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lets play " whack a moehle "
Topic Started: Apr 12 2009, 09:34 PM (1,911 Views)
the breeze
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i will post a few scientific reasons for Creation, and the " moehle " can try to disprove them. then i will whack him down with more proof.
Scientific reasons

The arrows point to paraconformities at the Grand Canyon."Many scientific arguments can be used to show that the evidence is more consistent with a recent creation than an old Earth. Some arguments put forward in support of a recent creation simply put an upper limit on the age of the Earth, solar system, or universe, which are inconsistent with an ancient creation."[1] The following is a list of various scientific reasons in no particular order.

1."The old-earth idea was developed historically, not from letting the physical facts speak for themselves but by imposing anti-biblical philosophical assumptions onto the geological observations. See the following [1]..."
2.William R. Corliss is a respected cataloger of scientific anomalies and the science magazine New Scientist had an article which focused on Mr. Corliss's career as a cataloger of scientific anomalies.[2] Mr. Corliss has cataloged scores of anomalies which challenge the old earth geology paradigm.[3]
3."The radiometric dating methods are based on those same naturalistic, uniformitarian, anti-biblical assumptions and there is plenty of published evidence that they do not give valid dates. Besides the RATE research mentioned earlier, consider the well-researched arguments in The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods."[4]
4."The almost complete absence of evidence of erosion or soil layers or the activity of living things (plant roots, burrow marks, etc.) at the upper surface of the various strata (showing that the stratum did not lay there for thousands or millions of years before the next layer was deposited)."[4]
5."Polystrate fossils (usually trees) that cut through more than one layer of rock (even different kinds of rock supposedly deposited over thousands if not millions of years). The trees would have rotted and left no fossil evidence if the deposition rate was that slow."[4]
6."Soft-sediment deformation—that thousands of feet of sedimentary rocks (of various layers) are bent (like a stack of thin pancakes over the edge of a plate), as we see at the mile-deep Kaibab Upwarp in the Grand Canyon. Clearly the whole, mile-deep deposit of various kinds of sediment was still relatively soft and probably wet (not like it is today) when the earthquake occurred that uplifted one part of the series of strata."[4]
7."Many fossils that show (require) very rapid burial and fossilization. For example, soft parts (jellyfish, animal feces, scales and fins of fish) or whole, large, fully-articulated skeletons (e.g., whales or large dinosaurs such as T-Rex) are preserved. Or we find many creatures’ bodies contorted. All this evidence shows that these creatures were buried rapidly (in many cases even buried alive) and fossilized before scavengers, micro-decay organisms and erosional processes could erase the evidence. These are found all over the world and all through the various strata."[4]
8."...distant starlight is no more of a problem for young-earth creationists than it is for big bang proponents..."[4]
9."Paraconformities challenge the old earth uniformitarian geology paradigm."[5]
10.Geomagnetic field decay
"Observations made of the strength of Earth's magnetic field over the last 150 years show that it is decaying, which puts an upper limit on the age of the Earth. If the decay is projected back 20,000 years, the heat produced by the electric current that generates the Earth's magnetic field would have liquefied the Earth. Naturally this would make life impossible. The best model for the Earth's magnetic field and observed data places the age of Earth at 6,000 – 8,700 years."[1]
"The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field ("dipole" and "non-dipole") is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15"[6]
"Presence of magnetic fields around solar system bodies (Mercury, Jupiter's moon Ganymede, Neptune, Uranus) without an obvious internal dynamo. No natural process is known which could sustain a magnetic field around these bodies - their magnetic fields should have decayed out of existence if they ever had any."[7]
11.Pleochroic halos
"Radioactive inclusions in rock often cause concentric spheres of discoloration due to the damage caused by alpha particles as they are emitted by the radioactive substance. Pleochroic halos are the scars of radioactive decay, particularly alpha decay. These scars appear as spheres (rings when views in cross-section) in the rock surrounding a decaying radioactive atom. The size of the halo is a signature of the energy of the emission and therefore the element and isotope involved. Creationists use these halos in several ways to suggest problems with the standard uniformitarian model."[1]
12.Helium diffusion
"One type of nuclear decay is the emission of Helium nuclei known as an alpha emission. Elements like uranium and thorium produce helium in zircons as a by-product of their radioactivity. This helium seeps out of (sic) zircons quickly over a wide range of temperatures. If the zircons really are about 1.5 billion years old (the age which conventional dating gives assuming a constant decay rate), almost all of the helium should have dissipated from the zircons long ago. But there is a significant amount of helium still inside the zircons, showing their ages to be 6000 +/- 2000 years. Accelerated decay must have produced a billion years worth of helium in that short amount of time."[1]
"Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.25 Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newly-measured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.26 This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously."[6]
13.Helioseismology
"The core of the sun produces deuterium from hydrogen fusion at 5 million degrees K. The heat is transferred from the core by convection currents so it could reach surface in days, not a million years. It also leads to an age for the sun based on the deuterium/hydrogen ratio of the local interstellar medium of 6,000-12,857 years."[1]
14.Accelerated Nuclear Decay
