My Problem with Creation Science

[Right Divider]

What's your point.

Really?

 

[Clete]

I agree. Philosophy precedes science chronologically and logically. Science requires philosophy, and not the other way around. Science became its own distinct discipline from philosophy, gradually I think at first, kind of beginning as philosophy of nature or natural philosophy.

So do you agree or not? Are science and philosophy two truly different things or aren't they? You seem to want it both ways.

Of course there is a sense in which they are different things but my point was that in the fundamental sense, they are the same thing. That "thing" being the application of reason toward the answering of questions. The differences all have to do with the questions being asked.

And ethics and morality too. Politics. Law. On the latter, philosophy isn't concerned with law practice, but with what law is, what law should be, such things.

This too in self-contradictory. There can be no practice of law without a philosophy of law. One is just a different aspect of the same thing.

Metephysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics and politics are the six main branches of philosphy. Science is applied metaphysical philosophy. Law is applied political philosophy.

 

[Stripe]

Science and philosophy are not truly two different things. Philosophy is the science that studies the fundamental nature of existence and of knowledge itself. They are both (supposed to be) the application of reason toward a particular topic.

I'll concede that they are very similar — perhaps indistinguishable — when all we can do is talk about them.

The goal in both pursuits is the truth. Any other goal turns them into something other than science and philosophy.

Aye, that's the goal. But reaching the goal has prerequisites that neither science nor philosophy can provide.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

"I am the way, the truth and the life."

Ka mea a Ihu: "Ko ahau te huarahi, te pono, te ora."

 

[Stripe]

Show me where I'm wrong, or committing any fallacy.

I'll have to spend some time on it. It might be solved by me just reading more of your posts so I get what you're saying a bit better.

We have evidence that is inconsistent with determinacy.

Physical evidence? Or philosophical?

We both agree that science here is blind.

I'm not sure I would say that science is blind. It's a tool wielded by people, so in that sense it might be blind, but I'm not sure that's what you mean.

There's no such thing as science that isn't also philosophy.

I always thought that this cartoon was incomplete:

I hope you agree that we have no evidence that Eden ever existed.

The Bible.

We don't have any evidence that God created Adam and Eve fully grown and mature either.

That is what scripture teaches.

Please explain, and I'm being genuine.

The problem is that you don't have a scientific approach to this subject. If you believe that God made the fossils in situ, is a physical model for their formation going to change your mind?

My position is that it's not worth arguing about the story that they're telling us from their measurements, but that it is worth arguing whether that story is true. And they have no leg to stand on when the discussion goes this way. It's entirely a matter of interpretation, as to whether the story they're saying is written in the rocks and in the stars, is actually true. And there's no PhDs in this interpretive domain. All our views are of equal authority. My view is that the story is fantastically improbable, and patently so. And again my opponents have no leg to stand on in retort. There's nothing they can do to argue that it's more likely than it appears, because the improbability is elemental to the story they're telling us is written in the rocks and in the stars. It's almost as if it's by design, ironically, that it's so improbable that we can't honestly believe it's a nonfiction account. What would punch through this otherwise basically impenetrable fortress of improbability, would be something like God, a nonlocal hidden variable pulling strings.

I suddenly feel great sympathy for the Darwinist who has to argue with you.

I'm not an expert, so at some point I have to yield to experts where experts already exist.

No, you don't.

To operate under the scientific model, you are only required to excise a belief when it has been proven physically impossible.

But if I am mistaken in thinking that their views weigh on theology but they really don't, then it's my duty to sort out that problem myself, and if I try to argue that they are overstepping geology, and I am wrong about that, then there must be a coherent explanation that resolves the apparent conflict, that is all on my side. My personal answer to this, is to seek a common ground between a plain reading of Genesis, with a plain reading of nature. I trust the PhDs in the right domain to tell me the plain reading of nature, and compare that with the plain reading of Genesis. The solution that's still working for me, is that the story written in nature is of the fantasy genre. Which is perfectly balanced with what most who believe that story, tell me is also the nature of the plain reading of Genesis. We both believe in apparently fantasy, so the question is, which one is more believable. And that's a question of faith, which is unsurprising and comfortable for us Christians, though it could be uncomfortable for atheists to realize.

The problem I sense in this is that you're compartmentalizing. And I'd say that your idea on the origin of fossils is a symptom of it.

