This fellow, Daniel J. Lewis, from Answers in Genesis has come along and requested a space to defend creationism.
Then if the blog administrator allows it, I’m available to publicly discuss creation vs. evolution if we can do so on level, intelligent grounds without childish attacks. You can start with your belief system (naturalism), and I can start with mine (the Bible).
Perhaps the blog administrator will create a specific area where we can do this. (Preferably a place to which I can subscribe via RSS or email.)
I’m open to debate, are you?
I’m not too keen on accommodating creationist kooks with demands like that, especially when he could have just said what he wanted on that thread, but OK…I’ll give him a chance. Let’s see some intelligent discussion of creationism. It could be amusing.
So, everyone, keep quiet on this thread for a while. Give Daniel J. Lewis a chance to make his statement first.
I love how he admonishes you to avoid “childish attacks”. That’s rich.
In every debate I’ve ever had with a religionist, they reach for the “personal attack” or “childish” cookie jar LONG before I even think about it.
Can I call a preemptive ‘foul’ on his reference to naturalism as a belief system?
I think the discussion might also stand a better chance of not devolving into a flamewar if it begins with a description of the axioms the participants are starting from.
I propose that as soon as someone says “Because the Bible says” or “Argument from faith” the debate is over.
If this person really thinks that creationism is a valid science, then he should argue using scientific arguments and the scientific method.
This might be the shortest threat in history…
“thread” not “threat”…but well, I suppose either words.
To emphasize again: “So, everyone, keep quiet on this thread for a while. Give Daniel J. Lewis a chance to make his statement first.”
Um, AIG surely has the wherewithal to open its own salon for discussion of this issue, no? I mean, Blogger’s barrier to entry is quite low. I haven’t looked but I have to assume AIG has some web presence.
That said, I think the earlier comments help set some ground rules (“naturalism?” We call it science where I come from) and expectations.
If the idea behind holding the discussion here is that no one will go to a debate hosted by AIG, that suggests a credibility issue, given the cost of visiting being what it is.
I’ll second the call to settle on an axiom list before you start. That way as soon as God comes up either he has to prove it or you agreed to it on the axiom list. All too often these arguments wind up with a statement like:
“If God exists then Y”
…and there is an instant disjunct because we see it as a setup for a reductio ad absurdum to disprove God and they see it as a derivation of Y from an axiom.
Thank you. I appreciate the chance to have an intelligent debate.
That is pretty much the same thing that I was thinking. We need to first define our respective starting grounds. Without these, there is no plane for discussion.
I openly admit that my starting point is the sixty-six books of the Bible. I base my thinking on it, and I view the world around me through the principles that I learn from Scripture–it’s my worldview.
I believe the words of Scripture are breathed by God Himself (2 Timothy 3:16) through over forty different writers, but that the Holy Spirit allowed each writer’s unique perspective an personality to show in his writings.
I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.
Everyone has a worldview, or a set of presuppositions through which they interpret evidence. Most evolutionists have presuppositions of naturalism, and thus atheism. Your naturalistic presuppositions influence your interpretation of data.
I hold presuppositions that God exists and that the Bible is His written, historical record. And since there are no other historical books that record the origin of life, I believe the Bible is the only reliable history book for origins.
To rule out the Bible is unfair because you want to remove my presuppositions, while keeping your own. This cannot be allowed in a fair debate.
And before you try to turn this into a “science vs. religion” debate, understand that we both have our set of beliefs, and we both base our science and interpretations upon those beliefs. So it’s the science of one belief system vs. the science of another.
I’ve explained my starting point–my presuppositions. Now please explain yours.
(Is there any way for me to subscribe to the comments of this post?)
For my part, my main assumption is that it’s possible to learn about the universe by studying it. While I am an atheist, I don’t see this as an exclusively atheistic assumption – for example, both the Catholic and Anglican churches (amongst others) see Creation as the first and most reliable Testament of God.
If the study of God’s Creation and of God’s Word as interpreted by humans are at odds, do you automatically assume that the fault lies in Creation?
Lewis said,
“I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe”
-Bible says, earth is approximately 6,000 years old. This cannont be independantly confirmed.
-Carbon dating says, reproducably, earth is billions of years old (i’m not sure the exact #s, but orders of magnitude older).
Also, starting this way, you’ve just set yourself up to have to defend every single fact in the bible. Sure that’s a good idea?
PBC.
No conclusions incompatible with a set of axioms can be validly derived from those axioms, presuming the axioms do not encode a contradiction.
If this AiG person defines his belief that the Bible was divinely-inspired as an axiom, then he cannot intelligently discuss the validity of that belief.
To participate in an intelligent discussion of the topic, he must accept a set of rules for reasoning with which the supposed inspiration can be examined and analyzed.
On what grounds? We’re here to debate creation vs. evolution. To start on a trail of every fact in the Bible is as much a sidetrack from our purpose as me asking for your every reason that God doesn’t exist.
Let’s start with our predefined presuppositions, and then discuss our resulting different interpretations of evidence. You can explain your evolutionary interpretations, I’ll explain my creation-based interpretations.
Mr Lewis, I just have a question. When I see a helicopter and an automobile, I know that they are both designed. However, there is no indication that they are designed by the same designer, and in fact they are not. So is there a reason to think that a lion and an antelope, or a human being and an HIV virus have the same designer? It seems to me we should believe in an infinite number of designers. Particularly given that, there is no antagonism between a car and a helicopter, but antagonism among the organisms knows no bounds.
-Carbon dating says, reproducably, earth is billions of years old (i’m not sure the exact #s, but orders of magnitude older).
Um, it’s not carbon dating that tells us the earth is billions of years old.
C dating tells us that the earth is much, much older than stated in the Bible. But that’s about all.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
You have been remarkably clear in stating your axioms. I hope you understand it would be impossible to manage a debate if those axioms remained unchallanged. Assuming your axioms, it is clear the creationism “wins”. So the only possible way to have a profitable discussion is to criticize your axioms. And why would we have to leave them unchallenged? It is not much of a rational debate between positions A and B if the supporter of A just says “My axiom is A” and does not allow axioms to be criticized.
Fortunately, you have made an allowance for rational criticism, when saying: “I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.”
This shows that your belief in the Bible is not truly “axiomatic”, in the sense that it is a starting point from which proofs proceed but that is itself unproved. In this sentence you tacitly assume that the basic criterion for truth of a theory must be “total consistency with what we observe”. Basing yourself on this criterion, you claim that the Bible is (literally) true because it provides such a consistent worldview.
Would you agree with me so far? If so, then we can move on to compare the biblical and the evolutionistic accounts and see which fits more consistently with everything we observe, and then reach a decision. But the truth of the Bible cannot be accepted as axiomatic from the start.
Daniel the view of most naturalists is that we have a view that makes the best interpretation of the available evidence. If as you claim:
“I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.”
Then you are going to have to back that up with the evidence. Starting with age of the earth and how people came into existance would be good starting points. Note that in your statment you say the biblical worldview is ENTIRELY consistent with what we observe. So if you start by telling us about the age of the earth and how people came into existence, these are two points we can discuss on the basis of available evidence.
Protobiochemist,
I am sure you know, but just to aviod a possible pitfall, carbon dating is unreliable once we get into more than 10 or so half lives, IIRC (that may be old info), depending on the accuracy and precision of the measurement (each half life is around 5730 years). It’s still plenty to demonstrate the earth is more than ~6000-10000 years old, but for the really old stuff, other radionuclides need to be used, e.g. Uranium/Thorium and others. The currently accepted age of the earth is around 4.5 billion years.
Mike
I stopped reading right there. A book that talks about four-legged locusts and lists bats among birds isn’t consistent with what I observe.
Another slight problem..
Lewis: “..that we both have our set of beliefs, and we both base our science and interpretations upon those beliefs”.
With sincerest hopes of NOT opening this up to debate, I would define science as a method of SEARCHING for an understanding of reality. Therefore, you cannot do “Science” from a standpoint of already knowing the “Truth” and seeking to prove what you already hold sacrosanct.
Also, for the record, our “set of beliefs” upon which we base our interpretations, is dynamic and subject to constant re-evaluation. Again, not so for the Biblical literalist.
PBC
Daniel, your presupposition is simply not appropriate. It would be like having a debate over whether or not the evidence showed that John went to the bank this morning, and you say that your presupposition is that we can use physical evidence to determine whether or not I did, while I state that my presupposition is that John went to the bank this morning, period.
In short, there is no separation between your claim and the evidence for the claim: they are one in the same. At best, your presupposition simply begs the question: you declare that the Bible is reliable because it “is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.” but this claim simply assumes the very conclusion we might be otherwise debating.
In short, what you accuse of being a biased presupposition or naturalism is in fact just the regular standard of physical evidence. If that standard isn’t good enough for you, or you think it is biased, then feel free to propose another and explain how it can be empirically validated to the satisfaction of everyone. Declaring that this or that set of claims, based on a religious conviction that those claims are true is NOT, in fact, a legitimate alternative to empiricism, and in fact negates the whole point of debate.
You cannot simply assume your conclusions in the very setting of the stage.
First off, thanks Mike for clarifying the carbon dating evidence, which I’m clearly no expert on. Alejandro, thanks for defense of my earlier point.
Lewis, you said:
“I hold presuppositions that God exists and that the Bible is His written, historical record. And since there are no other historical books that record the origin of life, I believe the Bible is the only reliable history book for origins.”
and
“I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.”
Perhaps unfairly, I assumed these were open for discussion. If they are in fact axioms, a debate would be seemingly very difficult…
Alejandro, you’re pretty much correct in understanding my axiom.
First, let’s realize that there is no fact or evidence that speaks for itself. Everything has to be interpreted. And we interpret the facts that we see based upon what we believe. In the case of origins, we interpret evidence based on our beliefs about the past. I believe that God created distinct kinds of life about 6,000 years ago, and that creation was corrupted by sin, and that there was a global flood.
Most evolutionists believe that life arose through natural processes and progressed by gradual changes from one kind of lifeform to another. And that fossils and rock layers are the results of slow accumulation over millions of years.
Probably all of you disagree with my axiom, but I’m simply stating my starting point. I disagree with your axiom of naturalism. Very well. So let’s discuss things from our contrary axioms.
It’s like saying you want to compete with me in a game. I propose that we have a race, and the rules will be that whomever first reaches that fence post after I yell go is the winner. Daniel is proposing that the rules of the game be “Daniel won.” And then he talks about how, well, all rules are biased and unduly influence our perception of who wins.
Er…
See the elegance of it? The creature has stated that nothing speaks for itself, that everything has to be “interpreted”, and so any contrary evidence will simply be “interpreted” in such a way so that it does not contradict the predetermined conclusion.
It doesn’t understand that the sword of reason cuts both ways.
PBC,
That’s part of what makes science so useful, it’s collaborative.
As for the axiom being the same as his desired conclusion, I agree that debate is impossible.
I suppose we’ll have to wait for Mr. Lewis’ clarification. I don’t have high hopes for this particular discussion, though.
Mike
OK, so you’ve given yourself space to allow inconsistencies and interpretation to be accommodated…
… but that then means that the Bible can only be considered as a secondary source: none of the writers were actually there at the time. It’s therefore only as historical as any other creation myth. You thus only have your faith that the text was inspired by your god, and nothing else, to back up your arguments.
But if the person you’re debating doesn’t share your pre-suppositions, you can’t have a debate, only mud-slinging. This is because your two world-views are based on different predicates, and yours only has faith in a text to support it. Any argument that shows the text is factually wrong or inconsistent can be countered by an appeal to a faith that your opponent does not share. At this point, the debate cannot continue except as a set of statements of belief.
Bob
Daniel, unless we can settle on some basic axioms of objective observation, there is simply no point to the debate. There are no grounds on which to agree on anything. No matter what the evidence we show you is, you can always complain “well, no fair, you guys are just ruling out the possibility that this is all an illusion, or magic, or the work of Satan, etc.” Actual empirical debate over evidence MUST define some sort of working standard, otherwise it cannot proceed anywhere.
And no, scientists do not simply “believe” that “life arose through natural processes and progressed by gradual changes from one kind of lifeform to another. And that fossils and rock layers are the results of slow accumulation over millions of years.” These are conclusions taken from studying the evidence in a particular sort of way: that of scientific empiricism. And as a matter of fact, many of the scientists who discovered these things were, in fact, creationists who realized that their beliefs didn’t square with what the evidence could support.
Trying to compare scientific conclusions based on evidence to your own beliefs, based on you own beliefs, simply is not a case of “you have your beliefs, I have mine.” Not even close.
How about this, then Daniel. I was, in fact, present at the origin of life it did, in fact, arise spontaneously via a chemical hypercycle. Oh, you don’t think I was there to see this? But how do you know? WERE YOU THERE?!?! No? Well, then what right do you have to question my word, and my axiom?
Do you see the problem with this sort of argumentation? There are no mutual standards for debate, or what evidence can settle what questions to both of our satisfactions.
“And since there are no other historical books that record the origin of life, I believe the Bible is the only reliable history book for origins.”
To a scientist the records laid down in sedimentary rocks are records as well, and records that are more reliable than historical books. After all, there are many contradictory creation myths in different parts of the world (even if I assume you have decided that the bible is the only true one), while fossils tells much the same story wherever they are collected.
Beating it to death, but I’ll chime in too. Your supposition is that the Bible is true. Therefore, you are using it as your evidence. We then have to discuss its reliability as evidence before even approaching the finer points of evolutionary theory. If you don’t want to begin with dating methods, we could start with “Are the historical events depicted in the Bible corroborated with other accounts from the same time period”, “Is there an unbroken traceable line that connects the original writings with what we have now, indicating no substantial change from the original documents”, or “So, what about all the things the Councils of Nicaea, Trent, etc. threw in or removed from the Bible, and should the Apocrypha also be included?”
“I hold presuppositions that God exists and that the Bible is His written, historical record. And since there are no other historical books that record the origin of life, I believe the Bible is the only reliable history book for origins.”
There’s a NOVA show called Origins. Worth a look.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/knoll.html
From this and multiple other sources, I can only conclude that the Bible is not the “only reliable history book for origins.” It is a book, but it is neither reliable, nor history (it’s religion!).
I would not think of limiting my beliefs to what I can get out of one book. Why do that? It’s bound to limit your outlook.
Mr. Lewis starts by telling us that we all have presuppositions that inform how we interpret the evidence. He then says that he believes the bible because of the evidence which he has admittedly interpreted though the filter of these presuppositions, which are based on the bible.
At this point, he reasoning is completely circular and thus fails to stand up to scrutiny.
Additionally, he makes the strawman argument that evolution is based on materialistic presuppositions. Given that evolution is compatable with a wide variety of faiths, including having been endorsed by the catholic church, this is nothing short of another false premise.
As such, I don’t think Mr. Lewis has presented any rational basis upon which to build an argument. Would he care to try again?
Not only don’t you seem to understand the scientific process, your knowledge of history is sorely lacking as well. Plenty of historical books/writings deal with the origin of life.
Daniel Lewis writes, “Everyone has a worldview, or a set of presuppositions through which they interpret evidence. Most evolutionists have presuppositions of naturalism, and thus atheism.”
The metaphor of battling world-views is a popular one for modern Christians, precisely because it asserts that everyone must practice the kind of faith that they practice. That assertion is false, on several grounds.
First, it is by no means the case that everyone holds presuppositions through which they view all evidence and to which they’ll stick come hell or high water. Every argument, of course, will have some presuppositions. But the set of presuppositions varies depending on the topic discussed, and rather than being held as articles of faith, can be posited merely as the framework for current discussion. One result of a liberal education should be the recognition every “axiom” is conditional, axiomatic in one area but a topic of debate in another. Thus, a geology or paleontology course assumes that the world was not constructed to exhibit a patently false history in the current record. A philosophy course points out that there is no way to validate such assumption, that adequately powerful demons or gods could have created the universe last Thursday, purposely creating the traces of a false past. A reasonably adept undergraduate should be able to participate in both discussions, each having their own and different discursive framework, without confusing the two or having his head explode.
Second, even if it were the case that people were stuck in “worldviews,” it is not the case that these are incomparable, with no way to decide between them except by some leap of faith. Consider some naive geology professor who managed to excel at rocks, but couldn’t wrap his head around the possibility of the world having been created last Thursday. Most Christians today make the same assumption. (Excepting some creationists who, following Philip Gosse, believe that the creation of a false history is precisely what the Christian god did.) Were you to come home to find a dead body on your living room floor, you would not much consider the possibility that your god has created a false scenario that never occurred, just to test you, the corpse never having been alive, but just dead flesh created [i]ex nihilo[/i] in order to put you through paces, a la Job or Abraham. That assumption doesn’t require adopting a Christian “worldview.” Rather, it is the kind of commonsense assumption that most people learn as children but don’t even realize they are making until some philosophy course or text points it out. Even if one doesn’t then take the rational route of using it for some purposes, and bracketing it for others, that doesn’t make it the kind of leap of faith required to believe in God, the Bible, and all that. In other words, the assumptions the naive geology professor needs are ones that you also make. But the reverse is not the case. You have made a leap of faith in a way that he has not. It is logically fallacious to pose the conflict as simply that between two “worldviews,” without recognizing that the assumptions made by one are a subset of the other.
Daniel says:
This is true, but it does not mean that any previous beliefs are inmune to being challenged by new evidence. We interpret new evidence not only in the light of previous beliefs, but also and more fundamentally in the light of general principles of simplicity, consistency, testability, and so on. When these principles requiere so, we can abandon previously held beliefs.
It is holding to these principles, not “that life arose through natural processes and progressed by gradual changes from one kind of lifeform to another and that fossils and rock layers are the results of slow accumulation over millions of years” which is the basic “axiom” of the scientific position. This implies, for example, that when we find geological evidence that is very difficult to interpret in the light of a global flood (requiring, for example, to posit a large number of unattested and untestable “miracles” to explain it with the Flood presupposition) but that is easily explained assuming only geological processes of the same nature we can observe today, if we only relinquish the assumption of literal truth of the Bible (and we can always go for an allegorical reading, if we are not prepared to deny it is the Word of God) then… well, then we must deny the global flood and accept the naturalistic explanation. But note that the naturalistic explanation is not an axiom, it is accepted because it provides the simplest explanation and because it has testable consequences that are verified.
