Is Biblical Creationism a pure science?

[Melethiel]

Moved to Origins.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

But unfortunately you didn't read the body of the OP which explained the thread title. This is not about whether science supports creationism, but whether science as an epistemology is sufficient to address issues like miracles, the supernatural, etc.. I'd like to keep this thread focused on that. So please start a new thread. I'm asking very nicely.

Please don’t falsely accuse me of not reading the body of the OP. I did read it, and I replied to the first parts of it where you wrote,

“I agree with all the above [the post by Sunrise78]. So the question for me becomes, is this a purely scientific matter, or should it be considered a broader epistemological matter that includes science, but isn't limited to it?”

Sunrise had written in that post, “They fail to realize that the same evidence used by uniformitarians to argue that geological layers were laid down gradually over millions of years is the same evidence used by creationists to argue that geological layers were laid down by vast amounts of water over a short period of time.”

Do you have any idea how offensive such a ridiculously false statement about science and scientists is to a real scientist? And you posted that you agree with that false statement. Therefore I posted some facts about Gen. 6-8 that prove, from numerous branches of science, that the Genesis flood did not occur.

Then why not address the issue raised in the OP? This issue is not whether science supports creationism or a young earth (both myself and clearsky agree with you to a certain extent), but whether science, as an epistemological tool, is able to investigate origins. Do you believe scripture conveys our origin to be natural or supernatural. If the latter, do you believe science can investigate supernatural causation? If so why? 99.9% of all scientists would disagree with you. Science must presuppose methodological naturalism. Are you familiar with that term?

The opening post confused three basic but distinctly different issues—God’s creation, young earth theology, and the Genesis flood. We know that the flood did not occur; there is no question about that fact. We also know that the earth is very much older than thousands of years. However, whether or not God created the earth is not known—belief that He did is dependent upon faith and, therefore, belongs to the realm of religion, not science or philosophy. I have several volumes in my home library on the philosophy of science, and very few, if any, students of the philosophy of science would venture to claim that belief in creationism has anything at all to do with the philosophy of science.

Oh well. He didn't mean to help me out, but this is the essence my point. The Creation, the Curse and the Flood were caused by supernatural acts of God (miracles), just as the Bible says. Therefore, science has an epistemological handicap in attempting to investigate it. It would be like using science to examine the wine Jesus created.

First of all, your post rests upon the faulty assumption that the Bible says that the “Creation, the Curse and the Flood were caused by supernatural acts of God (miracles).” The Bible does NOT say these things—you do, based upon an INTERPRETATION of the Bible which is, as I have already posted in an earlier post, strongly refuted by current literary studies of Genesis, etc. The creation, the curse, and the flood have all been thoroughly investigated by numerous applicable branches of science with no epistemological handicap whatsoever. The creation is an observable fact; the curse has been debated for millennia; the flood, we know for a fact, did not occur.

Science can and does investigate the supernatural when events are observed for which there is no apparent natural cause, such as extrasensory perception, some near death experiences, etc., but only to the extent that it investigates whether or not a supernatural event actually occurred. Investigating the nature and cause of supernatural events is outside of the bounds of scientific enquiry.

 

[Molal]

Please don’t falsely accuse me of not reading the body of the OP. I did read it, and I replied to the first parts of it where you wrote,

“I agree with all the above [the post by Sunrise78]. So the question for me becomes, is this a purely scientific matter, or should it be considered a broader epistemological matter that includes science, but isn't limited to it?”

Sunrise had written in that post, “They fail to realize that the same evidence used by uniformitarians to argue that geological layers were laid down gradually over millions of years is the same evidence used by creationists to argue that geological layers were laid down by vast amounts of water over a short period of time.”

Do you have any idea how offensive such a ridiculously false statement about science and scientists is to a real scientist? And you posted that you agree with that false statement. Therefore I posted some facts about Gen. 6-8 that prove, from numerous branches of science, that the Genesis flood did not occur.



The opening post confused three basic but distinctly different issues—God’s creation, young earth theology, and the Genesis flood. We know that the flood did not occur; there is no question about that fact. We also know that the earth is very much older than thousands of years. However, whether or not God created the earth is not known—belief that He did is dependent upon faith and, therefore, belongs to the realm of religion, not science or philosophy. I have several volumes in my home library on the philosophy of science, and very few, if any, students of the philosophy of science would venture to claim that belief in creationism has anything at all to do with the philosophy of science.