If a geologist tells you that a rock is millions of years old, that is in conflict with the Bible. My approach would be to test both the geologist and the Bible. You seem to want to keep them separate.

I did that. That's where I start.

That's the spirit.

Being dismissed does mean that you're not going to advance your ideas.

Science isn't about advancing ideas. It's about throwing them out when they've been proved to be impossible.

Please inform me of the evidence that you think is inconsistent with fossils being "millions of years" old.

Original biological material.

When I went through university, I was taught that all fossils were entirely permineralized — that is, all of the creature had been replaced with rocks. That was 20 years ago and has been utterly overturned. It was probably obvious even at the time, but the old-age mindset could not conceive of organics lasting so long.

The best way, the only way, according to the story science is telling us, is that you don't generate heat at all, that all the heat that's ever going to be, already exists somewhere, in another form perhaps (fuel for example).

So the best way to generate heat is for God to create it ex nihilo. But if you need a ton of heat, and a very large heat density, I would say some form of either nuclear fusion, or if possible annihilating antimatter and matter?

What do you think?

I should have phrased the question as: What is the most efficient way to heat things?

Imagine a cold day and you want to warm your hands. You could light a fire. You could blow air into them. You could put gloves on. You could rub them together.

Which one of those would be the most efficient method — ie, the method that converts the greatest proportion of the energy expended into heat in the hands?

Lighting a fire might seem like the most helpful option, but the energy budget (collecting fuel, arranging the burn, heat energy lost to the environment) makes it an inefficient hand warmer. Something in the order of 1 percent of the heat generated would go to that specific task.

You could blow on your hands, but that's putting little actual heat into your hands. In fact it's doing a poor job of what gloves do in that it reduces the rate of heat transfer from your hands to the environment.

As you might have guessed, rubbing your hands together is the most efficient way to generate heat in them. A little energy lost to sound, but something like 80 percent of that kinetic energy is going into hand heating.

Same thing with melting a planet. The most efficient means of melting it is to rub it against itself.

Take two bricks and rub them together. You get hot bricks pretty quick. Put more pressure on them and you can create lots of sparks.

Now imagine those two bricks 100km below the Earth's surface. The pressure is so intense even at that relatively shallow depth that were the bricks to move at all against each other, they would melt.

So to melt a planet, move all of its internals relative to each other. Pressure and friction will do the rest.

Now you're asking how all that movement could be achieved, right? Easy. Right now the gravitational center of the Earth is, well, at the center of the Earth.

But, were there to be a big enough hole dug — something akin to an ocean basin would be enough, depending on its profile — the gravitational center would move. Move the center enough and all the rocks start moving relative to each other toward the new gravitational center. Basically, planets want to be round. If you put a big enough hole in one, it will morph back into a sphere.

And this isn't only rocks at a piddly 100km deep. Rocks at the Earth's center would move. At that depth, they don't melt. Because of the insane pressure, they turn into plasma with even the tiniest shake.

Now for the bad news:

This process has actually started with the flood acting upon a planet that was probably entirely rocky (no molten core, no significant radioactivity). The Bible describes the fountains of the deep. They tore up great holes in the Earth (along with hydroplate action).

We are sitting on a planet that is doomed to an end in which the elements will be melted. You can feel the process in action. Every earthquake is a reminder that material inside the planet is moving to a new center. And as it does, it is melting.

The physics of this are undeniable. The conservation of angular momentum as the rotation of the Earth increases is irrefutable evidence that the planet is shrinking. The only way it's shrinking is if the center is increasing in density. At the pressures of the Earth's center, melted rock is more dense than its parent material.

Now, try telling that story to a geologist and watch as his dedication to a godless reality trumps his professed adherence to a scientific philosophy.

Now the good news:

The truth is that only by starting with a commitment to our Creator can we ever hope to arrive at a clear understanding of what the rocks are telling us.

The Bible allows us insights that others will deny regardless of the evidence, but above all, Jesus has promised us that despite the rapidly approaching end, He has it all under control.

 

[Clete]

I'll concede that they are very similar — perhaps indistinguishable — when all we can do is talk about them.

Aye, that's the goal. But reaching the goal has prerequisites that neither science nor philosophy can provide.

That's a very philosophical statement you just made!

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

"I am the way, the truth and the life."

