SCIENCE: Question Everything....

[RickG]

The Science Channel has a motto, "Question Everything".

A young earth belief, that is the age of the earth is only some 6 to 10 thousand years old, which has its origins based on biblical genealogies.

When it is said, "question everything" concerning science (our observable physical surroundings), it doesn't mean deny things. It means ask questions. What do we know about it? How do we know what we know?

Young Earth believers, are you willing to "question everything"? Question your own beliefs concerning a young earth? What are those beliefs based on? How do you validate them?

Lets question everything.

 

[pshun2404]

I agree! This is a rule all should follow. But I find hidden hypocrisy in some people. It is like the premise of tolerating all views that will not tolerate difference of their blase' hodge-podge eclectic mixing. Tolerance of all views should not demand acceptance of all views as equally true. Whatever camp (atheists, theists, YEC, OWC, and more) have their proponents that refuse to accept any premise that questions the accepted mantra (this is a sad reality).

 

[RickG]

I agree! This is a rule all should follow. But I find hidden hypocrisy in some people. It is like the premise of tolerating all views that will not tolerate difference of their blase' hodge-podge eclectic mixing. Tolerance of all views should not demand acceptance of all views as equally true. Whatever camp (atheists, theists, YEC, OWC, and more) have their proponents that refuse to accept any premise that questions the accepted mantra (this is a sad reality).

Thanks for your reply pshun, what you have described is very true and very sad. What I find most troubling is not the refusal to accept well established science, but the the deliberate misrepresentation of it in.

 

[pshun2404]

Thanks for your reply pshun, what you have described is very true and very sad. What I find most troubling is not the refusal to accept well established science, but the the deliberate misrepresentation of it in.

Yes and some is just different ways of seeing the same evidence...other have a number of assumption based conclusions imbedded by their education/indoctrination (both the theist and the atheist)...perhaps we all do to some degree. When someone points this out to us we should at least consider their view...

 

[RickG]

Yes and some is just different ways of seeing the same evidence...other have a number of assumption based conclusions imbedded by their education/indoctrination (both the theist and the atheist)...perhaps we all do to some degree. When someone points this out to us we should at least consider their view...

I disagree with the idea that it is a different way of seeing the same evidence. I say that because I have yet see anyone present the "same evidence" with a different interpretation. Rather, it is a distortion (misrepresentation) of the same evidence. Key word "SAME".

 

[Black Dog]

Yes and some is just different ways of seeing the same evidence...other have a number of assumption based conclusions imbedded by their education/indoctrination (both the theist and the atheist)...perhaps we all do to some degree. When someone points this out to us we should at least consider their view...

Well, one system is backed by the best idea mankind ever had: Science. The other by possibly imaginary supermen. Which of these has earned the right to be listened to?

 

[pshun2404]

I disagree with the idea that it is a different way of seeing the same evidence. I say that because I have yet see anyone present the "same evidence" with a different interpretation. Rather, it is a distortion (misrepresentation) of the same evidence. Key word "SAME".

Okay, that's fair, so let me give you an example...Take the Leakys at the Olduvai gorge....they find some stone tools and some foot prints leading away (that many argue were human...though allegedly we had no evidence of humans that early but that depends on how one interprets other evidence)....they found a monolithic structure....and a little more than 750 feet away (almost a football field) they found the upper remains of a young ape.

After all was said and done, since the predetermined conclusion was "no humans existed at this time", then this meant this young ape and her family must have made and used the tools and their feet had evolved to near human like. Can you see the HUGE assumptions here? I hope your mind is open enough and able to reason outside outside the box!

Imagine if 1,000,000 years from now if we were extinct and some Intelligent life form exploring here found some old tools and part of my toilet and nearly a football field away found the partial remains of a dog. Do you really think it would be reasonable and rational to assume the dog and its family used the tools and made the toilet? I certainly hope not.

Now the leakys may turn out (one day in the far future) to be right but it is highly unlikely but what bothered me was that these two respected scientists (whose work I have been excited about many times) would make such a blind leap in order to make the sparse evidence fit into the accepted mantra....it certainly is equally possible that they had found evidence for early humans who may have even killed and ate that ape (the point is we really do not know we assumed)....

A good scientist questions everything even the consensus (argumentum ad populum is a common logic fallacy)....

 

[joshua 1 9]

A young earth belief, that is the age of the earth is only some 6 to 10 thousand years old, which has its origins based on biblical genealogies.

The age that we live in is about that old. This is when we see the beginning of civilization and the beginning of farming. Some say that man went from being a hunter gather to a food producer.

