A 6 Day Creation

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 961 here:

There is now more evidence than ever before about 6-day creation.

For debate:

Please offer evidence for a literal six day creation of the Universe.

Please remember that in this section of the site the Bible is not considered authoritative.

[Jose Fly]

Which is my point, we should not be accusing one another of emotive actions like "attacking science" it has no place in civilized polite discourse - IMHO.

What would you consider to be "attacking science"?

The very phrase carries the presumption of error, "attacking science" implies a groundless denial of obvious truth, that's misleading though. Science is not truth, it is a man made model of reality and is based on a vast array of assumptions and interpretation of data. Questioning any reasoned conclusion on the basis that it's assumptions are suspect or subjective is not to be discouraged and certainly not to be misrepresented as intellectual inferiority.

Except that's not what's going on here. We have someone who knows very, very little about science (as evidenced by the contents of their posts), trying to debate science, even though their position is actually based on their religious beliefs.

Even if an argument did attack science so what? can we not simply focus on the arguments, the reasoning, the interpretation.

You can, but it's guaranteed to never go anywhere. The arguments are mere window dressing for the root issue....the conflict between the conclusions of science and specific religious beliefs. And as long as the person takes the position that their religious beliefs will always trump the conclusions of science, no matter what, trying to counter their arguments by showing them data and explaining the science will be a waste of time (except perhaps for the lurker effect).

This isn't about science. If it were, the people on your side of the issue would actually be familiar with it, and thus wouldn't have to ask basic questions about how science is conducted. This is about religion, and more deeply, psychology....i.e., the psychological factors that drive people to hold to religious beliefs (emotional well-being, social security, sense of certainty, etc.) regardless of how they correspond to reality. Evolution is hardly the only subject where that dynamic comes up.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Which is my point, we should not be accusing one another of emotive actions like "attacking science" it has no place in civilized polite discourse - IMHO.

What would you consider to be "attacking science"?

I find the expression meaningless, unhelpful, a distraction, more an insinuation about the person that's taking some position rather than the merits or shortcomings of the position itself. This is why I never use it or similar expressions, it is too emotive, too judgmental IMHO.

I'm not saying any more on this now, I'd like to get back to the subject itself - A 6 Day Creation.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #480]

You can find refutation to all of that in another thousand websites, easy to find.
You don't want to read them?
Normal ... then do not ask me to do it.

I assume that was directed at me, but without any post reference to who you are responding to there is no way to know.

Today we have search engines like Google. If you type a subject into that search engine it returns links that are generally ordered in terms of relevance (at least as best Google's algorithms can ascertain that, which is pretty good). You don't need to read "a thousand websites" ... just pick the top handful, or just 1-2, and that's all there is to it.

For broad and very common subjects like Paleontology, a Wikipedia link is usually at or near the top of the list, or at the top, right, and there are a lot of good summary articles on Wikipedia, with additional references at the bottom of each article. So it is very easy to get basic information on a subject like Paleontology in just a few minutes ... no need to visit a "thousand websites." Of course, there has to be some interest in actually learning about the subject in the first place.

[Eloi]

Don't repeat yourself so much... It's not necessary.

Something better you can do is to consider my answers and notice that the questions you ask in your posts have long been answered.

Needless to say, this is not the right place to be telling people to look elsewhere for answers, it's not the university here... this is a discussion forum.

Have an excellent day.

[Jose Fly]

I find the expression meaningless, unhelpful, a distraction, an insinuation about the person that's taking some position rather than the merits or shortcomings of the position itself. This is why I never use it or similar expressions, it is too emotive, too judgmental IMHO.

So you feel it's impossible for someone to attack science?

I'm not saying any more on this now, I'd like to get back to the subject itself - A 6 Day Creation.

Well that gets back to what I said in the rest of my post. The only reason the concept of a "6 day creation" even exists is because of religion, and more specifically Genesis. If that didn't exist, no one would ever posit a 6 day creation or young earth. If humans never existed and an alien scientist landed on planet earth tomorrow and started studying the planet and its life, he would never discover a single thing that would lead him to conclude that the planet was less than 10,000 years old and everything on it had been created in 6 days.

As I've said for years, there's a reason why the world's earth and life scientists have agreed on the conclusions of an ancient earth with life that's the product of billions of years of evolution.....because that's what the data unambiguously shows. It has nothing to do with dogma, enforced orthodoxy, anti-gods agendas, or anything else.

