Thread: creationists don't play fair.

I love YouTube. Where else could someone like me see Richard Dawkins give a lecture. But if you watch some of the short videos, on say creation verses Evolution. There seems to be parts missing When Dawkins is about to make a point. I sometimes watch the O'Riley Factor. I saw Bill had Dawkins on. And the subject was of course Evolution verses Creation. And after Bill would ask him a question, he would cut Dawkins off before he finished his reply. I quess he doesn't want to look dumb on his own show. filix.

And Oreily was a High school science teacher--scary.

Unfortunately few scientist are good at explaining their expertise in sound bite chunks and most seem uninteresting in trying--or worse failing to see why it's important to engage the general public.

I was a little unclear. Bill Oreily does except Evolution. Bill was argueing the fact that there might not be a God. And he would not let dawkins explane his stand. Filix.

Oreily does not embrace science:
" But the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both reject intelligent design and don't want it mentioned in science classes. That, in my opinion, is fascism."
God vs. Science | Fox News

Oreily is part of the anti-intellectualism that's jeopardizing our future. He should devote some study to the transition of Islam from the most rapidly advancing cultures in science and math at one time and the codification and suspension of thinking for the sake of theology that chilled that culture from further advancement and ended their golden age some 800 years ago.

When someone's ignoring sound science, why would you expect them to play fair?

I have read thats why Scientists Have kind of given up on debating Creationists. Because they can't get a word in edge wise. And you may as well have a debate with an onion. Filix.

The conversation innevitably reverts to "it isn't in the book!", after "there's no evidence!" fails. I agree, it's not in 'the book' - neither are computers, so throw yours away

My motto is to question everything and I don't like labels if you argue against a person who believes the creation side or a person of science who believes in their story. The truth is nobody knows the truth about the history of this planet in all of its details of how life came to exist. To be fair though between religions and science, I can honestly say that science at least makes a large effort to studying the natural world to try to figure it all out while religion sticks to the first written story based on faith with no investigation of its validity whatsoever.

The fact that the written account of creation is so simplified so a child can understand it and was never written on a adult level to take that story literally should be obvious to religious believers.

Originally Posted by Barbi

should be obvious to religious believers.

Why?

I ask because you've selected a group known for exhibiting a marked tendency to accept faery tales as fact.

People hate being wrong almost as much as they dislike being wronged and will stab rabbit kits with rusty spikes before making an earnest attempt to dispense with their deeply held fantasies. When it comes to reasoned argument and rational thought the last port of call should be a group of moral bigots who share a common delusion.

As to the OP, creationism isn't about playing fair. It's about confusion, misdirection and theocratic manoeuvring. It's about the showman trying his damnedest to keep the waters muddied for as long as possible.

<edit>
Also, that's a really funny motto. If I were to adopt a motto for any length of time, the balance of probability would make it "While there's whiskey, drink."

Originally Posted by rustypup

Originally Posted by Barbi

should be obvious to religious believers.

Why?

I ask because you've selected a group known for exhibiting a marked tendency to accept faery tales as fact.

People hate being wrong almost as much as they dislike being wronged and will stab rabbit kits with rusty spikes before making an earnest attempt to dispense with their deeply held fantasies. When it comes to reasoned argument and rational thought the last port of call should be a group of moral bigots who share a common delusion.

As to the OP, creationism isn't about playing fair. It's about confusion, misdirection and theocratic manoeuvring. It's about the showman trying his damnedest to keep the waters muddied for as long as possible.

<edit>
Also, that's a really funny motto. If I were to adopt a motto for any length of time, the balance of probability would make it "While there's whiskey, drink."

Because my parents made me go to church when I was a child and as a child growing up, I questioned the validity of a story that appeared to be from earlier humans point of view and not a deity.

Creationists just misunderstand the concept of science itself. They seem to think science is about never even taking the faintest one-in-a-trillion chance of maybe ending up being wrong. But that's not what the scientific method is. There's a reason nothing ever progresses beyond "theory" and becomes "fact". A scientist would be very uncomfortable obtaining absolute certainty of anything.

Religion is on the opposite side. They've got to conform to Pascal's Wager. In order to doubt a central belief, they've got to be so sure it's incorrect that they'd be willing to bet an eternity in hell against those odds, and feel safe they won't lose. Science has no way of helping a person in that condition.

Originally Posted by drowsy turtle

When someone's ignoring sound science, why would you expect them to play fair?

Darwinists hardly play fair, revered reptile. PILTDOWN MAN, for one, maybe you have heard of him? Only one of the most NOTORIOUS HOAXES in the history of science, that's all...Glass houses, baby, glass houses...

How does one scientist of no scruples weight against the many thousands who do honest work. You do realize AA the hoax was discovered by application of science method with keen observation? It would be the equivalent of the reconvening a Council of Niceae to examine with all the gospels through the eyes of modern language theory and archaeological evidence to figure out which should really be canonical and what parts of them are considered most authentic than rewriting the New Testament accordingly--every 50 years or so. Of course if they did that the NT might turn out something more like the miracle devoid version one of our founding fathers put together (Jefferson Bible)---but no matter--it would at least approximate the flexibility of the scientific process.

Took their sweet time about it, too. I SAY, is IS a good thing there is no such pseudo-scientific claptrap transpiring today, isn't it? P.S. Jefferson didn't believe in meteorites either.

Piltdown Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by filix

And after Bill would ask him a question, he would cut Dawkins off before he finished his reply. I quess he doesn't want to look dumb on his own show. filix.

Bill always looks dumb to me on his own show or any other. My hypothesis is that he IS dumb, scientific method in action.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Took their sweet time about it, too.

They did? By who's watch? Even this unusually long time to find an error by science would be astonishingly fast compared to the movement of church-based dogmatic positions that people like Saint Augustine warned against, and continue to bare out as true in prominent examples like Galileo's positions taking more than a century to find acceptance--and 3 centuries for vindication in the eyes of the church. Not to mention the more than thousands years of dogmatic beliefs without any serious examination that preceded Galileo. Ideas wrapped in superstitions aren't very conducive to find truth--they thwart, sometimes brutally, any attempts to reexamine evidence.

By MY watch, old fuzzy pants. Three or four decades is an unconscionably long time to come around to the correct conclusion as determined by anatomists of the day- BUT such a conclusion contradicted the fashionable but erroneous suppositions of the "scientific establishment" of the day- "consensus", you know? THANK GOD we have no such tripe being propagated today in the holy name of science!

And don't you mean "bear"? The transitive verb, not the noun.

In addition to the normal problems committed believers have in readjusting the foundations of their beliefs, we have a political issue in the US: we have a political faction of great power and essentially unlimited funding that benefits from isolating and stigmatizing the entire intellectual class - all widely and deeply educated people as a group.

To that end, they are not interested in their media representation winning arguments or otherwise taking an honored place in that group. They are interested in having their media representation display defiance and disparagement of that group as a norm of behavior among those possessing competence, virtue, confidence, strength, wealth, power, success, etc.

They're selling anti-intellectualism to their political base, not arguing or debating anything. Notions of "fairness" don't come up, any more than they would in a car ad.

Originally Posted by arthur

THANK GOD we have no such tripe being propagated today in the holy name of science!

