missus_gumby

Tricia, you have told us you could defend your faith using scientific means. One of the defining tenets of science is that it is falsifiable.

I contend that nothing whatsoever concerning the supernatural is falsifiable.

If the statement above is not true, please grace us with a few examples of the supernatural elements of your faith that can be objectively falsified.

Martin

RufusAtticus

Tricia,

What books are you considering on reading over this summer?

~~RvFvS~~

Tricia

*hits self on head*

I didn't clarify myself; I meant that I could defend the concept of creation, not my faith. Just that area.

~Tricia

Tricia

be back later for the rest.

~Tricia

Quetzal

I think that's an important clarification, Tricia - good for you. I'm interested, however, in your reasoning as to how you might defend the idea of creation - an idea, btw, that rests solely on faith in a supernatural agency. Science, as has been pointed out, seeks to explain natural phenomena observed in the natural world. Anything that seeks to plumb the supernatural, as both Oolon and wildernesse noted, is beyond nature, and hence beyond the purview of science. I look forward to hearing your argument.

RufusAtticus

Tricia,

If you feel you can defend (biblical) creation with science, would you mind clarifying what you ascribe to. Creationists have many different, opposing ideas.

Young earth, old earth, c-decay, white-hole cosmology, immutable kinds, continued creation, "devolution," intellegent design. etc.

It's important to state what you currently see as the creationist explaination, so we can discuss topics concerning views you actually hold.

~~RvFvS~~

Vinnie

""""""""It is also much younger than evolution and, unlike evolution, recently (i.e. in the last fifty years) had a viable competing theory.""""""

What do those facts have to do with anything?

"""""And Vinnie, I've got one thing to say to you: HA! You may beat me in post count at the ILJ boards, but I am whipping you here."""""""

Yeah, but I suspect we are much closer in "words typed" than our post counts would show. Of course, you could probably counter this by accusing me of committing a biased sample fallacy

""""""""Young earth, old earth, c-decay, white-hole cosmology, immutable kinds, continued creation, "devolution," intellegent design. etc.""""""""""

I read a whole bunch of creationist material but I've never heard of "white hole cosmology" or "devolution". What are they?

Vinnie

Oolon Colluphid

Vinnie, I’ve never heard it defined, but from usage, ‘devolution’ seems to mean that the only sort of evolution there’s been (ie all the stuff even creationists can’t deny) has been evolution ‘away’ or ‘down from’ the original created kinds. It’s the old “yeah it’s a new species, but it’s still a fruitfly / finch / silversword / whatever” argument. Usually followed by “chihuahuas and St Bernards are still dogs, dogs don’t give birth to cats” reasoning, and can be linked with the “everything was benign / perfect before the fall, all the crappy stuff has happened by microevolution since then” line about parasites and poor adaptations and designs.

The simplest way to counter it is to show the creationist examples of complex parasite lifecycles and ‘navigation’ (eg Trichinella spiralis) and adaptations, and to pin the buggers down on a definition of kinds, and then hit them with some taxonomic difficulties and fossil series.

Quite how devolution explains the pelvic remnants in whales, or the ‘<a href="http://www.ultranet.com/~jkimball/BiologyPages/G/Games.html" target="_blank">games parasites play</a>’, is anyone’s guess.

Sorry, ‘white hole cosmology’ is a new one on me. Bet you whatever you like it’s based on misunderstanding, outright lies and fallacial argument though .

(Hmmm... Phallasy: flawed argument made by a dickhead....)

Cheers, Oolon

Quetzal

Hi ilgwamh:

On "white hole cosmology", I think Rufus is referring to Humphrey's attempt to cram 4.5 billion years into 6000 by claiming that the earth was shielded (or words to that effect) behind the event horizon of a white hole. This would be the explanation for why the rest of the universe was "old", whereas the Earth was "young". As near as I can understand it, he was trying to get around the omphalos problem by saying that the universe was old, but that the Earth's relativistic time was much newer. Or at least that's all I've been able to grasp.

"Devolution" can be either YEC or OEC. It's an attempt to squeeze the "Fall" story into the equation by saying that all extant organisms are corrupted from an originally perfect creation. This allows the creationists to include mutation, etc and limited speciation into the "created kinds" argument. The reality is it's an attempt to explain the weird anomalies that are so abundant in nature - as well as vestigial structures, etc.

Kosh

Please do so Tricia. If you can, you'll get Nobel
Prizes and all kinds of recognition. And from
a High School Sophomore no less! Great minds
await your conclusion...