Why did they bury Darwin in Westminster Abbey?
In September, 2005, I traveled to London to attend a conference. While in London, I visited Westminster Abbey.
It is hard to imagine a place more rich in history–there was so much to see. But I made sure that I took the time to visit the burial site of Charles Darwin. In comparison with many of the other tombs in the abbey, Darwin’s tomb is simple. I risked the “no photography” rule of the Abbey to take a (non-flash) photo:
While walking and meditating at Westminster Abby, I wondered how it came to pass that Darwin was buried there. Lo and behold, the January/February 2006 edition of Skeptical Inquirer contains an article directly on point: “Why Did They Bury Darwin in Westminster Abbey.” (The article is not available online, but you can see a brief description of it here)
The author of the article, R.G.Weyant, starts out as follows:
Late in the afternoon of Wednesday, April 20 6, 1882, a most improbable event occurred. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of individuals, including members of Parliament, ambassadors from the diplomatic corps, scientific notables, Church of England divines, the Lord Mayor of London, and other assorted dignitaries . . . the earthly remains of Charles Robert Darwin were interred in Westminster Abbey, close to those of such other great English scientists as Sir Isaac Newton.
Some of the information from this article came from a 2002 Darwin biography (Charles Darwin: the Power of Place) written by Janet Browne. She wrote that “Dying was the most political thing Darwin could’ve done. As Huxley and others were aware, to bury him in Westminster Abbey would celebrate both the man and the naturalistic, law governed science that he, and each member of the Darwinian circle, had striven, in his way, to establish.”
It turns out that the plan to bury Darwin in the Abbey was engineered by Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton and Darwin’s friend, Thomas Huxley. Through their efforts, a petition persuading church officials to approve the event was signed by various parliamentarians. “For many people, the ceremony in the abbey signaled not only Darwin’s importance to English society but also a kind of reconciliation between science and religion.” In fact, within a decade after the 1859 publication of origin of species, “most educated Englishman, including many of the clergy, had accepted the fact of evolution. More than a few were uneasy about where the evidence and the reason were taking them, but they went nonetheless.”
As elaborated in the Skeptical Inquirer article, by the time Darwin died, most Englishmen considered evolution to be more than a theory because the evidence in favor of evolution was “simply overwhelming.” At the time Darwin died, his ideas had “become the ideas of his time and culture, and it was convenient for both church and state to recognize that fact.” In fact, by the time Darwin died, evolution had become a source of English national pride.
Times have changed, of course. If Darwin died in the United States today, our government, prodded by fundamentalist churches, would arrange to have his remains unceremoniously thrown in a dumpster somewhere off the beaten path, along with all of those inconvenient fossils documenting the fact that species change over time.
Erich,
I’ll try again as I’m sure I will need again to describe why my “excuses” which allow me to resist the “ovewhelming” evidence seen by so many as abundant and circular concordant agreement between the sciences.
There has been an onging struggle for hundreds of years now over whose view of the geologic record is more appropriate. Just how much catastrophism can be inductively postulated and deductively verified?
or just how much uniformitarianism can be inductively postulated and deductively verified? Never is there a consideration for how one huge sudden catastrophy could impact the earth globe. This would mean having to piece together one unobserved piece with another to arrive at a possible real time explanation for what the uniformitarians want to spread out over eons. Of course we all know that it is much easier to postulate the uniformitarian model because there don’t need to be connections between millions of years, and therefore it all seems like perfectly acceptable science.
In some ways this question and its discussion in the sciences is even more polarized than the liberal and conservative mindsets of a political nature.
The uniformitarians are the ultra conservatives who decry foul everytime someone tries to state that a certain feature could only have been the result of what would appear to be a huge catastrophy. Likwise catastrophism as seen as wildly lacking scientific credibility because of the apparent disjointed “supernatural” assumptions of what their statements imply.
When a clear catastrophy is apparent, like when an entire ancient forest gets buried and fossilized, the uniformitarians find a way to explain how an earthquake and burial in mud make sure that no other linking event could have ocuured with in the same few million years because that woud point to a possible linkage between catastrophic events.
