Silkworm to debate Creationist at his college (any advice?)

[silkworm]

I like the responses a whole lot that you have been getting' date=' silkworm. If you can put them together it might work out.

 

mine are of the pessimistic kind, mostly, but they are balanced by some who see the positive.

 

what Im thinking now is a modest goal to just plant [b']one seed of doubt[/b] Like maybe this:

 

A. I think you misrepresent modern science. Within the community of working scientists there are disagreements which dont come out in your picture. It's not unanimous by any means. For example David Mermin does not speak for the entire community when he says "the moon is only there when someone observes it". I believe that Mermin is better described as a philosopher than a physicist---his field is Philosophy of Science [check this]---and I dont believe that most professional physicists would agree with his statement.

 

B. You have presented us with your own version of fundamental physical law. You appear to claim that your version can replace conventional science as it has developed over the past century. You claim your model goes back to pre-1900 basics and is able to explain the phenomena observed to date.

Scientists are traditionally cautious about believing new theories. I assume you have considered the possibility that your "True Science" theory of matter COULD BE WRONG. In that case there might be serious consequences if it were adopted.

 

C. You propose the "True Science" basis of natural law as if it should replace conventional physics---something not cast in concrete but subject to continual testing and revision. Have you devised some EXPERIMENTAL TESTS for your theory, whereby it makes predictions different from those of conventional physics, so that one could verify by experiment whether its predictions are more accurate or less accuate than those of commonly accepted theories?

 

D. Unfortunately as a college chem major I am not prepared to discuss with you the proposed experimental tests of "True Science" theory in detail. But I assume that as a good-faith scientist you have already thought about testing your theories. The custom is to openly publish experimental results so that others can check them by duplicating them. [LUCAS may have a list of proposed experiments and stories of how his results were suppressed, hushed up, or ignored. Or he may have confirmed his theories by experiment but published in other than standard peer-review journals]

 

Without going into the technical details (since I can't adequately do that) I want to express my concern that you may be offering your notions of physical science as true WITHOUT THEM ACTUALLY HAVING BEEN TESTED.

 

(he may be able to satisfy the audience with evidence that "true science" has been adequately tested, just not openly published, but at least this puts him a little on the defensive)

====================

 

I may have actually just gone over familiar ground, you may have already been making all these points with him, so what I post here is nothing new. but anyway that is how I see one could maybe not WIN but plant a little doubt.

 

It's rational to be pessimistic, but I have had success. It's like learning a new language, the only chance to become as good as a native speaker is to be immersed in the language, as I have been since birth. The format with him is the trouble, that and he's so slippery.

 

The little doubt is the big deal. The first meeting I attended I was met with overwhelming success by many apparently die hard creationism/ID supporters who essentially left realizing they didn't know enough about science to have an opinion on it. With them you have to set up that they have to earn the right to an opinion, while at the sametime trying not to appear arrogant.

 

Interestingly enough Martin, CSS does have papers on their site. Mysteriously though, after Lucas' last vist my friend in this madness (a respected scientist) made it a point to make sure Lucas' ideas got a fair shake (in an attempt to ease the paranoia), and CSS suddenly made all of their papers accessible after donation only.

 

My friend printed most them off beforehand though. They're mainly rants, with less scientific quality than the posts of this or any other forum.

 

I did make all those points to figure out these formats to make them better.

[Martin]

I had to correct what i said in post #22 about David Mermin. he is a professor of physics at Cornell (not in philosophy of science---I was wrong).

I see he is due for retirement this year. What I've read of his has been more on the philosophy side---lots of words and few equations. But he is a physicist all right.

 

here are some of his papers online (not that it matters but just for completeness)

http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/au:+Mermin_N_David/0/1/0/all/0/1

 

here is his homepage (again, just for completeness)

http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~mermin/homepage/ndm.html

 

I still cannot understand what he says about "moon not being there" as anything but a controversial and attention-getting assertion, unrepresentative of physics community

[silkworm]

It's funny you mentioned the moon. I've actually had to explain that evolutionary biologists do not study to origin of the moon at these meetings.

[Martin]

The Mermin moon quote was in the fourth paragraph of this:

http://www.commonsensescience.org/explaining_life.html

 

these are well-written little thumbnails of their arguments and position,which you steered me to.

 

Worldview principles

http://www.commonsensescience.org/worldview_principles.html

 

Philosophy of reality

http://www.commonsensescience.org/philosophy_of_reality.html

 

Our Consistent Approach to Life

http://www.commonsensescience.org/explaining_life.html

 

Contradictions in Modern Physics

http://www.commonsensescience.org/contradictions.html

 

==============

the "true science" views may be full of holes but they are useful to me my reminding me that 20th century science is NOT AS TOGETHER as it could be and there is a lot of work to be done and issues to be settled.

 

I am bothered by a cornell physicist, someone I'd heard cited, and seen stuff by, saying that. he must have been kidding, it must be out of context.

