@Professor Kent: So let’s suppose that the GRI sponsors a …

Comment on The Credibility of Faith by Sean Pitman.

@Professor Kent:

So let’s suppose that the GRI sponsors a fossil whale dig in South America (LLU and GRI research). The researchers then succeed in showing that the whales were deposited in short order by a catastrophe. Would it disappoint you that most paleontologists would find this particular conclusion similar to that which they have reached from thousands of other fossil digs? And would you be flummoxed if the dating of the whale material itself, and of the Miocene/Pliocene mineral deposits, exceeded 10 million years ago? And would it upset you to learn that Adventist researchers discovered the whales in a highly bioturbated glauconitic sandstone unit?

The Miocene/Pliocene layers are Tertiary layers. These layers were deposited after the Flood, not during. While there are evidences of massive sudden catastrophes within the Tertiary, there is also evidence of longer periods of elapsed time – such as the more extensive bioturbation in certain areas that you’ve pointed out.

And let’s suppose that the GRI sponsors a fossil dig in Nebraska (Chadwick’s SWAU research). The researchers then map very precisely the precise position of thousands of fossils in the quarry. Would you be disappointed if a paleontologist asked, “How does this have anything to do with 6 days 6000 years ago?”

Yet again, this isn’t about proving a six-day creation week. This is about showing that this falsifiable historical statement has not been falsified (contrary to the claims of most modern scientists who claim that it has been very clearly falsified). Not only has the biblical position not be falsified, it is actually very consistent with the weight of available data.

There is a big difference between absolutely proving a hypothesis vs. providing falsifying empirical evidence – between showing the evidence to be consistent with the hypothesis vs. providing an absolute demonstration. Demonstrating consistency and a lack of falsifying evidence is a big part of what science is all about…

For example, let’s say that I was on trial for some crime and the judge asked me where I was on the night of the 29th of June, 2010. I tell the judge that I was at home with my family that night – that I only left my house once between 5pm and 6am the next morning for an hour, from 8-9 pm, to go do some work at my office. Let’s say the judge presents evidence that I was seen in London England on the night in question and that my photograph was taken by a security camera at a particular hotel. This evidence, if it convincing to the jury, would essentially falsify my own testimony that I only left my house in California for an hour. The two stories obviously can’t both be true. The evidence favoring one is falsifying the other at the same time.

Now, if it could be shown that the photo in question was a fake, this would remove the weight of this falsifying evidence. Let’s also say that historically reliable witnesses could be found who would testify that they saw me in my car headed for the direction of my work the night in question. Let’s also say that evidence could be found to support my general trustworthiness within my community. Would this prove that I only left my house for an hour? Could I have been gone for 80 minutes instead? or just half an hour? Could I have gone somewhere else besides my work? Sure, but there is no evidence that is clearly inconsistent with my testimony, and the positive evidence that is available is consistent with my testimony.

What then is the only rational conclusion supported by the currently available empirical evidence?

In this same line, Chadwick’s data supports the catastrophic model for the origin of the geologic and fossil records – a model that is consistent with the biblical model of origins and opposed to the evolutionary model promoted by most mainstream scientists.

Perhaps we should demand that all GRI scientists and projects succeed in proving that life forms could not have existed more than 6100 years ago and that a global flood deposited all fossils and fossil layers simultaneously approximately 4000 years. Doing so might make it a lot easier to fire these chaps who are detested and ridiculed by their own church members in the name of Christ.

Just because someone would not make an effective SDA representative as a pastor or teacher, or effective represent the intended goals that the SDA Church has for the GRI does not mean that these people are “detested” or “ridiculed”. It just means that they do not share the opinions or goals of the SDA Church as an organization. Why try to make this something personal when it isn’t?

By the way, why do we even have fossil layers at all? And why is it that, consistently, we see only the simplest lifeforms in the lowest layers and a gradual increase in complexity as one moves up the layers? How did the flood do this?