I see that plunge had already made my same point. It is really difficult to catch on…
Mr. Lewis, I assume from this statement that you are using the Protestant Bible. I’ve a couple questions for you on your basic starting point.
First, how is the Bible revealed to you? What I mean is that do you understand the Bible through prayer and study, or do you also accept interpretations of the Bible? Do you have any problem when acceptable Bible authorities disagree on interpretations of a passage?
Second, what is your opinion of the Roman Catholic Church, which uses 75 books in its Bible, and the Greek Orthodox Church, which uses 84 books? I assume you believe they are in error, and I would like to understand why.
Lastly, I’d like to know if you think other texts are divinely inspired, Apocryphal texts, such as the Gospel of St. Thomas, and perhaps on the Dead Sea scrolls?
I guess the whole thrust of my question is, why the Bible? Why is your version of the Bible true, and others are not?
I disagree with your axiom of naturalism.
Except that you don’t really. It is part of your axiom that truth, or the things that we accept as knowledge, must comport with the things that we observe:
In other words, axiomatic to your axiom is that getting to the truth does not begin with the bible but with our observations. This is also the central principle of science, or naturalism as you seem determined to call it. It is only in your insistence that the bible is consistent with our observations that we disagree. Obviously thats a big disagreement but according to what you have already said, the central principle of truth based first on observation is not disputed.
So, Daniel, can I own slaves? Can I kill adulterers? Can I kill blasphemers? Is it right an good to do so? The Bible says it ism, after all, the Bible is holy writ.
And also, God created all forms of life 6000 years ago, eh? Honestly, in all seriousness, do you think that there is no evidence that humans existed well before your 6000 year time line? Or is my evidence just “naturalism”?
And shh, Carlie. No need to bring up Christian history, lest we find dragons! 8^D
I like this discussion. Nearly everyone got right to the point- that it can’t work.
“So let’s discuss things from our contrary axioms.”
That’s my favorite.
“In the case of origins, we interpret evidence based on our beliefs about the past. I believe that God created distinct kinds of life about 6,000 years ago, and that creation was corrupted by sin, and that there was a global flood.”
The evidence from a variety of dating methods is incompatible with the notion that the earth is 6000 years old. How do you reconcile this with your idea the biblical worldview is ENTIRELY consistent with what we observe? If you can explain this to us, maybe we can decide how and if to move on.
I must challenge this statement. First of all, my Catholic upbringing told me there are 73 books in the Bible, not 66. You need to demonstrate objectively why the Protestant Bible is to be the accepted standard over the Catholic Bible or the Orthodox Bible (which I believe has 76 books).
Secondly, I challenge the implied statement that the Bible represents the totality of God’s Word. As per John 21:25 (KJV)…
…clearly indicating that the Bible does not detail every teaching and act of Christ. If the Gospel itself claims that the Bible is insufficient to the task of recording Christ’s ministry, why do so many Christians claim otherwise?
Did you catch the comment by brent, Mr. Lewis? If you know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe, then you’re starting out with what you call “presuppositions of naturalism, and thus atheism” and then concluding that the biblical worldview is entirely consistent with it.
Actually, you’re probably just repeating something that someone told you. And whoever this someone was, they don’t care if it makes sense, or they themselves got it from someone who doesn’t care if it makes sense.
*(with tongue planted firmly in cheek)*
I think today’s thread is an instance of “reductio ad axiom absurdum”. Perhaps debates about God should rest on the Sabbath?
All joking aside, I would like to see Mr. Lewis define some useful starting points for debate, since the consensus appears to be that this has not taken place. I fear however that it may be impossible from his perspective for reasons pointed out in the discussion already…
Ball is in Mr. Lewis’ court I suppose…
If I understand the goal of the creationist, it is to “prove” that life began 6000 years ago and that everything was created by God. This creationist view discredits the theory of evolution. If I am interpreting the goals of the creationist and ID movement, I believe that the they would like our students to learn this set of beliefs as “science”.
So, what I want to know from the creationist, is how do we take this view of creation and apply it in the laboratory?
Let us say that I am a scientist working in a laboratory and my objective is to develop a new drug that will fight a bacterial infection that has become resistant to existing antibiotics.
If I believe that life was formed via the creationist point of view, how do I go about developing this new drug? How do I investigate and find the information that I need about the bacteria so that I can help save peoples’ lives?
And for our scientists, how do I go about this task using the theory of evolution?
See, Daniel, it’s not that we believe in evolution because it sustains our world view – it’s that we use scientific analysis to measure results, predict results and measure outcomes. Praying in the lab doesn’t help develop new drugs or cure diseases.
I think we need to ask all IDers and creationists to tell us how we are supposed to use their “theory” to do the work of scientists. It’s easy to believe in the creation story when your job is to lobby congress or write speeches. But putting those beliefs in to practice is another thing entirely – I want to see a creationist use his theories to cure disease and heal the sick.
Did you guys come in here to discuss the Bible, or creation vs. evolution? I’ve simply stated that the Bible is the basis for my thinking. For our debate, you don’t have to agree with that, but just understand that is my axiom. And I acknowledge that you have your axioms with which I may not agree. Very well. Let’s move on.
On what axiom do you want us to agree?
Let me clarify that ID and creation science are not the same. ID simply holds that life is so complex that there must be a designer–but makes not statement on the identity of the designer. ID still allows for evolution and an old earth. ID is not and never claims to be creationism. Please don’t confuse the two.
I’ve simply stated that the Bible is the basis for my thinking.
You stated that the Bible is the basis for your thinking because the Bible agrees with what you observe.
On what axiom do you want us to agree?
How about that axiom where we (tentatively) admit when we say something that doesn’t make sense. How about that one.
Maybe we’re getting confused here, but by saying it is your axiom, what you are implying to all of us is that it is going to be relevant to any debate we are going to have, i.e. part of the process and the discussion. In general, that’s what positing axioms means: it means that here is a principle that our further discussions will refer back to and employ in our reasoning. So of course we take issue with it as an axiom: we all HAVE to agree to the same sorts of axioms in order to have a rational discussion. Using different axioms in a discussion just won’t work. And if that’s not what you meant, then why bring it up at all?
The axioms for any possible debate over the evidence must basically be those that define what evidence is. The basic axioms of empiricism are really the only ones that offer any objective standard that is equally available and open to all, because they are basically just the “everyday common sense” assumptions that we all take for granted in our daily lives and interactions with the physical world (the only one common to us all: you may well believe that there is a spiritual realm of truth as well, but unlike physical reality, that world is not common to us all, but only to some believers).
Daniel, you are the one that brought the bible into play. That makes it fair game to discuss, particularly when you proclaim it to be an “axiom” of your position. And speaking of axioms, like the line in “The Princess Bride,” says, “you keep on using that word – I do not believe it means what you think it means.”
Creation science is an oxymoron; show me the science in creationism. ID is creationism pretending that it isn’t as part of a legal strategy to displace science education with religious nonsense.
Excuse me Mr Lewis, but your statement about ID and creationism is absolutely false. ID does intend to make us believe in a theistic God. No ID people claim to believe in Thor, Lord Brahma, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster-these entities would be quite plausible if they did not have a biblical world view and were just concerned about “complexity of life”. ID is “the Trojan Horse of Creationism”.
What you are talking about is “seeing the hand of God in evolution”-a rather common but baseless opinion-which is still different from ID.
Darnit, Milo! You beat me to it.
Daniel, you can’t have it both ways. If your contention is that you can argue the evidence for a creationist viewpoint based on the observed world outside of what is written in the bible, then you shouldn’t object when someone says as a ground-rule you can’t quote the bible. But you did make this objection in your first post:
Fine…you think the Bible itself is a piece of evidence for the pro-creationist side. Then those arguing against a creationist viewpoint, even in a debate supposedly only about creationism vs. evolution, have a valid rhetorical point in pointing out fallacies in the bible. If you want to take the bible as an axiomatic starting point, then you can’t object like this:
Well…I shouldn’t say can’t. You can (and probably will) pick and choose the points you want to debate and not others. But you’d simply be wrong. If the bible is an axiomatic starting point for doubting evolution, then attacking the contents and other predictions of the bible as illogical is a perfectly valid rhetorical argument in defense of evolution. I’d say it’s pretty much required even…it’s not really possible to accept the literal interpretation of the bible that the earth is 6000 years old and still believe species evolved over billions of years.
Mr Lewis, we discuss the Bible only beacause of the way you framed the debate. You started from stating as an axiom of yours that the Bible account of creation is literally true. We could not have a meaningful debate of “creation vs evolution” without trying to undermine this assumption of yours.
Otherwise, the pattern would be familiar. We bring out all the evidence for evolution, and you reinterpret it from the starting point that the Bible is true. If you wanted to defend the position that this can be done, there is no need -we will admit it. You always can interpret all the evidence to fit coherently one single belief, be it that the Jehovah created the world or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did. But we will say two things:
a) that your chosen “unmovable starting point” does not seem to be a reasonable one, considering the many versions of the Bible there are, and the many ways of interpreting them (and here is where questions about the Bible come in),
and b) that the naturalistic interpretation of the evidence allows simple theories fitting all the data consistently and making testable and verified predictions, while the Biblical interpretation requires a lot of unntestable and ad hoc miracles to work, and has no rational preference over the Flying Spaghetti Monster one or dozens of others.
We’re discussing the Bible because you’ve stated that your position is “Because the Bible said so”. In my opinion, at least, that has the same validity as the reason “because I said so”. If you want to use that as your basis, and want to be taken more seriously than a 5 year old stomping and saying “Because”, then you have to in some way show that it is a valid starting point.
Usually a debate is one side being for, and another side being against, a stated propostion.
What kind of debate is this meant to be?
Daniel: You have not initiated a dialogue, but a monologue. You start with the axiom that the Bible is 100% true. Scientists, of whom I am one, start with the axiom that to learn something about the world, we have to study it, to examine it, to try to make sense of it without invoking the supernatural. Such studies have led to conclusions that the earth is far far older than 6000 years, that dinosaurs and humans did not live at the same time and to a myriad other facts that do not agree with the simplistic pictures given in the book of genesis. Scientists have thus concluded that the book of genesis does not give a good account of the origins of the earth or of life. Your approach is a turning away from reality, and since it would be a waste of time trying to reason with you, this will be my only post in this discussion.
“Did you guys come in here to discuss the Bible, or creation vs. evolution?”-Lewis.
Are you suggesting there is evidence OUTSIDE the bible for ‘creation’? Since your sole (I would think, but feel free to offer OTHER evidence which we can discuss) evidence for your version of creation is the bible, it would seem you HAVE TO open up the bible to discussion.
Example (from my likely flawed recollection of logic 101):
The Bible contains the Truth(your axiom)
–If the bible says creation took 7 days,then creation took 7 days (or whatever you’d like to assert).
–The bible does say creation took 7 days.
–Therefore creation took 7 days.
so
If A then B
A
Therefore B.
problem is A relies upon your axiom fully, not containing anything otherwise arguable. We don’t accept your axiom. But hopefully its clear why we harp on the bible….you want to claim evidence outside the bible for creation, and we’ll discuss that happily, i’m sure.
ikonen and Alejandro beat me to it. Damn the hive mind we all partake in after accepting the evolutionist’s creed! …oh, and now I’ve said too much…
The problem with long posts is by the time the get up there, someone else has beaten you to the punch….or in some cases 4 other people have beaten you to the punch, and done so with greater eloquence…
Related to the contrivance of battling worldviews, let me point out that even if evolution were proved false tomorrow, that would not forward creationism one whit. Creationism has to stand on its own two feet.
So, here is my question to Daniel Lewis. Discard evolution. Unlike PZ Myers, I’m not a biologist, so I have no career at stake in this. ;-) Discard whatever naturalistic assumptions you fear are lurking in the corner.
Why should anyone then credit creationism? Can you answer without your leap of faith, your presuppositions about God and the Bible? If not, then you have lost the argument. Creationism is, as rationalists (not just scientists) point out, a mere religious myth, no different in stature than the creation myths of the myriad other religions.
May we then assume that Mr. Lewis is not a cdesign proponentsist?
Mr. Lewis? I think they are trying to get you to clarify just how and why the Bible should be used as a foundation for your argument toward creationism, and how, exactly, you intend to use it as evidence when the information it contains can not be suitably verified, and has, in many places, been proven erroneous.
Then again, I might be wrong. This IS a very heady crowd, ya know.
Russell makes an excellent point. Shall we pause and let Daniel tackle that question? Can you, indeed, present anything in support of creationism without using your faith about God and the Bible?
Posted by Ken Cope:
“show me the science in creationism.”
YES! Could we PLEASE get around to the actual science discussion? I don’t think I’ve seen Daniel say anything other than that he believes in the bible, and now he’s having to defend that. When are we going to get to the creation vs. evolution part? You know, the entertaining part. Holy shit, I never want to see the word axioms again in my life.
AiG, in the person of Ken Ham, says that when evidence conflicts with the bible, the bible must be chosen as correct. So Lewis isn’t interested in evidence, because any evidence shown to him will be rejected out of hand, perhaps with some sort of sciencey-sounding prevarication. What’s the point?
ID requires that certain structures were created by a supernatural being. Just because it allows that creation to have occurred before last Wednesday doesn’t mean that it isn’t creationism.
It’s just not Young Earth Creationism.
On what axiom[s] do you want us to agree?
1. Things we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell actually exist, and are not tricks played on us by an invisible demon or computer program.
2. The results of scientific experiments, observed by us through the medium of the above named five senses, provide us with valid information to make assumptions about the nature of the universe. These assumptions become stronger as they are tested, and can be independently verified by any objective observer.
Dan,
for myself at least, your interpretation is bang on.
I also agree with Carlie and JD…let’s relax and let Lewis make some debatable assertions (he did ask for a debate).
I like Junk Science’s axioms, since I can’t (immediately) see refuting them without refuting our ability to read/interpret the bible. I hope that’s non-controversial for our guest..
“ID simply holds that life is so complex that there must be a designer”
The missing words there are ‘I think, but can’t prove’
Mr. Lewis, I’m afraid I have to disagree with your ‘axiom’. An axiom is supposed to be self-evident, and saying that something is self-evident is very different from proving such.
Many of us are pointing out that the Bible is anything but a self-evident truth – for if it were there would be no debate.
I view this debate through my own training as an Engineer. I use specialized test equipment to understand how a circuit works. My first step before testing the unknown circuit is to ensure my test equipment is calibrated and working correctly – otherwise I’m just guessing. I can’t just say that my oscilloscope exists; therefore it is calibrated and working.
Excuse us science types for trying to make sure that your Bible is accurate and truly represents science.
On another note:
I’ll admit I’m curious as to how this discussion will turn out, and will keep reading to see what happens. But I no longer believe that a real debate between our mob and Mr. Lewis is possible in this sort of forum.
I would suggest that Daniel Lewis and another representative debate in a more formal written environment, such as in the Internet Infidels formal debate forum.
The current dogpile on Mr. Lewis leaves him in the position of answering a multitude – and can really only result in his leaving in disgust, with the assurance of his belief that we nonbelievers have no intention of giving him half a chance.
He has no intention of giving us a rational debate. Why should we give him a chance to blather his talking points at us?
He’s been given enough rope, and he’s strung himself up very nicely. I see no reason why we should bother cutting him down before he chokes.
Well, if Mr. Lewis leaves in disgust, it will not have been inspired by the superb manners and willingness to engage on a logical level that the commenters have exhibited thus far. We need some debatable evidence now, Mr. Lewis, not just assertions of faith.
Okay, I’ll rephrase my question within the scope of the debate. D Lewis’ position is that the creation account as told in the bible is true.
Mr Lewis, please explain to us how this part of creationism is literally true, as an observable phenomenon. Is the sky actually waters on a firmament above us? I would offer that it is in fact not so.
Sir, you represent a group called Answers in Genesis. You hold that the Genesis creation story is completely true. Please (for a start) address these two passages from Genesis.
I contend simply that there is no firmament and that the sky is mostly empty space and that there are no waters above the nonexistent firmament.
I contend this because I further contend that Genesis is a creation myth, wholly untrue, invented by ancient nomads in the Middle East. Fair?
It is a multitude, but it’s a multitude asking a single question, for what that’s worth. He could skim the entire thread so far and summarize it down to two talking points: Is the Bible an accurate source to provide evidence of creationism? and, if he doesn’t want to go there, What evidence is there of creationism apart from the Bible, since we have not established its validity?
I don’t think it’s a mob scene as much as boredom. I’ve had this window up and refreshing whilst searching JSTOR for articles to use in tomorrow’s lecture, hoping to read something interesting from him. He seems to have better things to do than reply at the moment, so the rest is just filling time.
I think Carlie summed it up pretty well.
I also think I have a huge crush on JSTOR. I usually blow all of my computer lab print credit in the first few weeks of the semester on JSTOR articles.
Posted by Caledonian:
“He has no intention of giving us a rational debate. Why should we give him a chance to blather his talking points at us?”
Because we’re supposed to be better than that?
Flash drive, my friend, flash drive. No printing needed. Have you been checking out the Royal Society of London? All the archives free until next week. I downloaded a lot in September when they started the freebies, then haven’t had a chance since. I think I’ll be up late every night this week playing in the Proceedings and Phil. Transactions.
Just the same old, same old… Creationist sets unreasonable starting point for debate. Starts complaining that the “Darwinists” are not engaging in openminded debate. Followed in the end by the conclusion that those pesky scientists always refuse to engage in a proper debate… No doubt because we are so scared of their faith or because we secretly realize our science is based on nothing but blind faith itself… yada yada yada….