We've had a couple of recent attempts at that general kind of fraud - for example, some people stole and selectively misrepresented a pile of emails from climate scientists a couple of years ago, cobbling together a sort of Piltdown collage of carefully edited and context-free version of bits of them, and presenting that as scientifically analyzed evidence to fool people unfamiliar with the details.

The goal, as with the Piltdown fraud, being to damage reputations rather than debate a scientific issue or analyze actual evidence, etc.

Oh, this is rich. Buster, you have the deserved reputation of letting no evidence, no matter how often presented or impeccable the source, change your position one iota. You cling as vigorously to your pet dogmas as any Fundamentalist Christian OR Muslim.

The Piltdown FRAUD was the FABRICATION of "evidence" in support of the Darwinist position, cobbled together of dissimilar bones- much as the infamous "hockey stick" graph of the CAGW crowd was FABRICATED from dissimilar types of records.

Reputation? Yeah, you guys are getting one all right.

And right about now I suppose I will be BANNED for having the damned GALL to point this out.

Have your little fun.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

And Oreily was a High school science teacher--scary.

Unfortunately few scientist are good at explaining their expertise in sound bite chunks and most seem uninteresting in trying--or worse failing to see why it's important to engage the general public.

Hey, what grades are you training to teach? Tsiolkovski was a high school teacher if I remember correctly- we could use more like him and fewer like stupid old Bill.

Originally Posted by arthur

The Piltdown FRAUD was the FABRICATION of "evidence" in support of the Darwinist position, cobbled together of dissimilar bones- much as the infamous "hockey stick" graph of the CAGW crowd was FABRICATED from dissimilar types of records.

Uh, you might want to review your history there - the hockey stick is apparently kind of over your head, but the Piltdown punking is something you could relate to.

Somebody did a survey, back a couple of years, which indicated that a fairly high percentage of self-described "conservatives" thought Steven Colbert was a sincere expounder of their views. I didn't believe it, at the time, but I've been keeping better track since: I do, now.

Originally Posted by iceaura

Originally Posted by arthur

The Piltdown FRAUD was the FABRICATION of "evidence" in support of the Darwinist position, cobbled together of dissimilar bones- much as the infamous "hockey stick" graph of the CAGW crowd was FABRICATED from dissimilar types of records.

Uh, you might want to review your history there - the hockey stick is apparently kind of over your head, but the Piltdown punking is something you could relate to.

Somebody did a survey, back a couple of years, which indicated that a fairly high percentage of self-described "conservatives" thought Steven Colbert was a sincere expounder of their views. I didn't believe it, at the time, but I've been keeping better track since: I do, now.

So WHERE do I ERR, iceman? The hockey stick was cobbled together out of different climate records, of dissimilar types, including tree ring records, very much as the Piltdown fraud was cobbled together from dissimilar bones from different primates. Both were in support of popular and heavily promoted "scientific" fashions of their respective eras.

As usual, you are long on invective and short on data. Lay out the REAL history for us, won't you please? I am most curious to know what role, if any, is played by Mr. Colbert in either case.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

By MY watch, old fuzzy pants. Three or four decades is an unconscionably long time to come around to the correct conclusion as determined by anatomists of the day- BUT such a conclusion contradicted the fashionable but erroneous suppositions of the "scientific establishment" of the day- "consensus", you know? THANK GOD we have no such tripe being propagated today in the holy name of science!

Ahh. I see so you'll cling tenaciously to a system of truth finding that more than a century to accept something as simple as to what's closer to the center of the solar system and 3 centuries to vindicate the man who discovered it, ..but find fault with a self correcting system that does so in less than a couple generations. I think that's called hypocrisy.

Hey, what grades are you training to teach?

Personally I'll be a High school teacher soon (just got back from a gifted children's science fair....great fun!), about where the scientific community needs to focus to connect with the general public.

You could also do some research on your own about the hockey stick. It's also an opportunity to point out that the scientific community is doing itself a disservice by not sticking with the name, since not only was the original research completely vindicated but conclusion and overwhelming confirmed in dozens of independent proxy climate records as diverse as plankton growth in lake sediments to bore holes, glacier records and many more. They should be beating the skeptics over the held with hit as the studies continue to pile up all affirming the conclusion.

Actually I have no position on this thread other than pointing out the "scientific" camp of intellectual fashionistas has been guilty on multiple occasions of "not playing fair" on the plain of public opinion- including the outright fabrication of evidence. If you want to blame "religion" per se for the geocentric cosmology though, it came from Aristotle and other pre-Christian sources- so it is older than you suppose.

By the way, SIR, who did the bulk of the teaching in the West after the fall of Rome? Who copied laboriously the works of Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, Herodotus, Xenophon? What were Mendel and Darwin?

CLERGY, every last one of 'em. So you will be in good company, even if you refuse to acknowledge it- can you BEAR that?

Here's a link, too, results of my research, as you advised:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/res...ockeystick.pdf

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

By the way, SIR, who did the bulk of the teaching in the West after the fall of Rome? Who copied laboriously the works of Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, Herodotus, Xenophon? What were Mendel and Darwin?

Hmmm....mostly Byzantine scholars.

Mendel died a Christian, and like some scientist even today, could compartmentalize religion from scientific ideas-- it's particularly true in those not interested in philosophy. Darwin for the most part rejected traditional Christianity especially about a caring of loving god--you could probably call him an agnostic in the end.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/res...ockeystick.pdf

Don't bore me, I've read it a half dozen times and understand most of it. It's been further reviewed many times by experts--they're all in consensus: the original research was not faulty but could have used better methods. The vulnerabilities of the methods they did use did not actually happen. All the subsequent research using a many other techniques and lines of evidence supports the hockey stick conclusion.


This is pretty far from creationism/ID tactics...such as the stunt you pulled by applying a different standard to self-correcting science than that of dogma-based religious research.

Originally Posted by arthur

So WHERE do I ERR, iceman? The hockey stick was cobbled together out of different climate records, of dissimilar types, including tree ring records, very much as the Piltdown fraud was cobbled together from dissimilar bones from different primates. Both were in support of popular and heavily promoted "scientific" fashions of their respective eras.

You err in thinking the hockey stick to be fraudulent, and in thinking the Piltdown fraud an attempt to support Darwinian evolutionary theory.

That's how you missed the Colbert reference, and failed to follow the obvious parallel between the "Climategate" email fraud and the Piltdown fraud.

I err in explaining jokes. Better to just let them hang.

Originally Posted by arthur

By the way, SIR, who did the bulk of the teaching in the West after the fall of Rome? Who copied laboriously the works of Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, Herodotus, Xenophon? What were Mendel and Darwin?

CLERGY, every last one of 'em.

Darwin was not clergy.

The predisposition of a too powerful Church to monopolize access to education, including simple literacy, is a point against religion. Creationists have never played fair.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

The Piltdown FRAUD was the FABRICATION of "evidence" in support of the Darwinist position, cobbled together of dissimilar bones

The exact reason for the hoax is not known but there is no particular evidence that it was done to support evolution by natural selection that I am aware of. If anything, it could be used as an example of scientists "ignoring evidence that doesn't suit their theory" as it very rapidly became clear it didn't fit with the rest of the fossil record.

