Hypothetical: Creationism becomes standard in science classes

Ken Behrens · Feb 14, 2017

Queller said:
Why would I think that? I do believe God is real.

Sorry, most of the people talking to me here are atheists.

Ken Behrens · Feb 14, 2017

TagliatelliMonster said:
When they talk about scientific experiments, then I expect the experiments to be scientific. In order for them to be scientific, I expect them to be subject to scientific criteria.

If they are indeed scientific, then there should be scientific papers published in scientific journals detailing the setup, the premises, the data and the conclusion.

Without the science, an experiment is not a scientific experiment.

Definitions change.

TagliatelliMonster · Feb 14, 2017

Ken Behrens said:
Definitions change.

Especially to suit agenda's.

In this case though, it's just lying.

Loudmouth · Feb 14, 2017

Ken Behrens said:
I am asking for a model based on laws tested over the last 200 years. I want to see if the assumption that these have been the same for 6000 years is enough. I accept the 6000 year duration, and question anything beyond that.

You only question things prior to 6,000 years because it contradicts your religious beliefs.

Paul of Eugene OR · Feb 14, 2017

Ken Behrens said:
The "to me" part is why we are approaching 1000 posts.

Are we having fun yet?

The Gregorian · Feb 14, 2017

Paul of Eugene OR said:
The universe definitely expanded from a much smaller state, it had that beginning. So the big bang theory needs to be taught. It is true nobody knows why the big bang got started.

Nested hierarchy is evidence enough for universal common ancestor. Creationist deniers of evolution deny so much more than just universal common ancestor . . . how about merely accepting a common ancestor of all the primates? Since there is rock solid evidence for a common primate ancestry, people who go ahead and accept that evidence are not to be blamed for going ahead and accepting universal common ancestry . . . its not any more in conflict with the creationist position after all.

Actually, you won't catch any evolutionist saying about evolution "we don't know how". We've got a great evolution theory that explains "how". Please be careful about not putting words into an evolutionist's mouth that he would never say.

(Sorry, On a phone so i can't format things as neatly as I'd like)

Creationists would buy that finches come from a common finch ancestor and primates could very well come from a common primate ancestor, humans come from a common human ancestor... that doesn't conflict with creationism at all. There is no more evidence that humans and apes and finches share a common ancestor than there is evidence in any given creator.

You discount the possibility of a common designer because things appear to have a common design... yet you throw in your support to nested hierarchy? Which is exactly the same thing?

Both are guesses as to how life began, which have no verifiable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence. We can teach life science as hiw we observe biology working NOW. But to say we're sure somehow a cell just magically poofed into existance, lived long enough to successfully reproduce in an anaerobic environment long enough for mutate from a single celled asexual organism, into a multicellular organism at least two of which eventually randomly gained the ability sexually reproduce... there are a few leaps of blind faith required to even consider that plausible.

The Gregorian · Feb 14, 2017

Loudmouth said:
You only question things prior to 6,000 years because it contradicts your religious beliefs.

To be fair, even by the christian bible, the universe and the earth could be any age if you don't assume the 6 steps of creation were measured in days as defined by a planet that didn't even exist at the beginning. The bible talks about the creation of the heavens and the earth... the 6,000 years bit only applies to adam and eve. Nothing says God didn't start designing life on earth with single celled organisms and mess around sequentially with more and more complex organic organisms. Dinosaurs existing millions of years ago is not mutually exclusive with the bible, let alone the overall possibility of intelligent design.

Paul of Eugene OR · Feb 14, 2017

The Gregorian said:
(Sorry, On a phone so i can't format things as neatly as I'd like)

Creationists would buy that finches come from a common finch ancestor and primates could very well come from a common primate ancestor, humans come from a common human ancestor... that doesn't conflict with creationism at all.

Yes, we are witnessing Creationists being dragged, kicking and screaming, into accepting more and more of evolution. Many now accept that speciation occurs.

There is no more evidence that humans and apes and finches share a common ancestor than there is evidence in any given creator.

