Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
That is simply not true. There are exceptions, of course, but a successful scientist is not one who goes in thinking they know it all. Why would they bother, if that were true?
Ken Ham believes in Dragons...
- Thread starter goldfly
- Start date
That is simply not true. There are exceptions, of course, but a successful scientist is not one who goes in thinking they know it all. Why would they bother, if that were true?
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Well if there are exceptions (even one or two) then how can you say it simply isn't true?
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
His opinions on religion have nothing to do with his job--or how he approaches it. The only reason many scientists voice their opinion on religion (especially in America) is because of the constant attacks they are forced to defend themselves against. When they are doing their job, the last thing on their mind is the little church down the road.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
Because you used "they" as an umbrella term. Any "scientist" with a personal agenda (during the work hours) is quickly exposed through their own work and rarely (if ever) amount to anything.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
This isn't true and you know it. If I have an obvious bias against any person or any thing it might not come up 90% of the time, but at some point it's going to cloud my reasoning. I don't even disagree with you or him about a lot of the science argument. I know that what most people, including Christian folk would call just common sense science is actually part of evolution. The only points where I would even disagree are at some of the points of origin, so he and I might agree on 95% of scientific matters,maybe even 99%, but at some point we're going to disagree. Do you deny that my belief in God might color my views on "points of origin", etc.? If my beliefs in "SOMETHING caused it to happen, some being, not just by accident" might color my decisions, his already preconceived notion that "NOTHING caused it" isn't going to color his?
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
This sounds more like indoctrination or political partisanship than it does science. It also sounds like that good old argument that I"m "painting with a broad brush".
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
The Theory of Evolution doesn't try to answer "what caused it" at all. Neither does The Big Bang. It isn't about that and anyone who took the time to read about both theories would know that. You are more than welcome to say, "God did it," as I mentioned in the other thread. That has no bearing at all on either theory.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Really?? Because I have heard over the years many Darwinists and Big Bangers go to great length to maybe not prove the extreme origins per se, but the definitely the parts that contain a lack of a creator at some point. In other words I don't care if I'm 100% right on where it all began, as long as I can disprove the God is a part of it element. You know this is true, the lack of a Supreme Being is at the root of everything they do, it's like any bias, it may not come to light today or tomorrow, but it's always there and will come out if the situation comes up.
The reason why you're OK with me saying that "God did it" is that you're a decent guy, and though we've often disagreed on these things, and probably always will, you've always treated me with respect, even when we disagree and I hope I've done the same with you. The main difference here is, these people not only don't like each other they basically (in my opinion) don't respect each other. I think most of these guys on both sides would really rather make the other guy look bad, than to actually discover something real by their own hard work.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
If you want to attack theories by saying scientists have agendas, you need to show that the scientist who came up with the theory had an agenda that makes the theory flawed. You will quickly discover that no legitimate accepted theory can survive having flaws due to an agenda--because of peer-review. That is what I meant by "being exposed."
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
Hardly silly. They both have fundamentalist close-minded stances. In addition they both read ancient near eastern genres of literature as fundies.
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
No. Not at all.
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
Of course it is. The problem is not enough do. And they confuse philosophy and their own faith with science.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
You haven't heard scientists do that. Perhaps you've heard a "Darwinist" or a "Big Banger" do it, but I would bet my wisdom teeth that they weren't scientists because those theories have no bearing whatsoever on the existence of God or whether he had anything to do with creation. Just read the theories and you will see what I am saying.
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
Mohler puts it fairly well:
"...Both men were asked if any evidence could ever force them to change their basic understanding. Ham said no, pointing to the authority of Scripture. Nye said that evidence for creation would change his mind. But Nye made clear that he was unconditionally committed to a naturalistic worldview, which would make such evidence impossible. Neither man is actually willing to allow for any dispositive evidence to change his mind. Both operate in basically closed intellectual systems. The main problem is that Ken Ham knows this to be the case, but Bill Nye apparently does not. Ham was consistently bold in citing his confidence in God, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the full authority and divine inspiration of the Bible. He never pulled a punch or hid behind an argument. Nye seems to believe that he is genuinely open to any and all new information, but it is clear that his ultimate intellectual authority is the prevailing scientific consensus. More than once he asserted a virtually unblemished confidence in the ability of modern science to correct itself. He steadfastly refused to admit that any intellectual presuppositions color his own judgment.
But the single most defining moments in the debate came as Bill Nye repeatedly cited the “reasonable man” argument in his presentation and responses. He cited Adolphe Quetelet’s famed l’homme moyen—“a reasonable man”—as the measure of his intellectual authority. Writing in 1835, Quetelet, a French intellectual, made his “reasonable man” famous. The “reasonable man” is a man of intellect and education and knowledge who can judge evidence and arguments and function as an intellectual authority on his own two feet. The “reasonable man” is a truly modern man. Very quickly, jurists seized on the “reasonable man” to define the law and lawyers used him to make arguments before juries. A “reasonable man” would interpret the evidence and make a reasoned judgment, free from intellectual pressure.