"The main assumption of radiometric dating is that the decay rates are constant with time. If the decay rate has varied significantly over time then any date based on radioactive decay is worthless. However, if radioactive decay has been happening for Billions of years then there is insufficient argon diffusion, insufficient lead diffusion, insufficient helium in the air, and too much Helium in Rocks. Recent experiments commissioned by the RATE group indicate that "1.5 billion years" worth of nuclear decay has taken place, but in one or more short periods 4000 - 8000 years ago. This would shrink the alleged 4.5 billion year radioisotope age of the earth to only a few thousand years."[1]
"Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.21 "Squashed" Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale.22 "Orphan" Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply accelerated nuclear decay and very rapid formation of associated minerals."[6]
15.Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
"The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies."[6]
16.Comets.
"According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4"[6]
"The origin of the comets in our solar system is a great mystery from an old universe perspective as they degrade rapidly. While evolutionary astronomers once thought the Oort cloud could account for all comets, the Kuiper belt has been revived to explain their existence."[7]
17.Not enough mud on the sea floor.
"Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago."[6] (some emphasis added, but not all)
"Present erosion rate could produce all the existing ocean sediment in only 15 million years."[7][8]
18.Not enough sodium in the sea.
"Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.10 Calculations11 for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean."[6]
19.Many strata are too tightly bent.
"In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition."[6]
20.Biological material decays too fast.
"Natural radioactivity, mutations, and decay degrade DNA and other biological material rapidly. Measurements of the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA recently forced researchers to revise the age of "mitochondrial Eve" from a theorized 200,000 years down to possibly as low as 6,000 years.17 DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years, yet intact strands of DNA appear to have been recovered from fossils allegedly much older... Bacteria allegedly 250 million years old apparently have been revived with no DNA damage. Soft tissue and blood cells from a dinosaur have astonished experts."[6]
21.Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata.
"With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it... These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old."[6]
22.Not enough Stone Age skeletons.
"Evolutionary anthropologists now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began,28 during which time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten million. All that time they were burying their dead, often with artifacts. By that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies.29 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 200,000 years, so many of the supposed eight billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps only a few hundred years in many areas."[6]
23.Agriculture is too recent.
"The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 185,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.29 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the eight billion people mentioned in item 12 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture for a very short time after the Flood, if at all."[6]
24.History is too short.
"According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 190,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.30 Why would he wait two thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely."[6]
25."Existence of unstable rings around planets like Saturn. Rings are not stable and will not last."[7][9]
26.Recession of the moon from the earth
"The moon is moving away from the earth gradually due to tidal activity. This movement is too fast for the earth-moon system to be 4.6 billion years old."[7][10]
27.Polonium Halos
"Robert Gentry's work showed that the Earth's granite was never in a molten condition, because polonium halos survive only in solid rock and the half-life of polonium is much too short to survive a multimillion-year cooling time. His results seem to indicate that the Earth was created instantaneously, in a cool condition. If true, it is clear evidence for creation and a young earth."[7]
28.Human population growth
"If humans had been around more than a few thousand years, they would have populated the earth more quickly."[7][11]
29.Rapid Oil Formation
"It has been claimed that oil was formed over 100 millions of years from organic remains, but recent experiments have shown that oil can be produced under the right conditions in a matter of minutes."[7]
"Experiments by the U.S. Bureau of mines showed that petroleum (oil) can be produced from organic material in only 20 minutes."[7][12]
"British scientists claimed to have invented a way to turn household garbage into oil suitable for home heating or power plant use. 'We are doing in 10 minutes what it has taken nature 150 million years to do', said Noel McAuliffe of Manchester University..."[7][13]
"Bottom line - Economic accumulations of oil and gas can be generated in thousands of years in sedimentary basins that have experienced hot fluid flow for similar durations."[7][14]
30.Rapid Wood Petrification
"Petrified wood was believed to required thousands or even millions of years, but a US patent now exists that is able to produce petrified wood rapidly."[7]
"A mineralized sodium silicate solution for the application to wood has a composition causing it to penetrate the wood and jell within the wood so as to give the wood the non-burning characteristics of petrified wood."[7][15]
31.Tree rings
"Tree rings, including rings on petrified forest trees, can't be traced back more than some thousands of years."[7][16]
32.Only recently known civilizations
"Earliest known civilizations are only a few thousand years old."[7][17]
33.Niagara falls
"Erosion of the system indicates it is only a few thousand years old."[7][18]
34.Mississippi river delta
"Erosion rate and amount of sediment accumulated indicate that it is only a few thousand years old."[7][19]
35.Lack of equilibrium of Carbon-14/Carbon-12 ratio
"This ratio should reach equilibrium in the atmosphere in only some thousands of years, but it hasn't reached that point yet."[7][20]
36.Erosion rate of the continents
"Continental mass divided by erosion rate would wash all the continents into the ocean in about 14 million years."[7][21]
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We've been playing this for a long time already, breeze. The only twist you now propose is to prove scientifically Creationism.

