Why creationist can't pass peer review

[Biblewriter]

The situation is more complicated than that, I'm afraid. The key mutation I'm talking about requires at least three other mutations (and possibly as many as eight) to function. (Whether the other mutations are needed to produce the resistance, or instead to compensate for the change in protein function caused by the key mutation, is not known.) So it wasn't a single mutation that only occurred once -- it was a sequence of at least four mutations, three of which provided only very weak selective advantage by themselves.

This multi-step mutation process is much more unlikely to occur than a single mutation, and probably explains why chloroquine survived as an effective drug for 20 years, while sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (which requires a simpler set of multiple mutations for resistance to occur) lasted less than five years, and at least one other drug has been lost to drug resistance while still in clinical trials.

Incidentally, looking at the literature, I see that the same key mutation has occurred in the wild at least four times, once in southeast Asia, once in Papua-New Guinea and twice in South America. It has also been seen repeatedly in lab experiments. In reality, any population of malaria that is exposed to CQ will develop resistance to it eventually.

In any case, your original claim was that the chance of any beneficial mutation occurring was essentially zero. Now we're arguing about a just one beneficial mutation that has occurred at least a half dozen times independently. Do you recognize now that your original claim was incorrect?

(Incidentally, malaria is not caused by bacteria, but by single-celled parasites.)

For the sake of the argument, I will assume your data to be correct. But you are talking about a species that passes through a number of generations equal to our entire recorded historynin a single month, and for which you can lift a number of individuals similar to our entire population in a single teaspoon. So considering how fast they reproduce, and how many there are in the entire world, I would consider a hundred such cases in the multiple decades since the cure for malaria was discovered, to be a fraction so small that it is essentially zero. It would, even in that case, be one in far less than a quintillion, and I am persuaded that even that number that is multiple orders of magnitude too large.

I cannot even begin to comprehend how many quintillions of reproductions must have taken place in this species during the period we are discussing, but I would estimate it in the millions or billipons.

If you remember, my original observation was thatno beneficial mutation has ever been demonstrated in anything above a single celled lifeform. I am not aware of a simgle exception to this rule, and I doubt that there is one.

 

[shernren]

For the sake of the argument, I will assume your data to be correct. But you are talking about a species that passes through a number of generations equal to our entire recorded historynin a single month ...

Not true. Actually, P. falciparum takes about a month to reproduce once. At least, if Wikipedia can be trusted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmodium_falciparum_biology

(or, on closer examination, about four times. Or something. Definitely not even in the hundreds.)

20 years gives about 500 generations; the rough equivalent of human generations would take 15,000 years (using a very generous estimate of 30 years for a generation); and human evolution (if you believe radiometric dating) has been going on for a few million.

... and for which you can lift a number of individuals similar to our entire population in a single teaspoon. So considering how fast they reproduce, and how many there are in the entire world, I would consider a hundred such cases in the multiple decades since the cure for malaria was discovered, to be a fraction so small that it is essentially zero. It would, even in that case, be one in far less than a quintillion, and I am persuaded that even that number that is multiple orders of magnitude too large.

You do raise an interesting point about the fact that P. falciparum replicates quickly and with fecundity. Yet look at your original post:

Statistically, this data yields the conclusion that there is no greater than a 50% probability that the ratio of beneficial mutations to detrimental mutations exceeds one in ten thousand. But the available data does not yeild any information as to how much smaller the ration might be. It only tells us that there is no more than a 50% probability that it is any greater than one in ten thousand. But since mutations normally occur only about once in ten thousand reproductions, this means that the chance that a benificial mutation will occur in a given reproduction is some unknown amount less that one in one hundred million.

Now, a hundred million is 10^8, and so what are the chances of four such beneficial mutations occurring sequentially? Naively the chances of that happening are (10^8) to the fourth power, namely 10^32. According to your original arguments, this would have been the probability of the P. falciparum chloroquine resistance evolving.

Reality check time: since there are (very roughly) 10^10 people in the world today, ten billion, this would require a population of 10^22 parasites per person. Each parasite has a rough volume of 10^-18 cubic meters. Thus, your estimate would give a good ten thousand cubic meters of P. falciparum per person. Suffice to say that if there really are that many of them around, I haven't noticed them recently.

