelligent design from creationism, insisting that they are not the same and that intelligent design is deserving of fair scientific representation… yet, these same people refer to evolution as it is currently understood as “Darwinism”, and those who accept evolution as “Darwinists” (I can provide citations if you like).
Double standard much?
All of your points can go both ways. Kind of like global warming.
Bob, please explain to us in great detail how all of the points within MattF’s post 275 within the other site can go both ways. What exactly do you mean by “both ways”? You wouldn’t want us to just assume that we think we know what you mean, right?
Bob Griffin: All of your points can go both ways. Kind of like global warming.
Why should we believe that’s so? It’s true that you can find people willing to argue both sides of these issues, but that’s not the same as saying that the evidence supports both sides. Clever arguments, character assassinations, anecdotes, quotes, and sound bites also don’t count as “evidence”.
Show us how creationists and global warming denialists interpret the data, Bob, and maybe we can start to believe you have a case — not just articles, not just arguments, not just intution, not just gross misunderstanding, not just clever little witticisms, but actual data that supports their conclusions. Otherwise, you’re doing no better than the person who tells us we have to believe that the Earth is flat because of his say-so. I’ve appealed to relevant evidence countless times to support my arguments, and it’s the very, very least you can do to demonstrate yours. (In spite of this minimal requirement for being taken seriously in scientific matters, you seem remarkably unwilling to do even this little.)
Ill try it a different way: why are southern beeches found on continents separated by oceans?
Because, Bob Griffin, the continents haven’t always BEEN separated by oceans. Have you ever heard of plate tectonics? “Southern beech trees (Nothofagus), which also occur in Australia, New Caledonia and South America (and used to be in Antartica), are quite different from the northen hemisphere beeches. The distribution of the southern beeches was a major piece of evidence supporting the concept of continental drift. Beech seeds do not survive in the ocean, are too heavy to spread by wind, and are not carried by birds, so could not have spread between continents. Therefore beech must have spread when the southern continents were joined together as Gondwanaland, 80 million years ago.”
Bob Griffin: Ill try it a different way: why are southern beeches found on continents separated by oceans?
No, actually, Bob, that’s the same way. See my reply in post #23 in this very discussion. The time during which the beeches would have had to be on a single land mass is nicely corroborated by both plate tectonics and the fossil record, which can be (and are) aged independently from one another; both of these ages are consistent with the rate of normal seed scattering over the period under discussion, which is found independently from the other two methods. These consistent, independent results give us confidence that we’re on the right track. (Note that kash has also replied in kind.)
In other words, they can be found in lands separated by oceans because those lands weren’t always separated by oceans. They’re old enough that they could spread through normal seed scattering before the land masses even separated. This sort of thing also explains why there were no horse ancestors in South America’s fossils(*) before the Isthmus of Panama rose to connect that continent with North America about 12 million years ago; why there are no mammals indigenous to oceanic islands; and so on. It would present a major challenge to evolution if plate tectonic findings were inconsistent with evolutionary history.
Now, your turn. How did beech seeds, which sink and are sensitive to salinity, survive a global deluge? How did they cross oceans after this flood in order to get to where they currently are?
And how about all those marsupial mammals in Australia that I mentioned earlier? After the flood, how did they all get to Australia? Does this explanation also accounr for why these mammals are only in Australia? Does this explanation account for why the placental mammals didn’t follow?
(*) Like Hyracotherium, Orohippus, Epihippus, Mesohippus, Miohippus, Parahippus, Merychippus, Dinohippus, or Equus — all of which have been found on the North American continent.
Did you ever get those aquatic tree root photos[Mangroves, Red Maples, and Bald Cypress]that I tried emailing to you, Matt F.? I never heard back from you about them to know for sure.
John: Did you ever get those aquatic tree root photos[Mangroves, Red Maples, and Bald Cypress]that I tried emailing to you, Matt F.?
Yes, I did. My apologies for not acknowledging them. I’ve been a bit busy lately, and haven’t had much opportunity to look over them in detail.
That is alright, my friend. I understand that we are all busy with the various trials and tribulations that life is thowing at us all these days. Of COURSE one should be more concerned with greater things than some silly photos in an email. I do not wish to appear selfcentered with my questions. I was only curious[smile].
Bob Griffin: All of your points can go both ways.
Again, Bob, please point out how. Otherwise, it looks like mainstream science (including evolution) beats creationism at being consistent with specific things that have come up in a challenge you offered, at a score (so far) of two to nothing — one of them even raised by you!
Is it tectonics or rafting?
Bill Clinton says Al Gore see spring as a sign of global warming.
Bob Griffin: Is it tectonics or rafting?
Sorry, what? Are you suggesting that southern beeches built rafts? It’s very difficult to understand your meaning when you don’t explain yourself.
Bob Griffin: Bill Clinton says Al Gore see spring as a sign of global warming.
I couldn’t care less what Al Gore thinks, or what Bill Clinton thinks Al Gore thinks. I’ve already mentioned that I take issue with Al Gore’s understanding of science. Forget the anecdotes — what do you have in the way of data?
Why are you so amped for DATA? The global warmers cooked theirs and you have no problem with it, but youll disagree with mine.
Why so amped for data? Well, peer reviewed data IS really, really, helpful when one is trying to show that they can support their side of a scientific debate with science, you know. If you’re not using any then it’s to be expected that people who know better won’t take you very seriously.
Bob Griffin: Why are you so amped for DATA?
Because that’s how science determines which explanations are false. Even if two explanations seem to make sense, a well-designed experiment (which will generate its own data) or a proper appeal to the existing data will show whether or not either of the explanations matches the way the real world behaves.
Data is the keystone of science. Without it, explanations are nothing more than arguments and rhetoric. Every explanation, conjecture, or idea that is going to be taken seriously in science, therefore, has to show consistency with the data. If they don’t, then as far as scientists are concerned, there’s no reason to pay attention to anything you have to say.
This will also be true of anyone who is honest with respect to science and respects its methodology as a means of learning about the natural world. It’s kind of interesting that you’re downplaying the significance of science’s chief means of keeping itself from being wrong as much as possible.
Bob Griffin: The global warmers cooked theirs and you have no problem with it, but youll disagree with mine.
Let’s be clear. Tweaking a mathematical model so that the model more accurately portrays what is happening in the real world is not the same as making up stuff that uses people’s good sense against them.
Every mathematical model that science uses will undergo tweaking. That’s because there’s more data coming in all the time, and measurement techniques are always getting more accurate. The important question is whether or not the mathematical model accurately reflects the real world. If Science Group A comes up with some explanation, and Science Group B can show that Science Group A based their explanation on unfounded assumptions or that the explanation is inconsistent with data, then B stands to discredit A; since it can show that it is more responsible to real-world phenomena than A, it also stands to get A’s funding, as well as boost its own scientific reputation.
So whether or not I agree with “yours”, Bob, depends entirely on whether you can show it to be accurate with respect to the data. So far, your contributions to the global warming subject have seemed to indicate that you have a poor understanding of what it is that climatologists are even talking about; this puts you in a poor position to criticize. Nevertheless, if you can show that your understanding better matches the data, there’s not much I can say to dispute that.
I’m arguing for honesty, in other words; I’m “amped” for honesty, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The determination of who’s right is not at all related to who’s talking; it is, and always has been, determined by the data. If you can’t understand that, I can’t say that I’m expecting much scientific utility out of your arguments.
One more thing: I can produce data that show that the spread of southern beeches is entirely consistent with normal seed scattering and plate tectonics. (If the southern beeches we see would have required different seed scattering rates or different plate tectonic movement from what we currently observe, it would put that explanation in trouble.) Can you show that the spread of southern beeches is consistent with “rafting” — in other words, can you show that the spread of southern beeches that we currently witness is exactly what we’d expect to see, in type, size, and amount, if “rafting” were true?
Hi y’all! You know it’s so much more fun reading all your posts than entering the debate…..I have such a laugh and it brightens my day……or should I say evening as it is now.
You and an untold number of others, I’m sure, Maz[smile]?
John Were back to peer reviewed now. Your magazines refuse to look at creationist/ID arguments, then say why dont you get it peer reviewed so we can accept it. Great system you have.
MattF Someone who accepts the climate hoaxers lies wants accuracy from my data. Thats funny. You really need to lay off the Kool Aid.
The point w the beeches is that people can look at data and interpret it 2 ways. As with all of historical science. Nobody can make their case with 100% certainty.
Bob Griffin: Someone who accepts the climate hoaxers lies wants accuracy from my data. Thats funny. You really need to lay off the Kool Aid.
So are your claims consistent with the data or not? All you’ve done is sling veiled insults; you aren’t any closer to showing that your claims have anything to do with the facts.
Bob Griffin: The point w the beeches is that people can look at data and interpret it 2 ways. As with all of historical science.
And my point, which you seem to miss, is that that’s only true if both points of view are consistent with the data. Show me your data, Bob. Show me that “rafting” yields results consistent with the populations of southern beeches we currently witness. Until and unless you can do so, there’s no reason I need to consider your position as anything more than the empty rhetoric of a blowhard who likes to sound impressive, but who doesn’t know the first thing about his subject matter.
There’s a reason science currently rejects things like the luminiferous aether, the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom, and Newtonian mechanics. It’s not enough just to come up with another interpretation; it’s necessary to show consistency with observation.
Bob Griffin: Nobody can make their case with 100% certainty.
True. But we can determine with 100% accuracy if particular explanation is wrong. To be considered seriously, an explanation needs to demonstrate its consistency with the data. I’m not even asking you to make your case with 100% certainty; I’m only asking you to show that you’re consistent with the facts we have at our disposal. What have you got, Bob?
Bob post 48,
Bob, I believe that the reason “my magazines” refuse to take information from Young Earth Christian Creationists sources seriously is because they HAVE studied it[that which was actually presented to be peer reviewed], and in doing so have determined it to be unscientific in nature and therefor unacceptable for presentation in the scientific community and it’s literature…save except perhaps as examples to learn from of how not to conduct scientific research. If you are half the expert that AlexMcFarland makes you out to be on the radio shows then you would understand that Young Earth Christian Creationism is not science. You know Bob, I would have no problem with Young Earth Christian Creationism if they were like…”Yeah, we know that our claims cannot be confirmed with current science and are all based upon our faith, but we’d rather believe that things are like THIS instead. It makes us happy Christians…so sue us[ everyone smiles and shrugs shoulders]. But they are not like that, but are instead like…”We are right and everyone else is wrong, and all of our scientific evidences are on par with or superior to the evil, Atheistic, brainwashed, secular, lies that are being passed of as “science” by the evil Atheist elite who are trying to dumb-down the masses and [insert various unconfirmed mud-slinging, religious rhetoric and conspiracy theories, quotes by real scientist used out of context, and straw man arguments,...but absolutely no mention of anything of a scientific nature that would prove a challenge to address.].
Kool Aid is good, but I prefer sweet tea with lemon[smile].
Bob: You are quite right in what you say……if you could show them the absolute truth of creation they still won’t WANT to see it. And sadly that includes MattF……supposedly someone who believes in the Almighty Creator God. And actually God has said in His Word that His Creative power is clearly seen in the things that He created, you have to be blind to not see a Creator at work……taking into account the fact that man messed it up somewhat by their rebelliousness and sin and it isn’t perfect any more. It’s being going DOWNHILL since the beginning NOT UPHILL as evolutionists believe!
If the Biblical account of creation was anything but a myth, we would see it as absolute truth. Lets just reason here for a moment.
In the beginning, God created light from nothing. There were no stars for the light to come from, and there was nothing in existence for the light to reflect off of. So, its pretty useless for God to have created light first. Then, God created plants before he created the sun. How exactly does that work? You do realize plants run on energy from the sun, don’t you? I assume you just have to invent loopholes not based on scripture to make this story work.
It is quite obviously a myth.
Maz post 52,
Maz, evolution does not always work in an “uphill” manner[bigger/stronger/faster/smarter/prettier/more advanced...], but in whatever manner best helps an organism pass on it’s genetic material more effenciently. The Christian Bible is not intended to be a science textbook.
MattF You still trust discredited scientists. Oh well.
John Your gutless mags wont put in something thats not scientifically correct.
Post 53 If God didnt create it, where did it come from?
All you global warming believers read the Thomas Sowell column “Change is Not New”.
Bob Griffin: You still trust discredited scientists. Oh well.
That’s because, as I pointed out — even providing citations and links — the facts are on their side.
In addition, the independent committee hired to investigate potential wrongdoing has returned their findings. A quote:
On the much cited phrases in the leaked e-mails—”trick” and “hiding the decline”—the Committee considers that they were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead.
Insofar as the Committee was able to consider accusations of dishonesty against CRU, the Committee considers that there is no case to answer.
The Committee found no reason in this inquiry to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. But this was not an inquiry into the science produced by CRU and it will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel, announced by the University on 22 March, to determine whether the work of CRU has been soundly built.
In other words, quite apart from the question of whether the conclusions of the group are valid, no evidence of wrongdoing has been uncovered. No reason has been found to challenge the scientific consensus.
Of course, if your previous behavioral patterns are any indication, you’ll simply refuse to investigate the data to find out what’s really going on, listen to arguments from people you prefer, and chalk this up to part of the Vast Global Conspiracy To Hide The Truth(TM). If you believe that you have a leg to stand on, stop with the baseless arguments and rhetoric already. Show that your claims are consistent with observation. I’ve done so; it’s the least you can do to show that your arguments have any basis in reality.
(They did mildly criticize the Climate Research Unit. While acknowledging that it’s standard policy to hold some of the raw data privately, they would like the policy to change. I agree; science thrives on openness.)
Bob Griffin: Your gutless mags wont put in something thats not scientifically correct.
Then you show us, Bob. Show us all. Give us evidence that you’re doing more than waving your hands frantically.
Bob Griffin: All you global warming believers read the Thomas Sowell column “Change is Not New”.
No one is saying that climate change is new. All that is being claimed is that man is contributing to the warming this time around — in other words, we may or may not be to blame for all of it, but regardless, we’re not helping. It’s also the case that what is new is the degree of scientific consensus from independent organizations. Sowell ignores, as do you, the type of trend that we’re seeing now when he points at the Middle Ages and how and why they differ; he ignores, as do you, the fact that the “Global Cooling” of the 1970s did not enjoy anywhere near the observational or experimental support that global warming currently does. (I’ll say again, Bob, since you seem to keep missing it: a few popular magazine articles and a book do not equal independently-derived conclusions from hundreds of different data sets analyzed by hundreds of different organizations that all point to the same thing.) He also ignores, as do you, the fact that though Marxism was called “scientific”, it did not have direct measurements and independent research to fall back upon.
Ignoring key differences to claim something different doesn’t make for a valid interpretation, Bob. Showing how your arguments are consistent with the facts does. That’s not done with articles or quotes or false comparison that repeats already-addressed arguments (unless you can demonstrate — not just argue, but demonstrate with data — that they have not, in fact, been addressed).
Bob post 55.
Statements like the first sentence within this post would hold more weight if “discredited scientists” were in the majority, were the only people that we who disagree with you will mention, and if they were the only ones effecting/influencing the data that we who disagree with you present here.
“Your gutless mags wont put in something thats not scientifically correct.”
Yup…it sure looks that way most of the time[...Grin...]. And the reason that it’s bad for magazines of a scientific nature to not include information that is scientifically incorrect is…………………?
Was this your idea of some sort of a criticism against Discover/Science Illustrated/National Geographic Magazine???? If so, then it doesn’t look as if you thought this through very well before making your comment.
post 56,
“Post 53 If God didn’t create it, were did it come from?”
Gaia and Cronos did it, shortly before all of his kids ganged up on him and the Titans. I KNOW it happened that way because I read all about it in an old book[grin]. Just kidding, of course,[smile] but really, this is exactly what it looks like when Christians like yourself try and explain away the wonder and mystery of the natural world[or even the whole Universe]with the simple claim that God did it, or that people would understand if they only read their Bibles better. As for the second sentence directed to us global warming believers; This is almost like trying to discredit modern science/evolution by mentioning the very small list of scientific hoaxes[like Piltdown Man]that have popped up in the distant past. You’re going to have to do much better than that.
How do you have plants with no sun?
O Nata Lux, people like Bob Griffin exist within a different reality than people who have a better understanding of the natural world and modern sciences. SOME Christians who study these things may think to themselves “It’s not made clear in the Bible, therefor…perhaps God thought such things were not as important for us to know at the time when the Word was reviled to mankind and eventually recorded, compared to the overall message of spiritual salvation.” or “Perhaps I just don’t understand and my interpretation of the scriptures is flawed, which is an easy thing to conclude when I consider that scholars more brilliant and educated on such topics than I have been debating on such things for hundreds of years. Perhaps one day we will know. It matters not in regards to my spiritual salvation anyways…”, while Christians like Young Earth Christian Creationists who are more literalistic in their interpretation of the Bible are more likely to think “If evolution is true then THAT means that death was in the Garden of Eden from the very beginning! And if THAT is true then the Bible is wrong and God is made out to be a liar! And THAT could NEVER be true, SO….obviously, evolution is WRONG!” And things just go down hill from there. Education and scientific inquiry ceases and everybody loses. You should hear them try and prove that the world and Universe is under twenty thousand years old[smile].
The shameful thing about all this (post #57) is that it took an investigation committee to tell us that there was no evidence of a conspiracy — as if three emails out of thousands is enough to form a conspiracy in the first place.
It might have been worth more of our time, and produced more interesting results, to have investigated the overhyping, the fables, the breathless ranting, and the general sweeping misunderstandings generated by the climate change denialists on this front.
The “hide the decline” hype was obviously a non-issue to anyone who spent a few hours reading the emails (and “a few hours” is a generous amount given to those who are not too bright and read kinda slow). It had all the earmarks of the dishonest and noisy sound bite machine trying yet again to whip up those unwilling to do their homework into an uninformed and poorly-directed political frenzy.
It’s nice to say that all the information should have been available at all times, but that’s nothing new; almost all of it already is, and all this racket has been made before. Meanwhile, the strangely charismatic alarmists who speak without trying to show any reason to believe what they say continue to waste everyone’s time. Of course, knowing their accusations are complete and utter hogwash has never stopped pundits of this stripe — and showing how wrong they are will do nothing to diminish the repetition of their wrong arguments or the fervent worship of their audience.
You want evidence of this? Consider that FOX was taken in by a hoax about a global warming activist freezing to death in Antarctica. (People who think sound bites are evidence never let the facts get in the way of a good story. It’s actually a joke story from an old site: ecoEnquirer. But credulous idiots will believe — and repeat — anything that fits their ideology, never mind that they have no facts to back it up.)
See, here’s the problem. Science wants an intelligent, educated public that doesn’t take the standard line for granted and asks intelligent questions about what’s going on. That’s how things progress. And, believe it or not, scientists like talking about their work — they generally find it interesting, and discussing it is a genuine delight. If people have honest questions, they’re more than willing to provide answers.
But then the noise machine with their constant and repetitive idiocy poisons the whole thing. When the same “skeptical” questions are asked over and over, even though they’ve been answered, it’s completely transparent that the questions are not being asked in order to genuinely satisfy curiosity — they’re being asked to push an agenda. It’s deliberately and flagrantly political; they’ve already determined how they’re going to interpret any answer, and that they’ll use whatever they can to plant completely unjustified suspicions in the minds of people who are poorly educated on the issues and have no desire to change, to muddy the waters so that laypeople are no longer clear on what the issues really are (e.g., “global warming can’t be happening because it was cold this winter”).
So genuinely insightful questions are strangled out while people who actually have facts and data are running around trying to correct all this malicious misinformation. People who would normally be happy to discuss their research to any askers get more and more sick of the whole ugly business.
It’s a nasty little thing these denialists are shutting down. Don’t get me wrong — I absolutely believe that we ought to honestly and soberly consider what’s being claimed and to keep checking everyone’s work. But the denialists are provably not doing this. They refuse to point out what data should be considered or reconsidered when asked. In spite of all their noise that they’re just asking questions, they have no desire to hear answers, and they’re making the whole process of asking questions that are honestly based on facts that much harder.
And this about an issue with some urgency. We need to figure out what’s happening so that we can figure out what public policies make sense as quickly and responsibly as we can.
A little clue: denialists would rather talk about climate scientists than about climate science. They’d rather talk about local and misleading trends (e.g., the Medieval Warm Period) to distract people from thinking about a global issue (it’s called global warming, people).
The only crime here was in cracking an email server.
#53: O Nata Lux: If an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient Being wanted to create pure light without something for it to shine from then He most deffinitely could. The Bible tells us GOD Himself is Light, so what do you say about that? Have you studied Physics, light has strange properties you know. IN one way it is a particle and in another it is acts like a wave. Also the speed of light is the same everywhere whether you are moving toward or away from a source of light. E.g: Two photons of light approaching each other in space would each be going at 186,000 mps, but the speed with which they approach each other is STILL 186,000 mps…..how? I could share more about the strange properties of light, but serfice it to say, when God makes something it is usually beyond man’s understanding to know how He made it.
And as the creation only took 6 days, plants can exist for one or two days without a light source, especially when HE made them to do so.
And evolution needs the information in DNA to continually increase over millions of years……where did that information come from in the first place? In facr, where did everything come from in the first place? A Big Bang? So WHAT exploded? Nothing? Mmmmmm.
Sorry…spelling correction…..suffice.
John: #60: ”O Nata Lux, people like Bob Griffin exist within a different reality than people who have a better understanding of the natural world and modern sciences.”
John, even the scientists don’t properly understand what this world is all about, they are continually changing their theories as each new discovery reveals their old ones are wrong!
And you are right, people like Bob and I do exist in a different reality……The Reality….rather than a theoretical one! :-)
mherman: If an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient Being wanted to create pure light without something for it to shine from then He most deffinitely could.
No doubt. But do you have corroborative evidence that that’s what He actually did?
mherman: Two photons of light approaching each other in space would each be going at 186,000 mps, but the speed with which they approach each other is STILL 186,000 mps…..how?
Let’s be clear. Which reference frame are we talking about?
If you’re in a reference frame that sees two photons approaching each other, they’d appear to have a relative speed twice that of light. (Note that this is not the same as measuring something traveling faster than light.)
If you’re on one of the photons… well, time has stopped, so in a sense, you’re not “approaching” the other photon at all. You’re in front of it, within it, and beyond it, all at once.
mherman: I could share more about the strange properties of light, but serfice it to say, when God makes something it is usually beyond man’s understanding to know how He made it.
The fact that light has strange properties is not, in itself, relevant to the fact that plants need light.
mherman: And as the creation only took 6 days, plants can exist for one or two days without a light source,
All of them?
mherman: especially when HE made them to do so.
No doubt. But do you have corroborative evidence that this is what He actually did?
mherman: And evolution needs the information in DNA to continually increase over millions of years……where did that information come from in the first place?
I’ve addressed this. The “information” in DNA is intrinsic to its structure. You can’t speak of the “information” contained in DNA without speaking of the structure of DNA. As soon as you have DNA itself, you have DNA’s “information”.
I’ve also listed specific instances of directly observed phenomena that allow the “information” in DNA to increase by any useful metric. You ignore these things and continue to pretend that it’s all just so impossible, in spite of the fact that we’ve witnessed it happening.
mherman: In facr, where did everything come from in the first place? A Big Bang? So WHAT exploded? Nothing? Mmmmmm.
Addressed this, too. Your intuition serves you poorly when talking about these notions.
Dear MattF (With great sigh)…..Just read Genesis 1…..again…….and again……..and again………and again………..and………again………and then maybe you will get it!
mherman: Just read Genesis 1…..again…….and again……..and again………and again………..and………again………and then maybe you will get it!
You’re missing the point.
No matter how many times I read it, I will not be convinced that the things you have added to the account and that you insist are God’s Word are actually part of Scripture itself.
It would be one thing if you took these extra things as part of your understanding of Scripture. Insisting that they themselves are God’s Word, however, raises them to a whole new level… one which I believe you ought to (at the very least!) approach with caution.
For example, Maz, here and here are places where you insisted that the phrase “after their kind” as found in the Genesis account contraindicates evolution. I showed a few comments after the second instance that, based on how Scripture itself uses the phrase “after their kind” in other places, it cannot possibly be referring to similarity of offspring, fixity of “kinds”, or anything associated with reproduction at all.
Your insistence that it does describe a fixity of “kinds” places things in Scripture that are not there. You even referred to it as “the Word of God”.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it was reading what is actually in Genesis 1 — not some overwrought interpretation of it, not reading things into it that have nothing to do with the words on the page, but reading as much as possible only what is actually there — is what saved me from the brink of spiritual death. Your repeated contention that there are things there that are not may impress some, but believe me, it will drive away those who actually understand a little bit of what we’ve observed, discovered, and demonstrated.
I plead with you, therefore, not to continue pretending that the passage describes or indicates things it doesn’t.
(As I’ve said, I see no problem with showing where one’s own understanding attempts to fill in what the words themselves don’t. But actually calling those ruminations the Word of God itself smacks of hubris.)
Really MattF: If you want to cast doubt on the Word of God in Genesis then we could question whether ANY of it is true or not couldn’t we!? So according to MattF Genesis 1 is not a true account of how God created the heavens and earth……anything else you would like to point out to us Bible believing folks?
mherman: If you want to cast doubt on the Word of God in Genesis
I don’t. I mean to point out that all manner of extra things that you add to the account and that you insist are the Word of God are not, in fact, the Word of God. That’s all.
mherman: So according to MattF Genesis 1 is not a true account of how God created the heavens and earth……
Not so. I disagree with your interpretation of the text, and with the extra things you like to add to the text and insist are on the level of Scripture itself. That is not the same as saying that the text itself is untrue.
mherman: anything else you would like to point out to us Bible believing folks?
Yes — I’d just like to repeat the point. Don’t make the mistake of believing that extra things you like to add to the text to aid in your understanding of it are the Word of God.
