Jorge's opportunity to debate specific data

[rogue06]

The only way to do that would require distorting Scripture to the point where, in essence, I've re-written it. Oh, wait ... that's precisely what Theistic Evolutionists have done. Sorry, my bad.

You rebuke those you see as adding to and distorting Scripture yet you have no problem doing exactly what you condemn others for.

You support the YEC contention that after Noah's Flood the planet's landscape was radically changed (entire mountain ranges were created, canyons were gouged out not to mention everything had been buried under thousands of feet of sediment^[1]). Where is this said or even suggested in the Bible?

You've previously declared that mankind had scattered all over the planet (even saying there were billions of people) before the Flood in order to justify the necessity of it being global in scope. Nowhere does it say anything even remotely like this in the Bible but you see nothing wrong with adding it in order to support YEC dogma. In fact, in the account of the Tower of Babel it suggests that if anything prior to God dispersing mankind all over the face of the earth (Gen. 11:8) we tended to congregate together in close proximity.

At the same place I'm debating the YEC who said that Christ didn't die on the cross I brought this up in a discussion on the Flood pointing out how YECs change any of the details provided in order to make it match their beliefs such as claiming that the animals brought aboard the Ark were either babies (or in some cases in egg form)^[2] to explain away overcrowding the Ark despite the fact that the animals were described as being the "male and his mate" (Gen. 7:2) and leaving in families (Gen. 8:19) which implies that they were old enough to reproduce.

Another YEC chimed in excusing such changes saying that

As far as adding to the Bible we all do that to some extent. especially in Genesis. It began way back in the Talmud. They added Lilith and a Nephalim stowed away on top of the Ark.

So it is always fine and dandy when YECs engage in the behavior that they caustically condemn in others just like when you agree with atheists about how Scripture should be read and understood while simultaneously criticizing just that sort of conduct when you think someone else does it.







1. Many YECs even support the notion that there had been a single landmass prior to the Flood which got broken apart with the continents zipping across the planet to their present locations (despite the fact that the resultant friction would be more than enough to produce sufficient heat that would reduce the planet's crust to molten slag).

2. This is also a view you espoused in threads on the pre-crash Tweb. And please note, that nowhere does it say that animals came to the ark and then laid some eggs and then wandered off

[TheLurch]

A metal alloy with certain properties wants to be manufactured for use in space. It is tested here on Earth under a simulated space environment (temperature, vacuum, etc.) and there is no reason to expect it to behave differently in actual space - and it doesn't.

But - and this is where we must exercise caution - you must keep in mind that a significant physical discontinuity does not permit extrapolating what we observe 'here and now' into what is 'then and there'.(1) Weaker versions of that principle are quite common. For instance, you can extrapolate sound waves through a large body of water very accurately until you encounter a physical discontinuity due to various factors (salinity, temperature, localized density or turbidity, others) - then the extrapolation falls apart (and must be corrected for).

To begin with, would it be possible to clarify what you mean by "there and then" - are you implying that extrapolating to the past is specifically problematic? And, if so, where in the past does this become problematic? To give another example: reconstructing an earthquake through seismic readings registered seconds to minutes afterwards is very effective science - one that's also informed by lab results involving the study of rocks at high pressure. Is that a process that you feel has metaphysical baggage or is being done incautiously?

(please note, i'm not expecting you to answer each question individually, just trying to give a sense of the areas where i'm not fully understanding your position.)

I'd agree that, where we can identify physical limitations that prevent accurate extrapolations of lab-studied phenomena in various situations, we need to pay them careful attention. But your metallurgy example is interesting to me, in that i see strong parallels to the cooling rock example i'd been using. It's basically a matter of well measured material properties applying in a different environment in both cases. Maybe you can elaborate on how you see them differing.