As you already know, science doesn't prove things. That's math, maybe philosophy.

As you already know, to play the game of science, you must provide a hypothesis that is falsifiable.

But do go ahead....
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ngc1514
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Ya know, Breezy, it's amazing that your answer to someone laughing at you for posting material you don't understand in the least is to post MORE material you don't understand in the least!

Every one of those Creationist lies has been thoroughly refuted and shown both how and why they are wrong. That the creationists keep pointing to this same list year after year, posting after posting shows not the strength of creationism, but the futility and the LIES of its believers.

Lying is listed among the 10 Really Good Ideas Moses supposedly brought down from the mountain. Something about false witness, if I remember correctly.

But, I know you'll ignore this (too bad willful ignorance wasn't among the Big 10) and post even more stuff you don't understand at all.

Looks more like unholy desperation than edification to me.

If you'd like to go through the list and see what science has to say about each one of those points, I'd be happy to do so with you.

But you won't.
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the breeze
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Debate:Creationist
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The word "creationist" is often used to express bigotry, which itself is a reason to discourage use of it. But the term is also misleading because:

it implies that either one is or is not a creationist, when in fact many lack a clearcut opinion
it implies that anyone who believes in creation is a creationist, when in fact the term doesn't mean that
it implies that it is a belief system rather than a logical and scientific conclusion
I suggest that Conservapedia stop using the term except where absolutely necessary.--Aschlafly 21:11, 26 December 2007 (EST)

Perhaps we should refer to them as cdesign proponentsists. SusanIvanova 22:24, 26 December 2007 (EST)