First of all, your post rests upon the faulty assumption that the Bible says that the “Creation, the Curse and the Flood were caused by supernatural acts of God (miracles).” The Bible does NOT say these things—you do based upon an INTERPRETATION of the Bible which is, as I have already posted in an earlier post, strongly refuted by current literary studies of Genesis, etc. The creation, the curse, and the flood have all been thoroughly investigated by numerous applicable branches of science with no epistemological handicap whatsoever. The creation is an observable fact; the curse has been debated for millennia; the flood, we know for a fact, did not occur.

Science can and does investigate the supernatural when events are observed for which there is no apparent natural cause, such as extrasensory perception, some near death experiences, etc., but only to the extent that it investigates whether or not a supernatural event actually occurred. Investigating the nature and cause of supernatural events is outside of the bounds of scientific enquiry.

Science does not investigate the supernatural.

I think you need to define what you mean by supernatural. Since it is clear you are discussing something which you define differently.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

The fact that 99.95% of all scientists believe that the earth is about five billion years old does not make this a true fact. The scientists believe that just because most of their data supports that.

However, the supernatural creation of the earth described in Scripture can very well have left evidence that points to a five billion years old earth. God created the earth and all life on it, but He also obviously allowed for a natural explanation.

Now you will ask of course: How do we know that our interpretation of Scripture is correct and the universe was indeed created 6000 years ago, even though this obviously contradicts 99% of all scientific data?

The answer: We do not know that for certain, but some very good arguments support the 6000 years theory.

a) The book Genesis is quite clear about the 6000 years. God inspired Scripture and would probably have intervened when the author (or authors) of Genesis had described the creation in a wrong and misleading way, with a wrong time scale.

b) The purpose of creation was creating people able to worship God. God is omnipotent, so there would not have been a reason for him after universe creation to wait 15 billion years until habitable planets were available. An omnipotent God can easily create the universe, solar systems and planets right away.

The notion that the earth in only about 6,000 years old is dependent exclusively upon a faulty chronology of the Old Testament worked out by one man, Anglican Archbishop James Usher (or Ussher). According to his incorrect chronology, the earth was created on the night of October 23, 4004. Other scholars, based on the same data, have arrived at a very different chronology and most young earth creationist organizations allow for an additional 4,000 years because any school boy can prove that the earth is at least that old.

Just one example that incontrovertibly proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that the earth is at least 8,900 years old should suffice, and I will post one. If I had the time, however, I could post at least many thousands of them.

Dendrochronological and climatological studies in the White Mountains of California at elevations between 10,000 and 11,000 feet have conclusively proven that the climate there has not changed substantially during the past 8,900 years and that the Pinus longaeva trees growing in that area have been growing there without interruption from a flood or other catastrophic event during that entire time. Current dendrochronological studies on wood that has already been gathered from the dead Pinus longaeva trees in the same area are expected to reveal the climate in this area going back at least 10,000 years which is very significant since the last ice age ended just 2,000 years before that.

In 1964 a Pinus longaeva named Prometheus was cut down due to a blunder and it was discovered that the tree was 4,950 years old when it was cut down. Therefore this tree began growing there in about 2,986 B.C. from a seed from a tree that was already growing there and old enough to produce viable seeds. According to Usher’s Old Testament chronology, Noah and his family entered into the Ark 2,349 B.C. and in the same year it began to rain. If this is true (and of course it is not), Prometheus had already been growing for about 637 years (from a seed from a tree that was already growing there and old enough to produce viable seeds) when the flood occurred.

Therefore we know for an absolute and incontrovertible fact several things:

• The White Mountains of California are at least 8,900 years old.

• At the time the flood is said to have occurred, a tree had been growing in the White Mountains at an elevation above 10,000 feet for about 637 years.

• This tree was still intact in 1964 and for 4,950 years it had been growing without experiencing any substantial changes in the climate.

• This tree grew from a seed from another tree of the same kind that was already old enough to produce a viable seed.

• Other trees of the same kind had been growing in the same area for the past 8,900 years without experiencing any substantial changes in the climate.

• Not only is the earth at least 8,900 years old, but so is its topography in the White Mountains.

• The climate in the White Mountains has not changed substantially in the past 8,900 years.

These are facts that are just as certain as the fact that water is a made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. So, what do the young earth creationists do with these facts? For the very large part they simply ignore them. A few, however, have argued that on rare occasion a tree will produce two tree rings or none at all. And this is true, including the fact that these occasions are known to be rare and they do not significantly affect dendrochronological dates.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

Science does not investigate the supernatural.

This is a false statement. Science can and does investigate the supernatural when events are observed for which there is no apparent natural cause, such as extrasensory perception, some near death experiences, etc., but only to the extent that it investigates whether or not a supernatural event actually occurred. Investigating the nature and cause of supernatural events is outside of the bounds of scientific enquiry.

See, for example, the studies ongoing at The Rhine Research Center at Duke University.