Let me make sure I have this straight. I try to point out that the text is not as strict as you seem to think by pointing to other portions of Scripture that use the same vocabulary and phrases, old students of the text much more acquainted with the writing than you or I could ever be, and appeal to simple fact… and all you have to contribute is simple denial? Which really strikes you as behavior more consistent with someone unwilling to reconsider his or her understanding, unwilling to consider the rest of Scripture as it relates to this single passage, unwilling to consider what the best theological minds of millennia past have had to add, and unwilling to even look at the way the real world actually behaves and what evidence really exists?
MattF As with all our discussions here, the global warming scientist controversy is the same. Many say they rigged/lied/cheated etc but your side says no. Pick who you want to believe. They could demonstrate their data for us if they hadnt lost it.
John So how did we and the world get here? Should be an easy question.
Maz Glad youre back.
MattF Where is your other “after your kind” reference in the bible? (post 68)
Hello again Bob[smile].
Bob, we already answered those questions in the past, and as you do not seem to understand nor even believe in what modern science has to teach on such subjects, then why even bring it up again?
Bob Griffin: As with all our discussions here, the global warming scientist controversy is the same. Many say they rigged/lied/cheated etc but your side says no. Pick who you want to believe.
I realize that’s your assertion. I maintain that the only way one could claim that your assertion is true, especially given the facts you have been exposed to, is by participating in deep delusion and by refusing to go out and check any facts for themselves.
Frankly, I have yet to see evidence that you even understand the topic at hand. Many times, when you bring up global warming, your very words seem to show a refusal to clear up profound misunderstandings of the topic. Given that, why should I give your stance — that it’s as simple as choosing whom to believe — any credence whatsoever?
Bob Griffin: They could demonstrate their data for us if they hadnt lost it.
This only represents a small amount of their total data set. What about the mountains and mountains of data that isn’t lost, both from this group (they’ve published most of their data!) and from literally hundreds of other groups acting independently?
(News flash here, Bob: Data gets lost in scientific organizations all the time, even in spite of our best efforts. Data preservation is actually an area of deep research and study all by itself.)
Where is your evidence that the data we do have is being misinterpreted?
Bob Griffin: Where is your other “after your kind” reference in the bible? (post 68)
Here. Or, if that’s too much trouble, Genesis 6:19; Genesis 7:14; Leviticus 11:14-16,22,29; and Deuteronomy 14:13-15. Note that no attempt to describe reproduction or fixed biological categories is attempted in any of these passages. Hebrew scholars agree that “after its kind” is more analogous to the English phrase “and kinds resembling it” or “of various kinds”. In Genesis 1, for example, we see that all kinds of creatures are created. You can’t claim that it’s a statement attempting to outline biological reproduction when the same phrase clearly doesn’t indicate that elsewhere, and when “reproduce” (or a synonym) is not even used to describe an action these creatures undertake in the sentences that contain the phrase.
Bob: I will be popping in from time to time. Where MattF gets all his facts about what Genesis ACTUALLY is saying is beyond me! And his dead ape to risen human being idea is as outrageous as anything he proposes that God did at creation, when He clearly states very specifically….with strict time frame…..that He created the heavens and the earth in 6 days….and rested the 7th….THAT is why we have a 7 day week!! Work 6 and rest on the 7th.
And if people like MattF don’t get it the first time He repeats it within the commandments in Exodus 20 clearly explaining why we have a 7 DAY week!! Verse 11, ”IN 6 DAYS God created the heavens and the earth and on the 7th He rested….”,
MattF: You are doing cartwheels and excruciating acrobats in your mind to produce such unbiblical ideas as you seem to have.
The word YOM in Genesis, used along with ‘evening and morning’….and also with ordinate numbers….is clearly meant to convey 6 ORDINARY DAYS.
You need to consult the Holy Spirit next time you read the Bible to let HIM tell you what God meant to say!! He is the One that leads us into ALL truth…..from Genesis to Revelation!!
If you havn’t got Genesis right, then I wonder what else in the Bible you havn’t got right!
One wonders if you have grasped the simplicity of salvation through Jesus Christ, with such a weird beginning as your ape-man!!
See Maz, this is the reason you shouldn’t revolve science/ scientific discoveries/ around a personal theological belief system. I’m sure that many Atheists would use you as an example of why Scientists are better off being Atheistic.
mherman: Where MattF gets all his facts about what Genesis ACTUALLY is saying is beyond me!
Then do what any reasonable person would do. Ask. I can’t determine what questions you might have telepathically.
I have tried my level best to differentiate between what is actually in the text and what is extre interpretation I have derived from other sources, and how much validity I attach to this “extra” information. That is where you and I differ, and what I mean to draw attention to. When you mention “extra” information, not only do you not show it as such, but you come right out and call it the Word of God itself!
mherman: He clearly states very specifically….with strict time frame…..that He created the heavens and the earth in 6 days….and rested the 7th….THAT is why we have a 7 day week!! Work 6 and rest on the 7th.
I’ve explained how I interpret this. Your response, when you bother to give one, has always been the conversational equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears. You have never shown why you think the way you interpret it is valid.
mherman: And if people like MattF don’t get it the first time He repeats it within the commandments in Exodus 20 clearly explaining why we have a 7 DAY week!! Verse 11, ”IN 6 DAYS God created the heavens and the earth and on the 7th He rested….”,
And again, this would be a useful interpretation [1] if He had used a word that always means “24-hour day” and not the same word that can refer to any indefinite length of time in this passage in Exodus as well, and/or [2] if Sabbath, as a rest period, only referred to one day in seven. Otherwise, I don’t think we can demand as strict an interpretation as you’re demanding; all He seems to show is that just as creation followed the one-period-in-seven rule, He is establishing the week to follow the same pattern.
mhermanP: MattF: You are doing cartwheels and excruciating acrobats in your mind to produce such unbiblical ideas as you seem to have.
To some, perhaps that’s true. But so do you, and you refuse to acknowledge them.
You must assume that God said “very good” (meod tob) when He meant “perfect” (tawmim), even though “very good” is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe things and people that still possess flaws (I gave examples earlier, and can give them again if you like).
You must assume that a “perfect” creation can still have something “not good” in it — in particular, that it can include suffering [Genesis 2:18], temptation to sin [Genesis 3:1-7], pain [Genesis 3:16], and death [Genesis 1:29-30].
You must assume that Hebrews 4 is figurative, and not literal — doing some of those “cartwheels” and “acrobats” [sic] in order to do so.
You must assume that Romans 8 is figurative, and not literal — doing some of those “cartwheels” and “acrobats” [sic] in order to do so.
There are others, but perhaps I can hope that you will be honest enough this time to address the fact that you’re adding “extra bits” yourself.
My point is not, and never has been, that my interpretation is necessarily easy (even though “ease” and “difficulty” have to be very subjective terms in this context). I think the history of attempts by God’s people to interpret Genesis is proof enough that no interpretation of Genesis is free of theological difficulty — yours included. That said, it is curious that you make an accusation based on difficulty; it would seem to indicate either ignorance or willful denial about what your interpretation means in light of the rest of Scripture.
mherman: The word YOM in Genesis, used along with ‘evening and morning’….and also with ordinate numbers….is clearly meant to convey 6 ORDINARY DAYS.
False, as borne out by other Scriptures I have referenced that use ordinal days and “evening and morning” to denote much longer stretches of time than 24 hours. You have not acknowledged them, nor shown any reason why I should accept your rule above as anything more than an ad hoc justification to buttress your interpretation.
It is also telling that, for example, events that might take place during a particular time of day is never mentioned (e.g., “God created X in the morning and Y in the evening”), and that no day (except the sixth) uses the definite article in the original text.
mherman: If you havn’t got Genesis right, then I wonder what else in the Bible you havn’t got right!
It is your understanding that I don’t have it right. But, as I’ve shown, your understanding requires adding things that aren’t there and insisting that these extra things are also the Word of God.
I admit that I fill in details to try to get to a more complete understanding as well. But whether or not one accepts my extra details is irrelevant to the issue of salvation; you, however, strongly imply that acceptance of your interpretation is absolutely vital:
mherman: One wonders if you have grasped the simplicity of salvation through Jesus Christ, with such a weird beginning as your ape-man!!
I could easily rejoin that one could wonder with the extra things that you add (that you insist are the Word of God itself!) whether or not you have added extra things to the message of salvation as found in the Bible — all the while insisting that your extra things are God’s Word, too.
Now, that wouldn’t be a fair accusation to make without knowing for sure whether or not you believed that acceptance of your interpretation of the creation account is a vital component of salvation, or without knowing for sure what you think one does have to accept. But then, I don’t think your accusation was really fair, either.
John I just wanted to hear your very believable answer again.
Maz Ill have to look up MattFs verses this weekend. When the bible says all were made by kinds, and then named, you would think that would not lead one to infer evolution.
MattF If the main proponents of the scheme are caught cheating, I will tend to believe a lot of other adherents will do the same. Can you say hockey stick graph? And check out the tons of articles proving their lies? News flash: If any Christian / young earth organization had these same problems you would rightly criticize them.
mherman: MattF: You are doing cartwheels and excruciating acrobats in your mind to produce such unbiblical ideas as you seem to have.
I should point out that there are some interesting possibilities here.
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that you’re right and I’m wrong. Then I have a weird interpretation of a particular part of Biblical history that’s off. That’s about the extent of it.
Now, again for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that I’m right and you’re wrong. Then, in order to continue to cling to a preferred interpretation of Genesis, you have rationalized away a commandment of God in Hebrews 4 as being nothing more than figurative. There’d be no way for you to follow it without having to construct some kind of elaborate rationalization about what God must really have meant for His children to do, regardless of what He actually said He wanted His children to do.
Of course, those aren’t the only possibilities. It could be that neither one of us is right, for example (which I strongly suspect to be the case; ideas that I have, I tend to hold loosely). But I caution you against ignoring the theological difficulties inherent in your ideas, or dismissing them too quickly.
It should also be noted that if you were to hold onto your interpretation as an article of faith rather than as something consistent with “real” science, there’s not much I could say. An omnipotent God is capable of anything, even deceiving our senses so that what we measure, observe, and perceive is not at all consistent with history.
However, you insist that “real” science agrees with your interpretation of the creation account. To be blunt, your interpretation is not — and is rather painfully and obviously not — consistent with scientific finding, even when those findings are nothing more than direct observation. Even if your interpretation were right and mine wrong, I’d have to take issue with this rather blatant falsehood about the nature of what we have observed and discovered.
Bob Griffin: When the bible says all were made by kinds, and then named, you would think that would not lead one to infer evolution.
Why would it exclude evolution?
Why would we assume that God would be interested in telling us about the details of evolution in the first place?
Bob Griffin: If the main proponents of the scheme are caught cheating, I will tend to believe a lot of other adherents will do the same.
They weren’t. The investigation committee found no evidence of wrongdoing. I linked to this.
Bob Griffin: Can you say hockey stick graph?
Sure. Can you say “no graph — even the famed ‘hockey stick graph’ — should be taken seriously without loads of corroborative data, a standard which the denialists inconsistently apply to forward their own agenda”?
Let’s suppose that there is a scientific organization that presents their findings on gravity. This organization is dragged through the muck as people point out that their emails are less than supremely friendly in tone, they have lost data, and so on and so forth. In the meantime, hundreds of other organizations working independently have been gathering their own data on the subject, and have produced results that show that this first organization’s conclusions are pretty accurate.
Why should the stink of blatant politicking be used as an excuse to deny the scientific findings? Quick answer: It shouldn’t. Scientific data can only be undermined by other scientific data that reveals it to be inaccurate, not by baseless accusations.
Once again, Bob, you seem to think the answer lies in the scientists rather than the science.
You’re also missing the point. Reconstructions of past temperatures do not explain the present nor predict the future. This single paleoclimatic study is not foundational to the notion of global wamrming in any sense.
Can we get off the accusations and back to the data?
Bob Griffin: And check out the tons of articles proving their lies?
I’ve seen lots of articles asserting lies, but absolutely no evidence that shows that the data presented should be cast into doubt. Assertion isn’t proof; it’s not even evidence.
Bob Griffin: News flash: If any Christian / young earth organization had these same problems you would rightly criticize them.
If I had evidence showing that their assertions did not match real-world data, you bet I would (and I have). You’ve produced a lot of rhetoric and accusation, Bob, but absolutely zero relevant, data-based evidence.
Bob Griffin: Can you say hockey stick graph?
Let me point out that what’s going on today is understood through today’s data. Graphs of past temperatures are about the past (shocking, I know).
It’s also important to point out that our understanding of global warming rests on much more data than a few tree rings, and is shown in many more data sets than a single graph.
Picking on this and claiming a victory against the model of anthropogenic global warming is picking on one study, published eight years ago that focused on paleoclimate (not our present climate at all). It’s tantamount to pretending that Washington couldn’t have won at Yorktown in 1781 because you have reason to believe that one of the American foot soldiers had been pretty sick in 1773. If you really feel that this particular study is tainted, go ahead and discard these results (just as, in analyzing the Battle of Yorktown, one can safely ignore the health of one foot soldier nearly a decade prior).
This leaves you with literally dozens of other temperature reconstructions. True, they tend (on average) to show more variability than the “hockey stick” that has so captured the denialists’ attention, but they all support the conclusion of anthropogenic global warming, and that the warming in the late 20th and early 21st century is anomalous.
Here, one can find a superimposition of several studies — global, hemispheric, and regional. The study that produced the “hockey stick” graph is not included. (Of course, regional variations are much less reliable, since their variations swing much wider than global ones. Still, the references are fairly complete, and you can focus on only the global ones if you like; they’re much more relevant anyway.)
John: Your answer is nonsense……all Physics in the Universe has a pattern and design or it wouldn’t work. Where did that design come from? A finely tuned Universe where everything has to work together or nothing works at all shows me that Someone must have created it that way and Someone is still keeping it altogether.
Read Colossians 1 v 16,17…..any of your 17 Bibles should show you what I mean!
BTW, have you given up e-mailing? Did I touch too many nerves perhaps?
.
MattF: I won’t answer any of your posts because you talk nonsense anyway and I’v said it all before.
Your ears are dull to hear and your eyes are blind to see anything.
#86 was me….Maz.
Bob: #81: Did you mean to say ‘unbelievable answer’…?
Hello again Maz[smile].
Maz, I recieved your last email this past Thursday morning, and I responded back to you later that evening, complimenting the beauty of your land as shown in your photos, asking questions about the streams, telling you of my discoveries while hiking in the swamplands, and sending you photos of my own of a Corn Snake to add to your collection of Florida wildlife. This was last Thursday evening…….so why have I not heard from YOU???? Experiences in life have left m
y nerves insulated and reinforced[...toothy grin...], so no, I am not bothered by your comments, and I eagerly await your response to my last email.
As for the Universe[which is an entirely different topic altogether than the topic of evolution/biology that I usually criticize you and Bob over.], it may not be as ‘fine tuned” and intelligently designed as you imagine. I know that the Cosmos are a favorite topic of yours, and we can debate about THAT if you like, but go good has come of it in the past when we debated over such things, and I see no reason why you’ll have an easier time of it this time around. How was the answers that I have provided in the past nonsense and unbelievable? How can you[Or Bob]make that judgement on them without first showing that you actually understand any of them, and THEN…show using real modern science…how they are incorrect?
John: Still havn’t had that e-mail that you said you sent but good to be in touch again and have all those lovely photos of those creepy crawly stinging insects and the sticky frogs!! Do’t know what happened to your e-mail.
And I don’t ‘imagine’ the Universe to be finely tuned, the scientists themselves know it is. There is a mathematical statistic that they use but can’t remember what it is….but it is almost infinitismally small, one iota out of place and it wouldn’t be here!! It certainly is NOT the result of a Big Bang, and even scientists are questioning that themselves now….atheistic ones!!
John, YOU havn’t showed by ‘real modern science’ that evolution is corrector your understanding of the existence of the Universe! You just won’t believe in a Creator God Who came to this earth to reach His fallen creation with Love and great sacrifice.
Such amazing love, that is spurned so easily by so many!
Maz/mherman/Anonymous: I won’t answer any of your posts because you talk nonsense anyway and I’v said it all before.
Um, actually, no, you haven’t, and that’s precisely my point. You conveniently ignore issues that show theological or scientific difficulty with your position. You claim that your interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is straightforward, but there are clearly passages that must be subjected to much more involved interpretation (or is a bat really a bird after all, and do hares really have hooves and/or chew the cud, as Scripture could be seen to imply in the Old Testament [Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14]?); you haven’t shown why your interpretation is the only possible one — or the necessary one — in this case, except to give variations on “It just is”.
I’ve attempted to justify my Biblical interpretation with Biblical passages that use similar language and talk about the topic outside of Genesis 1 and 2 (in places where speculation wasn’t purely my own), and my scientific understanding by pointing to actual observations (with citations detailing where and when those observations ocurred). You… have just refused to talk about it. Conveeeeeeeeeenient.
Maz post 90,
Maz, that can only be shown to be true about me if you can use real and modern science to debunk all[or any]of the information that I have provided you Young Earth Christian Creationists with over the years during our debates.
[....Grin....]
And should you attempt to undertake this endeavor, then I wish you all the luck in the world, because you are really going to need it.
Eagerly awaiting your response.
John: I don’t need or rely on luck, you must know that. The Lord goes before me and He knows the future so I trust Him with it. My life is not an evolutionary accident waiting to happen for 70+ years within this Universe, I have a Creator who loves me and a destiny. It’s a shame you just can’t see any of that.
I came off this site because I HAVE said it all….. (even though some disagree with that)……at least as much as I needed to say to help people see the truth, it’s not my fault that you and others can’t see it. As I said before…..shame.
Still waiting for that e-mail you said you sent and I didn’t receive.
Happy Day!!
Maz: My life is not an evolutionary accident waiting to happen for 70+ years within this Universe, I have a Creator who loves me and a destiny.
Has anyone said that your life is “an evolutionary accident waiting to happen”? Has anyone denied that you have a Creator Who loves you? Has anyone denied that you have a destiny?
Maz: it’s not my fault that you and others can’t see it.
I mean to address your claim that “real” science agrees with creationism (and, while I’m at it, the claim that your way of interpreting Genesis 1 and 2 is the only proper way to interpret them). You haven’t shown any scientific evidence, and when you deign to give reasons for believing in an exclusive interpretation, your reasons are anything but exclusive or even conclusive. It’s hard to believe that you have the “truth” when you make claims like this and refuse to back them up — especially your claim to be consistent with science, a field which progresses only through empirical evidence.
Maz post 93,
Who………..ever implied that your life was an evolutionary accident? I never said that. Evolutionary science does not teach that. Evolutionary science teaches that your life is the result of a PROGRESSIVE biological occurrence.
All of that thinking of mutations not adding anything new or helpful to an organism, of everything suffering a slow and steady degradation of D.N.A., or evolution being based on “random chance”, all of that comes from anti-evolutionists who don’t actually understand what they are opposed to. This is purely from a scientific perspective.
As a theist though, I agree with everything that MattF. said to you within the top of his post number 94[smile]. Why does this topic always have to be all one way or the other for you?
John: Either you do not listen to what scientists ACTUALLY say or you believe there was a creative and designed purpose to our existence….a God or gods that CREATED it all in a certain way.
Evolution on the other hand starts with a Big Bang from nothing (YES THEY DO SAY THAT!!!) and then it all just HAPPENED to evolve by mutational ‘accidents’ and changes according to environement etc. etc. etc.
Evolution is haphazard at best and does NOT involved a Supreme and Almighty DESIGNER and CREATOR.
When I use to make dresses I worked according to a pattern….someone elses design. It would always turn out the same every time I made it to the designers pattern. It NEVER varied. It didn’t turn into anything else. It was always a dress, and it was always that style of dress.
The same with God…..He created it to a certain design and that design has not changed….it is all there in the pattern He created…..it is all there in the DNA of every creature. The DNA is the pattern so to speak that the Designer has placed in every creature to make it what the Designer meant it to be with little variations according to it’s surroundings…..but that is always a LOSS of information in the DNA, NOT a gain. Absolutely NOT the kind of gain you would need from Blob to change to the varied and extraordinary creatures we have in the world today.
But I have said this all before……(SIGH)…..why do I have to say it all again, knowing that you just WON’T and CAN’T see it with your belief system so rigidly in place.
And the One Way has been shown to you…….there is only ONE, there can be only ONE John, Jesus Christ came to show us THE ONE WAY……and THE ONE TRUE WAY it has been from the very beginning.
I’m still waiting for your ‘lost’ e-mail John.
Maz: Either you do not listen to what scientists ACTUALLY say or you believe there was a creative and designed purpose to our existence….a God or gods that CREATED it all in a certain way.
Again with this either/or thinking.
It might surprise you to know that the vast majority of scientists in the U.S., for example, believe that God created everything and accept evolution.
Why is “a certain way” required?
Maz: Evolution on the other hand starts with a Big Bang from nothing (YES THEY DO SAY THAT!!!)
I’ve already addressed this in a different thread, and even provided a link to it in this thread. The fact of the matter is that conversational English is poorly equipped to handle the counterintuitive (yet experimentally derived) concepts that the Big Bang entails. Some might personally believe that it actually did come from nothing, but most understand that “nothing” is just about the only descriptor English has of the primordial singularity that halfway works in trying to elucidate what science is telling us… not that it was actually nothing, but that it is closer to “nothing” than what we’re used to thinking of as “something”.
Instead of trying to deal with what the science is actually demonstrating, though, you’d rather continue to trumpet your misunderstanding as nonsensical. Of course the way you put it is nonsensical, but even those who understand and accept the Big Bang would tell you that, since the Big Bang doesn’t propose anything of the sort. You’re not actually arguing against what you claim to be arguing against.
Maz: and then it all just HAPPENED to evolve by mutational ‘accidents’ and changes according to environement etc. etc. etc.
Nope. It didn’t evolve by “mutational accidents”. Genetic changes that were effective were kept. A mechanism that keeps some things and rejects others according to certain definitive paradigms is about as unaccidental as one can get.
Consider a tennis ball released from rest six meters above the ground. Is its change in velocity “random” or “accidental”? Or is it dictated by certain principles that we’ve analyzed and given names to?
Maz: Evolution is haphazard at best and does NOT involved a Supreme and Almighty DESIGNER and CREATOR.
Ignoring your faulty premises for the sake of argument, are you trying to posit that God is incapable of carrying out plans through means that appear to us to be random?
Maz: When I use to make dresses I worked according to a pattern….someone elses design. It would always turn out the same every time I made it to the designers pattern. It NEVER varied. It didn’t turn into anything else. It was always a dress, and it was always that style of dress.
The dresses in your example do not undergo evolution. There are many reasons why not, but one of the simplest is that they are not alive, and they do not reproduce with hereditable variation.
Maz: The same with God…..He created it to a certain design and that design has not changed….it is all there in the pattern He created…..it is all there in the DNA of every creature.
But DNA changes, according to well-known and understood rules. There are no limits that prevent a change in a population from one speices (or genus, or family, or any category you care to name) to another over generations. We’ve watched it happen, in fact, so we know that your premise — that “that design has not changed” — is fundamentally false by dint of direct observation.
One might even argue that the fact that it is DNA (and not some other pattern-organizing molecule) in every life form on the planet adds support to the concept of common descent.
Maz: The DNA is the pattern so to speak that the Designer has placed in every creature to make it what the Designer meant it to be with little variations according to it’s surroundings…..but that is always a LOSS of information in the DNA, NOT a gain. Absolutely NOT the kind of gain you would need from Blob to change to the varied and extraordinary creatures we have in the world today.
This is also false, since we’ve actually seen how organisms gain “information” — for any useful denfinition of “information”, and in any way that evolution might require. I’ve pointed out actual observations where we’ve seen it happen.
By contrast, all we have for your ideas that “that design has not changed” and that changes in DNA “is always a LOSS of information” is your say-so.
Put this into context with any other scientific principle; let’s call it X. You know of studies where X has happened. You’ve even watched X happen yourself. Along comes someone who claims that X can never happen, and has never happened. Why should you believe that person? Even if that person repeats him- or herself over and over? In light of the fact that you have direct observation of the phenomenon in question, both personally and in published studies, wouldn’t the most open-minded thing be to ask that person for his or her evidence so that you can weigh the merits of what is being claimed?
Maz: But I have said this all before……(SIGH)…..why do I have to say it all again,
Because you’re wrong. Your statements are simply untrue, and we know they’re untrue because we’ve directly observed that the world does not behave the way that you claim it behaves. It’s really rather simple.
Maz: knowing that you just WON’T and CAN’T see it with your belief system so rigidly in place.
Believing in something at odds with reality simply because you repeat things over and over is difficult, I’ll admit. But shouldn’t it be?
I’ll happily accede to anything that claims to be consistent with the facts and is, in fact, consistent with them. But if I know some facts that seem to contradict such a claim, isn’t it right and proper to ask how the claimant understands those facts under his or her claim?
You claim that designs dictated by DNA do not change. That is not true. You claim that changes in DNA can only represent a loss of information. That is not true. You have not addressed how you understand relevant facts according to your claim, except to simply repeat your claim.
It’s not that I’m being rigid and simply can’t or won’t see. It’s that I have sane safeguards in place against being gullible. Repeating your claims over and over again does nothing to convince me that an exception to these safeguards should be made in your case. Show me that you have evidence for what you say so that I am not laid captive by empty philosophy or vain deception; there’s enough of that sort of thing all over the world as it is already. [2 Corinthians 10:5; Colossians 2:8]
Maz post # 97,
Maz, I’ll have to get back to you on this because my lunck break just ended. And I’ll try really hard to respond to your emails[yours too, Matt F.!]this evening. I have not emailed due to the fact that after work I go strait to work on my garden, and then eat dinner and go to bed[smile].
Sorry, meant post 96.
John: Do you mean to say that you are going to eat ALL those watermelons you are growing? Can’t you sell any for a bit of cash? Await your e-mails when it’s convenient for you.