As such, something has gone terribly wrong in your model.

If you remember, my original observation was that no beneficial mutation has ever been demonstrated in anything above a single celled lifeform. I am not aware of a simgle exception to this rule, and I doubt that there is one.

That wasn't actually your original observation but ok, we'll go along with it.

Now go check out this site:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html

 

[shernren]

The reason such comments are accepted in Physics publications and mathematical publications is that these are pure sciences, with very little opinion involved (actually, opinion is basically a no-no.)

Oi! Physicists have emotions too y'know.

Was just reading up a paper I need for my research when I came across

It is tempting to interpret the well-known result for J as the sum of orbital and spin contributions, J = L + S, but there is a considerable literature which warns against such a separation ...
​

Here were a bunch of authors trying to set rules on a physical interpretation of a mathematical formula, not based on physical experiments or mathematical impossibilities but simply on "considerable literature"!

Physics has its personalities and controversies, its opinions and its debates, as much as any other science. Non-physicists tend to hear less about them (and misunderstand whatever they do hear ;D) of course, but they're still very much there.

So there, it's not because of that. Open, even vocal theistic physicists and mathematicians get published all the time. Indeed, creationists themselves get published plenty often, except when they advocate creationism.

I don't know about you but to me that's a lousy way to persecute creationists. If I wanted to stifle all rational discussion and present evolution as the official belief of the academy whether or not it was true, I wouldn't stop just at censoring creationism. I would make sure that anyone who was found to be creationist was not only prohibited from pushing creationist views, but would be stopped from pushing anything, simply because they were creationists. I would make sure they couldn't get a job anywhere they went, couldn't publish any paper no matter how good its contents were, couldn't speak at any conference even if they were legitimately experts in the field.

You see, if I stopped at simply silencing creationism instead of creationists, I might create the impression that an intelligent person could be a creationist and still be perfectly competent in information science or engineering or physics. Why, some people might even think that creationism was actually a legitimate topic of discussion, simply having been discredited too long ago to be worth any mention now. After all, the theory of phlogiston is never mentioned in modern chemistry classes, and yet we don't get cries for academic freedom or stickers demanding that students know that "combustion" is just a chemical theory and it still has its controversies and disputes and things it cannot explain!

And so if I was actually afraid of creationism, I would do my best to make sure that nobody so much as went near to the idea, and simply stopping at not letting in explicitly creationist ideas wouldn't do. Only with persecution of the person, not the belief, would people think that creationism was wrong, no-shadow-of-a-doubt dogmatically wrong.

The way things are now, the only thing people will think is that creationism has been rationally disproven.

Mathematicians and physicists are the sciences where the largest number of disbelievers in evolution occur, because, when considered mathetically, evolution simply doesn't work.

Or maybe that's because many mathematicians and physicists don't actually know biology?

 

[sfs]

If you remember, my original observation was thatno beneficial mutation has ever been demonstrated in anything above a single celled lifeform.

Mmph. If you go back and read what you wrote, you'll see that you neglected to mention that you were talking only about multicellular life.

I am not aware of a simgle exception to this rule, and I doubt that there is one.

Your doubts notwithstanding, quite a few beneficial mutations have been demonstrated just in humans. Examples include mutations that confer lactose tolerance on adults (at least four independent mutations in different cattle-raising populations), mutations that produce lightly pigmented skin in populations far from the equator (more than a dozen mutations known, all showing evidence of positive selection), the Duffy null mutation, which confers complete immunity to P. vivax malaria, the sickle cell mutation in hemoglobin B, which confers partial immunity to P. falciparum malaria (and which also causes sickle cell disease), other mutations to hemoglobin B, also protective against falciparum malaria and also causing disease (thalessemia), a mutation in the gene SLC4A1 that is protective against falciparum malaria (and causes ovalocytosis, a mild condition), and mutations in G6PD and CD40L, both again protective against malaria. (From this list one can gather, correctly, that malaria has been a major selection pressure on humans for quite a while.)

