No one, at least not me, is making light of it. But there are indications it has already happened. Growing seasons, frost-free period has already changed/increased in the last 100 years in western Canada. However, only concentrating on the negatives means we are not looking at opportunities. Besides which, our solutions will be found in the opportunities, and not by wallowing in the challenges/negatives.
And while we're waiting for that explanation, I will just present a few "facts" that some people may not be aware of, at least as I understand them. Fossils have been discovered of dragonflies that have four foot wingspans, and huge reeds that are 120 feet tall, not something that we would see today. Some of these reeds, as well as tree fossils, transect many rock/earth layers which are dated by evolutionary methods to be millions of years old, and different in age from each other. A satisfactory answer as to how these reeds could survive long enough to be covered by so many different layers of different "deep time" ages has not been given. The catastrophic deposition of water formed layers with trees and reeds embedded within them gives a much more satisfactory answer.
I do not take for granted, the "of course" part of your first statement. There are some even within the crc who do not "of course" take every part of scripture as "true". In spite of their profession of faith. In spite of their signing a form of subscription. But I am glad you take every part of scripture as true.
You are right we should not miss the primary message of the creation story, that God is creator and maker and that what He makes he declared good. But earlier you said that "good" was more important than "true", (which while I understand you are refering to chronology and actual events as "true"), is misleading in the sense that truth is downplayed. You see if there is no truth, then there is also no good. Truth embodies both the realities of good and evil. God is as much true, as he is good. Jesus did not say "I am the Way, the Good, and the Life." He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Truth is good, even when it reveals evil. Especially when it reveals evil.
When we suggest that scripture's truth might be relativised, or that it is subjective, or that it is more important to be "good" than to be "true", then we are missing something about who God is. When God allowed Satan to subject Job to misery, we can only say that God is good, because we know first that God is true. And we know God is true through scripture, through His Spirit, through faith. A false scripture hinders the work of the Spirit, and weakens our faith. And that is not "good".
God wants us to struggle with Genesis 1, with Genesis 11. Not to toss it off as some allegory just because some quasi scientists (and real scientists) have decided that their world view does not permit Genesis 1 to be true.
The great difficulty in arguing that Genesis 1 is not true in a meaningful sense, that creation did not happen in seven days, that things were not created in that order, but yet that creation was "good", is to discover a true basis for that conclusion. If creation did not happen in seven days, then there is no basis for saying that creation was "good", since both conclusions are based on the same written word. The basis for describing our relationship to the creator is also lost, since why should that be more true than creation by fiat in seven days?
Thus you see that truth is more important; it is primary. Without truth, good does not exist.
Norm, I don’t think Magaret misrepresented anything about evolution. She has impaled herself on nothing. You seem to join with a common claim that evolution is misrepresented as if to say, “you don’t really understand it”, particularly when an anti-evolutionist makes a strong position. The fact is that for the present theory of evolution, random processes are foundational, along with natural selection and adaptations. It is by calculating apparently random processes that probabilities are derived and probable ages are attributed to various processes and to various turning points in the process. Furthermore, the idea of virtually unlimited time for these random processes to occur is also a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory to work. This is no misrepresentation at all. Whether Darwin was personally a nihilist or not is irrelevant to this. I note you did not state what in particular was misleading about it, nor did you summarize a contrary position.
If you think she is inaccurate, then do you think the processes are not random; that they are directed, and therefore the use of random probabilities are not appropriate? Do you think then that time is not an agent of creation, or a necessary requirement? Do you think nature does not point to random processes? And do you think that mainstream evolutionists would agree with you?
You make a comment about her bravado; I say she is entitled to her perspective, and it is really irrelevant to the validity of the theory. However, in what I have seen, it appears to be true that creationists often make undeniable and incontrovertible points and arguments about the science involved in “proving” or supporting this theory. Yes, often creationists do "win" the debates.
Todd Wood did not say that evidence for evolutionary theory have outstripped accumulations for creation science. What he said was that he felt there was a certain amount of evidence for evolutionary types of things happening, such as allele frequency changes, evidence of speciation, and universal common ancestry. But he felt there was another explanation for the evidence of common ancestry. So, evidence is just evidence. What is in dispute is what the evidence tells us, and how we understand the evidence. And Todd does not accept a universal common genetic ancestry.