MattF: I have, again, refrained from reading and answering your posts because it is pointless…..been there…..etc. etc………………
MattF I did look up those verses. You are really stretching it to think they infer anything other than creation. You can say evolution could be possible, but not probable.
You are stretching to believe the climatologists too. They were caught in lies. Drink the KoolAid. 30 years ago it was global cooling, now its global warming. 100 years ago it was warming. Use your data and tell me which it is.
MattF Just googled the number of scientists that believe in God. Im getting 35-40%.
Bob, how many of those scientists are evangelical young earthers?
I think about 80% of Americans believe in God, but only 40% of scientists do. I wonder why that is…
Maz: MattF: I have, again, refrained from reading and answering your posts because it is pointless…..been there…..etc. etc………………
Okay. But you’ve still come no closer to actually addressing questions. Which puts people honestly seeking answers in a tricky spot.
Again, let’s take any scientific principle and call it X.
Person 1 claims that X cannot happen and has never happened, and that such a claim is consistent with science.
Person 2 responds with citations detailing particular studies in which X has been directly observed as happening, and asks Person 1 to respond to these things according to his/her understanding of the subject.
Person 1 responds by refusing to communicate any longer.
What exactly would prevent an impartial observer from thinking that Person 1 is either deeply delusional or determinedly deceptive?
Add to this some wrinkles, though I fail to see how this would change things:
* Person 1 insists that his/her reason for avoiding conversation is that Person 2’s theology makes her uncomfortable. Person 2 offers to keep the discussion to scientific fact, since that’s the basis of Person 1’s claim. Person 1 keeps his/her distance.
* Person 1 claims to have no idea where Person 2 gets his/her ideas, but refuses to ask.
* Person 1 complains of retreading old subject material without ever bothering to address why his/her ideas are consistent with actual observations after all.
* Person 1 continues to argue with caricatures of the prevailing scientific position rather than with the prevailing scientific position itself, and pretends that victory against his/her invented caricatures represents victory against the prevailing scientific position. Rather than ask about the prevailing scientific position to show how baseless it is, when brought to task, Person 1 insists that his/her caricatures are the prevailing scientific position, and that it doesn’t matter what anyone else might have to say about it.
If you’d prefer not to communicate with me, that’s your right; but please consider what these actions telegraph about the validity of your message.
Bob Griffin: You are really stretching it to think they infer anything other than creation.
You missed the point. I referenced these verses to show that, based on its usage in Scripture, “after its kind” does not indicate fixity of “kinds”, as common creationist rhetoric and Maz insist — not to show any kind of evidence for evolution.
It is not, and has never been, my aim to show that the Bible definitively indicates evolution — any more than it definitively indicates atoms, gravity, or bacteria. I only insist that it does not contraindicate evolution.
Bob Griffin: You are stretching to believe the climatologists too. They were caught in lies.
No, they weren’t. That was the point of the independent investigation.
Bob Griffin: 30 years ago it was global cooling, now its global warming. 100 years ago it was warming. Use your data and tell me which it is.
Done, several times, with already-provided links and lists of organizations who have published results to show anthropogenic global warming, representing unprecedented scientific consensus about the global climate.
Besides, you’re the one paddling against the scientific consensus here. They’ve published their papers showing their data and why they came to the conclusions they have. Like it or not, your criterion has been fulfilled many times over. Your protests are getting tiresome. It’s your turn — show why you believe all these findings to be in error. “I still think this one group might have been sneaky somehow” doesn’t cut it.
Bob Griffin: Just googled the number of scientists that believe in God. Im getting 35-40%.
According to a survey carried out by the American Association for the Advancement of Science conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June of 2009, 51% of scientists professed belief in God. I fully grant that other polls will yield different results.
Bob Griffin: Use your data and tell me which it is.
Let me be plain: I have already listed the groups and linked to their data and findings. Your demand that I “use [my] data” only shows that you haven’t been paying attention.
Still waiting for any data from you, by the way.
O Nata Lux:
It all depends what they mean by ‘Christian’. What do you think the criteria is for being a true believer in God? Going to Church doesn’t mean you are a Christian. Reading a Bible praying, or saying 5 Hail Mary’s does not make anyone a Christian, or believing in God either (believe that or not!!), a true Christian is one who possesses Christ in their life and been born again of the Spirit of God because they have repented of their sin and become a new creature in Christ Jesus.
So how many of that 80% ACTUALLY ARE Christians?
Bob: Thanks for the laugh! I guess MattF must be really fit with all that s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g he is doing eh?!!!! (LOL!!)
MattF Youre right, its doesnt contraindicate evolution. But a rational person would not infer evolution. Heres one for you:
Although Wednesday’s report – commissioned by UEA with advice from the Royal Society, the UK’s prestigious national science academy – exonerated the unit’s scientists, it criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics.
“It is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians,” the report concluded.
The hockey stick graph was a key part of the scandal. In the e-mails, UEA’s Professor Phil Jones referred to a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures suggested by certain sources of data. A similar trick was used in the hockey stick graph.
The UEA scientists said that “trick” merely referred to a scientific technique – an explanation accepted by some sceptics, including Lord Lawson, former Tory chancellor.
Prof Hand said his criticisms should not be seen as invalidating climate science. He pointed out that although the hockey stick graph – which dates from a study led by US climate scientist Michael Mann in 1998 – exaggerates some effects, the underlying data show a clear warming signal.
He accused sceptics of “identifying a few particular issues and blowing them up” to distort the true picture. The handful of errors found so far, including the exaggerated hockey stick graph and a mistaken claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, were “isolated incidents”, he said. “If you look at any area of science, you would be able to find odd examples like this. It doesn’t detract from the vast bulk of the conclusions,” he said
Bob Griffin: Youre right, its doesnt contraindicate evolution. But a rational person would not infer evolution.
A rational person wouldn’t infer fixity of “kinds”, either. A rational person also would not infer atoms, bacteria, gravity, or many, many other scientific phenomena — but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Bob Griffin: Although Wednesday’s report – commissioned by UEA with advice from the Royal Society, the UK’s prestigious national science academy – exonerated the unit’s scientists, it criticised climate experts for failures in handling statistics.
I addressed these criticisms as well. If you’re going to ask for your stance to be taken seriously debate, please keep up. (Note, too, that the very article you quoted goes on to state exactly what I’ve been saying all this time — even rejection of the “hockey stick graph” does not cast the slightest doubt on the idea of anthropogenic global warming.)
MattF Why would a rational person not infer fixity of kinds? Thats what we see all around us.
I did see the rest of the article – the foxes let other foxes guard the henhouse.
Bob Griffin: Why would a rational person not infer fixity of kinds?
From the Bible passage, you mean? Because that’s not what the language in question refers to, as shown by other places where the same language is used but refers to nothing of the sort.
Bob Griffin: Thats what we see all around us.
Most of the time, perhaps. But it’s clearly not a fixed rule, because there are exceptions when it’s rather obviously not what we see. (Please see post 12 of “How Do You Share Your Faith With An Atheist?” for examples — or any of the other countless times this has come up.) A careful and rational person would note that a rule with directly observable exceptions is an oversimplification.
An observant person would also see the clear evidence of common descent all around us. I’ve given partial lists of evidence for this before, too, Bob, and asked how creationism understands it. You’ve remained curiously quiet. (Even when you finally tried to offer a different explanation for the biogeography of some plant life, you failed to show how your understanding is consistent with what we see.)
Bob Griffin: I did see the rest of the article – the foxes let other foxes guard the henhouse.
Uh-huh. I agreed that I wish they were more open with their data, and also pointed out that this particular criticism is not new, and also pointed out (as the investigators did) that acceptance or rejection of this agency’s reports does nothing to alter our understanding (basically because it amounts to a drop in the ocean).
How are you coming on producing evidence that this incident casts all of the other findings concerning global warming into doubt?
Just posting an interesting link……enjoy….(or not…according to your faith!!)
http://creation.com/why-most-scientists-believe-the-world-is-old
Please see this (“How Do You Share Your Faith With An Atheist?”, post 50), where Maz linked to the same article. I replied to it and to some of the other things she asserted there.
MattF What can I say? Go outside and look around – most observers see everything as kinds. You have the ability to see beyond the obvious.
Global warming – or cooling – or warming – or cooling? You have the data. Tell me what it is.
Bob Griffin: What can I say? Go outside and look around – most observers see everything as kinds.
You could start by trying to address the point rather than trying to circumvent it. The assertion is not that “kinds” do not exist. The assertion is that “kinds” do not remain fixed within certain arbitrary boundaries (typically limited by creationists to the species or the genus). This is asserted because we have directly observed that “kinds” do not remain fixed within certain arbitrary boundaries; I have already provided you with examples of this, multiple times, without you even attempting to show empirical reasons why these observations are invalid.
Bob Griffin: Global warming – or cooling – or warming – or cooling? You have the data. Tell me what it is.
I have. And I’ve linked to data that indicates why. Yet you refuse to move past this simple point and show why the data, which clearly shows that the planet is warming up, is in error; you continue to waffle and, as near as I can tell based on your continued repetition of the same arguments and refusal to mention why the data might be wrong or misinterpreted, refuse to actually examine the data.
Why is this? Because you might be held responsible for actually understanding what you look at?
I must admit, Bob, that I find something profoundly saddening in our correspondence.
If I thought there was a possibility that you could actually engage in a conversation, I might be encouraged. I’d love to spend time discussing things, getting into the meat of matters and driving at deeper understanding and truth, but you seem genuinely unwilling to discuss anything. Oh, sure, you’ll claim that I’m wrong, or that scientists are wrong, but that’s as far as you’ve ever gone. You seem to believe that you have reason to be suspicious, and that’s all well and good, but you completely balk at the idea of discussing in detail how you know they or I are wrong in our conclusions; you prefer to repeat your accusations while getting no deeper in data or other empirical evidence and, therefore, no closer to truth.
Do you really want to have a discussion here?
If so, why has it not happened yet?
Do you know that telling people that they are wrong without basis for saying so is one of the ruder things you can do?
Do you know that you can’t pretend to know what you’re talking about on a subject when the very things you bring up in order to mock a position on the subject betrays a profound misunderstanding of the subject itself?
Do you know that you can’t make up your own definitions for things and then argue with your own definitions?
Do you know that once it is shown that a particular accusation is baseless, you can’t continue to make that accusation without demonstrating the rightness of your position?
Do you know that people who are paying attention will disregard anything you say if you continue to repeat apparent errors and never move past them?
If causing frustration and annoyance was your goal, let me congratulate you on succeeding spectacularly. If you had some other goal, how do you see causing frustration and annoyance as helping you toward that goal?
This is not a simple debating game, Bob. We’re talking about the nature of reality itself; what’s really going on and how we respond to it will dictate in large measure who suffers and how much over the next few decades (or centuries). If a debating game is what you’re after, then frankly, you’re better off not debating science.
If, on the other hand, you want to present your ideas in a well thought-out case with detailed, empirically-based information that supports your stance, listening to other stances and refuting them with data and not mere rhetoric, then we can actually discuss things instead of dancing around the periphery of the issues. The way things are now, I have no evidence that you’re not just trolling for reactions to nonsense.
I have not come to understand what I have about the issue of global warming (or evolution) by reading pop culture books, collecting sound bites, or listening to political pundits. I studied the subjects in depth, finding out what the data was and how conclusions have been reached with respect to that data. I did not accept ideas by listening to slick debaters or winsome preachers; I went out and studied these things directly in detail, willing to surrender my passionately-held notions if they should fail to be true.
What are you willing to do to support your position? It has to be more than giving us periodic weather reports, or accusing people of lying on sheer principle even after they’ve been exonerated.
Do you even know how to present the convincing power of your information, given that I was swayed from a creationist position that I held for most of my life? Do you know how to present arguments to people with years of direct observation and investigation? You cannot convince me with your weather reports, because the concept of global warming does not depend on local weather. You cannot convince me by repeating your mistrust of a particular scientific agency, because their findings in particular have virtually no impact on the depth of our current understanding. You aren’t teaching me anything by insisting that I only accept what I do because of my starting assumptions, because you haven’t shown me that your assumptions are reasonable (never mind showing me that mine are not); as I’ve mentioned, it’s not even clear that you understand the subject matter.
In short, your tactics are not the sort one sees in someone attempting to convince another person of the truth of their stance. Until you show that you have access to a depth of data capable of persuading someone, you’re doomed to get nowhere, wasting your own time and ours.
Do you understand why I consider this important to say? Do you understand why you have failed to defend any point you’ve brought up? Do you understand why other stances are not just as baseless as the half-hearted accusations you’ve thrown out in the hopes that they will be simply accepted?
I know some have made fun of you and insulted you. I don’t really want to join in, and regret the times that I have, but when you use these tactics, the temptation is fierce. And yet, in spite of all this, you persist in inserting your one or two sentences of nonsense.
Do you understand why I call them nonsense? It has nothing to do with whether I agree with them or not. Here’s a hint: I went into some depth here in begging you to explain yourself more. Can you provide similar depth in a response? Can you attempt to do so? (Depth is not the same thing as length, incidentally.)
Let me give you a boost. You claim to know that the entire concept of anthropogenic global warming should be cast into doubt. What data leads you to this conclusion? Can you point to data that is demonstrably wrong, and what precisely is wrong about it?
Why do you refuse to supply more information? Why don’t you supply us with links to good data? Why can’t you even tell us how good data is supposed to be gathered, or why the bad data is flawed? Why can’t you show us a paper we can read that details this? Why can’t you show a paper trail of fraud? (A small handful of emails with terms that seem strange to people outside of science does not constitute a paper trail. Cause for doubt is not evidence of fraud.) Why can’t you show us the scientists forced to resign in disgrace, or evidence of the actions they took to avoid being forced to resign? Why can’t you show us which instrumentation it was that generated the spurious results? Why can’t you tell us from what primary sources you get your information in the first place?
The very fact that you don’t seem to understand the subject matter itself makes any accusation you may have about the data’s accuracy seem suspect. Can you understand that?
The ball is now in your court. Start explaining. With details. I do not relish the thought of believing you to be ignorant; please, I beg of you, prove me wrong.
Bob: How is it some people are so blind…..even those who say they are Christians…..and they can’t see the Hand of the Creator in His Creation??? Mmmm.
MattF: Are you really saying you don’t understand what the Bible means by ”kinds”?? The mind boggles. I doubt whether you would get it if I explained it to you……but then I’v done it before and you still don’t seem to get it. (SIGH!!)
Perhaps if you put some more effort into it Maz………..?
Besides, is this really the ONLY thing that you have to say in regards to all of the points that MattF. brought up within his post 114? Because if it is…then you’re missing the point far more than you think MattF. is. Do you really have NOTHING critical to say about Bob Griffin’s posts on the subject of science?
Maz: Are you really saying you don’t understand what the Bible means by ”kinds”??
I am arguing that your understanding of “kinds” — whether or not you want to argue that that’s what the Bible is talking about — are not fixed, and we have direct observational evidence of this.
(Or, for that matter, any definition of “kinds” that restricts organisms to a particular closed category less broad than “life” are not fixed. By dint of direct observation.)
Maz: I doubt whether you would get it if I explained it to you……but then I’v done it before and you still don’t seem to get it. (SIGH!!)
Yes. You have explained it before. I’m trying to tell you that, given your own explanation and your own definitions, your understanding is wrong.
Maz: [...] We agree with natural selection, it can be observed, but that is NOT evolution i action. It is change WITHIN the kinds or genus of an animal, not a change from one genus into an entirrely different genus.. [...] (post #44)
Maz: …] It is not an entirely new genus, but a change WITHIN the genus….as in the dog….canis…..changes in structure but no change to another entirely different animal, which evolution suggests. Modifications but no new structures like gills to lungs or scales to feathers. [...] (post #94)
We have witnessed, directly, an organism change from one genus to a completely different genus. You have defined “kind” as being equivalent to genus. Organisms do not remain fixed within their genus; we know this because we have directly witnessed a change in genus. We have directly observed a change from one organism into an “entirely different” organism. Therefore, under your own definition of “kind”, organisms do not remain fixed within their “kinds”.
Moreover, we have witnessed the creation of new structures. Directly.
I have given you instances of these things. You have ignored them. Your repeated claims are simply denial, and do not reflect the way the real world behaves.
MattF I dont have the time to write books like you do. You look at data from your side and its all correct. The data from my side you consider being from debaters or preachers. You make the call. The data showing global warming is a hoax is out there – I shouldnt have to supply it to someone as smart as you. Dont worry, Im not trying to persuade you. You cant persuade one who knows it all. Back to “kinds” again. You use a virus to justify your position. Good.
Maz Maybe MattF is a secular Christian.
Bob Griffin: MattF I dont have the time to write books like you do. The data from my side you consider being from debaters or preachers. You make the call.
So you’re not interested in having a discussion?
For the record, you don’t have to write “books”. Just show me the data that shows I’m wrong — again, not arguments or rhetoric, but data. You can even link to it.
Bob Griffin: The data showing global warming is a hoax is out there – I shouldnt have to supply it to someone as smart as you.
So much for fair play. You asked for data, and I gave it. I ask for data, and you pretend that it’s out there somewhere. Convenient.
Bob Griffin: Back to “kinds” again. You use a virus to justify your position. Good.
Um, no. Never mentioned a virus. Looks like you need to show us that you understand the basics again.
Bob Griffin: Maz Maybe MattF is a secular Christian.
When you can’t come up with evidence, when you don’t even want to discuss, you decide the appropriate recourse is to cast doubt on your philosophical opponent’s spirituality?
Nice.
MattF This presents my point and yours nicely.
Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and Professor Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Professor Jones talks to Professor Mann about the “trick of adding in the real temps to each series…to hide the decline [in temperature].” Professor Mann admitted that this was the exchange that he had and explained to the New York Times that “scientists often used the word ‘trick’ to refer to a good way to solve a problem, ‘and not something secret.’” While the New York Times apparently buys this explanation, it is hard to see the explanation for “to hide the decline
MattF Another good one for you to defend.
Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discusses in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that would otherwise be seen in the results. Professor Mann sent Professor Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he is sending shouldn’t be shown to others because the results support critics of global warming. Time after time the discussions refer to hiding or destroying data.
This is too much fun.
There were also been discussions to silence academic journals that publish research skeptical of significant man-made global warming. Professor Mann wrote: “I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” Other emails refer to efforts to exclude contrary views from publication in scientific journals. Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute, told The Wall Street Journal: “This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn’t questionable practice, this is unethical.”
Bob Griffin: This presents my point and yours nicely.
No. It presents your point nicely. It’s still rhetoric and not data.
Bob Griffin: it is hard to see the explanation for “to hide the decline
From The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (that is, the report of the investigation committee), Conclusion 2:
In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty—for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”—we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity” It was not our purpose to examine, nor did we seek evidence on, the science produced by CRU. It will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel to look in detail into all the evidence to determine whether or not the consensus view remains valid.
Also from the committee, showing exactly why “hide the decline” is not suspicious language, emphasis mine:
Critics of CRU have suggested that Professor Jones’s use of the words “hide the decline” is evidence that he was part of a conspiracy to hide evidence that did not fit his view that recent global warming is predominantly caused by human activity. That he has published papers — including a paper in Nature — dealing with this aspect of the science clearly refutes this allegation. In our view, it was shorthand for the practice of discarding data known to be erroneous.
Now that they have been exonerated, without hard evidence, it’s not very ethical of you to continue to cast aspersions at them without harder evidence than suspicions.
Bob Griffin: Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discusses in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that would otherwise be seen in the results. Professor Mann sent Professor Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he is sending shouldn’t be shown to others because the results support critics of global warming. Time after time the discussions refer to hiding or destroying data.
He was being ornery, which isn’t evidence of subterfuge.
More to the point, he was saying basically the same thing that I have here — that the critics of global warming aren’t interested in finding out what’s going on; they’re repeating the same arguments, over and over, without regard to why they’ve been shown false. Any data that can be taken out of context and twisted to appear to support their side will be taken out of context and twisted to appear to support their side.
As your bringing up of these particular points demonstrates in rather stark relief, in spite of the fact that they’ve been shown not to be indicative of fraud.
Bob Griffin: This is too much fun.
Why? Because you get to make fact-free accusations? Do you like doing that sort of thing, as when you decided to label me a “secular Christian”? Do you really enjoy baseless judgment of people?
Bob Griffin: There were also been discussions to silence academic journals that publish research skeptical of significant man-made global warming. Professor Mann wrote: “I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.”
You want to talk unethical? This journal was making excuses to slant the findings of papers that they published. Again, orneriness is not the same as conspiring to commit fraud.
Bob Griffin: Pat Michaels
Yeah. He and Dick Lindzen certainly get around, don’t they? I guess they’d have to, as just about the only denialists with anything approaching credentials out there, since our media has this misguided idea about presenting “balance”.
(Here’s a hint: When there are facts involved, there’s no “balance”.)
Consider this story, in which Michaels called CNN’s Peter Dykstra to complain that the network wasn’t balanced enough in their coverage of what the denialists have to say. Dykstra was curious, so he looked into all the network’s broadcasts on the subject.
It turns out the “expert” CNN quoted most was Michaels himself — twice as much as anyone else.
If the denialists are as bad at science as they are at math, we shouldn’t take them seriously at all.
You know, Bob, this kind of he said/she said talk is doomed to run around in circles indefinitely. You know what clears up conflicts like this once and for all, especially in scientific circles, so that everyone knows who’s right? Data. Where’s your data, Bob? Stop with the baseless accusations and show how you know anthropogenic global warming isn’t happening.
MattF: This journal was making excuses to slant the findings of papers that they published.
Let me give more detail, since this is rather ambiguous and could be seen as an accusation without merit.
The “I think we should stop considering ‘Climate Research’” quote was in response to a specific incident. This incident circled around a paper by Soon and Baliunas; an editor seemed to be letting papers through that did not meet the journal’s standards of evidence.
The slacked standards of the paper were so bad that the chief editor (Hans von Storch) and half the editorial board resigned to protest the paper’s publication. The publisher refused to allow von Storch to write an editorial about why this paper did not meet the usual standards of the journal. (You want to talk about censorship? Seems you’ve got a bit of a double standard, there.)
News flash: scientists pick the journals they try to publish in, and prefer some over others. They recommend to one another which journals they should (and, sometimes, should not) publish in. Are you recommending taking away the freedoms of speech and choice that allow them to publish and recommend whichever journals they deem reputable?
It should be noted that it is highly unusual for a chief editor of a science journal to resign. It’s much more unusual for half the editorial staff to resign as well. This should be a warning sign to anyone paying attention that the journal is, at the very least, in turmoil and that its impartialty might be jeopardized.
How did you not recognize this? Did you fail to do your homework?
I support the publishing of papers that defy mainstream scientific thought, provided they meet the standards of scientific quality and merit. Skepticism is essential for science to progress. But let’s not confuse skepticism with denialism, especially when said denialism does not meet the standards of scientific inquiry.
Speaking of which, where’s your data, Bob?
MattF: Bob is making some relevant comments here but you just WON’T listen or accept them because of YOUR world view. You are of the ilk of Richard Dawkins and that is why I refuse to read your comments because they contain ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for evolution! You may deceive yourself that they do, but…..you are most definitely DECEIVED. You need to get on your knees and ask the Lord to reveal His amazing creation through the narrative He has provided for us very clearly in Genesis 1. OR…… you are calling God a liar if you say He did not do it the way He says He did it!!!
I find it amusing — and even a little informative — to see how all this has played out.
Bob claims that we have cause to believe that scientists in a particular climate research agency have been defrauding people, a bunch of dishonest lying liars. Primary evidence of this, according to him, is their refusal to share their data.
Oh, and when it came to their philosophical opponents, they were a bit ornery, too.
More recently, when I asked Bob for his data, his response was… a refusal to share (post #118).
Oh, and he was a bit ornery, too.
Does this strike anyone as just a little hypocritical?
Thanks, Bob, for volunteering yourself as a valuable object lesson. And for showing us all why it’s so much better not to be a “secular Christian”.
Maz: Bob is making some relevant comments here but you just WON’T listen or accept them because of YOUR world view.
Um, no. I won’t accept them because he’s making accusations without evidence. Why is that a crime?
If and when he presents evidence — not just suspicion, but evidence — I’ll reconsider my position. Sorry, Maz, but it takes a certain amount of proof before I label someone a liar.
Maz: You are of the ilk of Richard Dawkins and that is why I refuse to read your comments because they contain ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for evolution!
I gave lists of scientific evidence. You have ignored them. Again.
The least you could do is point out why things like direct observation are not scientific. Or why the molecular evidence, morphological evidence, genetic evidence, and all the rest simply don’t apply. Your simple, evidence-free declaration that they are not scientific doesn’t help.
Maz: you are calling God a liar if you say He did not do it the way He says He did it!!!
We’ve been over this. I don’t think He says He did it the way you say He says He did it.
Maz: you are most definitely DECEIVED.
Uh-huh. Because I expect that reality is, well, real, and that God is not a liar. We’ve been here before, too, regrettably. That’s kind of the tragedy of it all.
One might expect that Christians — eager to uncover God as He really is and not as we (in our fallen state) might, even unconsciously, prefer Him to be — would be the most interested in a vigorous, ruthless, systematic attempt to work out the facts of the Universe, driven by an eagerness to discard every preconceived notion in the pursuit of finding the true workings of the Most High.
In practice, this is not the case. In fact, one finds that there are only two types ardently advocating the view that showing how natural causes lie at the root of some phenomenon is the same as demonstrating that God is not involved, who see a fundamental, irreconcilable conflict between faith and the findings of science: strong atheists, and creationists.
The curious distinction is that the latter prefer their naivete to allowing the empirical study of things to inform their understanding.
Kind of interesting to see who’s more closely related in their analysis of events to Dawkins from this angle, really. It’s a shame that you seem to agree with him in this, that evidence of natural processes is evidence of the absence of God.