There are many other suspected cases of selection for beneficial mutations in humans, but they are either not as well established or the selective benefit is not yet known. For example, a mutation with very strong evidence of selection occurs in the gene LARGE in West African populations. There is reason to think that the mutation was selected for because it provides protection against Lassa Fever, which is endemic in the area, but the case has not yet been made conclusively.

Now I'd better go back to writing the talk on "Natural selection and human genetic variation" that I have to give on Thursday.

 

[Buho]

Regarding the OP: "Why creationist [sic] can't pass peer review", I find the question absurd.

Creationists have been passing peer review for decades. Never mind the creationists who regularly publish in the scientific field on non-creation, non-evolution topics, there have been several creation journals over the decades, including Creation Research Society Quarterly (1964), Origins (1974), Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now the Journal of Creation, 1984), and the Answers Research Journal (2008). Additionally, the Institute for Creation Research recently completed an eight-year program called RATE that concluded with the publication of several peer-reviewed papers.

Further, Answers In Genesis lists hundreds of Ph.D. scientists who are creationists. Are you prepared to defend the idea that they all are unpublished? To pick one person from that list, Georgia Purdom has published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. Another scientist in AiG's employ is Jason Lisle. A Google Scholar search yields his work as well, some of it tangential to the origins controversy.

The question is preposterous! Creationists do pass peer review, in every sense of the question!

It might be helpful to step back and look at a bigger picture. The topic of origins cannot be experimented or replicated in the lab. The most exciting research that has far-reaching impact on human lives are in experimental science. Medicine, materials, computer science, alternative energy, etc. In the real world of science, few care about where things came from. They just care what it currently is. This is what most journals publish. As soon as the scientist jumps into speculation of origins, be they evolutionist or creationist, his findings diminish.

 

[Mallon]

Creationists have been passing peer review for decades. Never mind the creationists who regularly publish in the scientific field on non-creation, non-evolution topics, there have been several creation journals over the decades, including Creation Research Society Quarterly (1964), Origins (1974), Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now the Journal of Creation, 1984), and the Answers Research Journal (2008). Additionally, the Institute for Creation Research recently completed an eight-year program called RATE that concluded with the publication of several peer-reviewed papers.

Having to start your own journal with its own subset of reviewers and publication standards because the scientific community at large will not publish your papers doesn't strike me as honest peer-review. It's not really peer-review when your paper is offered only to those who you know beforehand will agree with your conclusions.

Which makes me wonder -- does anyone know the rejection rate of the above journals?

 

[sfs]

Regarding the OP: "Why creationist [sic] can't pass peer review", I find the question absurd.

Creationists have been passing peer review for decades. Never mind the creationists who regularly publish in the scientific field on non-creation, non-evolution topics,

I assumed the OP was talking about creationists publishing as creationists, i.e. about creationism. There is no doubt that creationists can and do publish peer-reviewed research in other areas of science.

there have been several creation journals over the decades, including Creation Research Society Quarterly (1964), Origins (1974), Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now the Journal of Creation, 1984), and the Answers Research Journal (2008). Additionally, the Institute for Creation Research recently completed an eight-year program called RATE that concluded with the publication of several peer-reviewed papers.

I have two problems with these journals as peer-reviewed scientific publications. First, peer-review is carried out solely by those who are committed to the truth of the central claims of creationism, regardless of the evidence. That means their endeavor, whatever it is, is not science.

Second, I've read some of the articles in these journals. It's very rare for one of them to contain any original research at all: most are attempts to discredit conventional science or reinterpret existing data. The rare paper that I have seen that attempts to do original research is usually of very poor quality. In short, if they are scientific journals, they are really, really bad scientific journals.

It might be helpful to step back and look at a bigger picture. The topic of origins cannot be experimented or replicated in the lab.

The process of evolution can be replicated and studied in the lab, and the evidence left behind by evolution can also be studied in the lab.

The most exciting research that has far-reaching impact on human lives are in experimental science.

Might I ask what your background is in science? Lots of people think that, say, black holes and supernovas and gamma ray bursters are exciting areas of research, but they are not subject to experiment. Lots of people find the history of the Earth and of its life to be very exciting, even if you don't. And much research that has important impact on human lives (like, say, searching for genetic causes of diseases) is observational rather than experimental.

