Creation started with nothing?

[Critias]

I would agree with you that everyone, including scientists as human beings, have their blind spots and prejudices and pet hobby horses that can warp their viewpoints. The question is what happens when you move from an individual to a community perspective. Do the various individual biases get reinforced or mitigated by the group perspective? Science has a pretty good record (though not perfect by any means) of sifting out personal bias. But is there a community bias? And if so, is it unjustified?

Ah, ok.

I think it is pretty safe to say that even communities of people have their biases. Creationists have biases as a whole, do we not? Theistic Evolutionists have biases as a whole, do you not?

I wouldn't agree that every persons' bias would be incorporated into a community, but I don't think it would be honest to say a community of people is without their community bias. Peer pressure is a good example of keeping a community bias and/or breaking one to forge a new one.

I wouldn't agree that science has a good record, in the context of always being right. Neither has the Church. Let's be honest here, science and the Church have been wrong almost too often to count. All that shows is that we don't know everything, as we often think we do. Yet, neither has really learned from that very well. That is mankind though.

Is a biased unjustified, that would depend on the bias and where it came from. Christians have a biased that Jesus is the Son of God, where other faiths do not agree. Are we unjustified in that bias? I don't think so. It's all about the context.

 

[gluadys]

Ah, ok.

I think it is pretty safe to say that even communities of people have their biases. Creationists have biases as a whole, do we not? Theistic Evolutionists have biases as a whole, do you not?

In fact, that is one of the points I have been making. And this is not a bad thing, as long as we know what the bias is and have access to the viewpoints of other communities with different biases. We know we are not going to get an objective view of Democrats from a Republican publication and vice versa, but we can read both and come to our own conclusions. (And try to keep our own conclusions as fair and objective as possible.)

I wouldn't agree that science has a good record, in the context of always being right.

No, science doesn't always get it right, any more than other communities. But it has a better record than most of self-correction.

Is a biased unjustified, that would depend on the bias and where it came from. Christians have a biased that Jesus is the Son of God, where other faiths do not agree. Are we unjustified in that bias? I don't think so. It's all about the context.

Agreed.

 

[Critias]

In fact, that is one of the points I have been making. And this is not a bad thing, as long as we know what the bias is and have access to the viewpoints of other communities with different biases. We know we are not going to get an objective view of Democrats from a Republican publication and vice versa, but we can read both and come to our own conclusions. (And try to keep our own conclusions as fair and objective as possible.)

That brings up an interesting point. If you can't get an objective view out of someone who has a bias against it, why try then? Why the fight to make it happen? Wouldn't that time be better spent else where? Or is that we just want to argue for the sake of arguing?

I like a good argument just as much as the next gal/guy. But, sometimes, enough is enough.

No, science doesn't always get it right, any more than other communities. But it has a better record than most of self-correction.

I'd agree that it has a better record than most, but it doesn't mean that the self-correction lead to the correct answer. We can see that in history; also science isn't the only community at fault for that either - the Church can bear that blame as well.

 

[razzelflabben]

Yes, and that was the qualification listed even in the thumbnail sketch of Meredith Kline. For five different seminaries. What did you think they were? Kindergartens?

that doesn't mean masters or PH D's in ancient hebrew lang. But then again you know that you just can't admit it because it would require you to comprehend something other than your own beliefs.

Face it. You just don't want to recognize their qualifications because you disagree with what they say. I thought better of you than that.

Once again, you falsly accuse. I have no issue with their qualification, in fact, I am totally confident that they are more knoweledgable than I am. I also value their responses. The problem is three fold. 1. their expertise is not the same as a PH D in ancient Heb. lang. You see, they may know what the rash is, but they aren't the experts on rashes. so in order to fully understand why the rash isn't healing we go to the experts, the experts in rashes. 2. they don't address the issue you brought up. You kept insisting that we base our understanding on the grammatical structure of the text. Again, this requires us to look to an expert not an expert on anything, but rather an expert on ancient heb. lang. They would be the only ones fully qualiified to address the grammatical structure. something that none of your experts did.but something you help me to. 3. most of your experts either didn't say conclusively or agreed with the interpretations I suggested. Thus what you are really arguing over is not whether or not the text is both framework and chronological but whether or not you can pass your experts off as ancient heb. lang. scholars. The answer to that question requires 2 understandings, 1. what is an ancient heb. lang. scholar and 2. do they have the qualifications to qualify as an anceint heb. lang. scholar. The first is easy, someone whose education and other training both formal and otherwise is focused on the ancient heb. lang. The second is equally easy, no, none of the people you presented showed the qualification of the ancient heb. lang. being the focal point of their training, but rather of minor interest. Now this does not deminish their expertise, only limits it to other than the ancient heb. lang., a qualification you insisted I hold to.