It is important to note that many scientists also possess faith — not as alternatives to understanding, but as a position held alongside their systematic attempts to understand the natural realm, a simple part of a comprehensive world view. They understand the tools of science as a means of examining certain aspects of God’s activity.
This is not so of creationists, who ironically claim to be scientific. They actually see God’s actions as exclusive to natural processes, as if God’s actions and the phenomena we see in the natural world are separate and necessarily distinct. Of course, they get to pick and choose where to apply this line of thinking; consider the fact that science studies how zygotes transform into adults, but even most creationists accept God as individually creating them.
This can look mighty confusing until you realize that creationism isn’t just a belief. It’s a belief about a belief, and the belief about the belief is more important than the belief itself. Their attempts to escape dilemmas in understanding without confronting the possibility that they might be wrong leads to all sorts of weird justifications and — regrettably, in some cases — dishonesty. The pernicious thing of it all is that, because belief about the belief is all-important, dishonesty is excusable; they’d even insist that it’s not dishonesty, because it’s about what’s true, after all.
So points contrary to their stance are deleted, and evidence is ignored, but no point is ever conceded. They have simply been mentally conditioned to ignore and deny all objections to their arguments. (I’ve tried my level best to answer all questions posed to me, and even asked on several occasions for people to bring to my attention things they feel I might have missed. This is still so.)
They shotgun rather than debate. If one argument doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter, because they have more of them; they’ll throw them all out in the hopes that one will be outside the scope of your knowledge, at which point they can pretend that your ignorance is their victory. They do not weigh evidence from opposing points of view, because they come to the table with the assumption already in place that other points of view have no evidence. You can’t possibly have anything worth considering; you can only be deceived (which means that you should be patronized and toyed with) or a deceiver (which means that you should be reviled and ignored).
You can tell them why they’re wrong, but their belief about their belief simply prohibits them from entertaining for the slightest instant that they might be mistaken. They cannot stop to consider that science doesn’t accept an idea without gobs of good evidence, and that it certainly isn’t in the habit of just making stuff up. Anything that casts their belief about their belief into doubt is simply wrong by fiat.
But evidence can’t be denied indefinitely — most fundamentally because it’s evidence, but also because it’s impossible to know everything. Sadly, rather than simply admit ignorance or a need to re-examine things, a lot of creationists turn their inability to refute evidence against their belief about their belief into anger. Others go a little nuts; if a reasonable faith is not providing the certainty that they desire, then they vector straight off into a more radical faith — and obviously, you (as an “evolutionist”) can’t possibly have the love for the faith or the love of the Scriptures that they do. Still others will change the nature of their vulnerability in the hopes that no one will notice the deflection — perhaps they can’t demonstrate their stance convincingly on creationism, but at least they’re not having abortions (or, if that doesn’t work, pick any other personally preferred transgression) like those filthy atheists! (Atheists who, for some reason, are still the only ones to accept evolution — never mind that they’re rarely guilty of the transgression they’re accused of in the first place any more than Christians are.)
It’s sad to see you sink to this level, Maz. Can we get back to discussing the science?
MattF: ”Maz: you are most definitely DECEIVED”
One wonders how one can be deceived by reading the Bible!!!
I read and accept what God has told me in His Word…….including Genesis 1.
If the Word of God does not agree with the scientists, then it’s not God that needs to change or His Word twisted to fit it…..it is the man….or woman….the scientist who needs to see beyond their bias and see what’s really around them in the world.
I am absolutely amazed that you can see all the diversity in the animal kingdom including the exquisite creatures within the seas of this world, particularly in the oceans around Indonesia, and not see your (?) Gods creative power!!! Your eyes are blinded, or at the least your glasses are heavily shaded that you cannot see this! Even the Word of God points out that the creation itself reveals the creators hand in it all!
YOU are deceived by man’s wisdom and do not see the wisdom and power of God. You need to seek Him and maybe you will see what He has done!!
Maz: One wonders how one can be deceived by reading the Bible!!!>
One can be deceived into believing that a particular interpretation is true that is demonstrably not.
If the Word of God does not agree with the scientists, then it’s not God that needs to change or His Word twisted to fit it…..it is the man….or woman….the scientist who needs to see beyond their bias and see what’s really around them in the world.
So the scientists are wrong when they say that bats are not birds?
They’re wrong when they say that hares do not have hooves and do not chew the cud?
They’re wrong when they say that the Earth moves?
Your stance is self-contradictory and overly simplistic and requires no thought about the words in front of you — not exactly honoring the God Who has demanded all our minds. Saying that a given interpretation of a passage is demonstrably false does not equate to saying that the passage itself is false.
Again, please refer to the list of phenomena that demonstrate that creationism cannot be true. There is no bias here, except to say that the natural world was not created according to the way the creationists believe.
Maz: I am absolutely amazed that you can see all the diversity in the animal kingdom including the exquisite creatures within the seas of this world, particularly in the oceans around Indonesia, and not see your (?) Gods creative power!!!
It amazes me that you display such devotion to your own understanding of Scripture that you’d be willing to declare everything else wrong, or else simply ignore it, up to and including reality itself.
So I guess we’re both amazed.
You’re also not allowing yourself to see the wonder available in biology by understanding evolution. Evolution allows biology an overarching theory, which makes it all “click” in a way that creationism cannot. We know why whales swim the way they do, why bats fly the way they do, and why we have two arms and two legs — while we agree that God did it, evolution understands how it was done in a much deeper sense than “I dunno”.
Maz: Even the Word of God points out that the creation itself reveals the creators hand in it all!
Yes. Which seems to corroborate my point of view. If creationism is correct, all we could see by examining nature is that some sort of magic was performed; it reveals nothing of God except that He’s a magician. By contrast, evolution shows a plan. We can find out what happened, and by extension, surmise what God must have been up to. We can see the revelation, because information actually reveals itself. The creationist cannot see a revelation, because there is no method that can be analyzed and (in some small measure) comprehended.
Maz: YOU are deceived by man’s wisdom and do not see the wisdom and power of God.
With respect, Maz, it seems that you are “deceived” by being forced to cling to a particular understanding even when reality itself disagrees with you. I’m willing to let God inform me, willing to surrender my preconceived notions if reality should disagree; you seem unwilling to reconsider your ideas for any reason.
That’s not faith. That’s willing blindness.
Perhaps I can get at this by way of analogy, Maz.
Imagine that you got into a conversation with someone who claimed to know that the Earth does not move. You also knew a decent number of people who claimed that it was the reality denial of people like that who convinced them that Christianity was nothing but foolishness, since putting one’s faith in it apparently requires one to believe in things that are patently ridiculous like a stationary Earth.
Suppose that you had even believed that the Earth must be stationary yourself for most of your life. After all, the Bible states in plain language that it is fixed and cannot be moved; doubting that this is true is to cast the whole Bible into doubt. Anyone who holds that the Earth moves has reason to doubt his salvation, devotion to the faith, and commitment to the truth of Scripture.
Since then, of course, you’d learned that interpretation of these passages must be done more carefully, and with less confidence that we have all the answers before we read them. You try to mention this, armed with the findings that science has brought to the table to corroborate your stance — stuff that’s been directly observed, stuff that shows that the idea of a stationary Earth is plainly wrong, stuff that corroborates the idea that the Earth is in motion.
Your opponent returns that you have no scientific evidence at all; that you’re clearly deceived; and that you can’t demonstrate that the Earth is in motion unless you can describe its motion exactly, down to the last billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a meter. (We don’t know the Earth’s motion to that degree of precision, but we still hold that the Earth moves.) They add that they have scientific evidence that the Earth is really stationary, and that scientists need to see beyond their bias in order to see what’s really around them. They express amazement at the idea that anyone could miss the wonder of an Earth fixed right at the center of God’s creation (because apparently, the creation of a moving Earth is not at all remarkable). They wrap up their summary of your work with advice that you read Psalms and 1 Chronicles over and over until you finally understand that the Earth really is stationary.
Knowing the damage your philosophical opponent and those who think like them are doing to the faith among those who have learned enough to know better (young Christians are leaving, and others see no reason to regard the faith seriously at all), wouldn’t you plead with your opponent to understand that his or her understanding was counterfactual, and also not the only way to comprehend the passages in question (especially if you had the benefit of studying theologians from centuries past who had very different views on the matter)? Wouldn’t you be inclined to point out learned Christians who understood the power of God, the truth of the Bible, and the necessity of Christ without believing in a fixed Earth?
What would you think is the proper way to defend yourself against people who think like your opponent and attack your faith?
To switch sides for a moment, under what circumstances should the person who believes in a stationary Earth reconsider his or her faith?
MattF: It all boils down to interpretation doesn’t it. That is the argument all Theistic evolutionists fall back on. But if you read the text and believe what you read there is NO WAY that your idea of how God evolved everything including us can be scriptural….no interpretation can possibly justify the kind of ideas you come out with about how man came to be here!! You would really have to stretch your imagination to the limits to try and make the scriptures support evolution and the idea that God evolved man from a dead then resurrected ape-like creature that He gave a soul to. Neither is there any interpretation that can allow for the theory of evolution to fit, scientifically or other wise. The Theory of Evolution comes from man’s wisdom and not from Gods inspiration.
I will ask you a simple question using the scriptures:
”Six days you shall work but on the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God……..FOR IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH………AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY. THAT IS WHY THE LORD BLESSED THE SABBATH DAY AND MADE IT HOLY…SET APART FOR HIS PURPOSE.” Amp. Bible Exodus 20 v 9-11.
Does every word ‘day’ mean a day in this passage or not? Because the 6 DAYS of creation and the 7th day of rest are clearly synonymous with the 6 DAY week and the 7th Sabbath DAY. As God created in 6 DAYS and rested on the 7th, we work 6 DAYS and rest on the Sabbath or 7th DAY.
You need to really twist this scripture to make it say what it obviously does not!! There is not a shred nor a sense of millions of years of evolution in this passage. It boggles the mind how anyone can try to take away from the truth of Gods Word and turn it into a lie to agree with a theory without any evidence……yes….I said……WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE!!
Reality is represented by Truth…..and the Word of God is Truth…..therefore I would rather believe what the Word of God shows me as reality and Truth, than what mortal man without God tries to show me with shadows and ideas and assumptions and no solid scientific evidence.
You are unable and unwilling to see clearly what scripture teaches on this subject therefore it is pointless for me to continue in discussing this with you and so this subject between us is now closed.
Maz: You would really have to stretch your imagination to the limits to try and make the scriptures support evolution and the idea that God evolved man from a dead then resurrected ape-like creature that He gave a soul to.
I’ve said from the beginning that this is my own idea. I don’t expect others to subscribe to it, and I think Scripture leaves room for it.
Maz: Neither is there any interpretation that can allow for the theory of evolution to fit, scientifically or other wise.
No? Why not?
Maz: The Theory of Evolution comes from man’s wisdom and not from Gods inspiration.
So does the idea that the Earth moves, Maz. That doesn’t mean that it’s any less true.
Maz: I will ask you a simple question using the scriptures:
”Six days you shall work but on the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God……..FOR IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH………AND RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY. THAT IS WHY THE LORD BLESSED THE SABBATH DAY AND MADE IT HOLY…SET APART FOR HIS PURPOSE.” Amp. Bible Exodus 20 v 9-11.
Does every word ‘day’ mean a day in this passage or not?
Simple answer: no, I don’t think so.
Consider if what the passage was intended to mean something closer to this:
“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath day to the Lord your God… for in six ages the LORD made the heavens and the earth… and rested the seventh age. That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy… set apart for His purpose.”
Such an understanding would show us that God was expecting man to follow His example — namely, following the one-in-seven pattern that He revealed in the beginning of Genesis.
Now, does the vocabulary used support this interpretation? I think so, and here’s why:
* There’s no other Hebrew word that means “long, indefinite stretch of time” (which I’ve abbreviated “age” above), and it is often used to mean such in other passages of Scripture. Answers In Genesis insists that olam or qedem could be used, but they need to study their Hebrew vocabulary. On a fundamental level, one could point out that olam and qedem are adjectives, not nouns. Further, the meaning of olam is “everlasting” (which doesn’t carry the finite nature of yom); qedem means “ancient” (which would contradict the literal application of this passage in Hebrews 4, below, since something “ancient” has been completed), not “long and indefinite”.
* Such an understanding allows Hebrews 4 to be literal, so that I can obey a command given by God to His children without conveniently rationalizing it away as figurative.
Of course, other understandings suggest themselves, too, but one could start here.
Maz: You need to really twist this scripture to make it say what it obviously does not!!
* I could say the same about your understanding of Hebrews 4.
* How about our theoretical friend who insists that you really need to twist Scripture to accept the idea that the Earth moves?
Maz: There is not a shred nor a sense of millions of years of evolution in this passage.
So? It seems that this knowledge was outside what God thought it important to tell us in His Word. There’s a lot of that kind of knowledge. That’s His prerogative, isn’t it?
Maz: I said……WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE!!
Yes, I know you said it. Saying it again doesn’t make it true. Even saying it louder doesn’t make it true. We have genetic evidence, morphological evidence, molecular evidence, cladistic evidence, and evidence from literally hundreds of other disciplines that yield independent, yet clearly corroborative results — things which are consistent with common descent with modification, yet clearly inconsistent with things that are made separately and distinctly from each other. I’ve given lists of some of this evidence, but you’ve ignored them, and that doesn’t make them go away.
Consider our friend who insists that you have no evidence that the Earth moves.
Maz: Reality is represented by Truth…..and the Word of God is Truth…..
No disagreement there.
Maz: therefore I would rather believe what the Word of God shows me as reality and Truth, than what mortal man without God tries to show me with shadows and ideas and assumptions and no solid scientific evidence.
You are following your own understanding of the Word of God and confusing it with Scripture itself.
And if you won’t even address the evidence, there’s no help for it. Simply because you refuse to acknowledge it doesn’t mean that it’s not there.
Again, consider our theoretical friend who explains his/her stance in parallel fashion to yours: “Reality is represented by truth. The Word of God is truth. Therefore, I would rather believe the Word of God, which tells me that the Earth cannot move, than what mortal man without God tries to show me with shadows and ideas and assumptions and no solid scientific evidence.”
Under what circumstances should our theoretical friend reconsider his/her stance? (You never even bothered to address a lot of the questions in my previous post, but this is an important one.)
MattF: Now, does the vocabulary used support this interpretation? I think so, and here’s why:
Ooh, I neglected one:
* Such a construction is aesthetically pleasing, especially according to the rules of Hebrew poetry. This adds to my appreciation of God’s sense of beauty; I even think it possible that God’s plans for Scripture extended to a depth including orchestration of the Hebrew language itself in order to reveal, conceal, and construct things in Scripture exactly the way He wanted them. (It would also stick better in the minds of people He was trying to communicate to; we humans tend to remember things that are beautifully phrased.)
Maz Check out the website GlobalClimateScam.com. Especially todays post. It has the spoof video of Michael Mann – hilarious. Also some graphs for MattF while he watches the video.
MattF The data is there – Ill try to pick out some good ones for you this week. They were vindicated – by their own.
Bob, I hope for your sake that it’s not the same as when you tried to prove in the past how confused and/or deceptive evolutionary scientists were/are by providing their edited quotes used out of the proper context. Gooooooooood luck Bob.
Bob Griffin: The data is there – Ill try to pick out some good ones for you this week.
‘Kay.
MattF Genesis 2:7 The lord formed man out of dust and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. Gen2-21,22 A deep sleep came over man, the lord took a rib and created woman and took her the man. Let me know in your mystical and borderline divine way how that can let you infer evolution.
You appeal to authority at this late stage of the game makes it sound like your slipping, Bob. You nor Maz could never seem to understand that scientific evidences should not need grounding in theology in order to be accepted as true. Does your Bible infer the Periodic Table of elements?
Does this make then any less real?
See my point?
So, does this mean that you aren’t going to provide us with the information you mentioned within your post 135, Bob, or are you trying to stall for time while you get your affairs in order?
Bob Griffin: Let me know in your mystical and borderline divine way how that can let you infer evolution.
“Mystical”? To be honest, what I’m doing — typing words into a computer and loading them into a server — isn’t mystical at all. Well-known science, old boy. (And “borderline divine” seems kind of a weird way to describe anything — at least, weird if you would like someone to understand what your description means.)
Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, it is not and has never been my point that the Bible attempts to describe evolution. If it, in fact, doesn’t, then no passage will cause one to infer evolution. Absence of evidence, however, is not evidence of absence; the Bible’s lack of description of evolution no more removes its possibility than it removes the possibility of gravity, atoms, bacteria, the Americas, Neptune, or magnetism. (The Bible doesn’t seem all that interested in informing us scientifically.)
I find the whole phenomenon of creationism fascinating, honestly.
If you were to stop a random person on the street and ask him or her to explain detailed parts of atomic theory, or set theory, or cosmological perturbation theory, they’d decline (hopefully politely: “Sorry, I don’t know anything about that”).
But people with very little education on the matter think themselves experts on the theory of evolution or the Big Bang theory, simply because they’ve graduated high school, read a few pre-collegiate textbooks, or watched a few documentaries. They’re so confident about their level of expertise that they will leap boldly into discussions on the matter to tell what they’re sure will be an astonished world about how wrong science is about something.
Interestingly, they also use the same, very limited range of arguments in order to lend credence to their assertions, and trumpet them as if no one had ever used them before. Even when they themselves have been refuted with directly-observable evidence on exactly those points many times before.
In order to believe in their particular version of the creation story as ardently as they do, they must call into question the scientific method, especially when it is used to analyze evolution. Even lying and misrepresenting scientific data and people is permissible, when (in their mind) it supports the deeper truth of Scripture.
Since reality is reality regardless of who happens to be denying it, after a while, all of science comes under attack. That’s because creationism doesn’t just contradict biology — it contradicts geology, astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, physics, paleontology, archaeology, anthropology, thermodynamics, plate tectonics, computer science, vulcanology, stratigraphy, meteorology, materials science, petrology, nuclear physics, mechanics, petrology, fluid mechanics, geomorphology, morphology, astrophysics, reaction kinetics, biochemistry, genetics, botany, dendrochronology, pharmacology, zoology, immunology, morphology, molecular biology, linguistics, and countless other disciplines. And they do all this without making any testable statements of their own.
Some of them claim to love science even so.
But once those seeds are sown — depicting science as a political engine with its own aims and interests, pulling the strings of vast conspiracies — and people start believing it, other nasty conspiracy theories start to pop out of the woodwork (as I believe we’re seeing with the issue of anthropogenic global warming). Deep, powerfully corroborated studies can be dismissed with the flimsiest of suspicions. Need to excuse pollution? Find some tame fellow who can be persuaded to agree with what you want them to say, and bend the facts to pretend he speaks for an army of dissenters. Or find some dirt on the people performing legitimate study and pretend that it has an impact on the facts or on any conclusions that substantially agree with theirs.
Once systematic and analytical methods of understanding the nature of the Universe are rendered invalid, and acceptance of findings is more a matter of whim than of understanding the evidence, the only recourse is a kind of stubborn relativism, where one’s own conceptions are declared to be truth by fiat without any need to explain what reasons they have for holding the ideas or how they explain things that seem contradictory.
Many Evangelicals lament the onslaught of relativistic thinking; they decry those who see no truth and who believe that there is no way to discern truth. The irony of it is, of course, that creationism has done much to bring this state of affairs about. If we can’t determine reality even by carefully testing reality — and even intense, detailed, time-consuming labors to determine truth through careful experimentation and data collection can really be dismissed with fourth-grade-level arguments — why should anyone believe any claim to truth?
John Im just reacting to the posts at hand. Look up GlobalClimateScam.com for today and check out the John Osullivan article. I didnt get to read it, but it looks promising.
MattF The borderline divine was an attempt to bring back Karnak the Magnificent. I probably butchered it. I thought you did think the Bible could infer evolution. My point is a rational person reading many passages would not infer it.
Post 141 You must be an expert in many fields.
Bob Griffin: I thought you did think the Bible could infer evolution.
Well, if you want to be pedantic about it, I think one could look at certain passages (knowing what we know now) and think that maybe there’s an outside chance that the author was getting at something — e.g., perhaps the way the earth is directed to create “cattle”, “creeping things”, and “beasts of the earth” in Genesis 1:24 is a sideways nod to the evolutionary notion that environment shapes adaptation (and adaptive structures). It’s far from a solid case, though, and if it refers to something completely different instead, I wouldn’t consider that contrary to my position.
In other words, an intelligent person could read the Bible and see no hint of evolution. The only hints one might see would be by reading between the lines. Of course, Christians have a fine history of that, too (e.g., seeing evidence for oceanic currents in Psalm 8:8).
Bob Griffin: My point is a rational person reading many passages would not infer it.
Sure. And my point is that this, by itself, gives us no insight into the truth or falsehood of the theory.
Bob Griffin: Post 141 You must be an expert in many fields.
Not really. One doesn’t have to dig very deep into many of these areas of study to run into things that are contrary to the expectations that the young-Earth creationist model would propose. I can give examples if you’re curious.
Bob post 142,
Why are you recommending things to your skeptics that you haven’t yet read and thoroughly researched?
A very risky move, Bob.
I just reviewed the article that you recommended Bob. Smells a little fishy in my undereducated opinion.
I saw accusations revolving around the concept of greed against a few people, but unless I missed them, no compilation of scientific evidences/sources to counter the research on this issue provided by other scientific sources[I'll keep looking though.]. This article also does nothing to help support your stance against evolution, which is far more interesting to me.
And, just like that, it all becomes clear. I’ve been employing the wrong tactic in trying to get at the truth behind anthropogenic global warming.
A recent experiment (article that links to paper) shows that the more facts you show a conservative, the less likely they are to believe you.
So, if reality isn’t the way to convince conservatives, what is?
John You have a point in 145. Been too busy to check it out. What do you and MattF think of Al Gore’s recent purchase??????
People who cherish tranquility over truth might be surprised at how uncomfortable scientific discussions can get. If my impressions are correct — partly colored by discussions here — most people have no idea how spirited and passionate scientists are as they wrestle with ideas, especially if they’re controversial ones. That’s because if any idea is going to survive in the scientific arena, it must survive sustained and concentrated onslaught from scientifically experienced minds. Any flaws, questionable assumptions, and unconsidered angles need to be brought to the surface so that understanding can progress. Of course, it may seem like elitism to say “scientifically experienced minds”, but there is a salient reason I qualify it like this. When people unacquainted with critical scientific thought — or, worse, when people opposed to scientific thought — start attacking, things get much darker and more nefarious. It transforms from an investigation of truth into a witch hunt. Instead of encouraging people to go out there and try to determine what the facts are, it becomes a way to kill curiosity by telling people not to listen to any ideas or points of view except those espoused by the deniers, so that you can be brought alongside to support whatever agenda they want to advance.
This is happening in climatological science to an astounding degree. Let me be plain: the planet is warming up. There is zero doubt about this in the scientific community; the only ongoing debate is about exactly how much is due to which peripheral cause. Anyone telling you differently has an agenda for you to swallow, and one that’s at odds with reality itself.
Some of these people are taking advantage of their power base to get you to accept their lines. Take Virginia State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. This is a man who was so offended by the Virginia state seal that he had the offending parts covered up on lapel pins — apparently, kids were getting traumatized by the sight of nipples or something. He’s turned his attention to climate scientist Michael Mann. The charge is that Mann may have defrauded taxpayers to get the grants he needed to fund his research.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Mann has had to deal with stuff like this; take, for example, the manufactured, substance-free Climategate “controversy”.
To attack someone after they were so recently cleared by an independent panel smacks of politics. This is exactly how to try to prevent scientific research when findings seem to be coming out against a particular anti-reality stance.
Of course, he’s not alone. Enter Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, a politician so steeped in denial that he is not just trying to stop climatological research, he’s looking to criminalize and prosecute more than a dozen climate scientists under the banner of defrauding taxpayers.
Let me be plain again. The scientists being investigated have been formally cleared of all wrongdoing — accusations that were a colossal waste of time in the first place, deeply entrenched in politics and presented without any clear evidence. This is nothing more than a transparent attempt to throw roadblocks in the path of scientific research that yields results that these politicians are unhappy with.
Of course, this won’t stop the media from dancing around the circus. The whole Climategate debacle was vastly overblown as it was, and the exoneration of the scientists involved went by with nary a whisper.
All these attacks do more than waste time, tie up law enforcement and the courts, and consume taxpayer dollars. Grant money is scarcer than hen’s teeth, and getting money to do research can hinge on the respect individual scientists get from other scientists and from the public — which can be harmed by accusations, even when the accusations are baseless and found to be without merit. The lives, reputations, and careers of people trying to determine a rational basis for understanding are at stake, simply because their conclusions run afoul of politicians with too much power and too little regard for the toil involved in trying to understand reality.
It’s one thing for scientists to argue about what’s real, struggling to establish which claims have strong factual basis so that they can find out what is actually going on in order that we can all react intelligently to it. It’s quite another for politicians to waste everyone’s time and money to allow continued support for their particular favored biases.
Bob Griffin: What do you and MattF think of Al Gore’s recent purchase??????
It would be extremely hard for me to care less. I’ve made my opinion about Al Gore clear to you several times already.
I don’t care about what Al Gore does with his money, Bob. He may as well not even exist to me. I’m not saying that I dislike the man, mind you. He just might as well be a fictional character for all the impact he has on my personal life. As for your article, I’m just saying that I’d be much more inclined to give such criticisms serious thought if they were coming from sources like the N.A.S. instead of a bunch of talking heads who look and act like well dressed car salesmen and financial consultants[no offense to any car salesmen or financial consultants who may be reading]whom I have trouble verifying how much scientific credentials they have under thier belts. I’m just suspicious and biased that way[smile].
Now, I know this is old news — I referred to some of it a few weeks ago — but the mud keeps on flying, and news of the exoneration of the climate scientists involved in Climategate is being seriously under-reported, so I’m going to recap.
