Peter Henderson
Posts: 298
Joined: Aug. 2007
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Gary:
How's the debate going ? Any further nonsense from AiG etc . or have things died the death so to speak ?
I thought you might be interested in this exchange of views between Todd Greene and John Morris of the ICR (Morris chips in about a third of the way down) Re. SN 1987A and the implications for "Young Earth Cosmology"
As you are probably no doubt aware, Todd Greene's website is Greene's creationist truth filter. Lots of excellent artricles on astronomy and cosmolgy and he also deals at length with Russell Humphreys' white light cosmology nonsense.
http://www.outersystem.us/creationism/ETforum.html#ET07
I've copied and pasted the exchange of views as they are quite far down the blog:
| Quote | From: Todd S. Greene
Date: Thursday, April 26, 2001 10:03 AM
Subject: Re: The Ancient Universe, and SN1987A
Hi, John (Morris; since there's another John writing here).
Here's the exchange:
[Todd]
>> As an example of the objective data about the real world that
>> demonstrates that young earth creationism is an incorrect
>> belief about the world, SN1987A is a stellar explosion that
>> occurred approximately 162,000 years *before* YECs' speculated
>> origin time of the universe. Obviously, stars can't explode if
>> they don't exist. Claiming that this stellar explosion never
>> really happened is not scientific. Go to
>>
>> http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/novaesupernovae.html
>>
>> and look at all of these observations of events surrounding
>> SN1987A that you claim never really happened.
[John]
> Never made such claims that I can remember, I think you are
> having illusions (humor now Todd, this is beyond where I want
> it to be). You must be reading more between the lines than I
> meant there to be. 168,000 years ago is the question.
[Todd]
>> And then keep trying to pretend that
>> YEC is scientific, and that children need to be taught these
>> anti-scientific notions about "these astronomical
>> observations of the past are just illusions" in their
>> science classes in order to have a good science education.
>> Those who know better know that this is absurd.
[John]
> Boy did you get carried away with your "illusions" here.
No, John. I'm discussing ideas that are part of the young earth
creationist position and implications of those ideas. Pull out your copy
of *Scientific Creationism* by Henry Morris (either the "public school"
edition, or the blatantly-based-on-religious-doctrine edition). And
don't forget that I was a YEC myself. I'm not a dummy on this, and I'm
not misrepresenting the YEC position (and David was "graceful" enough
to acknowledge by his comments in his most recent post that I have
represented the matter accurately).
Did you visit the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) website? Have you read
my article:
"SN1987A and The Antiquity of The Universe"
Do you understand the fact that the uniformity of lightspeed is observed
and not merely an assumption? Did you understand my point that if
lightspeed was radically faster in the past then we would observed an
equally radical "slow motion" effect, but that no such slow motion
effect is observed to exist?
You state that you "see two bodies of 'facts' that are in opposition."
You do? Where? I've seen the facts that show antiquity, and I have
discussed some of them here. Where are the YEC "facts" in opposition?
Please present the facts that show that SN1987A occurred less than
6,000 years ago. In fact, we all know that no such facts exist.
I certainly grant that you might not be "up to speed" on the relevant
details of these kinds of things. I'm absolutely not going to criticize
someone merely for not being aware of the details. I don't expect you to
swallow anything I state hook, line, and sinker. Not at all. I expect
you, who is arguing in direct opposition to all of science and who yet
argues that young earth creationism is "truth" about the world, to
demonstrate your claimed respect for truth by digging into the details
and making yourself aware of them. What I criticize is not being aware
of the details while then making arguments based on ignoring the details
and then even after having been made aware of the details that
contradict the argument obstinately refusing to acknowledge that either
(1) the argument did not take the contrary details into account, or (2)
the contrary details don't really count because they are not real but
are merely "philosophical assumptions." It is the constant pretension
that I criticize. If you aren't engaging in such pretension, then I
won't criticize you in particular for it. At the same time, I may very
well point out such pretensions, since that is what your arguments are
based on, whether you yourself personally realize it or not. (Again, I
state this as a former YEC myself.)
I'm glad that you don't hold your YEC belief as infallible (regardless
of what we actually observe about the real world). (I didn't look at it
that way either, and that's one big reason I'm not a young earth
creationist today.) What we actually observe about the real world shows
us that it has existed far longer than just 6,000 years. So the
question, then, is, what part of these observations are unclear to you?
And then it becomes a matter of you digging into the relevant details,
and working to understand them.