Many scientists raised suspicions about the fossil(s) almost immediately. It was never fully accepted, even before the hoax was finally exposed. As for why it took so long to be exposed, that had little to do with not wanting to contradict the consensus (after all, it was the hoax that was soon seen to contradict the consensus) and perhaps more to do with political/cultural issues. No one really had the incentive to spend time time analysing it.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

By the way, SIR, who did the bulk of the teaching in the West after the fall of Rome? Who copied laboriously the works of Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, Herodotus, Xenophon? What were Mendel and Darwin?

CLERGY, every last one of 'em.

And don't forget all the Islamic scholars that passed these texts on to Western scholars.

But I'm not quite sure what your point is. We know that many scientists are and have been religious. Many studied science as a way of better understanding God's work. Also because they ran schools and universities. In the case of someone like Mendel, he also had the time to "play around" with peas, which he might not have been able to do if he had a "proper job". All of which only goes to prove that one can be religious and scientific.

The problem with Creationists is not so much that they are religious but that they are not scientific. They allow their personal beliefs to get in the way and cause them to ignore or misinterpret evidence.

Good point about the Muslim scholars. And are the "creationists" alone in exhibiting such bias? The evidence suggests otherwise. In fact, the opposite side has not merely "ignored or misinterpreted evidence", it has MANUFACTURED such "evidence", casting a pretty long shadow, ethically speaking, as I see it. That is pretty much my point. Once again I will mention the proverbial glass houses, residents of same, and admonition to these residents to refrain from throwing stones.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Good point about the Muslim scholars. And are the "creationists" alone in exhibiting such bias? The evidence suggests otherwise. In fact, the opposite side has not merely "ignored or misinterpreted evidence", it has MANUFACTURED such "evidence", casting a pretty long shadow, ethically speaking, as I see it. That is pretty much my point. Once again I will mention the proverbial glass houses, residents of same, and admonition to these residents to refrain from throwing stones.

You seem to think that we regard scientists as superhuman somehow. That is obviously not the case. Scientists are human too and as such are subject to the same flaws as the rest of humanity. It is therefore not in the least bit surprising that some scientists have taken to manufacturing evidence and data to support a preconceived idea. What we have though is the scientific method and the peer review system that explicitly promotes truth and due diligence. That system tends to eradicate such instances as much as possible.

Creationists don't have that though. They have their sets of beliefs without proper evidence and they stick to them no matter what. If you are familiar with the subject at hand and with the various logical fallacies, go ahead and watch debates between scientists and evangelical creationists like Kent Hovind and you'll see what I mean. If you don't notice anything untoward, then you have to seriously start doubting your own faculties and ability to discern crap when you smell it.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

it has MANUFACTURED such "evidence"

That may happen occasionally. It usually gets uncovered pretty quickly when others are unable to reproduce the results. The paper linking vaccination with autism is a good example; this was eventually found to be not just bad science, but deliberate fraud.

The scientific method may not always work as quickly as we would like in this respect, but it does work.

You raised the "hockey stick" graph; that has been reproduced many times by many different teams using different data sets and different methods of analysis. At least one of these started out being rather sceptical (and was largely funded by "denialists"): Different method, same result: global warming is real : Nature News

I am a scientist and am certainly not a superhuman, but I am not fool enough to buy into the fraud of the hockey stick graph. Again, the case of the Piltdown fraud is instructive- early on there were dissenting views by a minority of well-qualified researchers who were eventually vindicated- the same is true for the hockey stick fraud.

Strange, your link makes a point of saying Muller's study has not been peer-reviewed at the time of publication. It is hardly the definitive word on the subject that you seem to imply, forgive my overstating the case if you did not mean to convey the impression.

It has been often stated that SCIENTISTS uncovered the Piltdown fraud- well and good- but better if they had never endorsed it to begin with.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

I am a scientist and am certainly not a superhuman, but I am not fool enough to buy into the fraud of the hockey stick graph.

Is there any evidence it is a fraud?

Again, the case of the Piltdown fraud is instructive- early on there were dissenting views by a minority of well-qualified researchers who were eventually vindicated- the same is true for the hockey stick fraud.

Are there are any well-qualified climate scientists who claim that the hockey stick graph is a fraud?

Strange, your link makes a point of saying Muller's study has not been peer-reviewed at the time of publication. It is hardly the definitive word on the subject that you seem to imply, forgive my overstating the case if you did not mean to convey the impression.

I certainly did not intend to claim that that study was definitive. I only gave that reference as it shows that at least one person who started out sceptical has analysed the data (in yet another way) and found it convincing. As, of course, any scientist should.

We do not expect any one study or paper to be definitive; it is the balance of evidence that is important. Currently all the different analyses of temperature records are consistent with one another and with other studies such as economic output, direct measurements of CO₂, measurements of radiation from the upper atmosphere, consumption of fossil fuels, and so on and so on.

Originally Posted by Strange

Is there any evidence it is a fraud?

Medieval Warm Period

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Originally Posted by Strange

Is there any evidence it is a fraud?

Medieval Warm Period

I'm not sure I see the point. As far as I know the Medieval Warm Period is known from temperature records; presumably, largely the same temperature records that are used to construct the hockey stick graph. For example (just the first thing I found):
File:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But isn't this getting rather off the topic. Perhaps you should start a new thread if you want to discuss this...

Agreed, we are wandering pretty far off topic. Hockey stick was only mentioned as another example of dubious, politically motivated "science" comparable to established Piltdown fabrication. Funny your graphs from the link look different from Mann's original as appears in numerous cases. Looks different from Gore's movie, too.

Actually, global warming ideology HAS been compared to religion several times by detractors, so this is as good a section of forum to discuss it as any.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Agreed, we are wandering pretty far off topic. Hockey stick was only mentioned as another example of dubious, politically motivated "science" comparable to established Piltdown fabrication.

Although you haven't established that that is the case. It seems that all the science is consistent in this case.

Funny your graphs from the link look different from Mann's original as appears in numerous cases.

There are many different analyses producing results that differ in detail. The overall trends are very consistent. That was just the first graph I found that showed the temperature record including both the MWP and the more recent higher temperatures.

Looks different from Gore's movie, too.

I wouldn't know.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

You could also do some research on your own about the hockey stick. It's also an opportunity to point out that the scientific community is doing itself a disservice by not sticking with the name, since not only was the original research completely vindicated but conclusion and overwhelming confirmed in dozens of independent proxy climate records as diverse as plankton growth in lake sediments to bore holes, glacier records and many more. They should be beating the skeptics over the held with hit as the studies continue to pile up all affirming the conclusion.

More research: I think I may have found your source for the statement above- from 2008, two years before Mann himself did some backpedaling, and two years AFTER Gore's infamous film was released:BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate 'hockey stick' is revived

As we just can't let it go, here is another (not peer reviewed) article showing that, whatever data we use, we get consistent results: Climate Change and Cherry Tree Blossom Festivals in Japan

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Agreed, we are wandering pretty far off topic. Hockey stick was only mentioned as another example of dubious, politically motivated "science" comparable to established Piltdown fabrication.

Although you haven't established that that is the case. It seems that all the science is consistent in this case.

Funny your graphs from the link look different from Mann's original as appears in numerous cases.

There are many different analyses producing results that differ in detail. The overall trends are very consistent. That was just the first graph I found that showed the temperature record including both the MWP and the more recent higher temperatures.

