Creation started with nothing?

razzelflabben · Jul 2, 2007

gluadys said:
But the connection between variables and bias is not clear to me at all. I don't really see what one has to do with the other.

Fair enough, let me see if I can make it relavent to you. Take our teacher, whose bias is that he/she is right and never makes a mistake in grading. He/she is shown an error in grading that is so obvious that he/she can't deny it. But still he/she refused to change the grade because he/she is the authority and that is the way it will stay. So ignoring the vaiable, that he/she could make a mistake, brings us to a biased grade that is not correct.

Let me see, another analogy......I hate eating burnt food. My son when he cooks, almost always burns the food. So my son cooks and invites me to eat, but because my bias against burnt food is so strong, I refuse the meal. Only problem is, he had cooked a meal that he watched and it wasn't burnt. My bias removed the variable that he would cook a meal that was not burnt.

Bias that refuses to accept and deal with the variables is bias. It is manipulating the evidence in such a way as to insist on being right even in the face of evidence that is contridictory. Why, because we refuse to see the contridictory evidence.

Everyone is biased, but not all bias is relevant. I still need to see a who and a what. Who is biased?

science, I have been told by scientists and seen it done by many, scientists and non, in fact, you yourself have done it on this very thread. When we do not allow publications of evidence because they were conducted by creationists. That is a obvious show of bias. When they are not dismissed because of content but because of who did the work, that is bias. And it has been shown and admitted to, though you will find it hard to find this evidence because we don't want to admit that science is biased, we will hide it.

What are they biased about?

any and all evidence that might question the conclusions they have drawn. I saw a documentary some time ago about Mars and looking for water on Mars. The scientists theorize that water once was on mars and so they were exploring to find out it they were right. When they discovered that there was no evidence of water on mars, you would have thought that unbiased scientists would have changed the theory, and accepted that water did not exist. Instead, the same scientists kept exploring until they found something that they could manipulate into water on mars. Thus they were correct in their hypothesis. Only problems exist with this type of bias. 1. The evidence they found was not predicted, but fit the hypothesis. Non predicted evidence doesn't fit the hypothesis, non predicted evidence is evidence we need to explore further and hypothesis about. 2. The conclusions of the exploration came back that water did not exist. To conclude anything else would be misleading. Hypothesis change, they grow, they evolve. More research might change the conclusions but if we are unbiased, we need to accept the conclusions as they come. 3. The evidence was not conclusive at the time it was being collected and yet conclusions were being made and published. Consider this article http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast05jan_1.htm The evidence is still being evaluated, but we have already published conclusions. Where do the conclusions come from if not from the evaluation of the evidence?

How does that affect the conclusions they personally come to?

why conclusions they hold as beliefs doesn't bother me in the least. What bothers me is the conclusions they personally come to and then try to pass those off as scientific truths rather than to be honest enough to admit they are personal convictions. If they were honest enough to admit they were personal beliefs, it would be a great deal easier to trust their expertise in the conclusions they draw.

How does that affect the conclusions the whole community comes to?

If one group is isolated from the community, then the bias of the community is obvious. My husband grew up in Nigeria in a compound. All around him were family compounds. Now, the compound he lived in was very different from the others in the area because his compound was made up of people from different family groups and countries. There was a sharing of ideas and cultures, vs. the compounds who shared the same ideas and cultures. If creationist works are not allowed to be published because the name creationist is attached, it is an exclusive group that forces it's bias on the whole community and thus is not objective at all.

Bias can be individual or it can be collective.

right, and it is the collective bias I have problems with in science.

But this doesn't mean either of them will be wrong. Nor does it mean the community of music-lovers as a whole will be misled. They can read both reviews, take into account the bias of each person, and come to their own conclusions about the reviews. And, if they wish, they can go to the opera themselves and make their own conclusions about the opera.

But what if the only reviews are by people who love opera? Who love opera just because it is opera and see no opera as being bad? What then of the person who reads the reviews seeking to know if this is something that he/she would like to see?

Then we have collective bias. This is when a whole group of people is identified by a bias they share. e.g. young-earth creationists and old-earth creationists. Young-earth creationists will interpret the Bible and science in line with their bias and old-earth creationists will interpret the Bible and science in line with their bias.

I noticed you forgot to include evolutionists in this bit of lecture. Oversight I am sure.

But for an observer, the two biases cancel each other out. Someone who hasn't made up their mind can read both, evaluate the reasoning and evidence behind both, check both against their own experience and sense, and come to their own conclusion. One group or the other may be wrong about something, but this is no bar to discovering the truth.

exactly the problem with proclaiming to the world we know truth about our origins when we don't know truth. It is misleading and a biased attempt to convince people that we do.

Scientists, as individuals, come with all sorts of personal biases. But how does that become a problem for the whole scientific community? Other scientists can study the questions from all points of view and come to their own conclusions. Nothing is missing or suppressed or not accounted for, since whatever is downplayed by one person is given prominence by another.

see above

So when it comes to "biased scientists" who are they? If not as individuals, which group of scientists is biased? And is not the other group also biased? Why do the opposing biases not cancel each other out?

When one group proclaims and used propaganda to convice those trying to review both sides as knowing truth, then the large community is not being allowed to review the evidence unbiased. All kinds of groups do this, the evangelicals do this in a big way, and it disturbs many other groups, the Muslims do this to the dismay of the christian groups. Both sides claim to have absolute truth, using propaganda technics to convice those who are out there seeking to know truth, that they are the ones who have it. How much better would it be to hear both sides say, we believe this and that because of this and that, and then allow the individual to decide for themselves. Science has made the issue of origins into a religious debate, not by concluding things that the religious won't agree with, but by using the same tactics as are used in our religious wars. They proclaim truth and try to shove it down peoples throats as it making converts will some how move them to a higher plane in heaven/nirvana. If science and the scientific community were unbiased, they wouldn't be focused on converts, but rather on exploration, allowing people to think and question and explore for themselves. And unbiased scientific community would not be out there pounding the school yard pavements with conclusions but instead with evidences and procedures.