I think you need to define what you mean by supernatural. Since it is clear you are discussing something which you define differently.

supernatural
Top of Form
One entry found.
supernatural


Bottom of Form

Main Entry:
su·per·nat·u·ral
Pronunciation:
\ˌsü-pər-ˈna-chə-rəl, -ˈnach-rəl\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English, from Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- + natura nature
Date:
15th century
1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil2 a: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b: attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)
— supernatural noun
— su·per·nat·u·ral·ly \-ˈna-chər-ə-lē, -ˈnach-rə-, -ˈna-chər-lē\ adverb
— su·per·nat·u·ral·ness noun
(From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

 

[noachian]

My answer is: its not a pure science since some of its principals are based on Scriptures and Doctrines rather than testable scientific evidence. But in a sense, it is a form of science, since it uses scientific evidenc to back the timeline.

 

[Calminian]

This is a false statement. Science can and does investigate the supernatural

We'll try not to hold this against Princeton U.

 

[ClearSky]

The notion that the earth in only about 6,000 years old is dependent exclusively upon a faulty chronology of the Old Testament worked out by one man, Anglican Archbishop James Usher (or Ussher). According to his incorrect chronology, the earth was created on the night of October 23, 4004. Other scholars, based on the same data, have arrived at a very different chronology and most young earth creationist organizations allow for an additional 4,000 years because any school boy can prove that the earth is at least that old.

You're right that the October 23, 4004, date is more based on assumptions than on Scripture. However, just when you add the life spans of the generations described in the bible to a historically known date (such as the fall of Babylon), you end up with a creation date at about 4000 BC. It could be 4500 or 3500, but it could not have been 8900 BC.

Now I know that cities were excavated that were much older than 4000 BC, and human artifacts were found and dated of 30,000 BC and older. However this falls into the same category as the distant starlight or the tree rings. God made our world look old for some purpose.

Just one example that incontrovertibly proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that the earth is at least 8,900 years old should suffice, and I will post one. If I had the time, however, I could post at least many thousands of them.

Dendrochronological and climatological studies in the White Mountains of California at elevations between 10,000 and 11,000 feet have conclusively proven that the climate there has not changed substantially during the past 8,900 years and that the Pinus longaeva trees growing in that area have been growing there without interruption from a flood or other catastrophic event during that entire time. Current dendrochronological studies on wood that has already been gathered from the dead Pinus longaeva trees in the same area are expected to reveal the climate in this area going back at least 10,000 years which is very significant since the last ice age ended just 2,000 years before that.

In 1964 a Pinus longaeva named Prometheus was cut down due to a blunder and it was discovered that the tree was 4,950 years old when it was cut down. Therefore this tree began growing there in about 2,986 B.C. from a seed from a tree that was already growing there and old enough to produce viable seeds. According to Usher’s Old Testament chronology, Noah and his family entered into the Ark 2,349 B.C. and in the same year it began to rain. If this is true (and of course it is not), Prometheus had already been growing for about 637 years (from a seed from a tree that was already growing there and old enough to produce viable seeds) when the flood occurred.

Therefore we know for an absolute and incontrovertible fact several things:

• The White Mountains of California are at least 8,900 years old.

• At the time the flood is said to have occurred, a tree had been growing in the White Mountains at an elevation above 10,000 feet for about 637 years.

• This tree was still intact in 1964 and for 4,950 years it had been growing without experiencing any substantial changes in the climate.

• This tree grew from a seed from another tree of the same kind that was already old enough to produce a viable seed.

• Other trees of the same kind had been growing in the same area for the past 8,900 years without experiencing any substantial changes in the climate.

• Not only is the earth at least 8,900 years old, but so is its topography in the White Mountains.

• The climate in the White Mountains has not changed substantially in the past 8,900 years.

These are facts that are just as certain as the fact that water is a made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. So, what do the young earth creationists do with these facts? For the very large part they simply ignore them. A few, however, have argued that on rare occasion a tree will produce two tree rings or none at all. And this is true, including the fact that these occasions are known to be rare and they do not significantly affect dendrochronological dates.

I know of all those facts. Still, I believe in Creation, for the reason I often posted here.

When God does something, He does it right. If he wants our earth to look old, he has no problem to grow trees that produce 1000 tree rings in a second. He wanted no evidence for the Flood to be found, thus He changed the landscape and vegetation of the White Mountains accordingly.

