Well, while that may be true generally, I showed quotes earlier that, at least regarding geocentric science, conclusions were already made and some science was ignored to posit a philosophy.
You are using geocentric arguments from different perspectives and different scales that do not necessarily support one another.
Philosophically, one can't demonstrate that while most cats are little carnivorous mammals one particular cat happens to be a glowing metal ball that just has an illusion over it that makes it look and seem like other cats.
Geocentrisim requires the same kind of almost solipsistic rejection of evidence and patterns.
No, no, you asked me what authority says the Holy Spirit works through the Scriptures and Church; I cited the Church's Law and
de fide; it was not a call to say that all non-YEC science is not allowed in the Church; you misunderstood me on that point.
I appologise then.
I don't understand how you can appeal to the Consensus of the Fathers as a support for YEC, while acknowledging that disagreeing with it is allowed within the Church?
After further study, I have found that Lemaître reportedly expressed concerns when Pope Pius XII initially suggested that the Big Bang might provide evidence for the moment of divine creation as described in Genesis. Thus, he emphasized that his theory was purely scientific and not intended to serve as proof for religious doctrine. And to that point [on the religious foundation of the Big Bang theory], I yield.
It is also interesting that, so far, no scientific theory has been able to even model the actual beginning. The Big Bang is an explanation for the behavior of the formation and development of the Universe as we know it
For genetic diversity, what is your view of Dr. John Sanford's theory of "genetic entropy," which shows rapid genetic variation is plausible even in a short timescale.
Counter to evidence.
Genetic diversity is not consistent between species nor is there an explanation for both the massive levels of diversity in modern animals and the lack of evidence for the mechanism of this entropy.
For geological patterns, I agree with Dr. Snelling's analysis that the formation of the Grand Canyon and other features is often cited as evidence of rapid, large-scale water movement.
Counter to evidence.
Truly large scale water movements do not create meander patterns in sediment nor does it create small scale sedimentary layers not sorted by size and buoyancy.
It also ignores the lack of destruction caused by mountain covering volumes of water.
As for archeological structures, the dating of archaeological structures relies heavily on radiometric dating methods, which assume constant rates of decay and initial conditions.
Radiometric data is verified by environment paleontology and even written records that demonstrate far more time than the 4ish thousand years since the flood.
And for linguistics, we do not have enough evidence to show it did not happen through the 'proto-' language families to speak authoritatively on that matter.
Not on the time scale required for all language groups to be more recent than proto-Babylon.
So some YEC studies you will accept, but you will pick and choose what / when those come up?
It's about the proposed system of investigation and not the beliefs or conclusions.
Now see, while I respect your view, if I were to say that about all of secular science, I would be laughed at.
Primarily because you would be unable to demonstrate it.
With respect, I really don't think you would be given your seeming denial of all of religious-driven science. I think most scientific studies are a self-fulfilling prophecy; if secularists go in and want to find the absence of creationism, they will find it based on their interpretation of the evidence; if creationists go in and want to find the abundance of creationism, they will find it based on their interpretation of the evidence. We can never really know what science contends as everyone has an agenda, and to say that they don't is rather spurious.
The problem is that while certainly flawed (as all human endeavours are) scientific inquiry has a system for checking conclusions and chains of reasoning and evidence... axioms taken on faith can not be investigated if they can not be questioned.
If someone continues to reject that 2 + 2 = 5 no mater how many different fonts it's printed in doesn't necessarily mean that they are biased... it might simply be wrong.
I do not focus my time or effort in YEC specifically, as there are individuals who do far better at that than I do, however I do focus on geocentric science, and I will say that my aforementioned quotes speak volumes on the matter.
But they don't because you are changing context at a whim.
Stephen Hawking's
A Brief History of Time makes it very clear that scientific studies on geo- or helio- are a self-fulfilling prophecy: "…all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.
There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe."
Moreover, Paul Davies, editor of
Nature magazine, commented on George Ellis's work, stating: "These redshifts are due, of course, to matter flying away from us under the impetus of the Big Bang. But redshifts can also arise from the gravitational attraction of mass. If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! The argument advanced by George Ellis in this article is more complex than this, but his basic thrust is to put man back into a favored position in the cosmos.