Hm, is this based on TerryH's quasi-essay? (I admit I didn't have a chance yet to read it completely, but I read over it.) My main questions are these:
Considering that "creationist" means (quoting Terry's definition) "one believing, and willing to defend the belief, that God created the world, life on it, and mankind", I don't see that much room for anything aside from "Yes" or "No". Maybe Old Earth Creationists might fall into a sort of grey zone (did I mention that I'm no expert in this field?)...?
What else does it mean? Or are you pointing at the other creation accounts here?
Since it's mildly related, what is your view of evolution? Is it logic and science (however flawed) or a pure belief system? If the former, we should also eliminate "evolutionist" references since the problem can be mirrored 1:1, I think. If the latter, it would identify Conservapedia as a Creationist site since we'd take an official position on the issue ("Creationism is science, Evolutionism isn't."). I'm really not trying to open this particular can of worms here, but your comment made me think, and I think this would be a good time to clarify the implications of your suggestion, if just to the new guy. *handwave* :P
And about stopping to use it... what should we replace it with? I believe people use "Creationist" because it is widely understood both by [people who believe that God created the world and all life on it, now formerly known as Creationists] and those who suggest that evolution is the key. I haven't looked at the articles here, but I assume it would be somewhat tedious and clumsy to replace occurrances of "Creationist" with a definition that has the same information value.
Then again, it's possible that I'm just misreading things. I hope my questions show where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to argue; I just wish to understand your position better so I can stick to the new rule. And please keep in mind that I haven't fully read Terry's post due to time constraints (and my next online phase will most likely fall into the night-time restriction zone, so I couldn't post my thoughts until in 12 hours or so). I think I noticed "Creation apologist" as a suggested alternative, but I think that term needs more explanation than "Creationist" does.
I hope this comes over the way I intended it to do: As a request for clarification since this is a complex issue, and not as a stubborn newbie barking up the wrong tree :P --JakeC 22:35, 26 December 2007 (EST)
"it implies that either one is or is not a creationist, when in fact many lack a clearcut opinion": That comment could be made about almost any label that you attach to people, including "liberal" and "conservative".
"it implies that anyone who believes in creation is a creationist, when in fact the term doesn't mean that": I believe that it does mean that. What do you think it means?
"it implies that it is a belief system rather than a logical and scientific conclusion": That's the objection that evolutionists have with the word "evolutionist", but the point is that it is a belief, and it's not really scientific (just as evolution is not scientific) because it is dealing with unique past events that are outside the realm of scientific investigation.
I'm quite happy with the term, and it's used quite readily by, umm, creationists.
Philip J. Rayment 06:58, 27 December 2007 (EST)
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It's already been done, many times over. Most of these arguments first appeared right after Darwin published Origins, and have been repeated ad nauseum under different disguises, most recently ID.

Here are refutations to everything Creationism claims: An Index to Creationist Claims
Quote:
 
Creationist claims are numerous and varied, so it is often difficult to track down information on any given claim. Plus, creationists constantly come up with new claims which need addressing. This site attempts, as much as possible, to make it easy to find rebuttals and references from the scientific community to any and all of the various creationist claims. It is updated frequently; see the What's New page for the latest changes.

Since most creationism is folklore, the claims are organized in an outline format following that of Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. Sections CA through CG deal with claims against conventional science, and sections CH through CJ contain claims about creationism itself....


Since even that index admits Creationists sometimes come up with a new argument, the challenge to you, Breeze, will be to find one not already listed in the index--of course that would mean you'd have to read what you paste and its already established counterarguments.

You'd have to transcend whack-a-mole.
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the breeze
Apr 13 2009, 12:04 AM
Debate:Creationist
From Conservapedia
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The word "creationist" is often used to express bigotry, which itself is a reason to discourage use of it. But the term is also misleading because:

it implies that either one is or is not a creationist, when in fact many lack a clearcut opinion
it implies that anyone who believes in creation is a creationist, when in fact the term doesn't mean that
it implies that it is a belief system rather than a logical and scientific conclusion
I suggest that Conservapedia stop using the term except where absolutely necessary.--Aschlafly 21:11, 26 December 2007 (EST)

Perhaps we should refer to them as cdesign proponentsists. SusanIvanova 22:24, 26 December 2007 (EST)