Bill Nye repeatedly cited the reasonable man in making his arguments. He is a firm believer in autonomous human reason and the ability of the human intellect to solve the great problems of existence without any need of divine revelation. He spoke of modern science revealing “what we all can know” as it operates on the basis of natural laws. As Nye sees it, Ken Ham has a worldview, but Nye does not. He referred to “Ken Ham’s worldview,” but claimed that science merely provides knowledge. He sees himself as the quintessential “reasonable man,” and he repeatedly dismissed Christian arguments as “not reasonable.”…"
"...Both men were asked if any evidence could ever force them to change their basic understanding. Ham said no, pointing to the authority of Scripture. Nye said that evidence for creation would change his mind. But Nye made clear that he was unconditionally committed to a naturalistic worldview, which would make such evidence impossible. Neither man is actually willing to allow for any dispositive evidence to change his mind. Both operate in basically closed intellectual systems. The main problem is that Ken Ham knows this to be the case, but Bill Nye apparently does not. Ham was consistently bold in citing his confidence in God, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the full authority and divine inspiration of the Bible. He never pulled a punch or hid behind an argument. Nye seems to believe that he is genuinely open to any and all new information, but it is clear that his ultimate intellectual authority is the prevailing scientific consensus. More than once he asserted a virtually unblemished confidence in the ability of modern science to correct itself. He steadfastly refused to admit that any intellectual presuppositions color his own judgment.
But the single most defining moments in the debate came as Bill Nye repeatedly cited the “reasonable man” argument in his presentation and responses. He cited Adolphe Quetelet’s famed l’homme moyen—“a reasonable man”—as the measure of his intellectual authority. Writing in 1835, Quetelet, a French intellectual, made his “reasonable man” famous. The “reasonable man” is a man of intellect and education and knowledge who can judge evidence and arguments and function as an intellectual authority on his own two feet. The “reasonable man” is a truly modern man. Very quickly, jurists seized on the “reasonable man” to define the law and lawyers used him to make arguments before juries. A “reasonable man” would interpret the evidence and make a reasoned judgment, free from intellectual pressure.
Bill Nye repeatedly cited the reasonable man in making his arguments. He is a firm believer in autonomous human reason and the ability of the human intellect to solve the great problems of existence without any need of divine revelation. He spoke of modern science revealing “what we all can know” as it operates on the basis of natural laws. As Nye sees it, Ken Ham has a worldview, but Nye does not. He referred to “Ken Ham’s worldview,” but claimed that science merely provides knowledge. He sees himself as the quintessential “reasonable man,” and he repeatedly dismissed Christian arguments as “not reasonable.”…"
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Well to prove it you'd have to get them to admit, since noone can prove literally that God does or does not exist (it's a matter of faith, right) then the actual proof would be very difficult to acquire on either side. The thing you're then left to do is argue or debate, trying to get the other guy to slip up and take a path with no defensible position, like Clarence Darrow did with William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes Monkey Trial of the 1920's. Darrow was great at leading Bryan into the extreme fundamentalist arguments and he would simply take the hanging curve ball Bryan gave him and hit it out of the park. Darrow won pretty much every argument with Bryan during that trial but in the end Bryan won the war because the jury was from TN and wasn't going to go along with anything other than man's take on the Bible theory, no matter how well Darrow presented the other side.
In short, the jury was biased, period. Sound like anything you've seen on both sides of this argument? Remember it's also bias if you agree with it. How many of us rule even a bad argument as having won a debate simply because that argument goes along with what we already thought/believed? Surely you are smart enough to recognize your own preconceived beliefs and biases...
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
Hawk, I'll read the rest of your earlier post after finishing Dalyn's linked video. But I will say this. I know of no true Bible expert that says that the Bible explains everything. I know of fools who might say that.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Your wisdom teeth? Do I have to extract them if I win? Jeez, what's next, your appendix? Anyway, now you're just nit picking and essentially trying to change the subject or at least the focus of the discussion. You have good arguments about science and evolution and I agree with you more often than you know, but now you're just using semantics.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
I don't have an appendix. Sorry.
I am not nitpicking at all. This is about scientists, not people who are not scientists. You can't discredit scientists by saying some people who listen to them turn around and throw out bad science. Those people aren't scientists.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
I guess that depends on what you call a "Bible expert" vs. that other word. I know what you mean here, but the guys you see on TV or read about making extreme statements based on literal translations of certain words, where a more symbolic approach would be better (like ....on the 3rd DAY...). This decision to stand on principle (in their minds) just makes us all look foolish IMO and there's no telling how people reject Christ because of it. I can see a statement like "they think the world was created in 6 actual physical 24 hour days, how can they possible know what I'm going through or have a savior who can change my life??) I know that you know better, but I feel like these people are digging us a hole that makes telling people about the real Jesus more than a little difficult.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
Sean Carroll is a lot of fun. He is a smart guy with some interesting ideas. He also does a good job of breaking science down where non-scientists can understand it.
Here is a good one about the Higgs boson -
[video=youtube;RwdY7Eqyguo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwdY7Eqyguo[/video]