There is a diametrical divide in the philosophical approaches of these opposing points of view that will not allow them to consider if the other side even has any standing to try to discuss the issues involved.
The dismantling of this divide can best be accomplished in these regards by seriously considering not only the claims but also the philosophy and basic premises upon which each point of view firmly rests.
Grumpy won’t consider if connected catastrophism has any meritis. Erich pulls the supernatural “genie out of the box card” anytime it sounds impossible to have any science behind recorded historical events. Dan runs to the authoritive univeristy data which has dismantled the entire basis and premises of what is recorded in the writings of any peoples history as if they couldn’t be true because science says they can’t. Vicki doesn’t trust any rational approach to recorded ancient histroy because its all just literature and full of fables and old wives tails.
Everyonce a while, more than anyone here on DI would want to admit, a statement such as “Karl is refusing to investigate what we are telling him,” or “Karl shows a disdain for the workings of science,” or “Karl shows he couldn’t pass a calculus based physics course,” or “so and so” grows weary of having to point out the foolish ideas that would question macro-evolution. Here is the clincher, “all of the serious scientific interpretations of the data show that science is the only reliable way to deal with any study of the physical world.” That just a little self-agrandizing I would say.
I would say that the assumed conservatory gradual change of the uniformitarians can never be proven because of the extent of the extrapolation that this requires, yet because it remains unfalisifiable it somehow still gets recognized as naturalistic in nature and therefore it has an appearance of being more scientific than catastrophism.
I would also say that connections between the events of the Global flood event are by no means settled upon, and they will remain as such until these two opposing points of view, found today even in the secular universities come to terms with the data supporting catastrpohic interconnectedness between the earth surface processes that have been spread out over eons of time by the uniformitarians.
Some studies are beginning to point in this direction. Do a web search for catastrophic earth science research and read if you would like. There are some who value both points of view and don’t wholeheartedly favor the uniformitarian assumptions that only allow for punctuated disconnected catastrophism, but sudden and interconnected catastrophism that has shaped the earth’s surface and so many of the significant and puzzling land formations and geologic features.
Here’s a sample of that such a search brings up for consideration.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=catastrophic+earth+science+research+&aq=f&oq=
Happy New year!
Erich states:
“Using their Biblical presupposition, they need to explain away the evidence of the accumulation of radioactive decay products by assuming that decay rates were roughly one million fold greater in the recent past.”
This would be true if all of the radioactive materials ever produced were sedentary and never moved from one location to another. The most unverifyable piece of the assumptions is what was actually present when a given rock sample “solidified.” I have stated repeatedly that radioactive salts that are the constituent ingredients found in the sediments and even igneous materials are all of different degrees of water solubilities. The insoluble ones would not move very far from their “original” environmetal positions, whereas the soluble ones and of course the gaseous ones would likely be more readily transported away from their “original” environmental positions.
The real questions need to be,
How much radiation was really present at an assumable time in any specific rock sample?
How much radiactivity is transportable, leechable, and diffusionable by water or other factors?
How set in composition is any rock given its ability to interact with its environment?
Why do the insides of rocks often provide different ages than their extremities?
Karl, We’ve been over these gaps in your knowledge of atomic and subatomic structures on several other posts. All of your objections to the conclusions of nuclear scientists from the last century have been vigorously and repeatedly addressed. You have repeatedly demonstrated that you don’t actually know what radioactivity is, much less why it has been considered a reliable clock for the last half century.
Here’s a quickie:
Q: “Why do the insides of rocks often provide different ages than their extremities?”
A: Because the outsides of rocks are exposed to external chemistry, weathering, and physical processes. Because of this, no reputable lab has used “the whole rock method” or external scrapings to judge isotopic age since the early 1960’s. The best methods examine the internal compositions of individual crystals; secure prisons for misfit atoms.
Mark and Pharyngula and others point out that, however the radioisotopes are distributed in the planet, if the decay rates were significantly faster at any time in the last few million years, the planet would still be condensing from the vapor created by the heat of that decay.
