[A creationist – preceded by c] wrote:

MT <> wrote in message . [preceded by m]

Creationism…. It does not use real science. It assumes that quoting a bible verse is a form of science.

[c] > I will agree there is a quoting of some scripture in Creationist writings, but there is a lot of science as well. In a democratic society they are entitled to put their view.

[chris answers sensibly, preceded by = ]

= They are entitled to put their view; and they do — in web pages, in their own books and magazines, in church meetings, etc.

But no-one has a RIGHT to be correct. An idea does not have a RIGHT to be taken seriously. There is no RIGHT for publication in reviewed scientific journals. There is no RIGHT for arbitrary ideas to be taught in a school curriculum.

No idea or model has a right to be correct, or taken seriously, of published in a reviewed journal, or taught in a school, merely because you would like it to be so.

Such rights must be EARNED.

Creationists have not even come close to earning that right. There is no science in creationism; just a bad pseudo-scientific parody.

You also have not yet earned the right to be taken seriously on this Gladys, because you have not even managed to name these supposed creationist scientists and their supposed science.

Most examples of creationist work being palmed off on the naive victims of creationism is not study or research programs by creationists in support of creationism. It is by far the most part a bad error filled analysis of work done by real scientists — like the error filled nonsense we have seen here on radiometric dating.

There are some rare exceptions, where creationists have attempted to make up something which could be perceived as a real research program of their own. These cases are still, invariably, nonsense.

Yet again, I invite you to back up your claims by actually identifying some science done by a creationist; with names and references so we can see whether your claims of “science in creationism” are just wishful thinking, or based on actually knowing of an example.

What is the problem with doing this? You’ve been at this for months, and you have been consistently asked for reference or names to we can look at the claims on their merits.

Frankly, I think you have no background for your claims. You are poorly informed on mainstream science, as we have seen repeatedly; and I think you are not remotely familiar with so-called creation science either. I think you have read a few tracts or grandiose claims about the validity of creationism without ever looking at anything concrete in the way of examples of creation science.

If you (or anyone) would like to propose a specific case, I will be happy to give it a fair examination on its merits. This is usually not all that hard, though it can be time consuming.

[m] >> Science is open to all people regardless of religious belief. Creationism only works for Christians … and in particular, only fundamentalist Christians It doesn’t work for Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, ‘secular humanists’ and Christians who are not fundamentalists. Why? It is a religious doctrine and not science.

= Quibble here…. there are what might be called Hindu creationists. Their perspective is quite distinct; they propose an extremely old Earth; but likewise and absurdly old humanity and life; exemplified by the book “Origins” by Richard Thompson, Michael Cremo and Austin Gordon. It is based on Vedic literature. See <http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~ghi/books.html>

The forms of Creationism used by Christians are shared by a small number of Jews; many Muslims are also creationists.

I’m speaking here of attempt to give some kind of empirical scientific backing to a creation account presented in some religion; and not merely the belief in the literal veracity of those accounts.

[c] >> > ‘The Big Bang’ leaves God out. [m] >> Not if, as a Christian, you believe God caused the Big Bang … and evolution thereafter.

[c] > That’s really the crux of this issue. Did God use evolution or did God create. I believe the Almighty God was quite capable of creating. Jesus, as the Son of God and therefore God created when he caused water to turn to wine (Wedding at Cana), when a few loaves and fishes became enough to feed a multitude (on two recorded occasions), when he caused a reversal of death to life again, when the blind saw and the lame walked with normal strength.

= What God is “capable” of is not the issue.

Once you believe God exists and is almighty, He is capable of creating things any way He chooses.

The question for a someone of integrity who wants to examine the empirical evidence is — which of the infinitely many possible ways things could have occurred did actually occur?

We know the earth is old not because of a belief that God could or could not make it some age or another. We know the Earth is old because it has clear unambiguous empirical evidence of being very old. If you believe in God, you presumably believe (in principle) that He could have made the Earth last week, or last year, or last century, or 6000 years ago, or 4.5 billion years ago.

If you are rational, and you know what evidence is available, then you know God did not just make the Earth last week unless He also deliberately made it look much older. The evidence that the Earth is more than a week old is empirical evidence of age; not a presumption that God could not have made it last week.

In fact, the empirical evidence is unambiguous; the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. That is what the evidence shows.

[snip]

[c] > I do not believe that God went out to trick us. A planned USA rocket programme – code named Prometheus – is planned to tripe the time for space travel. Perhaps that is an indication of one (I think – Christian) scientist who said that he was thinking God’s thoughts after Him. There is so much that is not yet known about space. We shouldn’t measure God always by the mathematics presently known. God could have worked outside the laws of science as we know them today.

= Prometheus is simply a proposal for new propulsion system. It is not a planned rocket, as yet; no missions are yet envisaged. What is being studied is the propulsion system. It is not yet sufficiently concrete to be a definite mission; though if the research project is successful, this will come in time. See <http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/nuclear_power_030117.html>

There is nothing here about great new advances in learning about the nature of space — though of course we expect further observations by spacecraft and terrestrial observation to continue to expand our knowledge of the universe.

The claim that God “could have worked outside the laws of science” is the final cop out for someone who wants to REJECT the conclusions of science. Fine — but that is NOT a scientific model for a science classroom. That is a metaphysical position.

And an absurd one… the point you continue to miss is not that we are guessing what might have happened in the past. We look at the record of the Earth itself, and the signs of long history, and SEE that it is old — very old. You can’t use the argument that God might have done things by different scientific laws in the past to suggest that the Earth is only a thousand years old. That is just lunacy. Same for six thousand, ten thousand, or ten million years. The evidence is uniformly and unambiguously for a much greater age.

[snip]

[m] >> Define ‘science’ for me. [c] > I haven’t time to read that text. Macquarie Dictionary gives this definition:- a systematic study of man and the physical world based on REPRODUCIBLE OBSERVATIONS, measurements and experiments. I have capitalised REPRODUCIBLE. the beginning of the Universe can’t be REPRODUCED.

= BINGO. You left out half the definition.

In science, repeatability refers to repeatability of observation. NOT repeatability of a process. The key is “Reproducible Observation”

And strictly speaking it is observation that is more important that repeatable, though that gets into a whole philosophical can of worms. That was the word you omitted.

You are simply incorrect to claim that the definition says science can only study a repeatable process. The definition says, clearly, that it is the observations, the experiments and the measurements that should be repeatable.

If you can’t even get this right, you have no business teaching science.

[c] > As far as I am concerned evolution should not be part of school science. There is enough knowledge on plants and animals, rocks and minerals, stars, planets and galaxies for children. There needs to be more discussions among adults – parents and significant others – in the child’s experience. But I see a problem there – and that is, in NSW, the past forty years of indoctrination in the school system that Evolution did happen.

= Evolution is directly observable, in the field and the lab. The observations, experiments, and measurements that are the foundation of long term historical evolution are also reproducible. It is science; and it belongs in a science classroom. Evolution is the foundational scientific theory for biology.

[snip rest]

Cheers — Chris