Why doesnt creationism need any data?

AV1611VET said:

Thanks, but I don't need a different part of the world to tell me how I'm perceived:

Luke 21:17 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.

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Who said anything about hate? Creationists are mainly viewed with amusement in my experience.

The analogy of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens fits quite well I think. It is rather as if a UFO obsessive accused you of hating people who have been abducted by aliens. Your immediate response would be amusement and "pardon...?"

What all this has to do with the topic?

SkyWriting said:

I always discount the opinion of blamers and admire doers.
Blamers have no value to society at all.

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If you want to discount things said, fine.

I was just thinking, you made a very specific claim with nothing to back it up or verify it.

Rewrite said:

These figure do tell us something, if people are raised among religious people they themselves are more likely to be religious if they are not then they won't.
So SkyWriting, had you been raised and gone to school in the UK the odds are that you would not be religious.

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It makes you wonder as well why when quoting census results, there's nary a No-True-Christian fallacy in sight.

Cabal said:

It makes you wonder as well why when quoting census results, there's nary a No-True-Christian fallacy in sight.

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I'm not going to explain to you the mysteries of how deities work or don't work.

Probably because I can't... but that is irrelevant.


Just as your comment was.

*rimshot*

(Is that how you do it?)

Philothei said:

What all this has to do with the topic?

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We are discussing philosophy after all. Materialism's time worn attempt of trying to get theists to believe that man arose via a project between mother nature and father time. Or trying to get them to believe that they had the intelligence to do so. I would prefer birds though, they can make nests and stuff. a few flaps of the wing here, a peck there, Man!

British Bulldog said:

Who said anything about hate? Creationists are mainly viewed with amusement in my experience.
The analogy of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens fits quite well I think. It is rather as if a UFO obsessive accused you of hating people who have been abducted by aliens. Your immediate response would be amusement and "pardon...?"

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The Bible talks about love and hate and has WAY more authority and accuracy than you.

Rewrite said:

These figure do tell us something, if people are raised among religious people they themselves are more likely to be religious if they are not then they won't. So SkyWriting, had you been raised and gone to school in the UK the odds are that you would not be religious.

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My schools were 100% secular, as are my parents. I accepted Jesus at 32.

SkyWriting said:

My schools were 100% secular, as are my parents. I accepted Jesus at 32.

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What does that have to do with "are more likely to be religious"? More likely, not guaranteed.

Most schools are secular.

Non sequitur said:

What does that have to do with "are more likely to be religious"? More likely, not guaranteed.
Most schools are secular.

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If most schools are secular, as you claim, then "are more likely to be religious" is clearly wrong.

So SkyWriting, had you been raised and gone to school in the UK the odds are that you would not be religious.

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My response: Baloney & Cheese.

In a poll conducted by YouGov in March 2011 on behalf of the BHA, when asked the census question ‘What is your religion?’, 61% of people in England and Wales ticked a religious box (53.48% Christian and 7.22% other) while 39% ticked ‘No religion’.

"Why doesnt creationism need any data?"

As a scientist I've been fired twice for speaking up for Creationism, so I have something to add to this discussion. I was paid for 26 years as a nuclear engineer (with a Masters degree at UC Berkeley, unlike President Jimmy Carter), so I understand the scientific principle as well.

Here are the reasons Creationism is 'data-poor':
1. Too many scientists who are Creationists, when they do good science in this area, try to turn the paper into a witness for the Bible. These papers are automatically deleted, regardless of the strength of the Science. Witness the publishing history of Robert Gentry whose many papers on radioactive halos, challenging Earth's dating system, were widely referenced in scientific circles. Then he did the no-no and used that forbidden word, "Bible".
2. I published over 40 papers in the scientific journals and conferences, national and worldwide. I know how to be "wise as a fox, innocent as a dove" when addressing the biased scientists of our day. Approximately 10 of the papers drew unusual insights because of my 'Young Earth' perspective.
3. I can hear the collective gasps of all you scientists who say, "How dare you dirty our hallowed halls with 'Young Earth' science?" (you've just proved my point about scientific bias).

Let me give you a reason for the importance of YOU unshackling Science from your bias:

A man found a drunk rumaging around under a streetlight, "Lose something?"
"My wallet," slurred the drunk.
"Where abouts did you lose it?"
"Over in the bushes."
"Then why are you looking here?" reasoned the first man.
"Because the light's better."