The metaphysical baggage is quite apparent - you don't see it because the "educational" system has failed you. You may recall that a bit over 100 years ago Lord Kelvin calculated how long it would take for a molten Earth to cool down - his answer was about 100 million years. Later his calculations were proven "wrong" because he did not take into account the heat from radioactivity. But this too presented difficulties. The matter was settled by introducing an auxiliary hypothesis in which enough time existed for a geological process to occur - the dilemma was resolved. But it begged the question - they introduced the amount of time that they wanted to calculated in the first place! Here's a brief (1-page) article that tells this story better than I have: https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-...-of-the-earth/

I'm already well aware of the story, but i disagree with the presentation of it. At the time that Kelvin did the calculations, people had already characterized geological formations that would have taken longer than that to form. So, right from the start, Kelvin's calculations presented an anomaly. These sorts of things pop up in science all the time, and they're great, because they're usually an indication we're missing something.

But the key thing for our discussion is that they would have been anomalous from a time-agnostic perspective. Recognizing that two results produced by time-agostic reasoning disagree doesn't require any commitments.

The a priori "commitment" (using your words) is ingrained in your thought process, in this case it's what I call General Uniformitarianism - the belief that observations of rates and processes today apply equally (i.e., may be extrapolated) throughout all time and space. That is a metaphysical assumption which happens to be false when the extrapolation takes us to the origin of time, space and mass-energy itself.

I'd certainly agree that physics as we understand it breaks down as you get within tiny fractions of a second of the Big Bang. But i'd argue that General Uniformitarianism is not a belief, in that we have evidence that many of the physical processes we can observe today were active in the past. To give one example, supernovae at all distances show peaks of brightness that correspond to the decay of known radioactive isotopes, which gives us strong indications that the weak force hasn't changed significantly in the past. Many other measurements of this sort have been made, and indicate that the physical constants have, without measurement error, been constant.

[HMS_Beagle]

I'm confused. Why is a thread in Natural Science about evolution vs creationism discussing the Trinity?

These threads tend to wander off topic when the YEC being questioned about his claims responds with nothing but lies, evasions, and insults.

We all know who that is.

[HMS_Beagle]

I'm at a loss for what part of I DO NOT PARTICIPATE WITH INTELLECTUALLY-DISHONEST FOLK LIKE YOURSELF you fail to comprehend.

Countdown until Jorge tells TheLurch he's ignorant/too stupid to understand/has a wrong interpretation/didn't listen to what Jorge said. Then we'll get how Jorge has already explained elsewhere (but won't say where) and doesn't want to repeat himself.

5...

4...

3...

[klaus54]

That's the main reason I was trying to get Jorge to give his unambiguous literal reading of the Genesis stories.

I figured if he stuck to YEC exegesis and the AKJV1611 that it would be a lead pipe cinch. I was wrong.

I was told he knew but wouldn't tell us because we were not worth the time, and we wouldn't understand it anyhow.

Frustrating, this one...

K54

I'm at a loss for what part of I DO NOT PARTICIPATE WITH INTELLECTUALLY-DISHONEST FOLK LIKE YOURSELF you fail to comprehend.

I can, as you say, do a quick "drive by" and rattle your cage just to watch you go ape-wild (as I am doing here) but, other than that, you aren't worth the time due to your lack of scholarly ethics. And please don't take it personally. As you've undoubtedly noticed by now, I feel the same way about several others here at TWeb.

Also, lest you go off on one of your rabid generalizations in order to support vilification, compare that with the recent exchange between myself and "The Lurch" individual. How much (or how little) this individual agrees/disagrees with me is not important. What matters is that so far, he is behaving in a sincere, mature, open-minded, respectable way and that makes for a good, constructive exchange. Now compare that with recent posts by Beagle, yourself and others here - it's night and day!

Is any of this sinking in?

Jorge

Jorge,

I see nothing "intellectually dishonest" about my questions. They are precise and to the point. They are posed in a way that should play right into your expertise.

Why do you insist upon avoiding the most basic issues while acting in an apoplectic manner?

Are you really that cowardly? Do I need to use an even larger yellow font color?