Looks different from Gore's movie, too.

I wouldn't know.

Well don't go looking for the MWP in Mann's original graph because you will not see it, or the little Ice Age either. How much more evidence that it is crap do you need?

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Well don't go looking for the MWP in Mann's original graph because you will not see it, or the little Ice Age either. How much more evidence that it is crap do you need?

Even if the first published analysis was flawed (and I don't know enough to know whether it was or not) all the later studies are consistent. So, even if you throw out the original version, it doesn't appear to change the science at all.

Just had a quick look, and it seems that the original data sets probably weren't accurate enough to show the MWP, anyway:

Scientists who did the reconstruction cautioned that large uncertainties in the earlier centuries "preclude, as yet, any definitive conclusions" regarding the climate before about A.D. 1400.

(I suppose you might choose to consider that as evidence of a cover up; but that doesn't matter because it seems all the later analyses are consistent.)

Originally Posted by Strange

As we just can't let it go, here is another (not peer reviewed) article showing that, whatever data we use, we get consistent results: Climate Change and Cherry Tree Blossom Festivals in Japan

This is a localized phenomenon and therefore an example of "cherry-picking", figuratively and literally. Observations in the text indicate that it is local urbanization which accounts for the earlier flowering times:

"Trees flower earliest on March 19 in the center of the city
and progressively later at greater distances from the center. The latest
flowering is along the coast to the west of the city, due to the moderating
influence of the sea. A city park to the northeast of the city center also
creates a small area of later flowering."- caption on the chart

Pretty lame. Most of the effect is attributed to urbanization and a smaller portion to a presumed general rise in temperatures at a specific time of year. Doesn't, mercifully, mention the dreaded CO2.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

This is a localized phenomenon and therefore an example of "cherry-picking", figuratively and literally.

However, cherry-picking is usually used to refer to selecting data to support a case that is contradicted by most other data. In this case it is just YACDS (yet another consistent data set).

Observations in the text indicate that it is local urbanization which accounts for the earlier flowering times:

And they devote 3 pages (one third of the article) to analysing this and showing how it can be accounted for.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Well don't go looking for the MWP in Mann's original graph because you will not see it, or the little Ice Age either. How much more evidence that it is crap do you need?

Even if the first published analysis was flawed (and I don't know enough to know whether it was or not) all the later studies are consistent. So, even if you throw out the original version, it doesn't appear to change the science at all.

Just had a quick look, and it seems that the original data sets probably weren't accurate enough to show the MWP, anyway:

Scientists who did the reconstruction cautioned that large uncertainties in the earlier centuries "preclude, as yet, any definitive conclusions" regarding the climate before about A.D. 1400.

(I suppose you might choose to consider that as evidence of a cover up; but that doesn't matter because it seems all the later analyses are consistent.)

Can't blame you for wanting to "throw out" the original version, as it is an embarrassment. Much like the Piltdown case.

Creationists don't have to play fair .. we have God on our side.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Can't blame you for wanting to "throw out" the original version, as it is an embarrassment.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

This is a localized phenomenon and therefore an example of "cherry-picking", figuratively and literally.

However, cherry-picking is usually used to refer to selecting data to support a case that is contradicted by most other data. In this case it is just YACDS (yet another consistent data set).

Observations in the text indicate that it is local urbanization which accounts for the earlier flowering times:

And they devote 3 pages (one third of the article) to analysing this and showing how it can be accounted for.

All the same, it IS a local case, restricted to an island nation. It does have merit due to the lengthy period of observation, but where else can such a study be replicated? Possibly Washington D.C., another anomalous urban area?

D.C. cherry blossoms&rsquo; peak expected March 24-31, during 100th birthday bash - The Washington Post

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Can't blame you for wanting to "throw out" the original version, as it is an embarrassment.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

Very well, "I can't blame ANYONE for wanting to throw out Mann's original version, you know, THE HOAX."

Better?

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

All the same, it IS a local case, restricted to an island nation. It does have merit due to the lengthy period of observation, but where else can such a study be replicated?

It doesn't matter. Throw out this data set if you want: it doesn't matter.

It won't change the facts. Every study produces consistent results. Do you have a reason to exclude every single piece of evidence?

We are converging back to the OP. There is overwhelming evidence for evolution/climate change but certain groups and individuals choose to ignore this for non-scientific motives.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Very well, "I can't blame ANYONE for wanting to throw out Mann's original version, you know, THE HOAX."

Better?

And you still have no evidence that it was a hoax. The best you have shown is that it was not as good as later analyses and better data. But they all show the same thing.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

All the same, it IS a local case, restricted to an island nation. It does have merit due to the lengthy period of observation, but where else can such a study be replicated?

It doesn't matter. Throw out this data set if you want: it doesn't matter.

It won't change the facts. Every study produces consistent results. Do you have a reason to exclude every single piece of evidence?

We are converging back to the OP. There is overwhelming evidence for evolution/climate change but certain groups and individuals choose to ignore this for non-scientific motives.

Excuse me? All I did was point out the limitations of your article. When was it published anyway, '06, '07? It would be nice to get some more recent related data and now you are putting words in MY mouth, aren't you sir? There is evidence indeed, but not all of it is reliable, such is the verdict of history.

Evolution? Of course!

Climate change? Certainly!

It is the causes of these things, readily observed, that are at issue, and the manner by which such such causes are determined. Computer people have a saying about consistent results, "Garbage in, garbage out." What could be more consistent than that?

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Excuse me? All I did was point out the limitations of your article.

And I agree with those limitations. It is still consistent with all the other evidence. So, if you choose to ignore it because of those limitations, it won't make any difference.

When was it published anyway, '06, '07?

Last year, I think.

now you are putting words in MY mouth, aren't you sir?

I don't think so. If I appeared to, I apologise.

There is evidence indeed, but not all of it is reliable, such is the verdict of history.

It will have differing degrees of accuracy. But so far it all points the same way.

Evolution? Of course!

Climate change? Certainly!

It is the causes of these things, readily observed, that are at issue, and the manner by which such such causes are determined.

And in both cases, there is an overwhelming body of evidence leading to the current consensus. In both cases new evidence is still being found but this hasn't (yet) made any major changes to the theories, just added detail and complications.

Piltdown Man- rubbish.

Mann "hockey stick" graph- rubbish.

Yes, I would say that these are complications. Arguably they are details. And they cast suspicion on other evidence, making the job of science more difficult.

Let us say I only got caught ONCE cheating on a test- does that make me a bad guy?

Originally Posted by arthur

Let us say I only got caught ONCE cheating on a test- does that make me a bad guy?

The kinds of people who rig evidence to destroy reputations when faced with scientific discovery they find inconvenient have been caught twice in the matters you chose for example:

in the Climategate email fraud (stealing, lying about, and misrepresenting emails) and the Piltdown fraud (punking the researchers who were trying to determine the evolutionary sequence that produced humans).

So they have a well established history of being bad guys.

