Of Baramins and Baloney 16

[Don]
I certainly did not recognize anything in any of your messages as evidence. Spirit Lake Coal is not evidence FOR your creator; it is merely designed to cast doubt on evolutionary theory and the age of the earth. People being rude to you and your friends is not evidence FOR your theory. I asked for your explanation of the nylonase evolution, and you have apparently abandoned that request for positive evidence.

So yes, there is a disconnect. In my view, evidence is a positive support for your position. What positive support for creationism can you provide? Negative evidence (e.g. evolution is not the answer, evolutionists are mean and rude) is not what is needed. Please recap for me any positive objective evidence that you have provided that indicates that a supernatural entity created life and continues to manipulate living organisms at the present time.

Positive evidence also should come from hypotheses that lead to predictions where the outcome of an experiment would be something that is both incompatible with evolutionary theory AND explainable from first principles by your theory (god did it). Since evolutionary theory contains a mechanism and “god did it” contains no mechanism, I have yet to hear any creationist meet this standard. The importance of a mechanism here is quite obvious to any scientist, but mysteriously un-obvious to creationists. Nevertheless, I’d love to hear your versions of a testable hypothesis that can lead to objective experimentation where the outcome is clearly NOT explainable by evolutionary theory and also logically derived from the principles and mechanisms of your theory. I’ve seen none of that (or at least recognized none of that) in your messages thus far. So please remind me.

You ask “Is it possible for a Designer to leave material evidence of its existence?” Yes, it’s possible. But that evidence has to be, as noted above, unequivocal. In order for such evidence to be unequivocal, you will have to provide (also as noted above) a mechanism that such designers would use. Let’s hear it. A mechanism is the how, when, and where of the designer’s actions. Let’s hear more about that, please.

It’s like your statement that “creationist/ID proponents” are not scientists. A professor of mathematics is not a scientist? A microbiologist is not a scientist? A highly published astronomer is not a scientist? Upon what are you basing your definition of “scientist” except belief system?
Mathematicians are not biologists, and the mathematicians (like Dembski) on the IDC side have ALL shown themselves incapable of understanding biology at even a minimal level. Dembski’s work uses simplistic and unjustifiable assumptions; ti fails to describe biological reality in even the simplest terms. One microbiologist and one biochemist might be scientists, but NONE of their work has been directed at providing positive evidence of the sort described above. It is all negative (“Evolution could not have done this”). I’m afraid that it needs to be pointed out that even if evolutionary theory is shown to be wrong, your preferred explanation is not automatically right. Positive evidence, of the sort that is lacking so far, is needed. Let’s hear about it.

Every culture has taboos, and that includes today’s orthodox science. Taboos are simply non-touchable topics. Every mainstream scientist does not have an aversion to religion or the possibility of God, but they have all bought into the taboo that no questions can be asked that will honestly consider evidence about the subject. They just don’t have a clue where the taboo comes from or even that they have one. After all they can’t ask questions about it. Whatever is taboo is not rationally considered; it’s just “WRONG.” I think you should re-read that quote by Mill.
As noted many times before, that is simply insulting. I know of no other group that is better at honestly considering evidence than the science community. This sort of conspiracy theory demeans your position. Science is a vast global community. There is no way that you can honestly believe that all biological scientists everywhere have been brainwashed. That is ludicrous and illogical. More importantly, it is unsupported by any evidence that you have presented thus far. Where is the evidence for this vast conspiracy? Why has not one rogue scientist figured out how to discern the presence and the actions of the supernatural? Is it because we are all stupid and brainwashed? Or is it because, as scientists in ALL disciplines will tell you, the supernatural hypothesis cannot be objectively tested? I don’t think that there is any doubt about the answers to these questions. But if you want to convince me, give me that hypothesis that can be objectively tested which supports your notions and cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

About that quote from Mill - Do you think that if you had been raised as a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Zoroastrian, that you would have the same objection to evolution? If not, does that tell you something about the “basis for your opinion”? The basis for your opinion, it seems to me, is the accident of your birth and raising as a Christian. I was raised that way too. But I base my opinons on something else. POSITIVE EVIDENCE.

sincerely

Mark

This entry was posted on January 26, 2009 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.