Why Evolution is True (2)

[createdtoworship]

Any scientist worth his/her salt would say that nothing is absolute truth ... and that includes evolution.

also this is a road runner tactic that i like to use if you dont' mind. But when you say the above quote. So when you say that "nothing is absolute truth" you mean in exception to that statement right? In this case you would have a self defeating argument. Because you can't have both "nothing" being absolute, and at the same time having "something" (namely that statement) being absolute true. It's either a wrong statement that "nothing is absolute" or it's a self defeating statement. either way the statement is incorrect. thank you for the comment.

 

[StormanNorman]

if they are biased, which is not inherently wrong anyway (As all are biased), wouldn't it be better to correct the error? Instead of simply tossing out any and all information based on a character assassination? (adhominem fallacy)? What is the more honest thing to do?

People here have repeatedly corrected those sites; but do you honestly believe that those sites are interested in such corrections? They, like you, are true believers.

secondly, you and the other poster did not address the non partisan link from national geographic either. So there is more to this than simple biases. What motivation do I have to find more non partisan evidences, if you dont' address what I have given you that is objective and not biased toward Christianity? This is a matter of dodging out of fear of being proven wrong, and even maybe out of laziness...but I presume it to be one or both.

I didn't address your link because that wasn't the purpose of my post. I was simply addressing your faulty comparison between peer-reviewed science literature and your creation sites in general.

 

[Loudmouth]

so what your saying is they would rather be admittedly wrong, then put a divine foot in the door.

What divine foot?

The entire point is that there is no evidence for the divine. You might as well accuse forensic scientists of ignoring the possible existence of Leprechauns who plant evidence at crime scenes.

Science does not keep any evidence out. Science does not actively keep the divine out of theories. The problem is that there is no evidence God doing anything, so there is no reason to consider it.

remember the end of the quote:

"we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.2”
2Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan, New York Review, January 9, 1997, 31.

this proves that evolution is materialistically biased

That is only because theists define the supernatural as not being detectable, testable, or falsifiable. It is theists who keep God out of science, not scientists.

 

[Dizredux]

Grady

so what your saying is they would rather be admittedly wrong, then put a divine foot in the door.

The problems is that if it cannot be measured in some way, science cannot deal with it.

How do we measure God? How do we measure the divine?

The divine foot in the door, so to speak, would be for you to find a way of measuring it. It doesn't mean that it can't be done but that no one to date has done it.

Good luck, I await your showing us the way.

Dizredux

 

[createdtoworship]

Correct the error how? When people actually confront the people who run these sites, it ends up going nowhere. And most of the time the content on those sites has more incorrect information than not.

again this is logically inconsistent and further more it is dodging. Say I said that peer review is 100% wrong because I have evidence of some biases that occured in the past regarding new scientific discoveries not being accepted initionally, and fighting to have legitimate science accepted. Would that be correct? Is ALL peer review therefore wrong? No. There may infact be one or two that are correct, or even every article OTHER than the ones in question. We simply don't know.

Let me introduce to you something called poisoning the well, it is when someone will in affect poison someones view of something so that every time afterward the poison comes up. For example:

"Poisoning the Well

Description
Discredit the other person before they speak. Or discredit the topic or argument that they may support.
There are many ways of discrediting the person. Call them names. Talk about their lies. Show them to be unworthy. Tell how they are unintelligent, crazy or otherwise undesirable, inferior and not worth listening to, let alone believing.
To discredit the topic or argument, indicate how it is patently absurd, proven to be false or that only fools would support it.
Example
Well, Jane will tell you something else, but then she always lived on the other side of the tracks.

Mike doesn't have a degree, but he does speak nicely, doesn't he.

Only an idiot would consider Didactus to have any useful opinion.

Everybody knows that cold fusion is a proven impossibility. Jack: did you have something to say on this."

Discussion
By discrediting the other person, you are also effectively discrediting anything they say by reducing their authority. If the other person is there, a public attack forces them onto the defensive, socially obliging them to respond first to the attack and hence distracting them from their main argument."

above from:

Poisoning the Well

this is also related to ad hominem, and also related to appeal to authority and appeal to the populus.

just because the majority believes something doesn't make it therefore true. Or just because someone makes an error or a thousand errors doens't make everything that that person states untrue. Again this is poisoning the well and a special case of ad hominem.

