Comment on The Basis of Biblical Credibility by Sean Pitman.
This missive simply reinforces every prejudice I have
1] You have no criteria for scientific evidence. Your ideas completely lack rigour. You seem to equate history the bible and anecdote with scientific evidence. You seem completely impervious to S Schillers insightful comments on tools and process.
The criteria I have for scientific evidence is the scientific method itself. For instance, my ideas are testable and potentially falsifiable – while yours do not seem to be (at least not to me). After all, you’re the one arguing that future discoveries will support your position even if the required evidence isn’t currently in hand. How is that a scientific position? You also appear to argue that if a conclusion is “blindingly obvious” then it really isn’t a scientific conclusion. How is it that simple conclusions cannot be achieved scientifically? Where in the scientific method are “blindly obvious” conclusions not allowed?
As far as history is concerned, are you suggesting that the study of history cannot be approached in a scientific manner? Or, am I misreading you here?
Also, where did I argue for anecdotal science? What I argued for is historical science – the same science used to determine the credibility of stories about historical figures like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan. Do you wish to argue that these stories are based on “anecdotal evidence”?
2] With profound hubris you cite yourself as the authority on the non-eolian origin of the coconino sandstone and completely dismiss the scientific publications cited on the wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconino_Sandstone
and the consensus embodied in the USGS description.
http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/coloradoplateau/lexicon/coconino.htm
Did you actually read what I wrote? I don’t dismiss the arguments for the eolian origin of the Coconino Sandstone at all. I address these arguments in some detail in fact. What do you have to say for why all the trackways within the Coconino, including very finely preserved and very detailed trackways, are headed uphill? and why this sandstone is so pure? – without the preservation of plant or animal remains or significant burrowing or bioturbation? – and why the horizontal horizons are so smooth and flat over huge areas?
3] You seem so devoid of original thought that you can only react in 4 of the last 5 post to what I have said.
I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your point here? Also, what does original thought have to do with an idea being right or wrong? A lot of non-original ideas are none-the-less true.
I do feel sorry that you cannot see that there is a world of unexplored scientific questions and knowledge and you can do no more than doggedly defend an insignificant part of that terrain with arguments and positions that I and most scientists would think anachronistic.
The same thing was said of Einstein by many scientists when he first presented his theories. Who cares if you and the majority of scientists disagree with me if you cannot answer very simple questions regarding the very mechanism of Darwinian evolution? You admit that you have no idea how random mutations and natural selection can create anything beyond very low levels of functional complexity. Yet, you are confident that this mechanism, or some other mindless natural mechanism, did the job and that future discoveries will demonstrate this reality. Again, call me crazy, but that’s not science. That’s your own personal philosophy which happens to be popular right now among most scientists.
Be open. Truth can afford to be scrutinized. God can defend Himself he doesn’t need you to fight against reality in His name. He remains even if life is billions of years old.
I agree. By all means scrutinize my position. Please show me where I’m wrong. Don’t just list off a bunch of references and tell me that someone else knows the answer. Present the argument to me yourself. Show me how easily random mutations and natural selection can create beyond very low levels of functional complexity. Show me how the detrimental mutation rate can be overcome by natural selection for slowly reproducing creatures. I’ve been waiting a very long time for you to present an actual argument in response to these simple questions that doesn’t depend upon some future discoveries. Where is the science that is currently in hand to support your position?
You ask me to be open to the possibility that I’m wrong. I am open to this possibility. I most certainly could be wrong. But, why should I admit error that I do not yet see? And, what about you? Are you open to the same possibility? – to the possibility of being wrong? I know that someone who favors fideism doesn’t like to consider even the potential of being wrong. Why then is it Ok for the thoughts and ideas of others to be scrutinized? – but not Ok for Neo-Darwinism to be scrutinized?
Is it possible for God to hide Himself from empirical detection by scientific methodologies? – methodologies that could be used to detect a truly artefactual radio signal or a granite cube that is a “blindly obvious” product of intelligent design? Sure. God could hide Himself from us is He wished. However, if God does exist, it is also possible that He wishes to reveal Himself in a clearly detectable manner through the works of His own hands. And, who are you to say that this is impossible? That God cannot reveal Himself in such a manner?
To argue that the Christian faith is not logical, that one must believe despite the evidence based one one’s own personal internal experience, is a fideistic position that makes no sense to me beyond wishful thinking and warm fuzzy feelings. But, perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’m simply too “left brained” to get it? I guess God is only able to speak to right brained people? leaving the rest of us out in the cold? I think not…
Sean Pitman Also Commented
The Basis of Biblical Credibility
I thought I answered that question already? To be even more explicit, I do believe that all pigs/boars did come from the same gene pool (i.e., pig/boar hybrids are known that demonstrate “hybrid vitality”; Link), as did all dogs/wolves/coyotes come from the same doggy gene pool and all domestic cats/lions/tigers from the same cat gene pool, etc. We’ve discussed this quite a bit in previous threads you know…
Now, what does your red herring question have to do with answering my question? What qualitatively novel functions have Tibetan boars evolved, beyond very low levels of functional complexity, that weren’t already within the parental gene pool of all boars/pigs?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
The Basis of Biblical Credibility
Very good points…
The Basis of Biblical Credibility
Your argument that evolution cannot work because Paul Cameron or anyone else lacks a precise mechanism to overcome your declared barrier (1000 fairly specified amino acid residues) is based on the fallacy of ignorance.
Then I suppose SETI science, forensic science, and anthropology are all based on the “fallacy of ignorance” as well? – since these scientists can’t think of any mindless natural mechanism to explain certain types of radio signals, murder victims with certain unnatural features, or pieces of rock with artefactual features?
I’m sorry, but there is no fallacy with the argument for the detection of intelligent design behind various kinds of artefacts – like the origin of a highly symmetrical polished granite cube. It isn’t that these scientists are ignorant of how the phenomenon in question could have been produced by intelligent design. They know how the features they’re considering could have been produced by many different intelligently designed methods. What they don’t know is how the artefact in question could have been produced by any known mindless mechanism of nature. That, my friend, is the very basis of all sciences dealing with the detection of true artefacts of intelligent design.
The very same thing is true of the biomachines within living things that I’m presenting. Clearly, these machines very closely resemble machines that we know were produced by intelligent design. We known and understand how such machines could be produced by various means by intelligent design. What we don’t know is how they could be produced by any mindless natural mechanism this side of a practical eternity of time (i.e., trillions upon trillions of years). This means, of course, that the very best scientific conclusion, the theory with the best predictive power, is that any such biomachine was almost certainly produced by intelligent design.
Now, does the intelligent designer of these biomachines have to be God? No. Not at all. Omnipotence is not required to explain something like a bacterial flagellar motility system. However, even though omnipotence is not required to explain the origin of such machines (to include things like a wrist watch or a granite cube), intelligence of some kind is required.
Does this therefore mean that God did not make something just because God-like power is not required? No. God can make simple stuff just as easily as you and I can make simple stuff. If it just that a God-like creative power is not required to explain everything that God can make. For example, is it possible for God to make a loaf of bread? – the same type of loaf of bread that your mother can make? Sure it is.
It’s funny, don’t you think, that you don’t argue against SETI radio signals or highly symmetrical granite cubes as being anything other than obvious artefacts of intelligent design. Why then the double standard for biological machines that are even farther beyond any known mindless mechanism while being at least closely approximated the creative powers of known intelligent agents?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.
The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.
God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.
The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.
For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”
That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:
Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.
God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28
Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.
Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.
This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…
Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.
Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
