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Author Topic:   SCIENCE: -- "observational science" vs "historical science" vs ... science.
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(5)
Message 226 of 614 (732005)
07-02-2014 5:31 PM
Reply to: Message 194 by Faith
07-02-2014 7:44 AM


Re: Siccar Point ... as the rock turns
Well, here we go again with the absurd pronouncements made as if they were fact. In no real universe does what WOULD have happened, or any other supposition, hypothesis, wild guess or etc., constitute scientific evidence or testable fact, but apparently it does in Evofantasyland.
If you had an actual example where this actually happened that would be different, but you don't, this is sheer wild speculation. Science, ha!
What you are decrying is in fact the whole of the scientific method.
For it is just this: to test a hypothesis H, we calculate the predictions of H, that is, its logical consequences, the things that WOULD be true if H was true. We then test these predictions against observation.
So, for example:
* Hypothesis : There is an elephant in the room.
* Testable prediction : If that were the case then if I looked in the room I WOULD see the elephant.
* Observation : I have looked in the room and seen no elephant.
* Conclusion : The hypothesis has been falsified.
Now, if we are not allowed to make the step from hypothesis to prediction, then we can never test anything, we can never falsify anything, and all the science that's ever been done is bunk.
And this illustrates what I've said about your techniques for reality-dodging.
First, that they are way too general for their own good. In order to avoid a straightforward conclusion about geology, you have invented an epistemology in which it is forbidden to test anything and impossible to know anything --- even that there's no elephant in a visibly empty room.
Second, that it is simply a goddamn lie for you to pretend that this new epistemology you've made up is the scientific method or anything like it. It is radically opposed to it. It is the exact opposite of it. Testing the predictions of hypotheses is pretty much all scientists do besides drink coffee and wash out their test tubes. If you are pleased with your epistemology, don't foist it on them, it would put them all out of a job overnight. Call it the Faithic Method, or the Apologetic Method, or the Willfully Ignorant Method, or the La-La-La-La-I-Can't-Hear-You-Method. But when you propose an epistemological principle that would end all possibility of practicing science, that is not the scientific method.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 7:44 AM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(4)
Message 227 of 614 (732013)
07-02-2014 6:44 PM


The Quest For The Rational Basis
The fundie mental gymnastics over epistemology are reminiscent of the knots they tied themselves in over gay marriage. You wouldn't have thought there was a resemblance, but hear me out.
The thing is, the one thing they couldn't do (in public) was argue their real reason for opposing gay marriage, which was "Gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry because EW TEH GHEY!" That would make them look like halfwitted bigots.
What they had to do instead was pretend that there was a rational basis for what they wish to do by producing some sort of general principle which would incidentally bar gay marriage.
But the problem was that they never could --- they never will --- produce any such principle which wouldn't do more than they required of it: which wouldn't ban infertile straight couples from marrying; or straight couples who didn't want children; or which wouldn't require them to be mean to groups they don't really object to, such as adulterers, usurers, or people who pick up sticks on Saturday; or which wouldn't allow a Catholic majority to ban Protestant weddings; or ... etc, etc.
Now, the same sort of problem afflicts them when it comes to science. They can't argue the real principle they're using, which is "I will reject any fact, no matter how well-evidenced, that conflicts with the teaching of my sect". That would make them look like halfwitted bigots.
What they have to do instead is pretend that there's a rational basis for what they wish to do by producing some sort of general principle which would incidentally bar the facts they don't like.
But the problem is that they never could --- they never will --- produce any such principle which wouldn't do more than they required of it: which wouldn't involve throwing out all science; or all science relating to the past; or all science relating to things (such as atoms) that we can't see; or ... etc, etc.
They will never find the rational basis, any more than someone with coulrophobia will ever find a rational basis for his fear of clowns. But the coulrophobe has this advantage over them: he can and will admit that his phobia is irrational. The fundies have to pretend that they're rational.

