Guardians of Science...

[AV1611VET]

That we, nowadays, distinguish aquatic mammals from fish isn't of itself relevant.

I think it's pretty clear that God doesn't kowtow to Mr. Linnaeus.

Similarly anyone picking issues with "brass" instead of (very probably) "bronze" in the KJV is not on such safe ground as to instantly make a deeply telling point.

Which I've done more than once here.

 

[Chris B]

I think it's pretty clear that God doesn't kowtow to Mr. Linnaeus.Which I've done more than once here.

God existing, that's pretty much a given.
So what's left is issues of communication and understanding and language.
Something very useful but far from perfect from the human perspective.
Which then means that unless God as a perfect communicator divinely intervenes, any piece of writing is going to be subject to ambiguity, varied interpretation and errors of understanding in some degree, small or large.
And that tending to increase with separation in time, culture and language from the written piece to the reader, though it can be troublesome enough in one's own language, culture and time.
(The Two Ronnies' "four candles" sketch is wonderful on this.)


I had a friend whose job was to draft acts of Parliament (UK). Not to make policy, but to ensure that the policy desired was actually embodied in the wording of the act. And nothing else. As he put it, "my job is to make sure no-one can misunderstand the meaning of an act, no matter how hard they try."
Top priority given to precision and clarity, which led to some complex and otherwise horrible writing as every possible interpretation other than the intended one had to be definitively ruled out.

To hold that any text is perfect in this sense seems to me to demand the highest and most comprehensive view of divine inspiration (and possibly preservation) of such a text. I think the observable evidence does not support that, so some fuzziness and lack of perfection needs to be allowed for, as intrinsic to human communication.

 

[AV1611VET]

To hold that any text is perfect in this sense seems to me to demand the highest and most comprehensive view of divine inspiration (and possibly preservation) of such a text. I think the observable evidence does not support that, so some fuzziness and lack of perfection needs to be allowed for, as intrinsic to human communication.

So until then, which am I supposed to believe?

1. Jesus doesn't know the difference between a fish and a mammal?
2. God just sat back and did nothing, while the writers of the KJB wrote His final Translation?

 

[Hieronymus]

Here's another. This is perhaps the most famous and influential fossil ever found. It was found in 1875, at the time when evolution actually was controversial.

That's a bird, a fowl.

 

[Hieronymus]

Archaeopteryx, the so-called ancestor of modern birds according to evolutionists, lived approximately 150 million years ago. The theory holds that some small dinosaurs, such as Velociraptors or Dromaeosaurs, evolved by acquiring wings and then starting to fly. Thus, Archaeopteryx is assumed to be a transitional form that branched off from its dinosaur ancestors and started to fly for the first time.
However, the latest studies of Archaeopteryx fossils indicate that this explanation lacks any scientific foundation. This is absolutely not a transitional form, but an extinct species of bird, having some insignificant differences from modern birds.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/31/archeopteryxs-evolutionary-humuliation-continues/

How about National Geographic?

NG is known to have a 'worldly agenda'.
It's one of our present day opinion makers.

 

[PsychoSarah]

That's a bird, a fowl.

It might be, but it has dinosaur traits no modern bird has.

 

[Hieronymus]

Unicorn = rhino seen at a distance... which is the best way to see these walking tanks and survive the encounter.

There are also rhinoś with one horn.

behemoth = actual creature, with size exaggerated. Perhaps a woolly mammoth or an elephant.

With a tail like cedar ? Nah.
There used to be animals like that, with huge tails, like a cedar treetrunk i guess..
i think they have found many fossils..


leviathan = actual sea creature, with size exaggerated.

straw eating lions = while carnivory doesn't predate Noah's flood in the bible, the lions only explicitly eat straw during the end times, and could have eaten something else before the flood. [/quote]It's good to see you (as an atheist) thinking along in stead of opposite.

Something I am shocked that no creationist ever suggests: that there used to be plants with fruit much like meat (in terms of nutrients) that depended on animals that would later become predators to pollinate them, which went extinct when those animals became pure carnivores.

There are theories about that.
Species can change how they grow up, under the influence of absence or presence of certain nutriants.
I think it's considered to be fenotypical adaptation.
This starts in the embrionic state, under the influence of the mother's metabolism etc..
It influences DNA processing and implementation as well.
It may be how genes can get switched off or on.