Or, possibly, not so much bad as blinded in a particular way:

I am a scientist and am certainly not a superhuman, but I am not fool enough to buy into the fraud of the hockey stick graph.

since the hockey stick graph itself has a well known history and was openly published along with its methodology and origins,

was in short not the least bit deceptive, hidden, or fraudulent (even if it had been simply mistaken or invalid)

and has since been reinforced and validated by several other, independently pursued and accomplished, investigations and approaches - so it was not even mistaken or invalid by the evidence then and now,

the matter of curiosity here is the establishment and prevalence of this essentially anti-intellectual approach: 'can't fool me with your fancy numbers', 'no elitist snobs are going to one-up us people of common sense - we'll punk them, show how they are the fools'.

This is a political issue, not limited to the arena of any branch of science.

It is the reputation of science itself that suffers when "evidence" is fabricated, whatever the motive.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Piltdown Man- rubbish.

Mann "hockey stick" graph- rubbish.

But it hasn't been shown to be "rubbish". Limited, possibly.

Yes, I would say that these are complications. Arguably they are details. And they cast suspicion on other evidence, making the job of science more difficult.

Which means that all the other evidence gets looked at more carefully. And it still stands up.

Let us say I only got caught ONCE cheating on a test- does that make me a bad guy?

Not a good analogy (there was no cheating, just incomplete data).

A better one might be: you only got a B the first time you did a test; then you did some more studying, took it again and got an A.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

It is the reputation of science itself that suffers when "evidence" is fabricated, whatever the motive.

And you have brought up one example of a hoax (Pitldown) and another example of evidence you just dislike.

If I fabricate evidence or suborn perjury in a trial case, I am cheating. The analogy is better than you will admit, to my way of thinking. As for the graph, it is inconsistent with known historical events, hence unreliable in its entirety. Rubbish. The CAGW crowd seems to recognize this and to have come up with other graphs to popularize their POLITICAL, or possibly religious agenda.

"In the spring of 1989 I was an invited participant at a global warming symposium at Tufts University. I was the only scientist among a panel of environmentalists. There were strident calls for immediate action and ample expressions of impatience with science. Claudine Schneider, then a congressman from Rhode Island, acknowledged that 'scientists may disagree, but we can hear Mother Earth, and she is crying.'''- Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

It is the reputation of science itself that suffers when "evidence" is fabricated, whatever the motive.

And you have brought up one example of a hoax (Pitldown) and another example of evidence you just dislike.

The graph of Mann et al. has been thoroughly discredited, where have you been?

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/in...1998-2005-rip/

Originally Posted by arthur

It is the reputation of science itself that suffers when "evidence" is fabricated, whatever the motive.

Which is a clue to the motives of the fabricators - such as the fabricators of email "evidence" in Climategate, or the fabricators of Piltdown man.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

If I fabricate evidence or suborn perjury in a trial case, I am cheating. The analogy is better than you will admit, to my way of thinking. As for the graph, it is inconsistent with known historical events, hence unreliable in its entirety. Rubbish.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

The graph of Mann has been thoroughly discredited, where have you been?

What is the evidence for fabricated evidence and for the graph being inconsistent with known history?

Originally Posted by filix

I love YouTube. Where else could someone like me see Richard Dawkins give a lecture. But if you watch some of the short videos, on say creation verses Evolution. There seems to be parts missing When Dawkins is about to make a point. I sometimes watch the O'Riley Factor. I saw Bill had Dawkins on. And the subject was of course Evolution verses Creation. And after Bill would ask him a question, he would cut Dawkins off before he finished his reply. I quess he doesn't want to look dumb on his own show. filix.

That's another thing- Dawkins is a militant atheist, but somehow, HIS pre-existing bias is okay, while those of believers is not- a double standard if ever there was one.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

If I fabricate evidence or suborn perjury in a trial case, I am cheating. The analogy is better than you will admit, to my way of thinking. As for the graph, it is inconsistent with known historical events, hence unreliable in its entirety. Rubbish.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

The graph of Mann has been thoroughly discredited, where have you been?

What is the evidence for fabricated evidence and for the graph being inconsistent with known history?

Esper J., D.C. Frank, and J.S. Wilson, 2004. Climate reconstructions: Low-frequency ambition and high-frequency ratification. Eos, 85, 133,120.
Esper, J., E.R. Cook, and F.H. Schweingruber, 2002. Low frequency signals in long tree-ring chronologies for reconstructing past temperature variability, Science, 295, 2250-2253.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Houghton, J.T., et al., (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K, pp 881, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.
Mann, M.E. R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes, 1998. Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries. Nature, 392, 779-787.
Mann, M.E., R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes, 1999. Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: inferences, uncertainties, and limitations. Geophysical Research Letters, 26, 759–762.
McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2003. Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy database and Northern Hemispheric average temperature series. Energy & Environment,14, 751-771.
McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2005. Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750.
Moberg, A., et al., 2005. Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data. Nature, 433, 613-617.
Soon, W., and S. Baliunas, 2003. Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1,000 years. Climate Research, 23, 89–110.
Von Storch, H., et al., 2004. Reconstructing past climate from noisy data. Science, 306, 679-682.

Originally Posted by arthur

That's another thing- Dawkins is a militant atheist, but somehow, HIS pre-existing bias is okay, while those of believers is not- a double standard if ever there was one.

The behavior criticized was overt and present time, not an assumed bias pre-existing or otherwise.

It's not the creationists' bias that is criticized here, but their behavior: they don't play fair. They never have. And people who do play fair seem to end up outside the creationists' camp in short order.

It's almost as if playing fair automatically aligned one with the scientific norm, in opposition to the constraints of religious faith.

Originally Posted by arthur

McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2003. Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy database and Northern Hemispheric average temperature series. Energy & Environment,14, 751-771.
McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2005. Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750.

You have posted no evidence of "fabrication", and your only links drawing firm conclusions of large scale error in Mann's work are to the incompetent work of McIntyre and McKitrick - thoroughly discredited, in your terminology, and unsurprisingly so since neither one of them had any scientific background in a relevant field.

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Excuse me? All I did was point out the limitations of your article.

And I agree with those limitations. It is still consistent with all the other evidence. So, if you choose to ignore it because of those limitations, it won't make any difference.

When was it published anyway, '06, '07?

Last year, I think.

now you are putting words in MY mouth, aren't you sir?

I don't think so. If I appeared to, I apologise.

There is evidence indeed, but not all of it is reliable, such is the verdict of history.

It will have differing degrees of accuracy. But so far it all points the same way.

Evolution? Of course!

Climate change? Certainly!

It is the causes of these things, readily observed, that are at issue, and the manner by which such such causes are determined.

And in both cases, there is an overwhelming body of evidence leading to the current consensus. In both cases new evidence is still being found but this hasn't (yet) made any major changes to the theories, just added detail and complications.

Hey, look here, "Exhibit 7 Japan"! And we were just talking about it!
"Ask and ye shall receive..."

The Hockey Stick: A New Low in Climate Science

Originally Posted by iceaura

Originally Posted by arthur

That's another thing- Dawkins is a militant atheist, but somehow, HIS pre-existing bias is okay, while those of believers is not- a double standard if ever there was one.

The behavior criticized was overt and present time, not an assumed bias pre-existing or otherwise.

It's not the creationists' bias that is criticized here, but their behavior: they don't play fair. They never have. And people who do play fair seem to end up outside the creationists' camp in short order.

It's almost as if playing fair automatically aligned one with the scientific norm, in opposition to the constraints of religious faith.

