Posted on 12/11/2002 6:28:08 AM PST by A2J
He also suspects that old-timers like me can search on our hard drives and find saved there old threads with posts by him which attack anything he could ever cite as a reason why he thinks the earth is old. I'm pretty sure that at one time or another gore has attacked radiometric dating, the geologic column, paleontology, and modern secular cosmology.
That's always struck me as odd, since he has also claimed (while declining to defend a Young-Earth) that he accepts an "old" Earth. Nevertheless, I could never get out of him why he does. I think it's a great question, since it's far from obvious why someone who attacks the things he does is not a YEC.
I was responding to webber who had said (at post 1588):
I believe what the Bible says. So show me, by quoting scripture, where it says that the Earth is flat, and the Earth is the center of the Universe? HMMMMM?So I showed him. By the way, I agree with your take on those passages. That's exactly how I read Genesis, therefore I have no scriptural conflicts with evolution.
I made no such equivallent claim as gore3000, and I'm not sure what your intended point it, but I can tell you're feeling awfully clever and proud of yourself so I'll indulge you.
The definition of evolution is a change in alelle frequency in a population over time. The theory of evolution attempts to describe the mechanisms behind the change. Genetic variation of individuals within a population confers unequal survival probabilities upon those individuals. The least successful genetic combinations for a particular environment will be much less prevelant in the 2nd generation of a population. As has often been said, "The race goes not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."
Humans have witnessed changes in populations. Note the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Speciation has been observed most dramatically in the form of several varieties of ring species. And humans themselves have altered a population of Russian silver foxes by the application of simple selection pressure for desirable traits.
Now, I expect an answer in kind from you concerning gravity. Please describe it.
So you are saying that ordinary standards of morality didn't apply before Jesus?
The discussion began with the assertion that things in the Bible didn't change or become obsolete over time. Perhaps I am just too dense to "get it", but the morality of owning another human is a pretty big bite to swallow. Not to mention asserting that it is OK to beat another human being to the point where it takes two days for him to get up. Or that it is OK to have slaves, provided they come from another country.
I accept the fact that religious ideas evolve along with society in general, but I reject the idea that the underlying nature of morality changes.
Does science tell us the Truth about Reality? If so, why do scientific theories change while Reality doesn't? Anyway, is there such a thing as Reality?
Dobzhansky, I believe.
I used Dobzhansky's quote within the context of Penrose's categrorization of theories, allow me to clarify:
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Theodosius Dobzhansky, Geneticist
Roger Penrose put theories in four categories, with examples: *
about which he says "No observational discrepancies with that theory are known -- yet its strength goes far beyond this, in the number of hitherto inexplicable phenomena that the theory now explains."
(Penrose refused to name any of these.)
How about the part where grasses and trees existed before the sun did? The fossil record shows the development of grasses and trees, and life on Earth was around for a very long time before they showed up. That life couldn't have existed without the sun being there.
Because a theory, like a portrait, is an approximation. When a better approximation is found, it is adopted. Some maps are better than others.
Anyway, is there such a thing as Reality?
Yes. The fundamental statement of philosophy is, "I am aware that something is there." You cannot have the subjective ("I am aware...") without the objective ("...something is there"). Existence exists.
"No observational discrepancies with that theory are known -- yet its strength goes far beyond this, in the number of hitherto inexplicable phenomena that the theory now explains."
According to this standard, evolution would rank as a "superb" theory.
Sounds like "evolution lite" to me; a definition you've chosen to adopt for yourself. Even under this definiton I doubt you have literally observed evolution. No. You've become a parrot, a lemming, for those whose definition of the universe fits your pre-conceived notions.
Luckily scientists have not paid attention to this nonsense and continue looking for and discovering the order in nature.
I couldn't possibly agree with you more. Truly, I believe such scientists will continue to find, throughout nature, information content - which is both the evidence of algorithms and the residue of intelligent design. For lurkers interested in my two cents:
post 324 on testable claims for Creation
Wouldn't someone have tried it? Seems to me there would be a market for fake fossiles.
I'm afraid it couldn't, because the entire history of the universe is laid before our eyes, all the way back to the time that atoms first formed. If it were there, we'd see it.
[Geek alert: There is a light predating the sun, to be sure, called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, but by the time flowering plants evolved, it was far too feeble to support life, and in any case its ubiquity and smoothness renders it thermodynamically unsuitable for any such purpose.]
The ONLY way that works is if being an Athenian slave is so far above being a Scythian for whatever combination of reasons, that the proposition is a no-brainer.
Give up trying to judge ancient people by your own standard of morality; it doesn't work.
Why 9-12, why not from the first grade on?
Just like the theory of the big bang. Scientists state that the universe began (they avoid the term created) with a big bang with all the energy needed to form the universe.
Question, where did all the energy needed come from in the first place?
Scientists tell us that energy can’t be created nor destroyed, nor can we create something from nothing.
I have a theory about the origins of universe’s but, it still doesn’t explain where the original energy came from in the first place. It has to be God.
Moreover, the Sun's circular orbit about the galactic center is just right; through a combination of factors it manages to keep out of the way of the Galaxy's dangerous spiral arms. Our Solar System is also far enough away from the galactic center to not have to worry about disruptive gravitational forces or too much radiation.
When all of these factors occur together, they create a region of space that Gonzalez calls a "Galactic Habitable Zone." Gonzalez believes every form of life on our planet - from the simplest bacteria to the most complex animal - owes its existence to the balance of these unique conditions.
Because of this, states Gonzalez, "I believe both simple life and complex life are very rare, but complex life, like us, is probably unique in the observable Universe."
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