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Author Topic:   SCIENCE: -- "observational science" vs "historical science" vs ... science.
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 541 of 614 (736841)
09-13-2014 8:02 PM
Reply to: Message 539 by Percy
09-13-2014 8:54 AM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
I don't know what the "Ken Ham sense" of the word "prove" is. A Google search didn't find anything that helped me find the answer.
Ken Ham says, no matter what you claim science implies, you weren't there.
My best guess of what you're saying is that because Faith believes nothing can contradict the Bible, evidence proving the Bible wrong cannot exist.
That's the end result yes, but that is not quite what I mean.
The idea is that the scientific method requires that we draw inferences from observations and to use inductive reasoning. It is not controversial to say that such processes do not produce 100 percent certainty. Every time science disagrees with the Bible, science is simply in error.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 539 by Percy, posted 09-13-2014 8:54 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 542 by Percy, posted 09-13-2014 9:25 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22941
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.0


Message 542 of 614 (736852)
09-13-2014 9:25 PM
Reply to: Message 541 by NoNukes
09-13-2014 8:02 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
NoNukes writes:
Ken Ham says, no matter what you claim science implies, you weren't there.
Oh, sure, I know Faith believes that, but she's making up her own definition of "evidence", and then using that definition to misdefine "prove". You'd think she'd realize that when her beliefs force her to make up her own private definitions that something's amiss, but apparently not.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 541 by NoNukes, posted 09-13-2014 8:02 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 543 by NoNukes, posted 09-13-2014 11:50 PM Percy has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 543 of 614 (736856)
09-13-2014 11:50 PM
Reply to: Message 542 by Percy
09-13-2014 9:25 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
Oh, sure, I know Faith believes that, but she's making up her own definition of "evidence", and then using that definition to misdefine "prove". You'd think she'd realize that when her beliefs force her to make up her own private definitions that she'd realize something's amiss, but apparently not.
I disagree with this characterization. You've already acknowledged that there is a sense in which Faith is correct about the definition of evidence. And of course there is a mathematical definition of proof that is not really all that far from the definition Faith insists on.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 542 by Percy, posted 09-13-2014 9:25 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 544 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 2:30 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22941
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.0


Message 544 of 614 (736859)
09-14-2014 2:30 AM
Reply to: Message 543 by NoNukes
09-13-2014 11:50 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
NoNukes writes:
I disagree with this characterization. You've already acknowledged that there is a sense in which Faith is correct about the definition of evidence.
If you're talking about Faith's definition of "evidence" as that which correctly supports a claim (where evidence that doesn't support a claim isn't evidence), I hope I've been clear that I believe that definition wrong. It should be obvious that it is self-evidently wrong. Many claims can be made about what some particular evidence implies, and some will be right and some will be wrong. But the evidence doesn't toggle back and forth between being evidence and not being evidence as the various claims are considered.
And of course there is a mathematical definition of proof that is not really all that far from the definition Faith insists on.
The definition of "proven" that Faith is insisting on is something like "having strong evidence in support of a claim," which I agree with. Where we disagree is when she says there are things about the natural world that we cannot prove, in particular about the "unwitnessed past." Her argument is equivalent to saying that if evidence doesn't support the claim being made then it isn't evidence, and having no evidence we can make no claims. Echoing what I said before, that this is irrational should be obvious to most people.
Faith unequivocally denied that she's using the mathematical definition:
Faith in her blog writes:
I am not using the concept of proof in any mathematical sense...
Faith has posted a new blog entry about "proof": Let's Bring "Proof" Back to Reality. I don't have time to read it now.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 543 by NoNukes, posted 09-13-2014 11:50 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 547 by NoNukes, posted 09-14-2014 2:31 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22941
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.0


