In September, 2005, I traveled to London to attend a conference. While in London, I visited Westminster Abbey.
Bury Darwin: A Deep Dive into the Historical and Political Context
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.”
Darwin’s Burial and Evolution’s Triumph in 19th Century England
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.
Karl: I think science is terrific at answering many why questions, such as why THIS airplane won't fly whereas why this one will.
As far as all "deep" questions ("Why do natural laws seem to apply consistently throughout the universe?" or "Why does the universe exist rather than not exist?"), science offers little to no satisfaction. It is my take that science is largely a matter of documenting and quantifying correlations among phenomena and then deriving (or attempting to derive) elegant formula to describe these correlations. It risks going beyond its available tools and evidence when it attempts to tries to promote "ultimate" whys. Therefore, in my opinion, good science must be humble and must be willing to admit that it doesn't know what it doesn't know. What it knows, though, can properly be based on reasonable assumptions and extrapolations.
Even when science obediently stays within its evidentiary bounds, though, it wields extraordinary explanatory power. This is palpably true in all of the "mature" sciences. In other nascent areas (e.g. cognitive science), science is struggling to get a foothold, resulting in more speculation and less evidence, as theories are framed and tested. This is not a fault or a weakness of the scientific method, but a strength, in that the ultimate aim of science is always testable propositions leading to explanatory understanding.
I've grappled with these issues in other posts, such as http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/05/07/to-de… .
What is an "explanation?" I'm grappling with that too, as you can see in posts such as this: http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/08/17/carl-… and http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/10/10/satis…
When is comes to natural explanations there are two basic ones at work in the world around us.
Conservation of what is or non-conservation.
The thing is broke because the functioning of it parts was not maintained or conserved. However what seems "broke" to some people is working just fine to someone else, because they assume it is fine the way it is. These are all matters of value judgements at their core human mental constructs.
I understand and respect science when it the assumptions are really ones scientificaly determined. When they are mathematically and imagination derived I have serious doubts as should we all.
Karl equates conclusions from mathematical rigor with flights of imagination.
No wonder we can't communicate.
Dan equates mathematical possibilities as definite occurances, this is not clear science, it is called hypothetical and inductive science. It can never be proven, it can only either be assumed to possibly be true or to not be true.
I can comunicate this issue very well.
When works from the premise that the geological changes to the earth's surface indicate an extremely old earth, the assumption is that the rates we see happening now have been uniformly slow and only gradual changes have produced the majority of the features that we see present in the crust of the earth. This is an issue of a premise being the guiding rule for the extrapolation of geologic history.
It has been my contention repeatedly that this premise is faulty and that the major geologic features like plate techtonics, sea floor spreading, massive and very deep layered depositions as well as the ice ages have all been stretched apart by this assumption of gradualism, but they could also point to a catastrophy with such wide spread and devastating changes to the earth that they could easily be misinterpreted as being very likely impossible to interconnect to each other.
This is where I beg to differ with today's geologists.
Modern respected university geologists place the majority of catastrophies as punctuations in geologic history and unconnected in anyway to each other. They place their belief in slow gradualism as being much more of a dominant shaping influence to the earth crust. This is actually unobservable and an extrapolation based upon an assumption of deep time, and serial unrelated catastropies.
My view of geologic history is that there was a series of geologic catastrophies so huge and interrelated that we may never know the exact order and sequence, but that these catastrophies so altered the earth's crust major features that one day we will just as easily find evidence for these interelated catastrophies when we seriously start to look for it. One of these catastrophies included a massive release of both water soluble and water insoluble materials with various features of nuclear radiation that diffused and infiltrated through many crustal materials that we have misinterpreted as being present in the rocks since the beginning of time deep time.
Let's suppose one takes data over a definite recorded real time frame. One then plots the data and discovers an apparent relationship between variables in a specific definite recorded real time frame and location. The process is then repeated multiple times with the same or similar results showing that in the specific definite recorded time frames in a specific location a repeatable pattern is predictable.
This is mathematical rigor, I have no problems with this as nearly every scientist would agree. This is what is called empirical experimental research, that describes what is happening in real time by real people performing repeatable experiments with predictable outcomes.
What often happens next is what I clearly have a real problem with i.e. the typical scientific methodology that tries to go well beyond the reasonable ability of real people to do real experimental observation in specific real time frames and specific locations. Inductive statements are postulated about the general or universal applicability of the specific observed patterns taken in numerous real time experiments in specific locations from specific points of view that would be convienent if they were true for any point of view, for any specific location and any potential time frame conceivable.
The crux of the matter to me is that the Hypotheitical-Inductive logical conclusions that scientific imagination can conceive can not be proven by experiment, they can only be assumed true because there may be some degree of evidence (based upon one's original premises) for the rationality of the assumption.
I can look at the same evidence of radiation dating the rocks and say, what would it have meant if this rock was displaced and moved here, or if these sediments somehow aquired both soluble and insoluble nuclear radioisotopes during a huge world wide flood? If I worked from this premise, as opposed to once a rock always a rock with a specific calculatable age, I wouldn't needed to decide when a rock's nuclear clock was intialized ot even somehow reset which still alows me to assume that some other rocks never were reset through out the ages.