His new theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations, even though it clashes with the thought that we are godless and making it on our own." Here are a few more points to show that you cannot disprove geocentrism based on observations:
- From George Ellis, a famous cosmologist in Scientific American, “Thinking Globally, Acting Universally,” October 1995: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
- From Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.); Note: CS = coordinate system: "No absolute uniform motion exists in classical physics. If two c.s. are moving uniformly, relative to each other, then there is no sense in saying, "This c.s. is at rest and the other is moving". But if two c.s. are moving nonuniformly, relative to each other, then there is very good reason for saying, "This body moves and the other is at rest (or moves uniformly) ". Absolute motion has here a very definite meaning. There is, at this point, a wide gulf between common sense and classical physics. The difficulties mentioned, that of an inertial system and that of absolute motion, are strictly connected with each other. Absolute motion is madepossible only by the idea of an inertial system, for whichthe laws of nature are valid. It may seem as though there is no way out of these difficulties, as though no physical theory can avoid them. Their root lies in the validity of the laws of nature for a special class of c.s. only, the inertial. The possibility of solving these difficulties depends on the answer to the following question. Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all c.s., not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? If this can be done, our difficulties will be over. We shall then be able to apply the laws of nature to any c.s. The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either c.s. could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, u the sun is at rest and the earth moves", or "the sun moves and the earth is at rest", would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different c.s."
- Max Born said in his famous book, “Einstein’s Theory of Relativity”, Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345: "…Thus we may return to Ptolemy’s point of view of a ‘motionless earth’…One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein’s field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein’s point of view, Ptolemy and Corpenicus are equally right."
- Sir Fred Hoyle, Astronomy and Cosmology – A Modern Course, (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co.), p. 416,1975: "We know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance."
So no, you cannot disprove geocentrism based on observations. You are mistaken on that topic, and I think it is interesting that philosophy dictates what model we use and what model we call absurd, regardless of the fact that we cannot prove either of them definitively over the other. We are taught that Isotropy and Homogeneity create the Cosmological Principle, which calls on Copernicus for support: "Observed isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB),
combined with the Copernican principle..." The Copernican principle, according to the Wikipedia article, is: "named after Nicolaus Copernicus, [and]
states the Earth is not in a central, specially favoured position. More recently, the principle
is generalised to the simple statement that humans are not privileged observers. In this sense, it is equivalent to the mediocrity principle,
with significant implications in the philosophy of science. This is circular logic, and thus, how can one say that scientific study on the matter is not pushed to one side over the other, regardless of the equality of both models? For more sources/papers proving that there is no physical difference between geocentric and modern heliocentric views:
- Barbour and Bertotti, 1977. Il Nuovo Cimento B, 38:1.
- Brown, G. B., 1955. Proceedings of the Phys. Soc. B, 68:672.
- Thirring, H., 1916. Phys. Z. 19:33.
- Lense, J. & Thirring, H., 1918, Ibid. 22:29.
- Gerber, P., 1898. Zeitschr. f. Math. u. Physik, 43:93.
- Møller, C., 1952. The Theory of Relativity, (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 318-321.
- Moon, P. & Spencer, D. E., 1959. Philos. of Science, 26:125.
- Rosser, W. G. V., 1964. An Intro. to the Theory of Relativity, (London: Butterworths), p. 460.
For rotation see: P. F. Browne, 1977. “Relativity of Rotation,”
Jrnl. of Physics A: Math. & Gen. Relativity,
10:727.
Once again I never claimed "disprove", what I claimed was counter to evidence and creates useful practical predictions.
Within relativity all perspectives on motion are equally valid... but this doesn't change the relativistic explanation for the behavior of objects based on the space time altered by their mass.
In one context is discussing the movement and relationships of galaxies which is only possible from the perspective of us within this Solar system in this galaxy.
If we abandon the local scale motion then we no longer have context to examine the night sky.
The truly geocentric model has the substance of the universe moving around the Earth at speed infinitely faster than the speed of light while wobbling around other points in space for not observable or even theoretical reason.
Gravity is a measurable effect and with the addition of relativity explains the motion of the planets around the sun and gives a very good insight to the motion of the stars in the galaxies.
We can easily see the inner planets and see that they are of a similar scale and substance to the Earth... a much more reasonable conclusion is that the same farces that act on them are acting here as well.
Predictions about gravity and material of the solar system have been directly demonstrated by our ability to navigate probes to other planets... so it's reasonable to assume those models are supported. The alternative is that there's an entire Universe spinning at incredible speeds around a point that behaves as if there was an Earth sized object there.
I think both of us are quite mistaken, but I flipped the words around from your original statement, so again, I think both of us are quite mistaken.
The point is that flipping the statement was not philosophically valid.
Disagreeing that X must always be true is not that declaration that X must always be false.
Oh, neat!
But I'm off to the country, have a merry Christmas.