Norman, Margaret is completely right that if all material is presented with only one particular view, then children will be influenced by it. Therefore her comment is completely valid that laymen and children need answers, and need them explained and described in such a way that they can counter the prevailing undesireable way. I don’t think evolutionists go out of their way to hide their publications, or to advocate that no one buy them, or publish them in shoddy inferior ways. There is no reason why creationist scientists need to apologize for promotion of their materials either.
Wendy, I think to a large degree, we have already acknowledged that we probably won't know for sure all the details until heaven. If God wants to tell us. But human curiousity doesn't stop. We may not know exactly what Moses was thinking when he crossed the Red Sea, or when he couldn't enter the promised land, or what the people of Israel did while wandering in the desert for forty years, or what Methusaleh said to Noah. But if information comes that helps us to understand, we seem to appreciate it....
Examining the possibilities of whether the universe has a center or not, or is expanding or has expanded, or whether real time can change in different locations, or the impacts of the "red shift", are very interesting to some people. For other people, it is not interesting at all. But if we look at the world and the universe as a revelation of who God is, then discovering how some of these things work is part of discovering how God works, and how we relate to God. For example, the fact that the solar system is not geo-centric says something about our place in the universe, that we must rely on something other than ourselves for our physical existence. God sends us those messages in various ways, including how he created everything.
It's a bit like studying Greek or Hebrew in order to study scripture better. Is it really necessary? Does it really make much of a difference? Isn't the english translation good enough to get by? Well yes, but.....
Problem is when someone proposes a genesis that excludes God and contradicts scripture, and wants christians to buy into it; perhaps we could regard that the same way we regard theft, or abuse, or atheism, or neglect, or pornography, or materialism, or marxism, or ..... Should we then just cover our eyes and ears and ignore it?
The commentator, Anthony Furley, stated that it was more important to find out what people believed, than what their faith said they were supposed to believe. I wonder if this would also apply to Christians, and in particular, members of our denomination.
"Truth embodies both the realities of good and evil ." I want to clarify this statement from the previous post, since it might be misunderstood. It does not mean that evil can be equated to truth, since it opposes truth.
What I mean by this statement is that truth embodies the struggle of good vs evil. That Jesus is the truth, because he defeated evil, not just because he was good. That truth reveals falsehood and evil to us, and also points out the good to us.
"Good" requires truth, as "evil" requires falsehood.
To Rinse and hang dry: The article by matson identifies "creationist" geologists as the ones who worked out the geologic column. True, they believed God created. But they believed also in a kind of blind watchmaker kind of god, who set things in motion and then merely watched it happen. They are not creationists in the sense of how the bible describes creation.
His comment that C14 has nothing to do with dating geological ages is a gross exaggeration. It may not be the method used to date anything millions of years old. But it is the method used to date things within the last 10,000 to 20,000 years. So it is the beginning of the radio-active dating process.
The problem with coal and other carbon artifacts is that all the C14 is not actually decayed away. With better equipment, it is now detected. Zeroing in instruments with carboniferous coal in the past merely assumed it was gone.
Index fossils seem to a valid tool to correlate to strata. However, this only says that certain strata (a type of rock layer) contained these fossils. It says nothing about the age of the strata, nor the age of the fossil. Therefore the index fossils are not useful for dating strata. As an example, a certain layer contained fossils of the coelanth. It is dated by evolutionary theory to be very old. Other layers above that, and thought to be younger, do not contain the coelanth. Yet, the coelanth fish still exists today. So why do the younger layers not contain fossils of the coelanth?
This same problems exists for many other fossils of animals and plants that still exist today.
In reality, the geologic column does not actually exist anywhere on earth, except in the minds of evolutionists, and in school textbooks. It is a theoretic arrangement of layers, which has monstrous gaps in any particular location on earth. Matson's statement that the geologic column has been found in places on earth, is then clarified by his statement that "some of the geologic periods are missing either because they were never laid down at the location or because they have since eroded away." Perhaps it is semantics, but....