 

[artybloke]

Biblical Creationism, as it is commonly taught by Christian Fundamentalists today, is not biblical for the simple reason that the Bible does not teach creationism as it is commonly taught by Christian Fundamentalists today. Indeed, a careful reading of Gen. 1-11 strongly suggests that it is a series of epic tales and when this passage from Genesis is compared with other ancient Hebrew literature and the literature of other cultures in the ancient oriental world, we find very strong evidence that this is the case and the very large majority of Old Testament scholars today believe that Gen. 1 – 11 is, indeed, a series of epic tales.

And since over 99.95% of all biologists and geologists today who have earned at least a Ph.D. in a biological or geological science from an accredited college or university known for academic excellence in the respective science believe that the earth is at the very least hundreds of millions of years old, and the vast majority of them believe that it is about five billion years old, creationism is not a science but an archaic interpretation of Gen. 1 – 11 and several other passages in the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, creationism is neither biblical nor a science.

It is a well established fact that Genesis 6-8, if interpreted literally, is an historical account of actual events in history in which Noah’s family built an ark that was sufficiently large enough for representatives of 1.5 million or more genetically discrete populations of animals to come aboard and be maintained by Noah and his family for 150 or more days exclusively by natural means. Subsequent to those 150 or more days, the ark came to rest on a mountain and these representatives of 1.5 million or more genetically discrete populations of animals disembarked and found their way down the mountain and to the furthest corners of the earth and managed to survive that trip and their arrival even though every single land habitat had been completely destroyed by the flood.

It does not require a Ph.D. in biology from a prestigious university to see immediately that such an historic event never took place. Indeed, the completion of a high school biology class is all that is needed.

A few facts regarding Noah’s Ark that must be considered in evaluating the literalness of the account in Gen. 6–8:

• The ark as literally described in Genesis was much too small because the amount of water that it would be capable of displacing would weigh less that the animals on board making it impossible for the ark to float.

• The floor space on the ark was too small to hold any more than a tiny fraction of the cages that would be necessary to keep the animals in place (and from eating each other).

• The amount of food required for the animals would weigh nearly as much as the animals and would require a vast amount of storage space.

• Many of the animals aboard the ark would have required specific FRESH fruits, vegetables, leaves, grass, bark, roots, etc.

• Most of the genetically discrete populations of fish (including many VERY large fish) would have to be taken aboard the ark and kept in tanks of water that met their very specific water chemistry needs in order to survive.

• The weight of the water on the earth would have crushed to death any of the land plants that did not drown in the water.

• After 150 days when the water abated, there would be no vegetation on the earth for the herbivores to eat, and no meat for the carnivores to eat, therefore a vast amount of food would necessarily have been kept on the ark to sustain the animals AFTER the flood.

• Many of the herbivores would have had very specific dietary needs, including fresh fruits and berries that are produced only on MATURE plants. Therefore these mature plants would necessarily have been kept and maintained on the ark and subsequently planted in the ground after the flood.

• The Animals could not all be released all at once or in the same place because they would eat each other.

• The coming of the animals to Noah from all over the earth would have been a physical impossibility no less impossible than Santa Clause delivering presents to every boy and girl on the night before Christmas. The polar bears and penguins, not to mention all of the unique kinds of animals in Australia, would have posed a few special difficulties.

• After the flood, the animals could not be returned to their original habitat because all habitats would have been destroyed by the flood.

• Many of the necessary habitats would take 50 years or more to be reestablished and their reestablishment would have required the effort of many thousands of persons.

• Until all the necessary habitats could be reestablished, the animals requiring these habitats would have to be kept and cared for by Noah and his family.

• There was not enough water to cover the entire earth, and even if there was, where did it go after the flood.

• If the reported sightings of the Ark are correct, the Ark came to rest on a VERY high mountain on VERY rugged terrain from which the vast majority of the animals would not have been able descend.

Any man or woman with a high school education that included a course in biology can see at once that the story of Noah’s Ark can NOT be a literal account of an historic event. Indescribably huge miracles would have been necessary, and a literal interpretation of Genesis does not allow for these miracles because the whole point of the narrative is that by the means of an ark built by Noah and his family, mankind and all the kinds of animals were saved from the water.

Lit-crit aside:

I'd agree with all the above, except I'd possibly quibble with the word "epic." It has some of the markings of epic, but I'd say its radical simplification of epic tropes amounts almost to a kind of "anti-epic;" almost a kind of argument against epic.

If you compare the twenty-odd verses of Genesis 1 with the hundreds of lines of epic poetry in the Enuma Elish, or the simplicity of the Noah tale with the Epic of Gilgamesh, there are certainly similarities, but it's like the writers of Genesis have taken a brush to the Augean stables of epic and cleaned out all the extraneous matter, to leave us with a comparitively simple tale of God's power.