Just as important, what is the nature of the bias? You mention "variables". But which variables in particular are the problem? Which ones are not adequately accounted for?

all kinds, the meteor debate is one of many.

And is it really bias that leads to them not being accounted for, or is it a different factor all together?

If it is an unknown, it is a vaiable. What purpose could the teacher have for ignoring his/her mistake and giving the student a lower grade if not for bias? To close one's eyes to the truth, in exchange for proclaiming truth, it bias. To seek truth is never bias, to ignore truth in exchange for being right, is.

razzelflabben · Jul 2, 2007

gluadys said:
And we also talked about what science does with imagination. It takes a "what if" and asks: what observable consequences would we see if this is true?

At this point the speculation becomes a testable hypothesis. And testing the hypothesis leads to conclusions about the "what if?"

You never make the second step. Examine the consequences of your imaginary ideas. Determine what those consequences would be.

When you find the consequences really exist, then you have a variable that can be included in science. Not before.

1. The consequences of my imaginary if is that we create a hypothesis, make predictions, and test those predictions to see if they are evidenced or falsified. It is quite simple really. 2. all variables carry some weight in our equasion. for example, the things we haven't yet thought of can falsify our cliams however in our equasion, the weight they would carry would be extremely small. But it is the imaginary if's that propel science to discover what is not know and thus it is the imaginary if's that produce variables that must be included in our calculations.

Yes, that is the point I wanted clarified. It is indeed a fact that scientists claim the crater is 65 million years old. And, as you already agreed, they base this claim on the tests they have done.

Now, here is the next question.

Why does any non-scientist think the crater is too old for a young earth? Or at least looks too old for a young earth? Why do young earth creationists think we need to explain its appearance of age?

Wow! Now that blows my mind. I've seen you come up with unexpected ideas before, but this is a really new idea. And an intriguing one.

It's too big an idea to add to an already overburdened thread, so I have given it a thread of its own.

http://www.christianforums.com/t5623010-is-god-natural.html#post36181976

We can continue discussion of this point there.

Don't really have time to add it, I will pop in and out as I have time. This long list of dribble is tying me up at the moment.

razzelflabben · Jul 2, 2007

gluadys said:
Grammatical structure is irrelevant to whether a text is literal or figurative. So it is irrelevant to whether the chronology of Genesis 1 is a literal or figurative one.

You asked for a grammatical discussion of whether the text sees chronology or framing. I showed you grammatical explainations, then you changed the discussion. Usually I would play along, but at the moment, I am tired of your game and so I will hold you accountable and insist you take responsibility for your own mistakes or else drop the topic all together. I played by your rules once and showed you to be way off the mark. Deal with it or drop it, don't just change the arguement to be something different so that you don't look wrong.

I showed you five. You have some bloody nerve to think you can hand-wave away their expertise on the basis of reading a couple of thumbnail sketches of their curricula vitae .

I didn't dismiss them at all, I said, they didn't fit the criteria you insisted that I stick to in evidencing the other side of the issue. That is very different from your accusations here.

That is over-the-top arrogance with no basis in fact. And just plain insulting, not to me, but to them.

It is insulting to them to say you didn't follow your own criteria. HUm?

I think you need to look up the definition for insulting. If there was an insult to them, it would be your using them for evidence that they could not give. But even that shouldn't be insulting for a normal person.

razzelflabben · Jul 2, 2007

gluadys said:
That is one interpretation. Not everyone agrees. Many hold that plant and animal death was part of creation, and that the death which entered was human death, since it is related to sin, and only humanity is capable of sin. Some also hold that even human death, in the physical, biological sense, was a possibility (else why did Adam and Eve have to eat? Why did they need the Tree of Life?) and that the death that entered with the fall was spiritual, not biological.

It is a different premis than the one being discussed. Why not discuss the premise we are talking about before starting a new topic?

Depends on when you are situating the event of the meteor impact. Are you assuming that God created the earth with it already there? Or that the meteor collided with the earth sometime after creation?

could be either

In the latter case, if it is necessary to support life, what life was it necessary to support? All the life God had originally created was already supported.

Not necessarily. If the earth environment changed as is the discussion before you tried to change topics again, then it might have been necessary for suporting the life that was already existing.

So tell me, why is anyone talking about appearance of age? What is the source of the idea that some things look older than they are? Did anyone ever raise the possibility of appearance of age before there was a scientific claim of age?

Without the scientific claim of age, "appearance of age" is a meaningless concept.

not at all, there are other things to consider in appearance of age.

The date is only controversial to those who reject the science. And they only reject the science because they disagree with the scientific conclusion.

The controversy is over the bias of the conclusions.

gluadys · Jul 2, 2007

razzelflabben said:
Not a disagreement as such but rather an explaination that goes beyond your elementary understanding, exploring the vaiables and how they affect the margin of error. A couple of quotes for you to chew on.

Thank you for clarifying that you did not post the links as evidence that they contradicted what I said. Of course, I would expect them to explore the concept of "margin of error" in more depth.

[SIZE=-1]The margin of error is an estimation of the extent to which a poll's reported percentages would vary if the same poll were taken multiple times. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one has that the poll's reported percentages are close to the "true" percentages, i.e. the percentages in the whole population. [/size]

One of the things we will have to keep in mind here is that all these articles are about margin of error in opinion polls. There are some similarities and some differences between sampling opinions and scientific samplings of nature. When testing for water quality, a scientist's samples are drops of water to be chemically analysed, not people's opinions of the water.

