YECs: What would convince you?

[Gilgaron]

Wow! Seduced by Satan. I will have to add that to the list of things that YECS have called me. It seems that YECs prefer to call me names rather than deal or explain the geologic evidence. Can you explain how dinosaurs had time to create nests and lay eggs during the middle of the global flood?

[attachment=1]

(I think he was being sarcastic...)

[WebToaster]

Whether or not the question is flawed epistemologically depends on what the YECs basic assumptions are. If it is simply that the Bible is true & authoritative then he/she should be open to the possibility of a non-historical interpretation of early Genesis. If the basic assumption is that early Genesis is accurate historical narrative - i.e., with a kind of accuracy that insists that yom means a 24 hour day &c - then of course other interpretations cannot be considered.

Yes, I think you're right about the basic assumptions. Some YECers accept the Bible as truth (period) and YEC is simply an "a posteriori" result. However, some YECers accept YEC as the 'a priori' truth itself, and its difficult to distinguish between the two because the 'a priori' YECers will use the Bible as evidence of their truths, while the 'a posteriori' YECers use the Bible as a statement of their truths. We can't rely upon either of them for an independent statement of their beliefs, because the statement of those beliefs is found within the Bible itself.

If nothing else, the question I posed should move YECs to consider whether they're relying on the truth of scripture or the truth of one interpretation of scripture - for it can't be denied that there are other ways of reading early Genesis.

Good luck!

[shunyadragon]

grmorton has obviously been seduced by Satan. He (and you) should know that science can NEVER be used to 'disprove' YEC truths. Science can be used to confirm YEC truths, or to disprove anti-YEC falsehoods, but under no circumstances can science 'disprove' a YEC truth, ever. Therefore, the 'geologic evidence' is really an hallucination created by Satan and the green-skinned women hanging from the edge of the earth. In fairness, there's some dispute among YEC circles about the green-skinned women, but YEC itself is an 'a priori' truth and anything in contradiction with this truth is flawed.

Short circus!!!!

Unplug the toaster.

[shunyadragon]

Up until 2001, I was a geophysical manager. Since then I have moved toward reservoir engineering. I have recently managed the petrophysical group (well logging) and have reservoir characterization and reservoir simulation (resevoir engineering fluid flow) working in my group. I am no longer sure what to call myself after having 1 patent pending in chemistry, one in process, an managing a large aspect of reservoir engineering as well as having well log analysts geophysicists and Ph. D. geologists working with me. It is a great group and we have a great multidisciplinary team, but that puts my identity in doubt Along with biostatistics articles and an article (mostly due to Geoge Murphy) on relativity, my identity is highly blurred. What am I?

George

I am a retired environmental hydrogeologist. Most of my work is in the coastal Plain and Appalachia of Eastern United States. In the the Coatal Pain I mostly worked in waste water management like spray irragation, wetland studies and Ground water polution studies. In Appalachia I worked with flood plain and watershed surveys and coal mine reclamation projects. I did a lot of well logging and supervised the drilling and installation of monitoring wells.

My name, Frank Doonan, is rather unique, but when I lived in Parkersburg, WV there was a woman known as Frankie Doonan who lived a bit on the wild side. I got a lot of interesting phone calls.

[kuboes1831]

grmorton has obviously been seduced by Satan. He (and you) should know that science can NEVER be used to 'disprove' YEC truths. Science can be used to confirm YEC truths, or to disprove anti-YEC falsehoods, but under no circumstances can science 'disprove' a YEC truth, ever. Therefore, the 'geologic evidence' is really an hallucination created by Satan and the green-skinned women hanging from the edge of the earth. In fairness, there's some dispute among YEC circles about the green-skinned women, but YEC itself is an 'a priori' truth and anything in contradiction with this truth is flawed.

This was meant to be a joke, but it is what Ellen White of the Seventh Day adventists argued in the 19th century. She gave inspiration to McCready Price and then to Henry Morris and thus to all YECs .

You are dead right!!!