There is no real increase in complexity as one moves up the layers. All the animal (metazoan) phyla with an adequate fossil record appear in the Cambrian.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilrecord.html#Simple_Complex

Also, the first examples of many other types of living things keep being moves farther and farther down the column as more research is done. Even pollen, spores and fragments of vascular plants have been found in the Cambrian Salt Range beds in India.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilrecord.html#Spores

There is, however, a certain order to the fossil record. Although not all features of this pattern can be explained via a catastrophic model, many features can be explained. At least a partial explanation might be found in the discovery that at least some of the nested hierarchical patterns of the distribution of different populations (both living and within the fossil record) seem to be strongly related to ecological and population-size factors.

Sites that encompass a greater area tend to have more species (Rosenzweig, 1995). This is because large areas include a subset of species not found elsewhere. Therefore, the nested subset pattern of species distribution in space is thought to reflect the gradient in abundance among species (Gaston, 1996; Leitner and Rosenzweig, 1997; Maurer, 1999). . . [These features are consistent with the hypothesis of] “isolated habitat ‘islands’.”

Elizabeth A. Hadly and Brian A. Maurer, Spatial and temporal patterns of species diversity in montane mammal communities of western North America, Evolutionary Ecology Research, 2001, 3: 477-486

Using this line of reasoning, one might reasonable hypothesize that trilobites appear in the fossil record before crabs and lobsters at least party because of the relative abundance of trilobites compared to crabs and lobsters. This hypothesis is at least plausible given the author’s conclusion that, “Species identities and their relative abundances are non-random properties of communities that persist over long periods of ecological time and across geographic space. This is consistent with species abundance contributing heavily to evolutionary patterns.” After all, “It’s very rare to find fossils of lobsters”. General mobility, ability to survive catastrophic conditions, and other ecological/habitat factors could also reasonably contribute to the differential location of trilobites vs. lobsters and crabs in the fossil record.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilrecord.html#Simple_Complex

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

The Credibility of Faith
@George Hilton:

I do not for one millisecond take the position that I believe without evidence. However, a large amount of my evidence is not based on what most scientists would consider “scientific data.” My faith is based on a consortium of evidence. Some of it is scientific, some of it is metaphysical, some of it is prophetic, and some of it is experiential. The truth is, I have no proof whatsoever that my source of authority is superior to that of Muslims. There is plenty of reason in my mind to believe that there is, but that is unlikely to be sufficient to convince many of them.

Many people forget that science requires leaps of faith beyond which the data actually goes. That’s what science is all about – making educated leaps of faith that cannot be absolutely proven to be true. The same thing can be true of religion.

I see all empirical data is “scientific data” and I think that science can be and must be done, ultimately, by the individual. Again, science isn’t about absolute “proof”. Science never proves a hypotheses or theory to be absolutely true. Science can falsify hypotheses or theories, but it can never fully prove them.

As far as convincing someone else that your own hypothesis is the correct one among many options, that’s a different story. What seems favored by the weight of evidence from your particular perspective may not seem so conclusive from someone else’s perspective. As you point out, there are many factors involved when it comes to making decisions as to what is and is not most likely true – and not all of these factors are based on logical reasoning. There is also the factor of personal feeling or desire or motive.

Since only God can accurate judge the motive or hearts of us humans, the best we can do is share what has been so convincing and helpful from our own perspective. The rest is up to God and the promptings of His Holy Spirit… as you also point out.

My whole point here is to explain that one’s own personal choice as to what is and is not most likely true should be based on more than some sort of internal feeling or strong impression. It should be based on the weight of available empirical evidence. You list biblical prophecy as one of your evidences, for example. You suggest that the evidence of prophecy is not “scientific evidence”. Yet, scientific reasoning can indeed be employed in the evaluation of the hypothesis of fulfilled prophetic statements: Were they really fulfilled in actual history? Were they really made before they were fulfilled? What is the statistical value of the prophecy regarding the need for Divine or superhuman input vs. the alternate null hypothesis of random chance?