That’s like teaching children not to strike back at bullies because they’re supposed to turn the other cheek.
It’s stupid, harmful nonsense. He won’t treat us with even a modicum of respect by putting forward rational arguments, and we gave him an opportunity to do so. Now the mockery begins.
He asked for an honest chance to offer his evidence, let’s let him have it without prognosticating what the end result will be prior to his producing it. The end result will be whatever it turns out to be.
Please, Mr. Lewis, the evidence?
If Mr Lewis is still answering questions…
I would like to know which book and which verse the Bible states that the world is exactly 6,000 years old.
Why bother ever engaging with a creationist about anything?
You can’t really have a debate with them, because they have no concept of what logic is, what evidence is, nor what thinking for themselves is. They tend to lack even relatively elementary reasoning skills.
How can you have meaningful discourse with folks like our friends at AiG, who are willfully ignorant and proud of it?
Not Possible.
If the evidence conflicts with the Bible, to which will Mr. Lewis give the nod? If the answer is “the evidence”, then dispense with the Bible-babble and let’s play creationist evidence fallacy lotto. I’m sure he’ll list some classics right off the bat (my money is on dating methods and Piltdown). If the answer is “the Bible”, well, is anyone really interested in that discussion? I’m not.
He wants “axioms” for evolution. Here are two stolen from the Web:
There is a functional continuum of all species of life leading back to a primeval cell.
The design of all living things is the result of a blind random process.
http://cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/Philosophy/Change.html
Or, if Mr Lewis is feeling exceptionally brave, perhaps he could explain how the Bible explains the fact that, if it was true that Man was in contact with all species at one time or another, then, how come there are no artifacts, pictoral or written accounts of any interaction between people and the antiarch placoderm, Bothriolepis, even though fossil remains of Bothrolepis have been literally been found on every continent, from Europe to North America, to China, to Australia, to Antarctica, in abundance? Their fossil remains strongly suggest that they were once as ubiquitous as trout and goldfish. There is a strong tendency among all peoples and cultures to take note of ubiquitous animals.
But, nothing about Bothriolepis, not even a Chinese recipe or prescription.
Why?
Not random!
Daniel (in the lion’s den),
Naturalism was never a presupposition; likewise atheism is not an axiom, it is a conclusion based on overwhelming evidence, or lack thereof.
Posting this is rather pointless, since I doubt anyone is really reading this far down in the comments, but I’ll ask this anyway.
Mr. Lewis, are you willing to genuinely and seriously consider the possibility that you’re wrong? That creationism or ID or whatever you want to call it is not the explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, and evolution is the correct answer? If not, any “discussion” is a waste of time.
George, do yourself a favor.
Don’t cut and paste from the web. Think and learn.
Evolution is decidedly NOT random. Please find yourself a biology textbook and learn something about natural selection.
George,
Just because something is not consciously guided does not mean it is random. Water flows downhill. Is something consciously guiding it? Gravity is a natural property of matter. The combination of the elements of the periodic table is guided by natural processes in an analogous manner.
Amen waldteufel!!!
We should just keep repeating:
The essential characteristics of proper science are:
1. It is guided by natural law;
2. It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;
3. It is testable against the empirical world;
4. Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word;
5. It is falsifiable.
Daniel NONE of what you profess meets any of the criteria under which science conducts its “arguments.” We cannot play because we don’t play the game you all play!! PERIOD! And anyone here that tries is really just feeding a troll. And I guess given that I posted me included :-)!
Oh, I see (via a PBS site):
“Is evolution a random process?
Evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment. Whether or not an individual survives and reproduces depends on whether it has genes that produce traits that are well adapted to its environment.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat01.html
Davis,
I know I cannot use science to say that god does not exist as well as I know that you cannot use science to prove that god DOES exist (regardless of whether you yourself know this or not)
I’m just curious, do you believe in continental drift? Much geology and biogeography would be very difficult to explain without it, would’nt it. But so far I gather that common descent must be a “useless” concept to you. I guess that if you acknowledged common descent, you could not argue that there “must” have been a sudden, supernatural appearance of complex organisms. Accepting common descent could also earn you a strong disliking at church, even expulsion.
My views on common descent, continental drift, sphericity of the earth … are these just arbitrary starting points of my sistem, equal to choosing religious-historical scriptures?
We know what we know, we just cannot drill a whole thrugh our brains. Imagine what it is like for us when we are told that things like common descent or continental drift are not real, and that we therefore MUST believe in supernatural creation (and god if possible, too).
That way of conquering faith is not gonna work too good on the larger scientific community, specially in natural history.
Great site, George. I use the movies from that series all the time in my classes. It’s a common mistake to use the “random” bit, and it’s one of the most major errors, so forgive us all for jumping on it so vehemently.
I think Daniel’s just sitting around watching us wait for him and laughing a lot, smug in his ignorance. Either that or he doesn’t realize how many of us are attached to our computers and obsessively check Pharyngula.
The point that I was hoping to get to with my earlier comment – and I might have if Mr. Lewis had ever responded – is that we all, including creationists, share the premise of methodological naturalism. What Lewis is doing with his attempt to define the scientists basic axiom, is deliberately conflating methodological with philosophical naturalism. If we accept the premise that belief in evolution is based upon philosophical naturalism, then we are no longer having an argument about science but rather one about atheism.
That particular trick has whiskers on it by this point.
Of course, belief in evolution proceeds from methodological naturalism, the axiom that most sentient human beings accept even if they are not aware of it. And I have yet to see an honest argument that can proceed from the principles of methodological naturalism to acceptance of the bible as literal truth. Maybe it can be done but I haven’t seen it yet in all my decades of reading on the issue.
If you are still reading, care to give it a shot Mr Lewis?
Daniel Lewis’s initial post highlights the fact that the most people think scientists try to prove theories correct, when in fact we spend our time trying to disprove them. It’s a foreign concept to most people and it’s one that nearly all followers of creationism are oblivious to.
Daniel’s statement begins with [paraphrased for brevity] I believe in God and the Bible and as a result creation, you believe in Evolution, we both have the same starting point. Time and time again, when I have had to talk to a creationist, I have had to explain that they are misunderstanding the process of science. Maybe it’s not taught enough in high school, maybe science teachers don’t get it, or just maybe people just arn’t used to the concept and struggle with it.
Creationist: I have a theory, let’s find data to support that theory
Scientist: I have data, let me make a hypothesis on that data and contrast and compare it with current dogma
I believe you can not proceed in an argument with a creationist until they well and truly understand this concept, because they have no first hand experience with science methodology. I remember my third year evolution lecturer’s response when asked why so many people believed in creation. He gave a few explanations, but the thing that really stood out in my mind was that if he could find data, any data at all, to back up any creationist claim, he would publish it in a book immediately. Because there are so many people out there who are fanatical about creationism, he would become a millionaire and be able to retire, pay off his mortgage and go fishing instead of marking papers and exams each semester and having to pay bills. Just look at Kent Hovind’s income.
But all the work that he had done pointed to evolution, which he confessed is more interesting anyway. This despite the fact that we all compete for meagre science funding every year, constantly have to publish or perish and work long hard hours and weekends. Why would anyone want our jobs if we were making it up? Why would we do this, if we could just say God created everything and retire on our bed made of money, smoking $100 bills.
Oh well, Daniel, I hope you stick around long enough to read some of PZ’s interesting posts on development. They cover fairly complex topics, but the reason I stick around on this blog is that PZ is a good science writer and tries to make complex topics accesible to all. Check out Carl Zimmer as well. I suspect that’s the other reason why alot of the really cool work on evolution is ignored or misconstrued by many creationists (and I include IDists as well in this category). Without the proper background, some of these papers can be quite esoteric to the layperson.
Daniel:
Semantics are crucial here.
I do not “BELIEVE” anything. I do not believe in black holes. I do not believe in light. I do not believe in electricity.
That is why a debate is doomed to fail… You BELIEVE! You do not need to measure, calculate, deduce.
As a result, no amount of calculating, measuring, or deductive reasoning will increase your awareness.
I do not BELIEVE. ONLY calculations, measurements and deductive reasoning will increase my awareness.
If I hold up a rock that has be analyzed and measured, and I show you that the measurements prove the rock to be 3 billion years old, you will refuse the data.
If you hold up your book and tell me that several thousand years ago all life was destroyed in a flood, I will refuse that conclusion, because I stand on a planet full of evidence that says the book is wrong.
The key difference is, evidence for you position is found between two covers of a book. It is all you need. You have Faith. The book does not change. What you believe about the book does not change.
Me? before the rock was measured, it was just a rock. After it is measured it is a really old rock – and how old is not pre-determined. It is as old as the measurments say, (not how old I wish it to be). I’d get a little exicted if a geologist published results that demonstrated formation dates that pushed the age of the planet back another billion years… But that would NOT be blasphemy!
It is OK for the earth to be 5.5 billion years old… I do not have to struggle with adding to what I know today. As the facts come in, knowledge grows AND CHANGES. (and the older I get, the more I want my knowledge to CHANGE – develop – advance – sense of urgency develops when you pass 50).
We can debate “naturalism”. We can debate the Bible. (as you saw some trying to do – and you resisted. I actually thought that would be a better start for a good debate)
Comparing the two in a debate is predicated on us speaking the same language, and any debate carries the supposition that a mind can be changed. Your premise precludes that possibility.
Thanks Daniel
The essential characteristics of proper science are:
1. It is guided by natural law;
2. It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;
Would like to point out, for the sake of our absent guest that these two are only “accurate” in two senses a) Anything observable is considered part of natures laws and b) nothing supernatural has been *actually* observed in any sense that can be verified. I.e., people have “claimed” to observe it, in the same way children claim to hear monsters hiding under their beds, but the moment anyone willing to examine the evidence from the perspective of finding out what is “really” happening looks, there isn’t anything there or its not what the claiment said. Good example – Ghost orbs. No one has ever “proven” one, but someone recently did find that a single speck of dust dangling on the end of a very thin spider web “looked” like an orb when observed through a camera, but that the web itself was completely invisible at more than about six inches away, even to the human eye.
More to the point, and something that “every” believer completely misses, is that “if” such supernatural things ever where “observed” in some repeatable and non-subjective fashion, we would have to reclassify them as “natural” and one would presume that “someone” in at least one of the literally thousands of institutions over nearly all of human history would have, by now, recorded “something” that more closely resembled a book on, “The Physical of the Spirit World”, than, “Ancient Alchemy: Turning Lead Into Gold in Three Easy Steps”. Until about 100 years ago, there was ***no*** vast collection of atheist scientists to “conspire” to prevent discoveries. For the most part there still isn’t, since something like 60-70% are theists.
Science “requires” natural explanations and evidence, not because it rejects supernatural ones, but because there isn’t one shred, scrap or dust mote worth of verifiable, repeatable or even provably, “not made up”, bit of evidence for such a thing existing. It doesn’t take a leap of faith to believe this stuff happens, it takes closing your eyes so you can’t see, plugging your ears so you can’t hear, then leaping off a cliff screaming, “a giant marshmallow will break my fall!!”, at the top of your lungs. This is a particulary tree encrusted cliff though, so the believers all wander off a bit dazed from the experience complaining that the marshmallows are stale, not “observing” the reality of what they got bruised by.
An attitude of openness to other points of view is the starting point for any rational debate that seeks the truth. Lewis says straight out he does not hold this attitude. In other words, he is a dogmatist. The only reason a dogmatist will discuss his views with you is to try to convert you to his point of view.
Therefore, I think Lewis was not putting things accurately when he said he was “open to debate”.
Then again, I’m not sure very many people on this blog are open to debate on this topic.
I mean you might have thought he would be open to debate on some minor points here and there, but when he says in his first post:
“I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.”
that should have told your otherwise.
A slightly more charitable way of viewing the situation is one of common ground. You need some common ground on which to debate. If the bible and naturalistic presuppositions are 100% incompatible, then you have no common ground on which to debate. In order to debate Lewis, you would need to use his presuppositions against him, for example by showing that the bible contains contradictions. However, even this is unlikely to work since most Christians prefer to break the rules of logic before the word of God, for example when they say that Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine. So again, there is little room for rational debate.
I have to disagree with ConcernedJoe on his proposed first two characteristics of science. There is no need to assume that things are “guided by natural law,” and in fact, I doubt seriously that you can define what ‘natural’ means in that context. Theology fails to be a science not because it is ruled out a priori as a subject matter, but because there is no empirical evidence for it.
Daniel,
I can’t hold a candle to most of the folks here but yet, I still chime in from time to time. I am a 47 year old Lutheran going through a deconversion and I am vigorously devouring the information I find here to help me through this process. I would love for you to be able to come up with an argument that would keep me from ‘leaving the fold’.
I’ve got to tell ya, I’m distressed at your position that you take the accounts of the bible as an axiom, yet refuse to look at the many contradictions within the bible. It seems as if that if I want to state that the FSM is real and I take that as an axiom, there is no point in going forward. If you want to win me back over to your side, you’ll have to do better than that.
Mr. Lewis is just rehashing the old presuppositionist apologetics used by so many other creationist stooges (e.g. Creation Ministries International).
The biggest problem with Mr. Lewis’ argument is there are intractable differences between the methodology of apologetics and of science. In presuppositional apologetics, what is to be proved is either assumed, or is implied by the questionable assumption (or “axiom”, in parody of legitimate formal work).
In contrast, evolution, natural selection and the like are not deduced from scientific axioms–they are inferred from evidence, via inductive methods (model section, hypothesis testing, confirmation, etc.) methods. Even where axiomitization has a large role to play in the sciences (such as in physics), they are not presuppositional, rather, they are models that must stand the test of evidence. This methodology is largely metaphysically neutral, it about what we have good evidence for, not establishing absolute metaphysical certainties). Formally, all it describes is the relationship between evidence (experimental or otherwise) and possible ways the world could be, using minimal logical and mathematical machinery.
The creationist model, depending upon what consequences they’ll commit to, fails to be superior to modern evolutionary theory in a few ways. Off of the top of my head:
• Empirical emptiness, that is, being compatible with any evidence, an thus having no predictive content
• Lack of parsimony. God is an unnecessary addition to our theory (as are fairies, genii, and, sorry to say, the FSM). As Laplace explained in response to Napoleon’s question, about God fitting into his theory– “I have no need of that hypothesis.”
• Incompatibility with evidence, when considering God to be a good designer.
It is too generous even to call Lewis’ methodology philosophical.
rmp: all changes like this can be worrisome, contrary to ingrained habit, and even a bit distressful. Worry not. At the end, you’ll look back and realize you left a mental cage. Perhaps a comforting cage. But a cage nonetheless.
PBC said:
-Bible says, earth is approximately 6,000 years old. This cannont be independantly confirmed.
Let’s be clear on this. The Bible itself says nothing about the age of the earth. That figure is the result of some cockamamie calculations by Bishop James Us(s)her based on his misunderstandings of the Bible. That’s not to say that the things the many authors of Bible state explicitly are in any way true. I have always found it interesting that the DI and AiG types seem to think the 6000 years is somehow written in something by whatever they believe in when it is just a human invention.
I’d like to get into a discussion other than this one, sometime, on this point.
Mr. Lewis said:
Nothing in the Bible contradicts anything Darwin proposed, unless and except we insist on a Darbyist interpretation of scripture only. Is there any tenet of Christianity, especially one based in the Bible, which suggests God couldn’t have created an evolutionary system to make life diverse? Is there any tenet which requires any opposition to evolution or any other finding of science?
When you’re done here, Mr. Lewis, if you’re ever done, c’mon over to my blog and start in again.
For all those interested, there is this discussion of radiometric dating:
Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective
For the creationists in attendance, these bits from the section “Can We Really Believe the Dating Systems?” are worth noting:
Those of you who mixed up carbon dating with the kinds of radiometric dating used to measure millions or billions of years ought to read it as well. It’s a good primer.
It’s not based on a misunderstanding of the bible it’s taking the bible literally. There is no way to know for sure what the writer of the book was thinking. My bet was he thought it was a literal day as many other creation myths do.
When you’re done here, Mr. Lewis, if you’re ever done, c’mon over to my blog and start in again.
Done? He hasn’t even started! He just threw out a sop to get us all worked up and then ran away.
In agreement with the others: we can’t have a debate if we don’t have a common set of axioms to start from. It’s like if a team playing soccer tried to play against a team playing baseball. They can’t play a game against each other without a common set of rules.
Actually, many historical texts record origins. Just two quick examples. A Hindu scripture called the RigVeda, probably the oldest written scripture in the world, tells us that the universe was birthed out of a giant golden egg floating in the waters of non-existence. The Shinto book Kojiki describes how the world was created when the gods stirred the primordial waters with a divine spear. The Zoroastrian (generally regarded as the oldest monotheistic religion) scriptures have a beautiful creation story, with some similarities to the Hebrew one, but I can’t sum it up in a sentence or two.
Ed Darrell writes, “Nothing in the Bible contradicts anything Darwin proposed, unless and except we insist on a Darbyist interpretation of scripture only.”
It’s worth writing that sentence more generally: Nothing in the Bible contradicts anything, unless and except we insist on some interpretation making it so. Given that believers do not have to view the Bible as a math text, or a science text, or a history text, it is pretty easy for them to find interpretations consistent not only with what they observe, but with other ideas they wish to hold. They even can insist on the Bible’s inerrancy while doing so. And similarly, Muslims with regard to the Quran.
MpM is standing on the tail of the elephant in the room.
The real issue is that Daniel Lewis doesn’t have faith. Daniel lacks faith. That’s why he must “prove” his religious myths to be true. And the faster he proves the behinder he gets!
I can’t recall the name of creation scientists who said something to the effect that even if the entire Universe demonstrated scientific proof otherwise, he would still believe his faith, his religious myth. Faith trumps reality, in other words, and in his case.
There is no debate, Daniel. There never was other that in your Alice in Wonderland world. Put up or shut up. As a scientist I don’t “believe” things blindly, rather I accept (or not) explanations as they fit with other explanations; and interpretations.