If you are seriously proposing local miracles, regional violations of causality, and other exceptions to the known laws of nature, then anything is possible. Everything could have happened at any time, and nothing would be predictable. Science would never have evolved to the point where we can examine sedimentary rock layers on Mars, count and catalog individual atoms in a rock sample, watch stars forming many millions of years ago in real time, and completely read the genetic transcripts of growing numbers of species, in part to better identify how they are all related.
You may claim that I take it as an article of faith that the measurements we are taking (like those listed above) are valid. But because I learned how they are made from the first assumptions through how the tools are made, I believe I can claim more than faith in my understanding.
Karl: I appreciate your sincerity, but after scanning a couple of the articles you site, it seems more clear than ever that you are willing to bend yourself into a pretzel in order to save the young earth biblical account of geology. I don’t buy any of it for the many reasons many of the DI writers have repeatedly articulated in response to your many comments.
There’s nothing wrong with extrapolating, especially when it’s based on real evidence. If I see a woman who looks like my mother and acts like my mother, I can assume it’s my mother. When radioactive dating is verified to be accurate in countless applications, it is reasonable to rely on it, even when it contradicts the Genesis account of creation.
Assuming extraordinary supernatural interventions is not science. You are free to believe this sort of thing, but in my opinion your claims are extraordinary claims that require extraordinary proof, yet I see no proof. The earth is billions of years old, not thousands, and I’m fully willing to risk going to “hell” for putting my chips on rigorous (though sometimes fallible) science, rather than on mere wishes and hopes.
Erich,
Extrapolate all you want, just don’t be surprised when the lady wasn’t pregnant to begin with. Wrong assumptions have slapped scientists in the face before and they will do it again. Your mother may not even be who she says she is or she could have someone with a remarkable resemblance and mannerisms for that matter. Also, birth records are not fool proof either, ask Barack Obama about that one.
Why do you keep referring to hell as though I judge you or as though you think I fear losing my faith. It seems you show as much tenacity in trusting modern science to feed you the correct points of view regarding physical matters which science can never historically be fully justified in what it holds to be just the facts.
You have however finally stated that you are a gambling man because of the trust you place in what you accept as the proofs for what you believe hypothetical science has to offer. Is this a step of faith and belief which you acknowledge is placed in science or in the methodology of science?
If it is the methodology of science then what ever conclusions based upon premises that scientists arrive at along the way should never be so important as the methodology itself which fully needs to be stripped of all premsies used for any extrapolation. If not, your premises exclude you from reading another point of view beyond a brief quick scan.
Catastrophism may seem like its unagreeable to what you understand and thus you call it supernatural and unscientific but what you are really saying is my premises won’t allow me to consider the merits, if any, that another point of view might possess.
In another post recently you stated the foolishness of asking a woman when her baby was due because you and others assumed she was pregnant. Like wise you stated the foolishness of not believeing that a 70 year old could have a baby. Both of ideas have links to the natural world and how it operates, yet man can come to the wrong conclusions in what can be assumed possible or impossible.
Never assume, even when you are a rigorous scientist with the best of intentions. Data and observations should always be examined rom at least two points of view. One of these agrees with what you think has been true all along, the other disagrees with what you think has been true all along.
Dan
I have not stated that there was accelerated radioactivity that caused the earth to leak its radioistopes. That is a remote possibility but I think that is not the case. I believe the soluble and insoluble radioisotopes came from deep in the crust or even the mantle and were part of the fountains of the great deep that released so much of the innerds of the earth that to piece it together would take a sanctified faith filled imagination. I have no doubt that the scienctific method could back up every step of the way if the scientific point of view didn’t already posses all the baggage of the uniformitarian assumptions about how the earth’s surface got to be what it is today.
Karl: It is impossible to have a coherent world view on the basis of “don’t assume.”
