SCIENCE: -- "observational science" vs "historical science" vs ... science.

Ken Ham in his debate with Bill Nye said we need to break science into two parts

1. "Observational Science" -- where scientific experiments can be conducted in real time with testable predictions, etc etc ... referring to the application of the scientific method through the use of our senses and what we can measure, etc, and
2. "Historical Science" -- where experiments cannot be conducted in the past and thus cannot be properly tested ... and therefore -- according to creationists -- the scientific method cannot be used and results\observations cannot be taken as evidence.

And he wants us to discard "historical science" because "you weren't there"Or something like that (feel free to correct me if I have misrepresented this).So what is real science and do these two distinctions above really apply to sciences like paleontology and geology?

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Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge"[1]) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. ...

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In modern usage, "science" most often refers to a way of pursuing knowledge, not only the knowledge itself. It is also often restricted to those branches of study that seek to explain the phenomena of the material universe. ...

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Certainty and science

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A scientific theory is empirical, and is always open to falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered strictly certain as science accepts the concept of fallibilism. ...

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Scientific method - Wikipedia

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The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. ...

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The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. ...

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Edited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : per comment

understood. the part for the creationists is the "you weren't there" precept.now revised for clarityEdited by RAZD, : .

Curiously, like microevolution and macroevolution, both these terms are used in science, albeit, again like microevolution and macroevolution, with specific meanings defined by science rather than the hopeless confusion of creationists. It's a way they tell themselves (we aren't fooled) that one type is inferior to the other and not to be trusted -- radiological dating, geological age geology and evolution are particular targets for obvious reasons. Or parents but not remote ancestors.As far as I am concerned, if the scientific method is used, observations or objective evidence is reviewed, hypothesis are generated to explain the evidence\observations, predictions are made and tested, and the result reviewed to see if the hypothesis is valid or invalid, then science is being done -- whether it is in a recognized field of study or not is immaterial to the process of doing science.The scientific method has several steps: Now perhaps Faith or one of our other creationists, including our newbies, will choose to enlighten me on what limits some areas of study from being science.

Hi Faith,Do you agree with the assessment above? If not why and what would you change?

Let's focus on the topic please rather than encouraging a shouting matchyes?

From Message 88 on Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham you said: So you are saying that if the science cannot replicate the observed phenomena that it isn't good science, and that all science needs to deal with witnessed phenomena -- is that fair?

And anyone else that doesn't stick to the topic ... including you. If it doesn't add to the debate keep quiet.Edited by RAZD, : /

and yet I see a lot of garbage being posted instead of a debate on the topicyour behavior is old and childish -- it disturbs me when I start a thread and then have to wade through post after post that are irrelevant and counter productive.Do you really think that having 1 or 2 good responses in 25 posts is a productive debate?Really?So stop trolling and debate.

Thank you Faith. I am curious as to the actual extent of this and the criteria for deciding. Let me make an example to use for discussion:Sample #1: the "Methuselah" tree a bristlecone pine living in the White Mountains in California.We can observe this tree today, and we can make core samples and observe the ring patterns of dark, small cells and light, large cells that have grown in the tree.Now I can count tree rings in this living tree and get a number of 4845 rings.Now it is commonly known that trees produce growth rings every year. So what can we conclude from this data that we observe today?

Faith draws a line between what could reasonable be witnessed or documented by people (without saying how far back this goes) and what would be prehistoric.What I wonder about the line she draws is how she then explains the fantastic cave art in France and Spain where there are documented scenes of prehistoric life and animals. When you get back to the point where DNA samples are not obtainable then this line of evidence is not so useful. Well that is the issue isn't it? If I can make an hypothesis from observations of existing data (fossils, sedimentary layers etc etc etc) and then TEST the hypothesis to see if it is valid or invalid then it is science yes?What Faith (and Ham and other creationists) apparently claims is that IF the events in the past can not be REPRODUCED that then they cannot be tested.Now we can take issue with this as being overly simplistic in regard to the requirements of science, but I would like to discuss this with Faith and see where she draws the lines and whether they make sense.

Do you agree that counting the tree rings is witnessing the empirical data in the tree?

So you agree that the rings are objective evidence that we can count.You do realize

1. that there is no discernible difference in the rings produced, so you are claiming that the "pre-flood" rings magically mimic precisely what we would see from annual rings -- that the evidence was made to lead people to false conclusions.
2. that the variation in ring thicknesses correlate with climate, so that if there were a substantial difference in climate as you are suggesting that there should be substantial differences in the rings ... unless they are created to portray a falsehood.
3. that Bristlecone pines do not survive under water for a year, yet this tree and several others in the same area lived continuously through their extensive lives
   1. the "Prometheus" tree (aka WPN-114), with 4862 measured and counted tree rings of when cut down in 1964 for research, however this is a minimum number because the core of the tree is missing,
   2. the "Schulman" tree (my name for the tree because Schulman took the core and he was a pioneer in dendrochronology in the area), with 5,264 tree rings today,
   3. the "Ancient Sentinels" - standing dead trees, with over 7,000 tree rings.
   4. there are pieces of dead wood lying on the mountain top in the same area.
4. all these pieces of trees and dead wood can be matched ring for ring into a continuous chronology extending to over 8,700 tree rings
5. the location is not that far from the Grand Canyon, where you posit massive flows laying down sediment, yet there is no such deposits over these trees