K54

[klaus54]

I'd certainly agree that physics as we understand it breaks down as you get within tiny fractions of a second of the Big Bang. But i'd argue that General Uniformitarianism is not a belief, in that we have evidence that many of the physical processes we can observe today were active in the past. To give one example, supernovae at all distances show peaks of brightness that correspond to the decay of known radioactive isotopes, which gives us strong indications that the weak force hasn't changed significantly in the past. Many other measurements of this sort have been made, and indicate that the physical constants have, without measurement error, been constant.

Is this related to Jorge's response to the Devil's Tower data? I had asked when the intrusion occurred -- Creation Week or at beginning of, the middle of, or near the of the Mabbul. No answer. The only thing I could figure was that Jorge believed the laws of heat transfer were miraculously suspended to allow igneous intrusions to cool quickly.

But, as per his modus operandus, I just got a fart aimed in my direction and a vamoose.

This does bring up the general issue of igneous rock formation, not only cooling rates, but radioisotope levels consistent with billions or hundreds of millions of years.

Question for Jorge: Why didn't Elohim make fresh granite?

K54

[oxmixmudd]

I'm at a loss for what part of I DO NOT PARTICIPATE WITH INTELLECTUALLY-DISHONEST FOLK LIKE YOURSELF you fail to comprehend.

I can, as you say, do a quick "drive by" and rattle your cage just to watch you go ape-wild (as I am doing here) but, other than that, you aren't worth the time due to your lack of scholarly ethics. And please don't take it personally. As you've undoubtedly noticed by now, I feel the same way about several others here at TWeb.

Also, lest you go off on one of your rabid generalizations in order to support vilification, compare that with the recent exchange between myself and "The Lurch" individual. How much (or how little) this individual agrees/disagrees with me is not important. What matters is that so far, he is behaving in a sincere, mature, open-minded, respectable way and that makes for a good, constructive exchange. Now compare that with recent posts by Beagle, yourself and others here - it's night and day!

Is any of this sinking in?

Jorge

Jorge,

You put in almost every post inflammatory statements designed to send any conversation off track. The people you call "Intellectually Dishonest" are simply people that have called you on that at one time or another or who have disagreed with you in some way.


So I will put out another challenge to you:

Participate with me in a series of 10 posts of at least a few paragraphs each in this thread using a topic related to physical data and its interpretation in light of Mainstream science or YEC and where NEITHER of us comments on the others personality traits or religious beliefs, but simply focuses on the data at hand. And lets see, just for grins, what that looks like. Topic is your choice, but it must be science, not theology.

Do you think you have it in you to go 10 posts, tit for tat, talking just about science and data as it relates to YEC? You are off the hook the very first time I say ANYTHING that is personally degrading. We are, however, allowed to say (politely) "no, X is not correct and this is why ...".

Give it a try. Just 10 posts, a few paragraphs each, focused on data and interpretation, the thing you said needed to be done to show why science can support YEC.


Jim

[Jorge]

Jorge,

You put in almost every post inflammatory statements designed to send any conversation off track. The people you call "Intellectually Dishonest" are simply people that have called you on that at one time or another or who have disagreed with you in some way.


So I will put out another challenge to you:

Participate with me in a series of 10 posts of at least a few paragraphs each in this thread using a topic related to physical data and its interpretation in light of Mainstream science or YEC and where NEITHER of us comments on the others personality traits or religious beliefs, but simply focuses on the data at hand. And lets see, just for grins, what that looks like. Topic is your choice, but it must be science, not theology.

Do you think you have it in you to go 10 posts, tit for tat, talking just about science and data as it relates to YEC? You are off the hook the very first time I say ANYTHING that is personally degrading. We are, however, allowed to say (politely) "no, X is not correct and this is why ...".

Give it a try. Just 10 posts, a few paragraphs each, focused on data and interpretation, the thing you said needed to be done to show why science can support YEC.

Jim

It's hard - if not impossible - for me to reply to such a request without making it sound like I'm "attacking" your intellect. I know that many, many times in the past I have stated that the age issue begins with BELIEFS, not with physical data. The physical data - what you call "science" - serves a secondary support role for those beliefs, not the other way around (as you may have convinced yourself or others). Yet here you make a request that totally and completely ignores those statements - you want to discuss physical, scientific data that makes the case for YEC.