Ka mea a Ihu: "Ko ahau te huarahi, te pono, te ora."

I'm not sure what you mean. I understand that any use of sound reason tacitly concedes the existence of God but that's a far cry from "the fear of the Lord", right? There are a great many scientific advancements that have been made by people who don't even believe God exists, never mind have any fear of Him. Plato and Aristotle certainly had no understanding of the God who created them but the whole field of philosophy as we know it owes its very existence to them both.

Additionally, one cannot fear a thing without a knowledge of that thing and the threat it represents to one's safety. In other words, the fear (i.e. respect) of God is a rational reaction to the truth concerning Him and your position under the influence of His authority and power. Or put in fewer words, the fear of God is philosophy.

 

[Stripe]

That's a very philosophical statement you just made!

Guilty!

I'm not sure what you mean.

To arrive at truthful conclusions requires a willingness to accept the truth.

I understand that any use of sound reason tacitly concedes the existence of God but that's a far cry from "the fear of the Lord", right?

They are similar concepts in some respects. I see them this way:

Presupposionalism is a purely philosophical notion. Fear of the Lord requires a sense of the relationship between us and the Almighty.

There are a great many scientific advancements that have been made by people who don't even believe God exists, never mind have any fear of Him. Plato and Aristotle certainly had no understanding of the God who created them but the whole field of philosophy as we know it owes its very existence to them both.

If they were long-lived, what would they believe today? Darwinism? Big bang theory? Or God's word?

 

[Clete]

Guilty!


To arrive at truthful conclusions requires a willingness to accept the truth.

You keep saying things that could mean more than one thing and that I agree with if you mean it one way and that I disagree with if you mean it another way.

I want to avoid talking past one another and so can you unpack that sentence some for me? How would what you're saying there manifest itself in real life?

They are similar concepts in some respects. I see them this way:

Presupposionalism is a purely philosophical notion. Fear of the Lord requires a sense of the relationship between us and the Almighty.

I would say that the concept of wisdom qualifies as a purely philosophical notion. In fact, any pursuit of truth is a philosophical pursuit, especially if that pursuit has as its goal the understanding of not only what the truth is but why (i.e. wisdom).

If they were long-lived, what would they believe today? Darwinism? Big bang theory? Or God's word?

I see no evidence that people trend toward righteousness the longer they live so I'd say God's word is the least likely of the three.

I suspect, however, that you weren't asking me that for a direct answer. It seem like you were making a rhetorical point which I must admit escapes me.

 

[Stripe]

You keep saying things that could mean more than one thing and that I agree with if you mean it one way and that I disagree with if you mean it another way.
I want to avoid talking past one another and so can you unpack that sentence some for me? How would what you're saying there manifest itself in real life?

Hmmm. Good question.

It's difficult to express what I'm thinking with an example, which might mean I'm thinking about this too much.

Let me think on it.

I suspect, however, that you weren't asking me that for a direct answer. It seem like you were making a rhetorical point which I must admit escapes me.

Yeah.

The rhetoric I was trying to get across is that they can be right on things that do not show them that they are wrong about God.

 

[Clete]

Hmmm. Good question.

It's difficult to express what I'm thinking with an example, which might mean I'm thinking about this too much.

Let me think on it.

Yeah.

The rhetoric I was trying to get across is that they can be right on things that do not show them that they are wrong about God.

Oh well, I agree with that for sure. Half an hour on this website alone would provide all the proof of that anyone would ever need.

That doesn't make it something other than philosophical though. Like with any line of thinking, we are susceptible to error at any point along the line. In addition to just plain old fashioned errors and honest mistakes, there are also hidden presuppositions that we can be completely unaware that we are accepting, not to mention the constant threats of confirmation bias and paradigm blindness that it seems are waiting behind every philosophical bush. But regardless of the many pitfalls one can fall into along the way, the fact remains that sound reason is the only tool we have with which to learn anything, including the fact that we've made an error in our reasoning.

This is the reason science, real science, doesn't present any threat to the Christian worldview. The honest Christian isn't interested in believing fairy tales or any other kind of falsehood. We do not believe for belief's sake nor do we advocate blind faith. In fact, real science is based squarely on, and is a natural outgrowth of, the Christian worldview. Whether a particular person acknowledges that or is even ever made aware of it, doesn't make the truth of it go away, nor does his unwillingness to accept, or even see, the theological implications of his empirical, mathematical or theoretical work.