Medicine, materials, computer science, alternative energy, etc. In the real world of science, few care about where things came from. They just care what it currently is. This is what most journals publish. As soon as the scientist jumps into speculation of origins, be they evolutionist or creationist, his findings diminish.

Right. Major findings in astronomy, earth history and evolution are relegated to the pages of obscure pages like Science and Nature and written up in niche publications like the New York Times and Newsweek.

 

[[serious]]

There will always be certain biases present in any human organization. Science tries to minimize this, but you can still end up getting a paper reviewed by someone who is particularly enamored with maternal effects or some other pet branch of research who will question why you didn't spend more time ruling that out.

Of course, these biases can and are overcome with further research strengthening the case as the idea of the superflood creating the scablands proves. It was initially rejected as being some crazy idea with little evidence. Solution: further research and producing more evidence.

The burden here is on creationists to do the research that strengthens their case. The problem is, they are trying to go straight to the public and bypass the scientific scrutiny.

 

[shernren]

Hey Buho! How're you doing? =)

Regarding the OP: "Why creationist [sic] can't pass peer review", I find the question absurd.

I find the whole discussion absurd, because so far nobody has presented any quantitative evidence whatsoever on how often creationist articles get published in peer reviewed journals.

I think it's ridiculous for anybody involved to say anything other than the most obvious overgeneralizations when so far, nobody (myself included) has been able to say:

- how often creationists submit articles to peer-reviewed journals;
- out of those, how many articles are explicitly creationist (as opposed to simply creationist authors talking about mainstream topics);
- out of all creationist-authored articles submitted, how many are rejected;
- out of all explicitly creationist articles submitted, how many are rejected;
- out of all rejections, how many had reasons provided, and what were those reasons;
- most damnably, how many rejected creationist articles are then published in creationist journals?

As an obvious example, it would be blatantly silly for creationists to complain about being suppressed in peer review if, in fact, they never attempt to publish explicitly creationist articles.

Without more data, there really is not much more discussion.

Creationists have been passing peer review for decades. Never mind the creationists who regularly publish in the scientific field on non-creation, non-evolution topics,

... certainly!

... there have been several creation journals over the decades, including Creation Research Society Quarterly (1964), Origins (1974), Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now the Journal of Creation, 1984), and the Answers Research Journal (2008). Additionally, the Institute for Creation Research recently completed an eight-year program called RATE that concluded with the publication of several peer-reviewed papers.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's kind of calling Yamaha a top Japanese car maker. I mean, it makes lots of motorcycles and that's close enough to cars, right?

The fundamental motivation behind peer-review is that personal bias, if there is any in the paper, will come under fire from plenty of people who consider it their vocation to find as many things wrong with your paper as possible. The same motivation for criticism simply is not present in the creationist community at this time. It may well emerge, but it has not, as the case of Glenn Morton amply demonstrates.

It might be helpful to step back and look at a bigger picture. The topic of origins cannot be experimented or replicated in the lab. The most exciting research that has far-reaching impact on human lives are in experimental science. Medicine, materials, computer science, alternative energy, etc. In the real world of science, few care about where things came from. They just care what it currently is. This is what most journals publish. As soon as the scientist jumps into speculation of origins, be they evolutionist or creationist, his findings diminish.

I respectfully disagree. Creationism has many, many practical implications should it be true. Take for example the longstanding creationist line that antibiotic resistance is not an example of evolution because resistant bacteria are inevitably weaker than normal bacteria.

If that were true, why should we bother to develop new antibiotics? Say all the bacteria in New York become resistant to streptomycin. No problem, hide the streptomycin away, all the resistant bacteria will get outcompeted in no time, and we can bring out the good stuff again because now there aren't any more resistant bacteria left.

Unfortunately it doesn't quite happen that way; secondary mutations frequently stabilize antibiotic resistance in bacteria to the extent that resistant bacteria can outcompete normal ones even when the antibiotic is removed. But a creationist who didn't know that or wouldn't believe it, if put in charge of public health, may well make mistakes that would cause grave danger to many innocent people.