Yes, I rely heavily and constantly on reasonable extrapolations from observed events (observed by me or those in whom I put my reasonable though skeptical trust). As David Hume argued hundreds of years ago, these “constant conjunctions” are the bedrock of science and the bedrock of common sense. You rely (informally) on the scientific method for 99% of what you think. Everyone does. You make exceptions where the scientific method is inconvenient–that is my take.
Karl,
You know, Catastrophism as you call it is not repugnant to science. It is fairly well accepted, just not of the sort you keep claiming. Asteroids have hit the planet. Earthquakes have unleashed gases and other sudden components of quick environmental change. In short, Shit Happens. All the time. It is not an alien or unwelcome phenomenon.
You persist in misunderstanding Dan. If the level of radioactivity necessary for the evidence you claim to represent a young earth scenario were present *where the evidence you claim is found* the mantle would have melted. I think we can all agree on the fact that high radioactivity translates into heat. For the layers of the lithosphere to exhibit as they do the traces that they do, they would have had to contain those levels. The sudden appearance of radioisotopes from “within” through the “fountains of the deep” would still have necessitated the presence of Dan’s high level within the layers we’re talking about for long enough that life as we now know it would not exist. The place would have been too damn hot. Period.
You know, it is interesting. This quote from you is telling: “Why do you keep referring to hell as though I judge you or as though you think I fear losing my faith. It seems you show as much tenacity in trusting modern science to feed you the correct points of view regarding physical matters which science can never historically be fully justified in what it holds to be just the facts.”
I find it interesting because it is the statement of an extreme skeptic, one who simply will not cede credibility to anything.
Except one thing. And that one thing is conveniently outside all realms of investigation. So you get to have your certainty and be a skeptic at the same time and never be at risk of being proven in error because your certainty is based on something that cannot be directly observed. Very convenient. So you get to lob stink bombs at everyone else and remain smugly certain.
I would say that you’re a devout deconstructionist, except….well, devout deconstructionists deconstruct everything.
Further:—”Never assume, even when you are a rigorous scientist with the best of intentions. Data and observations should always be examined rom at least two points of view. One of these agrees with what you think has been true all along, the other disagrees with what you think has been true all along.”
Why do you assume that scientists don’t do this as a matter of course? Ah, because they have arrived at conclusions you find unacceptable.
So who is the one really being fooled by preconceptions?
p.s. This really gets me:—”Also, birth records are not fool proof either, ask Barack Obama about that one.”
Once you sink your teeth into a notion, not even a dentist can dislodge it. You still think he’s not a U.S. citizen? Despite all the efforts of both political parties to try to find some way to disqualify him during the campaign? Here is where deductive reasoning shows its strength. Hillary Clinton wanted to be president. She continued running long after it was crystal clear she was going to lose. The Clintons are not above playing dirty, especially when they can do so based on something legal. It never came up. The RNC was still running out of Karl Rove’s playbook (which is a major reason McCain lost) and he would never balk at discrediting a candidate this way, once again especially if the basis of it were legal.
Ergo, there’s nothing to this canard about Obama’s supposed illegal citizenship status.
But you don’t like him. You’d rather subscribe to the urban myth than admit you’re wrong.
That is very consistent with your entire approach to science with which you disagree.
Karl, why is it important to you that the biblical account of creation be the correct account?
Oooops. I just tripped over this beaten dead horse, AGAIN!
Mike,
I happen to be a consistent honest believer and thinker that doesn’t throw out recorded history because I think I know better. Atheists with the assistance of naturalistic science faught for decades to divorce the historical content of the Bible from reality.
Honest non-assumptive archeology has yet to disprove anything recorded in the Bible. Now if you take the findings of natural science with its assumptions left and right you can disprove that a clay tablet with a recorded date on it can’t be correct because the radioactive dating says otherwise.
How are you going to believe the historical date or the “scientific” date - this is the crux of the entire matter for me. Science figures out how to adjust its wrong interpretations after it is shown they can’t be correct.