Clete

 

[Stripe]

That doesn't make it something other than philosophical though.

Oh. I'm not trying to make any strong distinction between philosophy and science.

Like with any line of thinking, we are susceptible to error at any point along the line. In addition to just plain old fashioned errors and honest mistakes, there are also hidden presuppositions that we can be completely unaware that we are accepting, not to mention the constant threats of confirmation bias and paradigm blindness that is seems are waiting behind every philosophical bush. But regardless of the many pitfalls one can fall into along the way, the fact remains that sound reason is the only tool we have with which to learn anything, including the fact that we've made an error in our reasoning.

Yep. I think that the presuppositional approach is the best one, especially when it comes to helping people assess their own beliefs.

Trying to flesh out what I was trying to express a bit better with those bible quotes, I would say that I think those verses are a "spiritual" expression of the presup approach. Not that they are exactly equivalent, but they are the best I can find, along with the style of the Bible, which says: "God exists, you're a fool if you don't believe it. Deal with it."

I'm paraphrasing.

Perhaps I'm just looking too hard for the approach I've adopted to be in the Bible somewhere.

This is the reason science, real science, doesn't present any threat to the Christian worldview. The honest Christian isn't interested in believing fairy tales or any other kind of falsehood. We do not believe for belief's sake nor do we advocate blind faith. In fact, real science is based squarely on, and is a natural outgrowth of, the Christian worldview. Whether a particular person acknowledges that or is even ever made aware of it, doesn't make the truth of it go away, nor does his unwillingness to accept, or even see, the theological implications of his empirical, mathematical or theoretical work.

Yeah. I hate it when people use the word "science" as if it automatically excluded God's word.

 

[Right Divider]

Yeah. I hate it when people use the word "science" as if it automatically excluded God's word.

Evolutionists (particularly of the atheist variety) always try to redefine terms to slant the playing field in their favor. For example, they try to redefine "evolution" to simply mean "change". Or "science" to mean "materialistic science". It's incredibly dishonest, but that's the way that they roll.

 

[Idolater]

I'll have to spend some time on it. It might be solved by me just reading more of your posts so I get what you're saying a bit better.



Physical evidence? Or philosophical?



I'm not sure I would say that science is blind. It's a tool wielded by people, so in that sense it might be blind, but I'm not sure that's what you mean.



I always thought that this cartoon was incomplete:

View attachment 297




The Bible.


That is what scripture teaches.



The problem is that you don't have a scientific approach to this subject. If you believe that God made the fossils in situ, is a physical model for their formation going to change your mind?



I suddenly feel great sympathy for the Darwinist who has to argue with you.



No, you don't.

To operate under the scientific model, you are only required to excise a belief when it has been proven physically impossible.



The problem I sense in this is that you're compartmentalizing. And I'd say that your idea on the origin of fossils is a symptom of it.

If a geologist tells you that a rock is millions of years old, that is in conflict with the Bible. My approach would be to test both the geologist and the Bible. You seem to want to keep them separate.



That's the spirit.



Science isn't about advancing ideas. It's about throwing them out when they've been proved to be impossible.



Original biological material.

When I went through university, I was taught that all fossils were entirely permineralized — that is, all of the creature had been replaced with rocks. That was 20 years ago and has been utterly overturned. It was probably obvious even at the time, but the old-age mindset could not conceive of organics lasting so long.



I should have phrased the question as: What is the most efficient way to heat things?

Imagine a cold day and you want to warm your hands. You could light a fire. You could blow air into them. You could put gloves on. You could rub them together.

Which one of those would be the most efficient method — ie, the method that converts the greatest proportion of the energy expended into heat in the hands?

Lighting a fire might seem like the most helpful option, but the energy budget (collecting fuel, arranging the burn, heat energy lost to the environment) makes it an inefficient hand warmer. Something in the order of 1 percent of the heat generated would go to that specific task.

You could blow on your hands, but that's putting little actual heat into your hands. In fact it's doing a poor job of what gloves do in that it reduces the rate of heat transfer from your hands to the environment.

As you might have guessed, rubbing your hands together is the most efficient way to generate heat in them. A little energy lost to sound, but something like 80 percent of that kinetic energy is going into hand heating.