 

[Buho]

Might I ask what your background is in science? Lots of people think that, say, black holes and supernovas and gamma ray bursters are exciting areas of research, but they are not subject to experiment.

I am a computer scientist. When I wrote that post, I was not specifically thinking of astronomy and cosmology. The impact of those two sciences is questionable/arguable, particularly when compared to medicine, biomimetics, radiology, and nanotechnology, which is what I had in mind.

Lots of people find the history of the Earth and of its life to be very exciting, even if you don't. And much research that has important impact on human lives (like, say, searching for genetic causes of diseases) is observational rather than experimental.

I find the history of the Earth to be very exciting as well. (I'm on this forum, after all!) Searching for genetic causes of diseases has nothing (of any impact) to do with evolution or creation.

Right. Major findings in astronomy, earth history and evolution are relegated to the pages of obscure pages like Science and Nature and written up in niche publications like the New York Times and Newsweek.

Do all published pieces in these venues further our scientific knowledge or better humanity? Perhaps best left to another thread.

The burden here is on creationists to do the research that strengthens their case.

I agree.

Hey Buho! How're you doing? =)

I've been extremely blessed these past two years since I've been on! God is good!!!! Thanks for asking!

I think it's ridiculous for anybody involved to say anything other than the most obvious overgeneralizations when so far, nobody (myself included) has been able to say:

Those are some good questions. As far as ARJ, they are an open, free journal, and there was a case last year where an evolutionist tried to write a fake creationist paper but it was rejected on technical grounds. Too many scientific mistakes. It's a single data point, but it shows that there exists some level of filtering; they don't publish everything that ends with "all praise to the God who created the earth 6,000 years ago!"

As stated earlier in this thread, many of the questions you ask are simply impossible to find, unless somebody infiltrates each journal and looks through their private records. They simply don't publish those numbers. No journal to my knowledge does.

So...yeah...this whole discussion is absurd

As an obvious example, it would be blatantly silly for creationists to complain about being suppressed in peer review if, in fact, they never attempt to publish explicitly creationist articles.

If I recall, there are several cases of creationists saying they got blocked from publication. Wasn't an IDist's paper withdrawn from Smithsonian a few years ago, even though it passed peer review and the editor has two Ph.Ds? After the fact, several people rebutted the paper, but as can be seen in the crevo debate, everything is rebutted. Why did it pass peer review in the first place? No peer review is perfect, but this paper passed their minimum threshold of quality.

If that were true, why should we bother to develop new antibiotics? Say all the bacteria in New York become resistant to streptomycin. No problem, hide the streptomycin away, all the resistant bacteria will get outcompeted in no time, and we can bring out the good stuff again because now there aren't any more resistant bacteria left.

Have you thought through that fully? We use antibiotics because we don't want bacteria in certain places, such as in the abdominal cavity while operating. If you hide the streptomycin, you're left with regular bacteria. Tell the doc not to wash his hands before he begins operating on you because you want them superbugs killed. The difficulty is that there is always a situation where we want a sterile environment, so streptomycin (or some other antibiotic) is always in use.

secondary mutations frequently stabilize antibiotic resistance in bacteria to the extent that resistant bacteria can outcompete normal ones even when the antibiotic is removed.

News to me. Linkey?

 

[Mallon]

As far as ARJ, they are an open, free journal, and there was a case last year where an evolutionist tried to write a fake creationist paper but it was rejected on technical grounds. Too many scientific mistakes.

Where can I read more about this?

 

[Buho]

Where can I read more about this?

http://answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/05/14/caught-in-the-act

Many of the quotes in there are over my head, but they illustrate an idea of the level of standards ARJ has.

 

[Mallon]

http://answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/05/14/caught-in-the-act

Many of the quotes in there are over my head, but they illustrate an idea of the level of standards ARJ has.

Aye, the work is largely over my head, too. But kudos to snelling for catching it. Too bad AiG hasn't been so discerning with their biology articles.

 

[[serious]]

http://answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/05/14/caught-in-the-act

Many of the quotes in there are over my head, but they illustrate an idea of the level of standards ARJ has.

