Is your creation or evolution perspective infallibly correct?

[CaptainJeanLucPicard]

And what do you consider to be indirect evidence? By some measure, all scientific evidence is indirect. One cannot, for example, ever see the gravitational field itself. One can only see how gravity affects things, including light and massive objects.

Not only that, but the circumference of the Earth was calculated by Eratosthenes quite accurately in about 240 BC using indirect evidence. By using only the angle of the shadows in two different locations, he calculated the circumference of the Earth to be 42,000 km, which is close to its true value, about 40,075.02 km.

 

[Tomk80]

Certainly we are free to draw any conclusions that we like, whether sound or not.

Not in science, sorry. In science, a conclusion has to follow from the evidence.

 

[quantumspirit]

My view is inerrant, and anyone who does not believe in evolution is going to hell

 

[VinceBlaze]

Not at all. The Big Bang deals with the origins of the universe. That has nothing to do with life

If you insist, but the origins of the universe would seem to have everything to do with life. And would effect how life evolves. You can attempt to separate them if you like.

It means that science does not offer absolute proof of anything.

Now you're expressing my own point.

Gravity has not been proven. Germ theory has not been proven.

Exactly.

When one says "only theorizing" as you did, the implication is that a theory is a weak explanation.

Correct.

How exactly do you define "theory" scientifically?

I thought you were the one attempting to convince me how a scientific theory is defined.

Also, when we speak of gravity, are we also "only theorizing?"

Yes.

 

[VinceBlaze]

"Theorizing" does not, in a scientific context, exclude observation and examination.

Agreed. But they are a bit far more departed from empirical evidences in such a context.

It is, therefore, not proper scientific usage to place theorizing in opposition to observing and examining.

You went from 'exclusion' to 'opposition'. Bait and switch. 'Exclusion' and 'opposition' are two different animals.

 

[VinceBlaze]

But creation usually refers to a creative action by a higher 'being'.

It implies creative intelligence, yes. Is that a problem?

You imply that something has to be 'proven' to be able to make a valid judgement on it.

Not at all. In fact, I don't believe that anything can be proven, except it be subjectively in a person's own mind.

And why would chain reasoning not be valid and not lead to strong conclusions?

The farther one veers from empirical evidences, the weaker the chain becomes.

Not if all independant lines of indirect evidence point the same way.

But do they? Not likely with any topic that we've been discussing here.

 

[Chalnoth]

If you insist, but the origins of the universe would seem to have everything to do with life. And would effect how life evolves. You can attempt to separate them if you like.

Since life exists within the universe, of course the origins of the universe have something to do with life. But the simple truth is that we just don't yet understand enough about physics to say one way or another whether or not the universe is finely-tuned for life. We have a whole lot more research to do in that direction.

 

[VinceBlaze]

Why do you qualify speciation by placing “long term” in front of it?

Because I am differentiating between long term and short term speciation.

Please explain to me the exact difference between “short term” speciation and “long term” speciation.

The primary difference between the two is that one is short term and one is long term. For example, the difference between days and millennia.

If you fall back to the “we haven’t observed X” then please explain to me why it’s accepted that some islands were formed by volcano even though we never observed it.

This is due to chain reasoning. If it happened in the short term, then it is a simple extension that it happened in the long term.

How do we know how black holes are made if we’ve never directly observed it?

You don't know how black holes are made. You've theorized instead.

How do we know how our planet formed?

You don't. More theorizing.

How do we know a star once exploded in the place we now live?

You don't know.

If you can never conclude anything from lines of evidence other than direct observation then so much of our knowledge would have to be thrown away.

If you insist. I'll leave that for you to decide.

In fact, direct observation isn’t even as good as you’re making it out to be.

Now you're downplaying direct observation? Okay, that's fine. It's just direct observation.

Direct observation has led to many false ideas over the ages.

Then don't trust it. And certainly don't place theories above it.

 

[VinceBlaze]

The big bang is not a proposed creation event.

Some would assert that it implies intelligent design. This does not necessarily imply belief in a god, however.

And what do you consider to be indirect evidence?

That which is not directly observed.

By some measure, all scientific evidence is indirect.

All? Could be. How so?

One cannot, for example, ever see the gravitational field itself. One can only see how gravity affects things, including light and massive objects.

Okay.

 

[VinceBlaze]

No problem.

 

[VinceBlaze]

Not only that, but the circumference of the Earth was calculated by Eratosthenes quite accurately in about 240 BC using indirect evidence. By using only the angle of the shadows in two different locations, he calculated the circumference of the Earth to be 42,000 km, which is close to its true value, about 40,075.02 km.

