Creation as Science - Part I, Preclass

Perhaps this will be a mistake I can only look back on some day and fret. Perhaps not. Before we begin a little back story to smooth out the worry lines of my dear readership.

I have been invited to a bible study, 12 weeks long, one of which was already passed. The first class was an intro to the author, Hugo Ross and his role as an author, astronomer and allegedly valid source of information. I have decided to attend in part to see just what kind of stuff is being handed around, but also because it will be an interesting experience and provide some conversational fodder for me and the inlaws.

Note that Natalie's parents will be in attendance as well.

The book that outlines the framework for the series is listed in the post title with the byline "A testable model approach to end the creation/evolution wars"

Already my skeptic senses are tingling. Mixing and mashing science and religion together is a bit like flavoring mashed potatoes with light sweet crude. I know the hydrocarbons are similar to those in butter but the taste...well it leaves much to be desired.

The dorsal jacket proclaims that the author's intent is to show that any claim for creation/formation must be verifiable/falsifiable to be considered. Already the alarm bells are growing deafening as the jacket further asserts striking harmony between bleeding edge scientific research and biblical accounts of creation. Hmmm. The conclusion is that creation (the same 'creation' part of creationism) is a testable scientific theory that can advance human knowledge as well spark a resurgence in the scientific enterprise.

Funny, I wonder what has kept science thriving and humming along for the past few hundred years.

At any rate I am sure to encounter some face palm phrases and diabolical doublethink but I am going to try and keep an open mind about the ideas put forward. After all I would love to see the reconciliation of believers and atheists, if I wasn't curious I would not be reading the book nor attending the classes. Let's begin with the introduction.

************************
Introduction - Sifting fact from fiction
We start off admirably neutral with some examples of hysteria from the War of the World's broadcast and how people flew off the handle because they thought it was real. I get it. We establish that although the event was fictional people had very strong reactions because they thought it was real.

Segment - The Two Hundred Year's War - begins by saying that the 'war' of science and faith has raged for 200 years now and that opposing sides hold contradictory beliefs. I would argue that intelligent humanists have existed since the days of the greeks and probably existed long before that (as long as religion I will wager) However I mention this because it's not a war just because ideas are clashing. Science marches forth like a juggernaut and people try to slow it down and trip it up whenever it raises a foot to their faith.

Next segment 'about the book' makes something of a faux pas in the scientific world. Quoting Aristotle is always dangerous but in this case especially so. The quoted segment is "everything must be affirmed or denied, and that a thing cannot be and not be." Well, tell that to Schroedinger's cat. This is a worrisome quote because right of the bat we see indifference or ignorance of quantum mechanics.

The next few paragraphs state an intention of promoting dialog and discussion rather than screeds from opposing sides. I am happy to hear that at least. The author then touches on how we can seperate factual information from farcical nonsense. Basically you gather data, analyze it using various tests and from the observations we should be able to predict future outcomes based on what we infer. It's the scientific method in a nutshell but the author goes on to plug the Reason To Believe or RTB creation model.

I am at present unfamiliar with the RTB creation model but again I cannot ignore the skepticism tingle crawling down my spine. Presupposition is the enemy of good science and since the model conforms not to an independently verifiable source but to a preexisting bit of scripture I can only express concern. However, mind open, lights on and fingers at the ready.

The segment ends with a summary of the rest of the book which I'll not relist here. I decided to forego jumping into the chapters and instead want to look a bit deeper at the author himself.

So I did some google work.

Wikipedia
Bio at RTB
Other books

Now those three links represent a huge quantum of information so I will condense a few key points to remark on.

Mr. Ross is an old-earth creationist. This label speaks volumes but in the interest of not pigeon- holing anyone. He seems to believe (and brace yourself for cognitive dissonance, crank yer mental inertial dampeners up) that beliefs should hold up to evidence in a falsifiable and verifiable. That's good. However one can only wonder how sincere this wish is given the conclusions he draws.

Just flipping through the booklist we begin to see a lot of apologetics and a lot of science-confirms-the-words-of-biblical-scripture type of stuff. This is worrisome though at this point I have no delved into the meat of the book in question.