Same thing with melting a planet. The most efficient means of melting it is to rub it against itself.

Take two bricks and rub them together. You get hot bricks pretty quick. Put more pressure on them and you can create lots of sparks.

Now imagine those two bricks 100km below the Earth's surface. The pressure is so intense even at that relatively shallow depth that were the bricks to move at all against each other, they would melt.

So to melt a planet, move all of its internals relative to each other. Pressure and friction will do the rest.

Now you're asking how all that movement could be achieved, right? Easy. Right now the gravitational center of the Earth is, well, at the center of the Earth.

But, were there to be a big enough hole dug — something akin to an ocean basin would be enough, depending on its profile — the gravitational center would move. Move the center enough and all the rocks start moving relative to each other toward the new gravitational center. Basically, planets want to be round. If you put a big enough hole in one, it will morph back into a sphere.

And this isn't only rocks at a piddly 100km deep. Rocks at the Earth's center would move. At that depth, they don't melt. Because of the insane pressure, they turn into plasma with even the tiniest shake.

Now for the bad news:

This process has actually started with the flood acting upon a planet that was probably entirely rocky (no molten core, no significant radioactivity). The Bible describes the fountains of the deep. They tore up great holes in the Earth (along with hydroplate action).

We are sitting on a planet that is doomed to an end in which the elements will be melted. You can feel the process in action. Every earthquake is a reminder that material inside the planet is moving to a new center. And as it does, it is melting.

The physics of this are undeniable. The conservation of angular momentum as the rotation of the Earth increases is irrefutable evidence that the planet is shrinking. The only way it's shrinking is if the center is increasing in density. At the pressures of the Earth's center, melted rock is more dense than its parent material.

Now, try telling that story to a geologist and watch as his dedication to a godless reality trumps his professed adherence to a scientific philosophy.

Now the good news:

The truth is that only by starting with a commitment to our Creator can we ever hope to arrive at a clear understanding of what the rocks are telling us.

The Bible allows us insights that others will deny regardless of the evidence, but above all, Jesus has promised us that despite the rapidly approaching end, He has it all under control.

Very interesting. So the idea is that the earth was created a solid hunk of rock, and that the flood caused its insides to liquify? So that means no earthquakes or vulcanism until after the flood then. Very interesting. Given this idea, and the competing idea, which let's just call the standard cosmological model (parallel to the standard model of particle physics, both of them are wrong, but it's still useful to explain what we mean by comparing it with a standard model), what evidence is consistent with this idea, and what is inconsistent with it? For example, I find the basically immeasurable improbability of the standard model to be inconsistent with the evidence that the earth is the perfect habitat for man, and that there are who knows, millions of different species of organism. The odds of all this occurring through sheer chance are too long for me, it's orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude more likely i m o that God simply exists. But also I find the biblical account of Noah's ark to be inconsistent with dinosaurs being excluded from its salvation from the flood. There isn't any instruction given to Noah to exclude dinosaurs in the text. Surely, the logistics of boarding brontosaurs and T. rexes would be difficult to imagine, but even given all the animals we have today would pose a similar logistical problem, it would only be a matter of degree and not a categorically different thing, to build the ark large enough to harbor all the dinosaurs, as well as all the elephants and lions and tigers. In either case we're talking about a roofed barge the size of a small island.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Very interesting. So the idea is that the earth was created a solid hunk of rock,

With water on top.

and that the flood caused its insides to liquify? So that means no earthquakes or vulcanism until after the flood then. Very interesting. Given this idea, and the competing idea, which let's just call the standard cosmological model (parallel to the standard model of particle physics, both of them are wrong, but it's still useful to explain what we mean by comparing it with a standard model), what evidence is consistent with this idea, and what is inconsistent with it? For example, I find the basically immeasurable improbability of the standard model to be inconsistent with the evidence that the earth is the perfect habitat for man, and that there are who knows, millions of different species of organism. The odds of all this occurring through sheer chance are too long for me, it's orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude more likely i m o that God simply exists. But also I find the biblical account of Noah's ark to be inconsistent with dinosaurs being excluded from its salvation from the flood. There isn't any instruction given to Noah to exclude dinosaurs in the text. Surely, the logistics of boarding brontosaurs and T. rexes would be difficult to imagine, but even given all the animals we have today would pose a similar logistical problem, it would only be a matter of degree and not a categorically different thing, to build the ark large enough to harbor all the dinosaurs, as well as all the elephants and lions and tigers. In either case we're talking about a roofed barge the size of a small island.