As for apes, we have the evidence of shared genetic flaws and shared retroviral inserts AS WELL AS the shared design commonalities.

You discount the possibility of a common designer because things appear to have a common design... yet you throw in your support to nested hierarchy? Which is exactly the same thing?

Not when the shared FLAWS also follow the same patterns and the same shared JUNK DNA.

Both are guesses as to how life began, which have no verifiable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence.

Shared common ancestry is NOT HOW LIFE BEGAN. Instead, its how life evolved after life began. And any competent scientist is quite free to check out the DNA evidence of shared retroviral inserts and shared broken vitamin c genes in primates and many other such shared defects as well as shared patterns of body construction.

Are you willing to accept that whales are descended from land animals, based on their vestigial hips and occasional vestigial actual legs?

We can teach life science as hiw we observe biology working NOW. But to say we're sure somehow a cell just magically poofed into existance, lived long enough to successfully reproduce in an anaerobic environment long enough for mutate from a single celled asexual organism, into a multicellular organism at least two of which eventually randomly gained the ability sexually reproduce... there are a few leaps of blind faith required to even consider that plausible.

When did you see a scientist propose life started with a magic poof? Come on, lets not cheat in our debating by telling falsehoods like that.

OK now my conscience requires me to concede that perhaps creationists don't do a lot of kicking and screaming as they accept more and more of evolution.

Astrophile · Feb 15, 2017

The Gregorian said:
i agree that ideas with 0 positive evidence should not be in our science classes. This includes the big bang theory (which is physically impossible as a universal singularity would have infinite mass and therefore no amount of force could allow anything with mass to escape it),

There is evidence for big bang cosmology, namely the recession of the galaxies and the expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background, and the observed abundances of deuterium, helium-3, helium-4 and lithium-7. Can your hypothesis for the origin of the universe explain these observations? Can it predict new observations?

Queller · Feb 15, 2017

Ken Behrens said:
http://kenbehrens.com/Ancient Technology.pdf

I haven't read the entire 151 pages but I have read a good bit and skimmed through the rest. Here are some problems I see:

1. There are these mysteries in archeology. Archeologists seldom mention them, even among themselves. Things that don't quite fit the theories. Like the crystal skull. Or the measurement of pi, the size of the circle in the pyramid. Or the human footprint covered by a dinosaur track in Texas.
I almost stopped reading right there.

2. There is no reason to believe that time flows in consecutive years.
You give examples of people who didn't think time flowed consecutively but give no logical reasons why someone should think that time doesn't flow consecutively.

3. Gambling never had mathematical odds until three centuries ago.
Of course they did. Just because no one had ever calculated the odds, doesn't mean the odds didn't exist.

That's like saying gravity didn't exist until the apple fell on Newton's head (yes, I know it's an apocryphal story).

4. Scientists claim evolution is correct because it is the simplest theory that explains three things: first, the many varieties of creatures, second, the order in which fossils are stacked in the ground, and third, carbon fourteen dates.
I'm not aware of any scientist who claims that evolution is correct because of c14 dates. Do you have any examples of this happening?

C14 dating is only good out to about 50,000-60,000 years, far too short a time-frame verify evolution which has been going on for billions of years.

5. Once I got to the parts where you started talking about vehicles powered by floating crystals, ancient ray guns, and someone having found Noah's Ark, I lost interest. I don't really have time for amateur fairy tales.

On the wikipedia article. It says so.

Can you provide a quote where the wiki article says that "The equations are only valid for a small view of time. After that the exponent changes because of damping factors."

Queller · Feb 15, 2017

Ken Behrens said:
This shows indeed that the original study has not been duplicated. However, it also suggests at the end that homogenization may be bad for another reason.

I told you I was guessing.

Are you ever going to answer the question;

"Who is paying scientists to say that there is no real benefit to non-homogenized milk and why?"