 

[razzelflabben]

No variables in respect to what?

Science, in general, assumes that variables exist and sets out to study them. So they note, for example, that weight varies with gravity. And that the force of gravity itself varies according to the inverse square law. In fact, many of the equations used in science are equations that measure variables like gravity.

But scientists may conclude, in a specific case, that something is constant and does not vary. An example would be the speed of light in a vacuum.

In this case we are talking about the age of things like the earth, fossils in the earth, geological features in the earth and also about the age of stars and of the universe. And the various tests used to measure those ages.

So when you say science assumes there are no variables, I expect you mean one or more variables related to these tests.

So, in relation to these tests, what are the particular variables scientists are not accounting for?

come on, I am sure as shootin you aren't this dense.

 

[razzelflabben]

Oh, you must be referring to a different question then. It would have helped if you had quoted it. I thought you were still referring to this one, where you did answer "yes"


from post 221

read the answer in it's entirety and in context. Then get back to me.

So, if the light from the star itself is 4 years old, any other light collected by it and also appearing to come from it must also be at least 4 years old. It could be 1, 10, 300 years older, but not younger.

Agreed?

the age of the light would be, sure, but that is not equal to the age of the earth. Here in lies your problem.

So if we are looking at light that appears to come from Alpha Centauri, a star 4 light years away from us, we know that even if the light originated elsewhere, and is only making the last leg of its journey via Alpha Centauri, it took 4 years to travel that last leg. So it must be at least 4 years old. Could be more, but not less.

see, this is your problem, you are measuring light but calling it earth. The age of light is not in question here. You assertion was that the age of light equaled an old earth. The age of light equals nothing more or less than the age of light.

 

[razzelflabben]

Then it won't be answered until science has a reason to ask the question. Providing some evidence that life was indeed faltering would give scientists a reason to ask the questions, "why was it faltering?" and "what happened to save it?" Then you might get the conclusion you are suggesting.

and you honestly think that if I present that question with some testable answers here, that science will test it? What planet do you live on?

Now in the same post, I asked you a question which you have not answered yet.



Here's another.

depends on your perspective. If I as an individual look at something and say, hum that looks old, then yes. If on the other hand I as an individual look at something and say, actually that looks young, then no. See, you assert that individuals should look at the evidence and decide for themselves but when it comes down to actually looking at the evidence and coming to our own conclusions, you insist that the scientific evidences and conclusions are the only ones we can hold to. Double standard and I do hate double standards.

 

[razzelflabben]

I said it wasn't a real life example, but one for illustrative purposes. (Just like you taking a position as a devil's advocate although you don't hold it personally.) So, given that it is only for illustrative purposes, consider the question.

19 of the samples give a reading somewhere between 5.2 and 6.9% (acceptable). One gives a reading of 32%. (unacceptably high).

Does the doctor tell me my sugars are acceptable, or unacceptably high?

that depends on the bias of the dr. A dr. whose interest was in your health would know that the results needed would be over time and not one instant in time. A dr. who didn't care about you and just wanted to get your money and get you out of the office would probably say, it's a little high take this medication (because I get a kickback) and come back in a week.

Real life story. I was anorexic, or near to it (depending on the way you set the scale for what is and what is becoming) I wasn't sleeping, working all the time. In fact, I averages 2-3 hours a day of bed time. I was exhausted and my body wasn't functioning well. Went to the dr. the first dr. I went to had all the information. His diagnosis: I was fat and lazy if I ate less and worked out more, I would be fine. I asked the dr. I literally eat one or two bites of food a week, when and where do you want me to cut back. His response was, when you do eat, eat less. you see, the bias of the dr. was in not looking at the variables that he had before him and only looking at what he wanted the conclusion to be because it made it easy for him.
I went to a different dr. who looked at the variables, ran some other tests and said, force yourself to eat and get more rest. Within a relatively short period of time with the advice of the unbiased dr., I was feeling much better. Bias is about accepting the variables that are there, not assuming they don't exist.

 

[razzelflabben]

I said it wasn't a real life example, but one for illustrative purposes. (Just like you taking a position as a devil's advocate although you don't hold it personally.) So, given that it is only for illustrative purposes, consider the question.