That's a very close guess.

 

[VinceBlaze]

Not in science, sorry. In science, a conclusion has to follow from the evidence.

Your implication is that scientific conclusions are sound.

 

[VinceBlaze]

My view is inerrant, and anyone who does not believe in evolution is going to hell

You've convinced me, lolol. And I didn't even have to do the math.

 

[VinceBlaze]

But the simple truth is that we just don't yet understand enough about physics to say one way or another whether or not the universe is finely-tuned for life.

What do you mean by 'finely-tuned' for life?

 

[ReverendDG]

Your implication is that scientific conclusions are sound.

well if you follow scientific defintions, rather than make up things, then yes they are sound if they follow from the evidence. if the theory explains the evidence well, then by all logic, you should conclude its correct at least about the current evidence.
that is if you care about science and not premoting your own personal views

 

[ReverendDG]

What do you mean by 'finely-tuned' for life?

i think he means whether or not life is the conclution of the universe or just something that happened, because of the way things effected the earth, could be wrong though

 

[Teshi]

How rigid are you in your creation or evolution perspective? Is your stance infallible? Why or why not?

Please understand that I'm not asking for the basis of your creation/evolution stance. Rather, I'm asking if you think that your stance is infallibly correct. Why or why not? I have encountered protagonists on both sides who are each absolutely convinced that they are correct. Is your stance infallible?

I find theistic evolution to be the only explaination that combines my intuitive belief in God and my logical belief in observable evidence. I accept it as the most reasonable hypothesis available to me at this time. I'm open to the idea that as I become aware of other data, it may require revision, but thus far I've encountered nothing that strikes me as incompatable with this belief.

 

[Chalnoth]

What do you mean by 'finely-tuned' for life?

"Fine-tuning" in physics is an undesirable description of a theory. It is a statement that of all of the possible values for a parameter to take (like the strength of gravity, for instance), it just happened to take a specific value that gives a universe with properties unlike those if the value was only slightly different.

To give an example, one might make an argument that the Earth is finely-tuned for life. We're just the right distance from the sun, with just the right amount of atmosphere, just the right composition of that atmosphere, and so on and so forth. But we understand that this isn't really that surprising at all: sure, it is possible that Earth-like planets may be rare, but that is of no consequence, because we wouldn't be here if the Earth wasn't finely-tuned for life! Any planet with intelligent life on it must necessarily observe that planet to be conducive to life, independent of the rarity of such planets.

Similarly, one can make arguments about things like the strengths of the electromagnetic, strong, weak, and gravitational forces, as well as the masses of fundamental particles are all finely-tuned for life. You could go on and through a number of different numbers in physics which we don't really understand: tweak any of them and we just won't see life emerge.

But is this surprising? And how can we know this is true? Just because we don't yet understand why something takes a particular value doesn't mean that we should say it's somehow magical that it does take that value. We should search and see if we can find a reason for it to take that value. And what's more, while changing some of these numbers might make life as we know it impossible, why couldn't there exist some other type of life that lives under the influence of different natural laws?

Another line of reasoning is simply that just like we aren't surprised that we live on the Earth instead of a planet like Mars, since we can't live on Mars, it is plausible that there are many universes, perhaps an infinite number of them, all with different values of these parameters, and we observe the ones that we do observe as being tuned for life not because the parameters are tuned for life, but rather because the universe as a whole tried everything, and we just observe a universe in which we can exist. This is an anthropic argument, and I personally think it's too premature to attempt to use anthropic arguments, as we still have the possibility of discovering mechanisms that can explain many of these things.

 

[Tomk80]

It implies creative intelligence, yes. Is that a problem?

If you say "big bang or creation", yes. Because that means that there was either a creative process, or a big bang. However, if you hold that the big bang may have been a creative process, this dichotomy that you have conjured up, does not exist.

Not at all. In fact, I don't believe that anything can be proven, except it be subjectively in a person's own mind.

So what is your problem with scientific conclusions then?

The farther one veers from empirical evidences, the weaker the chain becomes.

But noone is veering from the empirical evidence. The conclusions, although indirect, do stem directly from them.

But do they? Not likely with any topic that we've been discussing here.

With big bang and evolution, yes, they do.

 

[Tomk80]

Your implication is that scientific conclusions are sound.

Very many of them are. Even in the cases where they have been shown false, many of them were sound given the evidence at that time.