Replies to this message:
 Message 228 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 8:27 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 228 of 614 (732018)
07-02-2014 8:27 PM
Reply to: Message 227 by Dr Adequate
07-02-2014 6:44 PM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
I've been arguing in good faith. I haven't been putting a lot into it because I've argued all this before and I know what I'm up against, which isn't worth all that effort any more, or at least right now. But I haven't said anything out of line despite the impression given by the denunciations of what I've said. Creationists are not the only ones to have noticed that the sciences that deal with the unwitnessed or prehistoric past depend on interpretation and can't be tested.
The example of the elephant is in the present, not the unwitnessed past. ABE: The question is whether there SHOULD be an elephant there, or in the case of Siccar Point, whether you are right to expect erosion there and its lack has the implications you claim. The point is, that expectation may be false because erosion may not always appear and all you have is your supposition that it should, you can't prove that it should. /aBE
As for gay marriage, it's opposed by the Bible, which means opposed by God, and there is no other reason than that. Really weird that anyone would try to make anything else out of it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 227 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-02-2014 6:44 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 229 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-02-2014 11:14 PM Faith has replied
 Message 232 by hooah212002, posted 07-03-2014 1:27 AM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 229 of 614 (732027)
07-02-2014 11:14 PM
Reply to: Message 228 by Faith
07-02-2014 8:27 PM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
The example of the elephant is in the present, not the unwitnessed past.
And yet your objection to the reasoning re Siccar Point was that it's wrong to say what WOULD be the case if a hypothesis was true. Which is exactly what we did to test the elephant hypothesis. If you will now admit that that argument was rubbish, we can move on.
The question is whether there SHOULD be an elephant there, or in the case of Siccar Point, whether you are right to expect erosion there and its lack has the implications you claim. The point is, that expectation may be false because erosion may not always appear and all you have is your supposition that it should, you can't prove that it should.
You keep claiming to have read my book on geology, you should really know what "erosion" means.
As to what we can and can't prove, I should say that our knowledge of materials science, which tells us what the rocks would look like, is on a par with our knowledge of optics which tells us that I would see the elephant. This is, after all, the sort of science you trust implicitly every time you drive over a bridge, or take an elevator, or just enter a building. Shear stresses and the like are clearly among the things we've got pretty much down cold.
It is up to you, then, to propose some way in which the rocks could end up like that and which is compatible with the hypothesis, just as if someone proposed that the elephant was there but that some unusual optical effect was preventing me from seeing it would also have to shoulder the burden of proof. It's not good enough to say "No, you haven't disproved the elephant, because there might be some mechanism, which I can't think of right now, which would make the elephant invisible to you."
As for gay marriage, it's opposed by the Bible, which means opposed by God, and there is no other reason than that.
Ah, that's why you guys spend so much time campaigning against usury. Oh, wait ...
See what I mean? Even the whole the-Bible-says-so thing is just an excuse, it's not your actual basis for action.
Still, I guess we have open threads to discuss this on if we really want to. I just mentioned it because the resemblance is rather striking.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 228 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 8:27 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 236 by Faith, posted 07-03-2014 2:27 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17907
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 7.2


Message 230 of 614 (732033)
07-03-2014 1:16 AM
Reply to: Message 213 by Faith
07-02-2014 3:22 PM


Re: Siccar Point
quote:
Sure, because all these things are worldwide and the tectonic forces occurred in the same time frame, somewhere around the end of the Flood. I think volcanoes also and other things also occurred in the same time period. Proving it of course is something else I suppose.
I asked for evidence that the force was applied to the lower but not the upper strata. You give me irrelevant speculations.
quote:
Shouldn't. Point of equilibrium, above which weight keeps strata stationary, below which strata buckle. Makes good sense.
No, it doesn't. Aside for the problem that you need any upward-pressing force to increase with depth more quickly than the pressure (and how when that force is transmitted through the rock ?) for there to even be a balance point there's also the issue that compaction increases resistance to deformation. If material near the assumed balance point is being pressed up and compacted (because the material at the assumed balance point can't move) then why shouldn't it be compacted to the point where it can resist the force ? The force has to be very weak there by definition.
quote:
I've given some support in the past. But the fact is that I'm just too intuitive for you. Seems obvious to me.
It seems to me that you're just very good at fooling yourself into believing obvious nonsense. Assume two identical surfaces. Will roughening one actually reduce friction between them ? Can you provide real examples where that is true ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 3:22 PM Faith has not replied

  
hooah212002
Member (Idle past 1050 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 231 of 614 (732034)
07-03-2014 1:19 AM
Reply to: Message 221 by Faith
07-02-2014 3:40 PM


Re: Siccar Point
instead of pontificating about the age of the earth
If not through the use of geology, how do you propose we go about finding the age of the earth? You've got to appreciate actually testing rocks, right? Certainly you've got a method to actually test the age of the earth using things we find buried in the earth or, better yet, things the earth is actually made of.

Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 221 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 3:40 PM Faith has not replied

  
hooah212002
Member (Idle past 1050 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 232 of 614 (732035)
07-03-2014 1:27 AM
Reply to: Message 228 by Faith
07-02-2014 8:27 PM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
I haven't been putting a lot into it
You're on this website ALL DAY LONG, EVERY DAY. I am near to asking Percy what your message per day rate is. Perhaps you should spend some of your internet time learning instead of arguing or preaching so you can maybe back up your assertions instead of continually claiming that you've not got the time or that you haven't put much thought into it.

Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 228 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 8:27 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 234 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-03-2014 1:45 AM hooah212002 has seen this message but not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17907
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 7.2


(1)
Message 233 of 614 (732036)
07-03-2014 1:28 AM
Reply to: Message 215 by Faith
07-02-2014 3:24 PM


Re: Siccar Point
quote:
Yes there are correct and incorrect interpretations, but the point is that when you are dealing with past one-time events ALL YOU HAVE is interpretation, you DO NOT HAVE a method for testing if your interpretation is correct.
There are two big problems here. First, what you call "historical science" is NOT restricted to reconstructing one-time events. Dating methods is an obvious example because the method may be applied to many events. There is not just one angular unconformity, but many which can be studied to derive the common features. And of course, the assertion that canyon formation never occurred before all the present-day strata were lain down is not a claim about a one-time event. And it is one that has been tested and shown to be false.
Secondly it is obviously false to say that there is never a method for testing one time events. That is only true if you have all the relevant data (including that from similar sites). If you do not then you may test further by gathering more data and seeing if it fits - or not.
The only question here is how, after all the discussion here you can possible not KNOW all this ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 215 by Faith, posted 07-02-2014 3:24 PM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 234 of 614 (732037)
07-03-2014 1:45 AM
Reply to: Message 232 by hooah212002
07-03-2014 1:27 AM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
You're on this website ALL DAY LONG, EVERY DAY. I am near to asking Percy what your message per day rate is.
16.4.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by hooah212002, posted 07-03-2014 1:27 AM hooah212002 has seen this message but not replied

  
petrophysics1
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 235 of 614 (732038)
07-03-2014 2:08 AM


More BS to deal with
Creationists are not the only ones to have noticed that the sciences that deal with the unwitnessed or prehistoric past depend on interpretation and can't be tested.
I have three formations, from bottom to top A, B and C.
I take well data and I map the top of Formation A, it's elevation in regards to sea level.
I take well data and I map the top of Formation C.
I compare the two and find that I have the same high spots and low spots in both Formation A and Formation C. The numbers are of course different but a 75' high in A is a 75' high in C.
It is obvious that whatever deformed/bent A did the same to C.
Now I map the top of Formation B which is between A and C. It should have the same structure as A and C, but it does not. This is not physically possible unless the map on the Top of Formation B includes something in it BESIDES the structure we see in A and C.
So I need to remove the structure from A, B, and C. The easiest way to do this is to make an isopach map of A, B, and C, not an isochore map, but a map of the actual thicknesses of these formations. I want to look at the stratigraphy not the structure, if you don't understand you need to think about it.
So I find that A is almost constant but both B and C vary by 165 feet. The thin areas in B correspond to the thick areas in C and the thick areas in B match the thin areas in C.
Therefore C clearly filled in the thickness variations in B.
Now I notice that in the lower part of B I have a small shale break which I can follow from well to well across the area I'm mapping, let's call it the Shale B marker.. I map the structure on this and see that it agrees with the structure on A and C. So the actual structure inside of B is the same as A and C, it's just the top that is different.
There are really only 2 possibilities here. Either B was mounding up while it was being deposited creating the highs and lows or it was eroded away and I am looking at an unconformity with topography on it creating the highs and lows.
Let's find out which it is. I'm going to make stratigraphic cross sections and isometric block diagrams which I'm going to hang on the Shale B Marker as it's the closest thing I have to a time line. If I had an ash fall/bentonite I'd use that. What I'm doing is removing the structure so we can look at the stratigraphy/deposition.
What I find is that I can follow the Shale B marker everywhere but the rock sequences above that can be followed from hill to hill but are missing in the thin spots/stratigraphic lows in the B Formation.
This is just like looking across the Grand Canyon and noticing that the same rock sequences occur on both sides but not in the middle where it was eroded away.
So the B formation was eroded away but who cares?
Well I noticed that the sand deposition in Formation C tends to occur where Formation B is thin. This means that the topography on Formation B is influencing the deposition of sand in Formation C and those sands produce a lot of oil and gas.
The influence of B on sand in C is not the only thing going on here but you need to understand this to explore for oil and gas in the Eastern Colo., Ks., Tx-Ok Panhandles in the Morrow Formation which is Formation C. B is the top of the Miss, sometimes Chester, sometimes St. Louis, since B To C is an angular unconformity. (The Chester is eroded away in Colorado and only the St Louis is left.)
If you followed that tell me where I made an interpretation rather than observing, measuring and mapping things which FORCED me into a logical conclusion of what happened with no other physical possibility.
'