19 of the samples give a reading somewhere between 5.2 and 6.9% (acceptable). One gives a reading of 32%. (unacceptably high).

Does the doctor tell me my sugars are acceptable, or unacceptably high?

depends on his bias. Consider this real life incident. I was not sleeping or eating, I was exhausted and not feeling well, so I went to the dr. The dr. had all the information, and his diagnosis was that I was fat and lazy, I should cut back on what I was eating and work out more. I asked the dr. Dr., I literally eat one or two bites of food a week, how and where do you want me to cut back. His reply, when you do eat, eat less.

The problem persisted and so I went to another dr. he had the exact same information. He ran a couple of tests to rule out some things then said to me, force yourself to eat and slow down. I took his advice and in a relatively short period of time was on my way to recovery.

Now, both had the same information, the first dr. however choose to ignore some of the variables because they did not fit his agenda. The second dr. looked at all the variables and made a diagnosis accounting for all the possibles not just the ones he thought would make his case. The first dr. is an example of how bias works in science. We arrive at a conclusion based on the evidence we want to view not all the evidence available.

Your dr. would be no different, his diagnosis would be based on the evidence he wishes to see. If he is a good dr. he will base it on all the evidence at hand including but not limited to needing a test that measures your sugar over a period of time rather than in one instance. But we are not talking about good drs. we are talking about biased dr. and thus, the conclusion will depend on his particular bias because the results can be manipulated to say whatever he wants it to say.





But they weren't testing the same thing.[/quote]

 

[razzelflabben]

I was keeping in mind this statement of razzelflabben's:



She has spoken often about biased scientists, but I thought it was a reference to individual biases. Now I think what she is driviing at is a bias endemic to the whole scientific community, but I am asking her to confirm that.

I would agree with you that everyone, including scientists as human beings, have their blind spots and prejudices and pet hobby horses that can warp their viewpoints. The question is what happens when you move from an individual to a community perspective. Do the various individual biases get reinforced or mitigated by the group perspective? Science has a pretty good record (though not perfect by any means) of sifting out personal bias. But is there a community bias? And if so, is it unjustified?

We talked about this already gluady's, if the community removes from it all ideas that counter it's bias, then the community is biased as a whole. The church is a good example of this, many churches, remove from their associations anyone who they deem unworthy, homosexuals, divorced people, smokers, etc. and the end result is that the individual biases are passed along to the others in the group and create a biased community.

In the case of science and origins, the community as a whole has been sighted, shown and otherwised evidenced to avoid any acceptance of evidence that would support or be conducted by creationists sighting that they are biased and would thus view the evidence biased. This refusal to accept evidence that is assumed as biased, is a bias all on it's own. That is the problem, their refusal to accept anything or even review it because it might be biased is bias in and of itself. Now before you go off on this and turn it into something it is not. We are not talking here about evidence that is faulty or otherwise inaccurate, we are talking about actual scientific experiments and calculations that are rejected based on the source not the quality of work.

 

[razzelflabben]

Ah, ok.

I think it is pretty safe to say that even communities of people have their biases. Creationists have biases as a whole, do we not? Theistic Evolutionists have biases as a whole, do you not?

I wouldn't agree that every persons' bias would be incorporated into a community, but I don't think it would be honest to say a community of people is without their community bias. Peer pressure is a good example of keeping a community bias and/or breaking one to forge a new one.

I wouldn't agree that science has a good record, in the context of always being right. Neither has the Church. Let's be honest here, science and the Church have been wrong almost too often to count. All that shows is that we don't know everything, as we often think we do. Yet, neither has really learned from that very well. That is mankind though.

Is a biased unjustified, that would depend on the bias and where it came from. Christians have a biased that Jesus is the Son of God, where other faiths do not agree. Are we unjustified in that bias? I don't think so. It's all about the context.

thanks for the input it is refreshing to hear another voice whether in agreement or disagreement, another voice is a huge blessing.

 

[gluadys]

That brings up an interesting point. If you can't get an objective view out of someone who has a bias against it, why try then? Why the fight to make it happen? Wouldn't that time be better spent else where? Or is that we just want to argue for the sake of arguing?

A lot will depend on the nature and effect of the bias. A racial bias that develops into discrimination--especially legally supported discrimination such as apartheid--obviously poses many problems for its victims. Bias that is expressed as libel, slander and hate is worth fighting too.