Ball’s in your court, my man. Show me the money!
Well, I have a book that was given to me by Teh Chupacabra, my own deity, and its only words are:
“The Bible is wrong. I know. I was there. Only people who are idiots will trust that POS book.”
Well, Danny boy, I guess you’re wrong, according to my own axioms. Want to have a debate on that?
And if this seems stupid to you, it should.
I don’t know why but I have been thinking of Marvis Frazier vs Mike Tyson while reading this thread.
“[Ussher’s estimate of the age of the earth] [i]s not based on a misunderstanding of the bible it’s taking the bible literally.”
I wonder if anyone has been able to replicate this, because I tried to years ago and failed. The story plunks along precisely, if not monotonously, for a while, allowing exact figures. But once you get to the twelve tribes, IIRC, things get way less than clear and exact, and the contradictions between books, and who was related to who, and repetitive names, made a mess this amateur wasn’t able to slog through.
OT:It is worth noting that the authors were at least bright enough to keep things internally consistent early on. For example, if you add the various figures up, you discover Methusela died in the year of the flood. That to me lends slight credence to the theory that the worldwide flood legend was actually based on a much more localized one.
Answers in Genesis? Apparently not since the creationist hasn’t answered one question yet. Not one.
“He just threw out a sop to get us all worked up and then ran away.”
It does appear that he has left the building…
Daniel? You still out there? Is this about what you expected? Have you declared victory yet?
Well since the creationist seems to have run away… I think I see the problem. Given what he says on his blog, it is pretty clear this was a lost cause from the start, and I quote DJ Lewis himself:
“But a miracle is something quite different. A miracle is beyond the realm of physical laws–that’s what makes it a miracle. God setup the physical laws that govern our universe, but because He is transcendent and thus not bound by these physical laws, He can choose to perform works through natural or supernatural means.
Because true miracles are the result of God’s action outside of our physical laws, these miracles will seem to not follow these laws. And because science is limited by these physical laws, anything outside of the physical laws is beyond the reach of science and can be neither proven nor disproven.
And because miracles are beyond science, it is a logical fallacy to believe that miracles can be proved or disproved by science. If they could, then they wouldn’t be miracles.”
Science and Miracles, by DJ Lewis
Same old, same old.
decrepitoldfool,
At this moment, I *coughs* believe Daniel is at a victory party, hosted by AiG in recognition of his closely-reasoned apologetics and its contribution to their international reputation.
Mr. Joseph does have a website – http://www.djosephdesign.com. I’m sure that he is willing to see your concerns about certain hit-and-run behavior.
Because true miracles are the result of God’s action outside of our physical laws, these miracles will seem to not follow these laws.
And this is of course why there is all those things in the Bible that happen that “don’t” conform to physical laws in any sense at all, like him “poofing” the water away, then… No wait, he just parted it.. Hmm.. How about when he made the walls of Jerico just vani… No, that was an earthquake.. Damn, this is hard! lol
Oh, and in case, “just parted it”, is a problem with anyone. Recent archeology turned of the Moses stuff in an “earlier” dinesty than Ramsies, by several hundred years. This coincides by the general time frame with a set of massive tectonic events which would have been “more” than sufficient to produce a coincidentally huge psunami in that location. Its alays funny how the “supreme creator of everything” has to resort of parlor tricks on a grand scale to do anything, because simply waving a hand and making the ocean vanish, then later reappear, is somehow… I don’t know, too easy, not confusing enough for rational thinking people, less interesting that playing pool with the universe by the rules he made up for himself? Who knows. lol
Now why do I think that this Mr. Lewis was just messing with people here? If a YEC actually wants to talk, he never gives the old “let’s get our axioms straight first” treatment and bows out after the (anticipated) disagreement.this guy’s performance).
When a YEC wants to talk, there’s no stopping him. He will go on and on, saying the same things all over, ignoring responses, quote-mining and distorting facts, shifting goalposts or trying to change the subject altogether when he’s cornered… He’ll be talking to himself essentially, of course, but talking nonetheless.
(Just check
He certainly wouldn’t be going away disappointed, because we didn’t agree to his “axioms” from the beginning.
IMO, Mr. Lewis thought better of it and simply wanted to bail out- but in a way that wouldn’t embarrass him in front of his peers. He is probably telling them now how prejudiced people are in this forum, for not even accepting his “reasonable terms” for this debate.
And his friends are nodding their heads in agreement, and everyone’s happy, and the 6000yo YEC-Planet keeps spinning.
Don’t count him as ‘hit and run’ just yet. He can’t spend all his time hanging out on the ‘net. Today is Sunday after all, and a religious person might have other things on his plate.
And by “this” guy (couldn’t get the link to work) I mean this guy:
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=456a4b30f2d71951;act=ST;f=14;t=3131
I wonder if anyone has been able to replicate this, because I tried to years ago and failed.
You’re in luck! Ussher’s book is available for purchase. You can see exactly how he did it. “Of course, there will be those who disagree with Ussher’s calculations of time – especially evolutionists who need billions of years… blahblahblah”
“I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.”
As I understand it, the bible says dinosaurs died in a big flood, about 4-5000 years ago, correct?
The best theory for dinosaur extinction science had between 1980 and 1991 was an asteroid impact 65 million years ago, based on analysis of the K/T boundary layer. They did not know where that asteroid actually hit.
In 1991 the Chicxulub impact structure was found, as predicted.
How then is the Bible entirely consistent with what we observe? Please answer with specific reference to the K/T layer and the Chicxulub crater.
You know you have to wonder, if these guys can’t find any contradictions in the bible, how do they find contradictions between the bible and evolution?
Phoenician: The Chicxulub crater is actually the depression left over from when god drained all the water from The Flood. The fossil fuel deposits in the Gulf of Mexico prove it – kinda like a bath tub ring.
the creationist seems to have run away
I would not want to debate, on my own, against 20 people who know what they are talking about. Of course, I would not start one either.
Regarding creationists, radiometric dating and the facts of geology:
According to ICR’s Larry Vardiman if one takes the data for radiometric dating at face value then it looks like the earth is billions of years old:
translation: “What the data clearly points to simply cannot be true because it contradicts our theology…”
From the late Henry Morris:
translation: “Our theology is absolute and the facts of nature do not matter.”
So much for the science of “scientific creationism”.
Well, I see we’ve done a pretty poor job not piling on Mr. Lewis. ^_^
I think most of the comments have been focusing on the wrong part, namely trying to win the debate with Mr. Lewis. This just isn’t possible. I can’t help but believe that he’s completely set on his “axiom”, as ridiculous as it is, and we just will never shake his faith. He must be a good Christian, and a brave one, to make the offer to come here and “debate”.
The thing is, the point of a debate isn’t to convince the other guy you’re right and he’s wrong. It’s to explore the idea. This might let us practice and teach our technique, let us learn both our argument and the opponent’s (I should say less brainwashed, but I’m trying to be tactful.)
These debates are really about the audience. I can’t believe that there are any creationist lurkers here at Pharyngula, but if we can have a decent, detailed debate we will have a record of just how silly and childish a presuppositionalist can be (and please note, Mr. Lewis; I’m not calling you silly and childish. I’m saying you are currently espousing silly and childish beliefs). If we can find obvious holes in what he advances to support his opinion, we may have something that will sway people who are less fixed in their beliefs (I might say less well brain-washed if I were being less tactful). That might be a real good for the world.
Now, Mr. Lewis, I would like to say that I, for one, won’t try to convince you your “axioms” are wrong. There is no way someone who has separated himself from the true source of all logic and knowledge, our Lord Jesus Christ (do I have that bit of presuppositionalism right, Mr. Lewis?) could ever make you doubt your faith. You should be aware that you are treading on dangerous ground, though; if you are less than adequate in your argumentation, you may serve to drive people away from the Truth.
Now, Daniel (if I can call you Daniel), please tell us what you have for us. Show us what your “axiom” brings you to.
Duke
p.s. — I realize that if I’d posted this earlier, like 15 seconds after Dr. Myers opened the thread, I might have a chance of someone reading it, but I was in the restroom for the original post ^_^.
p.p.s — Obligatory “lion’s den” joke.
No, no, no. Fossils are all fake. God put them in the ground so paleontologists would occasionally take a break from digging and run out to buy lots of beer. You see, over time, beer makers have offered up many prayers to the almighty, and one of the many ways God has answered these prayers is by burying tons of fossils in the earth.
I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.
OK, so can we see how you would construct an arch using the biblical value of pi = 3 please?
Mr. Lewis, you have forgotten to work up a creation scientist bio for AIG’s website.
“I know that the biblical worldview is the only correct one because it is the only worldview that is entirely consistent with what we observe.”
For the commentators here: when you such egregiously erroneous statements as this from someone you’re supposedly debating, it’s time to stop. The level of detachment from reality this individual exhibits renders him irredeemable, and your time, resources and talent is better spent on those who are not so far-gone.
questions after questions; I don’t see Mr. Lewis answering any of them! Did he run away, or is he resting, like his god, on the 7th day? [Of course it depends on how he defines the seventh day…]
I don’t think it’s a waste of time to blow off steam occasionally… I think Dr Lewis’s visit has been most therapeutic :)
Yikes. We need to slow things down a bit. I leave for a few hours and I’ve got a book waiting for me when I return. This could take a little bit and I’ll try to respond to what needs it. As one person suggested, this can be a very difficult discussion because there are dozens (hundreds?) of you and … one … of me. So I trust that you’ll have some patience.
I haven’t run away. And like I saw someone point out, I can be contacted directly through my site.
If I don’t post during the day tomorrow, expect something tomorrow night.
Ooo… Look! A Jolly Rancher. Seems like the pinata gave up its goods.
Danny Boy, the points are summed up nicely by Carlie:
I will add my own statement:
If I say I have my own axiom that “The Bible is full of shit”, are you and I going to be able to “debate”?
My God. That’s pretty much the definition of having your lunch eaten. What a foolhardy proposition from the get-go. I hope some learning has taken place for this creationist in regard to his silly axiomatic sentences, and the nature of real debate and real science. I can’t otherwise see real takeaway points other than “don’t bring formal, high school, debating rules and Sunday school “bible-believing” to a science fight.” Wow. Just. Wow.
Daniel –
First, thanks for coming.
Second, you’re not speaking to me. Sorry.
i. You can’t hold the bible up as the source of truth, and then ignore people who point out the inconsistencies between what’s in (your version of) that book and what we can test. Even inconsistencies in the text itself. Why should we rely on your text as a guide? Why prefer it over any of the other stories? What guidance does it offer that other authorities omit?
ii. I’m a pagmatist. Truth, to me, is what works. It’s the stuff I stub my toe on in the dark, it’s what keeps suspension bridges up, and my computer’s internal machinery whirring. You’re trying to convince me that a book that says nothing about any of these really, really important topics has any relevance when the subject suddenly turns to biology? Forgive me: I don’t consult the prophets about statistical theory, and algorithm design. Why consult them about germ resistance to antibiotics?
If you want to talk about the moral message of Christ, have at it. But please – the world you’re describing isn’t real. Your words don’t explain anything. Why should anyone believe you?
Now now, it’s only been 5 hours since Daniel’s last comment. Perhaps he’s gone to do a bit of research! I certainly wouldn’t jump all over him because he didn’t answer immediately.
Now, if this time tomorrow rolls around with no word, I’ll be pretty sure that he’s scarpered after being roundly trounced before the argument even began, and I can go back to reading the -fascinating- articles constantly posted here.
He may be feeling that he’s just had the whole football team pile onto him at once, but he DID bring the discussion here onto your board, after all. What did he expect? So far, most of you have been very polite but also very clear – Far better treatment than any ‘evilutionist’ is ever likely to receive on a creationist forum. I’ve seen the sorts of replies they give! No one here yet has even suggested that he might spend an eternity on fire if he doesn’t see it their way, much less told him so in no uncertain terms.
I like Junk Science’s starting axioms.
1. Things we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell actually exist, and are not tricks played on us by an invisible demon or computer program.
2. The results of scientific experiments, observed by us through the medium of the above named five senses, provide us with valid information to make assumptions about the nature of the universe. These assumptions become stronger as they are tested, and can be independently verified by any objective observer.
I like the idea of paring it all down to Carlie’s 2 questions to start, too. If we can’t get past those 2, how can we possibly go any further?
1: Is the Bible an accurate source to provide evidence of creationism?
2: What evidence is there of creationism apart from the Bible, since we have not established its validity?
We know we can supply reams and reams of evidence in favor of methodological naturalism, common descent, and the process of evolution. Is there any point in even trying if we can’t even agree on the ground rules?
Is Daniel willing to comment on these basics?
*settles in to wait with the rest*
Weevil
I would find it helpful if, in the first instance, Mr Lewis could clarify certain questions about his faith.
First, can you go into greater detail about the nature of your God. Is He a deistic or theistic deity? Is He an eternal being with the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence and omnipresence usually ascribed to Him, for example?
Second, as I am sure you are aware, the Problem of Evil is one of the strongest objections to the existence of the Christian God. How do you answer it? I should point out that trying to place the blame on Mankind for bringing sin into the world at The Fall is insufficient given that an omniscient God would have foreseen such an eventuality and an omniscient one would have had the power to prevent it.
Third, when you cite the Bible as your foundational text are you referring to the original documents from which the book was compiled or, if it is one of the later translations, which one and why and are you satisfied that those accounts which were left out were excluded for good reasons?
So why isn’t mr. Lewis answering any questions? This was disappointing.
Uh, he said he would start doing so tomorrow over an hour ago…
While the problems of presuppositionalism have been well explicated here, I’m willing to throw Mr. Lewis a bone out of curiosity as to how the Bible can be made to account for the molecular evidence which seems to point – exclusively – to common descent.
I must say at the outset that I do not know your level of fluency with biological terminology, so I apologize for any redundancy in explanation. It’s not my intention to talk down to you; It’s just that these are, I think, extremely important points, and I want them to be fully comprehended.
Humans and chimpanzees share around 98% of their DNA. Now, it may be (and has been) argued that common genes reflect merely common function, common features designed (intelligently) for common environments. The first and easiest point to make against this claim is simply that common function needn’t at all require common materials. A bird’s wing and a butterfly’s wing arise during development from different tissue and have different genetic underpinnings, but both enable the organism to stay aloft and get around adequately. Biologists make a distinction between homology and analogy, where the former refers to structures that arise from common embryonic tissue and the latter to structures that serve a common function. The posited argument from common function can only explain structures which are both homologous and analogous; it cannot account for non-homologous analogs like the aforementioned wings or non-analogous homologs (structures which develop from the same tissue but serve different functions) such as bird wings and our arms or the fins of a fish. Further, it is difficult for this explanation to make sense of the fact that chimpanzees have more DNA in common with us than with gorillas, though gorillas share the chimpanzees’ forested environment while we are generally savannah creatures. The doctrine of common function would seem to predict that cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises, whales) would have more genetic material in common with, say, sharks than with the ruminants from which they are thought by biologists to be descended. While I don’t know if any representative genomes from these three types of organisms have been fully sequenced yet, I can’t imagine that many people would place any money on the shark.
But there is a much more powerful counterargument to the doctrine of common function. It concerns what’s come to be called “junk DNA.” The vast majority of our genome is in fact never read, never translated into proteins. It serves no function, at least none specified by a nucleotide sequence. There would be no reason, then, to expect commonalities in nucleotide sequence between the junk DNA of apes and that of humans. Troublingly, such commonalities do in fact exist and I will explain a few of those so far discovered.
There are two types of junk sequences I want to talk about here: retrogenes and pseudogenes. Retrogenes are sequences from retroviruses which have been inserted into the host’s genome. As you may recall, viruses cannot reproduce on their own; they must use the host’s replication machinery. When a virus inserts itself into a coding region of DNA, the host cell begins to manufacture copies of the virus, which will eventually burst through the cell and go on to infect its neighbors in similar fashion. Another, less destructive, way for a virus to get copied, though, is to insert its genome into a non-coding region of the host’s DNA. It becomes effectively a part of the host’s genome and is copied along with it prior to each cellular division. Now, for this virus to be passed on to the next generation, it must infect the gametes (sex cells), or the embryological precursors thereof. There are at present seven known retrogenes shared by humans and chimpanzees (For detailed treatments of some of these see: Bonner et al. 1982; Svensson et al. 1995; and Sverdlov 2000). Further, these retrogenes are present in the same locations in chimpanzee and human genomes. Common descent can easily make sense of these commonalities, but what of the alternatives? It is enough of a stretch to say that, absent common descent, a single virus infected the germ line of these two species in the same genomic locations out of the billions of possible locations, but to argue that this happened independently at least seven times strains credulity to a point far beyond what any rational being should allow.
Pseudogenes are formerly functional genes that have been disabled by random mutation. One such pseudogene shared by all primates is known as ψη-globin, which used to play a role in hemoglobin function. This pseudogene is found in the same chromosomal locations across primate species. Further, the mutations which disabled this gene are the same and are found at the same places within it (Goodman, et al. 1989). Another pseudogene, common to humans and chimpanzees, coded for a steroid called 21-hydroxylase. Humans and chimps actually have both a functional and a nonfunctional copy of this gene (the likely result of a type of mutation called gene duplication). The nonfunctional copies of both humans and chimps are missing identical sets of eight base pairs (Kawaguchi et al. 1992). If these species did not inherit these pseudogenes from a common ancestor, they would have had to independently acquire the same mutations in the reproductive cells (because, again, the mutations would have had to be passed on) at precisely the same locations on precisely the same genes–a vanishingly small probability. Still another example, shared by humans and the great apes, codes for the enzyme L-gulano-gamma-lactone oxidase, which allows its bearer to synthesize vitamin C. The disabling mutation in this gene is why we (and the great apes) must get vitamin C from our diets. Here again, in each species, the gene exhibits the same errors in the same locations. The only other mammal in which this gene is known to be broken is the guinea pig–and, as expected, the mutation is different and is in another location, for guinea pigs are not recent concestors.
