5 ms·

William Cowper and the Age of the Earth [pdf] (2019)

28 points by hwayne 2y ago

cvoss 2y ago
> The action of a comet rather than straightforward miracle was an attempt by the materialists and deists to reduce God’s direct influence over the world and attribute everything to the secondary causes of natural law. There is a lot to unpack there. There seems to be an understanding that if second causes are involved, then no miracle (or, at least, a lesser one) is occurring. But is not the existence and continued functioning of second causes miraculous? Or, why do the laws of physics remain constant (apparently)? There can be no physical reason for that without creating an infinite regress. The deist position that God is uninvolved in the clockwork universe he created is incompatible with omniscience. If its entire unfolding is contained within his thought, then his continued involvement is contained within the initial creative act. (Beware, also, of discussing time too literally in a context external to the universe.) Here is a relevant teaching from the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), a document which is still in use, with some ammendments, by many denomnations today: > 5.2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. > 5.3. God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.
- geye1234 2y ago
  The deist/materialist position is that God, if He acts at all, must be just another cause working in the universe, in the same manner as gravity, heat, charge, or whatever. Once this assumption is established (though rarely voiced), the "god of the gaps" attack is made. The idea is that God's action is a bad hypothesis, while [insert-theory-here] is a better one. But of course, this is question-begging. It assumes what it is trying to prove, namely that the totality of reality can be explained by scientific hypotheses of one kind or another. >But is not the existence and continued functioning of second causes miraculous? I mean, I wouldn't call it miraculous, since a miracle implies some sort of interference with the usual course of things. And calling it miraculous would also imply that second causes have no kind of explanatory power whatsoever, which is clearly false. This also gets us dangerously close to occasionalism, which is the idea that God causes everything independently of their visible causes, a kind of equal-and-opposite error to deism/materialism.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
theodorejb 2y ago
Why did people assume that strata were deposited over eons and represent different ages? Many of these layers can be viewed in the Grand Canyon, and there is a notable lack of erosion between them. As I see it, these paraconformities are a strong evidence that there were not large gaps of time between the strata - they must have been laid down rapidly over a relatively short period (e.g. by a great flood).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  You could start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratigraphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratigraphy and go from there. For the upper bound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Measurement_of_the_Earth's_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Measur...
- pushcx 2y ago
  TalkOrigins.org has many detailed rebuttals to creationist lies. This one hybridizes two topics, or maybe it’s a garbled version of CD210. Grand Canyon: https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD210.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD210.html Erosion: https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD610.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD610.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD620.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD620.html
- cossatot 2y ago
  It was assumed (correctly) by not long after Cowper's time that the strata were of different ages because of the different fossil assemblages in them, but of course no one had any data-derived numbers to put on the different eras. Furthermore, there is abundant evidence for erosion between many of the layers in the Grand Canyon, and they don't look anything like flood deposits, which are generally chaotic (unsorted, discontinuous bedding, etc) because of the high energy in the environment during deposition. Paraconformities indicate a cessation of deposition, which is often accompanied by erosion. They are 'para' conformities not because of the gap in time between the layers, but because there wasn't major deformation of the Earth's crust during that time (this means substantial tectonic activity), which would cause regional tilting of the lower (older) rocks. Throughout much of the middle of the country, there are young sediments deposited in a paraconformable relationship on top of rocks that are 400 million years old (making up the surficial bedrock of the region), because there hasn't been major tectonic activity in the region since those 400 million year old rocks were deposited (and indeed, for close to a billion years before that in much of the midcontinent).
alamortsubite 2y ago
Slightly OT, but Cowper street in Palo Alto is named after William Cowper. So a fun shibboleth (and as OP points out) is that the name is pronounced KOO-per.
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  Interesting, I grew up near where Cowper spent his last years, and I assumed it was pronounced pretty much phonetically (assuming you have a norfolk accent). However that looks likely to be wrong, given that he didn't grow up there.
- type_enthusiast 2y ago
  I grew up a couple streets over, and spent a lot of time on Cowper because a good friend lived there. Always called it Cow-per (like the livestock). So it's interesting to know I've been wrong all along!
PeterWhittaker 2y ago
As much as I like poetry, why do we attribute to a poet that which we owe to a most observant and introspective canal digger who felt free to question dogma and received wisdom? William Smith deserves so much of our respect. Cf, e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_that_Changed_the_World https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_that_Changed_the_Wor..., which summarizes the most excellent book.
- pushcx 2y ago
  We don’t. The article explains and credits the scientific research that the poet is referring to. And to answer your question a second way: because that research came decades earlier than Smith’s work.
sgt101 2y ago
My uncle believed in bible chronology. He believed it so much that he learned to program computers (to calculate and explore patterns in dates) and then built a series of web sites culminating in https://www.biblechronology.com/ https://www.biblechronology.com/ When he died he had assembled a team of people who worked on it. The site is now suffering from a bit of rot (the videos don't serve anymore) but he has been dead for six years so I suppose that's no surprise. I don't know if his "gang" still maintain it, but someone must be paying for the domain and hosting I suppose. The time and energy he committed to this are astonishing to me, he was a talented man - he had the option to be a partner at Arthur Anderson (progenitor of Accenture) before becoming a CFO at a series of small banks and building societies. His career was firmly on the up, he worked for one of the precursors of what became RBS in the 1980's. If things had gone differently perhaps he would have muzzled "Fred the Shred" and we'd all be the richer, especially his kids. But, at some point a conviction and faith gripped him and he gave up everything for his bible project. He died penniless. I wonder, because I don't understand, because I just see numerology and over interpretation, does it mean he was wrong? I think so, but perhaps that's just my faith talking.
- jasperry 2y ago
  Speaking as someone who has been where your uncle is (edit:was), I don't hear it discussed much how tempting religion is to scientific/nerdy types, or anyone with a thirst for knowledge. If you believe your religion's scriptures are an infallible set of truths handed down from above, then you've got the secrets of the universe in your hand and all you have to do to expand your knowledge is deduce correctly from that. It's an addictive hobby, and much easier and less messy than real science, where there's no final authority and you have to work for years to make a small discovery in one area and even then you might fail. Isaac Newton himself got caught up in that sort of thing.
  - geye1234 2y ago
    The reverse is also true. If you're a nerdy type, physics' power of prediction can lead you to think the whole of reality could be explained in principle by physics. But there's of course no good reason for making this leap. Physics explicitly limits its scope to the material, so cannot be used as an argument that the material is everything.