An independent scientific panel has investigated the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (the scientists implicated in the Climategate “controversy”). This panel has officially cleared them of “any deliberate scientific malpractice”. Moreover, while they took the scientists in question to task for lack of organization and lack of assistance from professional statisticians, they praised the soundness of their overall methodology.
So now we have both a scientific panel and a Parilamentary panel, both of whom have cleared the scientists of wrongdoing and have declared that the CRU scientists are honest. In other words, the cries of fraud from the denialists have been formally found to be without basis. It’s all well and good if they still believe that fraud has occurred, but if they expect to be taken seriously, they’ll have to produce evidence, not just poorly-informed suspicion. (Not that that will stop Cuccinelli or Inhofe from using their political sway or pundits from continuing to clamor about nothing).
Some of the specific conclusions of the panel are enlightening. Some examples:
We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.
As I’ve mentioned several times already, even before these judgments were rendered by the political and scientific panels, a lot of the cause denialists found to suspect foul play were based on misunderstanding of scientific jargon. We see this mirrored in the way anti-evolutionists like to pretend that “theory” means “educated guess” among scientists, as it does in casual conversation. These words in a small handful of emails were exaggerated by the denialists to be indicative of a vast conspiracy or of underhanded tactics; accusations were made before understanding was applied.
A host of important unresolved questions also arises from the application of Freedom of Information legislation in an academic context. We agree with the CRU view that the authority for releasing unpublished raw data to third parties should stay with those who collected it.
While the political investigation called for data to be released more freely, the scientific investigation understood that people unfamiliar with the data will tend to charge in and make accusations and sweeping statements without bothering to try to understand the context of the data. Some people — like scientists — spend their entire professional lives learning how to handle data; saying that they are better equipped to handle it and that most people are not is no more elitist or insulting than saying that brain surgeons are better equipped to handle neurosurgery and that most people are not. There’s a reason why you have to spend decades in some professions getting the hang of what’s going on.
We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians. Indeed there would be mutual benefit if there were closer collaboration and interaction between CRU and a much wider scientific group outside the relatively small international circle of temperature specialists.
I have to agree with this. It doesn’t hurt to consult statisticians in order to gain a better handle on what your data may or may not be telling you. Granted, scientists have to take a lot of statistics as it is, and they may have felt they had a good understanding of what they had. But every little bit helps.
This next bit is so important in terms of accusations from the denialist crowd that I’m going to emphasize it:
We believe that CRU did a public service of great value by carrying out much time-consuming meticulous work on temperature records at a time when it was unfashionable and attracted the interest of a rather small section of the scientific community.
Did you catch that? We’re not talking about a secret organization of corrupt and greedy scientists who are trying to take advantage of the system and bleed the tax coffers dry. They toiled over tedious data, struggling to solve an important problem — and on top of that, when they started all this, they were bucking the establishement. (They’re still not super-popular. Whether you know it or not, the FBI has been investigating death threats that climate scientists have been getting related to their work.)
When they finished, their methods and conclusions were raked over the coals by their fellow scientists. This is normal and expected.
But from the denialists, they got slammed with accusations of fraud — of scientific malpractice, of falsifying results, and of anything else they could cook up on the flimsiest of justifications (a few strange-looking emails). Anyone with a sense of justice, who feels that decent evidence should be brought to bear before allegations as weighty as these are made, who understands that innocence is assumed and guilt proven, would be rightly indignant to know that this whole thing was even an issue.
There’s still one more formal investigation to go, but it’s more about the procedures the scientists followed than whether or not they were dishonest in their handling of the data. Climategate has been soundly shown to be a “controversy” without merit and without basis. I challenge the denialists to give this even a noticeable fraction of the attention they gave to Climategate itself. But given their usual attitudes about working to understand reality, I won’t hold my breath.
It’s worth noting that there are at least two other independent investigations besides these that have cleared the CRU of wrongdoing (by the UK House of Commons and an internal investigation by the UEA). Plus the investigations of Michael Mann I mentioned earlier — three of four charges dropped, the fourth pending investigation but lacking evidence. The National Academy of Sciences has even weighed in to say that the general conclusions of the study that gave rise to the “hockey stick” graph were sound (even if individual claims were more shaky). That wasn’t good enough for the Republican Party, so they put together their own, special, second report (chaired by statistician Eric Wegman); there’s some investigation into that report (there are allegations of plagiarism). Regardless of what you think of these accusations, it’s interesting to note that the report references an anti-science conspiracy theory nutjob who writes about magic magnets and psychic surgery (so we know this report is scientifically responsible, right?). I wish I were kidding about this; it shames me that my government would stoop so low to make their point appear legitimate. In any case, it ought to show just how much reality denialists have to ignore in order to maintain their stance.
Meanwhile, the illegal cracking of an email server has not received much attention. When Sarah Palin’s email was cracked, she went on record to support the maximum prosecution of the offender. She has also gone on record supporting the cracking of the CRU emails. The double standard is palpable; you’d think the media, with its so-called “liberal bias”, would have picked up on that.
(If you’re still convinced that this is more conspiratorial machinations, and that the political panel, the scientific panel, and the other investigations were “in on it”, it’s relevant to ask: What kind of evidence would you accept of their innocence? Is this even remotely balanced by the flimsy evidence you used to accept their guilt? How are the scientists assumed to be guilty for some imagined financial gain and the energy companies assumed to be noble and honorable?)
Under such an atmosphere of suspicion/distrust, NO ONE ANYWHERE would be able to “prove” to such skeptics that their scientific research is sound. You wouldn’t be able to trust anyone except those who were in your own click. Is this one of the main reasons why Young Earth Christian Creationists rely so much on and over emphasize personal theological faith over scientific evidences? I used to think that it was just based upon their fear of becoming a heretic by accepting any scientific evidences that seemed incompatible with one’s literalistic Biblical interpretations[hence the motivation to invent their own version of science, the "Creation Sciences".] ,….but could their anti-science beliefs also be equally based upon the belief that when it appears no one else in the world can be trusted, one can always use faith as a source of solace?
Hey Bob[or anyone else interested], have you read through the newest issue[June 2010]of DISCOVER magazine? There are some things in there that you may find interesting, like for example, scientists discussing the new complications of defining what a “species” is[pgs.52-57], how changing climates helped to shape humanity[pgs.14-15] alternative energy sources, and much more. Each magazine cost about six bucks[you'll have to decide if buying it's worth sacrificing that bucket of fried chicken from KFC], so if you have the spare cash to buy one, then get one and tell me/us what you think[smile]. You can find them within the magazine section of most stores. I got mine yesterday at a Publix.
the infamous “hockey stick” graph – is so bogus that one cannot help but wonder whether it is intentional fraud.
Developed in the late 1990s, while he was at the University of Massachusetts, Mr. Mann’s hockey-stick graph purports to show that average global temperature over the past millennium was stable until the 20th century, when it spiked up, presumably because of human activity. The hockey stick was latched onto by the alarmist community, incorporated into government and United Nations assessments of climate science and held out to the public (particularly by Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth”) as proof that humans were destroying the planet.
But by the mid-2000s the hockey-stick graph was revealed for what it was – pure bunk.
Skeptics first became suspicious because the hockey stick failed to show two well-known periods of dramatic swings in global temperature – the so-called Medieval Optimum and the Little Ice Age. Mr. Mann’s indignant refusal to share his data and methods with skeptics only added fuel to the fire. Eventually, skeptics discovered that the hockey stick’s computer model would produce a hockey-stick graph regardless of what data was input. But it gets worse.
Mr. Mann apparently created the hockey stick by cherry-picking data he liked and deleting data he didn’t like. While the vast majority of the hockey stick is based on temperature data extrapolated from tree rings going back hundreds of years, the tip of the blade (representing the late 20th century) was temperature data taken from thermometers. Beyond the obvious apples-and-oranges problem, Mr. Mann appended the thermometer data to the hockey stick at a point at which the tree-ring data actually shows cooling. This cooling trend data was then deleted. This is what is referred to by the now-famous “Climategate” phrase “Mike’s Nature trick to … hide the decline.”
Oh good grief Bob.
………………………
Why didn’t you provide the name of the source you copied from?
Bob Griffin: Skeptics first became suspicious because the hockey stick failed to show two well-known periods of dramatic swings in global temperature – the so-called Medieval Optimum and the Little Ice Age.
Yeah. And you know what? Climatological scientists have been critical of this, too, even as they support anthropogenic global warming generally. Moreover, there are studies that indicate that the “missing” periods might actually be accurately represented in the graph after all — there is evidence, for example, that the Little Ice Age was caused by a weak Gulf Stream and affected Europe pretty seriously, but the rest of the globe was not nearly as deeply impacted.
However, none of this addresses the point I made earlier — that one can completely discard the “hockey stick” graph as invalid, and it would make no difference whatsoever in the field of data demonstrating anthropogenic global warming. If you want to demonstrate that anthropogenic global warming is bunk, it’s not enough just to stick your fingers in your ears and say, “Nuh-uh”. It’s not enough to spend your energy trying to take down one study when there are thousands, as far back as the nineteenth century, showing consistent results with respect to the matter. You need to show that the conclusions are flawed — not on a case-by-case basis, but in a systematic way across dozens of independent science organizations in dozens of different countries over well more than a hundred years.
What about the graph I linked you to showing data from many different agencies that specifically excluded the “hockey stick” graph, but which still showed the last few decades sticking out rather sharply — even though each temperature reconstruction uses different techniques and different data?
Bob Griffin: Mr. Mann apparently created the hockey stick by cherry-picking data he liked and deleting data he didn’t like.
Which data? Where’s your evidence? Why do we never have more than your say-so and your suspicion to bolster the case that scientific malpractice has occurred? When are your arguments going to rise above the level of playground name-calling and present some empirically-based evidence, Bob?
Bob Griffin: This is what is referred to by the now-famous “Climategate” phrase “Mike’s Nature trick to … hide the decline.”
Not according to the inquests. They reported directly on these phrases, and what they meant. I linked to them and quoted them. Where’s your evidence that he meant what you claim he meant?
John And that would make it more reliable for you?
MattF That depends on what the definition of “is” is.
No, not necessarily Bob. But it will help me to research the source/sources that you went to so that I can make better judgments about how reliable they may be as a source of information.
Of course,… I COULD also just type in the first two paragraphs word for word into the computers address section or U.R.L. section and it will take me strait to your source.
John So you trust the global warmer crooks who have to hide the decline? Last time I heard excuses like they gave was either Bill Clinton speaking or a bunch of 3rd graders trying to get out of a jam.
It’s an interesting sensation to hear an advocate for Young Earth Christian Creationism trying to criticize others as deceitful crooks. Do you know Bob, that after all of our time together debating on the sciences and seeing through the multitude of posts how very bad you are at criticizing scientific data, that it makes the temptation to just believe the opposite of everything you report absolutely fearsome[grin].
What is it about all of the other information provided in, say, the posts of Matt F. which provide data contrary to your view, that lead you to think it all has no merit?
To answer your question, I never said that I trusted them 100%, but all of those scientific organizations and scientists whom you so casually try to broadly label as “global warmer crooks” DO seem to have far more evidences to support their position than the people that you have decided to put YOUR trust in. I’ve got nothing against listening to someone’s minority report, but it helps a lot when such reports are supported by good evidences.
John You and MattF are hilarious. Google anything about world temps and youll get a lot of articles taking both sides – like everything else we discuss here. But as for concrete data, remember your boys LOST theirs.
Oh sometimes I almost wish I had your mentality Mr. Griffin,…how much more pleasant and simple the universe would seem. Why, I’d probably be up to my ears in friends, have myself at least one steady sexual partner too[grin, wink,wink], and maybe even a few kids that I could try raising up to be just like me.
I can only imagine what it must be like to be unable to recognize one’s own failures and shortcomings. But of course were I like that, then I wouldn’t be the awesome person that I am today, nor smart enough to recognize why I am better off than you are in so many ways. I’m glad that you’re so easily amused by our responses, but you see, without being able to support your stance with anything more…Oh forget it.
I may be wrong, but it seeeems that you are incapable of the kind of intellectual growth, honesty, and self awareness that you would need to fully understand anything that I might try and explain to you on such matters. I will however try and share this with you…it doesn’t matter how many websites pop up on the computer, what’s more important is the quality/integrity/honesty/scientific validity of the source that the information is coming from. We have effectively destroyed the credibility of your sources of scientific information be it involving the topic of evolution, geology, weather research, or anything else involving the Natural Sciences/science, and the scientists you have tried to slander. And you are completely unable to recognize this too, apparently[is this why you keep repeating yourself without addressing the flaws in your arguments against such topics that Matt F., Abc's, Chris C., F. L. A., Kash, myself, and others have brought up to you over the years?].
You have a happy, fun, weekend Bob.
Bob
We both know that we can google articles regarding global warming, and read the back and forth political debate from both sides. But, what do we do with this kind of information?
http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/16/nasa-easily-the-hottest-january-and-hottest-jan-april-in-temperature-record/
Bob Griffin: That depends on what the definition of “is” is.
You’ve kind of dodged the question entirely, but thank you for bolstering my stance.
This is not an argument about words. This is an argument about what’s really happening in the world, an argument about data. The fact that you keep trying to turn it into an argument about words shows rather starkly that you don’t have a leg to stand on (as does the fact that, in spite of the fact that when you are asked direct questions, you seem to have a lot of trouble figuring out how to stick to the point). Consider, for example, this:
Bob Griffin: Google anything about world temps and youll get a lot of articles taking both sides – like everything else we discuss here.
It doesn’t matter what people are saying. What matters is what’s actually happening. Where’s your data, Bob?
Bob Griffin: But as for concrete data, remember your boys LOST theirs.
Yes. One group out of dozens lost some of their data in one study out of thousands.
Big deal. If I read you right, your argument has no data and never did, and has constructed a “controversy” out of nothing more than accusation and rumor — rather descpicable when the question is one about the empirical world and can be resolved with careful study and analysis (and, more to the point, cannot be resolved with accusation and rumor).
Let me try to point out why your comparison of Climategate to Clinton’s weaseling is ridiculous.
First of all, the President is not a method of inquiry. He does not have his own special methodology and lingo that need to be interpreted lest people unfamiliar with the methodology and/or vocabulary get the wrong idea about what’s being said through simple miscommunication(*).
Second, Clinton’s accusers had facts — data, in other words — that they could point to in order to determine what actually happened no matter what anyone said after the fact. You have produced no data, Bob, and continue to try to drag this discussion into name-calling.
In other words, your analogy is completely false; it serves as no useful way to compare things and deepen understanding. Your analogy exists merely to state itself, a failed attempt to make it appear that your argument has basis.
Show us the basis of your argument, Bob, and let’s take this discussion out of the playground.
(*) I might also point out that these communications were stolen and reported about by outsiders who were never the intended recipients in the first place, so the miscommunication cannot be seen as a deliberate attempt to mislead in itself.
John The circle is again completed. You think too highly of yourself and remind me to only use the correct “John approved” sites. I did have a good weekend.
ABCS I wont look at that site unless John approves.
MattF The 2 clowns in charge of your religion use 3rd grade terms to hide their lies. They weasel the same as Clinton. An apt comparison. I told you to google the data. You cant do that and find the other side? Maybe you can do like a senator suggested last week and write all the reviews at 6ht grade level so all the non-intellectuals will be able to understand it.
The emails were hacked. Wah wah wah. The fact they were hacked does not change the fact they made you jacked. Thats the fact Jack.
Bob, you totally misunderstand me. It’s not that I think really highly of myself, that’s not it at all.
I just think really poorly of your critical thinking skills, perception of reality, and education. That’s all[toothy grin].
As for Abc’s websites within post #164, by your logic, if that last horribly long, freezing, Winter we had “proves” that “global warming” is a modern myth, then by your logic, wouldn’t the data in that website now “prove” that “global warming” is a fact[smile]?
I am glad that you had a good weekend. I did too.
Bob Griffin: The 2 clowns in charge of your religion
My religion? Demanding empirical evidence before taking accusations of fraud and scientific malpractice seriously, especially after they’ve been exonerated multiple times by independent panels, is a religion?
You live in a seriously weird place, Bob.
Bob Griffin: They weasel the same as Clinton. An apt comparison.
I note with some amusement who’s been weaseling away from demands to produce evidence for their claims in this particular debate.
Bob Griffin: I told you to google the data. You cant do that and find the other side?
Not so far. I already told you. I can find plenty of suspicion and argument and rhetoric supporting your side. Thus far, I haven’t found any data that stands up under scrutiny to support your stance. I hoped that you would have reasons for your stance that were more than repeated accusation, lies, and trickery (remember the story you repeated claiming that Jones denied global warming, when in that very interview he claimed a 0.12C per year rise?).
It is not accusations, pithy sound bites, or emotions that should change a mind, Bob. That role belongs to evidence. I note that you’ve attempted to deflect the need for it again. So what have you got?
Bob Griffin: Maybe you can do like a senator suggested last week and write all the reviews at 6ht grade level so all the non-intellectuals will be able to understand it.
Understanding reality is hard, Bob. Even for the scientists. You have to put in some work, because the real world is subtle, complex, and really different from the way we want or expect. It’s a lot easier to read the reviews than to contextualize the data; you’re picking at the wrong thing, there.
If you want to debate easy things, that’s fine, but you won’t find that in science. Again, I urge you to take this out of the playground.
Bob Griffin: The emails were hacked. Wah wah wah. The fact they were hacked does not change the fact they made you jacked. Thats the fact Jack.
The emails would certainly weaken my position if they showed what you claim they show. Thus far, I have seen no evidence that they do so, no external corroboration of the idea that there was fraud or malpractice afoot. If you have it, please demonstrate it, especially since acceptance of guilt requires evidence.
And, as I’ve said before, arguments are not evidence (if one can call your playground-level jeering evidence).
Bob, you seem to be confusing what you’re doing with skepticism.
See, in science, you have to be skeptical. In other words, you have to examine specific claims one by one, carefully consider the evidence for each, and follow the facts whether they lead to confirmation or refutation of the claim.
You, on the other hand, seem to think that it’s all about collecting websites. You expect people to stake out a position in advance, then set about trying to gather evidence for it by looking for voices who agree with them. In this mindset, the position is more important than the evidence.
(I call it a “mindset” because one runs into this sort of thing in many more subjects than climatology. There are those who insist that the Holocaust did not happen, or that vaccines cause autism, or that HIV does not cause AIDS, and so on.)
One can find websites that support flat taxes and websites that don’t. Political opinions are often the result of opinion, preference, community, personal experience, anecdotes from trusterd sources, and a host of other factors. Disputes are most frequently resolved through political process, not through experiment or observation. People can “agree to disagree” on these matters, even.
But climatology (and science generally) is different. Either the Earth is getting warmer or it is not, regardless of who believes that it is or that it is not, regardless of who argues that it is or that it is not, regardless of which websites insist that it is or that it is not. The question is one about reality, not about our preferences concerning leadership and community; as such, they can be answered with more data and better theory, and these are the only things relevant to a rational position.
Science is not a political or religious ideology. I admit that unless you’re familiar with the process of each — science and ideology — it’s easy to confuse the two because of their superficial similarity. Sometimes the confusion is deliberately created to mire people in arguing about words and about personal accusations when the truth is much easier to arrive at and much more irrefutable.
A good litmus test to find out whether a person is being skeptical or is treating the whole thing like an ideology is to ask what data supports their stance. Thus far, you have supplied precisely none, and have even resorted to the intellectual equivalent of “neener neener neener”. That’s not skepticism; that’s just living in denial, and would be even if your position happened to match the facts.
John I am using the critical thinking skills of the global warmers. When its hot, they say – SEE HOW HOT IT IS, THIS MUST BE GLOBAL WARMING. Then when its cold, they say Cold? Just because its cold you think it must be cooling? Its hard when their logic bites them – then the obfuscation begins.
We had 95 on Saturday and about 70 yesterday. Use the warmer logic and tell me if its warming or cooling.
MattF Im not in denial. I told you to look up the sites. You dont agree with them. Fine. They were exonerated by an independent panel of their own. Science is a religion for the warmers. As past posts have shown, big money is to be made from it.
Bob Griffin: Im not in denial. I told you to look up the sites. You dont agree with them. Fine.
As usual, Bob, you’re missing the point. The issue is not with whom you agree, but why you agree. Since this is an empirical matter, it’s not enough just to agree or just to disagree. This is not the sort of thing that is decided by opinion or preference. That you continue to write and respond as if it is merely a matter of opinion or preference is why I claim you are in denial. Whether or not you happen to agree with me is largely irrelevant.
Bob Griffin: They were exonerated by an independent panel of their own.
Can you show evidence that demonstrates that their conclusions were incorrect? Not just suspicions, but evidence? And even if you’re suspicious of one inquest, what about all the other investigations that turned up nothing?
Bob Griffin: Science is a religion for the warmers.
Again with this — more accusation without evidence. Why do you say that global warming is a religion? What ultimate reality does the fact that the planet is warming up attempt to describe? What morals does it dictate? What observances does it demand? How does it define how we are to behave toward one another? What rituals and sacraments does it observe? What social order does it define? In short, what is it about the idea that Earth is getting hotter that makes it a religion?
Bob Griffin: As past posts have shown, big money is to be made from it.
Well, yes, potentially, but big money is to be made from denying it as well. Even if the truth of the matter had something to do with who stands to profit from it — which it doesn’t — this, by itself, would show absolutely nothing one way or the other.
Hello again Bob[smile].
Bob, we talked about this, why your ideas on what people like me think are inaccurate. Now I’m sorry if my last post to you was a little harsh, but if we seem to keep moving back around in a circle with this topic it’s only because you keep making the same mistakes without learning from them. We can’t seem to help you. Perhaps only you can help you. Good luck.
Bob Griffin: John I am using the critical thinking skills of the global warmers. When its hot, they say – SEE HOW HOT IT IS, THIS MUST BE GLOBAL WARMING. Then when its cold, they say Cold? Just because its cold you think it must be cooling? Its hard when their logic bites them – then the obfuscation begins.
No. You missed something important, the same thing we tell you every time this sort of thing comes up.
Global warming is about the temperature of the planet as a whole. When they point at “how hot it is”, as in abc’s link, they’re indicating the temperature of the planet as a whole. When you tell us how cold it is, you’re telling us how cold it is right where you are, which has virtually nothing to say about the average temperature of the entire planet.
In other words, you’re talking about things that are nigh-irrelevant to the question of global temperature. How am I supposed to understand the average temperature of the entire planet if you’re telling me that it’s particularly chilly in Greensboro? The weather in one spot does not indicate the average of the entire thing. (Does one underperforming student in North Carolina mean that the entire state is above or below the national average?)
Now, if you had evidence that the planet as a whole was cooling, or remaining at the same temperature, we might have something. But you’re not really even talking about global climate at all when you mention local weather. Please stick to the point — unless you have trouble coming up with evidence to support your point, and your entire intent was to try to distract us.
You must not watch the news and read the papers.
John Keep forming the circle.
Still no comment about Mr. Gore’s recent purchase?
‘Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been’
By Marc Morano
A prominent U.S. geologist is urging the world to forget about global warming because global cooling has already begun.
Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook’s warning came in the form of a new scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16, 2010. Dr. Easterbrook is an Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. Easterbrook’s full resume is here.
Dr. Easterbrook joins many other scientists, peer-reviewed research and scientific societies warning of a coming global cooling. Easterbrook is presenting his findings alongside other man-made global warming skeptics at the three day conference in Chicago.
Read the rest at Climate Depot.
Bob Griffin post #178,
You wish, Bob.
post#179,
I beg your pardon?
post #180,
Who cares? Re-read the bottom of MattF.’s post #149 and my post #150[Or were you asking someone else, like poster Abc's?]. Did you forget that we already responded to that?
And as for post #181, for what it’s worth, type into your search and check out the website titled Wonk Room>>REVEALED: Marc Morano’s Pack Of Climate Denial Jokers
Bob, did you look into this Dr, Don Easterbrook before you offered him up to us within your post #181 above? The Geological Society Of America didn’t have anything flattering to say about him when they decided to cancel his endorsements. You can read all about it at the website titled “Climate Realists”.
Bob Griffin: Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook
Remember when we were talking about Jones’ support for global warming that was reported by denialists as being non-support? The confusion was over a line about whether or not approximately one decade’s worth of data is enough to establish a trend to the usually required degree of confidence. It isn’t.
Same thing here.
In any event, it turns out the only way to create a downward trend if you want to start around ten years ago is if you start in 1998, an unusually warm year (due largely to El Nino), as Easterbrook has. If you start in any other year nearby — 1997, say, or 1999 — the “cooling” trend disappears. The fact that the warming trend shows up more reliably and more frequently would seem to indicate that the cooling trend is illusory.
It’s also worth noting that, if you read the PDF attached to the article in question, Dr. Easterbrook repeats a lot of the long-debunked arguments that have attempted to refute global warming — that it can be blamed on solar cycles, that the percentage increase doesn’t make that much of a difference compared to the presence of water vapor, and so on and so on. I can elaborate if you wish. (For example, there has been no change in solar irradiance since 1978, when satellite measurements began. That means that the Sun has not changed over the last thirty years, when temperature change has been the most rapid. This contradicts Easterbrook’s emphasis on the impact of solar maximum. He also gets it wrong that water vapor accounts for most of the greenhouse effect; water in the troposphere is a feedback effect, not a forcing agent, simply because too much water will rain out and not enough will cause evaporation. Of course, once the air warms through other means, the water concentration rises and stays up, giving rise to the feedback.)
But then, to be fair, climatology is not this man’s expertise. He’s obviously very intelligent, but is clearly mistaken.
Bob Griffin: type into your search and check out the website titled Wonk Room
Wow. Of course, as I pointed out, it’s possible to show that he’s clearly off-base even without showing that “join[ing] many other scientists” (as Bob’s article said) was an exaggeration at best and a half-truth at worst.