These are but a few examples. Most mammals are highly olfactory creatures, hence adaptations like a long snout and a wet nose. Primate evolution has exhibited a marked decrease in reliance on the sense of smell, as exhibited by the gradual reduction in snout length and the loss of the wet nose (still retained in lemurs, the most primitive living primates). Humans have nearly 100 different olfactory genes, yet around 70 of them are inactivated pseudogenes (Rouquier, et al 2000). Why would we have all these useless genes devoted to olfaction if we were built from scratch and not descended from ancestors for whom olfaction was much more important?
Now, as I’ve said, humans and chimps have vastly similar genomes. One conspicuous difference, though, is in the number of chromosomes present. Our haploid chromosome number is 23, while that of chimpanzees and the other great apes is 24. How do we explain this? Chromosomes are not uniform in structure, and when stained with certain dyes will exhibit distinctive banding patterns which may be used to gauge similarities or detect abnormalities. The following picture compares the banding patterns of human chromosome 2 (chromosomes are numbered according to their size, 1 being the largest) and two chromosomes (called 2p and 2q) each from chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom_2.gif
You can see that there are many similarities, most notably between the patterns of the human and chimp chromosomes. This led researchers to hypothesize that earlier versions of the two chromosomes possessed by the apes shown above had fused to create our chromosome 2 in one of our ape-like ancestors (Yunis, et al 1980; Yunis & Prakash, 1982). Is there any evidence for this?
There is, but it will require a little more background explanation. When the enzymes responsible for the replication of DNA get to the end of a strand, there’s nothing for them to hold on to, and so they fall off without being able to replicate the last few nucleotides. Because this would quickly degrade the genome (and the organism harboring it), chromosomes have long, non-coding strings on their ends called telomeres, which serve to prolong the destruction of the coding genetic material (what manifests to us as the process of aging). Our telomeres consist of a specific six-base pair section repeated over and over: thymine-adenine, thymine-adenine, adenine-thymine, guanine-cytosine, guanine-cytosine, and guanine-cytosine. Interestingly, we find these telomeric regions in the middle of our chromosome 2, right at the expected point of fusion. Further, the bases and the sequence even reverse in the middle of this region (remember that the two DNA strands are anti-parallel), indicating the presence of both a trailing and a leading telomere (as from two different chromosomes) (Ijdo, et al. 1991).
There is more. There is a region of the chromosome called a centromere, which is crucial to proper cell division. These are the slightly constricted regions in the chromosomes shown in the above image. Our chromosome 2 contains remnants of a second centromere corresponding to the centromere seen on the lower chimpanzee chromosome (Avarello, et al. 1992).
Each of these lines of evidence is individually quite powerful. Take them all together, though–along with the morphological, geographical, and fossil evidence–and the force of the argument becomes tremendous. Common descent is the only thing that can satisfactorily account for the discussed similarities.
Avarello, R., A. Pedicini, et al. (1992). “Evidence for an ancestral alphoid domain on the long arm of human chromosome 2.” Hum Genet 89(2): 247-9.
Bonner, T. I., C. O’Connell, et al. (1982). “Cloned endogenous retroviral sequences from human DNA.” PNAS 79: 4709.
Goodman, M., B. F. Koop, et al. (1989). “Molecular phylogeny of the family of apes and humans.” Genome 31 (316-335).
Ijdo, JW., A. Baldini, et al. (1991). “Origin of human chromosome 2: an ancestral telomere-telomere fusion.” PNAS 88(20): 9051-5.
Kawaguchi, H., C. O’hUigin, et al. (1992). “Evolutionary origin of mutations in the primate cytochrome P450c21 gene.” American Journal of Human Genetics 50: 766-780.
Rouquier, S., A. Blancher, et al. (2000). “The olfactory receptor gene repertoire in primates and mouse: Evidence for reduction of the functional fraction in primates.” PNAS 97: 2870-2874.
Svensson, A. C., N. Setterblad, et al. (1995). “Primate DRB genes from the DR3 and DR8 haplotypes contain ERV9 LTR elements at identical positions.” Immunogenetics 41: 74.
Sverdlov, E. D. (2000). “Retroviruses and primate evolution.” BioEssays 22: 161-171.
Yunis, J. J., J. R. Sawyer, K. Dunham. (1980). “The striking resemblance of high-resolution g-banded chromosomes of man and chimpanzee.” Science 208(6): 1145-1148.
Yunis, J. J., O. Prakash. (1982). “The origin of man: a chromosomal pictorial legacy.” Science 215(19): 1525-1530.
I must admit to being disappointed by Daniel J. Lewis. I was at least hoping for a long but poorly formulated argument, or barring that a well formulated argument based on ignorance. Unfortunately, I received neither. So much for Christmas presents.
For my money, this is the best part.
No. No, it’s not, and here’s why.
Your task in this debate, should it ever get started, is to defend creationism. Our task is to defend evolution. You have, by your own admission, claimed that you need the Bible to be inerrant in order for you to make your case. However (leaving aside the idea of proving a negative), the nonexistence of God is not necessary to the theory of evolution. (You can check with the Catholic church on this one.)
I’ll wager that pretty much every evolution supporter here is willing to undertake the debate without the use of the axiom that God doesn’t exist. You’re not willing to do the same about the axiom that the Bible is inerrant.
Furthermore, you’ve made a testable claim by saying that the Bible, taken literally, does not contradict observable evidence. If you tell me that the sky is orange and rain falls up, I’m going to tell you you’re wrong. Your Bible claim is just as ridiculous. (There’s water above the sky? Locusts have four legs?) You can’t just toss off a claim like that and tell us we can’t criticize it.
In short: You say the Bible, taken literally, has no conflict with observable reality, and we’re not allowed to contradict you. You place yourself directly opposite observable fact. There’s nowhere we can go from here.
Ein Sophistry,
That is the most beautifully succinct description of evolutionary genetics I have ever encountered, and your description of the transition from 24 to 23 chromosomes actually answers a question I realize I had always neglected to ask. It is so well articulated I had to Google some phrases to verify it wasn’t just cut’n’pasted.
May I have your permission to reproduce this material (on my blog)? I think a lot of people would benefit from reading it.
One more point about axioms.
I’ll wager that it’s impossible for you, without taking as fact the inerrancy of the Bible, to prove creationism beyond a reasonable doubt. I’ll further bet that it is possible for the folks here to, using a set of axioms that you’ll agree to, make a convincing case for evolution.
So know we wait. Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock
MarkP: you may certainly reproduce the material. I hope I’ve not made any grievous errors. Perhaps it would be best to wait until some people here more learned than I (PZ, perhaps?) have had a chance to comment and make any corrections. The bulk of the post was a truncated version of an e-mail I had recently sent to my born-again father.
The hub, so to speak, from which the info on retro- and pseudogenes was drawn (which led me to most of the primary sources cited above) was Dr. Douglas Theobald’s excellent 29+ Evidence for Macroevolution. You can check it out here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ for a much more detailed treatment of molecular and other lines of evidence, and, of course, pursue the primary literature as well, all of which, I think (at least the stuff on retro- and pseudogenes) is available on PubMed.
For a more in-depth discussion of our second chromosome, please see: http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html.
Credo quia impossibile est. What kind of mind does Tertullian’s describe, and what kind of mind does it create? Certainly not one that is amenable to honest argument.
Sorry: ‘Tertullian’s aphorism’.
Daniel Lewis says:
Where do you get your own presupposition that proponents of evolution are almost by definition atheists? And how do you define “naturalism”? If that definition includes a reference to the notion of “God” or “godlessness,” it’s not really a definition. At best it’s a self-reference and you’ve argued yourself into a circle from the get-go. At worst it’s a passing of judgment, which automatically makes any real debate impossible because you’ve already decided that everything the other side says is worthless and given yourself an “out” to write it all off.
wintermute says:
Thank you for that. I get disgusted when the debate over evolution degenerates into an argument over religion and particularly the existence or nonexistence of God.
The assumption that “evolutionist=atheist” is just plain bullsh*t. I can’t tell you how gratified I was when the noted biologist Ken Miller, during a recent speech in which he did a magnificent job of fisking “intelligent” design, referred to his Catholic faith. (Daniel, I highly recommend the speech. It’s up at YouTube, but give yourself plenty of time to watch it; it’s almost 2 hours long. While you’re there, take a look at Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s piece on “Stupid Design.” It’s a screaming riot.)
Personally, I’m a lifelong Christian (Baptist preacher’s kid) and a scientist (chemist/chemical engineer) by training, as most regulars here probably know by now, and for me there’s never been any conflict between faith and evolution (or any other branch of science), because they exist for entirely different purposes. Faith (or philosophy, for all the non-theists out there) exists to explore why I’m here and give me a basic ethical framework, and science explores the mechanics of how I (and everything else) got here and how things work. I take both into account constantly.
Greco says:
Right you are. It simply isn’t possible to take absolutely everything in the Bible literally. Everyone interprets, everyone cherry-picks, and not to acknowledge that fact is naïve at best and dishonest at worst. The Bible was never intended to be read as a scientific book. How could it be, when the concept of “science” wouldn’t be invented until centuries later? Its view of the physical world is based on millennia-old, pre-scientific ideas that are far from “entirely consistent with what we observe.”
What puzzles and irks me is how much of an investment some people have in taking creation, judgment, hell, miracles, the end of the world, etc. literally while paying so little attention to the clearly stated teachings of Jesus such as the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, the unlimitedness of forgiveness (or “70 times 7”) and grace, and the obligation to care for “the least of these,” all of which are easily understood and expressly meant to be put into practice literally.
Would you care to comment on that, Daniel? Which parts – yes, parts – of the Bible are you taking literally and putting the most emphasis on, and are they really the most important in light of the indisputable literalness of those words of Jesus?
Back to Daniel:
Au contraire, mon frère. ID is precisely creationism in sheep’s clothing; it just gets coy and seeks to avoid the question of a “designer.” One of the things Ken Miller demonstrated in his talk was how perfectly the rise of “intelligent design” and the fall of “creation science” mirrored each other. He illustrated this using two editions of the notorious ID textbook, Of Pandas and People. The first edition referred to “creation” throughout, and the later edition was nearly identical except that “creation” has been replaced by “design.”
Daniel again:
The former can be said to be included in the latter. If we’re looking at two conflicting models, we also have to look at the purported evidence supporting each one. All anyone is doing here is trying to point out the holes in your evidence and assumptions, just as you’re trying to point out the holes in ours. It’s only fair; it’s the way science works.
We’re not being any rougher on you than we’d be on anyone else who made a “scientific” claim. In fact, based on the couple of near-brawls I’ve heard about among research scientists in particular, and having seen first-hand the kind of wringers Ph.D. candidates get put through during their thesis defenses, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us were actually pulling our punches a bit.
In addition: You’re on our turf; you play by our rules. You did ask for it, after all.
Jim Wynne says:
Also known at my former workplace as “McMonigle’s Law of Research” after a co-worker who, once he’d made up his mind about something, almost couldn’t be budged:
“If the data don’t fit your theory, throw out the data.”
Stanton asks:
That’s just the point. It doesn’t. Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) came up with that, and several of his contemporaries came up with similar estimates. One or two even managed somehow to nail down the day and time. The earliest reference I could find to such calculations is one by the English priest, the Venerable Bede (673-735). It’s about as biblical as trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. (Medieval theologians occasionally got into knock-down-drag-outs on that one. What a waste.)
Doc Bill says:
I agree 100%.
mjh observes:
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!
A final thought for Daniel, then I’ll leave off for now. Not only the Bible, but “the heavens are telling the glory of God.” We weren’t around to see creation, but we can all look at the reality of now. Who are you going to believe, a non-eyewitness account written millennia ago, or your own (God-given) lying eyes?
Way too much said. I’m getting a little punchy. G’nite, everyone……..
I’ll have to agree with MarkP – Ein Sophistry’s mini-essay there is beautifully comprehensive – i’ld love the chance to reprint in my journal as well, including the references in your follow-up comment? With your permission, naturally.
Whoops, I just realized there’s another MarkP here (who posted first)– in future I will post under this, my bloggy name.
Thanks again Ein :)
Ein Sophistry: Beautiful. I’ve learned something today.
Depressing story in today’s Guardian:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1957858,00.html
I think this was all a plan to get people to write lots of things that he would never respond to.
I must say that I’ve always been worried by the account in the bible of the day that God stopped the Sun in the sky so that the Israelites could continue fighting and obliterate their enemies. I’m not a scientist (unless history counts), but I’ve always understood that stopping the sun moving around the earth or even stopping the earth moving around the sun is likely to have had unpleasant consequences.
Perhaps it’s only after this that the earth started moving round the sun, like it does now.
On a minor note I’ve also wondered for a while how the koalas got to Australia after the flood. Did Noah go around the world delivering all the animals he saved? Obviously platypuses could swim to Australia – I’m not sure they like salt water though.
Thank you Russell for your comment: “I have to disagree with ConcernedJoe on his proposed first two characteristics of science. There is no need to assume that things are “guided by natural law,..”
But I wonder if semantics is our problem? Seems we are saying the same thing?!?!?
You end by saying “[Theology fails] because there is no empirical evidence for it.” I say that any scientific treatment (rational discussion, rational study, and the like) of theological issues, or any issue, has to center around natural and observable things… in a word “empirical evidence!” A natural thing HAS to follow natural laws!
I know of no “empirical evidence” that does not follow natural laws or that cannot be explained by natural law. If something is to be TRUE and “empirical” (meaning it exists tangibly for “all” to observe, taste, touch, and feel) that is a given in my mind.
Sure we have things yet to discover (new laws, alternate laws, refinements, etc.). But if we treat something scientifically we must seek the NATURAL cause no matter how “magical” it looks at first blush. I have no problem with someone saying god made the universe as long as they can explain the “how” scientifically and show the value-add of god as a NATURAL processor in an honest scientific way vis-à-vis natural laws. Otherwise: GET OFF MY PHONE!
PS. For those new-agers that want to say “but ConcernedJoe” what about love, certainly that transcends the mere physical” or some such crap… I say: forget it – I am not backing off. Love is complex, don’t know all the mechanisms, etc. etc. etc. And yes – I am a ROMANTIC and find it absolutely wonderful, and powerful, and “magical.” But I also know it is PHYSICAL! You probably could not torture me into not really loving my loved ones … BUT a well placed brain injury or a drug or an illness could make me detest them! I have no doubt about this. If there is a spirit it sure is susceptible to all the things the brain is!!! The conclusion is (pardon the pun) “a NO brainer!”
[Perhaps it’s only after this that the earth started moving round the sun, like it does now.]
And that was way after the earth changed its’ shape from flat to a sphere.
The earth seems to be doing some pretty heavy-duty evolving….
ConcernedJoe writes, “I wonder if semantics is our problem?”
Could be. Part of the problem precisely is what people mean by “natural.” Suppose it turns out somehow that ghosts are real. Somehow, someway, the human mind becomes a disembodied spirit on death, not directly affected by the physical world it then leaves behind. But also somehow, once we discover the right means, capable of communicating with us. Are ghosts then natural? Or do they remain part of the supernatural? The thing I know is this: once a means of communicating with ghosts is discovered, a science of ghostology will develop, with researchers asking questions such as how ghosts evolve after they are loosed from their mortal body, whether they still perceive the natural world, whether they (or their perceptions) are physically local, if so, how quickly they can travel, etc.
Many people use the term “supernatural” as creating some kind of ontological divide. They don’t have a good definition, but they do have a rough categorization. People, rocks, teapots, and squids are natural. Ghosts, gods, and unicorns are supernatural. But if Athena publicly makes herself known tomorrow, does she then become natural, for being known? That seems to confuse ontology with epistemology, i.e., how we categorize the world, with what we can know about it.
And besides, we have other and better words to describe the epistemological difference. Things that are imagined to exist but for which there is no evidence are called “fantasies” or “myths.” The evidence that people use “natural” in an ontological rather than epistemological sense is that there are many things that are both natural (or would be, if discovered) but that currently live in the realm of myth and fantasy. The Loch Ness monster. King Arthur.
So I’m sticking to my view that “natural” and “supernatural” is a poorly defined ontological divide that is completely irrelevant to science. What science needs is evidence. It can investigate supernatural things just fine if evidence of them is ever discovered. What it cannot do is deal with fantasies for which there is no evidence. Importantly, for this argument, that limitation is purely epistemic.
Daniel’s god is not ruled out by science because it is a god. It is beyond science’s scope solely because Daniel cannot provide evidence for it. To agree that science is ontologically restricted provides the religious an easy out. “Oh, you have the presupposition of naturalism, and so you rule out a priori anything that is supernatural.” That’s nonsense. I don’t rule anything out a priori. My views on ghosts and gods is entirely a matter of the evidence we have for them.
Incorrect, Russel. The willingness to rework our ideas if the evidence demands it is essential to science, and that willingness is incompatible with an arbitrary a priori categorization.
‘Supernatural’ is incoherent.
Caledonian, I’m not sure where you’re disagreeing with me. You repeat three points I tried to make. (1) The scope of science is limited only by availability of evidence. (2) Science doesn’t have any a priori ontological limit on the kinds of things it can investigate. (3) The divide between natural and supernatural is poorly defined, and not relevant to science in any case.
Russell, respecting that I may be missing something you get that I just am too thick to ever get, I’ll just stick by my statement “I know of no “empirical evidence” that does not follow natural laws or that cannot be explained by natural law. If something is to be TRUE and “empirical” (meaning it exists tangibly for “all” to observe, taste, touch, and feel) that is a given in my mind” and let my betters like Caledonian argue the subtlties.
Cannot resist leaving this thought though: if Athena does decide to pop up — I hope the heck she visits and graces the present White House clowns!!! Apparently jeebus ain’t helping them!
More like thousands.
I was hoping to see at least one argument from Daniel, but he hasn’t even attempted to get out of the gate. Perhaps this was just an effective way to waste the time of all or us evil evidence-based people.