The validity of various radio active dating methods is always dependant on assumptions. Matson has made some good arguments about uranium-lead in zircon correlating to different layers somewhat consistently. However, others have disagreed:
" "The crucial problem with these methods, in accordance to the invalid assumptions, is the fact that Uranium minerals NEVER exist in a closed system, only and always in open systems..... "Yet another factor to take into view is that the daughter products were most likely present from the beginning. There is no way possible to know whether or not the daughter components were actually absent from the original system. This possibility is evident in the case of modern volcanic eruptions. Sidney P. Clementson performed detailed studies on modern volcanic rock, and endeavored to obtain their radiometric ages. All of the uranium-lead ages he produced for the volcanic rock he studied were vastly older than the rock's true age. A majority of the tested rocks put forth ages of over a billion years, when in fact it was known that the rocks had been formed in very recent times." " http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/radiometric.htm
I should point out that generally Hovind is not used as an authority, although he has made some very good points over the years as an educator. People like Ian Juby, who have actually examined many fossil sites and geological strata, and others such as Bob Gentry, have examined some of the E-theory claims in much more detail. Have you seen Bob Gentry's work on zircon crystals?
“In an initial installment I show how Helder misrepresents established evolutionary theory ("random processes" played out over time)”, Norman, I had to chuckle at your putting on the mantle of the language of scientific papers. But you have not shown anything about your proposition that Helder misrepresents evolutionary theory other than simply asserted it. If I was marking your previous post, you would fail on this account. You have not shown how it misrepresents anything. You merely make the conclusion. In fact, although evolutionary theory is much more complicated than just random processes played out over time, this is still a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory. Mutations are generally assumed to be random events, which allows natural selection to select for those with adaptive advantages. I have not seen evolutionary theory postulate that mutations are not random events, or that they are somehow directed or controlled by unusual outside factors in general. The theory does sometimes postulate unusual events precipitating higher rates of mutation, but it also assumes a certain randomness to these unusual outside events. It does not assume an “outside hand”, nor an intelligent design.
Now of course there is an apparent randomness in many things that we experience, such as the rolling of the dice, or the amount of rainfall we get in a given year, or the test scores of university students plotted on a curve. But within all of this randomness is also a pattern, and a set of limits. Evolutionary theory is beginning to recognize this and acknowledge this, but still relies on an inherent randomness for the basics of evolving from “goo to you” or from “mud to man”.
“It also confuses a unified model like creationism with a unified theorylike evolutionary theory. Ironically, the definition Dr. Wise uses to explain the "unifying power" of Young Earth Creation (details might be weak or changeable but the whole is persuasive) is actually the definition of "explanatory impotence" “
Here Norman you make a partially valid point that models are a bit different than theory and that explanatory impotence often weakens the theory, However, this has happened often with evolutionary theory as well. The solution for evolutionists is to adapt or change or modify the theory. This is understandable, because otherwise the theory would fail. (For example, evolutionary theory predicted that the ancient coelanth fish was extinct, when it isn’t extinct.) But this should also be permissable for the YEC models or the underlying theory. Models of all types are constantly being adjusted and revised, just as much as any theories. Models are just the workings out and details of various theories. For example, there are many global climate change models which have different outcomes for temperature and precipitation, even though most are generally all based on the general theory or assumption that global climate is becoming generally warmer due to human influence. We can debate the semantics of whether the global climate theory is based on the models, or whether the models are an outcome of the theory. Debating this is a sidebar and a distraction to the main issue however, of whether alternate or opposing theories have validity.
The evolutionary theory and accompanying model makes a lot of assumptions about cause and effect, and also about whether certain events are only and solely explainable by the evolutionary theory. Creationists are attempting to test whether these assumptions are true, and whether there are other alternate mechanisms for causing these events and artifacts.