That's good to see. I do imagine that the mistakes were intentional and intended to demonstrate a failure of review. It's good to see that they are reviewing the papers to at least some degree (though there is some question as to whether all papers are so reviewed or just those suspected of being spoofs). I'm wondering when the first spoof papers will get through. The real test of their review process will be at what level something sneaks through.

 

[sfs]

I find the history of the Earth to be very exciting as well. (I'm on this forum, after all!) Searching for genetic causes of diseases has nothing (of any impact) to do with evolution or creation.

Your claim was that exciting and relevant science was experimental. I was pointing out areas of exciting science relevant to human life that is not experimental. (And while evolution is not central to finding genetic causes of disease, it does provide several useful tools, e.g. common descent permits us to isolate functionally important regions of the genome, while instances of natural selection in humans provide good places to look for disease-causing genes.)

Do all published pieces in these venues further our scientific knowledge or better humanity? Perhaps best left to another thread.

Further our scientific knowledge? Sure, most papers on evolution (for example) that I've seen in Nature or Science have very much furthered scientific knowledge. Take a look at the initial papers on the human and chimpanzee genomes, for example. And as a scientist, I tend to think of scientific knowledge itself as a benefit to humanity. Evolutionary studies, in particular, advance our understanding of biology, which is essential in the long run to improve medical interventions.

Have you thought through that fully? We use antibiotics because we don't want bacteria in certain places, such as in the abdominal cavity while operating. If you hide the streptomycin, you're left with regular bacteria. Tell the doc not to wash his hands before he begins operating on you because you want them superbugs killed. The difficulty is that there is always a situation where we want a sterile environment, so streptomycin (or some other antibiotic) is always in use.

You're missing the point. If the particular creationist claim in question were true, we could rotate antibiotics -- retiring one for a few years while relying on others, and so on, and antibiotic resistance would never become a serious problem. This approach does work to a limited extent for some organisms and some drugs (chloroquine-resistant malaria tends to disappear when the drug is removed from service), but not in many others.

 

[laptoppop]

In terms of bacteria and evolution, I was fascinated by Behe's book "The Edge of Evolution." He makes a darn good case regarding mutations. I've wondered if there's a real application there -- if his book really is true, it seems like antibiotics should be always done 2 at a time like HIV drugs. That would keep any single gene mutation against a single drug from making a particular antibiotic less successful.

 

[Breckmin]

I have asked here before why creationist simply refuse to submit their work to (real) peer reviewed journals and the answer I almost always hear is that the evil evolutionist will reject them because they hate God and don't want the truth to get out.

It is not that they necessarily "hate" God, but rather than have come
to science with a definition for science with is based on circular reasoning.
Assumption= natural = Conclusion = natural.

If you deny any possibility of supernatural explanations from the get go,
you will be misled by your own circular reasoning and "inductions" in trying
to find natural explanations for the creation around you. If all answers
regarding origins "must be" natural because you started with the assumption of natural then how do you expect to find TRUTH? If you
have eliminated the correct answer (supernatural creation) from your
definition of your search for truth, THEN all data will be falsely interpreted
based on circular reasoning and inductions (commonalities and comparisons).

Let's suppose for a moment that universal common descent is NOT true
and it is actually a product of world wide aggregate self-deception based
on invalid inductions and circular reasoning regarding the study of science
rather than the search for truth.... Let's assume that for 150 years or
more, scientists have wrongfully been taking the processes by which
God used to bring about variety to species within genera, and falsely
"induced" the observation of the process and wrongfully applied it to
the common ancestry of all species....
If this assumption were true, THEN the more and more that scientists
find out about science, the DEEPER the deception will grow? Why?
Because without the right starting point (only natural) you are starting
with a false assumption! Assumptions + Data = Conclusion. If you
believe common ancestry for various species, then the more you learn
about their similarities or commonalities, the more you will wrongfully
conclude it. Without the wisdom of knowing that speciation only occurs
within genera you will continue to deceive yourself based on the more
commonalities that you find!! Let's say we find even more commonalities
between panina and homo sapiens... what's the conclusion??? What
if commonalities do NOT equal relatedness because God created the
species separately?? The interpretation of data would start with the
wrong assumption "common ancestry."