This is why I figure that the best recorded historical book is the best place to start with any scientific study. This is why I will not compromise on the human recored history from Genesis Chapter 2 on. I can be flexible up to many thousand years for Genesis 1 but I will not claim there is absolutely no evidence for a Global flood - that is plainly an attempt to discount nearly everything about early history recorded by man.
As you well know, scientists don’t let anything stand in the way of their perogative to extraploate and assume anything they darn well decide they want to assume.
I know that this horse is by now just a pile of bones bleaching in the sun, but I must respond too:
That. is. the. point.
Mark,
I don’t misunderstand Dan. I know where Dan comes from because it took me many years to come to the fully persuaded position that I hold to tenaciously. It would have been a much easier road to tow intellectually if I swallowed what the university experts told me was true. I didn’t want to take that road because I saw their work as biased and every bit as prone to error even though they say its the best we have to go on. I have probably taken more math and science and taught more math and science than Dan has. These are not the issue. I don’t teach them as Dan would like so I am obviously a heretic and not to be trusted.
I believe the extent of catastrophism as I view it is not impossible. I happen to believe there was one huge catastrophic exit wound that brought so much crust, mantle and water up from under the ground that you would say that would be totally unbelievable. There were also many smaller releases of water from the mantle and crustal materials all across the continents.
I happen to believe the earth contained a fully functioning and well regulated nuclear fission reactor that was well distrubuted all through the mantle. This entire functioning reactor was destroyed at the Global flood and both water soluble and water insoluble materials were ejected in huge quantities that were then redistributed across the surfaces of the continents. The fountains of the great deep were much more than simply “artesian wells.” We will never figure out scientifically the extent of everything that came up from down under during the global flood of Noah.
Mark stated this concerning my point of view:
“Except one thing. And that one thing is conveniently outside all realms of investigation. So you get to have your certainty and be a skeptic at the same time and never be at risk of being proven in error because your certainty is based on something that cannot be directly observed. Very convenient. So you get to lob stink bombs at everyone else and remain smugly certain.”
You state this in regards to how I refuse to relent in my opposition to naturalism’s “wisdom.” Yet, I see those who follow naturalism alone as their trusted point of view as being just as vulnerable and guilty of the same way of thinking and logical errors that you accuse me of.
Let me reword your statement a little so you see where I come from.
So naturalists get to have their certainty and be skeptics at the same time and never be at risk of being proven in error because their certainty is based on something that cannot be directly observed. Very convenient. So naturalists get to lob stink bombs at everyone else and remain smugly certain.
That is how I view the situation.
Karl writes:—”That is how I view the situation.”
Actually, I was referring to your basic belief in a Creator and in much, if not all, the baggage that with that.
Naturalists change their minds all the time. Ah, but the extent of those changes don’t affect their “faith” in methodology. I see.
Also:—”Atheists with the assistance of naturalistic science faught for decades to divorce the historical content of the Bible from reality.”
Firstly, you’re assuming again about the Atheists. This all begins to smack of conspiracy theory and Cabbalistic secret powers crap. But mainly, don’t feel so picked on. Until Schliemann, all ancient texts were looked upon as no more than stories. Why would the Bible be any different? When Schliemann found Troy, that began to change. And while archaeology has substantively verified many of the details in biblical accounts, they are rarely ever as recorded. But along with those, they have verified many things found in other, non-biblical texts.
Lastly, the one point Dan has made about the radiation levels necessary to make everything appear as it does in such a short time span is not really debatable. The lithosphere would be unable to support life. It would be a dead slurry of half-molten goo. The heat, Karl. The heat. Like so much else in basic science, you can’t ignore the heat.
I respect your tenacity, but your science is cock-eyed.
Vicki, If science wasn’t blinded by what the philosophy of naturalism tries to expect them to believe they wouldn’t have to qualify any of their stated findings as being in need of possible correction.
I see statements like this is textbooks. The rock is clearly 4.5 billion years old. This is extrapolation extrordinaire.
What’s wrong with stating from a scientific point of view that those who believe in the philosophy of naturalism and a very old earth believe the rock sample is billions of years old while those who think the extrapolation is a bit questionable wouldn’t agree with this as stated scientific fact.