I would disagree however, that models are not falsifiable. A model that inputs incorrect data usually puts out a false outcome. A model that ignores major necessary inputs also will put out a false outcome. Some global circulation models for example suggest that climate change will result in 40% more rainfall in Ghana in the future, while others suggest that the outcome will be 65% less rainfall in the future. If you argue that both are correct and neither one is false, nor falsifiable, then I would disagree. In addition, models that do not reasonably accurately “predict” past events are also falsifiable. This means they need to be changed to be useful or true. Thus I have shown your statement about models to be false.
A scientific theory must not necessarily be based on investigation, measurement and experimentation, for it to be presented or postulated, although usually they are. The meaning of “theory” in a scientific context has been revised to mean something entirely different than its basic meaning. The scientific world does not like the fact that theory can be taken to mean something that has no validity, so they have adjusted the meaning of the word. In some ways this is understandable and okay. But the reality is that theories are formulated before they are proven, and then tested and adjusted. For example, original theories of geocentrism have been discarded for the theory or conclusion of heliocentrism. Presently, scientists are reluctant to publicly postulate or describe theories that they have not tested or verified to their confidence level. And grand theories, such as relativity, gravity, and evolution, are generally assumed to have gone beyond mere theory to a set of accepted laws.
But, an initial theory can be based on some primary observations along with accompanying assumptions. Measurement and experimentation then comes after the postulation of the theory, as well as revising and adjusting the theory. A theory provides a context for a hypothesis or several hyptheses to be tested. Sometimes it is easily verified; other times it is difficult to test or prove, or perhaps even impossible to prove. Testing the theory of gravity or magnetism is relatively easy to test; testing the theory of ground cover reducing soil erosion thru the hypothesis of “If a soil is bare it should exhibit more soil loss than if it is growing a crop” is fairly easy; testing the theory of the existence of aliens in outer space is not so easy. But regardless, the theory generally precedes experimentation. So I have shown this your statement also to be false. (In spite of wikipedia…).
Norman, I agree that too many christians speak with loose lips on this issue. Your example points that out. But my point is that no one in your example said "I condemn you for being a good scientist". That is my point. So I think my contention still stands. They are upset because someone switched sides, or has a different point of view, not because they are a good scientist. If anything, their contention would be that good science is not being practiced.
Having just returned from a ghg conference in Animal Agric in Ireland, I would say there are many opportunities. Delegates from Japan and Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Australia, NZ, Canada and the USA and many other countries, presented research, over 400 presentations. Some of this research showed what would not work, and some showed some promising reductions of methane with certain practices or feed additives. Interesting is that increased efficiency usually means reduction of methane and CO2 and N2O. What that means is that it should be possible to produce more food with less resources, which helps to solve the global food demand issue (9 billion people by 2050 anticipated).
On the adaptation side, the recent flooding in Southern Alberta also highlighted the likely costs of not anticipating greater weather fluctuations in the future. But the opportunity might be that setting up better irrigation infrastructure (water storage) might also reduce catastrophic flooding events. Anyway, thinking about opportunities, will make the costs of adaption become investments, rather than merely costs.
Richard, I definately did not miss your point. In fact, I restated it and acknowledged it: "You are right we should not miss the primary message of the creation story, that God is creator and maker and that what He makes he declared good ."
You have now changed "true" to "factualness"... maybe a good thing.
It is not that I deny what you are saying, in that if we focus on the factualness too much it may make us forget the underlying theme. But the focus in the other direction is just as much a problem. If we deny the factualness (not you, but others), then the underlying theme loses its validity. Martin Luther's socks may not have made a difference to his speech, but the alternative to creation by fiat and the creation of man by God, is presently a never-ending process of evolution which makes a big difference to whether God created the universe "good" or not. And it makes a big difference to whether man is truly in the image of God, and whether there is such a thing as sin or not.
In the Martin Luther analogy, the significance of where he was, who was there, when he made the speech, and the state of the country at the time is very significant to the impact of the speech. If he had made the speech in his bathroom to his mirror, or if merely written in some op-ed piece in the local paper, it simply would not have had the impact, and would not be seen to be important in the same way.
When people are defending the literalness of Genesis 1, they do so primarily in order to validate the underlying theme. It is not merely for the sake of the empirical facts themselves.