Maybe we should let him post a single argument, then shred it and see if he tries to defend the argument or tries a different, unrelated argument.
Unfortunately while I appreciate the space PZ has created for this discussion it is clear that this experimental debate is doomed to failure for the exact reason pointed out by Mr. Lewis–the sheer volume of material being posted, and Mr. Lewis’ apparent time restraints, make any single line of debate damn-near impossible. Please understand I say this from the perspective of someone who approves of the scientific method and agrees with neither creationism nor intelligent design.
While I know that all of the arguments and counter-arguments already exist out on teh Intarweb, I think exchanges like this certainly have value, but some other format that narrows the field down closer to 1:1 is probably the only really reasonable means of having it.
Serious reading comprehension difficulties are the least of your problems, I think.
I have to agree with Asimov that “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
Inerrent? pulllease.
Erg. At post #173-ish, Im a bit late to the fun– but no, PZ, you shouldnt humor this.
I think students ‘debating’ Creationists is a good idea. Its really helped me pull together things I learned in ecology–>genetics–>physiology–>biochem, etc. However, real scientists shouldnt give them a seconds glance. Who is this guy? D. Joseph? Who the hell is he? Ah but for one glimmering moment, he is the Brave True Christian (TM) that stood up against the Mighty Evil Atheist PhD. Seriously what the hell does this guy know about biology? He knows enough to ‘debate’ you? I doubt it. Ugh ignore it, or ask your daughter if shes up for some fun.
Drhoz!, go right ahead.
Monday, monday (ba-da ba-da-da-da)
So good to me (ba-da ba-da-da-da)
Sir Daniel, whither away so fast?
Caledonian writes, “Serious reading comprehension difficulties are the least of your problems, I think.”
So, one traditional way to help deal with an interlocutor is to quote the portion of their text to which you are responding.
So, one traditional way to participate in a rational discussion is to read the statements of others with comprehension.
As I recall, and please correct me if I forgot something, it was you who came here for a creation vs. evolution debate — that is the premise of this thread, is it not? Likewise, it was you that brought up the bible within your first sentence, not us. N’est pas, mon ami?
I would suggest that PZ shut this thread down for comments unless Daniel shows back up. PZ gave him a chance, and he obviously has other things to do instead. If he so chooses, he could email PZ with his first real point, and if it’s adequate, it could be posted and the thread reopened. Otherwise, we’re just free-for-alling it here.
one more on the pile. actually, i’ll miss the entire pile and just land on the grass.
as so many have pointed out, debates with presuppositionalists are generally dead in the water. it is rather easy to show that such a system is not internally coherent. it’s not even fun usually it is so boring (at least it is more fun when you are in the minority and they want to convince you).
it is anotherthing altogether to show that any arbitrary presupposition can negate any amount of evidence. and that is also easy and boring. so i say, ho-hum. this one was a non-starter to begin with.
but prove me wrong there Prophet.
Mr Lewis
Just one simple question that affects both your view of creation and the inerrancy of the Bible.
Which version of the Genesis bible creation myth do you believe to be the word of god? The one where Eve is created after Adam by using one of Adam’s ribs, or the one where they are both created at the sametime? (Genesis ch 2 and 5)
No! Don’t shut down the thread! I have a point I wanted to make……….tomorrow night. Maybe
Mr. Lewis,
Why do you recognize only one of the three sets of the Ten Commandments?. Possibly because the set at Ex 34:14 lists women as property? Or because that set cautions us not to boil a lamb in it’s mother’s milk? Are those too absurd for you?
Exodus 20:1-2
Exodus 34:14-
Deuteronomy 5: 7-
There are also 613 other commandments in the bible. Whay do you ignore most of them?
ConcernedJoe: I think the problem with saying that scientific things must follow natural laws ends up ruling out the possibility of god(s) a priori, just as Mr. Lewis’s ‘axiom’ rules out observed evidence. I think including “it has to be explainable by/guided by natural law” as a basic tenet of science is both backwards and unnecessary. After all, if that were a basic building block of science, then where were we before knowing what the natural laws were?
The natural laws, so far as we have defined them, are based on observation and falsifiability just as anything else is. It’s just that laws seem really, really unlikely to be falsified at this point.
So, if we observe, in a laboratory setting, the pieces of a broken coffee mug spontaneously restoring themselves into an unbroken mug, we wouldn’t immediately say “well, we can’t study that because it can’t be explained by natural law.” The theory and law has to fit the observation, and never the other way around. If we are able to reliably repeat this antientropic experiment, then it may require us to re-evaluate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Of course, what it wouldn’t lead us to do, at least not immediately, is say “God did it.” And I think that’s what you’re trying to get at with your first two rules. But it’s not a matter that science has to be explained by natural laws, it’s the fact that scientific statements must be evaluated with Occam’s Razor, and therefore, we must accept the explanation that best explains the evidence without requiring the existence of unnecessary entities. This leads us to reject gods, unicorns, fairies, and leprechauns as explanations not because they do not conform to natural law, but because natural laws explain the matters at least as well, and more simply.
Christmas Eve is the perfect example of this. We are presented with two possible explanations for the filled stockings and jingling of sleigh bells: either a magical man with flying reindeer drops down the chimney of every gentile child in the world over the course of one night, delivering presents, or Christian parents buy presents and secretly act out the role of Santa Claus. We may accept the former explanation for some time, but eventually Occam’s Razor and possibly evidence in support of the latter explanation will force us to reject it in favor of the latter.
Now, consider a situation where one Christmas Eve, Santa Claus is caught on hundreds of cameras, dropping into people’s houses and delivering presents, before sliding back up the chimney and flying off in his magic sleigh. After verifying that the tapes have not been altered in any way, and finding more corroborating evidence (such as car windshields covered in flying reindeer droppings), suddenly the latter explanation no longer seems to adequately explain the observations, and suddenly Santa Claus is no longer restricted by the rules against unnecessary entities. Given the observations, an explanation involving Santa seems to be the one supported by Occam’s Razor.
But again, this would not necessitate our immediate acceptance of “magic” as the explanation for Santa’s abilities, since we have natural models that explain the observations more simply. And so the process begins again.
So I believe instead that your list should instead suggest that scientific principles must:
1. Be based on observed, generally repeatable phenomena.
2. Must be considered under Occam’s Razor.
3. Must be falsifiable, through new observation.
I think too often we think of the natural laws as inviolable, but were we to repeatedly observe a clear violation of natural laws, it should not lead us to reject the observation. It should not necessarily lead us to reject the law as observed, either, but it may require revision. Natural laws (so far as we have defined them) are as subject to revision as anything else in science.
Well, that went well :/
Just out of curiosity, why did you pick the Bible to believe and not, say, Bhagavad Dita?
Did you mean “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vita”? Or Bhagavad Gita?
On November 26 at 2:20 Daniel Lewis states to Alejandro,
“First, let’s realize that there is no fact or evidence that speaks for itself. Everything has to be interpreted. And we interpret the facts that we see based upon what we believe.”
I disagree. There are facts that speak for themselves. Not everything is subject to interpretation. For example, mutations occur, or, some organisms have more offspring than others in a given generation. These are facts.
Debate with anyone who considers the Bible to be a science text or a history text is doomed to failure from the start.
Tom Foss, I think you’re getting misled by terminology.
All that is intended by “natural law” in this context is that we assume observable phenomena behave in a predictable manner, even if we don’t yet know how to predict the behaviour. Finding a verifiable violation of the second law of thermodynamics (which would be difficult given its statistical nature) wouldn’t necessarily mean that the concept of natural law had been invalidated, merely our understanding of what that law is. Scientists didn’t just give up on the scientific method when they discovered quantum mechanics.
Ginger Yellow writes, “All that is intended by “natural law” in this context is that we assume observable phenomena behave in a predictable manner.”
Hmmm. I would be cautious of using “predictability” as a criterion. Even classical systems following perfectly deterministic law can be unpredictable in theory, except for short time-windows. Non-linear dynamic systems provide bountiful mathematical examples, and weather provides a concrete example. Interestingly, you often can provide answers to some aspects of long-term behavior, but not to “state at time t.” Until the answers are in hand, you may not know what questions can be answered.
The Bible is not a history book.
Certainly not, and I’m not saying that the concept of the natural law would have been invalidated, but that our definition of a particular law might require reconsideration, in that instance. It’s similar to what’s happening with gravity; we have a law of gravity, but we aren’t entirely sure of the mechanism by which it operates. Once we find that mechanism, we may have to revise the law (particularly if, though the hypothesis is no longer in vogue, gravity become repellant at certain distances). I guess a distinction needs to be made between the extant natural law, which actively governs nature, and our defined natural law, which is an attempt at quantifying the extant one. It seems almost platonic…our attempts to define an extant law move ever closer to perfect accuracy.
I agree, we do assume that observable phenomena behave in a predictable manner, and I suppose that should have been in my revised list of scientific principles (although, I think saying that they must be based on “repeatable” phenomena, as I did, covers that somewhat).
What I was trying to say, I guess, is that while ConcernedJoe’s definition rules out god(s) a priori, science would actually rule a godly explanation out methodologically. An explanation which posits “god did it” is still subjected to the same testing that a naturalistic explanation undergoes. The difference is that the “god did it” explanation can almost always be ruled out as per Occam’s Razor and the doctrines of falsifiability and reliable repeatability. Naturalistic explanations pass those tests, and thus move on to more specialized testing. There’s no need to rule god(s) out as an axiomatic rule or primary assumption; we can rule them out just as easily and far more justifiably through the most basic methods of science.
Dear Daniel Lewis,
Lets go from your axioma, and I will add mine. It is clear that your books are faulty, the only correct books are the Edda’s and the related saga’s of my religion that describe how the earth came out of Ginnungagap, the vast chasm that existed before the ordering of the world. How are we going to distinguish between your axioma and mine? I think that if we want to have a valid discussion about whether your creation story is true, or what you consider the naturalistic belief, other creation stories have to be considered as well. As far as I am concerned, all Christians have it wrong, but their reluctance to adhere to the only true believe is their problem, not mine.
Thanks all for offering your insights and opinions … I do think and learn… so don’t take this post as too defensive or that I have not listened.
I did not say in prior posts that we know ALL the natural laws or how they apply in every context. I am only trying to say that SCIENCE must be bound to the premise that natural laws provide explanations to all phenomena. It has no choice as it is our “slave” that finds natural answers to things that otherwise would be mysteries. I expect scientists to do this … otherwise I’d pay priests to do provide me healthcare solutions, etc.
I hope I was clear in my previous post: “Sure we have things yet to discover (new laws, alternate laws, refinements, etc.). But if we treat something scientifically we must seek the NATURAL cause no matter how “magical” it looks at first blush. I have no problem with someone saying god made the universe as long as they can explain the “how” scientifically and show the value-add of god as a NATURAL processor in an honest scientific way vis-à-vis natural laws.”
Again — you may discover a NEW natural law in solving mysteries BUT ultimately as a SCIENTIST you’ll come to some law of nature as explanation.
I take a simple approach, all the semantics hurts my head.
If the bible is being presented as an inerrant, non contradicing “witness” to the origin of the universe, we have every right to test the accuracy and validity of this witness. All it takes is ONE error , ONE contradiction to destroy that claim. In that regard, I have several questions for Mr. Lewis. How did Judas Iscariot die? Did he hang himself, or did he throw himself down from a height so that he burst on impact? Seems to me that both versions appear in the New Testament (hanging in one(?) of the Gospels, bursting in Acts(?). Maybe some of our friendly atheists can pitch in here, as many seem to know the bible pretty well. Question the second; what is Jesus’s geneology? Seems to me that the Gospels have more than one version of this, too. (Which is not only contradictory but irrelevent if Joseph contributed no sperm to Jesus…) So, unless I am mistaken, which I admit is possible, these inconsistancies (in matters that should be pretty simple questions of fact, no “interpretation” needed) would disqualify the bible from inerrancy and consistancy. In which case there is no believe any claim dependent upon the inerrancy of the bible. The End.
Russell: Perhaps “regularly” would be a better choice of words, then. I don’t mean to imply that we can predict the behaviour of all observable phenomena, merely that we assume that for each observable phenomenon ‘x’ there exists a pattern ‘y’ to which it conforms. Determinism or otherwise doesn’t come into it.
Tom: I entirely agree with your last paragraph, with only the exception that I have previously given to a Catholic philosopher who insists there could be no proof of (a) God’s existence, for the reasons you state. I offered up the Rapture, half in jest, but half seriously, on the grounds that any naturalistic being capable of effecting the Rapture is to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from a deity, and I’d be down on my knees praying regardless. But that’s a pragmatic rather than a metaphysical argument.
Plate tectonics and stellar evolution are not easily repeatable, though we do have on-going examples. Be careful not to cut with too broad a philosophical scythe. In explaining Roman cities in France, I’m pretty comfortable with the explanation that “Caesar did it.” We have plenty of evidence for Caesar, including his own account of having done it.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the problem with Athena and Yahweh is really very simple: no evidence. Like most gods, they are exceedingly shy in revealing themselves, except in myth. That’s really all that needs to be said. Apologists resort to philosophy because Yahweh doesn’t speak to each of us weekly, from a burning bush in our own backyards, didn’t record Genesis 1:1 in ASCII in every creature’s genome, and didn’t leave us a prophesy of the last digit of the Dow Jones closing averages for the next thirty years. There are plenty of ways the gods could provide clear evidence of themselves. They simply haven’t done so. The scientifically-minded skeptic doesn’t need any philosophic disproofs against these gods, and can rightly reject any presuppositions that the believer tries to read into his non-belief. The skeptic need only repeat: Show me the evidence.
A direct quote from the Guardian’s depressing article referred to by Digital Lifeform:
If we want to teach about criticisms of Darwin’s theory, we should be teaching about the actual arguments put forth by Darwin’s contemporaries – Lamarck’s “inheritance of acquired characteristics,” for instance – and how they were refuted.
Those arguments included plenty of creationist ones as well. A case could be made for looking at them in the context of Darwin’s era, but the same conclusion would apply now as it did 150 years ago: they don’t work.
On the “pro” side, we should take a look at Huxley – “Darwin’s Bulldog” – and Wallace, who developed a theory similar to Darwin’s but got beaten to the punch by what, a few days? a month? by Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species.
While we’re at it, how about throwing in such ideas as “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”?
We should also look at the circumstances of Darwin’s life, the totality of his experience that eventually led a one-time divinity student to leave his religion behind (the death of his beloved daughter being as important, if not more so, than any of his scientific work), and the agonizing struggle (which made him physically ill) over whether he should publish his work at all in light of the social attitudes of his day.
Now that’s the way to “teach the controversy.” But even at that, most of it really belongs in a “history of science” context, not in a science class proper.
There are two ways religion can attempt to confront science over ID.
One, by bring facts to the table, which would rapidly be demolished because there ARE no facts that back up Intelligent Design.
Two, the only possible option for any discussion, be vague, and thus provide no way for the assertions to be disproven.
Most of us were peeved when we found out there was no Santa, too, man. Our parents lied to us. Not that I expect you to change your mind, obviously you think you have something of substance to say, I’m sorry you can’t bring any actual facts to the table…
and it doesn’t really matter to us what you believe, just don’t go shoving your unprovable myth into classrooms and feeling justified in it, especially in light of the fact that if you do that we’ll have to give airtime to everyone else’s unprovable myth.
Daniel, I hope you’ll take the time to read this entire thread. You’ve probably encountered a lot of hostility. Allow me, a fellow believer, to help you make sense of this.
First of all, don’t ascribe the hostility you experience to any personal failing on the part of those responding. That’s a waste of energy, and misses the point entirely. The main reason you’ll encounter hostility is because the arguments you make have been made over and over again, and none of them have any validity in a scientific setting. Those of us who are committed to the practice of science aren’t against creationism because of our religious commitments; we’re against it because it is a poor substitute for real science.
Second of all, don’t assume (falsely) that worldviews like atheism and naturalism are behind every scientist’s affirmation of evolution. I’m neither an atheist or a naturalist, but like the vast majority of scientists I understand that evolution by natural selection is the best natural model for explaining the diversity and distribution of life over time. While some version of ‘God did it’ might be consonant with both of our views, that sort of model isn’t testable and it has no standing in science. Attempting to assert, by fiat, that the Bible is authoritative within science and therefore your understanding of it trumps scientific investigation is more than wrong-headed: it’s offensive to those of us who care about science.
Finally, you don’t deserve to be taken seriously by any scientist until you are willing to seriously address the following question: what evidence would it take, that if presented, would cause you to modify or change your beliefs about evolution? Be honest with yourself. If there’s nothing we could show you that would convince you, then you really aren’t interested in science, and there’s no point in having this conversation. On the other hand, if you are willing to seriously entertain the possibility that you might be wrong about this or that aspect of evolution, then what would it take to convince you?
Keep in mind that this is a serious challenge from a fellow Christian and a scientist. If you would like to continue you this off-thread, you may write me at:
epigene13@hotmail.com
Russell: So, how do *you* like the Caledonian treatment?
Wherein:
1)X makes a statement.
2)C, from the vantage point of distant (but clearly superior) erudition, posts a correction which sounds very similar to what X wrote in the first placee.
3)X or others request a clarification.
4)C responds with mockery: how could you be so doltish?
5) X or others ask for specifics as to why they are so doltish!
6) C declines, because dolts are not bright enough to understand why they are dolts.
Steps 3-6 can be repeated in almost any order until the desired bland consistency is obtained.
Anyway, did any of the above work for you? Puckishly—SH
The problem with Mr. Lewis’ proposal should have been apparent from his initial axioms: the science most at issue here isn’t biology; it’s psychology.
There is no way to have a “rational” debate with a person whose ideas are wound not only into their “worldview” but into their very persona. Bible-based creationism has become part of how Mr. Lewis defines himself. It isn’t subject to argument or logic. It’s like trying to talk someone out of being in love with a total abusive bum. The reasons NOT to be in love can be clear and irrefutable, but the emotional attachment simply can’t be overcome by any logic.