The Gregorian · Feb 15, 2017

Paul, we observe DNA commonalities... i agree. What makes you so confident that certain chunks of dna is "junk dna." How ere the variables experimentally isolated to demonstrate that these commonalities specifically came FROM retroviruses as opposed to simply being a sequence that also occurs in retroviruses? How was it demonstrated that this DNA sequence can not be something that actually serves a purpose?

We both see something we can't definitively explain... you have enough faith in your assumption that you take it as fact, without anybreal evidence... yet insult my theory because my evidence isn't as strong as your complete lack of evidence?

That's not logical.

The Gregorian · Feb 15, 2017

Astrophile said:
There is evidence for big bang cosmology, namely the recession of the galaxies and the expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background, and the observed abundances of deuterium, helium-3, helium-4 and lithium-7. Can your hypothesis for the origin of the universe explain these observations? Can it predict new observations?

We observe the universe expanding, I agree. This does not prove "how/why" this expansion started. Whether the original expansionwas an effect with a cause (creationism), or that this effect was equally inexplicable, but further complicated by it being self-generating (the big bang)... either way, the laws of physics we can observe can not explain a situation where it could be possible. Talk to any astrophysicist, physics (except gravity) could cope with anything AFTER the big bang, but a universal singularity is definitively a black hole, the escape velocity would therefore be greater than the speed of light, requiring greater than an infinite amount of force for a single atom with mass to escape. ... unless we throw out Einstein's work (which I'm in favor of).

... or universal expansion could be an illusion. Take any piece of paper and make a bunch of dots. Enlarge any section of it, and line up any of the dots and it will appear that all other dots are moving outward from a central point. But any point would consider itself that central point. If the universe is infinite, it's expansion doesn't necessitate a central origin point in space or time. An infinite universe can still emit radiation in any direction allowing for the radiation we observe "at the edge of the universe" commonly intepreted to be background radiation... to just be radiation from an area of space beyond our current capacity to observe from our perspective.

Point is, anything beyond our ability to perceive is definitively beyond our ability to test. We can have ideas, but can not call any of them science. Science is what we can observe here and now. The inobservable is a matter if faith whether it involves a God or not.

Paul of Eugene OR · Feb 16, 2017

The Gregorian said:
Paul, we observe DNA commonalities... i agree. What makes you so confident that certain chunks of dna is "junk dna."

a) Much "junk dna" has been artifically removed from experimental animals (mice) and the mice function just fine without it.

b) We can prove the "junk dna" doesn't code for proteins. Some of it is involved in regulating protein expression, of course, but it wouldn't take as much to regulate proteins as actually exists.

c) Many species have so much more DNA than we do that it would seem highly unlikely it was all being used for important stuff

d) The idea of junk DNA wasn't anticipated BUT it makes a lot of sense in an evolutionary context.

How ere the variables experimentally isolated to demonstrate that these commonalities specifically came FROM retroviruses as opposed to simply being a sequence that also occurs in retroviruses? How was it demonstrated that this DNA sequence can not be something that actually serves a purpose?

Retroviruses are observed infecting animals and inserting sequences. They don't have uses. They are part of that junk DNA we talk about, except of course some of the older sequences have been incorporated, via mutation and evolution, into functional sequences.

We both see something we can't definitively explain... you have enough faith in your assumption that you take it as fact, without anybreal evidence... yet insult my theory because my evidence isn't as strong as your complete lack of evidence?

That's not logical.

Its as logical as asserting the patterns of the fingerprints on the gun implicate a guilty murderer. Your objections are as illogical as insisting that the resemblance, while admitted to be there, is a mere coincidence. Your logic would free every criminal, because no evidence is immune to such radical skepticism. At some point one has a right to say, I'm sorry, the evidence is just too much.

The Gregorian · Feb 16, 2017

Take a step back there, Paul. Coincidence is a possibility. Or a common cause could have caused the coincidence. The point is seeing a commonality doesn't imply one cause for that commonality over another.

As far as junk DNA goes... mice surviving doesn't necessarily mean that DNA "does nothing."