How was I able to publish so many papers that advanced Science (witnessed by my peers okaying publication)? Because it's easy to find insights where no one else is looking. Most scientists would be fired (as I was) if they didn't spend their whole careers rumaging under the dim light of evolution.

As scientists (though biased), you must admit that, even if evolution is correct, it must be submitted to powerful dissent in order to establish that correctness and become more powerful.

Yet, any scientists who don't speak with slavish praise for evolution are fired. Doctoral students (especially in geology) who don't march to evolution's riotous music fail to get their degrees.

In the interest of the advance of Science so important in our world, STOP BEING SO BIGOTED! ALLOW DISSENT! ALLOW PEOPLE TO PURSUE THEIR DREAMS IN THEIR EDUCATION! Unless you really fear a diversely educated crop of scientists.

James Wilson said:

"Why doesnt creationism need any data?"

snip

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A nice read. And an excellent bit of advice to any scientist in it.
If you want to be published. Keep your paper on the facts, its not a place to push your personal unsupported fantasies.

you did not adress the OP's question though, maybe you forgot I just wanted to see if you had an opinion on that aswell.

James Wilson said:

Let me give you a reason for the importance of YOU unshackling Science from your bias:

A man found a drunk rumaging around under a streetlight, "Lose something?"
"My wallet," slurred the drunk.
"Where abouts did you lose it?"
"Over in the bushes."
"Then why are you looking here?" reasoned the first man.
"Because the light's better."

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Are you likening yourself to the drunkard or are you calling the current scientists drunk?

Either way, this story involves inebriation, so I don't see it as an appropriate analogy-story...

James Wilson said:

As a scientist I've been fired twice for speaking up for Creationism, so I have something to add to this discussion. I was paid for 26 years as a nuclear engineer (with a Masters degree at UC Berkeley, unlike President Jimmy Carter), so I understand the scientific principle as well.

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I'm confused. Are you a scientist or a nuclear engineer? They're not the same thing.

1. Too many scientists who are Creationists, when they do good science in this area, try to turn the paper into a witness for the Bible. These papers are automatically deleted, regardless of the strength of the Science. Witness the publishing history of Robert Gentry whose many papers on radioactive halos, challenging Earth's dating system, were widely referenced in scientific circles. Then he did the no-no and used that forbidden word, "Bible".

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Another interpretation is that alternative explanations for Gentry's results were found, and that he refused to accept them and became somthing of a crank.

I published over 40 papers in the scientific journals and conferences, national and worldwide. I know how to be "wise as a fox, innocent as a dove" when addressing the biased scientists of our day. Approximately 10 of the papers drew unusual insights because of my 'Young Earth' perspective.

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Could you give some examples of these papers that drew unusual insights?

I can hear the collective gasps of all you scientists who say, "How dare you dirty our hallowed halls with 'Young Earth' science?" (you've just proved my point about scientific bias).

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Sorry to disappoint you, but no one is gasping at you. Provide some more specifics about this young-earth oriented science you've been doing if you want anyone to pay attention to your claims.

SFS posted several questions. Since his questions seemed to be less argumentative and misconstruing than most, I'll answer them individually:

SFS: I'm confused. Are you a scientist or a nuclear engineer? They're not the same thing.

My response: When I went back to graduate school after my stint in the Navy, my friend with a PhD in Fusion Engineering was hired by a solar power company. Now, SFS, I'll turn your question around: Was my friend a fusion engineer or a solar engineer? Formal university training is not the only way to develop a career.

SFS: Another interpretation is that alternative explanations for Gentry's results were found, and that he refused to accept them and became somthing of a crank.

My response: Yes, he had opposition throughout his publishing career. But his publications dropped off drastically when he used 'forbidden language' in his last major publication.

SFS (I combined his last two questions): Could you give some examples of these young-earth papers that drew unusual insights?