Hm, is this based on TerryH's quasi-essay? (I admit I didn't have a chance yet to read it completely, but I read over it.) My main questions are these:
Considering that "creationist" means (quoting Terry's definition) "one believing, and willing to defend the belief, that God created the world, life on it, and mankind", I don't see that much room for anything aside from "Yes" or "No". Maybe Old Earth Creationists might fall into a sort of grey zone (did I mention that I'm no expert in this field?)...?
What else does it mean? Or are you pointing at the other creation accounts here?
Since it's mildly related, what is your view of evolution? Is it logic and science (however flawed) or a pure belief system? If the former, we should also eliminate "evolutionist" references since the problem can be mirrored 1:1, I think. If the latter, it would identify Conservapedia as a Creationist site since we'd take an official position on the issue ("Creationism is science, Evolutionism isn't."). I'm really not trying to open this particular can of worms here, but your comment made me think, and I think this would be a good time to clarify the implications of your suggestion, if just to the new guy. *handwave* :P
And about stopping to use it... what should we replace it with? I believe people use "Creationist" because it is widely understood both by [people who believe that God created the world and all life on it, now formerly known as Creationists] and those who suggest that evolution is the key. I haven't looked at the articles here, but I assume it would be somewhat tedious and clumsy to replace occurrances of "Creationist" with a definition that has the same information value.
Then again, it's possible that I'm just misreading things. I hope my questions show where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to argue; I just wish to understand your position better so I can stick to the new rule. And please keep in mind that I haven't fully read Terry's post due to time constraints (and my next online phase will most likely fall into the night-time restriction zone, so I couldn't post my thoughts until in 12 hours or so). I think I noticed "Creation apologist" as a suggested alternative, but I think that term needs more explanation than "Creationist" does.
I hope this comes over the way I intended it to do: As a request for clarification since this is a complex issue, and not as a stubborn newbie barking up the wrong tree :P --JakeC 22:35, 26 December 2007 (EST)
"it implies that either one is or is not a creationist, when in fact many lack a clearcut opinion": That comment could be made about almost any label that you attach to people, including "liberal" and "conservative".
"it implies that anyone who believes in creation is a creationist, when in fact the term doesn't mean that": I believe that it does mean that. What do you think it means?
"it implies that it is a belief system rather than a logical and scientific conclusion": That's the objection that evolutionists have with the word "evolutionist", but the point is that it is a belief, and it's not really scientific (just as evolution is not scientific) because it is dealing with unique past events that are outside the realm of scientific investigation.
I'm quite happy with the term, and it's used quite readily by, umm, creationists.
Philip J. Rayment 06:58, 27 December 2007 (EST)
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Gong!

Definitions are not falsifiable hypotheses. You're the one said you wanted to play a game involving the scientific nature of Creationism. Don't you know the difference?
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SO back to breeze's initial topic, is creationism scientific? Short answer, no, not at all. Long answer: Is Creationism Science? Creationists Claim that Creationism is Scientific
Quote:
 
What are the Criteria of Science?:

Science is:


  • Consistent (internally & externally)
  • Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations)
  • Useful (describes & explains observed phenomena)
  • Empirically Testable & Falsifiable
  • Based upon Controlled, Repeated Experiments
    Correctable & Dynamic (changes are made as new data is discovered)
  • Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have & more)
  • Tentative (admits it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

Is Creationism logically consistent?:
Creationism is usually internally consistent and logical within the religious framework in which it operates. The major problem with its consistency is that creationism has no defined boundaries: there is no clear way to say that any particular piece of data is relevant or not to the task verifying or falsifying creationism. When you deal with the non-understood supernatural, anything is possible; one consequence of this is that no tests for creationism can really be said to matter.

Is Creationism parsimonious?:

No. Creationism fails the test of Occam’s razor because adding supernatural entities to the equation when they are not strictly necessary to explain events violates the principle of parsimony. This principle is important because it is so easy for extraneous ideas to slip into theories, ultimately confusing the issue. The simplest explanation may not always be the most accurate, but it is preferable unless very good reasons are offered.

Is Creationism useful?:

To be “useful” in science means that a theory explains and describes natural phenomena, but creationism is not able to explain and describe events in nature. For example, creationism cannot explain why genetic changes are limited to microevolution within species and don’t become macroevolution. A true explanation expands our knowledge and understanding of events, but saying that “God did it” in some mysterious and miraculous way for unknown reasons fails in this.

Is Creationism empirically testable?:

No, creationism is not testable because creationism violates a basic premise of science, naturalism. Creationism relies on supernatural entities which are not only not testable, but are not even describable. Creationism provides no model that can be used for making predictions, it provides no scientific problems for scientists to work on, and does not provide a paradigm for solving other problems unless you consider “God did it” to be a satisfactory explanation for everything.

