ericmurphy
Posts: 2460
Joined: Oct. 2005
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| Quote (improvius @ Oct. 02 2006,17:09) | Points of agreement.
I am proposing a shortcut. We could continue arguing the finer "sciencey" points to Dave, but I think we all know where that's going to end up. As Mike PSS is demonstrating, ultimately Dave will have to formally concede on all of the technical, materialistic elements of your theories. So why don't we just take that as a given and get right to the heart of Dave's "hypothesis": positive evidence of natural things which we don't presently understand. Once again, I think everyone here will agree that, eventually, that's what Dave's "hypothesis" boils down to. It's only a matter of time before he ends up there, so why don't we just jump right to it? |
I wholeheartedly agree, Improv, and in fact that's exactly what I've been trying to get Dave to do for the past five months. I've repeatedly admonished him to stop trying to find holes in the evidence supporting evolution, an old age for the earth, etc., and get on with providing "positive evidence" in support of his "hypothesis."
If you can think of a way to get him to do this, please, for the love of god, do so. I've been trying to get him to do it for months. The rest of this thread is just one giant detour around the issue.
And another point about "supernatural" causes, by which Dave appears to mean "causes the nature of which we don't yet have an understanding." Obviously, this is not what most people mean by the term, but I can work with it.
If that's what you mean by "supernatural," Dave, no scientist is going to dispute that various things could have "supernatural" causes. What gives an electron its mass? Well, probably the Higgs boson, but no one knows for sure, so maybe the source of mass is "supernatural." Scientists don't rule out "supernatural" (in this sense of the term) causes because they're supernatural, but because there's no evidence (yet) for them.
But they are going to have a problem with "hypotheses" which can be ruled out right out of the gate because they conflict with simple, basic observation. Your young-earth "hypothesis" falls into this category. A 6,000-year-old cosmos "hypothesis" falls afoul of so many observational tests I could fill up an entire page with just a list of them.
Scientists don't fail to consider the Bible (specifically, Genesis) because they don't know any better, Dave. They don't consider it because it is clearly (and I do mean clearly, like any bright nine year old can see the problems with it) erroneous.
Now, if you want to propose some "supernatural" mechanism by which we can see a galaxy that's 2 million lightyears away in a cosmos that's only 6,000 years old, go right ahead. We'd be happy (no, fascinated) to hear your proposal. But unless you come up with some actual, affirmative evidence to support the existence of such a mechanism, we're going to laugh at you just the way we've been laughing at you all along. Some statement like, "Relativity theory makes it reasonable to suppose that God can exist outside of time and space and therefore he could make the galaxies only look like they're that far away" simply isn't going to cut it.
But again, Improv, if you can get Dave to actually focus on providing actual, affirmative evidence supporting the existence of these various "supernatural" mechanisms, I'll buy you a fifth of single-malt (if that's your thing).
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2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity
"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams
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claims of our opponent are as light as a feather. In fact, they make our point for us so well, we don't even need to be here -- your "burden of proof" carries itself, Dave.