Originally Posted by arthur

McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2003. Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy database and Northern Hemispheric average temperature series. Energy & Environment,14, 751-771.
McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2005. Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750.

You have posted no evidence of "fabrication", and your only links drawing firm conclusions of large scale error in Mann's work are to the incompetent work of McIntyre and McKitrick - thoroughly discredited, in your terminology, and unsurprisingly so since neither one of them had any scientific background in a relevant field.

Play fair about the credential thing, yobbo. Let's examine the credentials of Academy Award winners Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, and Al Gore- it won't take long, I assure you. Compare them to Richard S. Lindzen, and get back to me when you can figure out which is more credible.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Hey, look here, "Exhibit 7 Japan"! And we were just talking about it!
"Ask and ye shall receive..."

The Hockey Stick: A New Low in Climate Science

OK. So that shows that Japanese cherry blossom records identify the medieval warm period. (And, as you mentioned the date of the other study, this appears to be much older). Good stuff.

Er.... and ?

I don't have the time, expertise or inclination to go through the rest of that but, apart from anything else:
1) He criticises Mann's data for not showing the MWP - but Mann explicitly said it wouldn't.
2) Later reanalyses of the same data and additional data have not changed the conclusions.

Originally Posted by arthur

Play fair about the credential thing, yobbo. Let's examine the credentials of Academy Award winners Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, and Al Gore- it won't take long, I assure you.

As you have introduced Hollywood actors as your idea of an appropriate - "play fair" - comparison with your posted scientific critiques of the hockey stick, I'm just going to take the matter as settled and agreed.

Humans are the only species capable of attempting to write the story of how life came to be on this planet. Creationists have their version and science has theirs but the fact remains is that none of us were there in the beginning as witnesses and even if we were there are not fully capable of understanding all of the infinite details in order to explain it correctly as the absolute truth with the adaptations of language and being able to write it.

Our vocabulary is our invention to describe and give definition to our words in order to communicate with each other that is only applicable in our species. We can't communicate with a microbe who is the oldest creature on this planet and even if we could microbes probably wouldn't know anymore than we do. There is no other life form on this planet that can tell us whether who has the story correct about the history on this planet.

This debate can go on forever since it cannot ever be resolved, it is impossible to get every single person to believe in evolution or religion's views of how life emerged and it may just be that we are all wrong of how we think it happened.

Originally Posted by iceaura

Originally Posted by arthur

Play fair about the credential thing, yobbo. Let's examine the credentials of Academy Award winners Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, and Al Gore- it won't take long, I assure you.

As you have introduced Hollywood actors as your idea of an appropriate - "play fair" - comparison with your posted scientific critiques of the hockey stick, I'm just going to take the matter as settled and agreed.

Yeah, you agree with yourself. Big surprise there. I have no idea what credentials you possess beyond recalcitrance, and your behavior is very much beyond recalcitrance, so I will simplify the question as follows:

"Why do you find Al Gore's authority on the CAGW question so compelling, knowing that he stands to gain financially from his statements and has NO, repeat NO specific scientific training of any type?"

And for good measure, "WHY do you find so little merit in the point of view of Lindzen of MIT?"

This is another question of bias- when Miss Rhode Island(for example) gushes about the need to stop global warming or nuclear power or similar complex questions of public policy, none of you lot care about the bimbo's academic credentials. If she took a contrary view, you'd be all over her high school transcripts.

Why are using Al gore as an example? Do you know what a scientist is? Should we really need to go through the hundreds of researchers behind dozens of studies that reconstruct temperatures here....no we won't. But I would invite you to the environmental forum where this has been gone over in some detail several times.

Originally Posted by Barbi

Humans are the only species capable of attempting to write the story of how life came to be on this planet. Creationists have their version and science has theirs but the fact remains is that none of us were there in the beginning as witnesses and even if we were there are not fully capable of understanding all of the infinite details in order to explain it correctly as the absolute truth with the adaptations of language and being able to write it.

Our vocabulary is our invention to describe and give definition to our words in order to communicate with each other that is only applicable in our species. We can't communicate with a microbe who is the oldest creature on this planet and even if we could microbes probably wouldn't know anymore than we do. There is no other life form on this planet that can tell us whether who has the story correct about the history on this planet.

This debate can go on forever since it cannot ever be resolved, it is impossible to get every single person to believe in evolution or religion's views of how life emerged and it may just be that we are all wrong of how we think it happened.

Hi- actually eyewitness testimony from a bacterium wouldn't be worth much, since they got no eyes. God has been around even longer and is omniscient, but it is hard to get a straight answer out of Him sometimes.

Unicorns don't speak much either....

AA are you deliberately modeling creationist tactics?

Damned peculiar question, but I suppose I should be grateful you are not accusing me of all manner of silly things and making the usual threats.

Out of this gratitude I will enunciate my position on "Creationism".

All things in the Universe and the Universe itself were created. By God. Using means perhaps similar to but by no means identical to the steps described in the Book of Genesis, cribbed from earlier Creation myths.

I recognize no "creationist tactics" per se, only legitimate and illegitimate rhetorical devices, none of which are unique to the so-called "creationist" movement- actually it is fundamentalist Protestant Darbyite heresy, most of it- not much to like about it on historical grounds.

legitimate and illegitimate rhetorical devices, none of which are unique to the so-called "creationist" movement-

Well at least we agree there. Creationism/ID has no monopoly in its tactics. But here's the rub, those illegitimate ones such as the string of logical fallacies we've seen here aren't deliberately used by most scientist, but seem to be the standard procedure by many of the "faithful."

Originally Posted by arthur

"Why do you find Al Gore's authority on the CAGW question so compelling,

Not being a creationist, I don't argue from authority at all - much less Al Gore's. His movie has stood up remarkably well for a popularization of scientific research still in progress, and that is something to admire, though.

Originally Posted by arthur

And for good measure, "WHY do you find so little merit in the point of view of Lindzen of MIT?"

I haven't mentioned him. His views on the hockey stick are quite different from yours, and include little of rejection even (much less accusations of fabrication) - do you find his acceptance of it, and agreement with the several validations of it, at all persuasive?

Originally Posted by iceaura

Originally Posted by arthur

"Why do you find Al Gore's authority on the CAGW question so compelling,

Not being a creationist, I don't argue from authority at all - much less Al Gore's. His movie has stood up remarkably well for a popularization of scientific research still in progress, and that is something to admire, though.

Originally Posted by arthur

And for good measure, "WHY do you find so little merit in the point of view of Lindzen of MIT?"

I haven't mentioned him. His views on the hockey stick are quite different from yours, and include little of rejection even (much less accusations of fabrication) - do you find his acceptance of it, and agreement with the several validations of it, at all persuasive?

Incredible- you attack some researchers on the basis of their lack of satisfactory credentials and then maintain that you "don't argue from authority at all." Unreal. What you DO ague from remains a mystery. IF said researchers had credentials which would satisfy you you would still reject them, of course, since you do not argue from authority, unless it is Greenpeace or the IPCC or Miss Rhode Island- or Al Gore.

As for Lindzen:

Perhaps Lindzen's most devastating critique is aimed at the IPCC's use of statistics.
The IPCC's infamous hockey stick graph, for example, shows global temperatures have been stable or falling over the last 1,000 years, and that only in the industrial age has there been an unnatural warming of the planet. But if you look at the margin of error in that graph, "You can no longer maintain that statement," said Lindzen.