However, the statement above is true of both kinds of sampling. A wide margin of error indicates less confidence in the conclusion.

Don't overlook that fact that the margin of error is a 95 percent confidence interval, either. That means that for every 20 times you repeat this poll, statistics say that one time you'll get an answer that is completely off the wall.

In scientific sampling this happens too. Every so often a test gives a result that is far different from all the other results in the samples. Such an occurrence is called an anomalous result. Note that pollsters always publish the result that occurs most often (19 times out of 20). So do scientists.

If the exact confidence intervals are used, then the margin of error takes into account both sampling error and non-sampling error. If an approximate confidence interval is used (for example, by assuming the distribution is normal and then modeling the confidence interval accordingly), then the margin of error may only take random sampling error into account. It does not represent other potential sources of error or bias such as a non-representative sample-design, poorly phrased questions, people lying or refusing to respond, the exclusion of people who could not be contacted, or miscounts and miscalculations.

Click to expand...

Here is where we get a lot of differences between opinion polls and testing of natural samples. A drop of water, a bit of DNA, a sample of rock or bark or bone cannot lie or refuse to respond. So those sources of error are excluded. Also, it is difficult to apply the idea of "poorly phrased questions" to analysis of natural samples. On the other hand, the samples one has to work with may indeed be non-representative of the category of things one is testing. This would only be discovered when more samples turn up, but it is one reason scientists place less confidence on results obtained from a small number of samples.

gluadys · Jul 2, 2007

razzelflabben said:
Light is what we are talking about here, and it necessary, you are simply assuming that that light is coming from the sun.

I asked you about this before. See this exchange in post 221

razzelflabben said:
gluadys said:

Now, we have one source of light: light created before the stars. One possibility. Is it the only possibility? Or is it also possible that there are other sources of light as well e.g. electric lamps, flashlights, candles, fires, and yes, stars. Are these possible additional sources of light?

Click to expand...

yes, as others might be as well.

So we have already agreed that light does come from the stars (including the sun).

not if the light is God and God is eternal,

Obviously, light that IS God is not created BY God. God does not create himself. God is not created. So no created light is eternal light. Whatever it is, the light in Genesis is created light.

And that means its age is measurable, since it exists in time, not in eternity.

this all depends on what light we are measuring. You are assuming light sources that are not identified in the text. or in science, only assumed.

I am? This conversation started orignally when I presented stars as an example of things which appear to be very old, much older than permitted in a young-earth perspective. Yet they are not necessary to support life on earth either.

You introduced the thought that the light might not be starlight. However, even if it is not, all the light we see (and even electromagnetic waves/rays we don't see) come from specific point sources in space. So whether it is starlight or some other source of light, we can identify the position from which the light comes, the distance of that position from earth, and calculate how long it took for the light (or radio waves, or whatever) to travel from the source to earth.

The sources of light we have discussed are stars (including the sun), the light of Day One, and eternal light. All of these are identified in the biblical text, (though only the first two are mentioned in Gen. 1). As far as I know only starlight and its electromagnetic cousins are identified in science. So what additional sources of light do you claim I am assuming?

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
Bias that refuses to accept and deal with the variables is bias. It is manipulating the evidence in such a way as to insist on being right even in the face of evidence that is contridictory. Why, because we refuse to see the contridictory evidence.

I think we are clear on what bias is. But that does not suffice for an accusation of bias. We need some evidence that someone is biased and that they are biased about something. It is the someone and the something I am looking for. e.g. who is refusing to accept what variable? what evidence is who refusing to see?

science,

????? Science? As a whole? The whole scientific community?

That is a lot different message than I got from talk about "biased scientists". "Biased scientists" implies that there are also "unbiased scientists".

It also does not fit the analogy of the teacher. One stubborn biased teacher doesn't mean the whole corps of teachers is biased.

When they are not dismissed because of content but because of who did the work, that is bias.

That would be pretty difficult to do under peer review conditions, since the reviewer is not informed as to who did the work. The reviewer gets only the content, not any information about who produced it.

I saw a documentary some time ago about Mars and looking for water on Mars. The scientists theorize that water once was on mars and so they were exploring to find out it they were right. When they discovered that there was no evidence of water on mars, you would have thought that unbiased scientists would have changed the theory, and accepted that water did not exist. Instead, the same scientists kept exploring until they found something that they could manipulate into water on mars.

Who said they manipulated evidence? How did they show the evidence was manipulated? If you are going to cite TV documentaries, it would be helpful to note the name of the program, which network & station you saw it on, and the date it was aired. Is the bias in the scientists or in the people who produced the documentary? Why do you assume it was not the people who produced the documentary that were manipulating the evidence?

Only problems exist with this type of bias. 1. The evidence they found was not predicted, but fit the hypothesis.

That doesn't make sense. A hypothesis includes prediction of evidence that will support the hypothesis. That is what makes it testable. So if evidence was found that fit the hypothesis, by definition, it was predicted by the hypothesis.

2. The conclusions of the exploration came back that water did not exist.[on Mars]

I hadn't heard that. When and where were those conclusions announced? If such conclusions were announced, was it not stated that these were preliminary conclusions based on evidence found to date?

3. The evidence was not conclusive at the time it was being collected and yet conclusions were being made and published. Consider this article http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast05jan_1.htm The evidence is still being evaluated, but we have already published conclusions. Where do the conclusions come from if not from the evaluation of the evidence?