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
No one, at least not me, is making light of it. But there are indications it has already happened. Growing seasons, frost-free period has already changed/increased in the last 100 years in western Canada. However, only concentrating on the negatives means we are not looking at opportunities. Besides which, our solutions will be found in the opportunities, and not by wallowing in the challenges/negatives.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
And while we're waiting for that explanation, I will just present a few "facts" that some people may not be aware of, at least as I understand them. Fossils have been discovered of dragonflies that have four foot wingspans, and huge reeds that are 120 feet tall, not something that we would see today. Some of these reeds, as well as tree fossils, transect many rock/earth layers which are dated by evolutionary methods to be millions of years old, and different in age from each other. A satisfactory answer as to how these reeds could survive long enough to be covered by so many different layers of different "deep time" ages has not been given. The catastrophic deposition of water formed layers with trees and reeds embedded within them gives a much more satisfactory answer.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
I do not take for granted, the "of course" part of your first statement. There are some even within the crc who do not "of course" take every part of scripture as "true". In spite of their profession of faith. In spite of their signing a form of subscription. But I am glad you take every part of scripture as true.
You are right we should not miss the primary message of the creation story, that God is creator and maker and that what He makes he declared good. But earlier you said that "good" was more important than "true", (which while I understand you are refering to chronology and actual events as "true"), is misleading in the sense that truth is downplayed. You see if there is no truth, then there is also no good. Truth embodies both the realities of good and evil. God is as much true, as he is good. Jesus did not say "I am the Way, the Good, and the Life." He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Truth is good, even when it reveals evil. Especially when it reveals evil.
When we suggest that scripture's truth might be relativised, or that it is subjective, or that it is more important to be "good" than to be "true", then we are missing something about who God is. When God allowed Satan to subject Job to misery, we can only say that God is good, because we know first that God is true. And we know God is true through scripture, through His Spirit, through faith. A false scripture hinders the work of the Spirit, and weakens our faith. And that is not "good".
God wants us to struggle with Genesis 1, with Genesis 11. Not to toss it off as some allegory just because some quasi scientists (and real scientists) have decided that their world view does not permit Genesis 1 to be true.
The great difficulty in arguing that Genesis 1 is not true in a meaningful sense, that creation did not happen in seven days, that things were not created in that order, but yet that creation was "good", is to discover a true basis for that conclusion. If creation did not happen in seven days, then there is no basis for saying that creation was "good", since both conclusions are based on the same written word. The basis for describing our relationship to the creator is also lost, since why should that be more true than creation by fiat in seven days?
Thus you see that truth is more important; it is primary. Without truth, good does not exist.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norm, I don’t think Magaret misrepresented anything about evolution. She has impaled herself on nothing. You seem to join with a common claim that evolution is misrepresented as if to say, “you don’t really understand it”, particularly when an anti-evolutionist makes a strong position. The fact is that for the present theory of evolution, random processes are foundational, along with natural selection and adaptations. It is by calculating apparently random processes that probabilities are derived and probable ages are attributed to various processes and to various turning points in the process. Furthermore, the idea of virtually unlimited time for these random processes to occur is also a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory to work. This is no misrepresentation at all. Whether Darwin was personally a nihilist or not is irrelevant to this. I note you did not state what in particular was misleading about it, nor did you summarize a contrary position.
If you think she is inaccurate, then do you think the processes are not random; that they are directed, and therefore the use of random probabilities are not appropriate? Do you think then that time is not an agent of creation, or a necessary requirement? Do you think nature does not point to random processes? And do you think that mainstream evolutionists would agree with you?
You make a comment about her bravado; I say she is entitled to her perspective, and it is really irrelevant to the validity of the theory. However, in what I have seen, it appears to be true that creationists often make undeniable and incontrovertible points and arguments about the science involved in “proving” or supporting this theory. Yes, often creationists do "win" the debates.
Todd Wood did not say that evidence for evolutionary theory have outstripped accumulations for creation science. What he said was that he felt there was a certain amount of evidence for evolutionary types of things happening, such as allele frequency changes, evidence of speciation, and universal common ancestry. But he felt there was another explanation for the evidence of common ancestry. So, evidence is just evidence. What is in dispute is what the evidence tells us, and how we understand the evidence. And Todd does not accept a universal common genetic ancestry.