I think this makes the writers of Genesis really quite original thinkers and poets. Ezra Pound cleared the stuffy Victorian furniture from English and American poetry; and the writers of Genesis did the same to ancient near-eastern epic.

 

[artybloke]

My answer is: its not a pure science since some of its principals are based on Scriptures and Doctrines rather than testable scientific evidence. But in a sense, it is a form of science, since it uses scientific evidenc to back the timeline.

Then it is not a science. "Science" that has determined its results beforehand is known as lying.

There is no science in creationism, and precious little theology of any value.

 

[Molal]

This is a false statement. Science can and does investigate the supernatural when events are observed for which there is no apparent natural cause, such as extrasensory perception, some near death experiences, etc., but only to the extent that it investigates whether or not a supernatural event actually occurred. Investigating the nature and cause of supernatural events is outside of the bounds of scientific enquiry.

See, for example, the studies ongoing at The Rhine Research Center at Duke University.





supernatural
Top of Form
One entry found.
supernatural


Bottom of Form

Main Entry:
su·per·nat·u·ral
Pronunciation:
\ˌsü-pər-ˈna-chə-rəl, -ˈnach-rəl\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English, from Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- + natura nature
Date:
15th century
1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil2 a: departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b: attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)
— supernatural noun
— su·per·nat·u·ral·ly \-ˈna-chər-ə-lē, -ˈnach-rə-, -ˈna-chər-lē\ adverb
— su·per·nat·u·ral·ness noun
(From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

I can't find one article published by Rhine or by any member of Rhine - not one article in any scientific journal (using pubmed).

If you do find an article, maybe you should mention to the author they can get one million dollars if they take their research to James Randi.

This isn't scientific research. You claim to know science, but you do not.

Also, in every instance of supposed ESP, Psi, etc. a natural cause has been found - usually one of lies and deception.

 

[FishFace]

Ultimately neither Creationism nor Evolutionism are experimentally provable or falsifiable. They both are accepted by faith - at least that is the stance of the Creationist.

Creationism would surely be provable if God manifested in front of us and told us exactly what happened - well, I suppose likewise evolution. Do you not think evolution would be falsified if there was no nested hierarchy?

Whether creationism is falsifiable depends on your stance on the whole miracle thing. I see from your post further down, FallingWaters, that you believe in a God who performed a lot of miracles at the start but then sat back and relaxed for the most part the rest of the way. That means that if we find something that doesn't seem to have been possible in the creationist paradigm without "too many" miracles then creationism would probably be false.
As you no doubt know, lots of creationists believe that there were miracles involved at other intervals. Your statement in that post:

And surely, you're not saying the Grand Canyon got here by a miracle? It got here by a natural event which happened as a result of Noah's Flood, right? Why shouldn't we try to figure out how that happened with a lot of water in a short period of time, rather than believing evolutionists who say it was carved by the Colorado River over millions of years?

Is rather pleasing to me, an atheistic evolutionist! (I hope I don't get you into any guilt by association, here...) I completely agree with you here - what the other creationists have done is not only theologically a bit iffy (inferring lots of non-biblical miracles) but it's epistemologically iffy too.
You sound like, even if you never agree with me, you have a more theologically sound, and more intellectually fulfilling belief system than many other creationists I've met.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

I can't find one article published by Rhine or by any member of Rhine - not one article in any scientific journal (using pubmed).

If you do find an article, maybe you should mention to the author they can get one million dollars if they take their research to James Randi.

This isn't scientific research. You claim to know science, but you do not.

Also, in every instance of supposed ESP, Psi, etc. a natural cause has been found - usually one of lies and deception.

The research of Dr. Rhine and his colleagues has been published and discussed in many hundreds of scientific and mathematic papers in many professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistics. Whether or not any of this is available on the internet without authorized access I do not know, but do know that the vast majority of scientific papers and articles in professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistics are not available to anyone on the internet and those scientific papers and articles in professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistic that are available on the internet typically require access codes, usually to university libraries that are not open to the general public, either to foot traffic or electronic traffic.

During Dr. Rhine’s lifetime, his research drew most of its criticism for the mathematical and statistical models that he used to analyze the huge amount of data that he collected.

However, even if for the mathematical and statistical models that Dr. Rhine used to analyze the data that he collected slightly tweaked his resulting conclusions on the side of the paranormal, that his data was statistically significant is beyond question. During the many years following the research of Dr. Rhine and his colleagues, his research has been replicated by many scientists with statistically significant results. During my very early college years I replicated some of Dr. Rhine’s research in the areas of clairvoyance and telepathy using a deck of 25 cards made up of 5 cards each of 5 optically very different symbols but using young school children rather than adults and the results were impressive.