Sounds to me like you are jumping the gun. Let's look at the opening paragraph of this article:

Mars may once have been a very wet place. A host of clues remain from an earlier era, billions of years ago, hinting that the Red Planet was host to great rivers, lakes and perhaps even an ocean. But some of the clues are contradictory -- they don't all fit together in a coherent whole.

So what it the published conclusion?

"Mars may once have been a very wet place."

Not, "we have found water on Mars." Not "we have found there was never water on Mars."

And what is the reason for thinking Mars may once have been a very wet place?

"A host of clues" which "hint" at water features.

I am sorry, but I am really not seeing any manipulation of evidence here. I am seeing exactly what one would expect from incomplete and puzzling evidence. Namely, uncertainty as to whether there was/is water on Mars.

It is also a very old article. As it says later on, more expeditions were being planned at the time of publication. Now six years later, results are coming in from those expeditions. Here are two recent articles on the current situation.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070523-mars-water.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070613-mars-oceans.html

What bothers me is the conclusions they personally come to and then try to pass those off as scientific truths rather than to be honest enough to admit they are personal convictions.

This would make sense if you were talking about some scientists. But you intimated above that you were speaking of the whole scientific community as a collective. What about the whole creationist community as a collective. Do they not also try to pass off their beliefs as scientific truths?

If creationist works are not allowed to be published because the name creationist is attached, it is an exclusive group that forces it's bias on the whole community and thus is not objective at all.

But nothing is stopping the publication of creationist works. They are easy to find. Tell me, do you expect to find articles opposing creationism in journals published by creationist organizations? If creationist organizations routinely refuse to publish anti-creationist articles, what's wrong with scientific organizations refusing to publish anti-science articles? That's like reprimanding Christian journals for refusing to publish articles promoting Buddhism and vice versa.

And how does science "force its bias on the whole community"? Good heavens, most polls in the US indicate that about half the population does not believe what scientists say. Looks to me like science has signally failed to force its bias on the whole community, in spite of accusations of "indoctrinating" students.

right, and it is the collective bias I have problems with in science. But what if the only reviews are by people who love opera? Who love opera just because it is opera and see no opera as being bad? What then of the person who reads the reviews seeking to know if this is something that he/she would like to see?

How would that happen without heavy censorship? I can see something like that happening in the former Soviet Union, or even present-day China. But we have nothing like that in the science-vs-yec debates in the US. Both sides have ample opportunity to present their views.

I noticed you forgot to include evolutionists in this bit of lecture. Oversight I am sure.

Not an oversight. The example given was positions regarding the age of the earth. Not a topic the theory of evolution speaks to. There are both creationists and evolutionists who support an old-earth. And most yecs support evolution within limits.

exactly the problem with proclaiming to the world we know truth about our origins when we don't know truth.

Again, I don't see the problem. We have the claims of both sides. We have the evidence each side presents. We have the reasoning they offer to support their interpretation of the evidence. What stops us from evaluating each position and coming to the truth of the matter?

When one group proclaims and used propaganda to convice those trying to review both sides as knowing truth, then the large community is not being allowed to review the evidence unbiased.

But is it just one group? Are not the creationists also proclaiming their position and using propaganda as well? I see no evidence that the large community is not being allowed to review both sides and evaluate both claims.

And unbiased scientific community would not be out there pounding the school yard pavements with conclusions but instead with evidences and procedures.

I don't think science is doing that. I do think science is poorly taught when it focuses on conclusions more than on method, but I think that is a problem with time and teachers more than science. Most scientific commentators I have heard do want students taught more about scientific method as a way of discovering truth. They do want evidence as well as conclusions taught. And they want students to become familiar with how evidence is used in science.

The people trying to force their viewpoint into schools without adequate evidence for their position have been the anti-scientists e.g. designists. The typical procedure for a scientific paradigm shift is to provide convincing evidence to the academic community first, then gradually present it to undergrads, then to high-school students, and finally, to elementary students. The court battles have been fought because certain groups want to reverse this pattern and present stuff that ought to be debated by PhDs to kids not old enough to drive yet.

all kinds, the meteor debate is one of many.

I would still like to see more specificity. Which part of the meteor debate is a problem and why? It makes a good deal of difference if we are talking about the effect on dinosaurs (which is controversial in the scientific community itself) or about the date of the event (which is not). In the first case (as with the 2001 article on water on Mars) we don't have bias. We have insufficient and contradictory evidential clues. In the second case we have consensus behind one particular conclusion. Is this bias?

If it is an unknown, it is a vaiable.

There are both known and unknown variables. Bias can only exist in regard to known variables, since by definition it requires ignoring or not accepting something known.

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
1. The consequences of my imaginary if is that we create a hypothesis, make predictions, and test those predictions to see if they are evidenced or falsified. It is quite simple really.

You describe the method well, but I haven't seen you put it into practice. For example, one "what if" you have mentioned several times is "What if life were failing..."? Now turn that into a hypothesis. If life were failing what indicators would we see as evidence that life was failing? How would we know that life was failing?

gluadys said:
gluadys said:

Why does any non-scientist think the crater is too old for a young earth? Or at least looks too old for a young earth? Why do young earth creationists think we need to explain its appearance of age?

Click to expand...

Come on. It is not that difficult a question. What do you need explained?

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
You asked for a grammatical discussion of whether the text sees chronology or framing.

No, I did not. I knew you were confused on this.

Here is the original exchange. Your statement comes from post 206. My response was in post 209.

gluadys said:
razzelflabben said:

First way, the earth was formed after the sun, moon and stars,
refer to vs. 6 day 2 sky formed, vs.9-11 land and water formation with veg. no sun, moon and stars yet. day 3 vs.14-19 sun, moon and stars, day 4. Hum, the earth is given shape before the sun, moon and stars are created. So the first possible interpretation was falsified.