The first presumes fact and could be tested as such on a true and false test by your professor. The second is a more valid scientific statement in my mind because it relates to the methodology used in arriving at a calculated date which could be in error.
Isn’t that a scientific and reasonable statement?
Those who believe that the only way to do science is from a naturalistic point of view that is stoic and all based upon numbers are only fooling themselves. Their philosophical point of view is more pernicious than they care to admit to anybody, especially themselves or their peer review process.
That science needs to be corrected means they have deliberately chosen to use their methodology to arrive at calculations that are error prone but the errors aren’t going to be even considered until someone forces them otherwise. This is where naturalistic philosophy rules the roast of extrapolated science, and why I don’t trust anything that doesn’t at least agree with actual recorded human history.
I ask anyone here at DI to tell me a what point and under what criteria they would accept recorded human history as having a bearing upon the findings of modern science.
If it was recorded that such and such a people saw the sun darkened at midday, would that be reliable or a folk tale?
If it was recorded by cave dwellers on a wall that they had killed a dinosaur, would that be reliable or a folk tale?
If it was recorded that an entire city was destroyed in a fire ball inferno, would that be reliable or a folk tale?
If it was recorded that an entire army was destroyed without the need for anyone in a defened city to have to fight, would that be reliable or a folk tale?
If a giant was captured and defeated by pigmies would that be reliable or a folk tale?
If it was recorded that such and such a people killed a dragon would that be reliable or a folk tale?
If it was recorded that there was a flood that lasted for over a year before the survivors got off the boat woukld that be reliable or a folk tale?
Who needs to vouch for the factualness of recorded historical statments before you will consider them reliable?
If you say you have to personally be there to witness it yourself then why do you believe scientists who do their observations and field work and then announce to you their findings?
Here’s a news article for linking catastrophism together, this will not sit well with the univeristy geologists.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-extinction2-2009jan02,0,896970.story
Karl, let’s compare: After high school calculus, I had at least one math course in each of my ten semesters of college (two degrees). Granted, most of them were applied math in engineering and systems analysis rather than bleeding edge theory. But I enjoyed helping classmates with homework and to prep for tests in courses in which I was not enrolled. Chaos theory was new when I was in school, so I had to read about it independently. I’ve read hundreds of columns and some books by Martin Gardner, and still read the occasional book about math to keep current. A book I’m now reading is A History of Mathematics, showing how math got to where it was in the 20th century from the earliest awareness of numbers, in under 700 pages.
My science background is different. I was raised by an astrophysicist and a horticulturist, surrounded by their books and journals. My father took me along on a couple of field missions for NASA when I was 9 and 10; backstage at Cape Kennedy just before Apollo 13 (I didn’t do it)). Our yard was a continuous biology lesson.
I only took the science courses required of University premeds, plus a couple of deeper courses in quantum physics. But I have read over 500 issues of Scientific American, and occasionally Science Magazine, Physics Today, or others.
I have not formally taught either science or math; just silversmithing. But I have applied math and physics working in a radiological dating lab, in industrial robotics design, and occasionally in software design.
[...] This is another post based on a comment by our online frenemy, Karl K. He said, [...]
Karl writes:—”That science needs to be corrected means they have deliberately chosen to use their methodology to arrive at calculations that are error prone but the errors aren’t going to be even considered until someone forces them otherwise. This is where naturalistic philosophy rules the roast of extrapolated science, and why I don’t trust anything that doesn’t at least agree with actual recorded human history.”
I don’t know of a single archaeologist or anthropologist who discounts history. That would be ridiculous.
—”I ask anyone here at DI to tell me a what point and under what criteria they would accept recorded human history as having a bearing upon the findings of modern science.”
The question seems absurd on its face. Things happened in history which at one time were inexplicable. Some of the explanations offered at the time are often called into question (Zeus did not throw a lightning bolt, the harvest was not destroyed by Quetzelcoatl) but the events themselves are rarely questioned until absolutely no evidence can be found for them (even Atlantic won’t go away).
