Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
zoegirl wrote:No, but what unfortunately what happens is that in the "retelling" in the mainstream media, the research is diluted and people come away with overblown conclusions or oversimplified concepts.
Look at this thread...so much that the mainstream media reported has had to be clarified.
So if you also throw in a bias towards a philosophy with the data, you can see that the major news reports tend towards a support of a worldview, not just reporting the facts.
We all know (or should do) that the mainstream media is swamped with hacks. Fact checking and understatement are not things they're generally credited with
Yes, and when it comes to ancient things, it is all guess work and could very easily be wrong. Highly educated guess work, yes, but it could still very easily be wrong. People "out there" tend to generalize a great deal, like the media, and believe something to be true that is really only a conjecture.
After watching a few really good surprise ending-movies, one would think one would get the point. Things are not always what we think. We all have a worldview, and we see the data through that worldview. In the Darwinistic worldview, everything is seen through that lense and made to fit. But there are people who question it . . . which is good. There is so much we don't know yet, and findings in a 100 years from now will very likely make all that we talk of here obsolete. Yet people want to think it's "fact."
"I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis
cslewislover wrote:Yes, and when it comes to ancient things, it is all guess work and could very easily be wrong. Highly educated guess work, yes, but it could still very easily be wrong. People "out there" tend to generalize a great deal, like the media, and believe something to be true that is really only a conjecture.
After watching a few really good surprise ending-movies, one would think one would get the point. Things are not always what we think. We all have a worldview, and we see the data through that worldview. In the Darwinistic worldview, everything is seen through that lense and made to fit. But there are people who question it . . . which is good. There is so much we don't know yet, and findings in a 100 years from now will very likely make all that we talk of here obsolete. Yet people want to think it's "fact."
The margin for evolutionary theory to be wrong now is just vanishingly small. The fact that after 150 years it has never been falsified combined with the number of correct (and surprising) predictions it made ahead of discoveries should alone be enough to earn it the label of "fact". The end result of evolution (the relationship of all living things) is as evident as the end result of the forces of gravity (stuff falling). The only thing in evolutionary theory that is realistically subject to change now is the mechanisms of change, not the effects that stem from those mechanisms; the same was true of gravity when the theories of Newton and Kepler were trumped by Einstein (although the older theories remained broadly true. In many ways we understand the theory of evolution better than we do that of gravity due to the fact that we have a known and highly plausible mechanism for the observed phemonenon. To deny that evolution is a "fact" (beyond nit-picking the definition of the word) after seeing and understanding the weight of evidence is to dunk your head firmly in the sand.
touchingcloth wrote:
The margin for evolutionary theory to be wrong now is just vanishingly small. The fact that after 150 years it has never been falsified combined with the number of correct (and surprising) predictions it made ahead of discoveries should alone be enough to earn it the label of "fact". The end result of evolution (the relationship of all living things) is as evident as the end result of the forces of gravity (stuff falling). The only thing in evolutionary theory that is realistically subject to change now is the mechanisms of change, not the effects that stem from those mechanisms; the same was true of gravity when the theories of Newton and Kepler were trumped by Einstein (although the older theories remained broadly true. In many ways we understand the theory of evolution better than we do that of gravity due to the fact that we have a known and highly plausible mechanism for the observed phemonenon. To deny that evolution is a "fact" (beyond nit-picking the definition of the word) after seeing and understanding the weight of evidence is to dunk your head firmly in the sand.
I disagree. There are many threads on this subject and I don't intend to repeat everything here.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis
I knew you would answer that way Lim. I find it ironic that your faith in Darwinian evolution is as sure as Kent Hovind's is in young earth creationism. But that's beside the point.
What troubles me is the utter shamelessness with which evolutionists callously slam the door shut on their own peers, the many scientists and philosophers who find serious scientific and philosophical problems with the theory. Actively supporting institutional censureship in what is supposed to be a democratic independent media of opinions from scientists like Francis Collins, Hugh Ross and Fuz Rana, Henry Schaefer, etc... etc... etc... (it is really a long list) in an effort to maintain a political strangehold on all serious inquiry of your theory is not scientific nor desirable to the scientific enterprise.
You and yours operate in the 21st century like the Roman Catholic Church did in medieval Europe. I believe if you had the power to conduct formal inquisitions upon the populace to force recantations of non-evolutionary scientific dissent you would take your "cross" with exactly the same fervor. As it is you are limited to censuring, persecuting, and ruining the careers of your own peers who find a scientific basis to question your ideology.
It's maddening and unacceptable in a free modern society to see this situation but it exists because of people like you.
cslewislover wrote:
I disagree. There are many threads on this subject and I don't intend to repeat everything here.
Disagree with which bit?
With a lot of it, lol. I used to be very interested in this whole subject. My BA is in anthropology (I know, a BA isn't a huge thing), and I was predominantly interested in human evolution. I took more classes involving this than anything else. So while I'm not up-to-date on the subject, I used to be - I used to be highly interested and pretty highly educated in it, reading much more about it in scientific journals than I was required to. I'm not interested like I used to be, but I've "been there." Lol.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis
cslewislover wrote:
I disagree. There are many threads on this subject and I don't intend to repeat everything here.
Disagree with which bit?