Because the moon was there BEFORE THERE WAS LIFE even. not to mention conscious life able to observe.

 

so their quoting Mermin makes the whole scientific establishment seem like imbeciles.

 

maybe I will try to find the Mermin quote and see what he was actually saying

[silkworm]

I am bothered by a cornell physicist, someone I'd heard cited, and seen stuff by, saying that. he must have been kidding, it must be out of context.

 

It has a very good chance of being taken out of context. They like to do that. I haven't had time to catch myself up with Mermin to be sure.

[Martin]

I'm kind of fried, thinking about these people. Talking to myself. I don't envy you having to debate them. I will refrain from saying what I think of them because it would just get me outraged. regret to say I probably will not have anything helpful to contribute before the debate. Will be anxious to hear how it goes, and will check your blog.

 

 

Dummy me, I didnt think to do the obvious. Google Mermin + Moon

got a 1985 article in the broad professional audience magazine Physics Today

havent had time to look at it yet but at least we can see what the source of this stupid saying.

 

I have bolded the words "funniest physics text" because apparently Mermin has the reputation for being an entertaining speaker and expositor. The other boldface is in the original.

 

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~hpu/Phys311_source/mermin_moon.pdf

 

 

PHYSICS TODAY / APRIL 1985 PAG. 38-47

 

Is the moon there when nobody looks? Reality and the quantum theory

 

Einstein maintained that quantum metaphysics entails spooky actions at a distance; experiments have now shown that what bothered Einstein is not a debatable point but the observed behaviour of the real world.

 

N. David Mermin

 

[David Mermin is director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics at Cornell University. A solid-state theorist, he has recently come up with some quasithoughts about quasicrystals. He is known to PHYSICS TODAY readers as the person who made “boojum” an internationally accepted scientific term. With N.W.Ashcroft, he is about to start updating the world’s funniest solid-state physics text. He says he is bothered by Bell’s theorem, but may have rocks in his head anyway.]

 

Quantum mechanics is magic [1]

 

In May 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen published [2] an argument that quantum mechanics fails to provide a complete description of physical reality. Today, 50 years later, the EPR paper and the theoretical and experimental work it inspired remain remarkable for the vivid illustration they provide of one of the most bizarre aspects of the world revealed to us by the quantum theory. Einstein’s talent for saying memorable things did him a disservice when he declared “God does not play dice.” for it has been held ever since the basis for his opposition to quantum mechanics was the claim that a fundamental understanding of the world can only be statistical. But the EPR paper, his most powerful attack on the quantum theory, focuses on quite a different aspect: the doctrine that physical properties have in general no objective reality independent of the act of observation. As Pascual Jordan put it[ 3]:

 

“Observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it....We compel [the electron] to assume a definite position.... We ourselves produce the results of measurements.”

 

Jordan’s statement is something of a truism for contemporary physicists. Underlying it, we have all been taught, is the disruption of what is being measured by the act of measurement, made unavoidable by the existence of the quantum of action, which generally makes it impossible even in principle to construct probes that can yield the information classical intuition expects to be there. Einstein didn’t like this. He wanted things out there to have properties, whether or not they were measured [4]:

 

“We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.”

 

The EPR paper describes a situation ingeniously contrived to force the quantum theory into asserting that properties in a space-time region B are the result of an act of measurement in another space-time region A, so far from B that there is no possibility of the measurement in A exerting an influence on region B by any known dynamical mechanism. Under these conditions, Einstein maintained that the properties in A must have existed all along....

====end of sample quote===

[silkworm]

He is known to PHYSICS TODAY readers as the person who made “boojum” an internationally accepted scientific term.

 

What a thing to be known for. What is boojum? I tried to look it up, no dice.

 

It appears the commentary is that the universe is recreated every instant, I think the observation part is an unforunate misuse of the idea. Oh, I think I get it now. They're talking about quantum measurements being statistical (when really it's our limitation). If Einstein really asked him that, that really shows me how much quantum physics really did bother him.

 

I'm kind of fried, thinking about these people. Talking to myself. I don't envy you having to debate them. I will refrain from saying what I think of them because it would just get me outraged. regret to say I probably will not have anything helpful to contribute before the debate. Will be anxious to hear how it goes, and will check your blog.

 

I've been mumbling to myself, at least maybe you make sense. Obviously you've checked their models of atoms, that's normally when the outrage really begins. I hopefully can get a tape of the meeting so you can here all of the paranoia as well.

[Martin]

the funny thing about "true science" folks is that they are going back to 19th Century premises like none of this quantum fuzz nonsense. Let's have strict cause-effect determinism, but DARWIN WAS BASED ON THAT

Darwin was a thoroughly 19th Century guy.

 

so they are using 20th century quotes to discredit science in general by pointing to some stuff that is against common-sense as we know it, how does that connect with trying to discredit Darwin? Oh well.