This all comes down to mathematical rigor based upon the assumed premises of univerality and applicability of extrapolated data while all the time looking for what one believes would be confirmation of what one was looking for in the first place.
This I have just a little bit of a problem with.
Karl rejects inductive reasoning. Karl rejects the suggestion that events which are observed today to occur at a constant rate (e.g., radioactive decay, tectonic plate movement, geologic erosion, expansion of the universe, etc.) probably have occurred at the same constant rate for eons, Karl rejects centuries of data collected from scores of different scientific fields, all of which indicate processes that are essentially slow and constant, and change that is essentially slow and gradual. Instead, Karl beliefs fanciful myths that are supported by zero observable facts of any kind. Enough said.
Karl writes:—"I can look at the same evidence of radiation dating the rocks and say, what would it have meant if this rock was displaced and moved here, or if these sediments somehow aquired both soluble and insoluble nuclear radioisotopes during a huge world wide flood? If I worked from this premise, as opposed to once a rock always a rock with a specific calculatable age, I wouldn’t needed to decide when a rock’s nuclear clock was intialized ot even somehow reset which still alows me to assume that some other rocks never were reset through out the ages."
At a guess the rocks of a given type in a given strata would exhibit wildly divergent characteristics. Do they? I'm not a geologist, but somehow I seriously doubt it. You would further find that dating of whole strata would be impossible because the radioisotope derivations of which you speak would be spread throughout all strata.
Catastrophism is not rejected by science (as it once was, certainly). But you have both examples present in the lithosphere. You have solid evidence of gradualism and then location specific evidence of catastrophe. They tend to validate each other rather than contradict. We can determine when the catastrophe happened by comparison to the data on gradual development, and we can determine the nature of the catastrophe.
—"What often happens next is what I clearly have a real problem with i.e. the typical scientific methodology that tries to go well beyond the reasonable ability of real people to do real experimental observation in specific real time frames and specific locations. Inductive statements are postulated about the general or universal applicability of the specific observed patterns taken in numerous real time experiments in specific locations from specific points of view that would be convienent if they were true for any point of view, for any specific location and any potential time frame conceivable."
So what you're claiming is the observed patterns are only valid for the period of observation, which makes the models true for only one place and one time? Logical extrapolation is not permitted? Then nothing in physics would work at all. Nothing.
I don't think he claims that. You're just misquoting him. From what I understand, the problem that Karl speaking of is that some of you take non-factual-assumptions about slow-gradual-process and work your way from there.
Nothing in physics would work? Nothing at all? You're being silly …
Sid,
Of course I'm being silly. Silly to match silly.
Karl said: "real experimental observation in specific real time frames and specific locations."
I presume from that he means you can only hold valid that which you can observe, and that what you observe is only true for the place and time you observe it. That's a profound constraint on "reasonable" extrapolation. By that token, you could make no claims about process.
I'm still having trouble with what constitutes "non-factual assumptions" in this context. Which? That plate tectonics are real? That mountains build up over time? That different minerals erode at different rates? That atmospheric conditions change and leave traces of that change in trapped bubbles in deep core ice? The claim that the Earth is four billion years old is based on all these "non-factual assumptions" which Karl seems blithely to brush aside because he thinks a global inundation explains all—not some, but ALL—to him erroneous measurements science uses to make such claims.
The paradox is that Karl seems to think that when scientists find evidence in a specific time and location, they are wrong to extrapolate it out to a global perspective. But when he finds evidence of a big flood, he seems to think it is more than simply local and time specific evidence and can be extrapolated out to global proportions. He claims therefore that mainstream science is not allowed to do precisely what he does in making his assertions.
Besides, Sid, I didn't misquote him—I quoted him verbatim and then asked for an explanation based on my understanding of his claims.
Mark states:
"At a guess the rocks of a given type in a given strata would exhibit wildly divergent characteristics. Do they? I’m not a geologist, but somehow I seriously doubt it. You would further find that dating of whole strata would be impossible because the radioisotope derivations of which you speak would be spread throughout all strata."
If you did this type of work and analysis as Dan has you would know that all of the data is not acdeptable, but is divergent unless one works the data selectively to arrive at what you want. Even different sections of the same same rock sample can lead to greatly divergent data.
Absolute dating of whole strata is never a "done deal" until someone has tried to eliminate as much of the divergency as possible so as to give a date that agrees with the presummed assumptionms of the hundreds of millions of years in the geologic record.
Mark, I don't not deny that plate techtonics, sea floor spreading or glacial periods have existed, what I refuse to believe is that they must have occurred over hundreds of millions of years because some atheists and agnostics wish it to be so. I have said it time and time again. The global cataclysmic events of the great flood have been morphed into slow bearly measurable uniformitarian results over eons. This is why geologists believe they have eliminated any proof for a global flood of proportions that would boggle existing science to try to explain all that occurred.