With a lot of it, lol. I used to be very interested in this whole subject. My BA is in anthropology (I know, a BA isn't a huge thing), and I was predominantly interested in human evolution. I took more classes involving this than anything else. So while I'm not up-to-date on the subject, I used to be - I used to be highly interested and pretty highly educated in it, reading much more about it in scientific journals than I was required to. I'm not interested like I used to be, but I've "been there." Lol.
Lol OK, but if you at least pulled out specific bits of my post (even with little or no comment on them) then I could think about bits where I may have been mistaken; I'm not a dogmatist, if that's even a word.
touchingcloth wrote:The margin for evolutionary theory to be wrong now is just vanishingly small. The fact that after 150 years it has never been falsified combined with the number of correct (and surprising) predictions it made ahead of discoveries should alone be enough to earn it the label of "fact". The end result of evolution (the relationship of all living things) is as evident as the end result of the forces of gravity (stuff falling). The only thing in evolutionary theory that is realistically subject to change now is the mechanisms of change, not the effects that stem from those mechanisms; the same was true of gravity when the theories of Newton and Kepler were trumped by Einstein (although the older theories remained broadly true. In many ways we understand the theory of evolution better than we do that of gravity due to the fact that we have a known and highly plausible mechanism for the observed phemonenon. To deny that evolution is a "fact" (beyond nit-picking the definition of the word) after seeing and understanding the weight of evidence is to dunk your head firmly in the sand.
Simply saying it is so doesn't make it so. Darwinian evolution is a theory that has never been proven right. Let's turn this around.
The margin for creationism to be wrong now is just vanishingly small. The fact that after millenia it has never been falsified combined with the number of correct (and surprising) predictions it made ahead of discoveries should alone be enough to earn it the label of "fact". The end result of creationism (the universe and life originally being created in some form by a supernatural being) is as evident as the end result of the forces of gravity (stuff falling). The only thing in creationism that is realistically subject to criticism are the changes that occurred after the initial creation events, not the actual creation events themselves; the same was true of gravity when the theories of Newton and Kepler were trumped by Einstein (although the older theories remained broadly true. In many ways we understand creationism better than we do that of gravity due to the fact that we have a known and highly plausible mechanism for the observed phemonenon (e.g. God). To deny that creationism is a "fact" (beyond nit-picking the definition of the word) after seeing and understanding the weight of evidence is to dunk your head firmly in the sand.
Looks about right now.
We took the same classes you did in college. We took the same courses and passed them with A's and B's just like you did. The difference is that we put in the wrench time to question and qualify what we were learning with open minds. We didn't just gulp down what we were told, close our minds, slip into the Neo-Darwinian uniform provided us and start goose stepping against everyone didn't convert over to the faith of Darwinian evolutionary theory.
ageofknowledge wrote:
We took the same classes you did in college. We took the same courses and passed them with A's and B's just like you did. The difference is that we put in the wrench time to question and qualify what we were learning with open minds. We didn't just gulp down what we were told, close our minds, slip into the Neo-Darwinian uniform provided us and start goose stepping against everyone didn't convert over to the faith of Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Science education really isn't very thorough in the UK (at least in the schools I was educated in). I came out of the school system without knowing much at all about evolutionary theory, much less goose-stepping to the tune of Darwin. How's that for an open mind? Thanks for the charicature you've drawn of me though (and for assuming I passed my courses with As and Bs ), it brightened an otherwise dreary Wednesday evening.
On the other hand though, if you have examples of novel and surprising predictions that creationism has made then I'd genuinely (and I mean that sincerely) like to hear them.
ETA: I'd also love to hear any thoughts you have on why some of the predictions made my evolutionary theory aren't important...
On the other hand though, if you have examples of novel and surprising predictions that creationism has made then I'd genuinely (and I mean that sincerely) like to hear them.
Explanation for any new discoveries = "God did it too"
ageofknowledge wrote:
We took the same classes you did in college. We took the same courses and passed them with A's and B's just like you did. The difference is that we put in the wrench time to question and qualify what we were learning with open minds. We didn't just gulp down what we were told, close our minds, slip into the Neo-Darwinian uniform provided us and start goose stepping against everyone didn't convert over to the faith of Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Science education really isn't very thorough in the UK (at least in the schools I was educated in). I came out of the school system without knowing much at all about evolutionary theory, much less goose-stepping to the tune of Darwin. How's that for an open mind? Thanks for the charicature you've drawn of me though (and for assuming I passed my courses with As and Bs ), it brightened an otherwise dreary Wednesday evening.
On the other hand though, if you have examples of novel and surprising predictions that creationism has made then I'd genuinely (and I mean that sincerely) like to hear them.
ETA: I'd also love to hear any thoughts you have on why some of the predictions made my evolutionary theory aren't important...
Here's a new book by a progressive creation oriented organization that networks with scientists all over the globe that fits the bill nicely. Read this and you'll see scientists in many disciplines working together to evaluate creationism and evolution with an emphasis on the predictability:
More Than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation.
You need to read a book like this to understand why scientists around the globe are dissenting more and more on the idea of general evolutionary theory being the best fit. These are NOT young earth creationists who believe the world was created in six (6) solar period "days."
OK - and do you have any validated predictions that creationism has made, or any criticism of the validity of predictions made based on the theory of evolution?
), it brightened an otherwise dreary Wednesday evening.