 

==================

 

any evolution model would depend, i should imagine, on the moon always having been there for 100s of millions of years making TIDES so that the little sea critters could evolve their reproductive cycles and stuff to be in synch with the tides. Coastal life shows signs of the moon always being there etched into its genes by selection.

=================

 

Maybe mermin said that what they quoted in SOME OTHER ARTICLE, but it doesnt sound like something he would have said. If he was going to say that the moon doesnt exist except when observed then he REALLY OUGHT TO HAVE SAID IT IN THIS ARTICLE (with its catchy provocative title) but I couldnt find anywhere that he actually said those words in the article.

 

Like the closest is where he quotes this rhetorical question from Einstein to Pascual Jordan in a casual conversation. Do you reall think etc.....

And the obvious answer (which the article does not bother to give) is NO Einstein I dont think that. QM says something else.

 

But I could be wrong, maybe Mermin said that in some other article.

Confound them for not giving a footnote and page reference

[Martin]

What a thing to be known for. What is boojum? I tried to look it up' date=' no dice.

 

...[/quote']

 

a boojum is something out of Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

 

he wrote a funny quite screwy poem called "The Hunting of the Snark" that described an imaginary adventure. One of the people was eaten by the Boojum if I remember

 

this is what happens when physicists try to be entertaining. it can be a royal pain

[Martin]

..Obviously you've checked their models of atoms, that's normally when the outrage really begins...

 

well, I glanced at the models of atoms-----the lovely spinning rings.

I wasnt outraged, cause I'm very open-minded and the only thing that matters is DOES IT PREDICT NUMBERS. Any model even made of tinkertoy would be helpful if it could predict more accurate numbers than QED (quantum electrodynamics which gives the theory of atoms, orbitals, light and all that stuff you learn in chemistry)

 

if it doesnt reproduce the accuracy of QED then it is wrong

if it reproduces the accuracy of QED (fat chance) but doesnt do better then it isnt needed

 

if it can IMPROVE on QED accuracy then that is great, just publish and i will give you a lot of respect even if you are loonies.

 

I must go. Wife just returned from trip and probably wants help in kitchen.

 

kind of been enjoying this horrible experience with these creeps

[dirtyamerica]

Silkworm is a chem major at a college in Kansas (not sure about details) where the student Creationists have an organization CORR that sponsors debate' date=' or maybe something besides debate that passes for debate.

 

.[/quote']

 

I'm from Kansas and after reading a brief amount from his blog I'd guess he's from Wichita. There was mention of Wichita and the Sedgwick County Zoo (which is in Wichita). WSU is the univerity there: http://www.wichita.edu/my/visitors/

[silkworm]

if it can IMPROVE on QED accuracy then that is great, just publish and i will give you a lot of respect even if you are loonies.

 

I've said the same thing to Lucas himself. It's funny you mentioned a tinker toy, because that (I think it's a glow worm) is what he used as his model. He broke the end off and made a loop and called it a spinning ring of charge, or some nonsense.

 

I was wondering what boojum is as a scientific term.

 

There is apparantly something missing about Mermin. They've been known to do things like quote a critic of a book about the book instead of the book itself and say the author said it. Very slippery.

[silkworm]

I'm from Kansas and after reading a brief amount from his blog I'd guess he's from Wichita. There was mention of Wichita and the Sedgwick County Zoo (which is in Wichita). WSU is the univerity there: [url']http://www.wichita.edu/my/visitors/[/url]

 

Tis true. I am a Wichita boy. Where are you from DirtyAmerica?

[lucaspa]

Advice: Take away the theological "high ground" of the creationists. I don't know the beliefs of Silkworm, but it would help if he were Christian. If so, the first thing to do is say: "Anyone here who believes God exists raise your hand" and raise your hand. Then say "Anyone here who believes God created raise your hand" and raise your hand.

 

Then say, "The title of this debate is misleading. We are not debating Creation vs an alternative to Creation. Instead, we are debating two different methods that God is said to have used in creating: creationism or ID and evolution. Did God create how creationists say He created, or did God create by evolution? The evidence God left us in His Creation says clearly He created by evolution."

 

Then point out the prominent evolutionists who are/were Christians: Asa Gray, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Francisco Ayala, and Kenneth Miller.

 

Also be sure to use this quote from Origin of Species:

 

"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

 

Be sure you know what "secondary causes" are in theology.

 

Creationists try to portray evolution as atheism. DO NOT LET THEM DO THAT Once you let them turn this into theism vs atheism, you've "lost" to your audience. The only way to get the rank and file to listen is to keep saying that evolution is compatible with God creating and Christianity! Also use this quote from America's most prominent Christian and theologian in the late 19th century:

 

"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, The Religious Aspects of Evolution, 2d ed. 1890, pg 68.

[lucaspa]

And the assault on science will not be against evolution, but all science. He redefines and misrepresents science in order to set up his support. To check out his absurdity and the absurdity of his organization please visit www.commonsensescience.org[/url'] It's especially insulting to physicists and chemists.