And that is just for starters. I notice that there are several rather severe problems for your explanations: to be consistent we should see the evidence of massive sedimentation in these locations that should have buried all vegetation older than the flood, the dead wood pieces that are older than your flood date should have been carried away by the flood, and that your fantasy about a different climate before the flood doesn't explain how this evidence survived the flood ... contradictions Faith that you need to explain, ... or change your hypothesis.

Thanks Faith Do you agree that we can make observations of this evidence and form hypothesis regarding it ... hypothesis that could explain it? So you do agree that we can call them hypothesis, hypothesis that are based on the observed evidence, yes? So it's okay with you if we say they are hypothesis? So you would agree that there are many organisms that lived in the prehistoric past.Do you agree that the locations of these fossils and layers don't contradict the hypothesis? So it's okay to say it is an hypothesis, yes? Again I remind you that I don't claim any theory is fact, and the theory of evolution is no different than the theory of gravity or the string theory ... or any scientific theory.What is fact is that we see the process of evolution in virtually all breeding populations around the world. There seems to be confusion about these two things -- conflating them, rather than distinguishing one as evidence and the other as theory. So if we can let reality speak for itself then it is a "hard" science, yes? Well if we don't agree on definitions then it is difficult to know if we are discussing the same thing in the same way, don't you agree? Curiously, I don't think it is much to ask that words be used to mean the same thing from different camps in a debate.You do agree that we can form hypothesis to explain the geological formations yes?Would you agree that if some information contradicted the hypothesis that it would be falsified, shown to be wrong?

Certainly anything we can measure and document and classify in the present is repeatable and part of operational observational science.And this is the problem for creationist positions on (pre)historical sciences, because what we know of the history is what we can measure and document and classify in the present, and this is repeatable and part of operational observational scienceDo we need to repeat the past to test hypothesis regarding the past? No, we just need predictions that can be tested ... and these can be predictions of things we should see in the past that hasn't yet been observed (validation), or what we should not see in new observations of the past (falsification).All validation results result in higher confidence in the hypothesis, rather than prove them.Creationism -- if it requires different behavior rather than predicts it -- needs to demonstrate that it did occur, how it occurred and how it affected all the evidence.Edited by RAZD, : .st

I missed your reply to Message 41:

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Obviously we have to hypothesize that the pre-Flood world produced tree rings at a greater rate. In fact the idea is that there weren't even seasons back then, so the trees just grew according to some internal clock of their own, and when the climate changed after the Flood the production of rings would have been tied to the seasons.

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So you agree that the rings are objective evidence that we can count.

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You do realize

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1. that there is no discernible difference in the rings produced, so you are claiming that the "pre-flood" rings magically mimic precisely what we would see from annual rings -- that the evidence was made to lead people to false conclusions.
2. that the variation in ring thicknesses correlate with climate, so that if there were a substantial difference in climate as you are suggesting that there should be substantial differences in the rings ... unless they are created to portray a falsehood.
3. that Bristlecone pines do not survive under water for a year, yet this tree and several others in the same area lived continuously through their extensive lives
   1. the "Prometheus" tree (aka WPN-114), with 4862 measured and counted tree rings of when cut down in 1964 for research, however this is a minimum number because the core of the tree is missing,
   2. the "Schulman" tree (my name for the tree because Schulman took the core and he was a pioneer in dendrochronology in the area), with 5,264 tree rings today,
   3. the "Ancient Sentinels" - standing dead trees, with over 7,000 tree rings.
   4. there are pieces of dead wood lying on the mountain top in the same area.
4. all these pieces of trees and dead wood can be matched ring for ring into a continuous chronology extending to over 8,700 tree rings
5. the location is not that far from the Grand Canyon, where you posit massive flows laying down sediment, yet there is no such deposits over these trees

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And that is just for starters. I notice that there are several rather severe problems for your explanations: to be consistent we should see the evidence of massive sedimentation in these locations that should have buried all vegetation older than the flood, the dead wood pieces that are older than your flood date should have been carried away by the flood, and that your fantasy about a different climate before the flood doesn't explain how this evidence survived the flood ... contradictions Faith that you need to explain, ... or change your hypothesis.

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In addition please note that the tree rings can be tied to historic events in written history and I can provide you with this information if you are interested.So where is the flood time and how do you identify it in the tree ring record?When do I need to stop counting and measuring ring width, and how do I know?Edited by RAZD, : ..