These questions can be tested and potentially falsified via forms of scientific investigation and logical arguments based on the weight of empirical data. This sort of investigation is a form of scientific reasoning.

Again, while such scientific reasoning may not reach the level of absolute proof, while it may not be able to convince everyone, “even if someone were raised from the dead some will not believe…” (Luke 16:31), it doesn’t mean it isn’t valid scientific reasoning from your own perspective… and potentially useful for other candid minds who sincerely come to you and ask you the reason for the hope that is within you… a reason that is something more than an internal impression that is only useful for you as a valid reason…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


The Credibility of Faith
@Professor Kent:

So the conclusion to all of this appears to be that, for SDAs, science and evidence trump faith. I completely disagree, but so be it.

If “faith trumps science and evidence”, as you suggest here, then what conclusion can one make except to see this as an argument for blind faith? – faith that is not based on any kind of scientific reasoning or evidence? – faith in a particular point of view that can stand even if all available evidence is pointing in a different direction?

In short, how is your faith in the Bible, faith that is not based on science or evidence of any kind, superior to the same type of faith expressed my LDS or Hindu or Muslim believers in the superiority of their own sources of authority compared to your Bible? How are you so sure you’re right and they’re wrong? How do you know that your “faith” is superior to theirs? Upon what basis do you make such a bold assertion? – a basis that would have general appeal to candid minds beyond your own?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


The Credibility of Faith
@Professor Kent:

I respectfully disagree, even though I believe in the latter, non-falsifiable hypothesis.

Is it not uncharitable of you to argue that the vast majority of scientists are obviously wrong? wrong in their claim that the biblical notion of a recent creation of life on this planet has in fact been clearly falsified by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence? I mean, every time I suggest that anyone might be mistaken you suggest that I’m being uncharitable. How about you then? Does the same argument apply to you?

You see, you’re not just disagreeing with me here. You’re disagreeing with the majority of mainstream scientists who think that your claim to the non-falsifiability of the biblical short-age model of origins is obviously mistaken – that this model for the origin of life on this planet has clearly been falsified by the overwhelming weight of empirical evidence. The very fact that you yourself recognize that empirical evidence can indeed be brought to bear against the biblical position on origins should be enough to convince you of potentially falsifiable nature of the biblical account (in the same manner that many of the historical statements in the Book of Mormon are open to potential falsification and have in fact been falsified).

The only basis that you have consistently forwarded to believe that the biblical claims are still correct despite all the falsifying empirical evidence is your “faith” in the Bible despite all the physical evidence to the contrary – faith that is largely supported by what you feel are the impressions of the Holy Spirit along with a few relatively weekly supporting empirical evidences in the form of fulfilled historical prophecies. That’s it. That’s all you’ve really argued for as far as I’ve been able to tell.

From a rational basis, your claim that the biblical position on origins is not at all subject to empirical testing or the falsifying weight of empirical evidence simply doesn’t hold water for the vast majority of intelligent minds who have thought seriously about this issue…

It is fine if you want to believe despite in the face of what you consider to be the overwhelming weight of empirical evidence to the contrary. Just don’t call your belief or faith anything other than blind faith – i.e., faith that isn’t based on the weight of empirical evidence. Faith that is based on something other than the empirical evidence is blind to that particular type of evidence since it doesn’t take it into serious account.

The kind of faith that is independent of the weight of physical evidence may be helpful for the individual, but it really isn’t helpful when it comes to convincing minds that do not have access to whatever other type of non-empirical evidence you seem to have access to. I certainly do not have access to this other type of evidence that seems so convincing to you in the face of the overwhelming weight of empirical evidence to the contrary.

I, personally, would have to go with what I saw as the weight of empirical evidence. This is why if I ever honestly became convinced that the weight of empirical evidence was on the side of life existing on this planet for hundreds of millions of years, I would leave not only the SDA Church, but Christianity as well…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!


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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…


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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…


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Where did I “gloss over it”?


Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.