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To: BrandtMichaels
"AND that historical ‘science’ is by it’s very nature not science at all"

All science is historical. The data that is currently being collected by the Mars rovers takes about thirty minutes to arrive on Earth. By the time we see the data it is already historical. Similar data from this and other missions has been collected and stored. Sometimes it is years between when the data is collected and particular results are deduced. For example, it took some time between when the data was collected and scientists could assure themselves with reasonable confidence that there was water on Mars. Even if you are looking directly at something and trying to determine what is happening it takes milliseconds for the data you see to be processed in the brain sufficiently for you to reach a conclusion from that sense data. In a very real way it is impossible for us to live in the present. The only data we have ever received has been from the past.

There are those people who heard once that in order for a particular theory to be valid it has to be falsifiable. In their minds this means that something can only be a valid theory if someone can craft an experiment that can prove or disprove that theory. These people believe that there are no experiments that one can craft to test the various theories associated with evolution and an old age for earth. Because of this these people say that no valid evolution theory or theory about the age of the earth can ever be posited. These people are mistaken.

First off, the falsifiability theory is in doubt. Even if it weren't in doubt it should not be something that Christians should put much faith in. After all it was the central theorem of the logical positivists who were vehemently opposed to all religion and even non-religious metaphysical thinking. The falsifiability theorem is regularly dredged up to dismiss any and all religious claims, claims regarding miracles, claims about the Bible, etc.

Everything in the Bible is of an historical nature. Much has been gleaned from a careful historical analysis of the Bible. For example there are scientists who have gone back and associated certain astronomical events described in the Bible with astronomical events arrived at by "reversing" the history of the universe. These studies have added weight to the historical accuracy of the Bible while simultaneously verifying our understanding of the movements of the planets, stars, etc. This appears to me to be a very scientific process. I would not want scientists to stop engaging in such activities because someone mistakenly believes that it doesn't qualify as science.

All science is based on induction. Because of this nothing can be proved to be true over all time and space. It is possible that the Earth was created pretty much as it appears to us 6,000 years ago. It is also possible that the Earth was created last Tuesday, including us with our memories of events that appear to have happened years or decades previously. Those are possibilities, but neither is a useful one. Assuming instead that the laws of physics we have discovered today applied from the beginning of the universe has allowed us to develop a wide variety of useful technologies. If we find that radioactive decay rates are certain values today, and we have found that they have been constant for the forty plus years that we have been using them for measurements, it seems like a reasonable assumption that they have been constant throughout the history of the Earth. This is especially true since we don't just have the measured values, but a complete and consistent theory about what causes radioactive decay and why the rate would be unaffected by anything we can imagine happening throughout the past history of the Earth.

Geological strata, fossils, tree rings, ice cores, etc. are no different than images broadcast from Mars. They are artifacts that can be studied scientifically to generate reasonable hypotheses about what happened and will continue to happen in the future.

It could possibly be the case that there are no Mars rovers. That it is all a plot by the government to make us believe that our planet Earth is not much different than Mars thus undermining our special place in God's creation.

It could be that the Mars rovers were intercepted by an advanced civilization on Mars that is now sending back false images so that we can't see them as they prepare for a massive military attack against Earth.

It could be that the Mars rovers actually arrived on Mars and that the images we are receiving back are pretty good approximations of what is going on there (or went on there a half-hour or so ago.) Those images, although primarily historical, could tell us a lot about the past, present, and future of Mars if properly analyzed with sufficient scientific rigor.

320 posted on 10/04/2011 2:41:34 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

That sure is a lot of rambling to completely miss the premise.

You can not repeat events from the big bang nor millions nor billions of years ago. It is all conjecture and very loosely based at that. I highly doubt Darwin would continue to stand by his theory today in light of all that we have learned in the past 150 years. No primordial soup! No transitional fossils! Vestigial organs turns out to be a lie! Organs that have outlived their purpose [i.e. appendix] a lie!

Tell me what is it that we truly know about evolution other than small changes within a kind [aka micro-evolution]?


325 posted on 10/04/2011 5:55:58 PM PDT by BrandtMichaels
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