One key thing to avoid being in denial, Bob, is not to stop looking when you find evidence that you agree with. As I pointed out in posts 27 and 51 in “How Do You Share Your Faith With An Atheist?”, it’s better to start with new findings by asking “Is this evidence they’re handing me true?” rather than jumping straight to “This is evidence that disproves my opponents’ stance”. It means a lot more work, but also means the beginning of an informed stance on scientific matters.
MattF: Bob Griffin: type into your search and check out the website titled Wonk Room
Sorry. That was John. But my point still stands.
You look up a liberal site to debunk my article. Im shocked.
You can come up with opposite conclusions – Im shocked again. Hasnt that been shown in the last 3000 or so posts?
MattF: He also gets it wrong that water vapor accounts for most of the greenhouse effect
It strikes me that this was a pretty rotten phrasing (liable to be abused if removed from context), so let me try to clarify.
Water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere. However, the amount of water vapor varies as a function of temperature; the temperature is not dictated by the amount of water vapor. That’s what’s meant by the idea that water vapor is not a climate forcing, but rather a climate feedback. Extra water vapor is immediately rained out, and if there is a lack of water vapor, water is immediately evaporated from the surface into the air.
On the other hand, carbon dioxide (for example) is considered a climate forcing. It stays in the atmosphere for centuries before natural sinks begin to absorb it. The amount of carbon dioxide is not determined by the temperature; on the contrary, the temperature is (partially) determined by the amount of carbon dioxide.
Put another way, if you (through magic or something) remove all the water vapor from the atmosphere, it gets replaced right away. If you remove all the carbon dioxide from the air, the planet freezes. That’s because even though both play an important role in heat retention, the role each plays with respect to heat retention is completely different — and Dr. Easterbrook’s paper pretends that they are the same.
While there are feedback mechanisms that will take advantage of the extra carbon dioxide and begin to sink it naturally, carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries before this begins to happen. We’re overwhelming the ability of natural sinks to keep up, and our increased dependence on energy as a species threatens to make this worse before it gets better. Hence the measurable increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere recently, and hence the concern.
Bob Griffin: You look up a liberal site to debunk my article. Im shocked.
You can come up with opposite conclusions – Im shocked again. Hasnt that been shown in the last 3000 or so posts?
Yes. But the important key here is not which websites say what, but that it can be shown that your arguments do not match the facts. It is not true that water vapor’s role with respect to heat retention is the same as carbon dioxide’s, which Easterbrook’s paper insists. It is not true that analysis of the last decade is enough to establish within a reasonable confidence interval that the planet is cooling, which Easterbrook’s paper insists. It is not true that measuring trends from 1998 yields results typical of measuring from related years, which Easterbrook’s paper insists.
Yes, we reach opposite conclusions, but what’s important to note is that the evidence to support your conclusions is counterfactual. This is not as simple as reaching two conclusions consistent with the data. This is about your conclusion being stolidly at odds with the data — which you nevertheless continue to insist is valid.
MattF
Same data, different conclusions. Just like fossils and many other things.
Bob Griffin: Same data, different conclusions.
Again, no. As you’ve presented it, your conclusion requires believing things that are untrue (e.g., that water vapor is a climate forcing). This renders your conclusion untrue as well, even assuming you went from premises to conclusion without error.
In other words, you’re not working from the “same data” at all. You’re working from data that is demonstrably false in and of itself, regardless of who happens to be proclaiming it. (Whether it is culled from a “conservative” or a “liberal” website makes as little difference to its wrongness as it would if a statement like “the Earth is flat”, based on falsehoods about the shape of Earth’s shadow during a lunar eclipse, came from a “conservative” or a “liberal” website. Statements based on counterfactual premises like these are wrong no matter who says them.)
Bob Griffin: Just like fossils and many other things.
Yeah. Just like that.
Bob post #167,
Methinks that you have an alternate definition of the word “liberal” to go along with your alternate definition of the word “science”[smile]. I had a hunch that you’d complain about the “Wonk Room” website, that’s why I also provided you with that website “Climate Realists” within my post #183.
After your comments about “John Approved websites” to poster Abc’s within your posts #187 and #188, I thought that you’d appreciate something from a website with conflicting["Bob Griffin Approved"?]views. I thought that that would make the information on Dr.Easterbrook easier for you to accept as being based on fact instead of just providing you with the “liberal” website’s information and letting you try an entertain the fantasy that they had quote mined the information, or made it up, or something. I try and be fair and balance when it comes to these things[smile].
As for your post #190,
Are you kidding or what? We don’t REALLY use the same data….Young Earth Christian Creationists don’t even believe in the existence of over half of the data that evolutionarily scientists have at their disposal. In order to maintain your faith as a young-earther Creationist you have to alter or completely ignore huge amounts of data. And THIS has been clearly shown in the last 3,000 or so posts.
In Bob’s bizarro universe, “liberal” means anything he disagrees with. He defines everything as it relates to his world view. He has no concept of “objective data”. He has proved this over and over again, every time he posts, actually.
KASH!!!
It is good to hear from you again, dear woman[smile].
You and your family all settled in from the big move and getting by o.k.?
Kash Liberal would mean leftist/socialist/Democrat party organizations. Which wacko universe are you talking about? The one were many of you automatically deride anything from sites you disagree with? Guess you forgot about that one.
John Didnt go to Climate Realists. Ill check it out tonite.
Since the original topic of this conversation was more closely related to biology, I find it interesting to point out that Craig Venter and his team may have created the first organism with an artificially synthesized genome. (I say “may” because I haven’t read the relevant papers yet. Here’s something to sink your teeth into, if you like; at first blush, it’s remarkable to see how straightforward this is.)
This isn’t the first totally artificial organism. It’s not the same as making life. It’s stitching together chunks of DNA made to resemble those of other organisms until a strand was made long enough to control a cell’s behavior. It’s remarkable all by itself, and a key step towards being able to make life.
Venter wants to use this technology to create organisms that make new fuels and new vaccines.
I fully expect that this will cause a certain segment of the population to run amok and worry about what happens if this bug breaks loose. But that’s where natural selection comes to our rescue; we know that any newly-created bug is just not going to be able to compete with bugs honing their skills over three and a half billion years. One might as well worry that our understanding and exploitation of gravity means that the Earth is suddenly going to fall into the Sun.
There are also those who will call this “playing God” who surprise me more than the first group. Do they really think that any given scientific finding or experiment is going to surprise God or threaten His territory? (Just how small do you think His territory is?)
Thanks for lighting another candle, Venter. (If you don’t get the reference, read Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World. It’ll do you good.)
Bob Griffin: Which wacko universe are you talking about?
How about the one where people who make stuff up — like the idea that the Sun has increased its output during times when warming was measured in the past thirty years (like Dr. Don Easterbrook’s paper referenced by post #181) — are considered to be working from the “same data” (see post #190) as people who take the time and effort necessary to actually observe what’s happening?
If you have a shred of reality recognition, you have to admit that’s pretty bizarre.
Bob, a key factor of why we disagree with many of the websites that you provide us with is that usually they are filled with misinformation, sometimes even intentionally. You need to understand the “whys” of why your skeptics disagree with you, and the reasons are probably much more complex and serious than you have thus far imagined. Like for example when we evolutionists used to critique the information you, Maz, Paul, or others presented from “Answers In Genesis”/’ “The Institute For Creation Research” you had this fantasy that we were criticizing it just because we were ignorant of the scientific facts, because we just wanted to rebel against the word of God, or my personal favorite[....grin....]because we were all brainwashed[probably starting with our time spent as children within the evil secular school systems, eh?]by an all powerful, global conspiracy of hateful Atheists who KNEW that Young Earth Christian Creationism was true, but were all working hard to hide it all from the world[and were probably working for Satan himself to boot, depending on which source you wished to read this conspiracy theory from. I'm almost wondering why Hollywood hasn't made this idea into a movie yet. Perhaps the targeted audience is too small? Surely they could put enough action scenes, OO7-like spies, and creepy music in it to make it interesting for almost everyone...Hmmmm...]because they had a grudge against God, or something equally silly. But the fact of the matter is that none of these fantasies had anything at all to do with why we disagreed with your Young Earth Creationism[except perhaps for poster Bernie. HE might have had some kind of a grudge/agenda.]but because we discovered that Young Earth Christian Creationism has been proven scientifically false. It’s the same now with your anti-global warming sources. You need to try and learn what it is about them scientifically that we are disagreeing with and not just fly away with the idea that it’s merely based upon political favoritism or deceitful conspiracies.
MattF. post #197,
Wow…..the future prospects for this kind of power are mind boggling.
As a member of the human species I am amazed at how much variety there is between individuals of the same species. For example, here, people like Mr. Venter are creating new life, and in comparison, last Fourth Of July when I was pumping gas into my truck I looked two pumps over to behold a woman trying to light a sparkler with her cigarette while her husband was pumping gas behind her[AAAAAAAH!!!!! And they had young kids with them! WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO BREED?!? THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO NEED HANDLERS! ].
Same species, but completely different.
MattF Glad to know that natural selection will come to my rescue. I am now at peace.
John Speaking of deceitful conspiracies, would the 2 “missing links” from the last year qualify for that honor? Still no thoughtful answers regarding Mr Gores purchase.
Bob Griffin post #201,
Oh[raises one eyebrow in skepticism]?
post #202,
What two “missing links” from last year are you referring to, Bob? Please be specific as it will help us when we investigate.
As for Mr.Gore’s purchases, what is it about my answers that you don’t understand. I believe that I made myself quite clear within the beginning of my post #150.
I……..do…….not……..care……..about……..Al……..Gore.
Bob Griffin: Still no thoughtful answers regarding Mr Gores purchase.
“Still no thoughtful answers”? Seriously?
This from the one who has yet to give any answers at all to questions of Australian biogeography? Who has yet to give any analysis at all to show that “rafting” can account for the distribution of southern beeches, or even any definition at all about what “rafting” is in the first place? Who has yet to give any empricial evidence at all in support of creationism? Who has yet to give any empirical evidence at all for believing that certain climatologists are guilty of fraud and scientific malpractice? Who continues to coyly duck and weave to avoid answering simple questions, like which curricular textbook it was that used known hoaxes as evidence of evolution? Whose only recourse to asking for data is to point at Google and pretend that it must be out there somewhere?
I could go on; there are many more examples. At least these questions have something to do with the topic at hand (creationism or anthropogenic global warming). A particularly extravagant purchase has no such bearing, regardless of who happens to be making it.
You know, Bob, if you were to apply the same rules to yourself as the ones you demand that everyone else adhere to, you might begin to look a little less delusional.
It also doesn’t help that your reaction to thoughtful responses has been to complain that they aren’t written at a sixth-grade level.
John Mr Gore is one of the leaders of your movement. Dont you think his purchase is beyond hypocritical? You really dont know what the 2 lastest purported missing links were?
MattF I did put some textbooks on the site. Go back and find them. Ill see if I can find some evidence somewhere for you.
Bob Griffin: MattF I did put some textbooks on the site.
Eventually, after much pleading and reminding, you did, yes. And when you produced them, they weren’t even the evidence you’d been claiming all along; none of them were an evolutionary textbook that used Nebraska Man as evidence of human evolution, which is what you claimed and what you failed to provide evidence for when asked (pay special attention to post #378, then posts #519 and following) — the only textbook you mentioned shows deep evidence of creationist tampering.
It’s also the case that this is only one place where you’ve been less than forthcoming with information when asked. My point is that this sort of repeated general behavior makes you look hypocritical when you start badgering other people about not providing the kind of answers you want to see.
Bob Griffin: Ill see if I can find some evidence somewhere for you.
‘Kay.
Bob Griffin: Dont you think his purchase is beyond hypocritical?
What relevance has any purchase by anyone to the question of anthropogenic global warming?
The truth or falsehood of the matter does not lie with Al Gore or his actions one way or the other, Bob.
Bob post #205,
“My” movement? I was unaware that I was affiliated with any “movements”. Would you care to elaborate[smile]? As far as Al Gore seeming hypocritical to you, why would I care? He’s a politician, he supposed to look shifty Why don’t youuuuuuuu address the points within MattF.’s post #198?
And I didn’t say that I had no ideas as to what you are referring to in[your usual vague and suspicious manner]your comments about “last years two missing links”, I asked you for the information for two main reasons. First, so that I wouldn’t run the risk of accidentally jumping to the wrong conclusions/assumptions, and secondly, so you could show us that you might understand what you are talking about and why it’s relevant to our discussion, which would be great, because then we might be able to move on with this debate in exciting and enlightening new directions.
I asked you a simple question….what are they?
Don’t YOU know, Bob? If so, if you think that you’ve got something to throw down that will justify your beliefs, then why hold it back???? Just tell it already! Because you know, by acting coy with information like this, it’s reeeeeal easy for me to just assume that you are bluffing or just playing around.
MattF The textbook info is what I said it was. The whole point of the thread was commenting on the radio show that addressed the topics. Why dont you make yourself look a little smarter and LISTEN TO THE RADIO SHOW before making comments. Take any point from the radio show and I will go by the high school and copy the page in question and scan it for you to see.
Cambrian Explosion.
Bob Griffin: The textbook info is what I said it was. The whole point of the thread was commenting on the radio show that addressed the topics.
According to the website that hosts the thread, “Guest host Alex Mcfarland http://www.alexmacfarland.com, President of Southern Evangelical Seminary welcomes Bob Griffin who specializes in using Darwin’s own theory to refute the very idea of evolution.”
Textbooks are not Darwin’s theory. Darwin’s theory is not the theory of evolution as it is currently understood. Neither textbooks nor Darwin’s theory constitute “the very idea of evolution”. If your point was to talk about textbooks, you did not do anything the synopsis of the thread claimed that you would be doing.
So it is you who were not doing what the thread claimed to be about.
In addition, it was you who muddled the “scientific community” as being equivalent to textbook writers (post #192 on the aforementioned page).
It was you who asserted that the textbooks were written by “pro-Darwinists” (post #198 on the aforementioned page), when the textbook you referred us to showed heavy creationist tampering (posts #522 to 530 on the aforementioned page).
It was you who stated, without any proof, that evolutionists agree to allow things to stay in books that they know to be false but prefer to let it stay in because it illustrates the point — that they actually said it (post #207 on the aforementioned page).
So please don’t pretend that you’re talking about what the thread is talking about.
In any event, various icons were not even my point; I did that at length, too, on that very same page. My point is that you’ve been less than straightforward when asked for evidence of your claims; that’s all I mentioned in post #204 on this page, and a casual reading of the page I hyperlinked to should demonstrate that exactly what I said (that “[you] continues to coyly duck and weave to avoid answering simple questions, like which curricular textbook it was that used known hoaxes as evidence of evolution” — look at the amount of time in between question and response, which is especially strange if this was supposed to be your main point!) is true.
Bob Griffin: Cambrian Explosion.
I discussed this on the page I linked to, also — post #545. The Cambrian Explosion is still accepted by evolutionary biologists, but it is not what Wells claims it is.
MattF As I said earlier, listen to the show and then get back to me. The Cambrian Explosion helps prove the evolutionary model. Got it.
John Im disappointed. I would think an intellectual would have no problem coming up with an answer to such an easy question.
Bob Griffin: As I said earlier, listen to the show and then get back to me.
Given your general inability to answer direct questions posed to you on these forums, why should I kowtow to your attempts to be coy and hide your arguments?
If you’re not trying to be coy, why not present your arguments and why you think they still stand?
Bob, Would you please join me at my personal email address and speak with me privately?
MattF We had probably 200 posts where I got accused of things by people WHO HAD NOT LISTENED TO THE SHOW. I would think it very reasonable to have anyone who wants to comment listen to the show and then I will answer questions. Heres one for you:
Fossil Finds Show Cambrian Explosion Getting More Explosive
Casey Luskin
Cephalopods, which include marine mollusks like squid, octopus, and cuttlefish, are now being reported in the Cambrian explosion fossils. As a recent BBC news article reports:
“We go from very simple pre-Cambrian life-forms to something as complex as a cephalopod in the geological blink of an eye, which illustrates just how quickly evolution can produce complexity,” said [evolutionary biologist Martin] Smith.
Keep in mind here that “evolution” is a placeholder term for an as-of-yet uncovered mechanism that produces animals like Cephalopods in a “geological blink of an eye.” Darwin’s Dilemma is not solved by vague appeals “how quickly” evolution can operate.
All this follows on the heels of recent fossil findings that push phylum Bryozoa back into the Cambrian period, and echinoderms back to the early Cambrian.
Isn’t “evolution” amazing?
John Yes. Have the moderator get you my address.
Bob Griffin: Isn’t “evolution” amazing?
Indeed. But I already gave you a report that shows how evolution can produce an eye in just 1829 steps — the “geological blink of an eye” you seem to want (Nilsson and Pelger, “A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve”, Proceedings of the Royal Soceity of London, Biological Sciences, 1994) — and each step provides reproductive advantage. Still busy ignoring it?
Bob Griffin: I would think it very reasonable to have anyone who wants to comment listen to the show and then I will answer questions.
Okay. But what about people who comment on your comments and show them to be misguided?
Bob Griffin: Darwin’s Dilemma is not solved by vague appeals “how quickly” evolution can operate.
Agreed. But neither is it refuted by simple denial that pretends that empirical evidence that evolution can and does work this quickly does not exist.
Bob Griffin: I would think it very reasonable to have anyone who wants to comment listen to the show and then I will answer questions.
Since I can’t seem to refresh my memory at the Archives, do you have a way of making the recording available?
All of this is quite a huge tangent, I must admit, from the simple fact that you don’t answer direct questions (at least not quickly) — which makes your complaint that no one has given you the kind of answers you require seem hypocritical.
Bob post # 215 and #216,
I am always interested to see someone who insists that the Earth is only under 10,000 years old trying to use periods of history that are roughly 500 million years old to support their religious views[grin]. And Casey Luskin won’t help you establish any scientific credibility either, Bob.
For your amusement you can type in and watch “YouTube-Why Do People Laugh At Creationists? (Part 30)”.
I sent the Moderator an email requesting your address, so you shall hear from me just as soon as I receive it, Bob. Thank you for your interest, and I look forward to our future discussions[smile].
Here you go:
Mann is the former UVA professor, whose “hockey stick” temperature chart was used to promote claims that “sudden” and “unprecedented” manmade global warming “threatens” human civilization and Earth itself. The hockey stick was first broken by climatologists Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, who demonstrated that a Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were clearly reflected in historic data across the globe, but redacted by Mann. Analysts Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick later showed that Mann’s computer program generated hockey-stick patterns regardless of what numbers were fed into it – even random telephone numbers; that explained why the global warming and cooling of the last millennium magically disappeared in Mann’s “temperature reconstruction.”
The Climategate emails revealed another deliberate “trick” that Mann used to generate a late twentieth-century temperature jump: he replaced tree ring data with thermometer measurements at the point in his timeline when the tree data no longer fit his climate disaster thesis. During his UVA tenure, he employed other sly statistical tricks to generate a purported, and truly unprecedented, CO2-driven warming of 2-4.5 degrees F per decade (1-2.5 degrees C). That extrapolates to as much as 45 degrees F per century!
Not surprisingly, he refused to share his data, computer codes and methodologies with skeptical scientists. Perhaps worse, Climategate emails indicate that Mann and others conspired to co-opt and corrupt the very scientific process that Carr asserts will ultimately condemn or vindicate them.
This is from the Paul Driessen article of 5/29. Read the whole thing.
MattF Link me to the 1829 steps – I would love to read it. I think I have a recording of the show at home – if I do I will make it available to you.
John Casey Luskin is not John approved? Does he agree with you on 500 million years?
Sorry Bob, but I only take people who talk about history and science seriously when they show that they actually understand and use real history and science to do it, and like you, Mr. Luskin does not.
Did you bother to look up and watch the YouTube video I recommended? Or did you see it and…in your own mind, actually not see anything wrong with anything Mr. Luskin said or did[grin]?
I bet it’s the latter. You see, it doesn’t matter whether or not he would agree with me on the Cambrian period being roughly 500 million years ago, what’s important here is that, like yourself, he won’t agree with real science on just about Anything[What mental gymnastics must you perform on yourself Bob to try and use something from the Paleozoic Era to support your Young Earth/anti-science arguments...but without actually trusting the very science that provided the information on it? I'd like to say that you did it in ignorance, but as you've had ample time and exposure to sources of learning to correct this possibility, it's tempting to deduce that your operating under some form of...willfully-induced psychosis. When the election times come around again, I an toying with the idea of asking you who you're voting for so I can try and vote for their polar opposites[grin].]. Your most flawed criteria/technique for trying to establish the validity of scientific evidences is show to all within your post #138 above.
I have not received your email address from the Moderator yet, in case you were wondering.
John I just checked out Youtube part 30. For only a minute. I agreed with Casey and did not watch the rest. But did you check out the other side? Try some of the Why People Laugh at Evolutionist videos.
I will be voting for the Tea Party or Republican candidate that sounds best. Im sure you will vote for the polar opposite.
If you disagree with 138 you are psychotic.
I had thought that you’d disagree with the video because you’d be unable to accept the truth about Mr. Luskin being caught in his own deceit, but I didn’t think that you’d have the attention span of a child and not even be able to MAKE IT through one single video. What was wrong? Did you have too hard of a time understanding the collage level terminology, or something?
And yes, I have watched some of the videos you mentioned, and I see the same mistakes keep being presented…and usually in a most immature manner as well. The one promoting the movie “Expelled” confuses ambiogenesis and cosmology with evolution, and the one by “Watergaia” edited it’s interviews with the stuttering man to make it look as if he never gives a coherent answer, and makes the mistake[among others]of assuming that brilliant minds can give simple, quick answers on complicated topics. “Watergaia” even admits within the comments below the video that he/she has no understanding of what evolution is. And I see no alternative scientific explanations, only mudslinging, and Christian faith-based arguments and rhetoric.
You actually expect that to beat scientific evidences in a serious debate?
Do you have a favorite video that you would like for me to watch? I promise that I’ll watch it in it’s entirety so that, unlike you, I will be able to have a full understanding of the material/view presented so that I can critique it properly[especially since the Creationists videos have a much shorter running time and the provided information/opinions follow a more simple format.].
“If you disagree with 138 you are psychotic.”
[Snicker]
Do you even know what the word psychotic means?
So, let me see if I understand this………………are you implying that people who have different views on your religion are all psychotic, and,……that claiming this will somehow…help you to denounce scientific evidences? Is this what you are implying?
Gee Bob, that logic is rock-solid….[Grin].
I think I can see why the radio show keeps dragging you back on as it’s “champion” when they have a show involving evolution[toothy grin].
Hello again Fred[smile].
Bob Griffin: The hockey stick was first broken by climatologists Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas
Did you miss above (post #125) where I pointed out that Soon and Baliunas’ paper was fraught with controversy, not least because they failed to support their claims with anything verifiable? That it made half the editorial staff and the chief editor resign in disgust over the idea that something so slovenly and lazy could be published? And that the journal then refused to publish an editorial paper explaining their reasons for leaving, which is now published online and readable by anyone with the conscientiousness to do some homework and find out who’s telling the truth?
Please pay attention, Bob. This paper isn’t proof of anything. It’s poorly written, poorly documented, and certainly doesn’t contain the type of careful reasoning, rigor, or attention to detail that we’ve come to expect from properly researched scientific documents.
Bob Griffin: Analysts Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick later showed that Mann’s computer program generated hockey-stick patterns regardless of what numbers were fed into it
Can you point to these analyses? This claim is rather suspicious, given that later, this same argument bemoans a lack of access to “data, computer codes and methodologies”. Did they just generate this by guessing?
In other words, why isn’t this article contradicting itself?
Bob Griffin: The Climategate emails revealed another deliberate “trick”
This tired, old, long-debunked chestnut never gets old for you, huh?
Again, this specific bit of information has been addressed and exonerated through independent inquiry. I’ve pointed out why these arguments are bogus. Repeating them doesn’t suddenly make them more valid.
And even if it turned out that Mann or his “hockey stick” graph should be completely thrown out, doing so would do nothing to address the multitudes of independent results that corroborate the basic conclusion of anthropogenic global warming. The fact that you keep going back to this one study as if the entire idea is some kind of house of cards supported at just one data point reveals how deeply you misunderstand the issues here, Bob.
Some have used direct measurements. Some have used tree rings. Some have used stalagmites. Some have used corals. Some have used borehole measurements. Some have used ice cores. The consensus shown by many independent studies from many indepenedent sources — far more than my short list here — is what’s important, not whether a particular Bristlecone pine was used correctly in a single study. This is precisely because I understand human error, precisely because I know that humans will (intentionally or not) mislead others.
You, on the other hand, seem to think that playing this one note over and over again, regardless of the evidence of its validity, is support of your stance.
Bob Griffin: Link me to the 1829 steps
Here you go (warning: it’s a PDF).
Note that different starting inputs yield different results. Nevertheless, even being pessimistic about it, they show how one can get from basic light sensitivity to a camera eye in just a few hundred thousand years — also a “geological blink of an eye”.
Fred/John John used the psychotic term first. Did you miss that?
John Yes, psychosis is correct. One definition is ” a loss of contact with reality”. To read a bible passage and infer what you do from it qualifies.
MattF Got to read your 1829 steps. Reminded me of Darwins book with the number of “ifs” and “assumes”. Note – it was all hypothetical. Warning – it proves nothing.
Tipper is leaving Al Gore. Think shes a global warming denier????????
Bob Griffin: Reminded me of Darwins book with the number of “ifs” and “assumes”.
We’ve been over this before. That’s the nature of the literature. Even the global warming stuff and evolutionary biological stuff you like to bash. It’s you who claims to understand exactly what’s going on before looking at the data; science remains speculative, knowing full well that it can’t know everything.
Bob Griffin: Note – it was all hypothetical.
You need to read more carefully. It was littered with examples of real organisms that are typified by various steps. There are also many more real examples to be found by following the references.