Click to expand...

Depends. You are assuming that the meaning you are assigning to the text is correct. But does the text intend for the numbered days to refer to a chronological sequence of days? Does it mean for the days to be seen like days on a calendar. Check out the Framework interpretation of Genesis 1. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/fw.htm

I did not ask about grammar, and you may note as well that the article to which I referred you did not speak of grammar. It referred to the framework interpretation as "literary", "logical", "topical" and "structural" and spoke of "symbolism" and "style". Nothing about grammar.

Grammar only entered the picture when you responded in post 211.

Now I have been trying to access a site that would help us understand the Heb. here but having problems, I'll give it a go one more time and see what happens. Honestly, the site your reference us to sounds like a lot of double talk, but anyway, it is interesting, compare it to this site.
http://www.answersincreation.org/The...stribution.pdf

Note that you were the person who introduced the necessity to "understand the Heb. here". And you posted a link, supposedly about the topic I raised. But it was about a different topic. Even though I wasn't able then to open this document, I was able to see the title (which is part of the url). "yom with a number".

"yom with a number" is the only point of grammar that has been under discussion, and it does not relate to the framework interpretation at all. It does not refer to the sequence of the Genesis days at all. It refers to how long each day was: 24 hours or indeterminate length.

The whole business of grammar was a derail from the chronology/framework discussion into the length-of-day discussion. Grammar was never part of the chronology/framework discussion. Got that yet?

I didn't dismiss them at all, I said, they didn't fit the criteria you insisted that I stick to in evidencing the other side of the issue. That is very different from your accusations here. It is insulting to them to say you didn't follow your own criteria.

I did not set those criteria in reference to framework interpretation. I set them in reference to the alleged "yom with a number" rule.

In any case, there is ample evidence these scholars would also qualify as experts in ancient Hebrew grammar as well. I know people who teach Old Testament at the seminary level. I know that part of the requirement for teaching OT is expertise in the original language of the Old Testament. Expertise that includes a thorough knowledge of its grammar.

You may get away with teaching OT in a high-school comparative religion course, or in a weekly lay bible study without knowing biblical Hebrew well. But you don't get a PhD and qualify as a full professor at a university level teaching the next generation of clergy without the requisite expertise in the language.

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
It is a different premis than the one being discussed. Why not discuss the premise we are talking about before starting a new topic?

Not if it means accepting that it is the only premise possible. I am willing to discuss it as one possible premise, but not as the only possible premise. OK?

could be either

Then each has to be looked at separately and the implications of each worked out separately. Too tired to do that tonight.

Not necessarily. If the earth environment changed as is the discussion before you tried to change topics again, then it might have been necessary for suporting the life that was already existing.

OK, here is another opportunity to treat an "if" scientifically. How do we know if the earth environment changed? What are the indicators that it changed? What are the indicators that would show something new was necessary to support life that was already existing?

gluadys said:
gluadys said:

So tell me, why is anyone talking about appearance of age? What is the source of the idea that some things look older than they are? Did anyone ever raise the possibility of appearance of age before there was a scientific claim of age?

Click to expand...

Not so hard a question as that. Look back to the 17th century. Was anyone then talking about the age of the earth or debating appearance of age? Yet by the end of the 19th century it's a big deal. What made the difference? Why did it become a matter of concern to biblical literalists? Had the bible changed?

The controversy is over the bias of the conclusions.

Click to expand...

No, the consensus, even across the old-earth, young-earth divide is that the conclusions are not biased. The tests really do show that the crater is 65 million years old.

That is why yecs allege the problem is in the testing methods themselves. They allege the tests are faulty in that they assume a constancy (in radiometric decay) that does not exist in fact.

This is not saying the scientific conclusion is biased. It is accepting that science can come to no other conclusion, but providing a reason why that conclusion is still wrong.

Now the challenge back to yecs is "provide evidence that radiometric decay is as unreliable as you claim."

Remember what we learned from looking at margin of eror. In order for the yec claim to be true, radiometric dating can't be just a little bit off. Not even a long way off. Just a tiny bit of accuracy makes the earth millions of years old. In order for the yec claim to be true, radiometric dating must be totally useless. There must be no grounds for placing any confidence at all in it.

razzelflabben · Jul 3, 2007

gluadys said:
Thank you for clarifying that you did not post the links as evidence that they contradicted what I said. Of course, I would expect them to explore the concept of "margin of error" in more depth.

and in more depth, they show us that magin of error is not a simple equasion with absolutes. But rather a formula that can be manipulated and adjusted to say pretty much whatever I want it to. IOWs margins of error can and usually are misleading. And this is largely due to bias. Though this was not directly stated, it certainly was hinted at.

One of the things we will have to keep in mind here is that all these articles are about margin of error in opinion polls. There are some similarities and some differences between sampling opinions and scientific samplings of nature. When testing for water quality, a scientist's samples are drops of water to be chemically analysed, not people's opinions of the water.

true, but it still works the say way. The only difference is before the evidence. IOW's the evidence collected in both are the absolutes. water quality results came back X, Y number of times. The number of people that responded X, Y number of times. and after this collection of evidence, we do the calculations. So what we are really talking about is that the only difference is before the formula for margin of error, and thus no difference occurs that would change the conclusions we can draw from the articles of margin of error

In scientific sampling this happens too. Every so often a test gives a result that is far different from all the other results in the samples. Such an occurrence is called an anomalous result. Note that pollsters always publish the result that occurs most often (19 times out of 20). So do scientists.

and so what? This isn't the point of our discussion.