Grumpy would not want to hear anything about any interconnectedness between any global crustal changing events.
The shear volumes of limestone alone which are claimed to point to countless long ages are more like catastrophic tha uniformitarian.
When I say I don't like to extrapolate data I'm saying I don't trust what has been interpreted about what has been presently measured, or calulated concerning the geologic record. I discount the ability of people to make clear sensible and unbiased use of the data. Back in the 70's and 80's extrapolated temperature data told us the earth was heading into its next ice age. Recently extrapolated temperature data told us we are heading into a prolonged global warming phase that was being caused by man.
Whether you argree or not. Extraploation beyond know conditions and measured time frames is not fool proof science.
Karl: If what you are doing is distrusting the extrapolation of data, your conclusion regarding the age of the Earth should be "I don't know how old the Earth is," rather than "I know that the Earth is only a few thousand years old." Your God is clearly a God-of-the-gaps.
Karl writes:—"I refuse to believe is that they must have occurred over hundreds of millions of years because some atheists and agnostics wish it to be so."
That's ungenerous. It was not atheists who started coming up with these timelines, nor are all or even the majority of people who do this work atheists. That is speculation on your part.
I am not adamant about the interpretation of Genesis chapter 1 days being 24 hour earth days. I also think Usher's attempt to piece together ancestry to be error ridden as no one is born on the same day of the year as their ancestor. My "god of the gaps" as you might call it at least doesn't write off known recorded history as fables and folk tales.
I take Genesis One to be from God's perspective and it was then related to man. I take from Genesis Chapter 2 on to have a human historical perspective that cannot be ignored as unscientific because some other scientist(s) wish to believe something else about what they think is naturalistic and irreligious.
Any discussion of origins is religious, it all comes down to whose version you find more acceptable based upon whose premises concerning the natural world you believe.
I don't extrapolate a piece of wood to be longer than it was originally first grown or first cut down, even if the math says it would be reasonable. If time time itself had a beginning, are you of the variety of agnostic that believes everything just goes round and round. in which case any measurements concerning the distances to stars is irrelevant, as the starlight could be on its umpteen trip already.
I happen to think that both distance and time when it comes to the true nature of existence are not linear by most of our reckoning.
Mark Says:
"That’s ungenerous. It was not atheists who started coming up with these timelines, nor are all or even the majority of people who do this work atheists. That is speculation on your part."
You are correct and I should have stated it this way. The FOLLOWERS of the LEADERS who took us into the brave new world of naturalistic interpretation of everything are not necessarily atheists or agnostics.
However, the leaders who maintain their stranglehold upon the scientific establishment act as union bosses in their tactics and control of the universities. The leaders probably do worship something, its just that what that something is is not something you can get them to admit as a religion.
The theistic evolutionist followers are tolerated by the agnostic and atheistic leaders because they don't have any reason to worry about them questioning their worldview. If you however ask how many theistic evolutionists there are in universities, you will probably not hear many of them speak up as they don't want to be labelled as unscientific in their approach to life in general.
The real university leaders are circling the wagons and even the theistic evolutionists are being thrown under the bus (if they open their mouths) as the expression goes. I don't mean to categorize whereever you may find yourself philosophically in this fray, but I just call it as I see it. I could be wrong about the intentions of many of the unprofessional well educated college graduates who simply don't see any reason for mistrusting the all knowing authority of the scientists. I just have seen far too many well intending and moral students, pushed under the freight train by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan. These people sacrifice the hopes, minds, spirits and sometimes even the very lives of students at the altar of their benevolent models of naturalism.
I have looked at the history of science and the one thing I have come back to over and over again is that while some pretty lousy scientists tried to use the Bible as experimental science which it isn't. It is history, philosophy and literature. When the Bible mentions matters that could be considered related to a specific field of scientific investigation, it can often be misinterpreted as saying something it does not. People interpret the Bible with whatever worldview they bring to the words they read.
Karl,
Your response to Erich has much in it that is intriguing. I do think we have a "parochial" view of time, possibly of distance as well, but for reasons that would allow even less room for a young universe. be that as it may, you've given me food for thought.
As to your response to me, the system you describe would be a perfect one for the world of ecclesiastical politics from the Middle Ages on. I won't deny that some scientists would certainly possess the ego to do what you describe, but come on, the scientific process itself undoes them over time. Your description has paranoia written all over it. Of course, as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you.
You wrote:—"People interpret the Bible with whatever worldview they bring to the words they read."
I think that goes more for those who believe it.
Pharyngula, on "False equivalence":
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. They are making a "revised assumption" that would mean that the planet should have exploded into a great glowing cloud of hot vapor a few thousand years ago! Shouldn't that sort of compel you to rethink your excuses? But no, these guys just sail past the glaring contradiction with empirical reality as if it didn't exist.
There's a good reason creationism is not regarded as a fair equivalent to the scientific point of view. It's because the former fails to pay attention to the physical evidence, while the latter is built, not on presuppositions, but on that evidence.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/false_…
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=catastro…
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!