[brett]

This is a common argument but it's false. Not all interpretations of a text are equally valid. I recall a man who tried to make Jesus' words at the Last Supper, "This is my body," into a command to be vegetarians. Now of course there have been differences among Christians in understanding in what way the Communion bread can be said to be Christ's body but the vegetarian interpretation is out of court because it's obvious that it's a meaning that's being read into the text, not out of it. Neither the words themselves, nor their immediate context, nor the larger context of scripture, nor what we know about the world, give any hint of such a meaning.

This is true even for texts that are not meant to be interpreted literally. The 23d Psalm doesn't mean that we are sheep & God feeds us grass, but it also can't be "interpreted" to mean that God doesn't care anything about us. Texts just aren't that flexible, no matter what post-modern deconstructionists imagine.

Turning to Gen.1, I'm obviously not going to try the exhaustive task of showing that it differs from the creation stories of every other religion & culture. Take as just one important example, the Babylonian creation epic.
There Marduk makes the world out of the body of monster Tiamat after killing her in battle, so the world to begin with is made out of pretty dubious stuff. The celestial bodies are identified with the gods & godesses and control the fates of those who live on earth. Human beings are created basically to do the scut work for the gods so the latter can rest & enjoy themselves.

Genesis 1 seems to be, among other things, directed deliberately against such ideas. God creates by his word alone, and what is created is repeatedly said to be good. The celestial bodies are created not at the beginning or end, as if they were most important, but in the middle - & for a specific purpose. They aren't gods & aren't even named (because their popular names would be reminiscent of pagan gods) & the stars are tossed in as an afterthought ("and stars.")

& most important, humanity is created in the divine image and given dominion over the earth. It is a complete reversal of the Babylonian picture in which humans are mere slaves.

So you simply can't "interpret" Gen.1 to make it say the same thing as the Babylonian story unless you do manifest violence to the text. & this has nothing to do with whether or not one reads Gen.1 as historical narrative.

But I think you’re also doing violence to the text. All I see is an attempt to make excuses for Genesis because it is in conflict with a new pop theory. Yes I realize you think modern dating methods are irrefutably established. Time will tell.

The claim that early Genesis doesn't have anything distinctive to say if it isn't true in the YEC sense is simply false. But it's easy to see why YECs promote this notion - it scares their followers away from ever considering the possibility that there might be other ways of reading it.

Ah yes the fear card. That’s original.

What's telling is the way you misread things to prop up your assumptions. I did not say that a conspiracy among people doing radiometric dating was the only thing that would make me question the idea that the earth is old. You asked for one example, I gave it. Well-verified fossil finds of anatomically modern humans together with those of trilobites would be another.

But in a prior post you admitted that that would indeed NOT change your view in light of all the other credible evidence for an old earth. I mean that is what you wrote. So you’ve still not disclosed what kind of evidence would put you over the top (except of course the conspiracy answer). I don’t think you realize how attached you’ve become to an old earth.

I could go on at length about the coherence of evidence for an old earth & universe from many independent lines of investigation, the total inaccuracy of calling an old earth an "ephemeral" "pop scientific theory", & the lack of parallel between our knowledge that the earth is old & Ptolemaic astronomy. But to do that would be to fall into your trap - which is to avoid having to answer the question I posed initially:

"What scientific evidence would convince you that the earth is old?"

Well since conspiracy is now fair game I will borrow that answer. If I did indeed learn that all YEC examples put forth for a young earth were indeed merely conspiracies concocted with the help of secular scientists, then I would certainly be shaken at the foundations. If I found out, for instance, that all of the evidences put forth here Evidence for a Young World, by Russell Humphreys were actually a deception by both YECs as well as secular scientist and that comets really aren’t disintegrating, rivers really aren’t adding sodium to the sea, the Earth’s magnetic field really isn’t decaying, etc., yes that would deliver a serious blow to my current mode of thinking. If all this was just a hoax, I suppose would truly reconsider.

I know why you won't answer that - because you're afraid that if you give a reasonable & non-waffling answer, people who are knowledgeable in the relevant scientific fields will promptly say, "Here's the evidence you asked for."

I have no fear of this issue at all George, nor of any other theological/philosophical issue. Probably because I'm not afraid to be shown I'm wrong. I'm wondering if you feel the same? You totally misread me. One thing I’m always willing to do is read the opposition. There’s always something you can learn from the other side. If you feel you have earth shattering irresistible evidence, I say fire away. I'd love to see what the pillars of your belief system are.