Cool system

 

[PsychoSarah]

There are also rhinoś with one horn.

Yes, and even in those with two, the second horn is far smaller.

With a tail like cedar ? Nah.
There used to be animals like that, with huge tails, like a cedar treetrunk i guess..
i think they have found many fossils..

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...ogressive,q_80,w_800/ctwf5abixynpzgiq6bxn.jpg
seeing as this is how people used to depict creatures like whales, I don't doubt for a second that people in the past could have erroneously added a thick tail to a description of an elephant.
here are some others (warning, may constitute as nightmare fuel, oh my, why did they force their faces into the uncanny valley?)
http://boredomfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BadAnimalDrawings1.jpg seal or sea lion, I am not entirely sure
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YgPhpk8QMrM/S-Bbtb1i7HI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/O2lSbOLQ0mA/s1600/23paint_walrus.jpg walrus
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YgPhpk8QMrM/S-BbtmwkQ4I/AAAAAAAAAgY/tSmk1E_NeG4/s1600/34397287.JPG rhino (actually wearing chainmail?!)
http://vintageprintable.com/wp-cont...ind of wild cat with spots, drawing 18thC.jpg I don't know, perhaps a lynx?
https://tashcommunicationdesign.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/elephant.jpg elephant, look at how big compared to those trees! I've looked at some more, and all perspectives are off like that in medieval drawings; tiny trees, big animals.
http://www.strangescience.net/pics/flyturtle.jpg a turtle
All of these images come from between the middle ages, and the late 1800s. People had to draw second or third hand descriptions of animals that they had never seen, and this is the result. This is considered a pretty accurate drawing of a whale for it's time http://www.strangescience.net/pics/beached.jpg , from the year 1577.

It's good to see you (as an atheist) thinking along in stead of opposite. There are theories about that.

I do it to encourage creationists to invest more time in understanding biology, as well as evolution as a theory. It's my scientific background that allows me to come up with better arguments in general, and it can be applied to either side. I am still an evolution supporter, but that doesn't mean I can't try to explain something from the perspective of a YEC. To me, the only way a lion's digestive tract could handle a vegetarian diet is if there used to be vegetation with a similar consistency and nutritional balance to meat. I don't know of any modern creationists that deny species can go extinct.

Species can change how they grow up, under the influence of absence or presence of certain nutriants.

Sure, but very few organisms can change their diet that way, and I can't think of any mammals that can go from herbivores to carnivores like that. The digestive systems of those organisms are too different. Heck, even us omnivorous humans don't do so well if we try to go full carnivore.

I think it's considered to be fenotypical adaptation.

Phenotypical adaptation. How much an animal can change that way varies by species. For example, there is a species of fish in which only 1 male is ever present in a group. When that male dies, one of the bigger, more aggressive females actually goes through a process that changes their biological sex. However, humans obviously can't do that. Likewise, herbivores cannot suddenly go carnivore long term without serious health detriments or death. For example, I could certainly gain muscle mass, but if I immediately needed to bench press 300 pounds on a daily basis, even my brain removing the limit on the percentage of muscle strength my body uses wouldn't keep me alive for long (your brain does that because using your full muscle strength all the time will actually tear your muscles off your bones, which can happen even in a single use of that strength. Most people use between 5-20% natural muscle strength in non emergency situations. This is also why there are cases in which, in emergencies, people have found themselves able to lift the ends of cars off of loved ones trapped beneath and other incredible feats).

This starts in the embrionic state, under the influence of the mother's metabolism etc..

Yeah, but in case you haven't noticed, the kid whose mom ate fast food constantly while pregnant can't subsist solely off of fast food without health problems any better than a kid whose mom ate a healthy diet while pregnant.

It influences DNA processing and implementation as well.
It may be how genes can get switched off or on.

Cool system

That's epigenetics, but most outside influences that significantly affect that turn genes permanently off, not on. Which is typically not beneficial. There are very few species and genera in which significant adaptations in response to outside stimuli occur on the level of a change in dietary requirements. I can't even think of any mammals that can do that.