In the past many times I have presented data that supports YEC's position. Not long ago Santa Klaus posted a list which, although inaccurate and incomplete, contained several of those arguments. None of those arguments (or data, if you like) make the case for YEC. Just as there is no argument or data that seals the case for gigayears.

What you have to once and for all understand is that in this matter it must begin with your metaphysical beliefs. For whatever reason, sometime in your past you decided/chose to embrace the assumptions and presuppositions under which Materialism is founded. That embrace has determined the rest of your views, interpretations and overall attitude in this controversy.

My reluctance (if you want to call it that) in discussing "data" is that I have read the final chapter, page and paragraph of that book - I know exactly where and how it ends.

Just to illustrate, I'll spend a few minutes on one: comets. Here's a ultra-brief write-up on that subject by Dr. Faulkner (PhD astronomer):

That maximum age is only a few million years. Obviously, their prevalence makes sense if the entire solar system was created just a few thousand years ago, but not if it arose billions of years ago.

Rescuing Devices

Evolutionary astronomers have answered this problem by claiming that comets must come from two sources. They propose that a Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune hosts short-period comets (comets with orbits under 200 years), and a much larger, distant Oort cloud hosts long-period comets (comets with orbits over 200 years).

Yet there is no evidence for the supposed Oort cloud, and there likely never will be. In the past twenty years astronomers have found thousands of asteroids orbiting beyond Neptune, and they are assumed to be the Kuiper belt. However, the large size of these asteroids (Pluto is one of the larger ones) and the difference in composition between these asteroids and comets argue against this conclusion."

Now, all you'd have to do to prolong that topic, thereby allowing you to retain your beliefs, is to either introduce a new auxiliary hypothesis or to doggedly maintain your stance regarding the Kuiper Belt and/or the Oort Cloud (remember, there is NO observable evidence that an Oort Cloud is there). Round and round we'd go with no end to it. That's not science - not in my book - that's an ideological debate.

**********************************

Try this (relevant to my point) ... TRUE OR FALSE :

1. Human beings, as they now exist, developed from an earlier species of non-human animals.
2. According to the theory of Evolution, human beings, as they now exist, developed from an earlier species of non-human animals.

1, 2 or both - are they true or false?

It so happens that a researcher at YALE concluded, after examining over 2,000 people, that how an individual responds to that question has much more to do with a person's religious position than with the person's knowledge/ability in science. This has been my position for at least the last 20-25 years. As you may have guessed, my answers are 1 - false ... 2 - true.

Keep trying, Jim... do keep trying.

Jorge

[klaus54]

I...
In the past many times I have presented data that supports YEC's position. Not long ago Santa Klaus posted a list which, although inaccurate and incomplete, contained several of those arguments. None of those arguments (or data, if you like) make the case for YEC. Just as there is no argument or data that seals the case for gigayears.

...
Keep trying, Jim... do keep trying.

Jorge

Jorge,

I know my list was incomplete. Of course it was, I stated so. But it was not the least bit "inaccurate".

Please retract your lie.

Keep trying, Jorge... do keep trying.

Thanks!

[Jorge]

To begin with, would it be possible to clarify what you mean by "there and then" - are you implying that extrapolating to the past is specifically problematic? And, if so, where in the past does this become problematic?

I thought I had answered that - when an extrapolation crosses a certain boundary (I provided sound through water as an example) then that extrapolation falls apart. I am fairly certain that Na (sodium) and chlorine (Cl) could have combined "a million" years ago to produce table salt just as today. The question is, did the Na and Cl even exist a million years ago. By mathematical extrapolation of present processes the answer is yes but that's just numbers - did the universe IN FACT exist a million years ago?