 

From what I can see about the site, it is focussed on physics and chemistry, not evolution. And yes, it misstates science ... a LOT. He doesn't like quantum mechanics at all. Ironically, QM is consistent with Judeo-Christianity (his big point about CSS that it is compatible with CSS). Strict determinism removes God from interacting with the world. Strict cause and effect means a deistic God that simply started up the universe and let it run, not the theistic God of J-C that intervenes in human history.

 

For instance, http://www.commonsensescience.org/explaining_life.html it claims that the strong and weak forces are an example of modern science discarding unity. Nothing could be further from the truth. All are part of the idea that there is unity to the universe. Forces do not have to act uniformly for unity.

 

Now that I think about it, Lucas is most vulnerable theologically. That is, his view of science contradicts major and necessary beliefs of J-C.

 

For instance, his common sense science has only 3 assumptions about the universe. Science has 5 (which includes all 3 of his). And yes, originally those 5 assumptions came from J-C in that they are attributes of God. So why does CSS leave out 2 of them?

 

I think Kitty Ferguson in Fire in the Equations gives this the best.

"There is a further element of risk for anyone on a search for the truth. You cannot start in a vacuum. You must begin by trusting some ideas about the universe that have never been proved, may never be proved, and might turn out to be wrong. To be simplistic about it, you have to assume that you exist and that you are sane. Those may not be such difficult assumption. Common sense supports them. Of course, you have to believe they are true in order to trust your common sense. You see what sort of mental mess we get ourselves into!

"The search for truth in science is based on agreement concerning just such basic assumptions. It is a gamble, if you will; a gamble that certain articles of faith which cannot be proved by science are nevertheless well-founded enough to provide a springboard for all scientific investigation. It is intriguing to find that religion shares much of science's basic view of reality. How is it that two approaches, science and religion, both claiming to be avenues of truth but in many ways reputed to clash with one another, should be in agreement on so basic a level? ...

"Scientists of the seventeenth century, most but not all of whom had religious views closer to my grandparents that to Hawking ... developed a procedure that would systematically separate what is true from what is not true. That is the procedure that we call the scientific method. It has served us splendidly ever since its birth and made our spectacular technology possible. Whatever the scientific method's origins or its philosophical foundations, we have no cause to doubt its usefulness.

"Depending upon whether we believe in God, you or I might leave God out of the following." (I put the comments related to deity in [ ] to separate them.)

 

"1. The universe is *rational*, [reflecting both the intellect and the faithfulness of its Creator]. It has pattern, symmetry, and predictability to it. Effect follows cause in a dependable manner. For these reasons, it is not futile to try to study the universe.

"2. The universe is *accessible* to us, not a closed book but one open to our investigation. [Minds created in the image of the mind of God can understand the universe God created.]

"3. The universe has *contingency* to it, meaning that things could have been different from the way we find them, and chance [and/or choice] played a role in making them what they are. Whether this is contingency in the sense that chance [and choice] play an on-going role within the universe, or merely in the sense that there was a initial chance occurrence [or choice] which brought about this universe instead of a different one or none at all, one cannot learn about the universe by pure thought and logic alone. Knowledge comes by observing and testing it.

"4. There is such a thing as *objective* reality. [because God exists and sees and knows everything, there is a truth behind everything.] Reality has a hard edge to it and does not cave in or shift like sands in the dessert in response to our opinions, perceptions, preferences, beliefs, or anything else. Reality is not a democracy. There is something definite, some raw material, out there for us to study.

"5. There is *unity* to the universe. There is an explanation -- [one God], one equation, or one system of logic -- which is fundamental to everything. The universe operates by underlying laws which do not change in an arbitrary fashion from place to place, from minute to minute, or even millenium to millenium. There are no loose ends, no real contradictions. At some deep level, everything fits."

"Divorced from the assumption that there is a God, these five assumptions about the universe, these five articles of faith, if you will -- rationality, accessibility, contingency, objectivity, and unity -- continue to underlie the practice of science. Some would argue that upon them depends all possibility of doing science as we know it. The best argument for their validity is not that they are obvious but that the scientific method seems to work so well! The proof (dangerous word) is in the pudding." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations pg. 8-9

[silkworm]

Advice: Take away the theological "high ground" of the creationists. I don't know the beliefs of Silkworm' date=' but it would help if he were Christian. If so, the first thing to do is say: "Anyone here who believes God exists raise your hand" and raise your hand. Then say "Anyone here who believes God created raise your hand" and raise your hand.

 

Then say, "The title of this debate is misleading. We are not debating Creation vs an alternative to Creation. Instead, we are debating two different [b']methods[/b] that God is said to have used in creating: creationism or ID and evolution. Did God create how creationists say He created, or did God create by evolution? The evidence God left us in His Creation says clearly He created by evolution."

