Asha'man

Well, almost all of astronomy has to be thrown out. Every galaxy out there is more than 6,000 light years away, so we can't really know anything about them. Stellar evolution takes billions of years to happen, so clearly stars can't have experienced even a fraction of their lifecycle, so we know nothing there. Even planetary science relies on things like radioactive dating for moon rocks and meteorites, so just about all we know of our own solar system has to be tossed.

What is left? Well, maybe Saturn looks pretty
Oh, and the Moon is a light source, not just a reflector. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

babelfish

You're right, I shouldn't believe everything I hear.

ex-robot

You have the age of galaxies, planets, stars, etc. You still have plenty more. Faulkner, etc. would obviously not agree with your sarcasm. If all this were true, I would think that Faulkner's research interests would be analyzing the beauty of Saturn rather than "His research interests include stellar astronomy, especially binary stars." Is the Information Bulletin on Variable Stars a creationist publication? He seems to publish there frequently.

xr

ex-robot

I suspect DeYoung and Humphreys would disagree with you about rejecting Quantum Mechanics since the ICR offers or has offered a course in it. I'll just give you the second part.

Their rejection of certain parts still does not convince me. From what I have seen and my experiences, they like, accept, and practice science in general just like the next guy. This is quite evident from what I have seen.

xr

scigirl

And doesn't this bother you in any way? Please read the above replies again. If YEC is right, than scientists are very wrong about a great many things, such as entire fields like astronomy or paleontology. Ex robot, we aren't talking about one tiny theory here. We are talking about huge theories that encompass many areas of science all at once, which have support from many lines of independent evidence. I don't mean just their conclusions - I mean their methods too.

It must be an exercize in mental gymnastics to be a YEC. "I think scientists are wrong about a great many things, from astronomy to zoology. But oh, here's some results which do not conflict with a literal reading of my Bible. Well I'm just sure that those discoveries are ok, even though they are from the same scientists who are wrong about damn near everything, and who used the same types of methods to give me these results as they did to get the totally wrong conclusions like an old earth.

WTF??? It would be like putting a known perjeror on the stand, and not believing anything he says, except for the stuff you like to hear. You can't do that in science, ex robot.

scigirl

ex-robot

Yes, it does, but I'm not going to argue with secular universities, research laboratories, etc. from around the world that don't think they are "complete" idiots and practice their science just fine.
Entire fields? That is ridiculous. As far as I can tell, the U. of South Carolina at Lancaster where Faulkner is employed is not a religious school. They wouldn't even agree with you.
Of course, we are talking about certain parts of many different fields. Obviously, they can kick a in other areas and do science just fine.
WTH??? You are putting all yec into your little online hovindite club. Not agreeing with someone's conclusions based on the evidence is a far cry from not liking to hear you are descended from a low-down, dirty ape-like creature. (which I agree is a reason some people don't like "evolution" or whatever)

xr

Valentine Pontifex

I am not sure you want to define evolution so narrowly. After all, the origin of mitochondria cannot be understood with such a narrow definition.

pangloss

Is the BB only posting creationist rants? I submitted this 2 days ago:


Rufus, please see my refutation of Williams here:
<a href="http://geocities.com/huxter4441/Williams.html" target="_blank">http://geocities.com/huxter4441/Williams.html</a>

Williams misrepresented the methods employed by the authors of the Genetics paper, which casts even more doubt on his conclusions.

This is an important point. In reading ReMine's "The Biotic Message", in which Haldane's model plays a central role, I noticed that 1.ReMine only mentions two or three publications that dealt with Haldane's model, when, as I showed, there are actually many, many more available. 2. Those he does mention, he glosses over and attempts to minimize the impact on his reliance upon Haldane by claiming that the authors of those papers are "confusing" issues and don't actually understand Haldane's model.
I mention this because Williams gets the bulk of his information on this topic from ReMine. One paper that ReMine does mention, Leigh Van Valen's 1963 paper "Haldane's Dilemma, Evolutionary Rates, and Heterosis" (The American Naturalist, XCVII (894) p. 185-90), is misquoted and ReMine simply ignores what Van Valen mentions in his paper on that very topic:

"Dodson (1962) seized on this estimate of 300 generations, applied it to evolution within the genus Homo, and, needless to say for this case, found a poor fit with observed and inferred facts."