Bob Griffin: Warning – it proves nothing.
False. It proves that your arguments are facile, misguided, and wrong. It proves that your claims about the requirements of eye evolution do not match the facts, and are little more than speculation.
Granted, it doesn’t tell you exactly what’s right, but we’ve been over this at length, too. Science can only prove which arguments are wrong; anything that is accepted as “right” is accepted in a provisional sense, the best we have pending more data that will allow us to refine our conclusions.
As I said within the middle of post# 223 above, “…it’s tempting to deduce that you’re operating under some form of…willfully induced psychosis…”.
This is not the same as a direct accusation that you are psychotic, Bob, for it shows that I’m leaving you a tiny bit of room for you to be misunderstood by me, and it was part of an excellent question that I’d love for you to try an answer[grin].
And unlike you, I “infer what I do” without the Christian Bible. I use the most current scientific information, to base my scientific statements on, which of course further helps to render your point invalid. And even if I was psychotic, you’d still have to get off your butt and work to prove that the scientific information was incorrect if you wanted to be taken seriously and prove that you knew what you were talking about, and that I/we don’t. After all, it’s not as if we are just making all of this stuff up ourselves, you know[smile].
We all know how poor your understanding of Darwin’s book is, Bob. Like when you tried claiming that there were chapters in which Darwin raised doubts and questions that you thought he was totally mystified over,….but without noticing that within the very next number of pages Darwin addressed answers to each one of the problems and questions that he had brought up[That is, unless you were just hoping that people would simply take your word for it without checking.] I can provide you with the post numbers in which we covered this in the past within other show sites twice already Bob, if you wish.
John: There were things that Darwin must have had doubts about because he did not know about DNA then so he couldn’t have had answers to all his questions……..they still don’t!!! We are back to the assumptions….probabilities….maybe’s….could have’s…..etc. etc. etc. (Would be interesting to count all those words in Dawkins book….haha). Darwin had lots of doubts about his theory….mmmm….well…..just my little bit of support for Bob here.
Keep going Bob…..but I doubt…(grin)…. whether it will move the evolutionist one bit…..it will just keep the debate toddling on nicely. A pointless task really.
Maz: There were things that Darwin must have had doubts about because he did not know about DNA then so he couldn’t have had answers to all his questions
That’s not the issue. The issue is that Bob said that there were big questions Darwin had, questions that plagued the validity of his theory, that Darwin himself answered a few pages after posing the questions in the first place.
It’s also not the case that one explanation has questions and the other doesn’t — there are plenty of things that young-Earth creationism cannot answer, such as when the influenza A virus was created, or when God created the waters that the Spirit hovered over in Genesis 1:2. What we’re talking about is which explanation is consistent with the observable facts — that is, which can rightly be described as consistent with “real science”. Creationism is not.
Maz: Keep going Bob…..but I doubt…(grin)…. whether it will move the evolutionist one bit…..it will just keep the debate toddling on nicely. A pointless task really.
Yeah. Especially when one side’s response to getting answers to their questions is to stop participating in the conversation entirely. Pointless indeed.
MattF: ”What we’re talking about is which explanation is consistent with the observable facts — that is, which can rightly be described as consistent with “real science”. Creationism is not.”
What ‘observable facts’?! There aren’t any as far as evolution is concerned, it is all built on assumptions and ideas about how life came to be on the earth and how it developed.
Consistent with ”real science”?? Haha. I wonder why you put that in quotation marks?
Creationism is more consistent with what we see in the world today than evolution is.
”For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God (Himself) has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So (men) are without excuse (altogether without any defence or justification), because when they knew and recognised Him as God, they did not honour Him as God or give Him thanks, but instead they became futile and godless in their thinking (with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations) and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools (professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves…..” Romans 1 v 19-22. AMP.
THERE is the evidence for a God Who CREATED by His Power. Can you call millions of years of mutations a ‘handiwork’ of God? Minimise Gods power if you want, but you minimise God Himself too when you do so.
And if I choose to stop debating, that is my freedom to do so, especially when I get ‘foolish reasoning’ and those ’stupid speculations’ put forward from people who should know better!!
Bob: God Bless you!!
Maz: What ‘observable facts’?!
These.
(The link should take you right to post #19 on the page. If not, look there.)
Maz: There aren’t any as far as evolution is concerned, it is all built on assumptions and ideas about how life came to be on the earth and how it developed.
You keep saying that, but repeating it doesn’t make it any more true.
Maz: Consistent with ”real science”?? Haha. I wonder why you put that in quotation marks?
Because creationists insist that creationism is consistent with “real science”, which they define arbitrarily so as to try to leave evolution out. Never mind that evolution fits the characteristics they try to assign — it’s observable (and been directly observed!), it’s repeatable (and been repeated!), it’s measurable (and been measured!), it’s falsifiable (see the link above), and all the rest.
“Real science” is a moniker creationists use to treat science like a smorgasbord, so that they can pick and choose what they like without having to think too hard about things they don’t want to listen to.
I put it in quotes because it’s a nonsense term. Science is science.
Maz: Creationism is more consistent with what we see in the world today than evolution is.
No. Check out the link above.
Maz: For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God (Himself) has shown it to them.
Yes. Such as the evidence that creationism is false. It is plain.
Maz: THERE is the evidence for a God Who CREATED by His Power.
Yes.
Maz: Can you call millions of years of mutations a ‘handiwork’ of God?
Yes. Do you deny that the Universe we observe is marvelous?
Maz: Minimise Gods power if you want, but you minimise God Himself too when you do so.
It is you who calls it a minimization of God’s power.
We’ve been over this. God is infinitely powerful. That said, any method of creation — whether it is the one you advocate or the one I observe — represents an utterly infinitesimal fraction of His power.
I would say it is you who minimizes God’s power by insisting on a method of creation that is not consistent with the facts, then ignoring the facts that are contrary to your position — in spite of the fact that the very passage you quoted says that the facts of the matter are plain.
Maz: And if I choose to stop debating, that is my freedom to do so, especially when I get ‘foolish reasoning’ and those ’stupid speculations’ put forward from people who should know better!!
Yes. It is your right to do so. However, it places your accusations about the pointlessness of the debate in an interesting light. In particular, the fact that you stopped because you didn’t like the answers to your own questions makes it look as if you don’t have much to stand on, and makes your crowing about the pointlessness of the debate look hypocritical.
As with many other things I’ve mentioned along these lines, it’s not that you aren’t free to do as you choose — I am more concerned about what your actions telegraph about the truth or falsehood of your position.
MattF You disagree with sites that you dont go to about warming. Whats new? The eye has over 125 million rods. Were they accounted for in the study? Over 6 million cones? 1 million fibers of the optic nerve? As the saying goes, anything is possible – but is it probable? Your study only shows hypothetical. The study shows eyes in different forms in different animals – but not the continuation of said process from start to finish in 1 animal. Pure conjecture.
Maz Glad youre back to join in the insanity. Just keep thinking endogenous retrovirus. That proves evolution to me.
John Ill check out the rest of the video today. By the way Darwin breath – I am fully aware of Darwins attempts to explain away his doubt. Heres one: CD says” If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. BUT I CAN FIND NO SUCH CASE”. Thats very reassuring coming from a guy who thought a cell was like a blob of jello. Ill use MattFs “1829″ hypothetical study to reassure myself.
Bob Griffin: You disagree with sites that you dont go to about warming. Whats new?
I disagree with the ones you’ve posted because they’re inconsistent with the facts, and fairly easy to demonstrate so. Why is this a bad criterion for rejecting explanations?
Bob Griffin: The eye has over 125 million rods. Were they accounted for in the study? Over 6 million cones? 1 million fibers of the optic nerve?
Yes. Read the paper. Especially section 2. Focus on terms like “spatial resolution” and “spatial frequency”.
You asked for evidence. I practially handed you a paper with the evidence you asked for. Do I have to explain it to you, too?
Bob Griffin: As the saying goes, anything is possible – but is it probable? Your study only shows hypothetical.
Yes. Each step provides survival advantage to the organism in question. And this “hypothetical” estimate is, as the title of the paper indicates, pessimistic. In “real life”, it is likely to proceed much faster than this, since what we actually measure and observe is much more radical.
Bob Griffin: The study shows eyes in different forms in different animals – but not the continuation of said process from start to finish in 1 animal.
That’s because it wouldn’t go from start to finish in one animal, Bob.
You make a statement like this and claim to understand evolution?
Bob Griffin: Pure conjecture.
Conjecture based on evidence, fully consistent with rates and types of change that are directly observed.
Very much unlike the handwaving you did when you expected us to believe that eyes appeared way too early in the fossil record — something you based on nothing more than strange ideas in your head of what could and could not happen.
Bob Griffin: Heres one: CD says” If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. BUT I CAN FIND NO SUCH CASE”.
Do you read for comprehension, Bob?
Here’s what he said, heavily paraphrased: “I can find no organism that could not have arisen through numerous, successive slight modifications. In other words, I can find no case that breaks down my theory.”
He was showing a strength of his theory, not one of its weak points.
You’ve also not mentioned why endogenous retroviruses don’t count as evidence for evolution.
MattF: no organism that could not have arisen
[ahem] “Organ”, obviously.
Bob Griffin: The eye has over 125 million rods. Were they accounted for in the study? Over 6 million cones? 1 million fibers of the optic nerve?
Seriously, Bob. Think for a minute. You ask for evidence. Not only is that evidence delivered, but you come back and ask whether things were accounted for in the study that are described starting on PAGE ONE of the paper referenced.
You miss something that could hardly be more straightforward and obvious in something handed to you, written plainly, clearly, and neatly in black and white, and you expect me to believe that you have anything worth considering in something as complex, subtle, and nuanced as climatology? That you have the slightest clue about what you’re talking about or claiming when it comes to evolution?
Thanks guys. Seriously. Think for a minute. If they are already there, they had to be formed how? Would that be natural selection? Back to ultimate origins again.
I do read for comprehension and understand what bunk Darwin said. He said he could find no such case. Big whoop. ID shows us we are infinitely more complicated than Darwin thought. You believe in the mindless process of natural selection. I dont.
Weve talked about the retrovirii before.
Bob Griffin: If they are already there, they had to be formed how? Would that be natural selection?
If “they” are already there? What is “they”? Eyes?
We’ve discussed this. As soon as you have something capable of making copies of itself, where those copies can be imperfect, you have natural selection. This paper shows in detail how to get from a lack of eyes to eyes.
Bob Griffin: He said he could find no such case. Big whoop. ID shows us we are infinitely more complicated than Darwin thought.
We still have found, as Darwin put it, “no such case” — in spite of ID’s attempts to assert “irreducible complexity”. All of the systems put forth by the ID movement as “irreducibly complex” have turned out not to be so.
If you know of one, though, you stand to present a monumental scientific discovery. Quit holding out on us, Bob.
Bob Griffin: You believe in the mindless process of natural selection. I dont.
I accept what I can observe directly. You deny it. We’ve been here before, too.
I only believe it is “mindless” in the sense that where hurricanes go is “mindless”, or that disease is “mindless”. To understand the process, one need not invoke magic.
But that does not preclude the involvement of God. Evolution is no more atheistic than plumbing is.
Bob Griffin: Weve talked about the retrovirii before.
That’s true. But I don’t remember you ever spelling out why endogenous retroviruses don’t “count” as evidence for evolution.
Heres the first line of your report: Theoretical considerations of the eye design allow us to find routes along which the optical structures of eyes may have evolved.
Bob Griffin: You believe in the mindless process of natural selection. I dont.
Let me be more precise. If you want to disbelieve in some natural process that science has directly observed on the basis of faith or whatever, I can’t say much about that. People are pretty good at coming up with more and more “Yeah, but” reasons to keep claiming the same things as the evidence piles against them(*).
But to turn around and then say that your stance is consistent with science is either deeply mistaken or an outright lie. The facts rather strongly disagree with you.
Bob Griffin: Heres the first line of your report: Theoretical considerations of the eye design allow us to find routes along which the optical structures of eyes may have evolved.
Yes. Very different from “Gee, looks like the appearance of eyes so quickly in the fossil record refutes evolution, because there’s just no way it could have happened so fast”, declared without analysis, basis in fact, or any appeal to anything other than the misbegotten impulse to blindly (ha!) trust what you say.
This model can be accepted until and unless facts indicate that it did not happen that way, since (as their appeal to actual organisms show) it appears to be consistent with what we know so far. Your declarations of impossibility, on the other hand, are not.
(*) I admit that my personal theology rails against calling this “faith”, though, since I believe that faith should be taken in addition to the available facts, not in contradiction to them. As far as I’m concerned, believing in things in spite of the facts is denial, not faith.
Let’s recapitulate this debate to see if I can make it clear what you’re lacking.
You stated that eyes forming as quickly as they appear in the fossil record is impossible, or at the very least, difficult for evolution to explain.
I showed (through someone else’s work) that it is not; eyes can easily form in the amount of time required, using known and directly observed mechanisms and rates of change, fully consistent with actual eyes in organisms.
If your argument is to continue to hold water, you must demonstrate — not just state, but show — that the mechanisms mentioned cannot have operated. “I personally haven’t directly seen every single step described” is not such a demonstration.
This is how science works. If someone has a description about how gravity works, that description is held to be false if it can be shown to be false; or it might be supplanted by a more parsimonious theory that unites the facts more effectively. Denial does not count as a reason to disregard a theory.
It’s not enough, in other words, just to backpedal on your statement of impossibility and state that “it’s only theoretical”. No one’s denying that. If you’re going to assert that it didn’t happen, you need to show why not.
Bob and Maz, in your attempts to criticize Charles Darwin, and by extension, modern science, did you forget all of the times we evolutionists on the website have mentioned to you that modern science has advanced and increased our knowledge to a point well beyond the understanding that Charles Darwin had when he made his books in the late 19th century? As if modern mans understanding of the Natural Sciences hasn’t progressed in over a hundred years? Because that’s the impression that I’m getting when I see you both trying to use the same old arguments against Charles Darwin and modern science.
That’s akin to judging/criticizing the validity of Modern science by trying to[poorly]criticize the works and musing of Galileo Galilei[smile]!
“Darwin breath”, Bob?
Now Bob, if you keep acting childish and calling me names like that, then I’m nnNOT going to wish you a Merry Christmas this year[.....grin.....].
John/MattF: I wrote a whole lot in answer to your post (MattF) and pressed the wrong key!!!! I really can’t be fussed to do it all over again. Your answers just lack any credibility MattF, and you think I don’t stay because you think I havn’t got much to stand on. (HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! You really do make me laugh!!)
Frustration is a word that comes to mind!!
Think what you will, I can’t be wasting my time when someone refuses to see the Truth of the Word of God as clearly written and inspired by Him in the very first chapter.
Bob: Calling MattF ”Darwin breath” makes me chuckle but isn’t really something that enhances our endeavours to help them see the truth. It just gives them more ammunition to fire back at you.
Bob was talking to me Maz[post#241], not MattF.
If you think that Matt F.’s answers[Not his, actually, but "science's" answers,....you know, those branches of learning that you claim to understand and love?]lack credibility, then you are going to have to go further than simply saying so, you are going to have to try and prove it by providing answers that are more scientifically acceptable.
Good luck with that[smile].
Again, attempting to clarify.
Bob, you asserted that formation of eyes in the brief time required in the fossil record is impossible or improbable.
I showed that it is not. Using well-known principles and observed rates and types of change, one can come up with a scenario that matches real-world examples.
No one is contesting that this method is theoretical. But the ease with which such a scenario can be constructed, fully consistent with observation and discovery, indicates that it is not impossible or improbable. In fact, we might expect it; as the paper points out, even positing a grossly pessimistic scenario, camera eyes could have developed independently from scratch more than 1500 times since the early Cambrian.
Changing the rules to “I won’t believe it until I can see every possible step with my own peepers(*)” — or anything else — is known as “moving the goalposts”, and it’s a deeply dishonest debating tactic.
(*) Not that any sane person actually uses this rule for anything they understand in any other field. One doesn’t demand to see the construction of every single chair, for example, before trusting this one with his weight. Humans — and human endeavors, like science — never have the luxury of seeing everything. However, not knowing everything is not equivalent to knowing nothing.
Darwin breath is a take off on Johnny Carson!!!
(OK maz, Ill quit it)
MattF Its all theoretical – theres a big jump to actuality. Just like Darwins theory. And were back to natural selection again.
Another attempt at dodging the responsibility of defending your stance with scientific evidence, Bob? By trying to brush aside all evidence for evolution with the opinion that it’s “all theoretical”?
Until you show that you actually understand what it is that your criticizing, and that you can support your criticisms with valid scientific evidences instead of quotes/book passages used out of context, religious rhetoric, or lies and acts of denial, then you are doomed to ALWAYS give us, as Maz put it, “more ammunition to fire back at you”, no matter what you agree with Maz to stop doing.
I would like to hear from you within the other show topic sites Bob, so I can get a more well rounded understanding of how your mind works.
Maz: you think I don’t stay because you think I havn’t got much to stand on.
Until and unless you can give some fact-based reasons to accept creationism, or fact-based reasons why the obervable data I listed is invalid, I can’t say that you have anything to stand on (other than your narrow interpretation of Scripture, which you have somehow equated with God’s Word itself; trusting your own human fallibility, or those of the teachers you listen to, to this degree is rather unsettling).
Bob Griffin: Its all theoretical – theres a big jump to actuality.
No kidding. This paper only shows that it is not impossible or improbable, as you asserted. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the exact way it happened. The authors tried to account for this by being deliberately pessimistic in their estimates.
Bob Griffin: Just like Darwins theory.
Darwin’s theory is substantially confirmed — more than just about any other theory science enjoys. (Please note the evidences I pointed back to in post #238 in this discussion — every organism, every organ, every genetic sequence, every biological molecule, is a potential falsification of the theory.) If you’re going to reject evolution because it’s a big jump from theory to “acutality”, you might as well reject gravity, or the idea that the Earth moves, or atomic theory, or germ theory.
There comes a point when rejecting a theory simply because proving “actuality” is impossible becomes ridiculous. Denying evolution on that basis is far beyond that point.
Bob Griffin: And were back to natural selection again.
Why not? Isn’t that the driving mechanism behind evolution that’s under discussion here?
Why don’t you think endogenous retroviruses “count” as evidence for evolution, Bob? What’s your explanation for Australian biogeography? What’s your evidence that eye formation is “improbable” by the time it’s found in the fossil record? Are you ever going to answer the dangling questions surrounding issues you brought up as evidence that evolution should not be accepted?
John Tell me why the paper is not theoretical.
MattF were back to the same again. The paper shows that anything is possible – but is it probable or likely? You think yes, i think no. Heres one for you:
Abstract: This paper deals with the fundamental and challenging question of the ultimate origin of genetic information from a thermodynamic perspective. The theory of evolution postulates that random mutations and natural selection can increase genetic information over successive generations. It is often argued from an evolutionary perspective that this does not violate the second law of thermodynamics because it is proposed that the entropy of a non-isolated system could reduce due to energy input from an outside source, especially the sun when considering the earth as a biotic system. By this it is proposed that a particular system can become organised at the expense of an increase in entropy elsewhere. However, whilst this argument works for structures such as snowflakes that are formed by natural forces, it does not work for genetic information because the information system is composed of machinery which requires precise and non-spontaneous raised free energy levels – and crystals like snowflakes have zero free energy as the phase transition occurs. The functional machinery of biological systems such as DNA, RNA and proteins requires that precise, non-spontaneous raised free energies be formed in the molecular bonds which are maintained in a far from equilibrium state. Furthermore, biological structures contain coded instructions which, as is shown in this paper, are not defined by the matter and energy of the molecules carrying this information. Thus, the specified complexity cannot be created by natural forces even in conditions far from equilibrium. The genetic information needed to code for complex structures like proteins actually requires information which organises the natural forces surrounding it and not the other way around – the information is crucially not defined by the material on which it sits. The information system locally requires the free energies of the molecular machinery to be raised in order for the information to be stored. Consequently, the fundamental laws of thermodynamics show that entropy reduction which can occur naturally in non-isolated systems is not a sufficient argument to explain the origin of either biological machinery or genetic information that is inextricably intertwined with it. This paper highlights the distinctive and non-material nature of information and its relationship with matter, energy and natural forces. It is proposed in conclusion that it is the non-material information (transcendent to the matter and energy) that is actually itself constraining the local thermodynamics to be in ordered disequilibrium and with specified raised free energy levels necessary for the molecular and cellular machinery to operate.
Bob Griffin: You think yes, i think no.
This isn’t up to opinion, Bob. It’s things doing what things have been observed to do, extended in logical ways. That removes it from “improbable”.
Suppose we had a ball that had never been dropped. Someone proposed that we should drop it. Given what we have witnessed with dropped balls in the past, is it a matter of opinion to predict that the ball will, with a high degree of probability, fall down?
Bob Griffin: Heres one for you:
I’d have to see the paper, not just the copied-and-pasted abstract. For example, how does Andy McIntosh (or his references) define “specified complexity”(*)? How does he show that biological structures’ “coded instructions” are not defined by the matter/energy of the molecules in the system? (Such a stance would seem to suggest that one could change the molecules in some ways and see no impact on the system using them for instructions.)
There is also no way in which thermodynamics applies to “information”, so I’m skeptical at the gate. But if you could supply a link to the paper, I’m sure I could examine it in much more detail.
Let me see if I can, by analogy, show why you’re completely missing the arguments on various science-related topics, Bob.
Consider Christopher Monckton, a self-professed expert on climate change (he doesn’t believe in it). He has some small notoriety; for example, nearly a year ago, he gave a speech at Bethel University (a small Christian college in Minnesota).
This talk raised the interest and ire of a professor at a different Christian university. He wrote up a rebuttal of Monckton’s claims.
Go read it. What’s most telling here is that pretty much all of the studies Monckton used to support his claims that global warming is nonexistent actually said the exact opposite.
It’s almost as if Monckton had convinced himself of what he wanted the papers to say, and therefore didn’t actually have to comprehend any of them. This isn’t just “he said, she said”; this is one person twisting or ignoring the data to fit preconceived notions, and the other showing why these tactics are dishonest. (One of my favorite, unrelated points was when he tried to talk authoritatively about Pinker without realizing that she’s female.)
This, sadly, has been typical of your use of information thus far, Bob.
(If you’re more interested in Monckton takedowns, you can find something more comprehensive here or here. Even if not, it’s worth reading because it shows why a lot of the classic denialist arguments are bogus, since Monckton uses a lot of those arguments.)
Here’s another link that might be of interest with respect to your repeated Climategate assertions. If David Eyton, a Vice Chairman of BP (and part of the Muir Russell panel directly investigating Climategate), cannot find evidence against his arch-nemesis in climate change, what evidence do you have to bring to the table?
(Suspicions aren’t evidence. Wild speculations about people like me or Al Gore aren’t evidence. Claiming that you don’t believe directly-observed phenomena isn’t evidence.)
(*) It sounds a lot like Dembski’s “complex specified information”, which I’ve already shown is bunk.
Bob Griffin: Tell me why the paper is not theoretical.
That’s your own private criterion, Bob, and is completely irrelevant to the point of the probability of rapid eye formation.
MattF: ”Until and unless you can give some fact-based reasons to accept creationism, or fact-based reasons why the obervable data I listed is invalid, I can’t say that you have anything to stand on (other than your narrow interpretation of Scripture, which you have somehow equated with God’s Word itself; trusting your own human fallibility, or those of the teachers you listen to, to this degree is rather unsettling).”
I could say exactly the same thing to you MattF……there is NO FACT BASED EVIDENCE for EVOLUTION. NONE WHATSOEVER, whatever you try and come up with, it falls short of FACT.
And I’d like anyone to read Genesis 1 and see whether it tells us that God created the Universe and all that is in it in 6 DAYS……..OR IT DOESN’T!!!!
YOU are the one giving it an interpretation that has nothing to do with WHAT IT ACTUALLY SAYS.
Jesus often said, ”IT IS WRITTEN.” Well, IT IS WRITTEN IN GENESIS that GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH IN 6 DAYS…….”evening and morning”……1st DAY, 2nd DAY, 3rd DAY etcetera etcetera…….and if you didn’t understand it then, it tells us again in Exodus 20 v 11, ”In SIX DAYS GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH….”…..that is what our 7 DAY week is based on the 6 DAYS OF CREATION and then 7th DAY OF REST.
If you can’t accept what the Bible clearly teaches then there is nothing else to be said.
Bob: I wonder how MattF and others like him cannot see (ermmmm…..maybe they haven’t evolved the sight to!!!….Chuckle) that if the eye evolved, that at some stages in this so called evolution, the eye would have to ”know” what it was becoming to ”create” the parts that it needs to become an eye in the first place!!!. I mean, the intricacies of the eye are astounding, it’s rods and it’s cones and all that creates vision, even camera technicians cannot create a camera or a lens as sophisticated as the human eye!!!! Yet we are supposed to believe that it JUST happened to evolve from mindless mutations!!!
You have more patients than a thousand saints!!! I’ll see you in Glory one day!! Halleluhah!! Jesus is coming soon!!
Let me see if I can peel apart this mistaken idea about probability being based on opinion. This might be true for a small range of probabilities, but certainly not in this case.
Let’s say that someone says that rolling a number five or a number six on a six-sided die is impossible — or, at the least, improbable.
A paper is produced detailing exactly under what circumstances a six can be said to be rolled. This explanation is completely compatible with what is known about dice; examples are even pulled from the field to demonstrate the power of this explanation. (The paper limits itself to six and never even discusses five — perhaps to show that there are ways to do it that don’t describe the whole range of possibility, perhaps to hedge bets, or perhaps for some other reason. They call it a pessimistic estimate of fulfilling the “five or higher” criterion above.)
The points out that there is time for literally hundreds of die rolls to allow a six to come up.
Now, if the die is rolled once, perhaps getting a five or a six is not that probable.