 

Then point out the prominent evolutionists who are/were Christians: Asa Gray, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Francisco Ayala, and Kenneth Miller.

 

Also be sure to use this quote from Origin of Species:

 

"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

 

Be sure you know what "secondary causes" are in theology.

 

Creationists try to portray evolution as atheism. DO NOT LET THEM DO THAT Once you let them turn this into theism vs atheism, you've "lost" to your audience. The only way to get the rank and file to listen is to keep saying that evolution is compatible with God creating and Christianity! Also use this quote from America's most prominent Christian and theologian in the late 19th century:

 

"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, The Religious Aspects of Evolution, 2d ed. 1890, pg 68.

 

This is an excellent post, and you and I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not going to claim religion because I am not religious, and I do not lie - that's what they do, but I'm lucky because I am from their culture - most of the support of creationsim/ID comes from my people, who I know how to talk to.

 

Thank you for the quote from the Origin of Species. I've read it but I don't remember that. Generally I have to defend the Origin of Species by saying it had nothing to do with the Third Reich and Darwin did not write the foreword for Mein Kampf because he was long dead. There are a lot of ties between Darwin and Naziism in these meetings, ironically by people who openly make anti-semetic statements. Do you know anything about this business about Darwin saying men are more highly evolved than women?

 

I do point out however that Darwin was a religious man, even studying for clergy, and that his atheism had more to do with the death of his favorite daughter than it did his science, which I think many in the crowd can relate too.

 

You're very right about atheist - theistic divisions at these meetings, and you are right by evolutionist meaning atheist when I constantly repeat my assumption that it means evolutionary biologist. Many people are discounted by saying they are atheists/evolutionists, even in bizarre instances - like Galileo, who died long before the Theory of Evolution.

 

You are absolutely right, and that's why I try to recruit as many religious scientists as I can to attend these meetings - with the exception of one who is good at dealing with this scenario (he's actually had to make court appearances for teaching anthropology and is constantly under attack).

[silkworm]

From what I can see about the site' date=' it is focussed on physics and chemistry, not evolution. And yes, it misstates science ... a LOT. He doesn't like quantum mechanics at all. Ironically, QM is consistent with Judeo-Christianity (his big point about CSS that it is compatible with CSS). Strict determinism removes God from interacting with the world. Strict cause and effect means a deistic God that simply started up the universe and let it run, not the theistic God of J-C that intervenes in human history.

 

For instance, http://www.commonsensescience.org/explaining_life.html it claims that the strong and weak forces are an example of modern science discarding unity. Nothing could be further from the truth. All are part of the idea that there is unity to the universe. Forces do not have to act uniformly for unity.

 

Now that I think about it, Lucas is most vulnerable [b']theologically[/b]. That is, his view of science contradicts major and necessary beliefs of J-C.

 

For instance, his common sense science has only 3 assumptions about the universe. Science has 5 (which includes all 3 of his). And yes, originally those 5 assumptions came from J-C in that they are attributes of God. So why does CSS leave out 2 of them?

 

I think Kitty Ferguson in Fire in the Equations gives this the best.

"There is a further element of risk for anyone on a search for the truth. You cannot start in a vacuum. You must begin by trusting some ideas about the universe that have never been proved, may never be proved, and might turn out to be wrong. To be simplistic about it, you have to assume that you exist and that you are sane. Those may not be such difficult assumption. Common sense supports them. Of course, you have to believe they are true in order to trust your common sense. You see what sort of mental mess we get ourselves into!

"The search for truth in science is based on agreement concerning just such basic assumptions. It is a gamble, if you will; a gamble that certain articles of faith which cannot be proved by science are nevertheless well-founded enough to provide a springboard for all scientific investigation. It is intriguing to find that religion shares much of science's basic view of reality. How is it that two approaches, science and religion, both claiming to be avenues of truth but in many ways reputed to clash with one another, should be in agreement on so basic a level? ...

"Scientists of the seventeenth century, most but not all of whom had religious views closer to my grandparents that to Hawking ... developed a procedure that would systematically separate what is true from what is not true. That is the procedure that we call the scientific method. It has served us splendidly ever since its birth and made our spectacular technology possible. Whatever the scientific method's origins or its philosophical foundations, we have no cause to doubt its usefulness.

"Depending upon whether we believe in God, you or I might leave God out of the following." (I put the comments related to deity in [ ] to separate them.)

 

"1. The universe is *rational*, [reflecting both the intellect and the faithfulness of its Creator]. It has pattern, symmetry, and predictability to it. Effect follows cause in a dependable manner. For these reasons, it is not futile to try to study the universe.

"2. The universe is *accessible* to us, not a closed book but one open to our investigation. [Minds created in the image of the mind of God can understand the universe God created.]

