Are these misquotes or not?

Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Nick, maybe this will help:

Deduction: if I don't spend some time with every supernatural possibility, I may unwittingly exlude the truth from my considerations, and therefore come to the wrong conclusion.

[...]

Do you see?

Yes, I see. And it makes perfect sense that you may exclude the truth if you don't consider more than just the Biblical account of creation. I'm not arguing with that.
But so what? You have to start somewhere. While it is certainly possible that supernatural causes occurred and we have no written record whatsoever of that account, it wouldn't make sense to start there, now would it?

So just start at what you know. If you find out that things start to make more sense when you consider the Babylonian account of creation, for example (to deliberately avoid using the Biblical account), then that should steer you more in the right direction than if you simply refused to consider ANY non-material causes.

Some of your logic is ok, but you're deliberately trying to make the problem more complex than it is just so you can justify ruling out ANY attempt to bring in supernatural causes.
 
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Originally posted by LiveFreeOrDie


No, because isochron dating doesn't require us to know what the ratios of the isotopes were in the past.

I should have said "materials" but of course it does. Isochron is flawed in other ways, too. See the following "ISOCHRON ROCK DATING IS FATALLY FLAWED":

http://tccsa.freeservers.com/articles/isochrons2.html

The whole-rock isochron is justified on the basis that migration of the isotopes in a metamorphic event may be confined to distances of perhaps 1 cm. This is much larger than the average crystal size. Thus the original constituents of each crystal will lie nearby. By taking samples of 100-cm dimensions, one could assure that the entire content of the original crystals are well represented by the sample, with very small error. However, this matrix is the original melt that was theorized to be homogeneous. The ability to find differences in the rubidium content among the samples violates the assumption of original homogeneity. Original inhomogeneity is the only possible explanation: in other words, mixing.

[...]

Has any legitimate isochron ever been formed? It is improbable. There is ample evidence for mixing. Any "isochron" could be mixing. There is no way to rule it out. All whole-rock "isochrons" are mixing, and they are approximately 90% of all published. Many of the remaining (mineral) "isochrons" have a whole-rock point located close enough to the straight line to discredit them. Why should we expect any of the others to be "true isochrons", since mixing has the strongest probability?

But here's one of my favorite sections on that page, which is something I've said several times...

As has been pointed out many times before, all radiometric methods including the linear-plot techniques have been effectively "calibrated" to the fossil dates by selecting among the discordant data those that fit the accepted stratigraphic model. Since the proponents of the isochrons don't take them at face value, others should by equally wary.
 
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Originally posted by LiveFreeOrDie

This may come as a shock to you, Nick, but evolution does not rule out supernatural creation, it merely rules out specific theories of supernatural creation.

Yes, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that evolutionists have pretty much realized that abiogenesis is impossible so they've skirted the issue by removing it from their field of interest.

It's only a matter of time before you have your epiphany about evolution and shrink back into studying minor variations within various geebledorks of worms that occur due to changes in weather patterns.

(Regarding the word "geebledork": I had to make up a new word for "species" because by your current definition, a lion is now the same species as a tiger, but a mosquito is no longer the same species as a mosquito.)
 
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chickenman

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the only people on here defending creation are the scientifically naive. they resort to garbage like "Yes, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that evolutionists have pretty much realized that abiogenesis is impossible so they've skirted the issue by removing it from their field of interest."

thats nice petrely, tell me, in your extremely limited experience of evolutionary science, how many of the biology professors you talked to told you that abiogenesis was impossible? Or is this just an assumption.
 
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Originally posted by chickenman

thats nice petrely, tell me, in your extremely limited experience of evolutionary science, how many of the biology professors you talked to told you that abiogenesis was impossible? Or is this just an assumption.

You mean EVOLUTIONIST biology professors? None of them. They simply say it is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with evolution.

Don't look now, but I think that was my point.
 
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Originally posted by chickenman
Your assumption is that they admit that it is impossible, the assumption is wrong, as are many of your assumptions.

No, my assumption was that they "realize" it is impossible. That has nothing to do with what they admit.

Admittedly, I could be wrong about what they realize, but I'm guessing it's a matter of realization or denial. I'm still looking for an interesting study or survey that an evolutionist quoted recently that would shed some light on this. Stay tuned.
 
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Originally posted by randman
lFOD, from your posts I am convinced you don't even understand evolutionary models, much less can comment on intricacies of whether they allow for supernatural events in its models.

You wrongly assume I care what your opinion of me is.
 
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RickG

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Well, since you revived it I'll make a comment relevant to the OP. The quotes provide by the OP are not misquotes, they are quotes taken out of context. The technique is called "quote mining", and to say the very least, it is a very dishonest practice. If one has to deliberately misrepresent something in order to back their position, that pretty much shows that that position is worthless.
 