The average size of the animals on the ark would have been about the size of a sheep.

Also, you're forgetting that animals, even dinos, grow in size as time goes on. The dinos we see in museums were most likely adults.

But there was no requirement for all the animals, dinos included, to be adults.

You're also forgetting that the Bible GIVES US the dimensions of the ark, in clear enough detail that Answers in Genesis has even built a life-size replica of it.

I recommend you check it out.

Ark Encounter

Prepare to be blown away as you explore the life-size reconstruction of Noah’s Ark.

answersingenesis.org

 

[Idolater]

So do you agree or not? Are science and philosophy two truly different things or aren't they? You seem to want it both ways.

Of course there is a sense in which they are different things but my point was that in the fundamental sense, they are the same thing. That "thing" being the application of reason toward the answering of questions. The differences all have to do with the questions being asked.

They are both concerned with truth, or with facts. With true propositions. I would say that science is concerned particularly with things that can be measured is all. But as I ponder your question I'll also now add that science is also unconcerned with ethics and morality, and philosophy doesn't rule out these topics. Ethics and morals have to do with imperatives, and not just with indicative /declarative propositions.

This too in self-contradictory. There can be no practice of law without a philosophy of law. One is just a different aspect of the same thing.

Theory and practice are conventionally accepted as distinct. And there can be practice without theory, or at least, without being aware of theory.

Metephysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics and politics are the six main branches of philosphy.

So do you have ethics and morals in 'politics' here?

Science is applied metaphysical philosophy.

Hmm. OK.

Law is applied political philosophy.

Legal theory and political theory are related to each other, but there are political situations where there is no law, such as a dictatorship or absolute monarchism where the head of state simply doesn't administrate through law. At least conceivably. Certainly in smaller political communities like families and businesses. But also moral and ethical theory relate to legal and to political theory. There are lines of demarcation, but they basically dissolve when your political community gets large enough.

 

[Idolater]

With water on top.



The average size of the animals on the ark would have been about the size of a sheep.

Also, you're forgetting that animals, even dinos, grow in size as time goes on. The dinos we see in museums were most likely adults.

But there was no requirement for all the animals, dinos included, to be adults.

Excellent point. He could certainly have collected youngsters, male and female, rather than full grown adults, and fulfilled his command, and its purpose. I suppose it's also possible that even though juvenile dinosaurs might have been on the ark, that not all of the species survived the trip! The Bible doesn't specify one way or the other.

You're also forgetting that the Bible GIVES US the dimensions of the ark, in clear enough detail that Answers in Genesis has even built a life-size replica of it.

I recommend you check it out.

Ark Encounter

Prepare to be blown away as you explore the life-size reconstruction of Noah’s Ark.

answersingenesis.org

Yes but this depends upon us knowing for certain what the unit of measurement was. While I don't doubt the numerals given, I do doubt that we know what that unit of measurement was. It might be larger than we think.

 

[Right Divider]

Very interesting. So the idea is that the earth was created a solid hunk of rock, and that the flood caused its insides to liquify?

We are not told what the core of the earth was like at creation. We are told that there was a crust with water under it and over it.

So that means no earthquakes or vulcanism until after the flood then. Very interesting.

Do you have any reason to believe that there were earthquakes or vulcanism before the flood?

But also I find the biblical account of Noah's ark to be inconsistent with dinosaurs being excluded from its salvation from the flood.

Why do you believe that there were no dinosaurs on the ark?

There isn't any instruction given to Noah to exclude dinosaurs in the text.

Exactly.

Surely, the logistics of boarding brontosaurs and T. rexes would be difficult to imagine, but even given all the animals we have today would pose a similar logistical problem, it would only be a matter of degree and not a categorically different thing, to build the ark large enough to harbor all the dinosaurs, as well as all the elephants and lions and tigers. In either case we're talking about a roofed barge the size of a small island.

Baby brontosaurs and baby T. rexes are not that difficult to imagine.

Have you ever noticed that you spend a lot of time on what you imagine instead of actual facts?