[shunyadragon]

But I think you’re also doing violence to the text. All I see is an attempt to make excuses for Genesis because it is in conflict with a new pop theory. Yes I realize you think modern dating methods are irrefutably established. Time will tell.

Ah yes the fear card. That’s original.

Yes indeed it is. It appears in almost every AiG article accompanied by the statement that regardless of the evidence or conclusion of scientific studies including those presented by AiG, the Bibble must be consider true inerrant and literal.

Well since conspiracy is now fair game I will borrow that answer. If I did indeed learn that all YEC examples put forth for a young earth were indeed merely conspiracies concocted with the help of secular scientists, then I would certainly be shaken at the foundations. If I found out, for instance, that all of the evidences put forth here Evidence for a Young World, by Russell Humphreys were actually a deception by both YECs as well as secular scientist and that comets really aren’t disintegrating, rivers really aren’t adding sodium to the sea, the Earth’s magnetic field really isn’t decaying, etc., yes that would deliver a serious blow to my current mode of thinking. If all this was just a hoax, I suppose would truly reconsider.

This book misused and misquoted secular scientific work.
Yes, the magnetic field of the earth is decaying, but at a rate so slow it verifies an Old Earth.
Yes, Rivers are adding sodium and other minerals and elements to the sea, but the system is in equilibrium and the salt and mineral content of the sea is not increasing.

Comets are disentigrating in the atmosphere and the dust of comets found in ice and sediments is uniform over thousands of feet in depth indicating an Old Earth.

[Monkey Boy]

But I think you’re also doing violence to the text. All I see is an attempt to make excuses for Genesis because it is in conflict with a new pop theory. Yes I realize you think modern dating methods are irrefutably established. Time will tell.

Time HAS told. Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. The vast age of the earth was recognized decades before that. Neither would seem to qualify as "a new pop theory".

Ah yes the fear card. That’s original.

Sort of like "if you accept evolution you will go to hell", right?

Well since conspiracy is now fair game I will borrow that answer. If I did indeed learn that all YEC examples put forth for a young earth were indeed merely conspiracies concocted with the help of secular scientists, then I would certainly be shaken at the foundations. If I found out, for instance, that all of the evidences put forth here Evidence for a Young World, by Russell Humphreys were actually a deception by both YECs as well as secular scientist and that comets really aren’t disintegrating, rivers really aren’t adding sodium to the sea, the Earth’s magnetic field really isn’t decaying, etc., yes that would deliver a serious blow to my current mode of thinking. If all this was just a hoax, I suppose would truly reconsider.

Well then we have news for you, Brett. Humphrey's article is typical creationists misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and distortion at its finest. You might want to check out the following web pages for a summary of the mainstream scientific view of things:

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CD

Ask yourself this - if what Humphreys says is so obviously correct, why do all the world's professional geologists and paleontologists go around talking and living a lie?

I have no fear of this issue at all George, nor of any other theological/philosophical issue. Probably because I'm not afraid to be shown I'm wrong. I'm wondering if you feel the same? You totally misread me. One thing I’m always willing to do is read the opposition. There’s always something you can learn from the other side. If you feel you have earth shattering irresistible evidence, I say fire away. I'd love to see what the pillars of your belief system are.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

[brett]

Yes indeed it is. It appears in almost every AiG article accompanied by the statement that regardless of the evidence or conclusion of scientific studies including those presented by AiG, the Bibble must be consider true inerrant and literal.

Makes sense to me. The Bible has a good track record of holding up against attacks throughout history. Pop theories don't.

I'll have more to say on Tuesday when I get back in town.

[George Murphy]

But in a prior post you admitted that that would indeed NOT change your view in light of all the other credible evidence for an old earth. I mean that is what you wrote. So you’ve still not disclosed what kind of evidence would put you over the top (except of course the conspiracy answer). I don’t think you realize how attached you’ve become to an old earth.