28 points by hwayne 2y ago

> The action of a comet rather than straightforward miracle was an attempt by the materialists and deists to reduce God’s direct influence over the world and attribute everything to the secondary causes of natural law. There is a lot to unpack there. There seems to be an understanding that if second causes are involved, then no miracle (or, at least, a lesser one) is occurring. But is not the existence and continued functioning of second causes miraculous? Or, why do the laws of physics remain constant (apparently)? There can be no physical reason for that without creating an infinite regress. The deist position that God is uninvolved in the clockwork universe he created is incompatible with omniscience. If its entire unfolding is contained within his thought, then his continued involvement is contained within the initial creative act. (Beware, also, of discussing time too literally in a context external to the universe.) Here is a relevant teaching from the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), a document which is still in use, with some ammendments, by many denomnations today: > 5.2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. > 5.3. God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.

geye1234 2y ago
The deist/materialist position is that God, if He acts at all, must be just another cause working in the universe, in the same manner as gravity, heat, charge, or whatever. Once this assumption is established (though rarely voiced), the "god of the gaps" attack is made. The idea is that God's action is a bad hypothesis, while [insert-theory-here] is a better one. But of course, this is question-begging. It assumes what it is trying to prove, namely that the totality of reality can be explained by scientific hypotheses of one kind or another. >But is not the existence and continued functioning of second causes miraculous? I mean, I wouldn't call it miraculous, since a miracle implies some sort of interference with the usual course of things. And calling it miraculous would also imply that second causes have no kind of explanatory power whatsoever, which is clearly false. This also gets us dangerously close to occasionalism, which is the idea that God causes everything independently of their visible causes, a kind of equal-and-opposite error to deism/materialism.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

theodorejb 2y ago

Why did people assume that strata were deposited over eons and represent different ages? Many of these layers can be viewed in the Grand Canyon, and there is a notable lack of erosion between them. As I see it, these paraconformities are a strong evidence that there were not large gaps of time between the strata - they must have been laid down rapidly over a relatively short period (e.g. by a great flood).