Another example : Go to the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon today and measure the rate of erosion. A crude example just for illustration purposes: suppose you determined that the river is 'cutting' (eroding) at a rate of 1 millimeter per year. You then measure 1.6 miles from where the river is to the top of the canyon - 1.6 miles is about 2.6 million millimeters and so you conclude that the river has been carving the canyon for 2.6 million years. That's the General Uniformitarianism that you would be invoking. There's nothing wrong with your present measurement, it's just that you've mathematically extended a one-dimensional measurement into a multidimensional reality and used this to arrive at a result that may be off by orders of magnitude. Did you see, for examples, the canyons that were formed by the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's in 1980? Hundreds of feet long and deep, formed in hours.

To give another example: reconstructing an earthquake through seismic readings registered seconds to minutes afterwards is very effective science - one that's also informed by lab results involving the study of rocks at high pressure. Is that a process that you feel has metaphysical baggage or is being done incautiously?

There's a direct, observable causal connection in what you describe here. That is NOT the case when we travel to the origin - the "beginning" - of what exists.

(please note, i'm not expecting you to answer each question individually, just trying to give a sense of the areas where i'm not fully understanding your position.)

I'm following and trying to provide some point-by-point response.

I'd agree that, where we can identify physical limitations that prevent accurate extrapolations of lab-studied phenomena in various situations, we need to pay them careful attention. But your metallurgy example is interesting to me, in that i see strong parallels to the cooling rock example i'd been using. It's basically a matter of well measured material properties applying in a different environment in both cases. Maybe you can elaborate on how you see them differing.

That (metallurgy) example also has a direct, observable, testable, verifiable causal connection.

I'm already well aware of the story, but i disagree with the presentation of it. At the time that Kelvin did the calculations, people had already characterized geological formations that would have taken longer than that to form. So, right from the start, Kelvin's calculations presented an anomaly. These sorts of things pop up in science all the time, and they're great, because they're usually an indication we're missing something.

My point was to illustrate how the cart is preceded by the horse, not the other way around. What I'm picking up from your words is a reliance on what the observations/measurements tell you - you wish to follow the hard, physical evidence. Okay, try this on for size (I've written a good chunk on this - this is a condensed version): I don't know what your beliefs are but based on what you wish to follow there is NO WAY that you could ever believe in any of the miracles spoken of in the Bible and, with that, the game, set and match is over. Why do I say that? Simple. Because the hard, physical evidence - plus what 10,000 PhDs in their respective fields would tell you - would all testify that these miracles are not possible in this universe. A man walking unassisted on a stormy sea, for example, would violate everything that we know of gravity, hydrostatics and hydrodynamics. Thus, to believe in those miracles you would first have to cast aside what "science" has shown of those (which, by the way, you can verify in a laboratory). If you aren't willing to do that then the Bible is out or you'd have to essentially 're-write' it to make it palatable to you.

But the key thing for our discussion is that they would have been anomalous from a time-agnostic perspective. Recognizing that two results produced by time-agostic reasoning disagree doesn't require any commitments.

If I'm understanding what you're saying, the problem is that we cannot be "time-agnostic" because time changes all things. Only by way of a metaphysical assumption could you deny that. And, in case you're wondering, that claim I just made holds true for Materialism every bit as much as for Biblical Creationism.

I'd certainly agree that physics as we understand it breaks down as you get within tiny fractions of a second of the Big Bang. But i'd argue that General Uniformitarianism is not a belief, in that we have evidence that many of the physical processes we can observe today were active in the past.

I agree - to a certain point. You seem to know this as indicated by the first sentence you wrote above. I wrote a piece that I plan to publish one of these days that spells this out in detail.

To give one example, supernovae at all distances show peaks of brightness that correspond to the decay of known radioactive isotopes, which gives us strong indications that the weak force hasn't changed significantly in the past. Many other measurements of this sort have been made, and indicate that the physical constants have, without measurement error, been constant.

How would you know? Suppose - just to illustrate my point - that the fundamental constants are 'interlinked' in such a way that if one changed then the others would change in such a way as to 'compensate' for that change thereby allowing the structure of space-time-mass-energy to remain. There are physical variables, as you probably know, that are linked in such a way. A sealed container with a gas, for instance : change the temperature (just the temperature) and the pressure will react proportionately. Maybe the fundamental constants also react that way (???). The point of that thought is simply that other things may be at work that give us an appearance of one thing when something else is actually going on.