I "admitted" nothing but simply pointed out that there's a lot of evidence that at present indicates an old earth and noted one non-conspiratorial items (which I elaborated in a later post) that would raise serious questions about an old earth position. The reason I'm "attached" to an old earth position is that there's a massive amount of scientific evidence from different fields that indicates that with considerable coherence. & there would have to be a significant amount of overturning of that evidence to make a young earth plausible.


Well since conspiracy is now fair game I will borrow that answer. If I did indeed learn that all YEC examples put forth for a young earth were indeed merely conspiracies concocted with the help of secular scientists, then I would certainly be shaken at the foundations. If I found out, for instance, that all of the evidences put forth here Evidence for a Young World, by Russell Humphreys were actually a deception by both YECs as well as secular scientist and that comets really aren’t disintegrating, rivers really aren’t adding sodium to the sea, the Earth’s magnetic field really isn’t decaying, etc., yes that would deliver a serious blow to my current mode of thinking. If all this was just a hoax, I suppose would truly reconsider.

Why a hoax? Suppose that the claims of Humphreys et al were just wrong? As in fact they are.

"Secular scientists" [BTW, do all the committed Christians who work in the sciences and hold old earth views "secular scientists"?] - don't deny that comets disintegrate, that rivers deposit Na, & that the earth's B field varies. But do comets disintegrate rapidly enough in comparison with the rate that they are being replenished to give a YEC result? Can the amounts of minerals in the sea be calculated from the elementary differential equation dN/dt = constant? Does the rate & direction of variation of B found by paleomagnetism agree with Barnes' model?

The answers, respectively, are no, no, & no. Check some of the references that other posters have given, or any of the detailed information that Glenn has available.

I have no fear of this issue at all George, nor of any other theological/philosophical issue. Probably because I'm not afraid to be shown I'm wrong. I'm wondering if you feel the same? You totally misread me.

If this were actually the case you would have responded at the very beginning with some examples of scientific evidence that would at least have caused you to ask some serious questions about the YEC position. You didn't. I think that says it all. (& this is reinforced by the fact that no other YEC has being willing to engage the question either.)

Shalom,
George

[brett]

I "admitted" nothing but simply pointed out that there's a lot of evidence that at present indicates an old earth and noted one non-conspiratorial items (which I elaborated in a later post) that would raise serious questions about an old earth position. The reason I'm "attached" to an old earth position is that there's a massive amount of scientific evidence from different fields that indicates that with considerable coherence. & there would have to be a significant amount of overturning of that evidence to make a young earth plausible.


Well since conspiracy is now fair game I will borrow that answer. If I did indeed learn that all YEC examples put forth for a young earth were indeed merely conspiracies concocted with the help of secular scientists, then I would certainly be shaken at the foundations. If I found out, for instance, that all of the evidences put forth here Evidence for a Young World, by Russell Humphreys were actually a deception by both YECs as well as secular scientist and that comets really aren’t disintegrating, rivers really aren’t adding sodium to the sea, the Earth’s magnetic field really isn’t decaying, etc., yes that would deliver a serious blow to my current mode of thinking. If all this was just a hoax, I suppose would truly reconsider.

Why a hoax? Suppose that the claims of Humphreys et al were just wrong? As in fact they are.

"Secular scientists" [BTW, do all the committed Christians who work in the sciences and hold old earth views "secular scientists"?] - don't deny that comets disintegrate, that rivers deposit Na, & that the earth's B field varies. But do comets disintegrate rapidly enough in comparison with the rate that they are being replenished to give a YEC result? Can the amounts of minerals in the sea be calculated from the elementary differential equation dN/dt = constant? Does the rate & direction of variation of B found by paleomagnetism agree with Barnes' model?

The answers, respectively, are no, no, & no. Check some of the references that other posters have given, or any of the detailed information that Glenn has available.


If this were actually the case you would have responded at the very beginning with some examples of scientific evidence that would at least have caused you to ask some serious questions about the YEC position. You didn't. I think that says it all. (& this is reinforced by the fact that no other YEC has being willing to engage the question either.)

Shalom,
George

There's a lot more I need to say about this, but it will have to wait. I'm out of town til Tuesday. Until then

[NeilUnreal]

green-skinned women hanging from the edge of the earth

I've had a thing about green-skinned women ever since the old Lost in Space episode where the green-skinned woman develops a crush on Dr. Smith...