So, despite the internal contradictions of the Bible and the reprehensible behavior of the creature purporting to be “God” in that Bible, Mr. Lewis is (I fear) unable to let go of whatever has caused his emotional attachment to the Bible-based mindset — whether that be a sense of connection to the infinite or submission to a comforting authoritarian rule or feeling of elitism in being “saved” or whatever. The short answer is that these Bible-based ideas aren’t even ideas at all: they’re emotional constructs that the unfortunate sufferer can’t release. I’m not sure even the most enlightened 12-step program can help a Bible-holic.
At the other end of the spectrum is the rational “scientific” thinker. This person doesn’t have to be a scientist (which is why I used parentheses above). But he or she is capable of recognizing evidence, accepting ideas and, more importantly, rejecting accepted ideas once new evidence disproves it. Even the most accomplished “scientific” thinker is subject to emotional constructs in the same way as the Bible-holic (e.g., being in love with a bum). But the “scientific” thinker can better maintain a wall between subjective personal emotions recognized as such and the objective outside world.
The key difference is the ability to act like the professor in Dawkins’ anecdote who had maintained an incorrect scientific position for 15 years — until he heard a lecture that conclusively disproved his position. As a good scientist, he went up to the lecturer and thanked him for illuminating him. Alas, I doubt that a Bible-holic could ever betray what has become a part of his own personality and do something analogous, even if God himself came along and told him to do so.
Daniel J. Lewis starts off by laying out his “axioms” as essentially that he believes that the Bible is somehow literal, historical fact (more or less), and then wonders why people start addressing the problems in his fundamental axioms.
The answer, Daniel, is pretty simple. In mathematics, if I assert that 1+1 = 3, I can expect others to challenge not merely the conclusions I draw from that axiomatic statement, but the statement itself. (which, for the sake of simplicity here is provably incorrect, as opposed to much of scripture which is arguably incorrect as a historical record)
Fundamentally, if you start from unsupportable premises, then you can expect people to question those premises as well as what you derive from them.
I am confused by Caledonian’s strange and rather rude remarks to Russell.
Caledonian… please explain it to us dolts, what the f are you talking about?
Another person here who wishes to redistribute Ein Sophistry’s fine comment.
So typical of the pattern of “creationist debates.” I’ve seen this kind of drive-by fruiting time and time again. What the creationist wants is a platform to make a statement then, after the scientist has responded with a 900-page answer, say “well, let’s agree to disagree.”
Daniel cloaks his cut-and-run by saying, Oh, what a lot of postings to respond to, which is a ruse because he hasn’t responded to a single one.
The essence of Daniel’s “argument” is this:
The whole point about creationism is that it is entirely INCONSISTENT with what “we” observe! To say otherwise isn’t an axiom, it’s ignorance and willful ignorance at that.
Daniel won’t be back. He generated over 200 comments on PZ’s thread in a day and that’s pretty good going. One thing about creationists, they sure know how to generate comments out of thin air.
Hmmmm….
The distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ is extremely clear in science, and it’s one of the things at the heart of the scientific method. Russel is completely incorrect when he says that it’s inconsequential.
In his listing of three points, he fails to note that his third point is the complete opposite of what I’d just said.
ConcernedJoe says:
I see where you’re coming from, I just think there’s another step in there that most people never really think about. We ultimately come to a naturalistic explanation because it passes the tests of falsifiability and Occam’s Razor, not because we a priori reject supernatural explanations. The effect is the same–the “magical” explanation is rejected, but there’s an extra step in there to justify it. When we neglect to mention that step, we only give fodder to folks like Mr. Lewis, who think that Naturalism is our religious worldview. We accept naturalistic processes because they behave reliably and pass the test of unnecessary entities, not just because they are naturalistic.
I daresay that at one point, the photon would have been just such an unnecessary entity; light was explained quite adequately with the wave model. But, when we found evidence for the particular nature of light, the photon was accepted as a naturalistic explanation. The previously-unnecessary (and thus forbidden by Occam’s Razor) entity had become necessary.
And so it would be if (a) God descended from the heavens tomorrow, proclaimed its existence, and demonstrated its reality in a clear way. This entity would become necessary to explain what we observed of its existence; it would pass the Occam test.
After that, it’s a matter of falsifiability and theorizing and trying to update the model to incorporate this new observation. When the apparently-supernatural becomes clearly extant, I suppose we must re-evaluate what we consider “natural.”
So, to bring this back to a point, you’re right, we do ultimately go to the naturalistic explanation. The only thing is that we arrive at that explanation through the general processes of science, and not through a priori inadmission of supernatural explanations (though the effect is the same–the supernatural gets tossed out). That, and our definition of “naturalistic” is not immutable; as you said, we are always finding out more about the universe around us, and so “natural” cannot be a solid, objective standard by which to judge arguments, except inasmuch as Occam’s Razor rejects supernatural explanations.
Ginger Yellow said:
I think if there were proof of (a) God’s existence, it would go a long way toward moving said deity out of the supernatural and into the natural.
I remember reading a response to Hume’s “On Miracles” not too long ago, where it discussed the possibility of a situation where the ‘miracle’ was the ‘less miraculous’ (and thus more believable) option than the nonmiraculous explanation. The example given by the author was if Chicago suddenly vanished, and the event was witnessed by countless people (similar to your example of the Rapture). I think in such a matter, it would be difficult to find a naturalistic explanation that satisfied the observations better than a miraculous one.
But I’d disagree with your philosopher friend on one matter: there can be proof of (a) God’s existence under such rules. He just has to show himself. Occam’s Razor rejects entities that are unnecessary to explain observations, but if (a) God is the observation, then that God is not unnecessary to the explanation. After that, it’s a matter of trying to falsify the claims (is it really God?) or to show that they are falsifiable, but the first major hurdle of supernatural claims is cleared. If (a) God can show him/her/itself and we can test its claims in a falsifiable manner, then I think it could absolutely be proof of the god’s existence.
Russel said:
I agree with everything you said, although while these matters are not repeatable in toto, we can make repeated observations of different instances of plate tectonics and stellar evolution, and come to the same conclusion. The element of repeatability is still there, but it has to be modified in the sciences where experimentation is not an option. As you say, though, it’s all a matter of evidence and the lack thereof.
I’m disappointed. I really did want to know if Daniel had seen the warehouses where god keeps snow and hail. And some explanation of how they managed to get all those spacecraft through the firmament and into the sky-waters beyond. They do call them spaceships, after all.
Caledonian wrote, “‘Supernatural’ is incoherent.”
Caledonian later wrote, “The distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ is extremely clear in science.”
I confess this leaves me a bit perplexed regarding Caledonian’s view of the natural-supernatural distinction. I apologize in advance if that is due to poor reading comprehension.
Wow. There are so many things here that we can talk about. But I need to be honest about a misunderstanding that I had. I’m subscribed to Google’s blogsearch with the keyword “PowerPoint.” I clicked a link that brought me here on the subject of PowerPoint. I read the post, felt that I could add to the discussion about PowerPoint and point to something that I’d designed as examples. That lead to debating, and I opened for specific discussion. But this was all under my assumption that Pharyngula was just a small, personal blog and that I would be discussing with just a handful of readers.
What I got was a flashflood of questions and comments all worthy of discussion, but far too many for me to address with the attention that each person deserves. Several of the readers have contacted me directly, acknowledged that the debate is very “one-sided,” and suggested that I respectfully bow out.
Despite my intentions, I know that this will be seen as running away. But all of you still have the freedom to contact me directly through my website where we can discuss things in an environment where I can give the attention that you deserve.
Many of you have raised excellent points that I will have to ponder and research. Thank you for sharing these things! I will eventually post my answers to the core questions on my own website.
I need to clarify one last thing. Mr. Myers posted “Daniel Lewis, from Answers in Genesis,” but none of my writing is in official representation of Answers in Genesis. I state such on my own website’s disclaimer.
Again, thank you for the respect that you’ve shown, the time that you’ve spent, and the knowledge that you’ve shared.
Respectfully,
Daniel J. Lewis
D.Joseph Design
Questions, questions, questions!
If the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ is one of the things at the heart of the scientific method, isn’t that distinction taken a priori?
If no, why?
If yes, doesn’t this contradict an earlier poster who remarked an essential characteristic of science is ‘incompatible with an arbitrary a priori categorization?”
If not, would we perhaps expect that this particular a priori categorization is *not* taken arbitrarily?
So many questions. Wouldn’t it just be simpler to assume that the two previous posters weren’t really talking about the same thing, and thus talking past one another? I don’t get the sense that Russell is blind to the natural/supernatural distinction, just that as a practical matter he finds it superfluous…..SH
This is why being nice doesn’t work. Let’s drop the charade: Daniel, you are a fraud. You took honest people, who gave you the benefit of the doubt, led them along on a false pretense, then ran away and laughed. Your actions are those of a child. A very bad child.
And lies make baby Jesus cry.
What a lying chickenshit. Imagine my surprise…
PowerPoint!?! What the hell?
Daniel Lewis, are you clueless, being spoofed, or just trying to increase your site traffic?
a_cowardly_creationist_438 wrote:
“But all of you still have the freedom to contact me directly through my website where we can discuss things in an environment where I can give the attention that you deserve.”
I’m sure scads of people will take him up on this. After all, if there’s any single lesson anyone could learn by debating a creationist, I’d put money on it being that we can always count on maturity, intellectual honesty, and fair treatment when debating them on their own terms. Right?
Daniel Lewis: creationist liar and fraud — but I repeat myself.
How many here thought his goal was ever anything more than to bleat, blogwhore, offer an inanely contrived excuse, and scarper?
PZ didn’t need to offer any rope. DL spontaneously combusted!
Well, we all saw that coming. They shrink from the candle in the dark. I for one am pursuing him to his woefully silly blog. I truly want to see those snow warehouses.
Scott, it’s not that I’m blind to the natural-supernatural distinction but (1) to the extent that it is an ontological distinction, I don’t think it is relevant to science, whose domain limits are defined more by methodological issues than ontological ones, and (2) as an ontological distinction, I think it is poorly defined.
Here is an example of a poor definition I sometimes see: “the supernatural is that which operates beyond natural law.” The problem is that “natural laws” are conceptual constructs that we continually invent and revise as a result of our investigations, so by this definition, the divide is neither fixed, nor ontological, nor defining any kind of procedural distinction, but merely a reaction to current understanding. And I guess that’s fair in some historical sense. At one point, in some places, electricity or radio likely seemed quite spooky.
Let me Powerpoint you towards the door, Mr. Lewis.
Is this a new method of the AIG tactic called “So that their words may be used against them”?
Well, there is so much we could talk about so I’ll just be going
Sorry to hear that Mr. Lewis, but I do understand – you sorta wandered into shark-infested waters all covered with chum. Can’t say I was surprised.
(And I’m not sure how you confused PZ’s blog with a “small, personal blog… with just a handful of readers.”)
I really wanted to know if you agreed with the level of hate displayed by AIG too.
Best wishes of enlightenment to you sir.
From Carlie:
It is a multitude, but it’s a multitude asking a single question, for what that’s worth. He could skim the entire thread so far and summarize it down to two talking points: Is the Bible an accurate source to provide evidence of creationism? and, if he doesn’t want to go there, What evidence is there of creationism apart from the Bible, since we have not established its validity?
Again, Daniel, can you answer these two, or even one, of these questions? Is this honestly too much for you to do?
Regardless of the (lack of) participation of Mr Lewis, I would not consider this thread a total failure.
It was two hours of very illuminating argumentation and discussion about a very basic conceptual conflict in the “religion vs. science” …er… discussion. And I for one was very much enlightened. My thanks to all the posters who contributed.
“Several of the readers have contacted me directly, acknowledged that the debate is very “one-sided,” and suggested that I respectfully bow out.”
Haha right.
Notice how this supposed exchange of courtesy can also be interpreted as “some of the readers (who obviously were not too keen in having my views presented on this blog) contacted me privately to get me to back down, saying I wouldn’t stand a chance in this debate”…
Now guess which version (the one presented, or the one implied) would seem more plausible to his creationist buddies.
I wouldn’t underestimate Mr. Lewis: He seems well-trained in the ways of the YEC.
Titus 1: 12, 13 — “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;”
Therefore, if the Bible were perfectly accurate, you have a Cretian tell someone truthfully that all Cretians always lie. If a Cretian tells you that all Cretians always lie, can he be telling the truth?
And what the heck does this mean?
Genesis 5: 1-3 — “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:”
[blockquote]Genesis 5: 1-3 — “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:”[/blockquote]
Just…..Seth? No titles or anything? Just one line in a book that lots of people worship, but few read?
But more importantly: if the only woman around was his mother, was Seth gay?
This part is clear. The first humans god created were both male and female, and all were named ‘Adam’.
The preceding part explains why Seth was in an Adam’s likeness; an Adam (which Adam we are not told, but it does not matter) mated with itself, and produced offspring which was, unsurprisingly, like an Adam. Why they named the new Adam Seth rather than something simple, like ‘Adam’ or ‘Bruce’ is not clear.
Another point which is worth mentioning, is the word ‘son’ which is used to refer to Seth. Since Seth was the child of an Adam, and Adams were both male and female, Seth too must have been both male and female. ‘son’ must have been used, in antediluvian books, to mean a child which is both male and female. Over time, sin led to incomplete children being born, and original ‘Adams’ who were both male and female, became less and less common. If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are MEN + WOMEN?
Like clockwork.
As you recall Daniel wrote originally: Then if the blog administrator allows it, I’m available to publicly discuss creation vs. evolution if we can do so on level, intelligent grounds without childish attacks. You can start with your belief system (naturalism), and I can start with mine (the Bible).
And I honestly think that Daniel did his level best to put forward the best arguments that exist today for creationism, scientific creationism and “intelligent design” which is to say exactly NONE.
“Because I say so” is not a real argument, but, hey, if it’s all one has I say go for it!
Creationists are so predictable. Someone should work out the kinetics for this reaction. Then at least they would have “some” science!
Russell: Thanks for the amplification of your views. I agree: a tautologous ‘definition’ for the supernatural is most unsatisfying, given the flux of scientific explanations. I also agree that science is best delimited in terms of practice, rather than by a priori definitions of what is called ‘natural’ or otherwise. Theologians of all stripes, OTOH, seem to desperately crave some sort of up-front distinction, typically superfluous to the conduct of science. Peace…SH
Since several have agreed that this is the exact summary of this discussion, it is what I plan to answer on my own website.
Are you trying to make yourself artificially stupid? It’s working brilliantly, I must say.
That’s great, Daniel. You plan to do it on your own website because you don’t care to be subjected to questions that you have no answers for other than “I believe it.” You asked for a chance, you got it, and you ended up slinking away in the same display of intellectual cowardice that your brethren invariably share. Go type your stories to the gullible who will believe you, but don’t pretend that you are a scientist or that what you do and believe has anything to do with science.
Caledonian,
I know you have something more than sensible to say on the subject of the distinction between natural and supernatural, and indeed I have seen it a few threads back when I asked, but I have to say (although I think it is apparent to most people) that your tone is seriously obscuring the content.
So, just for the record, could I humbly request that you just set out your position on the issue one more time as succinctly as you can?
I’m not sure even the most enlightened 12-step program can help a Bible-holic.
Man, you are making a real funny joke here. You do realize that 100% of **all** 12-step programs are based on the original Alcoholics Anonomous system, which used the “Bible” to tell people that they are 1. Stupid, 2. Incompetent, 3. Bad at making decisions and then 4-12. “You need to let God or his designated priest make all your choices for you”, right? There is no such thing as an enlightened 12-step program. They are “all” run by the same religious organization, which barely even admits that people, “leave the program for no reason we bother to determine at a rate of roughly 90%”, which is statistically identical to the profile for the number of people that successfully stop their addictions “without help”.
Its a religion promotion system, which like way too many (if not all) of them use ignorance of the facts, intentional blindness about reality and blind faith in the supposed effectiveness of the program to project their supposed “successes”. And they don’t even do better than people that don’t attend.
Heck, lets say the program was called, “Suicide recovery and treatment”, instead. One would “expect” that the number of people that survive a suicide attempt would be “higher”, even if all they did was bandage the people’s wounds, while everyone else just stood around and let them bleed to death. They wouldn’t need to give them any psychological help at all and they would “still” have better statistical outcomes than mere apathy. But, that’s not what is going on here. Instead “both” sides are bandaging the wounds, so the only “statistically significant” result would be of the councilling was “better” than what they didn’t recieve at all at the other location (maybe they just hand out bandages there through a window, but don’t talk to any of them). Now, lets say, in both cases the “actual” number of survivors is 1 in 10. The “12-step” recovery program though is stacking the deck. Roughly 9 out of every ten treated leave, without “ever” recieving any other help at all. These people are deemed “unknown outcomes” and a priori excluded from the statistics kept by the 12-step program, assuming they keep any at all, thus, when asked, they happilly claim that there program is so successful that 100% of everyone they actually “help” survives… Yeah, except the ones that didn’t *want* the help, so vanished off the map. The other ones, who don’t provide “any” help, do keep statistics.. Turns out, 1 out of every 10 survives, while the rest die anyway. End result = neither system is effective at solving the problem.
The real major stupidity though is that along comes some secular group that thinks helping people how to deal with the real world is a great idea, instead of telling everyone how stupid and incapable of thinking for themselves they are… The 12-steppers bring out their, “nothing works as well as the nothing we are doing!”, try to force the new group out of the area or drive people away from it, and if it stick around, they babble about how a 20%, or 30%, or what ever success rate is “unimpressive” because it hasn’t been intentionally stacked in their favor, by carefully excluding anyone that refused to stay in it, the way the 12-step groups do it.
I definitely hope you where making a joke, because if not, you have an unreasonably high expectation of what the God-step programs actually do, how useless they are, even statistically, and just what their real message universally is. “Don’t think, you are too stupid to do so, so let us (i.e. God through us) do all the thinking for you.”