Message 545 of 614 (736870)
09-14-2014 9:52 AM


Faith has posted another response at her blog: Let's Bring "Proof" Back to Reality.
Faith writes:
It's just another way of saying that when you are dealing with the prehistoric past you can never be sure of your hypotheses because they aren't testable,...
This is as false as it ever was. Let's see what Faith offers to support it this time.
The argument about the difference between observational and historical/interpretive science is completely valid.
All science is observational and interpretive. If Faith thinks not then in her next blog post she can provide a few examples of fields of science that are missing one of these.
...but there is a legitimate argument here that is being evaded by all this abstract nitpicking.
But does Faith ever tell us that legitimate argument? After reading on to the end I find the answer is, "Apparently not."
The main argument I've made along these lines is that both Old Earth Geology and Evolutionist Biology make assertions about what they believe occurred in the distant past that they couldn't possibly PROVE, by which I mean all they have is their conjectures and hypotheses which they have no way of confirming, although they treat their conjectures about these things as if they were solidly proven facts.
As Faith knows, when she actually confronts evidence from the distant past she is unable to describe why we can't
analyze it, as here:
The structure of DNA for instance has been "proved" in a way you could never prove the scenarios concocted about the distant past that are palmed off on the public as fact.
The Denisovan's are an extinct species of Homo. Analysis of Denisovan mitochondrial DNA from 41,000 years ago shows they share genes with both Homo sapiens and Home neanderthalensis. If we didn't already know the structure of the DNA then we could have used 41,000 year-old Denisovan DNA to analyze its structure.
Evidence can degrade and disappear over time, but no matter how old, as long as some is left it can be subjected to scientific scrutiny to reach valid conclusions. Faith here attempts to describe why old evidence can't be used to reconstruct the past:
We can reconstruct a Stegosaurus from its bones, but when you go on to describe the supposed habitat of that animal, based on the other contents of the rock in which its bones were found, you are giving your hypothesis about those things. If you go on from there to talk about it as if it were known fact you are asserting theory as fact though it can't be verified; in a word you are committing fraud.
So Faith tells us that Stegosaurus fossils are valid evidence from the past, but that the surrounding sedimentary rock in which the Stegosaurus fossils are buried is not. But the evidence from that sedimentary layer tells us a great deal pretty conclusively, such as the age of the layer and the nature of the environment at that time. No one's "asserting theory as fact." Paleontologists are merely relating what the evidence leads them to conclude.
Looking for other kinds of examples of unprovables described in dogmatic terms I found the Wikipedia article on Stegosaurus where such unknowable/unprovables are asserted, such as when the creature lived:
They lived during the Late Jurassic period (Kimmeridgian to early Tithonian), some 155 to 150 million year s ago...
This is interpreted simply from the fact that it is found in a particular layer of sedimentary rock. This becomes a time period because that's what the theory says it is.
We knew the Jurassic was a time period after the one below and before the one above simply from the Law of Superposition (new sedimentary layers can only be deposited on top of older ones, not beneath them) and from the distinct flora and fauna even before radiometric dating allowed us to give it a specific age. There's evidence for everything science has concluded about the Jurassic and the Stegosaurus. There's nothing in science that is accepted "because that's what the theory says it is."
Faith quotes about the paleoecology of the Morrison Formation from the Wikipedia article on the Stegosaurus, then correctly summarizes:
Whatever has been found within that layer along with the bones of the Stegosaurus, goes to make up the interpretation of its "environment," the climate and the kind of vegetation that grew in that "time period."
But she dismisses this:
The Morrison Formation is a layer of rock. Here it is called an "environment." This is of course because the theory says each of the layers represents a time period.
Faith doesn't believe sedimentary layers contain the sediments, flora and fauna of the environment where they formed. She thinks the flood carried them from hither and yon and deposited them together into a single layer. She believes Stegosauri from anywhere in the world all came to be deposited in a narrow portion of the Jurassic period along with other unique flora and fauna that appear nowhere else. How can a flood do this? Well, it was a very special flood unlike any flood we've ever experienced, and it apparently can do anything Faith needs it to do.
I am of course emphasizing the rock=time period equation because it is so absurd...
Faith possesses the infinite ability to declare things absurd while exhibiting no ability to actually demonstrate it.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 546 by Tanypteryx, posted 09-14-2014 11:53 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 551 by PaulK, posted 09-14-2014 5:14 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4597
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 10.0


(1)
Message 546 of 614 (736877)
09-14-2014 11:53 AM
Reply to: Message 545 by Percy
09-14-2014 9:52 AM


Twilight Zone?
Faith has posted another response at her blog: Let's Bring "Proof" Back to Reality.
Faith writes:
It's just another way of saying that when you are dealing with the prehistoric past you can never be sure of your hypotheses because they aren't testable,...
This is as false as it ever was. Let's see what Faith offers to support it this time.
I have to admit that I find this thread entertaining. I can't seem to help myself as I am irresistibly drawn to each new installment.
It just seems so odd that a one sided debate is going on here on the most rational forum on the web with a blog poster whose ravings are usually not read by anyone.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 545 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 9:52 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 547 of 614 (736888)
09-14-2014 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 544 by Percy
09-14-2014 2:30 AM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
I hope I've been clear that I believe that definition wrong. It should be obvious that it is self-evidently wrong.
I'm referring to the formulation that Taq provided. You acknowledged that Faith's definition was consistent with Taq's but there was no explicit indication of disapproval. You've just continued on as if that exchange never happened.
Taq's definition is just fine. It's also pretty close to the definition of evidence used in law. If you disagree with it, that's also fine, but it reduces your rejection of Faith's definition to merely a difference of opinion.
And even with Taq's definition, Faith is still wrong with regard to whether or not we have evidence. Because the facts we refer to do distinguish between Faith's position and yours. So they are evidence.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 544 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 2:30 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 548 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 3:22 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22941
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.0