-Neil

[grmorton]

I had written:

Unfortunately, I can't find a quotation I wanted to put here in which a historian notes that theology in the 19th century moved to a position where they protected their turf from verification in order to forever put themselves out of reach of science. I think this is what the generally accepted liberal point of view has done. No matter what nonsense the Bible might teach, it is still true by fiat.

I finally found it. It is by Frank Tipler:

Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality,
(New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 7

"Of course, the real reason modern theologians want to keep science divorced from religion is to retain some intellectual territory forever protected from the advance of science. This can only be done if the possibility of scientific investigation of the subject matter is ruled out a priori. Theologians were badly burned in the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. Such a strategy seriously underestimates the power of science, which is continually solving problems philosophers and theologians have decreed forever beyond the ability of science to solve."

© source where applicable

[George Murphy]

I finally found it. It is by Frank Tipler:

Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality,
(New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 7

"Of course, the real reason modern theologians want to keep science divorced from religion is to retain some intellectual territory forever protected from the advance of science. This can only be done if the possibility of scientific investigation of the subject matter is ruled out a priori. Theologians were badly burned in the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. Such a strategy seriously underestimates the power of science, which is continually solving problems philosophers and theologians have decreed forever beyond the ability of science to solve."

© source where applicable

There is some truth in what Tipler says, & I have said similar things myself.
(E.g., "Science and Theology: The State of the Public Dialogue" (Lutheran Forum 19, 8, 1985). I note that I even said, "Theology, badly burned by its encounters with the Copernican hypothesis and Darwinian evolution, has been quite wary about any entanglements with natural science." I had not then completely awakened from my dogmatic slumbers.)

But Tipler (whose expertise is not in theology or its history, though he does know something about them) overstates his case by implying that modern theologians are consciously trying to keep theology & science separate to protect their turf.The situation is rather that biblical scholars and theologians in the 19th century came to realize (a) that what was known of the human & natural history didn't agree with traditional readings of early Genesis as straightforward historical narrative & (b) that there was internal evidence that the Genesis texts should be read in other ways.

(Glenn, I realize that those aren't your views about history & Genesis but that's not the point now. That's the way - in brief - that the current views among theologians developed.)

Tipler - & many others (e.g., P. Johnson) also don't realize that there are reasons with theology itself for arguing that fundamental theological claims are not accessible to scientific investigation. One, which I do not consider to be very good, is the excessively existentialist emphasis of theologians like Bultmann. But, as I have argued, a theology of the cross, with its implication that "God allows himself to be pushed out of the world onto a cross" (Bonhoeffer) suggests as a theological requirement that the world can be understood "though God were not given."

(To avoid misunderstanding: To say "fundamental theological claims are not accessible to scientific investigation" does not mean that study of history or the natural world has no relevance for theology. Historians can investigate the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate. They can't determine whether or not he is God Incarnate.)

Shalom,
George

[grmorton]

There is some truth in what Tipler says, & I have said similar things myself.
(E.g., "Science and Theology: The State of the Public Dialogue" (Lutheran Forum 19, 8, 1985). I note that I even said, "Theology, badly burned by its encounters with the Copernican hypothesis and Darwinian evolution, has been quite wary about any entanglements with natural science." I had not then completely awakened from my dogmatic slumbers.)

But Tipler (whose expertise is not in theology or its history, though he does know something about them) overstates his case by implying that modern theologians are consciously trying to keep theology & science separate to protect their turf.

In some cases, I think you would be correct that it is not conscious. In others I wouldn't agree. The YECs for all their whinging about being scientific actually are doing exactly what Tipler is describing. They are removing theology, their theology, from the rules of science-- they remove their views from the consequences of verification. Any contradiction between their view of the flood is totally ignored or discounted in one way or another. In this way, the Bible is protected from verification or from historical reality (although the YECs wouldn't agree with this characterization). They would say that their view is compatible with real science, but then they have a make-believe science.