 

[RickG]

Okay, that's fair, so let me give you an example...Take the Leakys at the Olduvai gorge....they find some stone tools and some foot prints leading away (that many argue were human...though allegedly we had no evidence of humans that early but that depends on how one interprets other evidence)....they found a monolithic structure....and a little more than 750 feet away (almost a football field) they found the upper remains of a young ape.

After all was said and done, since the predetermined conclusion was "no humans existed at this time", then this meant this young ape and her family must have made and used the tools and their feet had evolved to near human like. Can you see the HUGE assumptions here? I hope your mind is open enough and able to reason outside outside the box!

Imagine if 1,000,000 years from now if we were extinct and some Intelligent life form exploring here found some old tools and part of my toilet and nearly a football field away found the partial remains of a dog. Do you really think it would be reasonable and rational to assume the dog and its family used the tools and made the toilet? I certainly hope not.

Now the leakys may turn out (one day in the far future) to be right but it is highly unlikely but what bothered me was that these two respected scientists (whose work I have been excited about many times) would make such a blind leap in order to make the sparse evidence fit into the accepted mantra....it certainly is equally possible that they had found evidence for early humans who may have even killed and ate that ape (the point is we really do not know we assumed)....

A good scientist questions everything even the consensus (argumentum ad populum is a common logic fallacy)....

I understand your point and I think it is quite valid as the evidence described there isn't absolute. Perhaps I should have been more specific in my previous post. I seldom comment on areas of evolution, anthropology in your example, and related sciences unless there is a direct connection to my area(s) of understanding and/or experience; i.e., the physical earth sciences. For example, everything I have either had presented to me or have come across in reading concerning dating methods are mostly a misrepresentation of those methods, or at best examples of intellectual dishonesty, whether out of ignorance or deliberately performed. And flood geology is literally made up stuff.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

This reminds of the poster hanging in my 7th grade science class of Albert Einstein's quote: "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

Being incurious, complacent, or erroneously believing you have all the answers dampers the spark in your mind. It stops
you from asking the questions that will make you go in pursuit of the answers. Over the summer I read this book titled Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans. Her descriptions of her teenage self standing so proudly in the immutability of her worldview, on her certainly that she knew it all about the universe and never had any reason to take a science class taught by a non-creationist or consider a perspective that differed from her own reminded me of a friend who also grew up in a hermetic, YEC environment where not questioning was viewed as a form of respectful obedience. In her 20s Rachel Held Evans began to ask the questions that stimulated her appetite for knowledge, and she allowed herself to grow.

I was just reading this article about Paul Modrich winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his DNA research.

Modrich’s work shifted the base of knowledge surrounding the process of DNA repair from generic observations to a detailed biochemical understanding. In a press release on the Nobel Prize website, Modrich emphasized his method for research.

“This is why curiosity-based research is so important. You never know where it is going to lead,” he said. “A little luck helps, too.”

 

[RickG]

This reminds of the poster hanging in my 7th grade science class of Albert Einstein's quote: "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

Being incurious, complacent, or erroneously believing you have all the answers dampers the spark in your mind. It stops
you from asking the questions that will make you go in pursuit of the answers. Over the summer I read this book titled Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans. Her descriptions of her teenage self standing so proudly in the immutability of her worldview, on her certainly that she knew it all about the universe and never had any reason to take a science class taught by a non-creationist or consider a perspective that differed from her own reminded me of a friend who also grew up in a hermetic, YEC environment where not questioning was viewed as a form of respectful obedience. In her 20s Rachel Held Evans began to ask the questions that stimulated her appetite for knowledge, and she allowed herself to grow.

I was just reading this article about Paul Modrich winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his DNA research.

“This is why curiosity-based research is so important. You never know where it is going to lead,”

I like your Paul Modrich quote. It is very important for everyone to understand that we learn by going where science takes us, not were we want it to go.

 

[pshun2404]

I understand your point and I think it is quite valid as the evidence described there isn't absolute. Perhaps I should have been more specific in my previous post. I seldom comment on areas of evolution, anthropology in your example, and related sciences unless there is a direct connection to my area(s) of understanding and/or experience; i.e., the physical earth sciences. For example, everything I have either had presented to me or have come across in reading concerning dating methods are mostly a misrepresentation of those methods, or at best examples of intellectual dishonesty, whether out of ignorance or deliberately performed. And flood geology is literally made up stuff.

Cool! Self correction or self clarification is always appreciated, notable, and commendable...thanks Rick