Is Creationism based upon controlled, repeatable experiments?:

No experiments have ever been performed that either demonstrate the truth of Creationism or suggest that evolutionary theory is fundamentally flawed. Creationism did not originate out of a series of experiments that produced anomalous results, something that has occurred in science. Creationism has, instead, developed out of the religious beliefs of fundamentalist and evangelical Christians in America. Leading Creationists have always been open about this fact.

Is Creationism correctable?:

No. Creationism professes to be the absolute Truth, not a provisional assessment of data which can change when new information is discovered. When you believe that you already have the Truth, there is no possibility of future correction and no reason to look for more data. The only real changes which have occurred in the creationist movement is to try and push the biblical arguments further and further into the background in order to make creationism look more and more scientific.

Is Creationism progressive?:

In a sense creationism could be considered progressive if you say “God did it” to explain all previous data as well as previously unexplainable data, but this renders the idea of progressive growth of scientific ideas meaningless (another good reason for science being naturalistic). In any practical sense, creationism is not progressive: it does not explain or expand upon what came before and is not consistent with established ancillary theories.

Does Creationism follow the scientific method?:

No. First, the hypothesis/solution is not based on analysis and observation of the empirical world - rather, it comes directly from the Bible. Second, as there is no way to test the theory, creationism cannot follow the scientific method because testing is a fundamental component of the method.

Do Creationists think Creationism is science?:

Even prominent creationists like Henry Morris and Duane Gish (who pretty much created scientific creationism) admit that creationism is not scientific in creationist literature. In Biblical Cosmology and Modern Science, Morris, while discussing catastrophism and the Noachic flood, says:

“We cannot verify this experimentally, of course, any more than any of the various other theories of catastrophism [e.g. Velikovsky], but we do not need experimental verification; God has recorded it in His Word, and that should be sufficient.”

This is a statement of religious faith, not a statement of scientific discovery.

Even more revealing, Duane Gish in Evolution? The Fossils Say No! writes:

“We do not know how the Creator created, [or] what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator.”

So, even leading creationists basically admit that creationism is not testable and clearly state that biblical revelation is the source (and “verification”) of their ideas. If Creationism is not considered scientific by the movement’s own leading figures, then how can anyone else be expected to take it seriously as a science?

Well, gee, not even Creation "Scientists" think it is scientific. That leaves us with Creationists who are not scientist but make the claim Creationism is scientific. And they do, people like Phillip Johnson, leading lawyerly proponent of Intelligent Design, who argues the definition of science needs to be changed, so then Creationism would be scientific.

We've discussed all this--I've argued it, and you have been silent, breeze--many times. Whack-mole again.
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Let's help breeze out here. Is Creation Science, scientific? is a creationist rebuttal of the above.

First let's note the author gets the reference wrong. He references first TalkOrgins.com and then Wikipedia. The actual reference is as I gave it above. --Now why would the author do this? I think because he wants to misrepresent what the argument against Creationism says. He would rather twist it deceptively into an argument he thinks he can win.

Let's look at the arguments.

On lack of consistency, he provides no counter argument.

The parsimony argument he summarizes as
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Creationism violates the principle of parsimony: Creationism fails to pass Occam's Razor. Adding supernatural entities to the equation is not strictly necessary to explain events.
And he counter argues:
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This is a little vague. There is no hint of what events are being referred to, so by implication they must mean every event. Claiming that supernatural entities are not needed to explain any events is rather subjective, for example there are numerous events in the Bible that cannot be explained apart from supernatural entities, unless you deny that the events happened as described in the Bible or that they happened at all. Also, adding God to equation in many cases reduces the number of explanations need to explain an event, so creation science does meet the principle of parsimony.

Concluding that Occam's Razor is science is in of itself completely off base. Likewise in the same breath they do not hold themselves up to their own scrutiny. Wikipedia completely ignores abiogenesis. Without the completely naturalistic mechanism to bring life from non-life, something which has never been observed in nature and can never be expirementally tested, life could not exist. To think that life coming from non-life is more simplistic, and therefore able to conform to Occam's Razor more so than the supernatural creating the natural is at best dishonest.

Vague? How disingenuous. He makes the argument vague in his summary, and then argues against his own vagueness!

"Claiming that supernatural entities are not needed to explain any events is rather subjective, for example there are numerous events in the Bible that cannot be explained apart from supernatural entities, unless you deny that the events happened as described in the Bible or that they happened at all."