My journey back from TE was dissecting invalid assumptions based
on circular reasoning and tens of thousands of inductions all through
the sciences. I had to know how I was deceived. In all scientific
fields, it basically came down to Assumptions + Data = Conclusion

Creationist don't start with the circular assumption that scientific
observation can not have supernatural implications. We see this
clearly with "information" in the genetic code and the nano factories
of living cells which self-replicate and manufacture proteins.

The majority of the infrastructures in scientific study start with the
circular assumption that denies the possibility that the "natural" is
sustained by the supernatural, or was once created by the supernatural.
Making that assumption is not true agnosticism. It is anti-supernatualism.

How can a system of belief based on "anti-supernaturalism" accept
literature from those who observe that scientific observation points
to supernatural implications???

We have two different belief structures, and the anti-supernatural
school rejects anything having to do with evidence that points to
the supernatural.

It is really quite simple when you dissect the philosophies. Now you
need to dissect how you too were deceived, just like I was.

Hint: Ten's of thousands of inductions (not to mention taking
advice from those who started with circular reasoning and denied
the supernatural).

Michael

If you believe in God, then try praying for "protection" from that which
is not from Him. Try praying for protection from that which is not true
in scientific study. A humble heart is the path to wisdom and discernment.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Science does not deny the supernatural, it just has no tools to study or define the supernatural.

I find it interesting that many creationists on the other hand often use nature as if it can deny God. As if a natural explanations rules out God. It is as if they put more faith in science then the scientists themselves do.

 

[Breckmin]

Science does not deny the supernatural, it just has no tools to study or define the supernatural.

True and honest scientific observation allows for all implications, even
the supernatural. The problem is in using a generic word "science" as
though it actually says something or denies something. The issue is
not "science" itself, it is "scientists" who impose their naturalistic
and materialistic restrictions without even knowing if they are
studying processes that are sustained by the supernatural. I am not
saying that they are all sustained by the supernatural, but the point
is that if "crystalization" is a process of supernatural origin then you
can not make claims that the molecules do what they do because
of their own mechanism. Such will only feed the deception of science
being restricted to what is "natural?" O.k. Let's ask the question.

What is "natural" anyway? How do we truly know anything is "natural?"
Does "natural" originate from "supernatural?" Is it sustained by supernatural? How do we know? Please be specific. This should be
fun.

I find it interesting that many creationists on the other hand often use nature as if it can deny God.

Not "nature" but scientists who claim everything is natural. BTW, what
is "nature" anyway? What specifically do you mean by "nature?" Is
nature independent of supernature origin? Perhaps it's not nice to use mother nature....

As if a natural explanations rules out God. It is as if they put more faith in science then the scientists themselves do.

Creationists are actually wise enough to differentiate between "scientists themselves" and true science. True science that is falsifiable deals with
current and present data, it does not appeal to ignorance (of possibility)
which is against our uniform and repeated experience (abiogenesis).

Michael

 

[The Barbarian]

True and honest scientific observation allows for all implications, even the supernatural.

No. Science is a method, and one that has no way to approach the supernatural.

The problem is in using a generic word "science" as though it actually says something or denies something. The issue is not "science" itself, it is "scientists" who impose their naturalistic and materialistic restrictions without even knowing if they are studying processes that are sustained by the supernatural.

You've been misled about that. Even those of us who are theists, have to find God the same way you do. Science can't do it for us.

I am not saying that they are all sustained by the supernatural, but the point is that if "crystalization" is a process of supernatural origin then you can not make claims that the molecules do what they do because
of their own mechanism.

Correct. If this was so, science could not explain crystallization.

What is "natural" anyway?

The physical universe.

How do we truly know anything is "natural?"

We can detect and test it, using our senses.

Does "natural" originate from "supernatural?"

Yes. It is a subset of creation, in which God places us.

Is it sustained by supernatural?

Yes. God remains intimately involved with His creation.

How do we know?

Scripture and Christian tradition.

Please be specific.

If you like, I can explain whatever puzzles you in more detail.

This should be fun.

Perhaps it will be. Let's see what happens.