In the case of the more liberals, they make sure that Genesis is not verifiable but do so in a different manner. They claim that it was never meant to be taken as real history and thus, whether conscious or not, it has the same effect as what the YECs are doing. They tend to say it is just another poem, but it doesn't actually describe real historical events. By doing this, there is no verification possible for the bible. It can 'mean' anything the person wishes to read into it (and I have collected about 20+ different and mutually exclusive manners. There is no possible way to tell who is right and who is wrong. So they remove historicity in any real sense from the Bible while the YECs remove reality from their world view in order to avoid having any possibility

To me, it is a disaster of biblical proportions for a religion to remove itself from the observable world, and from verification. It makes it unreal, it makes it disconnect from reality. Of course we have debated these issues round and round.

For anyone who doesn't know about George and I, I will say I deeply respect George, indeed we just published an article in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education24(2004):1:31-32 entitled "Flaws in a Young-Earth Cooling Mechanism," which is on some stuff Humphreys put in the RATE book. That being said, I think George is wrong on his approach to Genesis and he thinks I am wrong in mine. We have chased each other round the flagpole for about a decade of sometimes rauchous debate with occasional moments of light rather than heat.

The situation is rather that biblical scholars and theologians in the 19th century came to realize (a) that what was known of the human & natural history didn't agree with traditional readings of early Genesis as straightforward historical narrative & (b) that there was internal evidence that the Genesis texts should be read in other ways.

WE absolutely agree that modern science contradicts the traditional readings.

Tipler - & many others (e.g., P. Johnson) also don't realize that there are reasons with theology itself for arguing that fundamental theological claims are not accessible to scientific investigation. One, which I do not consider to be very good, is the excessively existentialist emphasis of theologians like Bultmann. But, as I have argued, a theology of the cross, with its implication that "God allows himself to be pushed out of the world onto a cross" (Bonhoeffer) suggests as a theological requirement that the world can be understood "though God were not given."

(To avoid misunderstanding: To say "fundamental theological claims are not accessible to scientific investigation" does not mean that study of history or the natural world has no relevance for theology. Historians can investigate the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate. They can't determine whether or not he is God Incarnate.)

I would absolutely agree that fundamental theological claims are unverifiable. But as you are aware, I do not agree that when a theological event leaves a historical record, that record should in principle be verifiable. That is why I have spent so much time on the flood. Both the concepts of a global flood and a Noahic Mesopotamian riverine flood are totally unsubstantiated by the geologic record and the laws of physics. And if they are unsubstantiated, that leaves 2 options. Read the account allegorical or simply say it is false. The weakness of the allegorical approach is that there is little way to risk one's belief system because one can always find a way to read any account, no matter how ridiculous it is, as allegorical or poetic or whatever the term du jour is. Indeed I could read certain eastern texts about the earth riding on an elephant standing on a turtles back as allegorical.

In this light, it is useful to look at the reactions other religions have to modern science and try to avoid their pitfalls. It is always easier to see pitfalls in others than in ourselves. Consider

Henry F. Schaefer, Science and Christianity: conflict or Coherence?" (Watkinsville, GA: The Apollo Trust, 2003), p. 53

The resistance of several streams of Hinduism to the Big Bang Theory was recently highlighted at a symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D. C. (April 1999). In prepared remarks Hindu philosopher Anindita Baslev of Aarhus University in Denmark quoted from the ancient texts of her religion and summarily dismissed the discussions of big Bang mechanics as 'cosmological speculations.

© source where applicable

He is referring to an article published by the New York Academy of Sciences Anindita N. Baslev, "The Idea of a Beginingless World Process: Perspectives from a Hindu Tradition," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 950:97-107 whose abstract can be found at http://www.annalsnyas.org/cgi/content/abstract/950/1/97

Basleve is from the University of Copenhagn, not Aarhus University according to the abstract.

And even certain parts of the creation story are subject to verification or falsification. A steady state theory of the universe, if that is what the evidence pointed to, would be disconfirmatory of the creation of the universe described in Genesis 1:1. My main point is that a religious document, if it is to be taken seriously should, in most cases be consistent with the historic record.

For anyone interested in my objections to the two flood concepts see
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/mflood.htm
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gflood.htm