Norman, Margaret is completely right that if all material is presented with only one particular view, then children will be influenced by it. Therefore her comment is completely valid that laymen and children need answers, and need them explained and described in such a way that they can counter the prevailing undesireable way. I don’t think evolutionists go out of their way to hide their publications, or to advocate that no one buy them, or publish them in shoddy inferior ways. There is no reason why creationist scientists need to apologize for promotion of their materials either.
John z
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Wendy, I think to a large degree, we have already acknowledged that we probably won't know for sure all the details until heaven. If God wants to tell us. But human curiousity doesn't stop. We may not know exactly what Moses was thinking when he crossed the Red Sea, or when he couldn't enter the promised land, or what the people of Israel did while wandering in the desert for forty years, or what Methusaleh said to Noah. But if information comes that helps us to understand, we seem to appreciate it....
Examining the possibilities of whether the universe has a center or not, or is expanding or has expanded, or whether real time can change in different locations, or the impacts of the "red shift", are very interesting to some people. For other people, it is not interesting at all. But if we look at the world and the universe as a revelation of who God is, then discovering how some of these things work is part of discovering how God works, and how we relate to God. For example, the fact that the solar system is not geo-centric says something about our place in the universe, that we must rely on something other than ourselves for our physical existence. God sends us those messages in various ways, including how he created everything.
It's a bit like studying Greek or Hebrew in order to study scripture better. Is it really necessary? Does it really make much of a difference? Isn't the english translation good enough to get by? Well yes, but.....
Problem is when someone proposes a genesis that excludes God and contradicts scripture, and wants christians to buy into it; perhaps we could regard that the same way we regard theft, or abuse, or atheism, or neglect, or pornography, or materialism, or marxism, or ..... Should we then just cover our eyes and ears and ignore it?
Posted in: What Is the Real Impact of Muslim Relations?
The commentator, Anthony Furley, stated that it was more important to find out what people believed, than what their faith said they were supposed to believe. I wonder if this would also apply to Christians, and in particular, members of our denomination.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
"Truth embodies both the realities of good and evil ." I want to clarify this statement from the previous post, since it might be misunderstood. It does not mean that evil can be equated to truth, since it opposes truth.
What I mean by this statement is that truth embodies the struggle of good vs evil. That Jesus is the truth, because he defeated evil, not just because he was good. That truth reveals falsehood and evil to us, and also points out the good to us.
"Good" requires truth, as "evil" requires falsehood.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
To Rinse and hang dry: The article by matson identifies "creationist" geologists as the ones who worked out the geologic column. True, they believed God created. But they believed also in a kind of blind watchmaker kind of god, who set things in motion and then merely watched it happen. They are not creationists in the sense of how the bible describes creation.
His comment that C14 has nothing to do with dating geological ages is a gross exaggeration. It may not be the method used to date anything millions of years old. But it is the method used to date things within the last 10,000 to 20,000 years. So it is the beginning of the radio-active dating process.
The problem with coal and other carbon artifacts is that all the C14 is not actually decayed away. With better equipment, it is now detected. Zeroing in instruments with carboniferous coal in the past merely assumed it was gone.
Index fossils seem to a valid tool to correlate to strata. However, this only says that certain strata (a type of rock layer) contained these fossils. It says nothing about the age of the strata, nor the age of the fossil. Therefore the index fossils are not useful for dating strata. As an example, a certain layer contained fossils of the coelanth. It is dated by evolutionary theory to be very old. Other layers above that, and thought to be younger, do not contain the coelanth. Yet, the coelanth fish still exists today. So why do the younger layers not contain fossils of the coelanth?
This same problems exists for many other fossils of animals and plants that still exist today.
In reality, the geologic column does not actually exist anywhere on earth, except in the minds of evolutionists, and in school textbooks. It is a theoretic arrangement of layers, which has monstrous gaps in any particular location on earth. Matson's statement that the geologic column has been found in places on earth, is then clarified by his statement that "some of the geologic periods are missing either because they were never laid down at the location or because they have since eroded away." Perhaps it is semantics, but....