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 236 of 614 (732039)
07-03-2014 2:27 AM
Reply to: Message 229 by Dr Adequate
07-02-2014 11:14 PM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
And yet your objection to the reasoning re Siccar Point was that it's wrong to say what WOULD be the case if a hypothesis was true. Which is exactly what we did to test the elephant hypothesis. If you will now admit that that argument was rubbish, we can move on.
Not rubbish, but had to be understood in the context of unknowns of the past (where you can't know what would have been the case), which I would have expected. Wrongly obviously. It is what we were discussing, not every possible use of the word "would" that comes to mind.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-02-2014 11:14 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 238 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-03-2014 2:40 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 237 of 614 (732040)
07-03-2014 2:29 AM
Reply to: Message 235 by petrophysics1
07-03-2014 2:08 AM


Re: More BS to deal with
Your description looks to me like perfectly legitimate study of the physical facts, not interpretive Geology that claims to know unknowables.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by petrophysics1, posted 07-03-2014 2:08 AM petrophysics1 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 239 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-03-2014 2:45 AM Faith has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 238 of 614 (732043)
07-03-2014 2:40 AM
Reply to: Message 236 by Faith
07-03-2014 2:27 AM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
Not rubbish, but had to be understood in the context of unknowns of the past (where you can't know what would have been the case) ...
So if someone argued that I wasn't torn to pieces by a lion yesterday, because if I had been I would not be able to write this message now, we should rule that out as a line of reasoning? Since we are now talking about the consequences of a hypothesis set in the past? And although we know what would happen if I was torn to pieces by a lion today we "can't know what would have been the case" if it had happened yesterday?
Well, again, this is not the scientific method, it's your method. Don't blame scientists for it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 236 by Faith, posted 07-03-2014 2:27 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 240 by Faith, posted 07-03-2014 2:50 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 239 of 614 (732044)
07-03-2014 2:45 AM
Reply to: Message 237 by Faith
07-03-2014 2:29 AM


Re: More BS to deal with
Your description looks to me like perfectly legitimate study of the physical facts, not interpretive Geology that claims to know unknowables.
Well, petrophysics is in fact reconstructing the past in just the way you claim to be impossible, or at least in the way you claim to be impossible when the moon is waning and there's no R in the month (I shall not accuse you of consistency). For example, petrophysics writes: "It is obvious that whatever deformed/bent A did the same to C." Now, isn't this just the sort of thing you've been pretending we can't know?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 237 by Faith, posted 07-03-2014 2:29 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 292 by Faith, posted 07-31-2014 2:49 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 240 of 614 (732045)
07-03-2014 2:50 AM
Reply to: Message 238 by Dr Adequate
07-03-2014 2:40 AM


Re: The Quest For The Rational Basis
So I can't expect people to keep in mind the context I would expect to be kept in mind from dozens of previous discussions of the same content, but I mean the PREHISTORIC past, not the recent past but the past that is before there was any possible witness to its events. You can't know what would have happened if there could not have been any way of knowing what would have happened, but in the case of yesterday there are many ways of knowing what would have happened.
In this case one might expect that erosion should be present in a certain situation but since you can't know all possible ways that situation could play out you can't know for sure what would have happened, so to claim as a fact that you do know is wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 238 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-03-2014 2:40 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 241 by Dr Adequate, posted 07-03-2014 3:12 AM Faith has replied
 Message 242 by hooah212002, posted 07-03-2014 3:15 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 255 by ringo, posted 07-03-2014 12:01 PM Faith has replied

  
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