Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

[Sherlock Holmes]

Over the past thirty, perhaps even forty years, it's become increasingly clear to me how what is sometimes presented as "god vs science" or "creationism vs science" and so on, is actually the root of many of the perceived problems with these two areas of human thought. Because these are presented as contrasting, as alternative ways of interpreting the world, many people just assume that there is an underlying incompatibility.

But there is no incompatibility at all, there never was and the false implication that there is arose quite recently in fact. The vast majority of those who contributed to what we today call the scientific revolution and later the enlightenment, were not atheists - this might surprise some but it is true and should be carefully noted.

The growth of militant atheism (recently spearheaded by the likes of Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens) has seen increasing effort placed on attacking "religion" and discrediting those who might regard "god" and "creation" as intellectually legitimate ideas, by implying that the layman must choose one or the other, you're either an atheist (for science) or a theist (a science "denier").

It is my position that there is no conflict whatsoever, for example God (an intelligent agency not subject to laws) gave rise to the universe (a sophisticated amalgam of material and laws) and we - also intelligent agencies - are gifted by being able to explore, unravel and utilize that creation.

There is nothing that can disprove this view, there is no reason to imply that those who adopt it are deluded, incompetent, poorly educated or any of that, that attitude is a lie and its reinforced at every opportunity in this and many other forums.

[brunumb]

PS - the sentence "Here's how Kent Hovind in critical argument" is grammatically speaking, syntactically invalid, just FYI.

Yes. I noticed that when I went back to the post. So what?

[brunumb]

My answer - after careful consideration of what you've said here, is: Have you stopped beating your wife?

If that's the best you can come up with after "careful consideration" then it is quite clear that you are relying too heavily on the Claytons response.

I wonder to what extent the application of critical thinking skills and greater freedom to express one's personal beliefs can be attributed to the increasing number of people losing their faith in Christianity. Keep teaching it I say.

[brunumb]

Why did you post this video? are you making some kind of proposition? are you trying to emphasize some point?

Yep. And in case you didn't notice, my post was in reply to Bust Nak. It's not all about you. There are others reading these threads too and I think they will get a lot out of that clip.

By the way - I am not a young earth creationist, if you think I am its likely because you were not paying attention, if you want to claim I am then the onus is on you to present evidence that I am, so go ahead, you have all my posts in this thread to pick and choose - show me, show us all where I said I was a young earth creationist?

You are a creationist. The flavour is irrelevant to me.

[Jose Fly]

You'd not fare well in a referred one-on-one in person debate with me Jose, constantly retreating into ad-hominem, you'd never get away with it.

What is it with creationists and trash talking? Again, I'm reminded of the kid at the playground, yelling at the people on the basketball court "I can kick y'all's butt with one hand behind my back! You can't handle my game!" But when it's time for next game, suddenly the kid isn't wearing the right shoes, his mom is calling, he's hungry, the other players would just cheat anyways.....

Grow up SH. Please.

I mean really....if you're really this confident in your position, why are you restricting it to anonymous postings on an obscure Christian message board? Write it all up into a manuscript and submit it to a relevant journal. Anything less than that and you're no different than the trash talking kid at the playground.

[William]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #164]

"What is it with some types of creationists and non-theists, and trash talking?" ftfy

[otseng]

More importantly it also encourages the ignorant to refer to creationists as "pseudoscientists" if they propose a supernatural cause for something.

Moderator Comment

Best not to refer to any group of people as ignorant.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[otseng]

I'll repeat.....grow up. Please.

Moderator Comment

Please avoid making personal comments.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[alexxcJRO]

Well thanks for quoting me, I do appreciate accuracy when discussing science.

Right, so where did you get the idea that God was "tricking" anyone? I certainly did not say it. If one misconstrues something, misinterprets information, that is not the same as "trickery". Everyone who did infer the earth was 6,000 years old will not have been "tricked", why is that do you think?

Sir we have  a myriad of methods of dating which all support each other.
We have biological clocks, radioactive decay clocks, magnetical clocks, geological clocks, ice accumulation clocks.
When one is positing the laws of the universe  coincidently changed in such a way and that the all the clocks coincidently changed in such a way that they support each other showing a false answer: that the earth is young is leaving the real of posibility and getting in the realm of magical thinking which leads to the idea of God manipulating the earth or allowing Satan to manipulate the earth. Which leads to the obvious conclusion of trickery.

Also if one is positing a super Young Earth (6000years old) and one posits accelerated proceses we have 4 billions of years of radioactive decay, 4 billions of years of plate tectonics and continental movements, 4 billions of years of geological mountain building and erosion, 4 billions of years of asteroid impacts, 4 billions of years of volcanic activity all crampped in a very short period of time.
All this would increase heat and radiation so much that would make it impossible for anything to survive or last. Rocks and earth crust would vaporize. All the evidence we have of old earth would dissapear. This also leaves room only to the magical, that God intervined to manipulate the earth or allowed Satan to do so.  Which again leads to the obvious conclusion of trickery.

You can't have it both ways.

[Bust Nak]

Consider:

[pic cropped]

If I connect some of the dots to end up with a wire outline of a car, does that justify the claim that the original set of dots was trace evidence of a genuine prior image of car and not something else entirely?

Not much, but a little bit I guess.

How can we distinguish between that claim and the claim we have a large number of disconnected dots and we merely chose to interpret it as traces of an image of a car?

By coming up with alternative ways of connecting the dots and comparing which way makes the best fit of the dots.

How can we show that the relationships between the dots we choose to connect represent actual historic relationships?

With a time machine? Failing that, the best we can do is do lots of dots connecting and figuring which way is the best way so far, of making sense of the historic dots. Would this a problem for you? It shouldn't be, unless you are treating scientific theories as if they are presented as the one and only absolute truth again, rather than as tentative working models of the universe that they are.

More importantly it also encourages the ignorant to refer to creationists as "pseudoscientists" if they propose a supernatural cause for something.

That's a small price to pay, since it encourages everyone, ignorant or otherwise, to refer to creationists as "pseudoscientists" if they propose a supernatural cause in a scientific context.

All of these creationists contributed to the scientific revolution and are not considered pseudoscientists, historically, creationists actually have a track record of being excellent scientists.

Then what's the problem? Apparently even the ignorant is discerning enough to realise that Faraday isn't automatically a pseudoscientist for thinking God is behind the science, seems like a non-issue to me.

By the way, I am still interested in hearing why an empirically demonstrable entity shouldn't be classified as "natural" simply due to the fact that it is empirically demonstrable; and the distinction between "X being a scientific explanation" and "science reveals X as the explanation."

[Sherlock Holmes]

Where did I say he "validated creationism"? that's a manufactured strawman. I said he was a creationist and he was, case closed.

What case? I guess the only pertinent response should have been "So What?".

So - creationists can make superb scientists - do you find it so hard to admit with such an easily confirmed facts?