The validity of various radio active dating methods is always dependant on assumptions. Matson has made some good arguments about uranium-lead in zircon correlating to different layers somewhat consistently. However, others have disagreed:
" "The crucial problem with these methods, in accordance to the invalid assumptions, is the fact that Uranium minerals NEVER exist in a closed system, only and always in open systems..... "Yet another factor to take into view is that the daughter products were most likely present from the beginning. There is no way possible to know whether or not the daughter components were actually absent from the original system. This possibility is evident in the case of modern volcanic eruptions. Sidney P. Clementson performed detailed studies on modern volcanic rock, and endeavored to obtain their radiometric ages. All of the uranium-lead ages he produced for the volcanic rock he studied were vastly older than the rock's true age. A majority of the tested rocks put forth ages of over a billion years, when in fact it was known that the rocks had been formed in very recent times." " http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/radiometric.htm
I should point out that generally Hovind is not used as an authority, although he has made some very good points over the years as an educator. People like Ian Juby, who have actually examined many fossil sites and geological strata, and others such as Bob Gentry, have examined some of the E-theory claims in much more detail. Have you seen Bob Gentry's work on zircon crystals?
I will look at the rest of the article later.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
“In an initial installment I show how Helder misrepresents established evolutionary theory ("random processes" played out over time)”, Norman, I had to chuckle at your putting on the mantle of the language of scientific papers. But you have not shown anything about your proposition that Helder misrepresents evolutionary theory other than simply asserted it. If I was marking your previous post, you would fail on this account. You have not shown how it misrepresents anything. You merely make the conclusion. In fact, although evolutionary theory is much more complicated than just random processes played out over time, this is still a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory. Mutations are generally assumed to be random events, which allows natural selection to select for those with adaptive advantages. I have not seen evolutionary theory postulate that mutations are not random events, or that they are somehow directed or controlled by unusual outside factors in general. The theory does sometimes postulate unusual events precipitating higher rates of mutation, but it also assumes a certain randomness to these unusual outside events. It does not assume an “outside hand”, nor an intelligent design.
Now of course there is an apparent randomness in many things that we experience, such as the rolling of the dice, or the amount of rainfall we get in a given year, or the test scores of university students plotted on a curve. But within all of this randomness is also a pattern, and a set of limits. Evolutionary theory is beginning to recognize this and acknowledge this, but still relies on an inherent randomness for the basics of evolving from “goo to you” or from “mud to man”.
“It also confuses a unified model like creationism with a unified theorylike evolutionary theory. Ironically, the definition Dr. Wise uses to explain the "unifying power" of Young Earth Creation (details might be weak or changeable but the whole is persuasive) is actually the definition of "explanatory impotence" “
Here Norman you make a partially valid point that models are a bit different than theory and that explanatory impotence often weakens the theory, However, this has happened often with evolutionary theory as well. The solution for evolutionists is to adapt or change or modify the theory. This is understandable, because otherwise the theory would fail. (For example, evolutionary theory predicted that the ancient coelanth fish was extinct, when it isn’t extinct.) But this should also be permissable for the YEC models or the underlying theory. Models of all types are constantly being adjusted and revised, just as much as any theories. Models are just the workings out and details of various theories. For example, there are many global climate change models which have different outcomes for temperature and precipitation, even though most are generally all based on the general theory or assumption that global climate is becoming generally warmer due to human influence. We can debate the semantics of whether the global climate theory is based on the models, or whether the models are an outcome of the theory. Debating this is a sidebar and a distraction to the main issue however, of whether alternate or opposing theories have validity.
The evolutionary theory and accompanying model makes a lot of assumptions about cause and effect, and also about whether certain events are only and solely explainable by the evolutionary theory. Creationists are attempting to test whether these assumptions are true, and whether there are other alternate mechanisms for causing these events and artifacts.