 

[createdtoworship]

also this is a road runner tactic that i like to use if you dont' mind. But when you say the above quote. So when you say that "nothing is absolute truth" you mean in exception to that statement right? In this case you would have a self defeating argument. Because you can't have both "nothing" being absolute, and at the same time having "something" (namely that statement) being absolute true. It's either a wrong statement that "nothing is absolute" or it's a self defeating statement. either way the statement is incorrect. thank you for the comment.

I think you forgot to comment on this post, storman norman

 

[createdtoworship]

People here have repeatedly corrected those sites; but do you honestly believe that those sites are interested in such corrections? They, like you, are true believers.

so because something is wrong sometimes it is therefore wrong all the time? Again this is what is called poisoning the well, and actually is a character assasination (or more commonly known as ad hominem). Both are fallacies. Can you please refrain from using them in your posts? Thank you.
(for more info on fallacy see this post:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7834960/#post66111340)

I didn't address your link because that wasn't the purpose of my post.

so now we know that your purpose is not to address the facts, but present fallacy. As we have seen multiple times now.

I was simply addressing your faulty comparison between peer-reviewed science literature and your creation sites in general.

I was not comparing peer review to non peer review, I was stating that if I rejected peer review on the basis of the fact it was peer reviewed by athiests, well that would be discrimination and poisoning the well. It is the same thing here. You are rejecting the sites because for one they are religious, and then secondly you changed the bars to reject them on alleged error, without actually reading the links.

thirdly, you didn't address national geographic (which was non partisan, and according to you more objective and less error prone because it was non religiously motivated).

fourthly you didn't address this post where you again make self contradicting statements that are plain wrong:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7834960/#post66108310

if I remember correctly you said absolute statements do not exist, but then you presuppose your statement was absolutely correct (not at all wrong), and compared it to legitimate science as a result. I then corrected you in asking you if your statment was absolutely correct? Because if you said yes, then you were wrong, if you said no, then it was self contradictory. either way being wrong, do you remember this conversation, or are you dodging yet once more? Thank you for the reply.

 

[createdtoworship]

What divine foot?

are you saying you disagree with evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin's statement regarding the "divine foot in the door"?

remember the end of the quote:

"we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.2”
2Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan, New York Review, January 9, 1997, 31.

this proves that evolution is materialistically biased.

if you disagree with your own commentators, what does this tell you of the theory of evolution in general?

 

[createdtoworship]

Grady

The problems is that if it cannot be measured in some way, science cannot deal with it.

How do we measure God? How do we measure the divine?

The divine foot in the door, so to speak, would be for you to find a way of measuring it. It doesn't mean that it can't be done but that no one to date has done it.

Good luck, I await your showing us the way.

Dizredux

so then being admittedly wrong is better?

 

[StormanNorman]

so because something is wrong sometimes it is therefore wrong all the time? Again this is what is called poisoning the well, and actually is a character assasination (or more commonly known as ad hominem). Both are fallacies. Can you please refrain from using them in your posts? Thank you.
(for more info on fallacy see this post:

When I believe something is spot on, I say it .... and that is not a fallacy.

so now we know that your purpose is not to address the facts, but present fallacy. As we have seen multiple times now.

I was not comparing peer review to non peer review, I was stating that if I rejected peer review on the basis of the fact it was peer reviewed by athiests, well that would be discrimination and poisoning the well. It is the same thing here. You are rejecting the sites because for one they are religious,

Incorrect. If I wanted to seek more information concerning religious beliefs, creationism, etc., then I would certainly consider them. However, in questions of science, particularly those that have already been "settled" in the Bible, I most certainly reject them in favor of far more objective sources. That is because science doesn't start with the answer, e.g., an absolute truth, an allow that answer as the only possibility.

 

[Loudmouth]

are you saying you disagree with evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin's statement regarding the "divine foot in the door"?

What divine foot?

 

[Loudmouth]

so then being admittedly wrong is better?

You tell us. You are the creationist.