We're not talking about explaining the Bible, but the world around us. Nice attempt at changing the argument.

"adding God to equation in many cases reduces the number of explanations need to explain an event, so creation science does meet the principle of parsimony."

Except adding God to the equation explains nothing of how it happened. The whole point of science is explanation. Here the author is being self-defeating.

Let us note though he here accepts parsimony as an argument.
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Concluding that Occam's Razor is science is in of itself completely off base.
And let us note here he contradicts himself and argues against using parsimony.

He also misrepresents the argument. No one is saying parsimony and sicence are one and the same. The argument is parsimony is an attribute of science.

Obviously it is not an attribute of Creationism.
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Wikipedia completely ignores abiogenesis. Without the completely naturalistic mechanism to bring life from non-life, something which has never been observed in nature and can never be expirementally tested, life could not exist.
Here he changes the topic to that of testability, falsifiablity. And he misses the mark. Whether some hypothesis is scientific or not is not a matter of whether is has been tested, but whether is could be. Abiogenesis could be tested.

Creationism cannot be tested.
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To think that life coming from non-life is more simplistic, and therefore able to conform to Occam's Razor more so than the supernatural creating the natural is at best dishonest.

Genesis 2:7 "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

So the argument life came from non-life is dishonest?

Enough, I rest my case.
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Poor Breeze. All he wants to do is post this endless screed and be left alone. He doesn't want to defend what he posts - impossible since he doesn't understand any of it - nor do I think he cares whether it's read or not.

What I don't understand is why he doesn't just create his own free web page where he can post anything he likes whether he comprehends or not. Heck, he can prevent anyone from posting followups to his drivel and not have to worry about the lunacy of his actions being commented upon.

I suspect he doesn't feel he has the whatever-it-takes to start his own page.

For obvious reasons!
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Generator | If You Can Read This, I Can Prove God Exists | Atheist's Riddle vs. Atheists
New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God
A Seminal Presentation by Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross, given in South Barrington, Illinois, April 16, 1994 Listen on your Computer with the Player Below

Or Click Here to Download MP3

Right click on the above link and select "save as..." to save to your hard drive. You can burn it to audio CD, transfer to your MP3 player or just listen now.

Size: 10.4 Megabytes, 73 minutes long


Click here for printable copy in PDF

Editor's note: This lecture was selected not in spite of being more than 10 years old, but because it is more than 10 years old. Virtually every statement and inference given in this speech has been reinforced and further validated during the last decade by measurements from the COBE Satellite, the Hubble Telescope, and advances in physics and astronomy.

The hallmark of a truly reliable scientific theory is that it is thoroughly testable, scientifically falsifiable, and makes accurate predictions. Dr. Ross's origins model has stood the test of time for nearly two decades, literally receiving further validation on a monthly basis as physics and astronomy journals publish new papers. I believe you'll enjoy this ground-breaking information from Hugh Ross.

___________________________

New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God

"The Discovery of the Century" - Stephen Hawking

I want to take you back to almost two years ago, April 23, 1992. On that day, a discovery was announced that, in the words of the British physicist Steven Hawking, “…is the discovery of the century, if not of all time.” This is remarkable because Steven Hawking has a reputation for understatement.

Michael Turner, from the University of Chicago, says the significance of this discovery cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology. As to how holy of a grail we're talking about, George Smoot, who led the team of 30 American astrophysicists who made the discovery said, “What we have found is evidence of the birth of the Universe. It's like looking at God.”

Frederick Burnham, a science historian, said in response to this discovery, “The idea that God created the Universe is a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last 100 years.”

The reason I'm starting with these quotes is because anything that is being called 'The greatest discovery of the century' and anything that makes belief in God more credible that it's ever been before, is something that every Christian should be apprised of and equipped to share with his friends at home, in the neighborhood and at work.

The Day They Found 90% of the Universe

Now, what exactly was it that these astronomers discovered? They found 90% of the universe. Any day that you find 90% of the universe is a red-letter day. What they essentially found was a new kind of matter. For a couple of years, physicists have suspected that the universe must have a different kind of matter.

