3 ms·

You may think it's bullshit. I disagree. It's true that in many cases, there is no conflict. There is no conflict (currently, at least) between believing that

by lutorm 16y ago

You may think it's bullshit. I disagree. It's true that in many cases, there is no conflict. There is no conflict (currently, at least) between believing that God was responsible for the Big Bang and belief in cosmology. In the case of believing that the Earth is <10kyr old, however, the conflict is clear. I don't see how one can argue with that without resorting to contrived beliefs that God set up a huge hoax by making the Universe seem to be 14Gyr old. (That's not a disprovable belief, of course, so it could be the case.)

bugsy 16y ago
You make a good point that a claim to creationist belief might be in terms of a belief that God set in motion the Big Bang. Noting of course that belief in the Truth of the Big Bang is as scientific as a belief in the Truth of the existence of God. Neither claim has been verified, both have arguments for and against, both have reasonable alternative theories. > In the case of believing that the Earth is <10kyr old, however, the conflict is clear. I have found that in the "scientific creationist" camp (scientific because they propose experiments to test hypotheses and write up their results in a paper format so that the experiment is understood and replicable) there is a lot of useful discussion about assumptions regarding dating. Not talking about the blind faith camp, talking about people asking how remnants of helium isotopes can be found in ancient rocks when the expected diffusion rates of the helium give a substantially different date than measuring remnant radioactive isotope content. These are interesting findings. They may not prove anything about God, but they are at least exploring interesting scientific issues. For example, most of them will be OK with saying the earth is about 4.5 billion years old as long as we acknowledge that by "years" we mean not in terms of orbits of the earth around the sun, but in terms of the time for radioactive decay to occur, assuming a given set of original conditions which may or may not be correct.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>>A Creationist can not perform what he thinks is correct science without performing what the rest of the world is incorrect science. >(That's not a disprovable belief, of course, so it could be the case.) Do you see the inconsistency here. You're saying on the one hand "it's bad science" and other the other admitting that their isn't any scientific reason to declare the position as false. A "running start" theory appears to be unfalsifiable and thus outside of the realms of scientific result.

by lutorm 16y ago

bugsy 16y ago

You make a good point that a claim to creationist belief might be in terms of a belief that God set in motion the Big Bang. Noting of course that belief in the Truth of the Big Bang is as scientific as a belief in the Truth of the existence of God. Neither claim has been verified, both have arguments for and against, both have reasonable alternative theories. > In the case of believing that the Earth is <10kyr old, however, the conflict is clear. I have found that in the "scientific creationist" camp (scientific because they propose experiments to test hypotheses and write up their results in a paper format so that the experiment is understood and replicable) there is a lot of useful discussion about assumptions regarding dating. Not talking about the blind faith camp, talking about people asking how remnants of helium isotopes can be found in ancient rocks when the expected diffusion rates of the helium give a substantially different date than measuring remnant radioactive isotope content. These are interesting findings. They may not prove anything about God, but they are at least exploring interesting scientific issues. For example, most of them will be OK with saying the earth is about 4.5 billion years old as long as we acknowledge that by "years" we mean not in terms of orbits of the earth around the sun, but in terms of the time for radioactive decay to occur, assuming a given set of original conditions which may or may not be correct.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago

>>A Creationist can not perform what he thinks is correct science without performing what the rest of the world is incorrect science. >(That's not a disprovable belief, of course, so it could be the case.) Do you see the inconsistency here. You're saying on the one hand "it's bad science" and other the other admitting that their isn't any scientific reason to declare the position as false. A "running start" theory appears to be unfalsifiable and thus outside of the realms of scientific result.