 

[Clete]

Very interesting. So the idea is that the earth was created a solid hunk of rock, and that the flood caused its insides to liquify? So that means no earthquakes or vulcanism until after the flood then. Very interesting. Given this idea, and the competing idea, which let's just call the standard cosmological model (parallel to the standard model of particle physics, both of them are wrong, but it's still useful to explain what we mean by comparing it with a standard model), what evidence is consistent with this idea, and what is inconsistent with it? For example, I find the basically immeasurable improbability of the standard model to be inconsistent with the evidence that the earth is the perfect habitat for man, and that there are who knows, millions of different species of organism. The odds of all this occurring through sheer chance are too long for me, it's orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude more likely i m o that God simply exists. But also I find the biblical account of Noah's ark to be inconsistent with dinosaurs being excluded from its salvation from the flood. There isn't any instruction given to Noah to exclude dinosaurs in the text. Surely, the logistics of boarding brontosaurs and T. rexes would be difficult to imagine, but even given all the animals we have today would pose a similar logistical problem, it would only be a matter of degree and not a categorically different thing, to build the ark large enough to harbor all the dinosaurs, as well as all the elephants and lions and tigers. In either case we're talking about a roofed barge the size of a small island.

This whole statement betrays a woeful ignorance of the biblical material There is nothing that suggests that the Earth was created a solid hunk of rock and there is absolutely nothing in the text of Genesis that is the least bit "inconsistent with dinosaurs being excluded from..." Noah's Ark. That latter point is a great example of an argument from silence, by the way, and your use of it here is a terrific exemplar of why it is a logical fallacy.

The only animals that got into the ark are the ones that God sent to it. Noah didn't go hunting animals down to drag them kicking and screeching into the ark. On the contrary, God caused them to come to the ark without any help from Noah. If God didn't send them then they were excluded. Whether ANY dinosaurs were included or not is a matter of speculation but it seems obvious that most dinosaurs were not.

The historical record of the flood and the antediluvian Earth is quite completely compatible with the evidence that is prevalent all over the globe. If you do not see it, I submit that isn't because it doesn't exist but because your paradigm has blinded you to it. The evidence is everywhere and readily seen by anyone who wants to open their minds to the possibility of its existence. In fact, such people see all over the place that which others insist doesn't exist. Such is the power of paradigm blindness.

Perhaps the best, and by "best" I mean most complete and well thought through theory about what the antediluvian Earth was like, what caused Noah Flood and why we see the geology that we see today is known as the Hydroplate Theory and is written up in full detail in a book called "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood" by Dr. Walt Brown. Click the link there to get the nuts and bolts of the theory.

Clete

 

[Clete]

They are both concerned with truth, or with facts. With true propositions. I would say that science is concerned particularly with things that can be measured is all. But as I ponder your question I'll also now add that science is also unconcerned with ethics and morality, and philosophy doesn't rule out these topics. Ethics and morals have to do with imperatives, and not just with indicative /declarative propositions.

You keep riding the fence. Do you accept that they are, in essence, the same thing or don't you?

You start by effectively acknowledging that they are and then trying to hedge your position but your hedge only restates what I've already said which is that the only difference between science and philosophy is the questions they are trying to answer.

Theory and practice are conventionally accepted as distinct. And there can be practice without theory, or at least, without being aware of theory.

No, you are simply wrong about this. There can be no practice of law without a theory of law - period. Any attempt to practice law absent a theory of law is arbitrary and more or less a practice of anarchy, which is itself a theory of law. There cannot even be any form of legal process that someone might try to practice unless there was some theory of law that precipitated that process. You can't even do something as simple as writing a speeding ticket if there is no theory of law that produced a law against speeding, determined the legal remedy, delegated the authority needed to enforce that law and produced not only the procedure for that authority is to follow in the issuance the ticket but produced that actual form that is the ticket itself.

So do you have ethics and morals in 'politics' here?

Umm, no. Good question! If you notice I only listed five things in my list of "six main branches of philosophy". I accidentally left of the field of philosophy known as ethics.

Hmm. OK.

You don't seem to believe me. I promise it is true. Science is applied metaphysics. The word "metaphysics" means the study of the natural. When doing metaphysics from a strictly philosophical direction then you're dealing with questions like "What is real?" or "What is quality?" and other abstract things like that but when you take the same kind of question and start trying to find practical ways to answer them in the real world, you end up doing things that are entirely indistinguishable from what you would call science. It has to do with performing experiments, observing and making measurements of nature and the processes thereof.

