Replies

There was a time in history where a superliteral interpretation of Scripture did form the basis of inquiry of data, but it was abandoned because consistent, predictive models describing physical evidence could not be formed as a consequence.

Excellent post, Quark2005.

As for the extract I've quoted above, we've only to look at the case of the Church's persecution of Galilleo--in terms virtually identical to some of the arguments of some Creationists. It is worthy pointing out (again) how there was a time when to assert that the earth orbited the sun was held to be a vile heresy, punishible by death, by a Church which feared that anything other than an absolute and literal interpretation of scripture would result in universal anarchy.

The Church was wrong then about the science, and wrong about the consequences of following the science. Mercifully, most Churches today don't have such spurious difficulties with science--though it is clear that a minority of fndamenatlists, seeking political influence using good PR but lousy junk-science, do have a specific--and potentially dangerous--agenda

"As for the extract I've quoted above, we've only to look at the case of the Church's persecution of Galilleo--in terms virtually identical to some of the arguments of some Creationists."

You should learn more about the persecution of Galilleo.

Facts that most people don't know about Galilleo:

* Heliocentrism had been thought up by the Greeks, and likewise rejected by them long before the Church was ever involved

* The pope allowed Gallileo to teach and write about heliocentrism, as long as he presented it along with geocentrism in a balanced view

* The pope would have allowed Gallileo to write exclusively about heliocentrism if Gallileo could prove it, he could not

* Gallileo's model had numerous technical problems. One of the biggest of which was that he assumed circular orbits, so he _still_ had epicycles. Keppler got rid of the epicycles. Likewise, there was no parallax motion of the stars -- a criticism that Gallileo had no answer to (it turns out they are just too far away).

* Gallileo was not just tough on astronomy, but it also invalidated all physical theory developed to that point, with no replacement. Aristotle's physics was based on location, with different physics accompanying different heights above the earth. With the earth no longer at the center, Aristotelian physics was completely invalidated, with a replacement model not forthcoming for many, many years (i.e. Newton).

* Gallileo's book describing heliocentrism (which he was supposed to present a balanced view with geocentrism) had two characters -- "smart" and "stupid", and he put the geocentrist view in stupid's mouth, using the POPE'S OWN WORDS. This is what got him into trouble -- putting the pope's words into the mouth of the character "stupid".

Note that Keppler did not have trouble with his Church, nor did Copernicus, nor did Newton. In fact, the main critics of Gallileo was not the Church but the academics -- especially because of the implications for physics. He only got in trouble with the Church when he decided to publish a book declaring the pope stupid.

Did the pope handle it right? Obviously not. But to portray this as persecution of science by the Church because of Biblical literalism just shows how much the establishment can distort the facts of what actually happened.

Mercifully, most Churches today don't have such spurious difficulties with science--though it is clear that a minority of fundamenatlists, seeking political influence using good PR but lousy junk-science, do have a specific--and potentially dangerous--agenda

Agreed, but I do believe that before deciding on what manner to engage someone in conversation/debate regarding these matters it's important to know whether the person is a believer of bad science or a deliberate purveyor of bad science with an agenda. I try to be polite with the former but I have no qualms about being harsh with the latter - in fact, it seems to be the only way one can deal with the latter.

Junk science isn't confined to creation science either; there's plenty to go around in other areas (i.e. con-men like John Edward who has people actually believing he talks to dead people).

Creation science isn't the most dangerous abuse of science either (though considering the vast range of scientific fields it attempts to contaminate, it is up there) - I think a far more common and dangerous tool of misinformation is the abuse of statistics; one that we see all over the media almost every day (and in creation science, too, come to think of it...)

Thanks for the compliment - much appreciated (though I really must stop writing posts and actually get some work done here...)