Lindzen also noted the margin of error used in the IPCC report is much smaller, a 60 percent confidence level, than traditionally used by scientists, who generally report results at the 95 or even 99 percent confidence level. The IPCC is thus publicizing results much less likely to be correct than scientific research is generally expected to be.

To illustrate his point, Lindzen showed estimates of some of the most precise numbers in physics with their error bars. He showed different measurements of the speed of light, for instance, from 1929 to the 1980s. The error bars for the estimated speed of light in 1932 and 1940 do not even include the value we think is the correct speed of light today. "Error bars should not be taken lightly," warned Lindzen. "There is genuine uncertainty in them."

Hardly a ringing endorsement of the graph at issue.

IPCC report criticized by one of its lead authors | Heartlander Magazine

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

legitimate and illegitimate rhetorical devices, none of which are unique to the so-called "creationist" movement-

Well at least we agree there. Creationism/ID has no monopoly in its tactics. But here's the rub, those illegitimate ones such as the string of logical fallacies we've seen here aren't deliberately used by most scientist, but seem to be the standard procedure by many of the "faithful."

Doesn't matter what they do- in fact, this is to be expected if you supposedly hold yourself to a higher standard than your opponents. Why whine about it when you could spend your time more productively whipping YOUR OWN team into shape?

God knows they need it sometimes...

Originally Posted by arthur

Incredible- you attack some researchers on the basis of their lack of satisfactory credentials and then maintain that you "don't argue from authority at all."

I have attacked no researchers on that basis. For one thing, actual researchers have credentials.

I have objected to the arguments of posters here on the basis of a claimed authority's lack of credentials - their claim that a "scientist" says this or that, thereby adding credibility, when the guy isn't a scientist, for example; that's not me arguing from authority, it's them: badly.

Originally Posted by arthur

What you DO ague from remains a mystery.

I've noticed that. What I actually argue likewise. But I'll keep trying, using shorter words and simpler grammar as much as possible.

Originally Posted by arthur

As for Lindzen:

Perhaps Lindzen's most devastating critique is aimed at the IPCC's use of statistics.
- - - - - -
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the graph at issue.

Or any of the other five or six validating approaches, all of which yield similar graphs. But ringing endorsement is not what was claimed - he accepts the hockey stick, objecting only to what he regards as insufficient emphasis on the uncertainty of it. He doesn't think it is a good basis for radical action, or treaties like Kyoto, because it is too uncertain - its error bars are too wide for the necessary confidence. That is not at all your take on the hockey stick. It is similar to mine. I just disagree with Lindzen on the level of confidence necessary to support action, not on the hockey stick itself.

Note that the error bar uncertainty goes both ways - the hockey stick could be much more sharply bent and dramatic, as easily as it could be more ordinary and normally fitted to eras past.

At any rate, we have a judgment call based on prior acceptance of the hockey stick as valid data, not even a suggestion of fraud, from Lindzen.

Originally Posted by Arthur

But here's the rub, those illegitimate ones such as the string of logical fallacies we've seen here aren't deliberately used by most scientist, but seem to be the standard procedure by many of the "faithful."

Doesn't matter what they do-

It settles the thread topic. If it's not important that creationists don't play fair, but obvious to everyone and admitted by all, then we're pretty much done with the OP.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Oh, this is rich. Buster, you have the deserved reputation of letting no evidence, no matter how often presented or impeccable the source, change your position one iota. You cling as vigorously to your pet dogmas as any Fundamentalist Christian OR Muslim.

The Piltdown FRAUD was the FABRICATION of "evidence" in support of the Darwinist position, cobbled together of dissimilar bones- much as the infamous "hockey stick" graph of the CAGW crowd was FABRICATED from dissimilar types of records.

Reputation? Yeah, you guys are getting one all right.

And right about now I suppose I will be BANNED for having the damned GALL to point this out.

Have your little fun.

You're falling prey to a fallacy of equal "if or not" conditions indicating an equal value of degrees. (Not sure what that fallacy is called....unfortunately. I'm sure it must have a name. )

It's like arguing that, because a Lamborghini Diablo's engine has inefficiencies that prevent it getting all the possible energy out of a gallon of gasoline, and also the engine of a Toyota Prius has inefficiencies that prevent it getting all the possible energy out of a gallon of gasoline - That therefore a Lamborghini Diablo and a Toyota Prius must get exactly the same gas mileage.

Science is a better truth finding system than religion. It's not a perfect truth finding system. Just a better one. That's all. It's flawed also, just not as badly.

Please forgive the length and shotgun approach of this post.
There have been a number of comments and underlying themes on this thread which I have found amusing, informative, imaginative an many other things. In no particular order I wanted to comment on a few of them.
　

Early on, Barbi said:

. . .while religion sticks to the first written story based on faith with no investigation of its validity whatsoever.

And in a discussion about creationist being unfair, this seems to be a very unfair statement.

I might point out that Sir Isaac Newton was a religious person and even Charles Darwin started from a religious standpoint. The starting points of their investigations were spurred by their desire to explain a world they believed was created by a supernatural God.

Virtually every scientist prior to 1900 was a religious person and there are currently many religious people who are scientists. Many of these people "investigate" the circumstances of our world in an attempt to explain the origins of the Universe and the beginnings of life. It is not true that no one of faith is involved in scientific investigation of the origins of the Universe or life. Many religious people who are not scientists see the genesis story as an allegorical account which as Barbi, herself, points out is so simplistic that even a child can understand it.

My feeling is that if God had actually told Moses and Moses had written down the exact full details of the creation, not only would Moses not have understood it, neither would anyone else -- even today. And, it seemed to me that a later post by Barbi suggest a similar feeling – at least to the point that we are still unable to understand or explain the origins of either.
　

Iceaura said:

we have a political faction of great power and essentially unlimited funding that benefits from isolating and stigmatizing the entire intellectual class

I am trying to figure out here if you are referencing organized labor or the occupoopers. Well, probably not the occupoopers because they are not of great power and unlimited funding other than they rely upon taxpayers to clean up the messes they leave behind.and

and:

It's not the creationists' bias that is criticized here, but their behavior: they don't play fair. They never have. And people who do play fair seem to end up outside the creationists' camp in short order.

I have not seen any "unfair" tactics used by creationist mentioned here other than Bill O’Reilly apparently cutting off Richard Dawkins on his show. I am not all that convinced that O’Reilly is an outspoken creationist other than when speaking with a non-creationist. If he is speaking with a creationist, he is highly likely to take a non-creationist role. O’Reilly is an equal opportunity interrupter. There more conservative commentators who are far more interruptive than O’Reilly when dealing with liberals while over there on CNN we can find liberal commentators who are equally disruptive of the comments of conservative viewpoints. My point is that if it is unfair tactics by one faction, it is equally unfair when deployed by a different faction. (See Arthur’s comment included below.)

Aristarchus said:

Creationists don't have to play fair .. we have God on our side.

Not much to add to that.

Arthur Angler said:

Let us say I only got caught ONCE cheating on a test- does that make me a bad guy?