Paul of Eugene OR · Feb 16, 2017

The Gregorian said:
We observe the universe expanding, I agree. This does not prove "how/why" this expansion started.

Agreed, the cause of the start of the big bang is an open question.

Talk to any astrophysicist, physics (except gravity) could cope with anything AFTER the big bang, but a universal singularity is definitively a black hole, the escape velocity would therefore be greater than the speed of light, requiring greater than an infinite amount of force for a single atom with mass to escape. ... unless we throw out Einstein's work (which I'm in favor of).

The nature of the big bang before it was started is an open question

... or universal expansion could be an illusion. Take any piece of paper and make a bunch of dots. Enlarge any section of it, and line up any of the dots and it will appear that all other dots are moving outward from a central point. But any point would consider itself that central point.

But to infer universal expansion from those results would NOT be an illusion. It would, rather, PROVE universal expansion!

If the universe is infinite, it's expansion doesn't necessitate a central origin point in space or time. An infinite universe can still emit radiation in any direction allowing for the radiation we observe "at the edge of the universe" commonly interpreted to be background radiation... to just be radiation from an area of space beyond our current capacity to observe from our perspective.

That's an odd statement. I would consider intercepting radiation and observing its characteristics from an area of space to exactly BE observation from that area of space.

Point is, anything beyond our ability to perceive is definitively beyond our ability to test. We can have ideas, but can not call any of them science. Science is what we can observe here and now. The inobservable is a matter if faith whether it involves a God or not.

You reject to much of what we can observe and explain.

Paul of Eugene OR · Feb 16, 2017

The Gregorian said:
Take a step back there, Paul. Coincidence is a possibility. Or a common cause could have caused the coincidence. The point is seeing a commonality doesn't imply one cause for that commonality over another.

As far as junk DNA goes... mice surviving doesn't necessarily mean that DNA "does nothing."

The above was posted by someone who has, oddly enough, ear wiggling muscles he cannot use, and they are evidence of descent from a previous species that could move its ears to good effect. But he rejects that evidence as he does tons and tons of other evidence, on the grounds he doesn't like it.

The Gregorian · Feb 16, 2017

We observe the evidence HERE of radiation coming from a certain direction... we are not observing radiation that actually exists elsewhere in space. And even if we detect which direction it came from, there's no way to prove it has an origin point of some "universal edge." It could be from any given object simply outside of our range of detection, or from an object within our range that was deflected at some point during its potentially billion year journey.

Also, the current version of the big bang requires one to believe that time and space are mutable, material that can be created and destroyed... which is balogna.

And while ear wiggling muscles may not serve an "important" function, those muscles do still reposition one's ears, which happens naturally when you're focusing on selecting a specific sound out of a group of sounds. They're also play a role in moving the rest of your face muscles around.

If you severed those specific muscles, you'd probably live just fine... but they do things.

Similar to whale and snake "vestigial hips" people talk about.

... they serveba function while mating and are very much not "useless."

Paul of Eugene OR · Feb 16, 2017

The Gregorian said:
We observe the evidence HERE of radiation coming from a certain direction... we are not observing radiation that actually exists elsewhere in space. And even if we detect which direction it came from, there's no way to prove it has an origin point of some "universal edge." It could be from any given object simply outside of our range of detection, or from an object within our range that was deflected at some point during its potentially billion year journey.

Also, the current version of the big bang requires one to believe that time and space are mutable, material that can be created and destroyed... which is balogna.

And while ear wiggling muscles may not serve an "important" function, those muscles do still reposition one's ears, which happens naturally when you're focusing on selecting a specific sound out of a group of sounds. They're also play a role in moving the rest of your face muscles around.

If you severed those specific muscles, you'd probably live just fine... but they do things.

Similar to whale and snake "vestigial hips" people talk about.

... they serveba function while mating and are very much not "useless."

Your special pleading is kind of transparent.

The Gregorian · Feb 16, 2017

Paul of Eugene OR said:
special pleading

Wut?

Hypothetical: Creationism becomes standard in science classes

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