My response: I presented my paper, “Oil exploration under the catastrophist paradigm,” at the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Conference, in December (2002).
On their website they warned against the dastardly tactics of Creationists, so I knew I was entering the lion's den. As you probably know, many evolutionists are fearful of catastrophes, for they conflict with Uniformitarianism and complicate dating tremendously.
My main premise was that new, giant deposits of oil (none of these huge deposits have been discovered for many decades now) can be predicted by the maps that I published in that paper (obviously my peers, though evolutionists, thought my maps had enough credibility to be published).
My map drew Great Circles pinned by the craters of the largest meteorites to ever hit the Earth (Great Circles have the same diameter as the Earth, so, for example, the equator is one Great Circle). A problem with one of the Great Circles was, though pinned by two of the three largest meteorites to ever hit the Earth, a significant amount of drift had occurred since the meteorites hit the Earth. Since the amount of drift was equal to the half the width of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Great Circle also significantly traced the path of the Mid-Atlantic spreading zone, I postulated that these two meteorites caused the breaking apart of Pangea. With this assumption, I was able to shift the locations of the largest known giant deposits of oil to fit my hypothesis.
One problem this caused was that these meteorites, having hit more than a million years apart (by evolutionist calculations), were separate causes and unlikely to participate in such a joint effort. I dealt with this by showing all the uncertainties and past mistakes in our radiological dating systems.
When I tried to explain these dating problems to an astro-geologist at this conference, he responded, "I don't have any problems with that. I'm not an earth-bound geologist." He expressed a greater flexibility than the hide-bound geologists with their rules against catastrophes and exterterrestrial causes.
This paper violated another sacred cow of the evolutionists that flows of magma from the Core of the Earth take up to billions of years to reach the surface.

I also published a series of papers on the Worldwide Conveyor Belt that runs through all of our oceans and controls our climate. Whereas other scientists postulated a 1000 years for the Earth's climate to respond to changes within the Conveyor, I postulated a 10-year time delay and the actual cause of the disturbance (concentrated salt flowing through the Suez Canal). After postulating this cause, I extended my plots back through history to check them out. In order for the theory to hold, I had to find out why there was a large salt discharge almost 2,000 years ago. I found out that Trajan, ruler/engineer of Rome, built Trajan's Ditch at that time (I previously had no knowledge of such a project). But I also found an earler salt flow before Christ. Again I subsequently found a canal built by the Egyptians in that timeframe.
This paper was invited for publication in an international journal (I accepted, of course). I was later invited as the main speaker at a national global warming conference in Boston (Having been fired before the conference, I did not have the resources to accept that offer).

I did a series of technical papers on the huge discrepancies in radiological dating, published in government-approved conferences on the Island of Crete, in Phoenix and in Las Vegas.

As you can see from the wide variety of topics covered, I'm not just a nuclear engineer. Sorry to be so hard to stereotype.

James Wilson said:

SFS: I'm confused. Are you a scientist or a nuclear engineer? They're not the same thing.

My response: When I went back to graduate school after my stint in the Navy, my friend with a PhD in Fusion Engineering was hired by a solar power company. Now, SFS, I'll turn your question around: Was my friend a fusion engineer or a solar engineer? Formal university training is not the only way to develop a career.

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If he does solar engineering, he's a solar engineer. I'm well aware that formal training is not the only way to develop a career -- I've got graduate degrees in English literature and particle physics, but I'm a geneticist in practice -- but in your original post, you alluded to your engineering training as the basis of your knowledge of science.

SFS: Another interpretation is that alternative explanations for Gentry's results were found, and that he refused to accept them and became somthing of a crank.

My response: Yes, he had opposition throughout his publishing career. But his publications dropped off drastically when he used 'forbidden language' in his last major publication.

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It's been a long time since I read Gentry's papers, but as I recall, he never dealt adequately with alternative explanations for his results, and didn't seem to be going anywhere new. If your research isn't leading to new insights and doesn't address alternative explanations, it's likely to be shunted aside.

SFS (I combined his last two questions): Could you give some examples of these young-earth papers that drew unusual insights?

My response: I presented my paper, “Oil exploration under the catastrophist paradigm,” at the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Conference, in December (2002). [...]

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Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant, can you provide citations to the literature so I can read some of these papers. Conference presentations aren't much help unless they've been published, which SEPM doesn't seem to do with their annual conferences.

