What IS Science And What IS NOT Science?

Others have already adequately addressed your points, but I think they are mostly a digression from the topic. If you'd like to continue to pursue the question posed by the thread's title then please propose a paper from ICR or CRS. I'll propose one myself if I can find an open slot of time to poke around at their websites.I think it would be a good idea to examine a specific paper because I interpreted you as disagreeing with statements that the creationist position is not based upon evidence, and what better way for you to demonstrate the falseness of these claims than to examine some creationist papers and show that they don't ignore evidence. But if your actual point was that science should not be based upon evidence then we should probably discuss the definition of science some more.--Percy

Hi Buz,Dr. Jones has posted concerning the paper Temperature Profiles for an Optimized Water Vapor Canopy by Larry Vardiman, and you have responded, so let's stick with this one.As the author himself notes, the idea has fallen upon "hard times", and he's referring to creationist circles. The problem with the vapor canopy, one the author himself does not mention, is that there is no evidence that there ever was one. The reason one was postulated by creationists was to provide a source of water for the flood of Noah, another event for which there is no evidence.The paper itself proposes God as one possible cause of reduced solar output, and God is another phenomenon for which there is no known scientific evidence. A number of passages from the Bible are openly proposed as sources of evidence for reduced solar output without reference to any corroborating evidence, a highly questionable approach.The paper itself has a fair amount of technical content, but it serves only as a smokescreen for the lack of any evidence. Vardiman begins by assuming a vapor canopy, something for which there is no evidence and which is widely viewed as not credible, and then he seeks avenues by which a vapor canopy might not really be impossible. If in the end he succeeds in proving that a vapor canopy is not physically impossible, he still will not have completed the very first step in the scientific process: the gathering of evidence. Without evidence his hypothesizing is disconnected from the natural world that science is intended to explore, and so it isn't science.In other words, Vardiman's paper is a prime example of creationists ignoring evidence. The vapor canopy is not proposed to explain an observed phenomenon of the natural world, but to explain the flood of the Bible. It's perfectly valid to allow the Bible to serve as a source of ideas and inspiration for seeking evidence of a vapor canopy, but evidence of a natural phenomenon must precede the formation of hypotheses.--Percy

The larger question is why you're arguing a point for which you have to ask your opponents to find the evidence for you. One would expect that you've taken on the task of arguing that creationists are doing science because you've examined their work in detail and, being fully aware of the requirements of legitimate scientific research and what constitutes valid science, you've judged the larger body of creationist research to be valid science. Given this, you should be able to draw upon this detailed knowledge to make cogent and specific points about how creationism has evidence supporting its foundational hypotheses of a young earth and a world wide flood.I've shied away from commenting on your competence to argue your position, but asking your opponents to find your evidence for you is just too big a red flag to ignore. If indeed you are competent to argue your position and if indeed there is merit for your position, then carry on in proper debate fashion and support your premise with evidence. But if you are not competent to argue your position or if you're simply out of ammo, then quit arguing. People might draw conclusions pro and con on this point from the discussion in this thread, but that is not the topic. We're discussing what is and is not science. We've defined science (see Message 144), and we've agreed (or at least I thought we had) to examine an example of creationist research in detail, not so much to reach a final conclusion (that would require examining many papers) but to emphasize by example the essential scientific qualities that tend to be absent from creationist research. This thread's almost done, so obviously there's a continuation thread in our future if people want to continue the discussion with you, and if you want to continue yourself. I think you'd be best served recruiting someone with a scientific background to take your place. Chris Miller seems like a pretty well-informed guy, and someone like you should take it upon yourself to help him get over his reluctance to participate in on-line discussions. I'm sure lots of creationist papers contain credible evidence. I can think of two that do just that off the top of my head. There's Steve Austin's paper, already mentioned in this thread, where he misinterprets and misanalyzes and misreports legitimate scientific evidence. Then there are the many Snelling papers on radiometric dating with tons of legitimate scientific evidence that is all misinterpreted because Snelling ignores all the existing evidence about argon levels in geologically recent volcanic material and about confirmation of K/Ar dating from other radiometric dating methods.If you go to some mountain tops (the Alps are an example, I believe) you can find fossil sea shells. Legitimate scientific evidence. Evidence of the flood only if you ignore radiometric dating. And ignore that the fossil sea shells can go miles deep in places. And ignore that the migration rate of oysters is measured in miles/century so how did they get to the mountain top and then leave remains of more oysters than could live in a millennium, let alone a single flood year. And ignore what we know of sedimentology and how floods deposit layers. And ignore that there is no evidence of floods leaving behind layers of solid rock. And ignore that the only known way to turn a sedimentary layer into rock is to bury it under ultra-megatons of overlying material so as to compress it into rock. And that the only way to expose that sedimentary rock is through uplift and erosion that takes millions of years. And ignore...well, that's a long enough list, I'll stop. It should be clear just how much obvious evidence creationists are ignoring.What this fossil shells example makes clear is a significant difference in the way that creationists approach science when contrasted with legitimate science. Let's look at my step 5 of the scientific method from Message 144:

5. Based upon the results of those tests, either discard the hypothesis as falsified, or return to step 2 and reformulate the hypothesis, or consider the hypothesis confirmed.

