The main point I took away from this part of the discussion was how creationism, touted as "a better explanation", actually destroys our ability to explain anything, let alone have any chance to learn anything. And it yet again raises the spectre of "God and the Creation are lying to us." It also reminds me of my topic, So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY) (opened 27-Nov-2007, closed 06-Jun-2011), in which I asked how Intelligent Design's (ID) plan to include the supernatural in science was supposed to work (no answers in nearly 400 messages).
Here's the video:
The video is a conference between Erika (Gutsick Gibbon), Jordan (Reason to Doubt), Dapper Dino, and geologist Jon B. (@ageofrocks) serving as a fundraiser for Jon B.'s field research in the Caucasus. It is nearly 5 hours 40 minutes long with the first hour and more spent discussing Jon B.'s research and responding to SuperChat donations.
The section I'm quoting starts at 2:55:55 with my quote being a copy-and-paste of the video transcript. In addition, I've added my own emphasis.
And then you you look at regular radiometric dating of any variety. Pick any variety, right? And how they corroborate one another through time and through space. And creationists will look at radiocarbon dating and they'll say, "Well, you know, the fact that contamination exists means that actually the entire concept of deep time is incorrect and we're really missing the boat on this." And even though it says 70,000 years, what it really means is 6,000 years. And, you know, they'll go on and on and on. Then you can show them this entire other body of data that helps us contextualize the even the carbon 14 dating and the contamination and things of that nature because it's like a diamond is going to be found in, you know, rot that's I don't know, throwing something out there. 500,000 or not 500,000 um 500 million years old, right? And we know that those methods are consistent if the law of radioactive decay is consistent, which to our understanding it is. And to deal with that, a creationist will look at that and say, well, there must have been a magic mechanism. And it's like you you really want to lecture me about assumptions when you're taking a much larger body of data that is completely inexplicable and entirely preclusionary. Whereas with carbon 14 data, we we do have an explicable explanation. You know, we have an explanation to to simplify for for why we're seeing the signal that we're seeing. And we have the comparative method and we have actualism that helps us make sense of it. But and that's not good enough. But it's okay for you to look at the this entire other enormous body of evidence and say, you know, damn, God might have done it that way. magical mechanism, whatever.
2:57:25 Dapper Dino:
It's almost like uneven levels of credility are another aspect of pseudocience.
2:57:35 Jordan:
the thing is like okay let's say the calibration thing it it's it's nonsense whatever right and they have some magical explanation for C14 well the C14 also agrees with the uranium thorium which would have to be wrong in a different magical way and that also corresponds to dendrochroninology which that would have to be wrong in yet another different magical way and you could just every single thing ties together all of which would have to be wrong for unconnected magical reasons at different rates like like at that point like God's just trying to lie to us. And if an omnipotent being wants to lie to us, I can't possibly be expected to find out.
2:58:22 Jon B.:
See, this is why I said you should formulate uh Oh gosh, I I just lost it. I'm sorry. [being in Europe, this is way past midnight for him] Well, I used ... the transcendental argument against creationism in this way because to explain the the geological evidence, they have to come up with so many nonsense ways about how the physical word world can behave arbitrarily in ways that are literally like end up tricking us by by creating coherent data sets that don't reflect what we think they're reflecting. uh it just makes the entire world unknowable, undescribable and unknowable by the scientific method that is right. So it creates a world that is nonsense. Therefore it has that that worldview has to be nonsense
2:59:00 Erika (Gutsick Gibbon):
which is so antithetical to what every early Christian largely scientist thought of of the world and investigating it. I mean the the idea was you were discovering creation the the glory of creation and that it was meant to be explicable. It was meant to be understandable and to know the world around you is to know God. Romans 1:20, right? And so it's like the idea that a creationist would be willing to take that concept today, which you know, young earth creationism is is incredibly new, which is something not, you know, it took me a while to figure out just how new it is. But by and large, people accepted the ancient age of the earth by goodness the the 1920s, um, much earlier, but even then, your your run-of-the-mill creationists were cool with it. It's like to take that idea of of using creation to whatever enhance your faith and to take that and say actually the whole of creation is lying to you, right? Or it is, as you guys said, unknowable, which is arguably worse is I mean that feels that even feels theologically gross to me. And I'm not I'm not even religious, right? Like I I don't know that doesn't seem to mesh with the character.
3:00:11 Dapper Dino:
Yeah, I generally would feel like I wouldn't want to uh believe in a God who made knowledge impossible a priori.
3:00:18 Erika (Gutsick Gibbon):
Well, and I don't even think God paints himself like that. Like if you want to take take the the the Bible as a holy text, as the means by which God is interacting with the creation, like that seems totally antithetical to to what he's going for. Um
3:00:18 Jordan:
but it is, but that's the irony of this because that's that's what they don't see. um they they want to think like the philosophy, the theology is on their side. So we're going to like we know in advance that that science has got to be on our side, right? Uh but they just they have to employ this um put it like you have to say that the the world is nonsensible, not knowable, a priori that's the way I mean so it's internally contradictory from the start. So, I mean, I just say, yeah, use take this philosophical route and turn that against them. If if those are the games you want to play to explain uh the the evidence we find in something as common as radiocarbon, right? Then that's where you're going to end up with an unknowable world. Um, and they do.
3:01:14 Erika (Gutsick Gibbon):
Let's let's stay let's take this to the next bombastic level. Let's go from radiocarbon to Grand Canyon. You guys want to watch a Grand Canyon short? I can't wait. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. This is from this is also from CMI.
Also, Erika's Bible reference at 2:59:00:
KJV:
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
I understand that to be the source of the oft cited motivation for early scientists, to learn more about the Creator by studying His Creation. Which leads to the Haldane anecdote in which a lady asked him what his studies had taught him about the Creator: "An inordinate fondness for beetles."
Thoughts? Reaction? Discussion?
And we could expand discussion under the topic, such as another unintended consequence of how creationism actually opposes and seeks to disprove the Creation.
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