—”If it was recorded that such and such a people saw the sun darkened at midday, would that be reliable or a folk tale?”
Eclipses are known phenomena, why would the recording of one be questioned?
—”If it was recorded by cave dwellers on a wall that they had killed a dinosaur, would that be reliable or a folk tale?”
Since humans and dinosaurs did not coexist, the recording would have to be studied to see what else it could be. I am not familiar with any cave paintings depicting dinosaurs, though.
—”If it was recorded that an entire city was destroyed in a fire ball inferno, would that be reliable or a folk tale?”
We know about meteors, asteroids, boloids. Things fall from the sky. Also, vulcanism accounts for a lot. We would not discount the account as a folktale, only the attribution of the event to divine retribution.
—”If it was recorded that an entire army was destroyed without the need for anyone in a defened city to have to fight, would that be reliable or a folk tale?”
We know of historically recent accounts of armies devastated by plague. But this begins to stretch credulity and we also have accounts of supposed great victories attributed to this or that which we know were other than what was recorded by the victors.
—”If a giant was captured and defeated by pigmies would that be reliable or a folk tale?”
Gigantism is a known phenomena. Again, what’s to dispute other than the almost inevitable exaggerations from oral traditions?
—”If it was recorded that such and such a people killed a dragon would that be reliable or a folk tale?”
You wouldn’t discount the fact that they killed something, but you would be skeptical about “dragons”, for which we have no evidence.
If it was recorded that there was a flood that lasted for over a year before the survivors got off the boat woukld that be reliable or a folk tale?
—”Who needs to vouch for the factualness of recorded historical statments before you will consider them reliable?”
The question is, reliable for what? If you ask me to take the traditionally espoused folk remedies for a serious illness which we can demonstrate to be ineffective rather than rely on modern medicine simply because a bit of recorded “history” claims the remedy worked for king so-n-so, then no, I would not find the historical record reliable. If you ask me to accept that ancient astronomers knew about Halley’s Comet and recorded it faithfully when it arrived in the neighborhood, well, sure. But if you ask me to accept that such cometary visitations are reliable predictors of bad times, well, hell no. Yet that was also often part of the “historical account.”
—”If you say you have to personally be there to witness it yourself then why do you believe scientists who do their observations and field work and then announce to you their findings?”
I don’t believe anyone says that other than in the course of frustrating conversations about things which are otherwise non-issues.
Academia was profoundly skeptical that Troy was anything other than a folk tale. Homer was not an eye-witness, but a poet writing some five to seven hundred years after the event. Oral traditions survived and he wrote the story down. It would seem reasonable to be skeptical. After all, we have fiction writers who make shit up all the time for entertainment! Why assume this is something only Western Civilization since the Renaissance indulged in?
When Schliemann found Troy based on Homer’s writings, everyone had to rethink their assumptions—which they did.
But because there was a city there and one level was clearly razed, did that mean there was a horse?
Never to be known. Should we take it as a given that there was? I would see no harm in believing the story, but to claim that it is absolutely true based on the finding of Troy is a stretch.
Was there a great war? Apparently, but we known this now based on findings from other civilizations that were extant at the time, that some massive amount of shit hit the fan at the time the Mycenaeans supposedly beseiged Troy. It would not be unreasonable to assume a major war occurred that damaged trade in the region and precipitated a collapse. (I’ve noted this in other posts that the collapse of the Hittite Empire, which happened about this time, left a power vacuum in Canaan, which the Israelites took advantage of.)
There are many facets to the picture which support valid readings of ancient historical events, but they have to be carefully weighed to sort out the propaganda from the facts, the hagiography from the biography, the b.s. from the way it happened.
Was there a Trojan War? More than likely, yes. Did it last ten years? Well…. Did the Greeks win it with a horse? Nice colorful touch, but probably not. Conclusion—the war happened, the politics were certainly more complex than those stated in Homer, and the attributes of the various warriors were doubtless entertainingly exaggerated.