Message 548 of 614 (736897)
09-14-2014 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 547 by NoNukes
09-14-2014 2:31 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
NoNukes writes:
I'm referring to the formulation that Taq provided.
Oh, okay, you're referring to Message 534. The full exchange went like this:
Percy in Message 534 writes:
Taq writes:
Evidence is a set of observations that satisfies the hypothesis and disproves the null hypothesis.
Expressed this way, it's consistent with what Faith is saying. Putting it in your terms, she's saying that evidence that does not satisfy the hypothesis and does not disprove the null hypothesis is not evidence.
What Taq said is consistent with what Faith is saying, but it isn't all of what she is saying, which was the point of my second sentence. Faith knows what evidence is, but she puts a qualifier on it that evidence that doesn't correctly support a claim is not evidence. She needs an excuse for ignoring inconvenient evidence, so she makes up a definition of evidence that serves that purpose.
And even with Taq's definition, Faith is still wrong with regard to whether or not we have evidence. Because the facts we refer to do distinguish between Faith's position and yours. So they are evidence.
Yep.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 547 by NoNukes, posted 09-14-2014 2:31 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 549 by NoNukes, posted 09-14-2014 3:51 PM Percy has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 549 of 614 (736898)
09-14-2014 3:51 PM
Reply to: Message 548 by Percy
09-14-2014 3:22 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
Faith knows what evidence is, but she puts a qualifier on it that evidence that doesn't correctly support a claim is not evidence. She needs an excuse for ignoring inconvenient evidence, so she makes up a definition of evidence that serves that purpose.
As you are doubtless aware, I am no fan of Faith's behavior here. But I think this characterization is wrong. Generally speaking, Faith usually presents her own ideas about what the evidence says. Were she to be correct, she would also be right about the evidence.
Perhaps the difference lies only in what we think are Faith's motivations for what she does. I think she is sincere but wrong, your position is that she is just making excuses.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 548 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 3:22 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 550 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 5:12 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22941
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.0


(1)
Message 550 of 614 (736908)
09-14-2014 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 549 by NoNukes
09-14-2014 3:51 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
NoNukes writes:
Perhaps the difference lies only in what we think are Faith's motivations for what she does. I think she is sincere but wrong, your position is that she is just making excuses.
I agree that Faith is sincere, and I don't think she's all that aware that what she's doing is making up definitions and excuses. Faith has demonstrated time and again that she has no aptitude for introspection or self awareness.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 549 by NoNukes, posted 09-14-2014 3:51 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 552 by NoNukes, posted 09-14-2014 5:15 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17913
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 6.9


(1)
Message 551 of 614 (736909)
09-14-2014 5:14 PM
Reply to: Message 545 by Percy
09-14-2014 9:52 AM


Of course Faith does not have a legitimate argument. She recognises that we can work out things that happened in the prehistoric past. Claiming that hypotheses cannot be tested when they have been is an obvious falsehood.
And if she uses "prove" in an ordinary sense then desperate appeals to an assumed "systematic error" which affects the many diverse dating methods are clearly invalid. It HAS been proved that the Earth is very much more than 10,000 years old by any standard but a demand for absolute proof.
Faith does it all backwards, of course. She starts with the conclusions and tries to concoct "rules" that will justify them. And in this case she has to resort to inconsistencies.
When we point out that the Flood wouldn't produce the evidence we observe, we can't work out what the Flood would do. When she claims that the Flood would produce the evidence that we see that objection vanishes.
When we point to conclusions about the unwitnessed prehistoric past that she does not object to then she doesn't pretend to defend her claim that we can't reach such conclusions. She jsut accepts that it is possible. When talking about conclusions that she does object to then the assertion that the unwitnessed prehistoric past is unknowable suddenly pops up again.
The only consistent factor in Faith's evaluation is Faith's opinion of the conclusions. Not the evidence. Not the supporting arguments. That certainly is not science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 545 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 9:52 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 552 of 614 (736910)
09-14-2014 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 550 by Percy
09-14-2014 5:12 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
Faith has demonstrated time and again that she has no aptitude for introspection or self awareness.
Nicely understated. . Almost Britishly so...

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 550 by Percy, posted 09-14-2014 5:12 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
kishan
Junior Member (Idle past 3633 days)
Posts: 5
Joined: 12-12-2014


Message 553 of 614 (744543)
12-12-2014 5:26 AM


historical science is came by only observational .

Replies to this message:
 Message 554 by Larni, posted 12-12-2014 7:35 AM kishan has not replied
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Larni
Member (Idle past 106 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 554 of 614 (744544)
12-12-2014 7:35 AM
Reply to: Message 553 by kishan
12-12-2014 5:26 AM


historical science is came by only observational .
Evidence, please.
Welcome to the forum!

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

This message is a reply to:
 Message 553 by kishan, posted 12-12-2014 5:26 AM kishan has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22941
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 7.0


Message 555 of 614 (744550)
12-12-2014 8:00 AM
Reply to: Message 553 by kishan
12-12-2014 5:26 AM


I rewrote this slightly to say what I think you meant:
kishan writes:
Historical science can only be observational.
All science is observational. Observations are how we gather data. Some fields of science lend themselves well to controlled experiments for generating data (physics, chemistry), others must gather much of their data from events that happened long ago (paleogeology, cosmology) or over which we have no control (meteorology).
Perhaps what you meant to say is that in some fields of science it is impossible to construct experiments, so we're forced to observe whatever happens in nature. Supernovae are an example. Telescopes scan the night skies looking for supernovae to observe because we'll never be able to construct our own supernova upon which to conduct experiments.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 553 by kishan, posted 12-12-2014 5:26 AM kishan has not replied

  
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