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The quotes provide by the OP are not misquotes, they are quotes taken out of context.
That's a cheap accusation that anyone can claim.

And frankly, given how people do research around here, I'd say a hasty one as well.
 
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RickG

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That's a cheap accusation that anyone can claim.
Layman opinion noted. My comment is based on my experience and professional background in science. To take what someone said and present it out of context is deliberate out right dishonesty. Have you changed your position in regard to "creation science"? Do you approve of someone presenting what a scientist said out of context to mean something entirely different?

And frankly, given how people do research around here, I'd say a hasty one as well.
Quantify by what you mean as research. From my point of view, as a person who has done quite a bit of actual original scientific research in the field and lab throughout my career, I tend to agree. Googling is not research, it is sourcing information, most of which by posters here doesn't even come close to sourcing original sources.
 
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My comment is based on my experience and professional background in science.
And I have enough experience here to know that if those two comments were indeed taken out of context, then a serious accuser ... as opposed to an armchair one ... would show the full context and point out where it was wrong.
 
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RickG

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And I have enough experience here to know that if those two comments were indeed taken out of context, then a serious accuser ... as opposed to an armchair one ... would show the full context and point out where it was wrong.
Well, take the Gould quote: "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology." The quote is presented as if Gould is saying there is a problem for evolution. What Gould was expressing was Darwin's expressed concern for the lack of transitional fossils and sparseness of the fossil record. There is a huge difference in what was known about the fossil record in the mid 1800's and what Gould knew about it in 1987. (Stephen J. Gould - "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, vol. 86 (May 1987), p. 14.)

And if you wish to read a full description of exactly how Gould was taken out of context here's a direct link to a paper by Brian J. Alters and William F. McComas, describing exactly what happened in the Journal, American Biology Teacher.
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...r(s)_Brian/links/0f31753b2cabfb5277000000.pdf

From a personal experience some 10 years ago, I was presented with a quote by biologist Henry Gee, then editor of the Journal Nature, where he is quoted as denying evolution. The quote came from a book he had written about evolution. What I did was to obtain a copy of the book and review it myself. What Gee did was in one of the chapters was to provide a number of reasons for denying evolution. What the quote omitted was the rest of the chapter where Gee shows where each of those reasons are baseless and why. Oddly enough, the person I showed this to still denied it was a quote mine. Absolutely incredible.
 
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bhsmte

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Okay, "scientists" and "evolutionists," after you're done with your love-fest with talkorigins, please explain how THESE quotes that were posted HERE are actually misquotes.

The purpose of the following quote is to demonstrate that scientists DO have an a-priori commitment to materialism to the point of tolerating unsubstantiated just-so stories, counterintuitive material explanations of things, and a deliberate effort to exclude the possibility of God having a hand in things. In addition, he admits that it is NOT THE METHODOLOGY OR INSTITUTIONS OF SCIENCE that require material explanations, but the a-priori commitment to materialism.

If anyone believes this is a misquote, the burden is upon you to demonstrate from the larger context that Lewontin is saying that there really is no a-priori commitment to materialism, nobody in the scientific community tolerates unsubstantiated just-so stories, there are no counterintiutive material explanations of things, and that nobody is interested in keeping God out of the picture. You must also demonstrate that he meant to say that the search for material causes comes from the scientific method and scientific institutions, NOT from an a-priori commitment to materialism.

Have at it.



The purpose of the following two quotes is to demonstrate that even staunch evolutionists admit that the fossil record remains problematic for evolution.

You'll need to demonstrate that in the larger context these people were actually saying that the fossil record is not a problem for evolution in order to prove these are misquotes.

Have at it.



I can go on if you like, but I think this will generate enough noise as it is.

Is the bible misquoted where it says; "there is no God"?
 
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If anyone believes this is a misquote, the burden is upon you to demonstrate from the larger context that Lewontin is saying that there really is no a-priori commitment to materialism, nobody in the scientific community tolerates unsubstantiated just-so stories, there are no counterintiutive material explanations of things, and that nobody is interested in keeping God out of the picture. You must also demonstrate that he meant to say that the search for material causes comes from the scientific method and scientific institutions, NOT from an a-priori commitment to materialism.
No. I don't have to do any of that. All I have to do is note that Lewontin holds a view that science does not employ methodological naturalism, but absolute naturalism. Then I further note this is an incorrect view, though it is shared by some scientists. The Lewontin quote is not a misquote, but that does not mean it represents the view of the scientific community at large. From a practical standpoint, however, it makes no difference which view is held. It does not affect how science is practiced, only how it is promoted.
 
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