1. "A New Method for Forecasting Plant Maintenance Requirements for Maintenance Records", AIChE Soc. (1975)
2. "Computer Aided Common Cause Analysis of an LMFBR", ANS (1975)
3. "Automated Event Tree Construction", ANS (1977)
4. "Selecting the 'Right ' Common Cause Analysis Technique", ANS (1977)
5. "Phased Mission Analysis: A Review of New Developments", IEEE Transactions (1977)
6. "Automated Preliminary Risk Analysis (AUTOET II)", ANS (1978)
7. "Dynamic Analysis of Nuclear Safeguards Systems", ANS (1978)
8. "Optimization of the Prototype Large Breeder Reactor", ANS (1979)
9. "Practical Probability - Initiators", Reliability Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 39-40 (1982)
10. "Improving Safety and Reliability While Reducing Cost", Reliability Review (1983)
11. "Use of PRA in Determining Criticality Safety Margins (Invited Paper)", ANS Topical - Criticality Safety (1989)
12. "Simplified Human Error Analysis", Reliability Review (1990)
13. "Avoiding the Pitfalls of Initiating Events", Energy Facilities Contractors Group (1992)
14. "Principles of Initiators", PSA93 (1993)
15. "SHEAN (Simplified Human Error Analysis Code) and Automated THERP", Energy Facilities Contractors Group (1993)
16. "Avoiding Undue Conservatism in Environmental Risk Assessments", ASME Winter Meeting
(1993)
17. "Assessing Probabilistic Risk Prior to Conceptual Design," Energy Facilities Contractors Group (1994)
18. "Benchmarking an Automated Human Error Analysis Technique", PSAMII (1994)
19. "Evaluating the Consequences of a Repository Criticality," with D. Evans and P. Sentieri, DOE Spent Nuclear Fuel Conference (1994)
20. "When is 'Unlikely' Likely?", DOE Risk Management Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1, (1995).
21. "Logic Model Needs for Diverse Facility Types", ASME-PVP Conference (1995)
22. "Evaluation of a Potential Nuclear Fuel Repository Criticality: Lessons Learned", ASME-PVP Conference (1995)
23. "Cutoffs When No Goals Are Given," EFCOG Prioritization Methodology Workshop, (1995)
24. "Problems with Distant Horizons," ESREL'96 - PSAMIII (1996)
25. "Analytical Error: 14 Different Processes," with T. Alber and J. Jacobson, ESREL'96 - PSAMIII (1996)
26. "The 10,000-Year Debate," Annual ANS Meeting, DOE Spent Nuclear Fuel and Fissile Material Management (1996)
27. "Uncertainties in Repository Modeling," PSA96 (1996)
28. "Clean-Up Criteria for Remediation of Contaminated Soils," with Hoa Nguyen, Conference on Hazardous Wastes & Materials (1997)
29. “Blasting Into the Future,” Innovative Leader, Vol. 7, No. 9 (1998)
30. “PRA-Code Upgrade to Handle a Generic Problem,” INMM Conference, Phoenix (1999)
31. “Predicting the Future at Yucca Mountain,” INMM Conference, Phoenix (1999)
32. "How Fast is the Conveyor?" XI Global Warming International Conference, Boston (2000)
33. "Problems with Correlated Data," with R. Hunt, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Vol. 49, No. 2, June (2000)
34. "How Fast is the Conveyor?" World Resource Review, Vol. 13, No. 2, June (2001).
35. “Understanding Global Warming: Tracking the Salt Oscillator,” 13th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, June 6-8, 2001.
36. “Atmosphere/Ocean Couplings that Influence Global Climate,” 13th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, June 6-8, 2001.
37. “Forecasting Climate with a Personal Computer,” Environmental Geosciences Journal, (To be published).
38. “Oil exploration under the catastrophist paradigm,” Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Conference, December (2002).
39. “Meteorites and Deep-Earth Reactors,” AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on the "Origin of Petroleum-Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production," London, England, June (2003).

Boy, I'd sure like to see some of this creationist data that was mentioned if it's actually good data. Think we'll get to see some?

James Wilson said:

"Why doesnt creationism need any data?"

As a scientist I've been fired twice for speaking up for Creationism, so I have something to add to this discussion. I was paid for 26 years as a nuclear engineer (with a Masters degree at UC Berkeley, unlike President Jimmy Carter), so I understand the scientific principle as well.

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Interesting. So, you're this guy: The Bible-Believing Scientist?

and you wrote this: Problems with Distant Horizons?

And this too, I'm guessing: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5215072?

sandwiches asked: "Interesting. So, you're this guy... The Bible Believing Scientist (link deleted)

and you wrote this: Problems with Distant Horizons? (link deleted)

And this too, I'm guessing: (link to IEEE Transactions on Reliability deleted)"

Yes, I'm the guy... (Sorry I could not include the links. I'm just a greenhorn in this forum. If anyone is interested in the links, check the original post)