On another front, did the Hebrews conquer Canaan? Probably. Did Joshua’s request that the sun be stopped so the battle could continue occur? He may have made the request, but the sun didn’t stop. We know this because we know what would have happened if that had happened.
Oh! But what about the all-powerful Yahweh’s intervention?
Not historical.
I said this wasn’t about who has taken or taught more math and science but thanks for sharing a bit about your background, schooling and work experience.
I did not have parents with college degrees. My father was a carpenter and my mother worked outside the home evenings when the children able to look after one another and then she worked full time when the children were all of school age. Our family had three brothers and four sisters. I was raised as a Christian and moderately defended my perspective of the world from the textbooks and National Geographic dogma that sought to discredit biblical recorded history.
After four years of high school sciences and math which also included calculus 1 and 2, I went to Hudson Valley Community College for two years where I received an associate’s degree in Engineering Science. This work included four semesters of calculus based physics, two courses in mechanics, two courses in chemistry, calculus 3, differential equations, abstract algebra, probability and statistics, thermodynamics, two computer courses, electrical circuits, and a couple of engineering science courses. I’m sure I left off something there as well as the other basic education related courses like English and the social sciences. This is where I received the basics of my higher education in math and the sciences. This was back in 1975-1977. I had 77 college credits (semester hours) from this community college.
I transferred into a polytechnic as a junior and considered going into the field of biomedical engineering until the classroom atmosphere there and belligerent deportment of the instructors told me this was not where I wanted to further my education. My biology professor either came to class drunk or with a hangover more often than not and for the first time I ran into the teaching assistants who seemed to care for nothing but doing what was required to keep them in good standing with the department. This was where I first learned the meaning of the long arm of the university gurus of higher education and how science (especially biology) materials had to be taught according to a naturalistic framework. I withdrew within six weeks and considered how I could possibly manage to come to terms with what I had just experienced. Blatant hostility towards my basic world view was not something I handled well to say the least.
The following fall I enrolled in Central Bible College and spent three more years obtaining a B.A. in Christian Education. I accredited and other 110 semester hour credits in courses that helped me better defend what I believed to be true.
From here I went into teaching and received a B.S. degree from Excelsior College and a Master of Science in Education from the College of Saint Rose. These were required to remain state certified to teach in both math and physics. I have taken several post graduate courses in several fields of science including earth science, modern physics and science instruction. I have taught all of the junior and senior high sciences and currently teach AP Physics as well.
I also have read many journals and publications, but I don’t do so with a blind eye to the philosophy of naturalism that pervades most modern perspectives. I have read much, and considered much evidence and still find the evidence in favor of naturalism and macro-evolution to not be overwhelming and as much as matter of faith as my perspective upon the Bible and Creation. I guess the only difference between you and I is that I never submitted to the university mindset that devours most young people these days.
Mark states:
“Lastly, the one point Dan has made about the radiation levels necessary to make everything appear as it does in such a short time span is not really debatable. The lithosphere would be unable to support life. It would be a dead slurry of half-molten goo. The heat, Karl. The heat. Like so much else in basic science, you can’t ignore the heat.”
I have considered the heat issues, you assume the only way for improper apparent half lives for radioactive remnants are from the result of concentrated accelerated nuclear decay, I do not.
I have said repeatedly that the appearances of accelerated nuclear decay or miscalculated actual half lives for a sample could all be the result of the transport of soluble radioisotopes either into or out of a sample, or by just a flat out error in the original presummed ratios of radioisotopes in a sample under investigation.
I have no where said that the radiation that is present on and in the lithosphere was the result of a high temperature meltdown. It is far to widely distributed and in such low concentrations that to believe this is preposterous.
I beleive the inner workings of the planet once depended upon water acting as both a moderator and a heat exchange transport fluid. When the water was ejected in large measure during the flood the heat production under the continental plates nearly all but ceased and the heat production under the oceanic plates slowed to a near stand still.
There is much more to this model but I’ll only be told I have no evidence for this so its not worth any further consideration.