I would like to point out some positives however. The man seems to have a decent understanding of some scientific principles and a flexible yet firm disregard when it comes to marrying them to scripture. There are few deal breakers that I will consider for premature withdrawl or outright antagonism but the following points cannot be dismissed by any reasonable person.

1) The universe is about 14 billion years old
2) The earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
3) Life arose on this planet or was carried here from the immediate solar vicinity.
4) Since it began life has evolved through natural selection and mutation.
5) The dominant theories governing physics, biology and chemistry cannot be suspended, reversed or altered to suit any biblical assertion whatsoever.

6) This is a restatement of point 5, miracles can never supplant naturalistic observations for the explanation of key events throughout history regardless of source, date or popularity.

The next post will cover Chapters 1-3 and the first meeting I attend will relate to those chapters.

Kirk Cameron's butt buddy: The banana man...

Ray Comfort.

No its not what you feel in the bright sun after a generous application of UV blocking colloidal nano-tech it's the name of one of our generation's greatest dingbats. His blog: (clicking this link will bring you to an IQ deficient portion of the web)

I will say one good thing about Mr. Comfort: He allows more controversial/derogatory comments than those brain dead ass clowns at uncommon decent. And yes, William Dembski is THE guy so mercilessly thrashed in many fine anti-creationist videos courtesy of my favorite youtube personality.

Anyway, I was looking at the RC blog and came across a post where Ray answers a bunch of biased questions, clearly written by sycophants and hangers on to his message that banana's are in fact a nightmare for atheists due to their ease of use and convenience.

Here are my own answers, which I hopefully will soon see in the comments section.

Q1: Do you believe in microevolution? Yes, and therefore macroevolution and therefore the origin of life from natural causes. Microevolution is just evolution over a few generations, macro evolution differs only by timescale.

Q2: Do you believe in natural selection? Yes, it is inevitable. Also the 'lion eats lamb' statement is a little weird as NS applies to both species, not just one. Weaker lions starve, stronger lambs live to outrun the lions another day.

Q3: Do you think that one can be both a Christian and an evolutionist? Yes, though the cognitive dissonance must be something of a pain in the head.

Q4: Do you believe that the book of Genesis calls for a literal interpretation? Yes, and since it is clearly at odds with nearly everything we know now about world formation, abiogenesis, evolution, cosmology and physics we should literally throw it out as erroneous nonsense.

Q5: Do you believe that the earth was created in 6,000 years? There is no way that six days or 6 thousand years would have been enough time for intrastellar dust to coalesce, cool enough for liquid water to form, life to emerge and evolve and arrive at its present state. The earth is about 4 billion years old though its base components are much older.

Q6: In one sentence, what do you believe is the chief purpose of human life? To further mankind, enjoy the rare and fleeting moments we have on this earth and to derive whatever purpose we are suited to. This does not involve bowing to invisible authority unless one is so inclined to do so.

Q7: In one sentence, what is the ultimate purpose of this blog? Mental backflipping and misinformation. Oh and BANANA'S!!!

Q8: Is your belief in God's existence based on faith or absolute knowledge? Faith alone, and faith is never enough reason to believe in anything.

Q9: Do you believe that truth is relative? Truth is a human metaphor for good, reliable information. Even 'good' information is never perfect for it cannot reference every instance of itself in the universe so 'truth' must be relative.

Q10: In one sentence, what is "wisdom"? Wisdom is being able to apply what you know about the world and apply it in a general sense to other situations in order to detect patterns or trends and take account of them in novel situations.

Q11: In one sentence, what is "faith"? Faith is not solely biblical, it applies to a vast host of religions across the world many of them claiming to have exclusive access to the truth/heaven/enlightment and all that. Faith alone proves nothing.

Q12: In one sentence what does it mean to you to "prove" something? While I agree that its impossible to absolutely prove anything that does not mean we can't weed out bad ideas based on probabilty and corroborating evidence both for and against.