Here is where we get a lot of differences between opinion polls and testing of natural samples. A drop of water, a bit of DNA, a sample of rock or bark or bone cannot lie or refuse to respond. So those sources of error are excluded.

The polls don't record how many people lied, only what answers they gave. therefore you are once again wrong. The poll is not set up to address who lied or how many lied, only what answers were given and the answers given ae as absolute as the DNA test results.

Also, it is difficult to apply the idea of "poorly phrased questions" to analysis of natural samples.

Not if those samples are tested poorly. The results would be the same, insufficient responses for an accurate evaluation of the data.

On the other hand, the samples one has to work with may indeed be non-representative of the category of things one is testing. This would only be discovered when more samples turn up, but it is one reason scientists place less confidence on results obtained from a small number of samples.

And you still aren't dealing with the issues of manipulating the statistics to create the answer we want. You are instead trying once again to change the topic. Let me try to explain it this way. My parents love to listen to Rush. The other day, he was on and said something very interesting. I forget the exact numbers, but the approval rating for President Bush was low, again I don't remember the numbers, but for the sake of discussion let's say 25. The approval rating for the media reporting President Bushes approval rating was lower, for the sake of discussion 20. Now we can look at these statistics and factor in margin or error and see that we have a couple of options for interpretation. 1. the data was not sufficient for one or both 2. fewer people approve of the media than they do President Bush. 3. the tests were only preformed on one of the media groups and thus does not reflect on all or 4. the media's approval rating was based on the news they had to report and not on their ability to report the news. and on and on and on we can go to twist the results to say something they don't really say. That is why the old saying is there are three kinds of lies, lies, ^%#^%% lies and statistics.

Now apply this to our discussion. Because of how margin of error is calculated, I can test for anything and get a low margin of error. I can test whether a mouse is in the cookie jar and the margin of error would be less than 1%, but that doesn't mean that the mouse lives in the cookie jar or that mice live in all cookie jars, or that the mouse is always in the cookie jar. What it means is that every time I tested, the mouse was there. But, if we factor in that my children may have been playing a trick, that the tests should be done over several days, that we needed more cookie jars to test, that the mouse may have gotten stuck, etc. etc. etc. then our margin of error just went up dramatically and shows us, that though the tests show that 99% of the time the mouse was in the jar, with a less than 1% margin or error. Our answer suddenly becomes the mouse was in the cookie jar 99% of the time with a 20% margin or error. We have a clearer picture of whether or not the mouse is likely to have set up house keeping in the jar. Now if all we want to know if the results of the tests, the first is fine, but if we want to draw conclusions about what the truth is, we need to look at the second. In science, we supposedly are seeking truth. Thus the second is necessary for knowing truth. But you know what, I would be estatic to see science put forth both numbers for review and consideration rather than to proclaim truth like the religious do.

razzelflabben · Jul 3, 2007

gluadys said:
I asked you about this before. See this exchange in post 221

How is it that you want me to answer the question? We are taught to see what we experience. That experience would lead us to say, yes there are other sources of light. However, science wants us to question everything. If we question everything, we can say we don't know until we know more about light. We can say that it appears that there can be other sources, but that would be only a test and not an actual evaluation of light and it's source. If light is the result of energy, then energy is it's only source. If lights origin or otherwise, then it's source may not be energy but rather collected by energy. And thus, we still have to deal with other questions about light, such as is it the energy that produces light or something else. We know how to use light, but we really don't know what light is. We know what we can do with light and how it functions but where is comes from we don't know. It's all about accepting what we know and what we don't know and being honest about it.

So we have already agreed that light does come from the stars (including the sun).

I didn't agree to this, when did you see that? I agree that it appears to, (though I don't think I even said that) but not that it does.

Obviously, light that IS God is not created BY God. God does not create himself. God is not created. So no created light is eternal light. Whatever it is, the light in Genesis is created light.

good....your on the right track, keep going.........

And that means its age is measurable, since it exists in time, not in eternity.

keep with it to it's conclusion........[/quote]

The sources of light we have discussed are stars (including the sun), the light of Day One, and eternal light. All of these are identified in the biblical text, (though only the first two are mentioned in Gen. 1). As far as I know only starlight and its electromagnetic cousins are identified in science. So what additional sources of light do you claim I am assuming?[/quote]We don't know if the light is originating from the star or collecting there from some other source.

razzelflabben · Jul 3, 2007

gluadys said:
I think we are clear on what bias is. But that does not suffice for an accusation of bias. We need some evidence that someone is biased and that they are biased about something. It is the someone and the something I am looking for. e.g. who is refusing to accept what variable? what evidence is who refusing to see?

Poor poor gluady's, I provided you with a string of evidence and showed you how to draw a conclusion of all the evidence and still you insist........ moving on. You don't have to accept bias that is the amazing thing about life. You don't have to accept anything that you don't want to. But you also don't have to pretend it to be something it is not just to justify your own bias. Admit you don't want to accept it and move on, it doesn't berate you in any way to admit what you hold as a belief above all evidence. It simply makes you human.

That is a lot different message than I got from talk about "biased scientists". "Biased scientists" implies that there are also "unbiased scientists".

I would imagine that there are scientists as unbiased as is humanly possible. I would also bet they are seldom if ever published because they don't fit the community model.

It also does not fit the analogy of the teacher. One stubborn biased teacher doesn't mean the whole corps of teachers is biased.

it does if the one teacher is applauded and supported and held up as the model teacher instead of being repramanded for his/her bias.

That would be pretty difficult to do under peer review conditions, since the reviewer is not informed as to who did the work. The reviewer gets only the content, not any information about who produced it.

exactly the point. if the information supports one idea, and is discarded because it does, that is bias.