But if the die is rolled hundreds of times, is it likely that a five or a six will never come up at all?
If someone wants to point out why the paper is flawed, they need to show why the circumstances the paper posits won’t lead to a reading of six on a die. Just saying “we just disagree on whether or not it’s probable” shows a gross misunderstanding of how probability — in particular, independent and repeated trials — works.
The analogy isn’t perfect, but it serves to point out the holes in trying to assert that probability is a matter of opinion in this case.
What I think you mean to say, Bob, is something like this: “I have faith that there is something — though it may be, as yet, undiscovered — that will still make the formation of eyes through natural selection improbable or impossible, and it’s just that the authors of this paper don’t know what it is.” If that’s the case, then you are accepting the idea that eyes cannot be formed by natural selection as an article of faith. And that’s not science.
Maz: I could say exactly the same thing to you MattF……there is NO FACT BASED EVIDENCE for EVOLUTION. NONE WHATSOEVER, whatever you try and come up with, it falls short of FACT.
Except you’d be wrong, as pointed out by the article I linked to in post #238 in this conversation. Unless you can show why those directly-observed facts are invalid. Or, for that matter, why they aren’t facts.
You can say it, sure. But you don’t seem to understand that just saying something doesn’t mean that it’s true. (You could say that there is no fact-based evidence that the Earth moves, but you’d be wrong.)
Maz: And I’d like anyone to read Genesis 1 and see whether it tells us that God created the Universe and all that is in it in 6 DAYS……..OR IT DOESN’T!!!!
Already addressed. I believe the message one comes away with depends on the assumptions with which one approaches the text. (It also depends on whether or not you consider the original Hebrew to be authoritative, I suppose, and whether or not you could consider human translators and interpreters to be mistaken.)
Maz: If you can’t accept what the Bible clearly teaches then there is nothing else to be said.
What about your understanding of Hebrews 4 or Romans 8? You haven’t seen fit to aim your theology at those passages and explain how you can read them as anything but figurative.
Maz: the eye would have to ”know” what it was becoming to ”create” the parts that it needs to become an eye in the first place!!!
No, it wouldn’t. Each stage of the eye’s development represents a survival advantage for the organism. All that has to happen is for the current step to be more adapted than the ones that appear in the common genetic stock.
Does a ball have to “know” where the ground is in order to move under the influence of gravity?
Maz: Yet we are supposed to believe that it JUST happened to evolve from mindless mutations!!!
Not at all. Did you read the paper?
Hello again Bob[smile]. My apologies for not getting back to you sooner, but I spent the afternoon messing around for hours in the nearest Barnes and Nobles bookstore, and looking through books on lesbian lovemaking techniques and hunting for the latest works by Neil Gaiman is waaaaaaaay more important than trying to teach youuuu anything about science[grin].
Post 257,
I guess you missed the point that I was trying to make….and MattF’s too.
Again.
I never said that the paper is not theoretical. Did you actually read through the entire paper? Did you? The whoooooooole thing? Seeing you respond as you did reminds me of when you[and Maz] tried to dismiss the theory of evolution as invalid even though you didn’t[and still don't]even understand what it is, because it has the word “theory” in it, as if that means the same as “unsubstantiated ideas and opinions”.
Science isn’t a form of psychological comfort food, Bob, a “well you feel THAT way about it and I feel THIS way about it because I’m more of a Christian than you are”. Scientific evidences don’t care about how comfortable you are with the answers, how compatible it is with anyone’s religion, it just helps us figure things out and learn about the universe around us. I am a Witch, and as a practitioner of magick I’m always interested in trying to find ways to get away with not having to follow all of those annoying scientific laws[Grin]…so IF you[or Maz]ACTUALLY think that you have ways to prove that centuries of scientific discovery, experiments, and hard thinking has been grossly mistaken about something so well scientifically documented as evolution, then as I said before, stop messing around and share it with us. Do you have ANY idea what kind of encouraging implications proof of creationism would have for someone like me? Suddenly all of those myths/legends, and all the cool things that people like me are supposed to be able to do but actually can’t will seem attainable! Whoopee!!! But…so far…EVERYTHING that you have presented us with to try and disprove science/evolution has been easily debunked with what amounts to a high school or collage-level understanding of science. That combined with your unwillingness to answer questions and accept personal responsibility for your mistakes when they are brought to your attention makes a pretty unflattering testimony for yourself and, to those who don’t know better, religion, Bob.
Post 258,
Where did you copy this interesting article from?
Maz post 261,
I thought you weren’t returning? Glad to see that you changed your mind though[smile].
Um, so,….if your convinced still that there is no evidence for evolution, then….would you please remind me what it is about science that you DO agree with? Because by canceling out anything scientific that seems incompatible with your theological beliefs as being “false”, there’s nothing left for you TO believe in as all of science in connected.
post 262,
We covered all of this before, Maz, and the human eye isn’t as spectacular in design as you probably think. It’s just an alright design FOR US as a species, and not without it’s problems.
I don’t think that Bob has the patience of a Saint, I think he’s just playing around, not trying to learn or teach anyone anything. Why praise him for that?
Reading your words about “mindless mutations” makes me wonder how much you remember about the process of Natural Selection.
MattF: Science is the search for knowledge, it is a way to theories about the world and the things in it. The Theory of evolution is one way of thinking about how the world was made but it does not have any fact based evidence, and certainly no empirical evidence to back it up. You know what ‘empirical’ means don’t you MattF?….. ”derived from or relating to experiment and observation rather than theory”. Did you get that? ”….relating to experiment” (which have not proved evolution) ”and observation” (no one has ever observed blob to Bob……..and finches beaks just don’t do it!!!) ”RATHER THAN THEORY”. So if it doesn’t have any empirical evidence, it is not proved fact, it is still a theory. But I know you don’t agree with the dictionary definition any more than you agree with Genesis 1!!!
MattF: And you then go on to another part of the Bible and think I should interpret it exactly the same way as Genesis 1. You have little understanding (me thinks) that the Bible contains historical narrative, as well as poetry, prophecy, symbolism and figurative speaking within it’s pages, you have to be open to the Spirit to realise which is which. He is the only One that can lead us into ALL Truth. You obviously haven’t got the nack MattF, or you would be able to work it out! (With the Spirits help of course).
MattF:” No, it wouldn’t. Each stage of the eye’s development represents a survival advantage for the organism. All that has to happen is for the current step to be more adapted than the ones that appear in the common genetic stock.”
So how on earth did the creature survive all those millions of years before it could survive with this advantage? And if it could survive without it then what was the use of it being ‘evolved’ so it could survive? (Hum) You see it is all so silly to say that an eye was evolved for survival!!
You have no idea how complex the eye really is or you wouldn’t say such silly things.
And then of course while the eye is being evolved you had the brain to evolve to give understanding to what was seen……a bit too amazing to be purely by evolutionary mutations!! And of course you still had all those other organs being evolved along side them…..just happens they were mutating at the same time so that the eye had eye lids, eye brows, tear ducts and lots of other little things the eye ball itself needs to work properly!! Far too complex to exist without a Designer and a Creator……which is what the evolutionist believes….of course you believe God did it! But why did he let the poor creatures stumble around in darkness for how many millions of years before they could see where they were going?? What kind of a God do you really believe in MattF????
THINK about it.
It’s all very obvious what your problem is, MattF.
Like me, you’re obviously psychotic, which of course renders all of that confirmed scientific information from various esteemed sources… compiled over years by refined research and discovery…by the best minds in the whole world… that you had absolutely nothing to do with and no connection to personally…somehow…invalid.
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself[grin].
About Maz’s post 265,
Maz, the weird guy who believes in monsters, that he has magical powers, and according to you, doesn’t know what’s going on in modern society because he’s isolated in the wilds of Florida, apparently has a better grasp of reality and understanding of science than you do. Does that not seem a little…..disturbing…to you?
Disagree? Then what about an answer to what I said about your post#261 within the lower section of my post 264?
John: What’s all this about ”confirmed scientific evidence”?? Mmmmmm. Yes, it is confirmed in the minds of the evolutionist scientist UNTIL they have to change their THINKING on it and look for another theory!!! They are always having to change their theories John, haven’t you noticed? Or maybe you don’t want to see it? And ”various esteemed sources” do get it wrong you know, they are not infallible!!
And that was what I was saying to start with ”refined research and discovery” means they have created a theory and then had to ‘refine’ it…..in other words CHANGE it!! They are even having to CHANGE their theories about how the solar system was formed and about The Big Bang itself. Or maybe that bit of information has bypassed you.
And I know you can’t help yourself that’s why you NEED GOD!! (Grin….but seriously!)
John: Natural selection is NOT evolution, I’v said that before. That’s why they can breed dogs and cats and produce different varieties in cows and horses…..but not cows to horses or dogs to cats!! Don’t you understand that?
You THINK you have grasped reality John, but you most certainly have not, because the Greatest Reality in this Universe is the One you just won’t allow into your life. THAT is disturbing……and even more so for you if you come to find out the truth when it is too late…..I hope that day never comes for your sake John!
Maz post #290,
Hello again Maz[smile].
Maz, those changes are how scientific knowledge advances and refines itself[unlike Young Earth Christian Creationism which does the opposite by never questioning itself, never testing/falsifying itself, ignoring scientific information that isn't deemed Biblical in nature, and lying about science and those who believe in it.], like for example, how scientists first thought that dinosaurs were all slow, tail-dragging, quadrupeds[for example, investigate the discovery and history of the dinosaur Iguanadon.], and now over a hundred years later, modern Paleontologists have a completely different understanding of these ancient animals. Were mistakes made? Of course!
Does this mean that scientists still may be wrong about some things? Why not? But this does not mean that dinosaurs aren’t real and that scientists are wrong about EVERYTHING involving dinosaurs. Do you believe in dinosaurs, Maz? Why? If you have such a high distrust for the science of forensics that is used to study/reconstruct and improve our understanding of the past,[because we weren't there to observe it happen with our own modern eyeballs, ha ha.]then why would you believe ANYTHING that modern scientists have to say about them? Telling yourself that the dragons in the Bible were actually dinosaurs, and that that’s good enough for you, doesn’t cut it if you want to be taken seriously in scientific circles, Maz. Of course scientific knowledeg changes all the time…that’s because scientists are LEARNING. Just think how crappy the field of modern medicine would be if scientific knowledge remained stagnant. No pacemakers, no skin grafts, No X rays, no vaccinations, no understanding of seizures, no Viagra……[grin].
Think of what the science of Cosmology/Astronomy that you are so fond of would be like.
So why pick on the natural sciences? For your personal religious reasons because you see evolution or evidence of an ancient Universe as a threat or insult to your faith and Deity? If so, then do you realize how fragile your faith looks to others?
post 297,
Oh no? Because the powers of evolution work through it[smile].
Cows to horses and cats to dogs isn’t how evolution works, Maz, and we’ve been over the lesson of genetic drift and how different species come into being before. I must go now, but I shall return later in the evening. Have a good day everyone[smile].
Maz: The Theory of evolution is one way of thinking about how the world was made but it does not have any fact based evidence, and certainly no empirical evidence to back it up. You know what ‘empirical’ means don’t you MattF?….. ”derived from or relating to experiment and observation rather than theory”. Did you get that?
Yes. Every single one of the evidences I pointed to in post #238 was empirical.
Your saying that it is not does not make it so.
Maz: ”….relating to experiment” (which have not proved evolution)
“Proved” in the way a mathematical theorem is proven? Science doesn’t do that. But corroborated by far more experiments than just about any other theory in science, so more “proven” (in the sense of “tried and found true”) than just about anything else science has to say.
Maz: ”and observation” (no one has ever observed blob to Bob……..
Directly? No, of course not. But the indirect evidence is perfectly in line with it (and, by coincidence, perfectly out of line with organisms created specially and individually), and we have directly witnessed all the sorts of changes that would be necessary to go from “blob to Bob”.
It’s much like the forensic case I tried to mention to you earlier. If the corpse shows signs consistent with death by shooting, and these same signs are wildly inconsistent with any other cause of death we can come up with, does it make sense to insist that the victim must have been drowned — especially if none of the positive signs of being drowned (fluid in the lungs, etc.) are apparent?
Maz: So if it doesn’t have any empirical evidence, it is not proved fact, it is still a theory.
But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It has more empirical evidence than just about any other theory science has. It has more directly observed corroboration than just about any other theory science has. You simply refuse to look.
Or are you ready to explain why the empirical evidence pointed to in post #238 doesn’t “count”?
Maz: And you then go on to another part of the Bible and think I should interpret it exactly the same way as Genesis 1. You have little understanding (me thinks) that the Bible contains historical narrative, as well as poetry, prophecy, symbolism and figurative speaking within it’s pages, you have to be open to the Spirit to realise which is which.
You owe me a new irony meter.
Yes, the Bible is full of all these literary forms. But you insist on a particular interpretation of Genesis 1, ignoring other parts of the Bible that can aid you in your understanding, ignoring the empirical evidence all around for anyone with eyes to see.
It is your attempt to understand a particular interpretation of Genesis 1 as a scientific text that I believe to be misguided. After all, wouldn’t I be in just as much error to read passages that claim an unmoving Earth as scientifically based, and that the understanding astronomers and physicists have come to is wrong?
Maz: So how on earth did the creature survive all those millions of years before it could survive with this advantage? And if it could survive without it then what was the use of it being ‘evolved’ so it could survive?
Because survival is not binary; the organism with the next step of adaptation is better equipped to survive than its peers. That’s all there is to it. Once that trait spreads through the population, then the one at the next step will be better adapted than its peers. And so on, until you get camera eyes.
There’s no sense in which “not adapted at all” and “fully adapted” are the only two choices. You only need to be better adapted than your peers to enjoy survival advantage. This is an incremental thing.
Maz: You have no idea how complex the eye really is or you wouldn’t say such silly things.
How is it that you can claim to know what I understand?
You have no idea how adaptation works, and yet you feel fully qualified to comment on it.
I also have to admit some skepticism about your knowledge of the complexity of the eye. You certainly didn’t read about it in the paper, as evidenced by your comments.
Maz: And then of course while the eye is being evolved you had the brain to evolve to give understanding to what was seen
Yes. Read the paper.
Maz: And of course you still had all those other organs being evolved along side them…..just happens they were mutating at the same time so that the eye had eye lids, eye brows, tear ducts and lots of other little things the eye ball itself needs to work properly!!
Yes. Read the paper. The formation of auxiliary organs is mentioned.
Maz: But why did he let the poor creatures stumble around in darkness for how many millions of years before they could see where they were going??
There are many organisms that do not have the sense of sight even now. Is God being cruel to them?
There are many organisms that can see better than we can, and can even sense things that we cannot (e.g., the mantis shrimp can see the polarization of light, a sense we completely lack). Is God allowing us to stumble around because of this missing sense? Is God being deliberately cruel to us?
What about people who are born blind? Is God just spiteful and mean to them?
To steal your phrase, “What kind of a God do you believe in?”
Maz: And ”various esteemed sources” do get it wrong you know, they are not infallible!!
True. But do you know how they know they’re getting it wrong? When the explanations they have don’t match the facts. Sadly, that honesty in the face of the real world doesn’t seem to be good enough for you.
This sort of arguing is reminiscent of Richard Steinberg, a fellow who appeared in Expelled — the claim being that he was fired from a position as editor of a scientific magazine affiliated with the Smithsonian for adhering to Intelligent Design.
He made a stupid math error while trying to explain alternative splicing, and when his error was explained to him, he did it again, demonstrating that he just wasn’t wrapping his head around the concept to begin with. These errors would be forgivable — except that he has been screaming about how alternative splicing represents a serious problem for evolution.
(It also turns out that he was not “fired”. It was an unpaid, volunteer position, and he resigned six months before the article was published (whose publication, it was claimed, got him fired). The Smithsonian renewed his “Research Collaborator” status for another three years even so. There is no evidence of any harm coming to him as a result of this article. But Expelled plays fast and loose with things beneath its notice, like “facts” — it claims, for example, that the paper was about the origin of life, when it was about the Cambrian Explosion, which occurred about three billion years after life got going on this planet.)
You’re making the same arguments that reveal the same flawed understanding over and over again, Maz, making it painfully clear that you have no idea what you’re even trying to refute. You claim that there’s no basis, and make no attempt to even address the basis presented to you. Why should we take your arguments seriously?
Maz: just happens they were mutating at the same time so that the eye had eye lids, eye brows, tear ducts and lots of other little things the eye ball itself needs to work properly!!
Say, Maz, look around at different organisms. Are there working eyeballs without eyelids, eyebrows, or tear ducts?
The eyeball needs these to work properly?
The hilarious thing is that you then used this as a springboard to tell me that I didn’t understand the complexity of the eye. Seems I’m not the one with a misunderstanding about what the eye needs to work.
That said, I still think the paper has some enlightening things to say about things that need to form along with eyeballs to aid their function.
Maz: You know what ‘empirical’ means don’t you MattF?….. ”derived from or relating to experiment and observation rather than theory”.
Let me clarify.
A theory is not empirical.
Evidence for a theory can be empirical. In fact, if it is a scientific theory, it must be empirical.
There are piles of empirical evidence for the theory of evolution, as linked to in post #238 of this discussion. You continue to flatly state that this evidence simply isn’t there, without appeal to different evidences or flaws in reasoning.
These are the actions of someone in denial.
By contrast, there are no empirical evidences for creationism that you have brought to the table. But it’s worse than that; the empirical evidences we do have contradict creationism. These evidences are also linked to in post #238 of this discussion.
Until you can bring some fact-based evidence to the discussion, Maz, your simple denial of the facts in place makes it appear as if you have no basis for your arguments.
MattF You like probability when it comes from your study, but disagree w everything by Dembski or Meyer.
Bob Griffin: Tell me why the paper is not theoretical.
That’s your own private criterion, Bob, and is completely irrelevant to the point of the probability of rapid eye formation.
Just look at that statement and think about it for a while.
Why not put to rest the probability of DNA arising on its own – just show me where that happens.
John Have I been corresponding with a lesbian witch?
Maz MattF can put many probable things to rest if he can just show us in ONE species how an eye forms, instead of pulling from many and making assumptions. Unfortunately he says its too slow for us to see it. I guess we never will. Are going round and round again?
Bob Griffin: You like probability when it comes from your study, but disagree w everything by Dembski or Meyer.
Because they use probability incorrectly. We’ve discussed this.
It’s not just a simple preference for sources. It’s knowing when to multiply and when to add and calling people on the carpet who do it wrong.
Or maybe you’re finally getting around to showing us the derivation of probabilities you’ve quoted, Bob? It’s been years since you cited them, but have never shown us that you know what you’re talking about.
Bob Griffin: Why not put to rest the probability of DNA arising on its own – just show me where that happens.
We’ve discussed this before, too — again, with no response from you. Care to describe the starting conditions?
Bob Griffin: MattF can put many probable things to rest if he can just show us in ONE species how an eye forms, instead of pulling from many and making assumptions.
It wouldn’t form in one species, Bob. You’re placing constraints on the model of eye formation that are not present in the model.
Bob Griffin: Unfortunately he says its too slow for us to see it.
I said no such thing.
MattF I know, my sources arent John approved. I think we have discussed this all before – and you did say its all too slow for us to see. Buts its been a few years and I really dont remember. Are we in an alternate universe?
Bob Griffin: I know, my sources arent John approved.
Whether or not John approves of them is largely irrelevant. The question is whether or not they’re handling the facts at their disposal in a logical manner.
Pretending that low probability is any sort of evidence that something did not occur is a basic logical fallacy.
Pretending that nucleobases are combined in independent trials is a logical fallacy.
Pretending that DNA chains have to form all at once, with no precedent, is a logical fallacy.
Pretending that the first life would have to be as complicated as life we find today is a logical fallacy.
And so on.
Now, give us an argument that doesn’t rest on these fallacies to try to assert itself, and maybe we’ll get somewhere.
Bob Griffin: I think we have discussed this all before – and you did say its all too slow for us to see.
Okay. Cite?
There’s more than enough evidence around without having to appeal to deep time.
Bob post #277,
How would I know? Have you?
Are you talking about meeEEEE???
I hope not, for over the years we have been debating here it has been made quite clear in a multitude of ways and than by more people than myself that I am a man[suppressed smirk].
So what are you talking about? Is this because I mentioned reading books on lesbian lovemaking techniques?
MattF: ”Bob Griffin: Why not put to rest the probability of DNA arising on its own – just show me where that happens.
We’ve discussed this before, too — again, with no response from you. Care to describe the starting conditions?”
Here is Bobs request and your response……which doesn’t say much if anything, as usual. And the ‘’starting conditions” are in Genesis 1 MattF……but then you don’t believe what Genesis 1 actually SAYS.
You believe God ”created”…..or evolved!!!……everything, but what do you really believe by that?
Did God create the Big Bang and then leave it to evolution and ‘natural selection’ (not SUPERnatural??) to slowly and over millions of years create life that we see on earth today?
Or did He actually do the evolving by mutations and changes along the way? But why shouldn’t a Supernatural Omniscient God not create everything supernaturally right at the beginning JUST AS THE BIBLE SAID HE DID?? Why would He not create the eye to do what it was supposed to do for the creature to live a normal life? Would He not create the heart to work as a whole, the lungs so that they could bring oxygen to the brain, the brain to function so that it could interpret what the eye could see? Not one organ in the body can really work properly without the others in place. How does evolution do such an amazing thing…..all on it’s own according to the atheistic evolutionist as they believe there is no Intelligent Consciousness at work……or why on earth would God use such a ‘hit and miss’ way to create everything that lives on this earth? And as I heard the other day…..again…..they still haven’t worked out HOW LIFE CAME TO BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. They say it is impossible that it spontaneously came to be……so they suggested the theory of seeding from another planet by a comet. But where did life originate in the first place? They really DON’T KNOW. Again all they have is their theories and they hang onto them……there are more than one!!……and won’t see the obvious, just as you won’t accept the obvious…..written for us by God in Genesis chapter 1.
John/Bob: #277/#282: This does not really help the discussion here does it?
Maz: Here is Bobs request and your response……which doesn’t say much if anything, as usual.
This only belies your tremendous ignorance of the subject matter. How organic molecules combine depends tremendously on the initial conditions; this, in turn, affects probability quite a lot.
It’s exactly the sort of thing I need to know to answer his question.
Maz: And the ‘’starting conditions” are in Genesis 1 MattF……
Really? I must have missed the descriptions of temperature, pressure, concentrations, sources, drains, and so on. But we’re used to you reading more into the words than is actually there, too, aren’t we?
Maz: but then you don’t believe what Genesis 1 actually SAYS.
False. I don’t believe what you say it says. Not the same thing.
Maz: Did God create the Big Bang and then leave it to evolution and ‘natural selection’ (not SUPERnatural??) to slowly and over millions of years create life that we see on earth today?
Strictly speaking, no. There is no sense in which God “left” anything. God does everything. Things that occur through repeated processes are not somehow “left” to these processes by God in the way a mechanic might start a machine and allow it to run without his direct interference.
Maz: Or did He actually do the evolving by mutations and changes along the way?
The evidence is pretty clear that this is how it was done.
Maz: But why shouldn’t a Supernatural Omniscient God not create everything supernaturally right at the beginning JUST AS THE BIBLE SAID HE DID??
The Bible says nothing about how God created.
Maz: Why would He not create the eye to do what it was supposed to do for the creature to live a normal life?
More on that in a bit.
Maz: Would He not create the heart to work as a whole, the lungs so that they could bring oxygen to the brain, the brain to function so that it could interpret what the eye could see?
No one is asserting that these organs do not do these things. Organisms are adapted to function well in their environment, because detrimental things tend to be weeded out through natural selection.
Maz: Not one organ in the body can really work properly without the others in place.
As they are now, of course not. But organs don’t evolve one at a time. The environment in which organs develop includes pressures from other organs in the organism.
Maz: How does evolution do such an amazing thing…
Natural selection. Did you read the paper?
Maz: why on earth would God use such a ‘hit and miss’ way to create everything that lives on this earth?
Why? I have some ideas, but who really knows? It’s enough that the evidence shows that this is the way it happened; the truth of how it happened is available without having to discern why it is this way.
Maz: And as I heard the other day…..again…..they still haven’t worked out HOW LIFE CAME TO BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
True. Irrelevant to evolution, but true.
Some complete chemical pathways have been worked out, and progress continues to be made. But “we don’t know” should be followed by “what can we explore to find out?”, not “oh, it must have been magic, then”.
If it turns out that it is magic, then the evidence will reveal that. But we don’t know until and unless we look and try out some ideas.
Maz: They say it is impossible that it spontaneously came to be……so they suggested the theory of seeding from another planet by a comet.
This is but one idea among many others. Ideas need to be generated so that, if possible, they can be tested.
Maz: and won’t see the obvious, just as you won’t accept the obvious…..written for us by God in Genesis chapter 1.
-=shrug=- And you won’t accept the obvious as written in creation itself.
I work to understand how the empirical evidence we see can be true and how Genesis 1 can be true — investigating the facts of the world around me and how great theological minds have attempted to dissect a difficult Biblical passage. You’ve decided to cling to a particular (and, relatively speaking, quite recent) understanding of the latter at the expense of completely ignoring the former.
Now, let me return to a previous point. While we’re on the subject of the eye and how wonderful it is, maybe you, Maz, could tell me how creationism explains some of the following things:
In human eyes, all the light receptors are pointing backward, away from the incoming light. This is what we expect from evolution; the eye formed as an outpocket of the brain’s cortex, and even retains the cortex’s layered structure. This arrangement is far from optically optimal; it’s rather like pointing the film away from the picture. It is, however, the easiest way to change a light-sensitive patch into the shape of a cup! So, peculiarly, it’s developmentally optimal.
Also, in human eyes, the “wires” connecting the receptors to the brain lie in front of the image, so any image has to shine through a nest of wiring before it can even be processed.
And yet, in spite of