Is it better to have all of the evidence demonstrating that you are wrong, as long as you are theologically pure?

 

[Loudmouth]

again this is logically inconsistent and further more it is dodging. Say I said that peer review is 100% wrong because I have evidence of some biases that occured in the past regarding new scientific discoveries not being accepted initionally, and fighting to have legitimate science accepted. Would that be correct? Is ALL peer review therefore wrong? No. There may infact be one or two that are correct, or even every article OTHER than the ones in question. We simply don't know.

Dan Rather got caught in a single, but rather embarrassing situation where he reported bad information, and he should have known better. It ended his career.

With creationist sites, they lie over and over and over, often in the same paragraph. Why do you keep going back to websites that are written by known liars?

More importantly, the lying creationists are not the ones who did the science in the first place. Why don't you go to the articles written by the scientists who did the actual science?

 

[createdtoworship]

When I believe something is spot on, I say it .... and that is not a fallacy.


Incorrect. If I wanted to seek more information concerning religious beliefs, creationism, etc., then I would certainly consider them. However, in questions of science, particularly those that have already been "settled" in the Bible, I most certainly reject them in favor of far more objective sources. That is because science doesn't start with the answer, e.g., an absolute truth, an allow that answer as the only possibility.

again yes, yes it is fallacy. It is poisoning the well and it is something that every juror must fight against to be objective in criminal behaviour.


Say that my sources (my websites linked to) were on trial, and they had one or two felonies, does that make them outright guilty during the current trial? Or any and all trials afterward? It may may them suspect, but it will not convict them of wrongdoing, especially if there is no evidence of wrongdoing. You would be a bad juror, or judge regarding the logic of the matter here.

Christian sources are not guilty of error, simply by being christian.

Non science articles are not wrong, simply because they are not science.

furthermore, religiously motivated archaeology is not invalid simply because of the religion.

I would be just as well saying that everything you say is wrong, because atheists/agnostics have been proven wrong in the past.

again it's not the way to do debate. Not the way to do law, not the way to do logic.

I await your response.

 

[createdtoworship]

What divine foot?

Are you saying that there is no divine foot?

then when he says that they were "willingly wrong"

it would have been for no reason whatsoever.

If there the possibility of a divine foot being let in the door, then there is at least one reason to be willingly wrong regarding evolutionary thought.

I await your response.

 

[dad]

. If I wanted to seek more information concerning religious beliefs, creationism, etc., then I would certainly consider them....

If we wanted to seek more info on godless fables and absolute faith based stories that oppose God's creation as told in His word, we would look to science.



.

 

[createdtoworship]

You tell us. You are the creationist.

Is it better to have all of the evidence demonstrating that you are wrong, as long as you are theologically pure?

so you are changing the bars now,

Before we were not talking about evidence for creationism, all we were talking about was a "divine foot in the door"

So again, I ask is is better to be "admittedly wrong" for no reason, or be "admittedly wrong for the possibility of letting a divine foot in the door?

I would say the more logical of the two is the latter. Wouldn't you say?

 

[dad]

No, because as I have said before, to claim to have all the answers is dishonest.

For science..yes! They have NONE.

We CAN know that the world was created though, and some details as to how. To claim we were as pig ignorant as science is would be dishonest!



.

 

[createdtoworship]

Dan Rather got caught in a single, but rather embarrassing situation where he reported bad information, and he should have known better. It ended his career.

With creationist sites, they lie over and over and over, often in the same paragraph. Why do you keep going back to websites that are written by known liars?

More importantly, the lying creationists are not the ones who did the science in the first place. Why don't you go to the articles written by the scientists who did the actual science?

so your saying that this site:

Jerusalem 101 - Lessons Introducing Jerusalem

is known for lying?

evidence please?

 

[Loudmouth]

so you are changing the bars now,

Before we were not talking about evidence for creationism, all we were talking about was a "divine foot in the door"

What divine foot?

So again, I ask is is better to be "admittedly wrong" for no reason, or be "admittedly wrong for the possibility of letting a divine foot in the door?

What divine foot?

I would say the more logical of the two is the latter. Wouldn't you say?

How can we let something in if there is no evidence for it?