I had better confess. I emailed Daniel. I think now I did this too quickly; and I apologize for that. It was obvious to me from the start that Daniel had no idea how many folks he’d be dealing with.
What I said was along these lines (extract)
I was not intending to be concilliatory to creationism. I also told Daniel:
Paul — my apology to you in particular. This thread was a good idea. The end result, I am sure, would have been the same in any case; but I should have left it a bit longer.
Cheers — Chris
I think some of you guys need to tone down your attacks on Daniels. He is quite right that it is impossible to debate 100 people at once, regardless of whether or not you are right, and I can understand if he dropped out of the discussion. It’s not cowardice just common sense.
If you want some serious discussion, someone should volunteer for a debate against him, one on one, where the result can then be published.
What do you know? Sadly, I’m not suprised in the least by the cut-and-run.
Another sterling example of the Creationism vs Evolution debate.
Evolution – Offers science, reason, and well-crafted arguments.
Creationism – Disappears as soon as it realizes that science WILL find and point out its holes and logical inconsistancies. Everyone has wasted their time actually trusting the ‘christian’ to keep his word and DEBATE, and I’d wager quite strongly that he will be vigorously censoring the responses on his own blog.
Ah well. What’s new with the zebrafish?
Weevil
No. The “tone” was only added several posts after the content was originally put up. If you can’t detect for yourself where Russel’s statements about the things I said and the things I said diverge, explaning would be pointless.
Since several have agreed that this is the exact summary of this discussion, it is what I plan to answer on my own website.
Why not here? You asked for space, and got it. We just happened to fill in the time while waiting for you. Is it because you can delete comments there, or so you might get more hits to your site? I don’t see the need for a venue change. We can all be quite civil, really, when there’s something of substance to discuss.
“I definitely hope you where making a joke, because if not, you have an unreasonably high expectation of what the God-step programs actually do….”
The 12-step program mention was just a throwaway reference to a well-known “recovery” program for the addicted. Pick another if you like.
The real point is that Bible-holics have trans-rational needs that are invulnerable to rational argument. Therefore, trying to engage a Bible-based creationist in a rational discussion is pointless. Their position is based on deep-seated emotional needs that can’t be argued away.
As I suggested above, if God Itself came along and told a Bible-holic that his or her position was wrong, the Bible-holic would prefer to rationalize God’s own intervention away as a demonic delusion rather than uproot his or her Bible-based worldview. The alternative would be just too damaging and painful (although I’m sure there are exceptions who have somehow managed to overcome their Bible-holism).
Tom:
Bear in mind this guy is a philosopher, a Catholic one at that, and thinks like one. He’s not talking about scientific proof but logical proof. He’d just say (and did) that any manifestation of a deity could be explained as, for instance, a sophisticated hallucination. To which my response was, of course, if I’m hallucinating it that well, it’s proof to me. Hence “to all intents and purposes indistinguishable”. I’m a pragmatist. He’s not.
Daniel:
Yes, you just stumbled on to the single most frequented science blog on the internet, which also happens to be absolutely hated by creationists like, say, Answers in Genesis, and thought it was a personal blog. OK, then.
All evidence has an infinite number of possible explanations. This “philosopher” is rejecting the very concept of drawing conclusions, which is particularly funny as the rejection itself takes the form of a logical conclusion.
I think perhaps he should familiarize himself with the meaning of ‘philosopher’.
Ginger Yellow:
Except that, under Occam’s Razor, there’s going to be a point when “sophisticated hallucination” is the unnecessary entity. If one person sees it, it’s a hallucination. If two people see it, it’s a mass hallucination. But if a hundred people see it? A thousand? Ten million? Eventually, “hallucination” becomes a ridiculous notion.
I suppose you could come up with a “naturalistic” explanation for any conceivable evidence of (a) god, but eventually you’re going to hit a tipping point, and the roundabout wrangling of “naturalistic” phenomena will become more miraculous than the existence of a deity.
But I understand the difficulty of arguing with philosophers and Catholics. My freshman philosophy class–where the professor unashamedly and bombastically addressed the moral neutrality of killing newborn kittens as part of an abortion discussion–was filled with papal people. I’m convinced he yelled out things like “anal intercourse” just to watch them squirm.
How disapointing to get to the end of this very long thread only to find that the hope of some small glimmer of logic from a creationist smashed by the creationist petulantly declaring that he’s taking the ball and going home because too many people are interested in what he has to say. What an odd reason not to respond, especially given the over all polite tone of the discussion (really the worst behavior is directed at other pharyngulans, not at him). I can understand not answering every question as that would take far too long, but not even covering the basics seems downright cowardly.
Well that’s the point. This philosopher is very annoying to argue with. Occam’s Razor is very useful in the real world, but philosophers seem to care more about possible worlds. Furthermore they Catholic philosophers seem to care considerably more about what is absolutely true but unknowable than what is knowable but only almost certainly true. Which I find a very odd attitude. I wasn’t trying to start a metaphysical debate, just to point out that beyond a certain point the distinction between supernatural God and naturalistic superbeing/hallucination of such becomes pragmatically meaningless.
I went to Daniels blog to try to find where he is addressing the questions he said he would address and couldnt find him doing so. I found several comments from people from here, but only one (half-assed)response from him. Is he really not even responding on his own blog or was I looking in the wrong spot? Anyone know?
Without going into detail, here are some quick answers to the two questions:
The Bible is not a science textbook, it’s a history book. But it does touch on the sciences like geology, astronomy, anthropology, medicine, and such.
What is the best evidence that Abraham Lincoln once lived? Recorded history. Thus, the Bible itself is also the best evidence that God created. And when interpreting data through this correct understanding of history, the data is consistent with biblical history.
For more, read “Creation: Where’s the Proof?”
“Searching for the Magic Bullet”
Or take your pick from a myriad of articles.
(This will no doubt spring another 200 comments, most of which I won’t be able to read. Thanks to the couple people who are still carrying our discussions.)
If you want a detailed response, it will take more time than what I usually devote to sleep, evening classes, work, and other appointments.
I should have clarified that it will be within a week or so.
“What is the best evidence that Abraham Lincoln once lived? Recorded history. Thus, the Bible itself is also the best evidence that God created.”
Um… are there any biographies of Lincoln out on the shelves which are based not on actual historical research, but instead on Lincoln appearing to the author in a vision and telling the author his life story? Are there any biographies entitled “Lincoln, His Life and Times, as According to a Dream I had Last Night”? If the Bible includes a creation story that by definition happened long before any of the authors of the Bible actually lived, and of which they knew nothing about except what they were “divinely inspired” to write, then you’re accepting the Bible as historically true because you’ve already accepted the Bible as historically true. As many here have told you.
I write this post with full knowledge of its futility.
“The Bible is not a science textbook, it’s a history book.”
Last I checked, the Bible was in the religion section of my library, not the history section.
I’ll notify the librarians and ask that it be moved.
I so look forward to reading once again the “future” history sections of the Bible.
So enlightening.
Daniel, this analogy just doesn’t hold up very well.
The recorded history regarding Abraham Lincoln’s life is found in numerous independent sources. Pictures, government documents, newspaper articles, biographies (A quick Amazon search brings up 35665 hits on books about Abraham Lincoln).
Your bible is one book – and much of this book has contradictions and is questioned in many ways by religious scholars. (or do you recognize different accounts of biblical “history”?). Validating the “history” in the bible by comparing it to the documentation of Abraham Lincoln’s life is an invalid comparison.
In addition, it’s curious that you consider linking to the stories found on the Answers in Genesis website as a form of debate. That seems like a pretty weak way to engage in a serious conversation.
A quick read through Daniel’s web site will give you a hint that he is a very young man. Perhaps his young mind will grow via this conversation – but he appears to have been quite effectively brain-washed by his employer. This debate may have been a non-starter from the very beginning…
Daniel, “recorded history” with regard to Lincoln comprises many thousands of data points. Newspaper reports, the Congressional record, photographs, correspondence etc. For Lincoln not to have lived, all this would have to have been fabricated, a hypothesis on a par with God creating the universe last Tuesday, which would also mean the Bible was created last Tuesday.
The Bible is one data point among many to consider when assessing the existence of the Biblical God. For a scientist-historian it has no more prima facie weight than other data, such as physical evidence or other ancient texts. Beyond the surface it has less weight, given that it is explicitly a revealed text rather than an objective account, its authors are naturally biased, most of it is not contemporary and much of its factual content is fantastical, in the sense that it describes phenomena we have no other evidence for. Thus when a scientist-historian finds a contradiction between the Bible and physical evidence, he/she will always favour the phsyical evidence. Until you understand that, and explain how you believe the physical evidence supports what you believe to be true, and not for instance the ancient age of the earth or common descent, then the “conversation” is futile.
And for God’s sake, a week between responses is ridiculous. You might as well be exchanging letters. This is the blogosphere. Posts run off the bottom of the page in a day. You think the rest of us don’t have jobs?
Mr. Lewis:
I will (for now)accept your implied assumption that history takes precedence over all other sciences, and should juddge the validity of all data from other fields.
(Although that leads to some puzzling issues: Should we still believe that Merlin (or the druids) built Stonehenge? Should we look for signs of Griffins, One-eyed giants and dog-sized ants living in Africa in the past, just because Herodotus -the Father of History- wrote about them?)
Anyway, I only have one question at this point:
Why, exactly, should the Bible be regarded as a historical record, while, say, Homer’s epics (the Iliad and the Odyssey) should be seen as works of fiction?
I would like a detailed answer, if you have the time.
It is not a form of debate because I have officially bowed out of the debate due to it’s unforeseen (on my part) size, which makes it almost impossible to participate.
Have you seen this Mr. Lewis?
It is not a form of debate because I have officially bowed out of the debate due to it’s unforeseen (on my part) size, which makes it almost impossible to participate.
Like I said, you’re getting your arguments from people who don’t care whether they make sense or not, or they themselves are getting it from someone else who doesn’t care, and so on down the line…
It is not a form of debate because I have officially bowed out of the debate due to it’s unforeseen (on my part) size, which makes it almost impossible to participate.
But Mr. Lewis, you just answered in two questions presented to you, just a few comments above.
Not to mention that you thanked all those of us who are “still having discussions” (as if a discussion ever started).
Make up your mind please. Do you want to have a debate here, or not? Posting a reply to whoever you feel like, whenever you feel like it, and then avoiding to address counterarguments by saying “this is not a debate, as I have bowed out long ago”, is NOT the most sincere and straightforward behavior, in any exchange.
Daniel Lewis writes, “The Bible is not a science textbook, it’s a history book.”
Well, no, it isn’t. First, it is not a book, but a collection of books, and more factually, several different sets of collections, though the major Christian sects have for a long time settled on two primary collections. Many of the books were written anonymously. Though they have traditional attributions, we know in some cases those are false, and in other cases, that the traditional author would have no knowledge of the events being related. Many of the books were written for a blatantly religious purpose. There is no single book in the Bible whose primary purpose is to uncover truth about some events preceding it, and none exhibit the methods of a historian, not even of an ancient historian such as Thudidydes. The persuasive techniques applied in the text itself are those of apologetics, not history, for example, when the gospel authors relate how crowds had seen miracles. It is about as far from a history book as one can imagine. The pretense that it is a history book is simply dishonest apologetics.
Russell, you repeat yourself. “honest apologetics” is an oxymoron, “dishonest apologetics” merely redundant.
no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott
Danny boy, I suggest you ponder the significance of this observation made by Louann Miller (on the newsgroup talk.origins) about behavior typified by your inept performance here at pharyngula:
Yeah, but as in “Blazing Saddles,” as soon as you decide that the kid’s not worth your time, you’ll turn to walk away and the little bastard will shoot you in the ass. And then he’ll go home to proclaim victory.
And if you decide to face him head-on, well, then you’re picking on a poor defenseless little kid. What kind of monster would do such a thing?
Isn’t it interesting how so many conversations with Christians end up with you being damned if you do and damned if you don’t? I think that says something about their general philosophy…
How about we make this a battle between
People whose beliefs can be proven
and
People whose beliefs can’t bet proven
?
Now, how do you suppose a battle like that would go?
Is there anyway to write up the rules of exchange for such an event?
I’ll bet my 20-sided die that those rules would exist already if it were possible write them such that both sides could agree to their effectiveness.
Note that one way one could debate is just to do what those people did historically who saw problems in biblical literalism. Namely, one could assume BL ex hypothesi, and then do a sort of informal proof by reductio …
False Prophet: Because the bible, surprise surprise, is itself inconsistent on the point, more or less. (See the end of Revelation.)
Millimeter Wave, Russell: Hey! I’m a prophet!
In a previous post on this thread, I predicted that any request for clarification directed to a certain poster would be met with mockery, then (if pressed) said poster would decline to respond, claiming that those asking for clarification are “not bright enough to understand why they are dolts.”
Fast forward to now, wherein one ‘C’ writes: “If you can’t detect for yourself where Russel’s statements about the things I said and the things I said diverge, explaning (sic) would be pointless.”
It seems to me I’ve heard this song before….:)
Daniel,
You wrote:
The Bible is not a science textbook, it’s a history book.
In what sense is the Bible a history book?
What is the best evidence that Abraham Lincoln once lived? Recorded history. Thus, the Bible itself is also the best evidence that God created.
And what evidence is there that there is a god? The bible. And what evidence do we have that the bible is significant? It is the word of god. And how do we know there is a god? Because the bible says so. Your argument presupposes there is a god and goes round in circles from there. If there isn’t a god, the bible is meaningless as anything other than a piece of fiction.
The evidence for Abraham Lincoln goes well beyond simply what is written in history books about Abraham Lincoln. Using your example there is as much reason to believe Sherlock Holmes existed as there is to believe god existed.
And when interpreting data through this correct understanding of history, the data is consistent with biblical history.
In other words, when you already reach your conclusion, you can then go back and make the evidence fit.
The bible is not a valid source of history.
Since you didn’t answer before I’ll ask again. Which version of the creation myth in Genesis do you believe is the correct one and why?
Indeed. It seems my point about the tone obscuring the content fell on deaf ears. I can’t say I’m surprised this time around, but I can always hope.
There’s always a chance some you people will start thinking. It’s the hope that drives me, after all.
If you can’t identify the basic points of an argument and compare someone else’s summation of the argument to them, how do you expect to be able to understand any explanation I offer? Honest incomprehension I don’t mind, but I’m not going to pander to dumb.
C: “Some of us people” would like to be considered worthy of discourse. Speaking only for myself, I believe that I can learn much from other people, even if I disagree with some of their beliefs and (believe it or not) it does not automatically follow that by taking this stance I am pandering, patronizing or in otherwise dissembling.
But, just for the sake of argument, suppose you were pandering to dumb? Even so, would it hurt so much to take the time to lay out your position impersonally every now and then even to such folk, even if you harbored serious doubts about their willingness or ability to understand you?
I,for one, would not think any less of you, and I doubt very much anyone else here would, either. Sincerely…SH
Dear Mr Lewis:
I’ve tried looking in several creationist websites, but, could you please tell me which verse in which book in the Bible where it states that the world was created 6000 years ago, and where it states that the Great Flood occured 4000 years ago?
I have been unable to find either in any creationist website or literature.
Caledonain,
forgive me for thinking that communicating to people who don’t immediately get your point is important. Given the subject matter at hand, it is inevitable that some people with either disagree or fail to immediately understand your argument.
If one chooses to immediately dismiss such people as stupid and engage in belittling them, one loses the opportunity to persuade them.
Of course, I don’t presume to tell you what your priorities should be.
Once again, Mr. Lewis:
Why, exactly, should the Bible be regarded as a historical record, while, say, Homer’s epics (the Iliad and the Odyssey) should be seen as works of fiction?
Any thoughts?
So long, Mr. Lewis. Nice knowing you.
Mr. Lewis said:
That’s one of the most ridiculous of the Josh McDowell claims, that we have more evidence that Jesus existed than we have of George Washington, or any other historical figure.
For Lincoln we have his own writings. We have the records of the cases he tried — hundreds of them, original court transcripts documenting his arguments. We have photographs of Lincoln. We have his grave site (and he could be exhumed). The Library of Congress has his eyeglasses and other contenst of his pockets on the night he was shot. We have literally thousands of eye-witness accounts of his appearances. Were we to check, we’d probably find his signatures on deeds for his property, and many other official records of his existence — his marriage license, his law license, the birth records of his children, etc., etc., etc.
We have nothign like that for Jesus. There is no record that Jesus ever wrote anything himself. There is no existing manuscript purported or suspected to be Jesus’ writing. Jesus left no records of every having owned land, no deeds recorded, etc.
The best evidence that Lincoln lived is the stuff in his own hand, coupled with the photographs, and the well-corroborated eye-witness testimony.
Are creationists really so confused as to think that the evidence for Jesus and Lincoln are in the same league?
Mr. Lewis never showed at my blog, either. Somebody cue the Jack Nichloson clip, “You can’t handle the truth!”
You are all bad, bad people who are all going to heck for not believing in gosh.
See you guys aren’t willing to play the game right. You have to BELIEVE that the bible is the word of god FIRST.
No cheating and reading it like any other book where AFTER reading it, you decide whether it is credible or not.
There are special rules for the Babble. Gosh said so. Belief FIRST, belief AFTER and no questioning of its contents or gosh’s followers gets their panties in a bunch.
Personally, I always got stuck on the talking snake bit. I have some major problems with snakes having the ability to talk under ANY circumstances.
I am in Australia, and snakes don’t even talk when you whack them with a huge stick after finding them in the cutlery drawer. You would think that if EVER there was a time to talk, it would be when you see a huge piece of 4 by 2 timber about to impact your skull. But no, not one of them has ever made so much as a peep. Not even “bloody hell sheila, don’t smash me head in. I will be out of the cutlery drawer in a tick.”
Not a peep. Nothin. Nada. Zilch. ;)