"3. The universe has *contingency* to it, meaning that things could have been different from the way we find them, and chance [and/or choice] played a role in making them what they are. Whether this is contingency in the sense that chance [and choice] play an on-going role within the universe, or merely in the sense that there was a initial chance occurrence [or choice] which brought about this universe instead of a different one or none at all, one cannot learn about the universe by pure thought and logic alone. Knowledge comes by observing and testing it.

"4. There is such a thing as *objective* reality. [because God exists and sees and knows everything, there is a truth behind everything.] Reality has a hard edge to it and does not cave in or shift like sands in the dessert in response to our opinions, perceptions, preferences, beliefs, or anything else. Reality is not a democracy. There is something definite, some raw material, out there for us to study.

"5. There is *unity* to the universe. There is an explanation -- [one God], one equation, or one system of logic -- which is fundamental to everything. The universe operates by underlying laws which do not change in an arbitrary fashion from place to place, from minute to minute, or even millenium to millenium. There are no loose ends, no real contradictions. At some deep level, everything fits."

"Divorced from the assumption that there is a God, these five assumptions about the universe, these five articles of faith, if you will -- rationality, accessibility, contingency, objectivity, and unity -- continue to underlie the practice of science. Some would argue that upon them depends all possibility of doing science as we know it. The best argument for their validity is not that they are obvious but that the scientific method seems to work so well! The proof (dangerous word) is in the pudding." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations pg. 8-9

 

#4 is the one lost on most of the audience, but I try to put that in practical terms. Arguing for point for point or getting too heavy cause tuneout, which I can't have. Thanks for pointing this out though, I didn't realize that this reasoning had a quotable basis or if it was just my own sense. It's also hard to explain J-C principles to an evangelical audience, because they generally don't think of their religion in those terms.

 

Common Sense science actually argues against all scientific physical laws and redefines them. This is where their movement is going, and reminds me of The Exorcist line, "The Devil mixes lies with the truth." They misrepresent science using what sounds like scientific terminology in order to argue against their own silly misrepresentation. Evolution has overwhelming scientific support, so their presenting a different version of textbook science that will look silly to their audience and that will support their own reasoning.

 

In Lucas' first visit, he put up an overheard of a bunch of physical laws and claimed they're all wrong and being replaced and are only in textbooks due to "political correctness." My first exchange with him dealt with this, and while I was trying to explain to the audience the nature of science, that is the old is constantly replaced with a better new (that is progress), he flat out admitted he thinks they are wrong because "they do not allow for God." I was shocked at his blatant admission and was taken aback for a moment while I considered how to pounce on him, and when I tried to a moment later (after a brief aside) he said, "they just don't fit the data." Accountability is an issue and I know he wouldn't say it again. Recap of the first Lucas meeting here:

 

[lucaspa]

This is an excellent post, and you and I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not going to claim religion because I am not religious, and I do not lie - that's what they do, but I'm lucky because I am from their culture - most of the support of creationsim/ID comes from my people, who I know how to talk to.

 

Then use the quote from McCosh as your starting statement and point out that, for theists, creationism and evolution are different methods God used to create. THAT you can do honestly.

 

There are a lot of ties between Darwin and Naziism in these meetings, ironically by people who openly make anti-semetic statements. Do you know anything about this business about Darwin saying men are more highly evolved than women?

 

First, Nazism came from creationism, not evolution. The source of the Nazi race theories came from the work of a guy named Gobineau -- a creationist who argued that the races were separate creations and were created unequal. See the attached file on "Godineau" .

 

Yes, I know the quote from Darwin.

 

"Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition, chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness; and this holds good even with savages, as shewn by a well-known passage in Mungo Park's Travels, and by statements made by many other travellers. Woman, owing to her maternal instincts, displays these qualities towards her infants in an eminent degree; therefore it is likely that she would often extend them towards her fellow-creatures. Man is the rival of other men; he delights in competition, and this leads to ambition which passes too easily into selfishness. These latter qualities seem to be his natural and unfortunate birthright. It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation.

 

The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on 'Hereditary Genius,' that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman." Descent of Man pp 563-64 http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/descent/descent19.html

 

This isn't about "highly evolved" but "more intelligent". However, you can easily see where Darwin made his mistake. The secondary status of women was due to culture, not inherent properties of women. Notice that Darwin also makes the mistake of equating technology with biology -- "therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation". By his own theory, civilisation has not been around long enough for selection to change humans much.

 

I do point out however that Darwin was a religious man, even studying for clergy, and that his atheism had more to do with the death of his favorite daughter than it did his science, which I think many in the crowd can relate too.

 

Darwin NEVER became an atheist! You can see that in Chapter 20 of Desmond and Moore's biography Darwin . The chapter title is definitive "Never an atheist". This comes from a letter from Darwin to Asa Gray late in life: 'I have never been an atheist in the in the sense of denying the existence of a God, ... I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.' Darwin said he underwent "wide swings" in his belief. But those swings were between theism and agnosticism.