With all this, what is the "Rock" that you choose to be founded upon?

Jorge

[klaus54]

It's amazing the length of hypocrisy a cultist will go to keep his beliefs.

I just want Jorge to admit that there's NO SUCH THING as Biblical Scientific Creation!

Why, oh, why can't he do that???

Sad.

K54

With all this, what is the "Rock" that you choose to be founded upon?

P.S. With all WHAT???

[Truthseeker]

The only way to do that would require distorting Scripture to the point where, in essence, I've re-written it. Oh, wait ... that's precisely what Theistic Evolutionists have done. Sorry, my bad.

Genesis 1-2 gives us no timing clue at all. We are not told how much time had passed before God began to refashion Earth. Nor how many years had passed when God said, let there be light. I am not suggesting you rewrite Genesis, so that the general narrative is substantially altered. I am asking what your assumption as to the timing is.

Seriously, the amount of time that passed BEFORE our beginning (Genesis 1:1) is unknown and is not a factor here. The amount of time that passed in Genesis 1-2 is most definitely a factor. "Billions of years" would bring the preceding paragraph into play.

What preceding paragraph? Oh, maybe you meant the time before God started to refashion Earth?

[Cerebrum123]

It's amazing the length of hypocrisy a cultist will go to keep his beliefs.

I just want Jorge to admit that there's NO SUCH THING as Biblical Scientific Creation!

Why, oh, why can't he do that???

Sad.

K54



P.S. With all WHAT???

Are you implying that YEC's are "cultists"? Or is this a Jorge specific charge?

[Truthseeker]

It's amazing the length of hypocrisy a cultist will go to keep his beliefs.

I just want Jorge to admit that there's NO SUCH THING as Biblical Scientific Creation!

Why, oh, why can't he do that???

Are you thinking that it is wrong for people to be Christian? That scientists who are Christians like Oxmixmudd try to see how to square the Genesis account with present scientific theories? Are you thinking that "scientific facts" are indeed facts, not mere theories?

[rogue06]

Did you see, for examples, the canyons that were formed by the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's in 1980? Hundreds of feet long and deep, formed in hours.

A invalid comparison to the Grand Canyon for numerous reasons, principally the sediments that the water carved through on Mt. St. Helen's was nothing but unconsolidated volcanic ash which is nothing even remotely similar to having to carve through solid rock including granite and basalt. If you don't believe it dump a large pile of ash onto the ground and spray a stream of water from a hose at it and see how fast you can cut through it. Next place a slab of granite (or even the much softer limestone or sandstone) on the ground and spray a stream of water at it from the same hose. Get back to me when you've carved through it

Some YEC "flood geologists" claim that the Grand Canyon formations were originally mud and not rock when the flood carved through it, but the ridiculousness of this argument is exposed by the fact that carving through mud or other soft material will cause the walls to slope (like those seen at the Mt. St. Helen's canyon which slope 45 degrees) rather than leave the near vertical walls seen along the Grand Canyon. Such vertical walls can only be accomplished when you cut through solid stone not soft unconsolidated mud.

The geology of the region clearly reveals that what would later become the Grand Canyon formations were originally deposited near a flat coastal marine environment periodically inundated by tropical seas over a space of many millions of years. Then, this region, later known as the Colorado Plateau, began to be uplifted (and slightly tilted) at the end of the Paleozoic era (roughly 250 mya). During this period the already existing meandering river systems^[1] slowly started to cut down into the rock, keeping pace with the uplift over the ensuing millions of years.








1. And a raging flood spreading over a level plain will also not create rivers with multiple tributaries and form meanders with numerous U turns like those seen below.

Instead of carving canyons that are a mile deep such a raging flood will actually create formations like those seen in the Channeled Scablands that cover much of the state of Washington