And sometimes, it is good to argue, especially in politics, because the bias of one party leads it to neglect factors which may be really important. As two or more parties compete, all the factors get named, and often all party positions are modified to deal more adequately with all relevant factors. At least that's the ideal.

Speaking of the Church, ever notice how much of what we now consider orthodox doctrine was originally a matter of fierce controversy?

 

[gluadys]

Once again, you falsly accuse. I have no issue with their qualification,

I don't think it is a false accusation this time. I think you raise the issue of qualifications (which you obviously took no time to check out) solely because you disagreed with their point of view. That knee-jerk reaction says much more about you than about them.

 

[gluadys]

come on, I am sure as shootin you aren't this dense.

Please assume that I am and answer the question.

So, in relation to these tests, what are the particular variables scientists are not accounting for?

 

[gluadys]

read the answer in it's entirety and in context. Then get back to me. the age of the light would be, sure, but that is not equal to the age of the earth. Here in lies your problem. see, this is your problem, you are measuring light but calling it earth. The age of light is not in question here. You assertion was that the age of light equaled an old earth. The age of light equals nothing more or less than the age of light.

Actually, it is neither the age of the light nor the age of the earth that is relevant here, but the age of the star. I raised stars as an example of things with appearance of age.

My assertion is that the apparent age of the star is not explained by being necessary to support life on earth. (Nor are stars beyond the range of unaided sight necesssary for measuring times and seasons). So why, in a young-earth scenario do we see such old-appearing stars?

 

[gluadys]

and you honestly think that if I present that question with some testable answers here, that science will test it? What planet do you live on?

If it is a viable hypothesis with some evidence to support it, somebody (not necessarily you personally) can present it in an appropriate scientific forum. Until that happens, why should you expect it to be taken seriously in any scientific discussion even on this board?

depends on your perspective. If I as an individual look at something and say, hum that looks old, then yes. If on the other hand I as an individual look at something and say, actually that looks young, then no.

I am not asking about individual opinions.

We have established that scientists derived their opinion of the age of the crater from the tests they used to determine its age.

Now, some young-earth creationists want to say, that is not real age, it is only apparent age. Where do these yecs get the idea from that it looks old at all? Did they run tests on the crater too and also get results of 65 million years?

 

[gluadys]

that depends on the bias of the dr.

So assume that you are the doctor. What do you tell a patient about their blood sugar when 19 tests say it is within acceptable limits but one says it is way too high?

I don't really care what your bias is. I just want to know what you will tell the patient.

 

[gluadys]

In the case of science and origins, the community as a whole has been sighted, shown and otherwised evidenced to avoid any acceptance of evidence that would support or be conducted by creationists sighting that they are biased and would thus view the evidence biased.

OK. I said the accusation of bias had to include a who and a what. Now we have the who---the [scientific] community as a whole.

And an intimation of the what.

This refusal to accept evidence that is assumed as biased, is a bias all on it's own.

So let's get specific about the what. What is the evidence the scientific community is allegedly refusing to accept?

We are not talking here about evidence that is faulty or otherwise inaccurate, we are talking about actual scientific experiments and calculations that are rejected based on the source not the quality of work.

And what actual scientific experiments and calculations are you referring to?

 

[Critias]

A lot will depend on the nature and effect of the bias. A racial bias that develops into discrimination--especially legally supported discrimination such as apartheid--obviously poses many problems for its victims. Bias that is expressed as libel, slander and hate is worth fighting too.

And sometimes, it is good to argue, especially in politics, because the bias of one party leads it to neglect factors which may be really important. As two or more parties compete, all the factors get named, and often all party positions are modified to deal more adequately with all relevant factors. At least that's the ideal.

You do have a point. Sometimes though, no matter how much you argue, people are not going to change and the arguing because useless and more of a distraction from something one could be doing. Something that could be for a better cause.

At some point, one has to realize you can't force someone to change their point of view.

Speaking of the Church, ever notice how much of what we now consider orthodox doctrine was originally a matter of fierce controversy?

Yeah, no kidding.

 

[gluadys]

You do have a point. Sometimes though, no matter how much you argue, people are not going to change and the arguing because useless and more of a distraction from something one could be doing. Something that could be for a better cause.

Right. You have to choose which battles are most important to you.

At some point, one has to realize you can't force someone to change their point of view.

And frustrating as it is, that's a good thing too. No one should be forced to change their point of view. They should be persuaded.