Who said they manipulated evidence? How did they show the evidence was manipulated? If you are going to cite TV documentaries, it would be helpful to note the name of the program, which network & station you saw it on, and the date it was aired. Is the bias in the scientists or in the people who produced the documentary? Why do you assume it was not the people who produced the documentary that were manipulating the evidence?

why get so upset over this little comment? what nerve did I hit? And btw, it was the scientists talking among themselves that convicted them.

This was nothing more than an innocent comment as was the comment about people on the forum that you hold dear admitting bias. They were not intended to be evidence of anything, just examples of what I am saying. You allowed them to get you all riled up, that usually (though not always) means that there is denied guilt. Like evidence that you thought was well covered up and no one could find it kind of guilt. So do you want to share with us why you are getting so up set over simple meaningless comments if it is not to hide quilt?

Not, "we have found water on Mars." Not "we have found there was never water on Mars."

that the evidence is contridictory is the main point of the article

This would make sense if you were talking about some scientists. But you intimated above that you were speaking of the whole scientific community as a collective. What about the whole creationist community as a collective. Do they not also try to pass off their beliefs as scientific truths?

Hum?I said they did, I talked about their bias, I even started a thread whose premis was that both sides do in fact show bias. And still you ask me this question? To what purpose? What do you gain from pretending that I didn't say both did this? It is no wonder that you refuse the evidence that leads us to the conclusion of bias in the scientific community, you can't even read the accusations of bias on both sides when it is directly and clearly stated.

But nothing is stopping the publication of creationist works. They are easy to find. Tell me, do you expect to find articles opposing creationism in journals published by creationist organizations? If creationist organizations routinely refuse to publish anti-creationist articles, what's wrong with scientific organizations refusing to publish anti-science articles? That's like reprimanding Christian journals for refusing to publish articles promoting Buddhism and vice versa.

Note here the highlighted words. Note that you are pitting creationists against science instead of dealing with the scientific community as a whole. IOW's you convicted the scientific community right here with bias without trying to because you are purposing that they have the right to refuse creationist evidence. Science has no right to refuse any evidence that is collected and evaluated properly. Creationist organizations on the other hand do. So this is the very reason I do not dismiss anything as creationist or evolutionist, because it will be fun to watch you try to explain your way out of this admission of bias that you have been telling us doesn't exist. It is catching you in your own words that is fun, not dismissing things before they become fun.

And how does science "force its bias on the whole community"? Good heavens, most polls in the US indicate that about half the population does not believe what scientists say. Looks to me like science has signally failed to force its bias on the whole community, in spite of accusations of "indoctrinating" students.

Pick up any school text, any children's book. they all make the assumptions that science knows our origins. There is never a discussion about it, only accusations of known truth. That is indoctrination.

Again, I don't see the problem. We have the claims of both sides. We have the evidence each side presents. We have the reasoning they offer to support their interpretation of the evidence. What stops us from evaluating each position and coming to the truth of the matter?

when someone does, they are accused of all kinds of things. In addition, science allows the media and publishing companys to propagandanize the idea that it is truth without any effort to discuss or explain the truth. This coupled with the bias that you yourself have shown, is a pretty poor picture of an oppertunity to explore for ones self. Look at it this way, if your culture tells you that any given religion let's take christianity, is truth, and all the evidence that is ever presented by the leaders of the community show only the evidence for christianity and if you would be attacked and falsely accused if you reviewed all the evidence and came to a different conclusion, how much freedom would you have to actually evaluate the evidence for youself. Now freedom here is not refering to government arrest, but rather unobstructed freedoms.

The people trying to force their viewpoint into schools without adequate evidence for their position have been the anti-scientists e.g. designists. The typical procedure for a scientific paradigm shift is to provide convincing evidence to the academic community first, then gradually present it to undergrads, then to high-school students, and finally, to elementary students. The court battles have been fought because certain groups want to reverse this pattern and present stuff that ought to be debated by PhDs to kids not old enough to drive yet.

education is a whole nothing topic and should have it's own thread. Oh wait, it did and the science teachers there all proclaimed that science was being taught as fairly as it could be because the methods of collecting and evaluating data were too complicated for mere students to understand and so it is necessary to teach the conclusions rather than the methods. Hum.....so your assertions are....................let's leave it for another discussion since you once again are wrong about the scientific community you support.

razzelflabben · Jul 3, 2007

gluadys said:
You describe the method well, but I haven't seen you put it into practice. For example, one "what if" you have mentioned several times is "What if life were failing..."? Now turn that into a hypothesis. If life were failing what indicators would we see as evidence that life was failing? How would we know that life was failing?

I'm not a scientist, why would I do that in a discussion about the evidence we have. If we have never hypothesis ied that life was faltering, then the evidence would not be gathered to show if the hypothesis is evidenced or falsified. Thus there would be no purpose to the question in this discussion. Other discussions maybe but I am desperately trying to keep you on topic. So before we can go there you need to show relavence to the topic being discussed.