I would disagree however, that models are not falsifiable. A model that inputs incorrect data usually puts out a false outcome. A model that ignores major necessary inputs also will put out a false outcome. Some global circulation models for example suggest that climate change will result in 40% more rainfall in Ghana in the future, while others suggest that the outcome will be 65% less rainfall in the future. If you argue that both are correct and neither one is false, nor falsifiable, then I would disagree. In addition, models that do not reasonably accurately “predict” past events are also falsifiable. This means they need to be changed to be useful or true. Thus I have shown your statement about models to be false.
A scientific theory must not necessarily be based on investigation, measurement and experimentation, for it to be presented or postulated, although usually they are. The meaning of “theory” in a scientific context has been revised to mean something entirely different than its basic meaning. The scientific world does not like the fact that theory can be taken to mean something that has no validity, so they have adjusted the meaning of the word. In some ways this is understandable and okay. But the reality is that theories are formulated before they are proven, and then tested and adjusted. For example, original theories of geocentrism have been discarded for the theory or conclusion of heliocentrism. Presently, scientists are reluctant to publicly postulate or describe theories that they have not tested or verified to their confidence level. And grand theories, such as relativity, gravity, and evolution, are generally assumed to have gone beyond mere theory to a set of accepted laws.
But, an initial theory can be based on some primary observations along with accompanying assumptions. Measurement and experimentation then comes after the postulation of the theory, as well as revising and adjusting the theory. A theory provides a context for a hypothesis or several hyptheses to be tested. Sometimes it is easily verified; other times it is difficult to test or prove, or perhaps even impossible to prove. Testing the theory of gravity or magnetism is relatively easy to test; testing the theory of ground cover reducing soil erosion thru the hypothesis of “If a soil is bare it should exhibit more soil loss than if it is growing a crop” is fairly easy; testing the theory of the existence of aliens in outer space is not so easy. But regardless, the theory generally precedes experimentation. So I have shown this your statement also to be false. (In spite of wikipedia…).
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norman, I agree that too many christians speak with loose lips on this issue. Your example points that out. But my point is that no one in your example said "I condemn you for being a good scientist". That is my point. So I think my contention still stands. They are upset because someone switched sides, or has a different point of view, not because they are a good scientist. If anything, their contention would be that good science is not being practiced.
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
Having just returned from a ghg conference in Animal Agric in Ireland, I would say there are many opportunities. Delegates from Japan and Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Australia, NZ, Canada and the USA and many other countries, presented research, over 400 presentations. Some of this research showed what would not work, and some showed some promising reductions of methane with certain practices or feed additives. Interesting is that increased efficiency usually means reduction of methane and CO2 and N2O. What that means is that it should be possible to produce more food with less resources, which helps to solve the global food demand issue (9 billion people by 2050 anticipated).
On the adaptation side, the recent flooding in Southern Alberta also highlighted the likely costs of not anticipating greater weather fluctuations in the future. But the opportunity might be that setting up better irrigation infrastructure (water storage) might also reduce catastrophic flooding events. Anyway, thinking about opportunities, will make the costs of adaption become investments, rather than merely costs.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Richard, I definately did not miss your point. In fact, I restated it and acknowledged it: "You are right we should not miss the primary message of the creation story, that God is creator and maker and that what He makes he declared good ."
You have now changed "true" to "factualness"... maybe a good thing.
It is not that I deny what you are saying, in that if we focus on the factualness too much it may make us forget the underlying theme. But the focus in the other direction is just as much a problem. If we deny the factualness (not you, but others), then the underlying theme loses its validity. Martin Luther's socks may not have made a difference to his speech, but the alternative to creation by fiat and the creation of man by God, is presently a never-ending process of evolution which makes a big difference to whether God created the universe "good" or not. And it makes a big difference to whether man is truly in the image of God, and whether there is such a thing as sin or not.
In the Martin Luther analogy, the significance of where he was, who was there, when he made the speech, and the state of the country at the time is very significant to the impact of the speech. If he had made the speech in his bathroom to his mirror, or if merely written in some op-ed piece in the local paper, it simply would not have had the impact, and would not be seen to be important in the same way.
When people are defending the literalness of Genesis 1, they do so primarily in order to validate the underlying theme. It is not merely for the sake of the empirical facts themselves.