Ordinary matter is the stuff that we're used to. Electrons, protons, neutrons, everything we see here on planet Earth is made up of ordinary matter. Ordinary matter is a property that strongly interacts with radiation, so it's rather easy for astronomers to detect the stuff.

But we found the problem, which was this: In 1990, the cosmic background explorer satellite proved that the universe is extremely entropic. In fact, the universe has a specific entropy measure of 1,000,000,000. Entropy measures the efficiency with which a system radiates heat and light, and the inefficiency in which it performs work.

The universe is by far the most entropic system in all existence. To give you a point of comparison, a burning candle has a specific entropy of two. A burning candle is something we realize is very efficient in making heat and light, and very inefficient in performing work. The universe is far more entropic than a candle, by many orders of magnitude.

But it led to a problem. If the universe has that high a degree of entropy and all matter strongly interacts with radiation, and the radiation left over from the creation event measures to be incredibly smooth, then the matter likewise should be that smoothly distributed. But it isn't.

As you look at the galaxies and clusters of galaxies, rather than being smoothly distributed like the radiation form the creation event, it's clumpy. Astronomers wanted to know why. We have proof that the universe was created in a hot, big, bang due to the incredible entropy, but how do we explain the galaxies?

The discovery of exotic matter explains the clustering of the galaxies. Exotic matter does not strongly interact with radiation, and because it doesn't, it can clump independent of the radiation. Since it doesn't really matter in gravity whether the matter is exotic or ordinary, the laws of physics still apply.

Two massive objects will attract one another under the law of gravity, and if one of those massive objects is made of ordinary matter and the other is made of exotic matter, they will still attract.

Once exotic matter clumps, it can draw ordinary matter to it, and hence we can have the universe we see today. The radiation from the creation event is still very smoothly distributed, but the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are clumped.

April 23, 1992 was the first detection an astronomer made of this type of matter. Since that time, there have been seven other independent detections of this exotic matter. If you're interested, you can read all about it in my book, The Creator and the Cosmos , which was published a few months ago.

In this back issue, we describe the set of discoveries that established the existence of exotic matter which led to the conclusions from the scientific community that we now have conclusive proof that the universe was indeed created, and that's why we say that we're looking at the face of God.

On April 24, 1992, I was on the radio with three other physicists to discuss this discovery. A couple of the gentlemen were from George Smoot's team, but the one that I was most curious about was Geoffrey Burbridge, who I had as a professor while I attended the University of Toronto, and who I knew to be an atheist.

Physicists Join "The First Church of Christ of the Big Bang"

I was wondering how Geoffery was going to respond to the news of this discovery. The first words out of his mouth were a complaint, and they were that as a result of this discovery, his peers in physics and astronomy were rushing off to join the First Church of Christ of the Big Bang.

What encouraged me about Jeffrey's statement was that even Jeffrey, as an atheist, recognized the equation, Big Bang = Jesus Christ. If you prove the Big Bang, you prove Jesus Christ. I want to briefly explain to you how that follows and I want to reveal something to you that leads to that.

Why Big Bang = Jesus Christ

It's something that's probably more beautiful than anything that you've ever seen living here in Illinois . Or for that matter California or where I grew up, British Colombia, which I think is the most beautiful place in the world.

I want to show you something that far transcends the beauty of even the scenery that we see on this planet Earth. [Shows Einstein's singularity equation.] But, then what could possibly transcend the beauty of equations of physics? For those of you who are starting to break out into a cold sweat, this will be gone in less than a minute and I'll never show you another one again.

I thought that you might be curious of the equation that convinced Albert Einstein that God exists, that God created the universe. This equation falls under the theory of general relativity. For those of you who have a background in calculus, you'll recognize this term here as an expression for acceleration.

What Einstein had done was to drive the equation for the acceleration of the entire universe. On the other side of the equation, you see four physical constants. I don't really have to explain them to you, except to point out that they all have positive values.

Four well-known physical constants with positive values, yet there's a minus sign in front. That immediately tells us that the entire universe experiences negative acceleration. The universe is decelerating. That was a tremendous challenge to the theology of his day because in the 200 years previous to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, academic scientific society was operating on the premise that the universe was static.

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