In other words, rather than the major collusion to 'hide' Haldane's dilemma form the public, as is ReMine's repeated charge, evolutionary biologists had presented evidence in the form of application of the model to available evidence as well as re-evaluating the model itself (following) and found it wanting. This ReMine, and therefore all of ReMine's followers, including Williams, simply ignore.

Van Valen applies the model to the unit of evolution, the population, and ReMine claims that this is a confusion, as if Haldane's model were set in stone and all encompassing. One of the possible problems in ReMine's understanding of the issue could stem form his misquoting of Van Valen. On p. 219 of "TBM", in a footnote ReMine quotes Van Valen:

"Van Valen wrote, "I like to think of it (Haldane's dilemma) as a dilemma for the population."

Reading Van Valen's original paper, we actually see, emphasis mine:

"...but because it necessarily involves either a completely new mutation or (more usually) previous change in the environment or the genome, I like to think of it as a dilemma for the population: for most organisms, rapid turnover in any few genes precludes rapid turnover in the others."

A very long run-on sentence, to be sure (I omitted the introduction of the sentence for brevity).

However, ReMine's quote is in error because as written, ReMine makes it appear that there is no information preceding the statement, and nothing following: The sentence begins well before the point at which ReMine begins his quote, but ReMine does nothing to indicate this. There is no period after 'population' in the original, there is one in ReMine's quote.

ReMine then used his doctored quote to claim that Van Valen 'confuses' the issue and such.
It is easy to claim that a preferred model is unimpeachable when you distort and ignore the impeachments of it. Very well stated and I wholeheartedly agree. Should Williams take up this cause, doubtless he will rely heavily on ReMine. If this is so, I have numerous papers in my possession that refute ReMine's position.

Asha'man

No, you don’t have plenty more. There is almost no piece of scientific knowledge left! Forget the age of galaxies, think about the fact that we can see them at all! The Andromeda galaxy is 2.9 Million Light years away. If the universe is only 6000 years old, then we can’t even see Andromeda. We only see an illusion: light that did not come from the object in question. In fact, every galaxy out there is purely an illusion. Most of the Milky Way is an illusion, as are globular clusters. How much knowledge is based on observations of those illusions? Clearly, anything known from studying an illusion cannot be trusted, and must be thrown out.

Or would you to prefer to toss out the speed of light? In that case, you throw out most of modern physics. The consequences there are even worse than tossing out astronomy.

I don’t know who Faulkner is, or what his beliefs are. But from you mention of him, he must be as guilty of selective blindness as all the rest of creationists are. “All of science is correct, except for the parts that disagree with my interpretation of the Bible.’ But when you start tossing out the parts that disagree, you must also toss out all knowledge built on the parts you just tossed out. Most of science is built on the assumptions that are tossed, and most of science is interconnected in some way. When you are finished tossing, there is virtually nothing left! Only by using selective blindness can you stop.

hezekiah jones

Re: Danny Faulkner

From the AiG interview:

Faulkner teaches exactly two courses at USC Lancaster: Astronomy 211, "an introductory astronomy course for non-science majors," and Physics 212, "the second semester of a real physics (calculus-based) course for science and engineering majors."

Faulkner is the only member of the USC Lancaster faculty that teaches either of these subjects. In fact, along with a few computer courses, Faulkner's classes comprise the entire "Math, Science, Nursing, & Public Health" curriculum at USC Lancaster.

Divine providence has safely stored this harmless fruitcake out of sight.