 

I have another resource for you: http://www.leaderu.com/science/crackpot.html

 

This site is a Biblical sholar criticizing CW Lucas! So it is a fellow Christian telling them Lucas' science is wrong! Make the most of this.

 

Unless you can leave your atheism at the door (such as trying make Darwin an atheist when he was not), you have no chance and should not be in these debates, IMO. Whatever your personal worldview, the only chance evolution has is to make it very, very clear that it is compatible with Christianity. Evolution is not compatible with Biblical literalism, so if they say that evolution cannot be reconciled with a literal reading of Genesis 1, then that is correct. But you can point out that Christians long ago stopped reading Genesis 1 literally. St. Augustine and John Calvin, for instance, did not hold to a literal Genesis 1.

 

Now, I hope those files uploaded. If you didn't get 2 files, let me know and I'll do it again.

[lucaspa]

#4 is the one lost on most of the audience, but I try to put that in practical terms.

 

That should be the easiest. We all agree there is a REAL universe out there to study. We don't think we are living in the Matrix.

 

The point here is that science did get these assumptions from Judeo-Christianity. Why is Lucas leaving 2 of them out? Contingency and Accessibility. What, couldn't God have made the universe differently? That's why we have to do science and go out and look. Not just what Lucas does and make theories in his office and never do experiments.

 

It's also hard to explain J-C principles to an evangelical audience, because they generally don't think of their religion in those terms.

 

Maybe because you don't know Judeo-Christianity well enough? I realize that they don't know much history of Christianity, but that should make it all the more effective when you point out that creationism is against Christianity!

 

Historically, evolution was looked upon as rescuing God from creationism. Special Creation creates (pun intended) real problems for God. This was recognized in the 1850s as more and more bad and cruel designs were discoverd in nature. God made these directly? Then God is sadistic, stupid, and suffering from Alzheimer's! Not acceptable. Natural selection gets God off the hook, because God no longer DIRECTLY designs each species: natural selection does.

 

Common Sense science actually argues against all scientific physical laws and redefines them. This is where their movement is going, and reminds me of The Exorcist line, "The Devil mixes lies with the truth."

 

There's also a Bible verse to that effect. Let's both try to look it up. Imagine how effective that would be: showing that the Bible disapproves of Lucas' CSS!

 

They misrepresent science using what sounds like scientific terminology in order to argue against their own silly misrepresentation. Evolution has overwhelming scientific support, so their presenting a different version of textbook science that will look silly to their audience and that will support their own reasoning.

 

Making strawmen of science has been a hallmark of modern creationism since Morris and Whitcomb published The Genesis Flood in 1968. Barnes and others have also done it for physics. As the resource site I posted to you demonstrates.

 

he flat out admitted he thinks they are wrong because "they do not allow for God."

 

Did you ask "How are they supposed to include God?" Or "Why aren't these laws how God is acting?"

 

"A Law of Nature then is the rule and Law, according to which God resolved that certain Motions should always, that is, in all Cases be performed. Every Law does immediately depend upon the Will of God." Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, I, 2-3, 1726, quoted in CC Gillespie, Genesis and Geology, 1959.

 

Educate them on how Christians have really thought about science! Did you know that it was Christians that falsified creationism in the first place? Yep. And many of them were ministers.

[silkworm]

lucaspa, I didn't get 2 files, I'm not sure you can attach them to posts, maybe you can. Would you like to email me? Thanks for the help and support and I'm reviewing the information you have sent me.

 

As a sidenote, I don't advertise my atheism because by what I address it's a moot point, but I will not lie if asked. (An important point as well is that I grew up as an evangelical christian, and that what I say at these meetings can be verified.) The fact is, also, I am one of them. The support for ID/creationism is more cultural than religious in these parts and I am one of them. I have been met with success as well, because what I care about is defending the audience who I address, and rarely have any frame of reference to the arguments addressed. I see little point in beating Lucas in an invalid argument when compared to showing the audience that they are being lied to and that science has benefited them and scientists are not satan worshippers. I have been met with success in past meetings, however Lucas' first meeting I had the least (although there were the most people there) because of the odd format, and this format is even more odd with the CCTV.

[silkworm]

Quote:

Common Sense science actually argues against all scientific physical laws and redefines them. This is where their movement is going' date=' and reminds me of The Exorcist line, "The Devil mixes lies with the truth."

 

There's also a Bible verse to that effect. Let's both try to look it up. Imagine how effective that would be: showing that the Bible disapproves of Lucas' CSS![/quote']

 

I actually was introduced to this verse at one of these meetings, and I couldn't squint hard enough to get its verse. It was in a Menton video (I think Lucy:She's no Lady), and it was about "evolutionists."

[silkworm]

Quote:

he flat out admitted he thinks they are wrong because "they do not allow for God."

 

Did you ask "How are they supposed to include God?" Or "Why aren't these laws how God is acting?"

 

Pointing that out in the first overall meeting led to overwhelming (and unexpected at the time) success, however I wanted to establish something else and then he shocked me by making it too easy. I wasn't going to hit that point until we established what science does for the audience.