A ten-year-old boy named David, in a series of many tests over a period of several weeks, averaged a score of over 6.2 where a score of 5 would be expected if the laws of chance were the only contributing factor. His three-year-old sister, in a series of many tests over a period of several weeks, averaged a score of 5.0. His eight-year-old sister, however, was averaging a score of 3.0. My lab partner and I discussed her statistically significant test scores in her hearing, and learning that her score was less than half of that of her brother, she was embarrassed by what were to her simply low scores. Being a Catholic girl, she prayed intently for divine help and from that time on she averaged a score of 5.0.

My lab partner and I performed more tests with a thirteen-year-old boy named Scott and his test scores fluctuated up and down as his attitude toward my lab partner and I changed. Towards the end, he became annoyed with us and continued as a test subject only after much pleading on our part and his scores began to average 5.0. On his very last test, however, in which he knew that it was his very last test, he scored 13 correct responses as if to say, “See, I am telepathic; I just don’t like you guys and I was not going to give you what you wanted.”

 

[Molal]

The research of Dr. Rhine and his colleagues has been published and discussed in many hundreds of scientific and mathematic papers in many professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistics. Whether or not any of this is available on the internet without authorized access I do not know, but do know that the vast majority of scientific papers and articles in professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistics are not available to anyone on the internet and those scientific papers and articles in professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistic that are available on the internet typically require access codes, usually to university libraries that are not open to the general public, either to foot traffic or electronic traffic.

During Dr. Rhine’s lifetime, his research drew most of its criticism for the mathematical and statistical models that he used to analyze the huge amount of data that he collected.

However, even if for the mathematical and statistical models that Dr. Rhine used to analyze the data that he collected slightly tweaked his resulting conclusions on the side of the paranormal, that his data was statistically significant is beyond question. During the many years following the research of Dr. Rhine and his colleagues, his research has been replicated by many scientists with statistically significant results. During my very early college years I replicated some of Dr. Rhine’s research in the areas of clairvoyance and telepathy using a deck of 25 cards made up of 5 cards each of 5 optically very different symbols but using young school children rather than adults and the results were impressive.

A ten-year-old boy named David, in a series of many tests over a period of several weeks, averaged a score of over 6.2 where a score of 5 would be expected if the laws of chance were the only contributing factor. His three-year-old sister, in a series of many tests over a period of several weeks, averaged a score of 5.0. His eight-year-old sister, however, was averaging a score of 3.0. My lab partner and I discussed her statistically significant test scores in her hearing, and learning that her score was less than half of that of her brother, she was embarrassed by what were to her simply low scores. Being a Catholic girl, she prayed intently for divine help and from that time on she averaged a score of 5.0.

My lab partner and I performed more tests with a thirteen-year-old boy named Scott and his test scores fluctuated up and down as his attitude toward my lab partner and I changed. Towards the end, he became annoyed with us and continued as a test subject only after much pleading on our part and his scores began to average 5.0. On his very last test, however, in which he knew that it was his very last test, he scored 13 correct responses as if to say, “See, I am telepathic; I just don’t like you guys and I was not going to give you what you wanted.”

I have access to lexus nexus, pubmed, etc. I cannot find a published article in a scientific journal from Rhine, by any Rhine members or from Dr. Rhine himself or his wife.

Nothing. Nothing in any science journal, ever since 1895 - the birth of Rhine.

There is alot of documentation of the failures of Rhine and his wife to obtain results from his experiments. You should read the following references:

1. GARDNER, M. (1983b). The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener. New York: William Morrow.
2. Skeptical Odysseys edited by Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, 2001 , Chapter 31: Confessions of a Skeptic by Martin Gardner

Rhine's work was not, is not and will never be science.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

I have access to lexus nexus, pubmed, etc. I cannot find a published article in a scientific journal from Rhine, by any Rhine members or from Dr. Rhine himself or his wife.

Nothing. Nothing in any science journal, ever since 1895 - the birth of Rhine.

There is alot of documentation of the failures of Rhine and his wife to obtain results from his experiments. You should read the following references:

1. GARDNER, M. (1983b). The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener. New York: William Morrow.
2. Skeptical Odysseys edited by Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, 2001 , Chapter 31: Confessions of a Skeptic by Martin Gardner

Rhine's work was not, is not and will never be science.

Have you ever so much as stepped into the library at Duke University? Indeed, have you ever stepped into the library of any university internationally known for academic excellence where the bound volumes alone number in the millions?

Who are you to say what is or what is not science? Have you earned a Ph.D. in any science and are you professionally employed as a scientist?