Creationists follow a different step 5:

5. Based upon the results of those tests, ignore the non-confirming evidence and consider the hypothesis confirmed.

ICR puts the requirement of ignoring evidence right into its statement of faith that all ICR members have to sign:

1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and we believe it to be inspired throughout, all of its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all the original autographs. To students of nature, this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

So in light of this, what is a Bible-believing creation scientist to do when he encounters evidence that contradicts the Biblical account? Well, we've seen what they do with such evidence. They ignore it, misinterpret it, rationalize it or call it a mystery that can't be explained at present, and I'm sure there are approaches to dispensing with inconvenient evidence that I've missed. It has been explained many times here at EvC Forum, perhaps even in replies addressed directly to you though I don't actually recall, that Baumgardner (note your misspelling) is a legitimate scientist who does legitimate science having nothing to do with creationism that gets published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and who also does creationist research that never gets published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.Baumgardner's creationist efforts, for example his Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: The Physics Behind the Genesis Flood, isn't science because he is postulating about a phenomenon for which there is no evidence. Like many creation scientists he has completely ignored the initial scientific requirement to only hypothesize about observed natural phenomenon. He's hypothesizing in a scientific manner about the Genesis account of Noah's flood, but because he did not begin with evidence for the flood drawn from the natural world his hypothesizing is therefore disconnected from the natural world that it is science's purpose to study, and it is therefore not science.In anticipation of a continuation thread and given the difficulty you're having supporting your premise, my suggestion is that you find a qualified proxy to stand in for you in this discussion.--Percy

Hi Buz,I see you've progressed from asking your opponents to find your evidence for you to blaming your opponents for your own poor performance. Could we just stick to the topic, please? I'm not moderating this thread, so you can stop with the "poor Buz" act portraying yourself as a victim of board moderation.As I explained, and as you apparently failed to understand, Baumgardner's paper is not science because he has completely ignored the scientific requirement that hypotheses must be based upon and be about observations of natural phenomena. Because Baumgardner did not begin with evidence for the flood drawn from the natural world, his hypotheses are therefore disconnected from the natural world that it is science's purpose to study, and it is therefore not science.If you look through your excepts from Baumgardner's paper you'll see that none of the described evidence is for a world wide flood, especially not in the portions you bolded. All Baumgardner is doing is speculating about how a world wide flood might not be impossible. If you think any of your bolded excerpts are evidence for a world wide flood then please explain how.I am forced to address some of what you say just in the interests of accuracy: It is not my personal definition of science. Message 144 represents my best effort at characterizing the qualities and methodology of science. Please address yourself to the specifics of my characterization rather than casting general and disparaging unsupported criticisms. It's not allowed, yet here you are? This makes sense to you? The [forum=-11] forum has been present from the very beginning for just this purpose. You're just making personal a discussion about what is and isn't science. Rather than actually discussing the topic you've chosen throughout much of this thread to complain about the people you're discussing with. You had the opportunity to discuss the topic, you chose not to. I would agree that it would be pointless for you to go on as you are. Your contributions in this thread have been notable for their high level of off-topic complaining relative to on-topic discussion. I again suggest that you find someone competent in the sciences to take over for you.--Percy

Don't you think it would be a good idea, just from a debate strategy standpoint, to understand the material before posting it, instead of having it explained to you by your opponents afterward?The evidence Baumgardner is looking at in this case is that the level of ¹⁴C in layers containing the remains of organic material (such as coal layers) should be effectively zero, but isn't. It should be zero because the half-life of ¹⁴C is in the neighborhood of 5730 years, meaning that half the material in any sample of ¹⁴C will decay to ¹⁴N every 5730 years. After millions of years of half the ¹⁴C decaying every 5730 years there should be no measurable ¹⁴C left, and yet there is. Baumgardner is using the presence of measurable amounts of ¹⁴C to conclude that such layers cannot be millions of years old, because otherwise there would be no measurable ¹⁴C left.In true creationist fashion, Baumgardner is ignoring evidence. As discussed in excruciating detail in the Does radio-carbon dating disprove evolution? thread from earlier this year, natural radioactivity in the ground gives rise to small amounts of free neutrons, thereby producing a slow but steady trickle of ¹⁴C from ¹⁴N. That the radioactivity is the cause of ¹⁴C is evident from the fact that ¹⁴C levels in coal correlate to the radioactivity level in each particular coal sample.Baumgardner is also ignoring all the other radiometric data, such as K/Ar and Rb/Sr dating to mention just two, that confirms the age of coal layers, and that shows the layers above to be younger and the layers below to be older, and dating to ages in the millions to the hundreds of millions of years.The significant question is why is Baumgardner postulating about the age of coal layers when he doesn't have any evidence for a world wide flood from around 5000 years ago. Since he is speculating about a phenomenon for which he has no evidence, he is not doing science.--Percy

Hi Bret, Johnfolton, Tim, Tom, whatever,The thread Does radio-carbon dating disprove evolution? is still open. Please resume discussion of ¹⁴C production within geologic layers at that thread rather than drawing this thread off-topic. I believe you were in the middle of ignoring most of 40,000 years of lake varve data when you last posted.--Percy

Hi all,This thread has only a few posts to go, so I'm going to suggest we post summaries. If the moderators could indulge us for a bit, it would be good if the thread could be kept open for the rest of today so that people have time to do this, even though that might extend the thread a bit past 300 messages. Please, no replies to other messages during this period of posting concluding remarks.My own summary is going to be short. Science has a methodology and a set of qualities, and a fair attempt at describing these resides in Message 144. Research that possesses those qualities and follows that methodology qualifies as science. We've examined a few creationist efforts and found that they were all hypothesizing about phenomenon for which they possess no evidence (usually the world wide flood), a clear violation of the scientific method.--Percy