 

Although I didn't mention God, and only did once overall. An ICR bookwriter attends all the meetings and he said that belief in God causes an accountability problem and that's why people want to not believe in him and believe in evolution (his assumption of course that they are mutually exlusive). I had to make the statement, "Then how are you going to be held accountable to God by endorsing the lies about science in these presentations?" It took a couple of days but he conceded there are misrepresentations, though he did so in private. That's the only time.

 

I go to these meetings as a student of science looking for a valid scientific argument, not as a religious person. I go to all science lectures I can attend, and then I do my best to clean up the mess. That's how I approach it, and that's the only way I can do it honestly. I do feel I have authority now to comment on Darwin not being an atheist now, and thank you for pointing that out, all biographical information about Darwin that I read said what I said.

[Martin]

I like Lucaspa. I remember him. He introduced me to an honest-Christian website maintained by a I think an Episcopalian guy who keeps his God and comes to honorable terms with science. Cool guy. Hello Lucaspa, if memory serves we have met before maybe a year ago. Glad to see you, if that's you.

I'm out of here. Just dropped in for a moment. I'm reading a great new quantum gravity paper, and nothing will make me stop doing that today.

[lucaspa]

"Most simple point here is that you can't consider a supreme being when conducting a scientific investigation because you can not control for it. The existence of God is irrelevant to science. Nor can science prove or disprove the existence of God, because natural science only studies the natural world, also known as the universe. Nor does science really care. You won't find any reputable scientific journal that weighs the existence of God in any of its conclusions."

 

I would disagree. Science does passionately care about the existence of God. It's just that science can't DO anything about it -- to show God exists or that God does not exist.

 

Look, we are trying to completely understand the universe and how it works. If God is necessary for all the laws, theories, hypotheses, processes we study to WORK, we really care about that.

 

But, as you pointed out, we can't control for the supernatural. We can't point to a test tube and say "I know God is not in that one" and point to one next to it and say "I know God is in that one." But we have to be able to do that in order to directly test for God's effect on, say, the combustion of hydrogen to oxygen. If God participates in the reaction every time, science can't detect God. It's called Methodological Materialism.

 

So, science finds the material (or natural) explanation. Or rather the material component of the explanation. There may or may not be a supernatural component of the explanation.

 

The way God gets into science is by the backdoor. God is proposed to work by a specific material mechanism. Then we test the material mechanism. For instance, it was proposed that God caused a Flood and the Flood caused all geological features. Well, we tested whether all geological features were caused by a single world-wide Flood. Nope. So, we falsified the Flood as the material mechanism for geology. However, what do we do if someone proposes that God created the universe by the Big Bang, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution? Yes, all those material mechanisms account for the entities associated with them. But is God involved? The scientific answer is: we don't know.

 

But the idea that God is necessary and a part of every explanation is very relevant to science. Again, it's just that we can't do anything about it because of the limitation imposed by the scientific method.

 

Now, God is weighed in 2 areas: the origin of the universe and the origin of the order of the universe. In 2001 an Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences was devoted to weighing different hypotheses of the origin of the universe and the origin of the order in the universe.

 

1: Russell RJ. Did God create our universe? Theological reflections on the Big Bang, inflation,and quantum cosmologies.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:108-27.PMID: 11797742 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

2: Gingerich O. Scientific cosmology meets western theology: a historical perspective.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:28-38.PMID: 11797757 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

4: Miller JB. Cosmic questions and the relationship between science and religion.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:309-10. No abstract available.PMID: 11797760 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

5: Turok N. Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:83-96.PMID: 11797765 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

6: Weinberg S. A universe with no designer.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:169-74; discussion 183-90.PMID: 11797746 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

7: Polkinghorne J. Understanding the universe.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:175-82; discussion 183-90.PMID: 11797748 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

8: Griffin DR. Is the universe designed? Yes and no.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:191-205.PMID: 11797749 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

9: Pelikan J. Athens and/or Jerusalem: cosmology and/or creation.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:17-27.

 

God has also been considered as being behind the observation that intercessory prayer has an effect:

3: Levin JS. How prayer heals: a theoretical model. Altern Ther Health Med. 1996 Jan;2(1):66-73. Review.

[silkworm]

I would disagree. Science does passionately care about the existence of God. It's just that science can't DO anything about it -- to show God exists or that God does not exist.

 

We're essentially saying the same thing, however, my point is because we can't control for God or test for God's existence so science does not care about the existence of God. If, hypothetically, we reach an end (the only possibly universally accepted end being of course there is a God) to somehow prove whether or not God exists will have no effect on scientific methodology or considerations (because in the event that God is a superbeing how do we control God then?). With a different set up, that the existence of God is of importance and consideration to science, gives them fuel for their argument, which that science and religion are bedfellows and that supernatural forces/entities need to be considered for valid science to take place.