I wrote, “The vast majority of scientific papers and articles in professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistics are not available to anyone on the internet.” They are not available to anyone on the internet, including you, for a very simple reason—they have yet to be digitalized. Are you aware that we are talking here about hundreds of thousands of volumes that are today of insufficient interest to the general public to justify the monumental cost of digitalizing these hundreds of thousands of volumes?

Your statement, “There is a lot of documentation of the failures of Rhine and his wife to obtain results from his experiments” is absolutely false. Anyone who has personally studied his data and the data of his colleagues knows for an absolute, incontrovertible fact that this statement is false. And even if the statement were true, I personally got results that were statistically significant, and I know that I did not cheat.

Until you have read Dr. Rhine’s published findings and the critiques of his work by other scientists who have studied his published findings you are in no position to say “Rhine's work was not, is not and will never be science.”

My college and university degrees in science are in the biological sciences and the paranormal have been only a passing interest to me, but the study of the paranormal in many cases falls within the bounds of the biological sciences and the life sciences in general.

 

[Molal]

Have you ever so much as stepped into the library at Duke University? Indeed, have you ever stepped into the library of any university internationally known for academic excellence where the bound volumes alone number in the millions?

Who are you to say what is or what is not science? Have you earned a Ph.D. in any science and are you professionally employed as a scientist?

I wrote, “The vast majority of scientific papers and articles in professional journals pertaining to science, mathematics, and statistics are not available to anyone on the internet.” They are not available to anyone on the internet, including you, for a very simple reason—they have yet to be digitalized. Are you aware that we are talking here about hundreds of thousands of volumes that are today of insufficient interest to the general public to justify the monumental cost of digitalizing these hundreds of thousands of volumes?

Your statement, “There is a lot of documentation of the failures of Rhine and his wife to obtain results from his experiments” is absolutely false. Anyone who has personally studied his data and the data of his colleagues knows for an absolute, incontrovertible fact that this statement is false. And even if the statement were true, I personally got results that were statistically significant, and I know that I did not cheat.

Until you have read Dr. Rhine’s published findings and the critiques of his work by other scientists who have studied his published findings you are in no position to say “Rhine's work was not, is not and will never be science.”

My college and university degrees in science are in the biological sciences and the paranormal have been only a passing interest to me, but the study of the paranormal in many cases falls within the bounds of the biological sciences and the life sciences in general.

I have actually studied at internationally renouned universities, even taught at them. But, my academic qualifications are not at issue here. The truth is..............

I have viewed the libraries at Duke - there are no articles in any scientific journals by Rhine, his wife or his cohorts. Please, please, please provide evidence to prove me wrong. I will gladly apologise. By evidence, show me an article in a peer reviewed scientific journal. By YOUR definition of supernatural, the journal of parapsychology does not meet the rigorous measure of science.

Also, one does not need to attend the libraries at Duke to discover that there are no articles by Rhine in any peer reviewed scientific journals since his birth. Ever. Nothing.

I do not care about your educational level, all I care about is accuracy and truth. By the way, did you read my references - I shall take a guess and guess that you didn't................

So now, pony up the evidence.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

I have actually studied at internationally renouned universities, even taught at them. But, my academic qualifications are not at issue here. The truth is..............

I have viewed the libraries at Duke - there are no articles in any scientific journals by Rhine, his wife or his cohorts. Please, please, please provide evidence to prove me wrong. I will gladly apologise. By evidence, show me an article in a peer reviewed scientific journal. By YOUR definition of supernatural, the journal of parapsychology does not meet the rigorous measure of science.

Also, one does not need to attend the libraries at Duke to discover that there are no articles by Rhine in any peer reviewed scientific journals since his birth. Ever. Nothing.

I do not care about your educational level, all I care about is accuracy and truth. By the way, did you read my references - I shall take a guess and guess that you didn't................

So now, pony up the evidence.

For the third time, to the best of my knowledge (I have not personally looked for them but I will take your word for it), the scientific papers and articles that we are talking about are not on the internet, so what are you proposing that I do—steal the bound volumes from a university library and mail them to you so that you can read them?

This is a ridiculous conversation. I know of scientists who belittled Dr. Rhine and his research and his data without having ever even looked at it. I also know of scientists who did look at his research and his data and quibbled over his mathematical and statistical analysis. I also know of scientists who did look at his research and his data and seeing that it demonstrated the reality of ESP, accused Dr. Rhine of falsifying the data. When a man believes what he wants to believe more than he wants to believe the truth, showing him the truth is futile and not worth one’s time and effort.

Your claim that the Journal of Parapsychology is not a scientific publication is absurd. Numerous articles in that Journal have been reviewed and discussed in other science journals whose scientific nature has never been questioned.