 

[Hieronymus]

The same event caused thorns and thistles, according to Genesis, which probably can't be explained within a naturalistic paradigm either...

 

[Chris B]

So until then, which am I supposed to believe?

1. Jesus doesn't know the difference between a fish and a mammal?
2. God just sat back and did nothing, while the writers of the KJB wrote His final Translation?

OK, staying within the brief ("...without disrespecting the Scriptures"), then the obvious thing to believe is that the bible is as it is supposed to be , even in English, and dissatisfaction only arises if you are imposing your own human idea and expectations of "perfection" rather than sitting under God's, which the text must be, even if this is not "perfection as a scientific human might wish it."

No live language, even Latin, stays fixed in meaning and structure.
The idea that it does is something of a carryover from the early idea of prescriptive rather than descriptive dictionaries, which appeared to make good progress while the fresh profession of printing, was sometimes by pure fiat, ruling by practice on grammar and spelling. We could easily have ended up with ayren rather than eggs.

"In the bowels of Christ", even if an ideal rendering at the time, no longer is. No fault of the ancient manuscripts or the ancient translators. English has moved since that particular point in time.
A "perfection" which freezes all drift is clearly not on offer. Some other concept would be needed.

 

[joshua 1 9]

God existing, that's pretty much a given.
So what's left is issues of communication and understanding and language.
Something very useful but far from perfect from the human perspective.
Which then means that unless God as a perfect communicator divinely intervenes, any piece of writing is going to be subject to ambiguity, varied interpretation and errors of understanding in some degree, small or large.
And that tending to increase with separation in time, culture and language from the written piece to the reader, though it can be troublesome enough in one's own language, culture and time.
(The Two Ronnies' "four candles" sketch is wonderful on this.)


I had a friend whose job was to draft acts of Parliament (UK). Not to make policy, but to ensure that the policy desired was actually embodied in the wording of the act. And nothing else. As he put it, "my job is to make sure no-one can misunderstand the meaning of an act, no matter how hard they try."
Top priority given to precision and clarity, which led to some complex and otherwise horrible writing as every possible interpretation other than the intended one had to be definitively ruled out.

To hold that any text is perfect in this sense seems to me to demand the highest and most comprehensive view of divine inspiration (and possibly preservation) of such a text. I think the observable evidence does not support that, so some fuzziness and lack of perfection needs to be allowed for, as intrinsic to human communication.

So does that mean you think that in all of the universe there is no intelligence more intelligent then man?

 

[Chris B]

So does that mean you think that in all of the universe there is no intelligence more intelligent then man?

Currently unknown. SETI is a good idea, but all LGM signals so far detected have turned out not to be.
But I haven't totally ruled out a big surprise from the cetaceans, here on Earth, since humanity hasn't really proven to have anything near the highest imaginable levels of intelligence. Not yet, not as a species.

 

[Jimmy D]

The same event caused thorns and thistles, according to Genesis, which probably can't be explained within a naturalistic paradigm either...

Why not? Surely the explanation would be quite straightforward.

 

[Chris B]

Why not? Surely the explanation would be quite straightforward.

The Invisible Pink Unicorns did it.
(or any other entity hypothecated at convenience)

 

[Armoured]

The same event caused thorns and thistles, according to Genesis, which probably can't be explained within a naturalistic paradigm either...

Natural deterrent to herbivores, and in some cases, aids to seed dispersal.

Next?

 

[Loudmouth]

Besides we have fossils of Avian species that pre-date Arche so may be Arche evolved from birds...(thats the logic right?)

You are confusing the words "transitional" and "ancestral". They do not mean the same thing.

 

[PsychoSarah]

The same event caused thorns and thistles, according to Genesis, which probably can't be explained within a naturalistic paradigm either...

Well, thorns and thistles can be explained through evolution quite well, although I can think of no naturalistic way they could suddenly appear within a day, as stated in Genesis.

 

[Hieronymus]

Natural deterrent to herbivores, and in some cases, aids to seed dispersal.

in one event?

 

[Loudmouth]

in one event?

Why would it have to be in one event?

 

[Ophiolite]

So does that mean you think that in all of the universe there is no intelligence more intelligent then man?

Frighteningly disappointing and boring if true.