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
082349872349872 2y ago
You could start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratigraphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratigraphy and go from there. For the upper bound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Measurement_of_the_Earth's_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Measur...
pushcx 2y ago
TalkOrigins.org has many detailed rebuttals to creationist lies. This one hybridizes two topics, or maybe it’s a garbled version of CD210. Grand Canyon: https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD210.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD210.html Erosion: https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD610.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD610.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD620.html https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD620.html
cossatot 2y ago
It was assumed (correctly) by not long after Cowper's time that the strata were of different ages because of the different fossil assemblages in them, but of course no one had any data-derived numbers to put on the different eras. Furthermore, there is abundant evidence for erosion between many of the layers in the Grand Canyon, and they don't look anything like flood deposits, which are generally chaotic (unsorted, discontinuous bedding, etc) because of the high energy in the environment during deposition. Paraconformities indicate a cessation of deposition, which is often accompanied by erosion. They are 'para' conformities not because of the gap in time between the layers, but because there wasn't major deformation of the Earth's crust during that time (this means substantial tectonic activity), which would cause regional tilting of the lower (older) rocks. Throughout much of the middle of the country, there are young sediments deposited in a paraconformable relationship on top of rocks that are 400 million years old (making up the surficial bedrock of the region), because there hasn't been major tectonic activity in the region since those 400 million year old rocks were deposited (and indeed, for close to a billion years before that in much of the midcontinent).

alamortsubite 2y ago

Slightly OT, but Cowper street in Palo Alto is named after William Cowper. So a fun shibboleth (and as OP points out) is that the name is pronounced KOO-per.

KaiserPro 2y ago
Interesting, I grew up near where Cowper spent his last years, and I assumed it was pronounced pretty much phonetically (assuming you have a norfolk accent). However that looks likely to be wrong, given that he didn't grow up there.
type_enthusiast 2y ago
I grew up a couple streets over, and spent a lot of time on Cowper because a good friend lived there. Always called it Cow-per (like the livestock). So it's interesting to know I've been wrong all along!

PeterWhittaker 2y ago

As much as I like poetry, why do we attribute to a poet that which we owe to a most observant and introspective canal digger who felt free to question dogma and received wisdom? William Smith deserves so much of our respect. Cf, e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_that_Changed_the_World https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_that_Changed_the_Wor..., which summarizes the most excellent book.

pushcx 2y ago
We don’t. The article explains and credits the scientific research that the poet is referring to. And to answer your question a second way: because that research came decades earlier than Smith’s work.

sgt101 2y ago

My uncle believed in bible chronology. He believed it so much that he learned to program computers (to calculate and explore patterns in dates) and then built a series of web sites culminating in https://www.biblechronology.com/ https://www.biblechronology.com/ When he died he had assembled a team of people who worked on it. The site is now suffering from a bit of rot (the videos don't serve anymore) but he has been dead for six years so I suppose that's no surprise. I don't know if his "gang" still maintain it, but someone must be paying for the domain and hosting I suppose. The time and energy he committed to this are astonishing to me, he was a talented man - he had the option to be a partner at Arthur Anderson (progenitor of Accenture) before becoming a CFO at a series of small banks and building societies. His career was firmly on the up, he worked for one of the precursors of what became RBS in the 1980's. If things had gone differently perhaps he would have muzzled "Fred the Shred" and we'd all be the richer, especially his kids. But, at some point a conviction and faith gripped him and he gave up everything for his bible project. He died penniless. I wonder, because I don't understand, because I just see numerology and over interpretation, does it mean he was wrong? I think so, but perhaps that's just my faith talking.

jasperry 2y ago
Speaking as someone who has been where your uncle is (edit:was), I don't hear it discussed much how tempting religion is to scientific/nerdy types, or anyone with a thirst for knowledge. If you believe your religion's scriptures are an infallible set of truths handed down from above, then you've got the secrets of the universe in your hand and all you have to do to expand your knowledge is deduce correctly from that. It's an addictive hobby, and much easier and less messy than real science, where there's no final authority and you have to work for years to make a small discovery in one area and even then you might fail. Isaac Newton himself got caught up in that sort of thing.
- geye1234 2y ago
  The reverse is also true. If you're a nerdy type, physics' power of prediction can lead you to think the whole of reality could be explained in principle by physics. But there's of course no good reason for making this leap. Physics explicitly limits its scope to the material, so cannot be used as an argument that the material is everything.