Come on. It is not that difficult a question. What do you need explained?

doesn't mean that I can't explain the question it means that the question seems to be addressing someone elses claims other than mine. IOW's it isn't directed at anything I suggested. Therefore is in no way relavent to your discussion with me as worded anyway.

razzelflabben · Jul 3, 2007

gluadys said:
In any case, there is ample evidence these scholars would also qualify as experts in ancient Hebrew grammar as well. I know people who teach Old Testament at the seminary level. I know that part of the requirement for teaching OT is expertise in the original language of the Old Testament. Expertise that includes a thorough knowledge of its grammar.

point one I am ignoring most of this because it is just a host of gibberish on your part to refuse responsibility for your own blunder and quite honestly I don't have time or patience to go back and show you your error only to be ignored and told I was wrong because you didn't like the outcome. It is a waste of time and one that you have show repeatedly, that you ignore any and all evidence that convicts you of making a false assertion. And so, dispite you attempts to show me in the wrong, I am done with all that. Not accepting your accusations, just not going to waste my time with someone who refuses to take responsibility for what is yours. 2. I also know professors who taught Old Testament, in fact, I have taken old testament, and you know what, many of them don't know any more about ancient hebrew lang. than I do. In addition to that, those that did know it better, but were not scholars of the ancient heb. lang. couldn't even begin to discuss the text with anything to offer to those whose life study has been ancient heb. lang. That is just a simple fact of life.

razzelflabben · Jul 3, 2007

gluadys said:
OK, here is another opportunity to treat an "if" scientifically. How do we know if the earth environment changed? What are the indicators that it changed? What are the indicators that would show something new was necessary to support life that was already existing?

see previous note in post about unrelated topics.

No, the consensus, even across the old-earth, young-earth divide is that the conclusions are not biased. The tests really do show that the crater is 65 million years old.

you still don't get it do you? How much clearer can I get for heaven's sake. The tests all say the same thing, but the tests are not accurate because they fail to calculate the variables.

This is not saying the scientific conclusion is biased. It is accepting that science can come to no other conclusion, but providing a reason why that conclusion is still wrong.

exactly

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
I also know professors who taught Old Testament, in fact, I have taken old testament, and you know what, many of them don't know any more about ancient hebrew lang. than I do. In addition to that, those that did know it better, but were not scholars of the ancient heb. lang. couldn't even begin to discuss the text with anything to offer to those whose life study has been ancient heb. lang. That is just a simple fact of life.

Then I take it they were with denominations that don't put the high priority on scholarship that the denominations I am familiar with do. In the denominations I am familiar with, teaching Old Testament at a post-graduate level without knowing the Hebrew oneself just isn't done. Knowing the Hebrew is a prerequisite for the position.

(I also assume that you personally were not studying Old Testament at a post-graduate level, but as an interested lay-person.)

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
The tests all say the same thing, but the tests are not accurate because they fail to calculate the variables. exactly

But it is not the scientists that are the problem. The tests are the problem. The scientists are honestly reporting the results of the tests. Yecs agree this is the case. They agree that if they did the tests themselves, they would get the same answers as the scientists.

So no bias here.

The problem has to be in the tests themselves. Or in some assumption on which the tests are based.

So what are some of the reasons young-earthers suggest for why the tests may be giving the wrong results?

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
How is it that you want me to answer the question?

As you did. With a "yes" or a "no". In this case you answered "yes".

I didn't agree to this, when did you see that?

So what are you saying now? That your "yes" does not mean "yes"?

We don't know if the light is originating from the star or collecting there from some other source.

Fine, but since we are measuring how long it took the light to travel from the star to the earth, it doesn't matter whether it is originating from the star or collecting there from some other source.

Let me try (with some trepidation) an analogy. The Walmart outlet in Springhill is expecting five deliveries today. One truck will come from Amesbury, another from Beaconsfield, another from Chadwick, one from Digby and one from Elmvale.

Among these, Elmvale is the point closest to Springhill, and as it happens the routes from Amesbury, Beaconsfield, Chadwick and Digby all pass through Elmvale to get to Springhill.

Now apply this analogy to the starlight. Springhill is the earth. Elmvale is the star. The truck coming from Elmvale is the star's own light, originating in the star itelf. The trucks coming from the other four points represent light from other sources collected at Elmvale and from Elmvale on, they all travel the same route as the one originating in Elmvale.

All of them travel the same route from Elmvale to Springhill, so they all travel the same distance. And (since they are really light, not trucks) they all travel at the same constant speed from Elmvale to Springhill.

So all of them take the same amount of time to get from Elmvale to Springhill (from the star to the earth).

Sure, if we wanted to know how long each took to get from its original source (Amesbury, Beaconsfield, Chadwick, Digby) we would get different answers for each.

But that is not the question the scientist is asking. He is not asking how long the light took to get from its original source to earth. He is asking how long it took to get from the collecting point (the star) to earth.

And that is the same answer for all five.

gluadys · Jul 3, 2007

razzelflabben said:
I'm not a scientist, why would I do that in a discussion about the evidence we have.

Because we don't have the evidence yet. We don't even know yet what evidence we need.

If we have never hypothesis ied that life was faltering, then the evidence would not be gathered to show if the hypothesis is evidenced or falsified.

True. But before we can gather evidence, we need to know what evidence to look for. So before we can gather (or fail to gather) evidence that "life was faltering" we need to think about what sort of evidence would show that life was faltering.

That is how you turn an imaginary "what if" into a hypothesis. You suggest an observation which would determine whether the "what if" was/is actually happening or not.

If X (life was faltering) is true, what else must be true? What do we look for to establish that X is true? (or to falsify it?)

Until we have that, science cannot do anything with a "what if".

doesn't mean that I can't explain the question it means that the question seems to be addressing someone elses claims other than mine. IOW's it isn't directed at anything I suggested. Therefore is in no way relavent to your discussion with me as worded anyway.

Oh, it follows straight on from what we have been discussing. We have established that science makes claims about the age of various things and that the ages suggested by science are at variance with the ages compatible with a young-earth.

Now we have this suggestion from the young-earthers, that what the scientists are seeing is not age, but appearance of age.

Would that suggestion even exist without the scientific claim of age?

You say there are other things to consider in appearance of age. What other things? What else other than the scientific observations, tests and reasoning that back up their claims provides any hint at all of appearance of age?

Creation started with nothing?

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