There is some equivocation in your statement that we "may learn that
what we think we know to be true today is not true tomorrow." This is a
conceptual obfuscation that has been presented to me often. I've read
comments just like this for over twenty years. Please tell me, which
part of "the earth revolves around the sun" is equivocal? Does Jupiter
have moons, or not? Is disease caused by evil spirits, or
microorganisms and biological dysfunction? There are fuzzy ideas about
the real world, and there are ideas about the real world that are so
well known that they are facts about the real world. The fact that the
universe is ancient is known by direct observation. It is just as
factual as knowing that Jupiter has moon and that there are planets
beyond Saturn. The only ones who are arguing otherwise are people who
demonstrate (despite their pretensions otherwise) that they are clearly
and obviously motivated by religious belief and not by the relevant
objective data.
I reiterate that there is no question here about the factual details
showing that, as one explicit example, SN1987A occurred approximately
168,000 years ago. The YEC idea that the universe did not exist prior to
about 6,000 years ago has been unequivocally disproved by direct
observation. The only question with regard to you personally is, how
much are you aware of these details and how much do you understand about
them?
In closing this post, I wish to thank you for your kind personal
comments regarding my knowledge and abilities. I respond by claiming
that, in fact, I'm no more knowledgeable and able than the next guy. I'm
simply someone who in being raised in Christian belief (my father was
a minister in our denomination) took our stated veneration of truth
seriously. Truth and the results of my truth-seeking demanded that I
abandon my belief in young earth creationism, and so I did.
Regards,
Todd S. Greene
###### John Morris, 4/26/01 8:42 AM ######
[snip]
>> I'm not making accusations, John. I'm stating accurate descriptions of
>> YEC concepts and their implications. That's not "accusations" but just
>> the simple truth.
>>
>> Scientists don't disagree about the facts regarding SN1987A, and they
>> don't disagree that they are facts. The only ones who are pretending
>> that the facts aren't the facts are young earth creationists. Now if
>> these same young earth creationists would step off their pedestal of
>> believing that their young earth belief is infallible (regardless of
>> what we actually observe about the real world), and would care to
>> actually deal with the facts instead of waving their hands and blithely
>> dismissing the facts as being "not real," then we could get somewhere.
>> The facts are not in dispute. When YECs such as yourself claim that
>> even though we have directly observed such events from the distant past
>> as SN1987A, these events never really occurred but are merely illusions,
>> then you part company with science. When you start treating the real
>> world itself as merely an illusion you have abandoned science and
>> embraced the subjectivism of believing whatever it is you wish to
>> believe regardless of the fact that what is observed about the real
>> world disproves your belief. Your belief has been tested against the
>> real world and has been shown to be an incorrect belief about the real
>> world.
I never said my assumptions were infallable, do not twist what I said.
In fact I believe I specifically said the opposite (I do not have my
original text). If I remember correctly I said that we (for you and me
included), are still learning and may learn that what we think we know to be
true today is not true tomorrow. And I know I could be wrong in some things
I believe to be true today. So if anybody is on an infallible pedestal, it
is not me. At this point I am I see two bodies of "facts" that are in
oppostion and I'm chosing to stick with what I believe the scriptures to be
saying.
>> It's these games that YECs play about, "Well, these facts that
>> contradict our position are not really facts but just misinterpretations
>> of the data based on philosophical assumptions," but the "philosophical
>> assumption" they happen to be referring to is that the data of the real
>> world itself is real rather than illusory, and yet YECs are pretending
>> to be scientific while they themselves are promoting their subjectivist
>> philosophy that objective observations of the real world will deceive us
>> if we think they represent reality, then we have some serious problems
>> about it being YECs themselves who are being deceptive.
I have never stated nor implied SN1987A is an illusion. What I am
saying is in a day when so many refuse to believe in absolutes how can
anyone claim without a shadow of a doubt that something occured thousands
of years ago? I am sure your figures are very accurate from what we know
today. My problem is how can we be sure the figures were accurate for what
was going on thousands of years ago? What you are asking me to swallow
hook line and sinker is there is no possible way something different could
have happened in history that would cause things to be different today than
thousands of years ago and therefore change your results. I cannot accept
that. I would say that would be acting more like a deity than acting in
honesty.
[snip]
>> These distortions deserve criticism and clarification. Let's dig into
>> the facts about SN1987A more, John. I know that I have absolutely
>> nothing to fear from the truth, because the antiquity of the world is as
>> factual as the revolution of the earth about the sun. I know what the
>> relevant data is, and what it shows. And unlike young earth
>> creationists, I'm not the one going around pretending to be scientific
>> while claiming that objective data of the real world is illusory.
>>
>> You state that what keeps you anchored in your YEC beliefs is what you
>> know about the Bible. The geocentrists condemned Galileo on this same
>> principle. And the fact remains that there exists a wide variety of
>> interpretations of the Bible related to this issue among Christians
>> whose beliefs are anchored on what they know about the Bible.
Yes the church has made its share of error in the past and still does
today. |
Is this really getting down to the nitty gritty or what with all this talk about YECs actually denying reality ? Tod Greene certainly appears to have Morris all tied up in knots
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