So the question to you is, when the conclusions of science conflict with your religious beliefs, how do you resolve the conflict?

[Sherlock Holmes]

I find the expression meaningless, unhelpful, a distraction, an insinuation about the person that's taking some position rather than the merits or shortcomings of the position itself. This is why I never use it or similar expressions, it is too emotive, too judgmental IMHO.

So you feel it's impossible for someone to attack science?

I'm not saying any more on this now, I'd like to get back to the subject itself - A 6 Day Creation.

Well that gets back to what I said in the rest of my post. The only reason the concept of a "6 day creation" even exists is because of religion, and more specifically Genesis. If that didn't exist, no one would ever posit a 6 day creation or young earth. If humans never existed and an alien scientist landed on planet earth tomorrow and started studying the planet and its life, he would never discover a single thing that would lead him to conclude that the planet was less than 10,000 years old and everything on it had been created in 6 days.

What you say here is called the genetic fallacy, that a claim can be regarded as false based upon how the claim originates. Even if it is true that Genesis is the source that doesn't prove the argument wrong. Here's a little about this fallacy:

The genetic fallacy arises whenever we dismiss a claim or argument because of its origin or history.

and

Focus on the arguments, not on the origin or history of the arguments. Remember that a bad source does not make an argument bad. Only false premises or a faulty inference make an argument bad.

From: Lucid Philosophy - Genetic Fallacy.

So I regard the claim about the 6 Day Creation originating in Genesis to be fallacious, irrelevant, having absolutely no bearing on the truth/falsity of the claim.

[Jose Fly]

What you say here is called the genetic fallacy, that a claim can be regarded as false based upon how the claim originates.

I never said that. In fact, I implied the opposite....the notion of a 6 day creation isn't supported by any actual data.

So I regard the claim about the 6 Day Creation originating in Genesis to be fallacious, irrelevant, having absolutely no bearing on the truth/falsity of the claim.

I can't tell if this is yet another avoidance mechanism, or if you really don't get the point.

Again, the point about 6 day creation being a religious belief stemming from a religious text, while evolution and an ancient earth are scientific conclusions stemming from scientific data and analyses, is about the nature of the debate and why they never seem to go anywhere. As I explained, it's due to the fundamental disconnect between people who take a position for religious reasons debating with people who take a position for scientific reasons.

So did you really not understand that?

[Sherlock Holmes]

So the question to you is, when the conclusions of science conflict with your religious beliefs, how do you resolve the conflict?

I recognized long ago that science never does conflict with the truth of God or the Bible. It is interpretations of science, of evidence than can lead to a conflict.

In such cases I try to look at reasonable, alternative interpretations of scientific data or sometimes at alternative interpretations of scripture, often, with some time and honest study the conflict can be seen to be only apparent and I often learn something from that experience.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #484]

Needless to say, this is not the right place to be telling people to look elsewhere for answers, it's not the university here... this is a discussion forum.

Again ... is that for me? If you click on the backward pointing arrow at the bottom right of a post to reply to that post, it will add a "Replying to xxx in post #yyy" so it is clear who you are responding to.

This is in a Debate section, not general discussion, so it is expected there is debate on the topic. That also means that external references that support a claim or comment are allowed, and this eliminates the need to paste in lots of information that can simply be accessed by clicking the provided links. In nearly every case, a summary of a link IS provided, but for some reason ignored. You can't resonably debate a topic without knowing at least something about it, and that requires some effort. Not a university effort, but at least something rather than no effort at all.

If your position is to just ignore any comments or links defending the science position, and refuse to read the supplied external references that suppost those comments, then the general discussion section is probably where you should focus. There is no expectation of a debate there (ie. back and forth putting arguments forth for each side).

[Sherlock Holmes]

Again, the point about 6 day creation being a religious belief stemming from a religious text, while evolution and an ancient earth are scientific conclusions stemming from scientific data and analyses, is about the nature of the debate and why they never seem to go anywhere.

I know the origins of each hypothesis, what of them? As for "scientific conclusions stemming from scientific data and analyses" you made no mention of interpretation, yet it is an interpretation of data and there are different ways to interpret the data.

The view that the debate "never seems to go anywhere" is of course subjective, I don't see it that way at all.