Furthermore, your limiting this discussion to Dr. Rhine and his wife totally ignores the research done by his several colleagues at Duke University and the research that has been done since.

And besides all of that, my present field is in New Testament exegesis and translation theory and I don’t have time to debate what is and what is not science.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

I believe that it is important for me to draw a distinction between the scientific research done by Dr. Rhine and his colleagues in a laboratory and the notion that it is out of the scope of science to determine with certainty that the Genesis flood did not occur because miracles were involved in the Genesis flood. First of all, the Bible does not say or suggest that any miracles were involved in the Genesis flood. The miracles are only imagined by those who know that without them the story of Noah’s Ark contradicts not only science but common sense. And as I have already posted, science investigates the supernatural or the paranormal ONLY when there are observable phenomena that cannot, on the basis of current scientific knowledge, be explained. And those phenomena that cannot, on the basis of current scientific knowledge, be explained may very well one day be adequately explained by new discoveries of science.

Scientists who have been recently studying, for example, near death experiences, have learned that the chemistry of the brain explains most of the experiences to at least a substantial extent. Those experiences that have not yet been explained are continuing to be studied in the hope of finding a natural explanation. And some of the scientists who are attempting to unravel the mystery of ESP have proposed that a natural explanation may be found in quantum physics.

 

[Molal]

[/color]

For the third time, to the best of my knowledge (I have not personally looked for them but I will take your word for it), the scientific papers and articles that we are talking about are not on the internet, so what are you proposing that I do—steal the bound volumes from a university library and mail them to you so that you can read them?

This is a ridiculous conversation. I know of scientists who belittled Dr. Rhine and his research and his data without having ever even looked at it. I also know of scientists who did look at his research and his data and quibbled over his mathematical and statistical analysis. I also know of scientists who did look at his research and his data and seeing that it demonstrated the reality of ESP, accused Dr. Rhine of falsifying the data. When a man believes what he wants to believe more than he wants to believe the truth, showing him the truth is futile and not worth one’s time and effort.

Your claim that the Journal of Parapsychology is not a scientific publication is absurd. Numerous articles in that Journal have been reviewed and discussed in other science journals whose scientific nature has never been questioned.

Furthermore, your limiting this discussion to Dr. Rhine and his wife totally ignores the research done by his several colleagues at Duke University and the research that has been done since.

And besides all of that, my present field is in New Testament exegesis and translation theory and I don’t have time to debate what is and what is not science.

I do not condone stealing. But, even if you wished to steal the volumes - they would not exist, because Rhine did not publish in peer reviewed scientific journals. Therefore, you would have nothing to steal.

All scientific journals are published on the web - I can search them all, at once, using journal searches. I have access to the majority of them and can read any of the papers.

It appears you have given up on providing evidence for a peer reviewed article by Rhine.

EDIT: Look, I do not care what you wish to believe - right or wrong. But you brought into discussion Rhine. I simply stated that Rhine, his wife nor his colleagues have published in a peer reviewed scientific journal and I backed up my claim - I provided evidence. Neither could I care less if you read my references or not.............but I do know that I have made a claim and I have backed it up with evidence. You have not.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

All scientific journals are published on the web - I can search them all, at once, using journal searches. I have access to the majority of them and can read any of the papers.

How many of the journal articles cited below can you find and read on the internet?

º Sphaeria dothidea Moug. : Fr., Syst. Mycol. 2: 423. 1823.
= Botryosphaeria berengeriana De Not., Sferiac. It. 1863.
Anamorph: Fusicoccum aesculi Corda, in Stürm, Deutschlands Flora, 2: 111. 1829.
= Phoma flaccida Viala & Ravaz, Bureaux du Progrès Agricole et Viticole, Montpellier, p. 55. 1886.
ºMacrophoma flaccida (Viala & Ravaz) Cavara, Atti Ist. bot. Univ. Pavia, 1: 315. 1888.
= Phoma reniformis Viala & Ravaz, Bureaux du Progrès Agricole et Viticole, Montpellier, p. 57. 1886.
ºMacrophoma reniformis (Viala & Ravaz) Cavara, Atti Ist. bot. Univ. Pavia, 1: 317. 1888.
= Macrophomopsis coronillae (Desm.) Petrak, Ann. Mycol., 22: 108. 1924.
ºSphaeria coronillae Desm., Ann. Sci. Nat., Bot, 2e sér., 13: 188. 1840.
= Dothiorella reniformis (Viala & Ravaz) Petrak & Sydow, Repert. Spec. nov. Regni veg., 42: 257. 1927.
= Camarosporium flaccidum (Viala & Ravaz) Zachos et al., Ann. Inst. Phytopath. Benaki. Nouvelle Série, 12: 213. 1980.