Q13: In one sentence, why should a person put his faith in Jesus Christ? In my opinion they should not. And to say humans with limited mental faculties subjected to harsh conditions deserve hell and damnation for eternity strikes me as a little cold. Surely an all-powerful being could make some provision for reform or repentence even if the subject in question does not deserve it.

Post 30 - Just means that I am slow.

Earlier today the ever-present lady love of my life was rereading some of her bible, specifically genesis, and found herself amazed by some of the claims set out therein. Remember, the bible is the word of god and therefore, though scribed by men, reflects the words, thoughts and intentions of the creator of the universe.

It is nice that mankind has had a constant reminder of our perfect creation and that simple facts, taken in context, have bolstered and reinforced scientific discovery of the means, places and mechanisms set out during our creation.

One can only wonder though, has the original story stood the test of time or should we take a closer look at some of the details. I know, I know. The devil is in the details. But so is the truth, is it not?

Now I looked at 5 or 6 different translations of the bible at the free site (link) and they were too varied and cryptic to compare next to one another. Now I don't want to pick one and then take crap for getting the wrong translation (technically it shouldn't matter but I split literary hairs much thinner than some of the publishers) so I decided to go with a list from these guys.

Here's a synopsis by action and day. I have added comments as to the possibility of this order with the current set of physics [my comments are bracketed, the parentheses are from the original list]

Day One

1. Watery, formless planet Earth suspended in the darkness and void of space (no stars, no sun, no moon, no planets - except for Earth). [This is obviously a typo with no stars and other cosmic features earth would be a cold dead lump of ice. Since earth contains elements heavier than Iron there had to have been at least one supernova before its creation. There's no other way to create super heavy elements without some catastrophic action occurring before hand. This explanation is also inconsistent with the Heliocentric model of the solar system.]
   
2. Light. [One will have to wonder where the light came from since the Sun, moon and stars are days away. Taken literally it's not so hard to imagine but the common 'oh a day back then could have been a million years' argument makes this seem like an awfully long time to be holding a lamp.]
   
3. Separation of light from the darkness - and the first indication that the planet is rotating (day and night cycle produced). [The planet rotates, that's fine. But why not just create the sun first to make things easier? If I was going to build a car in my garage I wouldn't wait for 3 days to turn the light on. Even using a temporary flashlight/glowstick/lamp would be clunky and inefficient. Oh well, Day one is over with.]

Day Two

4. Formation of Earth's atmosphere, separating the water into two parts:
   (a) oceanic and subterranean water
   (b) atmospheric water. [I would like to call Shenanigans here because there are a few details left out. 'Atmospheric water' is never mentioned in any translation of the bible I have been able to find. Most editions allude to...well here's the King James Version: "6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

   7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." Now one has to beg the question. I just checked my physic's book and found no mention of 'firmament.' In fact I had to check wikipedia just to come up with some interesting answers. I will let you judge them.

As I see it this verse only goes to show how the world works. There is the flat, solid overturned bowl of the earth sitting between two great layers of water. One is above the earth and the other is supporting the world from below. Need I only invoke the words 'gravity' and 'outer space' to convey the correct view. The earth closely resembles a sphere with bumps and valleys that rock and sway to the tune of isostasy and tectonic motion. Also the sky is not a layer of water, even atmospheric water it's air with evaporating water in it. Let's move on.]

Day Three

5. Dry land and oceans. [Fair enough. Spade work on a very large scale could accomplish this. It's odd that there's no mention of the world being a single landmass before breaking up and drifting out into our modern continents.]
   
6. System to water the entire land surface using subterranean waters (involving springs or mist, or both). [Oh everywhere on Earth gets water. I guess this place doesn't count for much. No biggie.]
   
7. Vegetation, seed-bearing plants, trees that bear fruit. [Here's another example of where the bible doesn't quite shine. Without animals, insects and symbiotic relationships these plants are going to have a shitty time trying to reproduce. If the seven day account is true then that's ok. But if it isn't then god must've taken care of all that pollination. Either that or all the animal and insect species evolved on their own from single-celled creatures. No wait, there's no mention of evolution in the bible so god must have taken care of it.]
   
