Calilasseia

Additionally, we are still waiting for substantive evidence with respect to the worth of the bible as a scientific and historical treatise, which is after all a central plank of Dave's belief system. Thus far, the substantive evidence required in order to support Dave's assertion of the unique intrinsic worth of the bible has been conspicuous by its vacuum-like absence from his posts.

The formal debate established that his view of a literal genesis is unsupported by reality, a case that Constant Mews didn't so much deliver as detonate all over Dave's assertions. Which means that absolute inerrancy is flushed down the toilet big time, since a part of the bible that is of fundamental importance to Dave's entire world-view has been demonstrated conclusively as being myth because there is no traceable physical evidence whatsoever for the events it describes, evidence that should be piled high outside each and every one of our front doors and unmissable if those events had happened. Thus not only is absolute inerrancy flushed down the toilet, but any contention that we should somehow grant a privileged and untouchable position to genesis with respect to scientific questions, since it is patently false on them all, a point not lost on the UK's leading Catholic theologians, but seemingly beyond the ability of Dave to comprehend even if one assumes for the sake of argument that he has read the bible he claims to put so much store by and which he tried to castigate the rest of us in this thread for supposedly being 'ignorant' of by implication if not directly.

Dave, in answer to my posting a direct quote from Chapter 13 of Leviticus, which you yourself stated in an earlier post was "one of the hard parts you particularly liked", which of the following do you do when you find an unsightly blemish upon your person:

[1] Take it to a priest and accept being declared "unckean";

[2] Take it to a doctor and pick up a prescription for topical antiseptic and antibiotics?

Because if we were still listening to Leviticus, consultant dermatologists would be out of work.

Smullyan-esque

:rolling:
Good point!

jeffevnz

Sweet Zombie Jesus. Did he really say that??

That's ridiculous, afdave. We all know that the almighty is just manipulating their data with His Noodly Appendage. See, he does it to test their faith.

Smullyan-esque

Yes, he really did. And now he's getting all huffy that we are calling him on it. I haven't yet seen him even admit he said it, much less apologize.

Here is the direct quote, with some parts bolded by me:
Now, what would you call an agreement to alter data to fit a preferred conclusion? Wouldn't you call that "conspiracy to defraud"?

You can click on the little arrow thingy next to his name to see the whole thread and the context of his comment. (I wouldn't want to be accused of quote-mining! )

Dave Hawkins

Shoehorning data into preconceptions is not the same as falsifying data. Everyone shoehorns to some extent including me. It is a natural human tendency which we must all fight against. If you are going to accuse me of things, let's try to stay factual, shall we?

Constant Mews

No competent scientist or individual shoehorns their data. By admitting you do this, you admit that you are incompetent and biased. We already know that you're not a scientist, but admissions like this are good to have.

Roger Pearse

In this thread we seem to have 245 posts, lots of second-hand rhetoric, and... what? Is there any point or direction to all this?

mung bean

Dave got huffy with people criticising his interpretation of the bible and demanded to know if any of us had read it. He was, of course, hoping that we hadn't. Well, as you can see........

EssEff

Poll results here: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=216187 Only 3% have never read any of it.

Mike PSS

Well Dave,
Here's some data from skull 1470 that seems to NOT be shoehorned. Leaky thought this was a valid data point. Only until someone name Bromage "improved" the data by using a more recent scientific method to examine the data (i.e. rearrange the skull reconstruction).

When you look at past placements of the 1470 skull you get an alignment like this.
From Here.
But with Bromage's correction of the cranial capacity from ~752cc to ~526cc you'll see that the 1470 skull now aligns with the other habilis skulls that are mapped.

So Dave. How can anyone tell which data is supposidly shoehorned or not? Hmmmmm...?