Legal theory and political theory are related to each other, but there are political situations where there is no law, such as a dictatorship or absolute monarchism where the head of state simply doesn't administrate through law. At least conceivably. Certainly in smaller political communities like families and businesses. But also moral and ethical theory relate to legal and to political theory. There are lines of demarcation, but they basically dissolve when your political community gets large enough.

None of the branches of philosophy are independent of the other. They are all interrelated and overlap in many ways but that's beside the point. The point is simply that science and philosophy are not the separate things that many people want to pretend them to be.

Here's a great quote that illustrates just how philosophical science really is. It does a great job of exposing the hidden philosophical assumptions that science (especially modern scientific cosmology) makes all over the place...

“Long before I believed Theology to be true I had already decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it; it is the one we touched on a fortnight ago. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears. Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula or the remotest part obeys the thought-laws of the human scientist here and now in his laboratory, in other words, unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based. The difficulty is to me a fatal one; and the fact that when you put it to many scientists, far from having an answer, they seem not even to understand what the difficulty is, assures me that I have not found a mare’s nest but detected a radical disease in their whole mode of thought from the very beginning. The man who has once understood the situation is compelled henceforth to regard the scientific cosmology as being, in principle, a myth; though no doubt a great many true particulars have been worked into it.” - C.S. Lewis (p.162)
– They Asked for a Paper. Geoffrey Bles London 1962 211 p.

 

[Stripe]

So the idea is that the earth was created a solid hunk of rock, and that the flood caused its insides to liquify?

Something like that. I'm not certain that the Earth was a cold lump; it might have had a source of internal heat. "Liquefy" is a bit strong at this stage. Eventually the planet will melt because of the runaway process that is at work and the outer core is indeed molten, but most of the Earth is still rocky.

So that means no earthquakes or vulcanism until after the flood then.

Yep. Safer place. Well, until the flood, I guess.

What evidence is consistent with this idea.

I would say the example of the moon is the best source of evidence. That has volcanism and seismicity without the driving factors that the "standard model" proposes as the sources on Earth — tectonics.

It also has great big holes in it, warmth from its center and a sinking feature consistent with the "planetary" reformation model I proposed.

What is inconsistent with it?

That's difficult. I think that there are some seismic studies that show unexpected orogeny and "plate" movement if my model were to be upheld. They are difficult to quantify even against the standard model, so the question you pose is not greatly accessible.

I generally rely on Darwinists to punch holes in my ideas to assess its weaknesses. However, they have become horribly unwilling to do even a bad job of assessing competing ideas.

I find the biblical account of Noah's ark to be inconsistent with dinosaurs being excluded from its salvation from the flood.

Why do you think there were no dinos on the ark? Size? the average size of a dino was about equal to a sheep, and there would have been no requirement for God to bring fully grown specimens to Noah.

 

[Gary K]

Why do you think there were no dinos on the ark? Size? the average size of a dino was about equal to a sheep, and there would have been no requirement for God to bring fully grown specimens to Noah.

I would comment just on this.

Probably 30 years ago there were a lot of creationist videos floating around on the pre flood world and the world after the flood. The major theme was that the pre flood earth was radically different than the post flood earth. Before the flood there was a band of water surrounding the earth. It filtered out the radiation of space and stopped the influx of ultraviolet light. It also gave the earth's atmosphere a higher oxygen content and atmospheric pressure. It was very much like a biometric chamber. This caused plant growth to explode and as dinosaurs were mainly plant eaters their function was to keep the flora eaten back in areas which were not populated. They were the large scale goats of today when it came to eating back the excess foliage as a goat can eat just about any kind of woody foliage.

As the post flood earth would have a much thinner atmosphere there would be no need for large animals to eat back flora as there would not be the same growth rates due to a greatly changed atmosphere. And there would be ice and snow during the winters which did not exist before the flood which also negates plant growth like there was before the flood.

So, my point is that God didn't bring the dinosaurs on the ark because they would have simply starved to death in the greatly changed post flood world.

As evidence of this there has been found buried deep underground brass that cannot be duplicated today except in small foundries in which all ultraviolet light has been filtered out.