8. Garden of Eden (probably). [And where did that end up? Oh right, it got smooshed in the
   flood way later.]
   

Day Four

9. Sun [Bout time! Now god can relax his flashlight hand. I bet his thumb smarted a good bit after so much time. At least now, with a sun, we can justify having a planet out in the middle of nowhere without a universe to pester it.]
   
10. Moon - complete with established orbit so as to mark passage of time (months, seasons, and years). [Nice touch, god. Throw in a little reflector action so night time isn't such a hassle for the plants. It should be noted that nearly every translation does not say the sun and the moon but rather the 'greater light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule the night' That stinks. Moonlight is really starlight. Must be another typo right?]
    
11. Stars and other planets. [Genesis 1:16 is about as far as I can usually get into the bible before I have to put it down out of principle. To spend this amount of time and then dismissively mention 'he created the stars also' is like writing a book on one skin cell and how it was put together and then casually mentioning that there are six billion other people out there. No big deal though right, this is how the universe came to being.]

Day Five

12. Water creatures of all kinds. (All that had “the breath of life” were vegetarian.) [Well I hope this includes algae and plankton or a WHOLE lot of fish are going to be pretty hungry. I wonder why there's no mention of the horrific freakishly weird critters that live in the deep dark of the ocean (also in my nightmares) What's weird to me is that terrestrial plants (dry land) all bear weird similarity to sea plants. Stranger still the fossil record and DNA evidence suggest that life came out of the ocean onto land and not vice versa. Typo?]
    
13. Birds (all vegetarian).

Day Six

14. Land animals (all vegetarian): (a) creatures that move close to the ground (small animals), (b) large animals, and (c) animals of use to man as livestock. [We've finally managed to get close to some consistency with natural observation. Land animals did come AFTER sea critters. However I am fairly certain that some fishes had figured out that eating their neighbors works just as well as a survival strategy. I mean there are flesh eating microbes. Come to think of it the emphasis on vegetarian life is a little weird. Oh well, could just be a typo. Spell check much, god?]
    
15. Man. [No comments]
    
16. Woman (saving the best for last?). [Ah now we come to my favorite part of the bible. God is done and now it is up to people to get busy with the babies. It does seem a little gross that Seth and Cain have to get busy with their sisters but hey. That is out of scope for this post.]
    

So as we can see it is so easy to forget that the bible is one hundred percent accurate and contradiction free. However, and I know I'm just being difficult and proud here, there are a few questions I have that make me wonder if a couple parts got skipped or shuffled around.

Consider cosmic background radiation. Even the coldest deepest darkest corner of space is about 3 degrees kelvin. Pesky scientists would say that's just residual radiation from the big bang. Maybe. Or maybe god flicked a giant cosmic booger into the great attractor just to be funny.

Earth is round. Why not just make mention of this simple and obvious fact? If you sculpted a world hanging in the void of space and intended it to rotate your options for shape are a little limited. Round or...well round is about all you get. Earth would have been much more interesting as a ringworld but oh well. Maybe next time.

I really worry about that line 'he created the stars also' because there are an awful lot of stars. IN the milky way alone there are hundreds of billions. Our galaxy is not unique either, there are billions if not trillions of galaxies out there. I cannot convey the scope and scale of the universe. No one can. It's like our brain only evolved to suit life on a single planet that would never discover our true place in the cosmos. No wait! I mean its like our brain was designed to only comprehend life on earth and nowhere else ever.

Lastly the whole Adam before Eve thing just makes me wonder. See dudes have a Y chromosome which is basically a retarded X chromosome. See our reproductive gear is much simpler since we don't gestate babies we just spam out the Y's. You'd think that would imply that females would come first and then men would be derived from them but that's not what the bible says so I must be wrong.

I hope at least one person found some enlightenment from this post. I would also like to provide shout outs to Biblegateway and Christian Answers

It has been fun but now I must go. If anyone manages to read this and likes or dislikes feel free to comment as you will.

Read more >> Options >>