Perhaps, but the way the local (TSF) community works, I think if this was the final (and only) exam they would be complaining because they failed the course.

And:

That's another thing- Dawkins is a militant atheist, but somehow, HIS pre-existing bias is okay, while those of believers is not- a double standard if ever there was one.

This is the comment I referenced above. There is a lot of double standarding that goes on here.

Kojax said:

Science is a better truth finding system than religion.

Well, it depends on what truth you are looking for. If you are looking for truth about anything that is not naturalistic, it is the worst possible system for finding those truths. The focus of religion is not to discover or express scientific truths, but spiritual truths. Science totally ignores spiritual truths and then claims itself to be the better. Religion does not ignore the natural, it is some in the natural community who ignore the spiritual.

----

There was a long discussion above concerning global warming and, as usual, the participants were discussing two different issues.

There is no arguing that the Earth is in the midst of a climatic change. Does anyone even consider that the Earth is always in the midst of a climatic change? We DO seem to be involved in a period of climatic warming of the Earth’s surface. So what? It's happened before and it will happen again.

The controversy arises over the question as to the effect of human practices on this climatic change. The observation of a result (global warming) has no intrinsic information which suggests the cause. The Earth has heated up and cooled off numerous times in its past including millions of years during which humans were not even present. And such changes have occurred when humans were here but not using fossil fuels.

The political factions attempting to show that humans are the cause are, generally, aligned with business factions which will benefit from legislation designed to curb emissions of certain chemicals into the air.

----

There is also, throughout the thread, the lashing out against alleged tactics of creationism which is probably not a real challenging opponent in scientific discussion. Tactics neither prove nor disprove a position. They only enhance or decrease the acceptace of that position whether or not it is accurate. The people who are actually challenging current science on origin of the Universe and origin of life and macro evolution are the intelligent design community.

Picking on creationism is easy because it does not, at its core, rely specifically on science. Intelligent design, on the other hand, more directly discusses the issues from a naturalistic basis using scientific information from the complexity of living matter to the complexity of the Universe in an attempt to show that they are not the products of random happenstance. ID also challenges the philosophical support for, say Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. What is fascinating is how the naturalistic community completely ignores the philosophical underpinnings of their beliefs.

The idea that "God did it" is not the objective of intelligent design, but is probably a by-product of the ID community since it is the only present alternative to random happenstance. I note that there are very few attacks in this forum on the direct work of intelligent designers other than to attempt to discredit them on a personal basis rather than their findings and conclusions.

Often, if we mention an intelligent designer, he is discredited with a comment such as, "Oh, he is a member of the Discovery Institute," as though membership in a group refutes their information. Perhaps you can suggest that members of the Discovery Institute have a bias toward creationism and intelligent design. But I do not see how this validates or refutes their position any more than membership in the National Academy of Sciences validates or refutes the positions of their members. One might note that there are many scientists who are members of both groups.

Bringing this all back to the OP:

1. Both sides of many of these issues are guilty of unfair practices. It is when we ignore the unfair practices of our favored position that we become as guilty of unfairness as those we are judging unfair.

2. Tactical maneuvers neither prove nor refute the position of the tactician.

Sorry if I did not address your favorite post in this thread.

As an aside, what happened to the preview feature we use to have where we could see how our post looked before we posted it?

Originally Posted by daytonturner

There more conservative commentators who are far more interruptive than O’Reilly when dealing with liberals while over there on CNN we can find liberal commentators who are equally disruptive of the comments of conservative viewpoints.

No, you can't.

The people who are actually challenging current science on origin of the Universe and origin of life and macro evolution are the intelligent design community.

The "intelligent design community" has yet to challenge current science in any field except public relations.

Originally Posted by daytonturner

1. Both sides of many of these issues are guilty of unfair practices.

Most issues have multiple sides, not "both", and the unfair practices are not evenly distributed - creationists have a near monopoly on them, in their chosen arena.

2. Tactical maneuvers neither prove nor refute the position of the tactician.

So? They do reveal the nature of the tactician, and indicate certain aspects of their agenda.

For example, joining the Discovery Institute narrows the field of possible natures of the joiner. It's like joining the KKK - the possible motives and characters are a fairly small set.

Obviously, it is useless to discuss these issues with a person who can see only one side of a coin.

Originally Posted by Arthur Angler

Originally Posted by Barbi

Humans are the only species capable of attempting to write the story of how life came to be on this planet. Creationists have their version and science has theirs but the fact remains is that none of us were there in the beginning as witnesses and even if we were there are not fully capable of understanding all of the infinite details in order to explain it correctly as the absolute truth with the adaptations of language and being able to write it.

Our vocabulary is our invention to describe and give definition to our words in order to communicate with each other that is only applicable in our species. We can't communicate with a microbe who is the oldest creature on this planet and even if we could microbes probably wouldn't know anymore than we do. There is no other life form on this planet that can tell us whether who has the story correct about the history on this planet.

This debate can go on forever since it cannot ever be resolved, it is impossible to get every single person to believe in evolution or religion's views of how life emerged and it may just be that we are all wrong of how we think it happened.

Hi- actually eyewitness testimony from a bacterium wouldn't be worth much, since they got no eyes. God has been around even longer and is omniscient, but it is hard to get a straight answer out of Him sometimes.

Bacteria do have eye spots, they also can smell, communicate with friend and foe, smell, etc.

Originally Posted by daytonturner

Please forgive the length and shotgun approach of this post.
There have been a number of comments and underlying themes on this thread which I have found amusing, informative, imaginative an many other things. In no particular order I wanted to comment on a few of them.
　

Early on, Barbi said:

. . .while religion sticks to the first written story based on faith with no investigation of its validity whatsoever.

And in a discussion about creationist being unfair, this seems to be a very unfair statement.

I might point out that Sir Isaac Newton was a religious person and even Charles Darwin started from a religious standpoint. The starting points of their investigations were spurred by their desire to explain a world they believed was created by a supernatural God.

Virtually every scientist prior to 1900 was a religious person and there are currently many religious people who are scientists. Many of these people "investigate" the circumstances of our world in an attempt to explain the origins of the Universe and the beginnings of life. It is not true that no one of faith is involved in scientific investigation of the origins of the Universe or life. Many religious people who are not scientists see the genesis story as an allegorical account which as Barbi, herself, points out is so simplistic that even a child can understand it.

My feeling is that if God had actually told Moses and Moses had written down the exact full details of the creation, not only would Moses not have understood it, neither would anyone else -- even today. And, it seemed to me that a later post by Barbi suggest a similar feeling – at least to the point that we are still unable to understand or explain the origins of either.
　

Iceaura said:

we have a political faction of great power and essentially unlimited funding that benefits from isolating and stigmatizing the entire intellectual class

I am trying to figure out here if you are referencing organized labor or the occupoopers. Well, probably not the occupoopers because they are not of great power and unlimited funding other than they rely upon taxpayers to clean up the messes they leave behind.and

and:

It's not the creationists' bias that is criticized here, but their behavior: they don't play fair. They never have. And people who do play fair seem to end up outside the creationists' camp in short order.

I have not seen any "unfair" tactics used by creationist mentioned here other than Bill O’Reilly apparently cutting off Richard Dawkins on his show. I am not all that convinced that O’Reilly is an outspoken creationist other than when speaking with a non-creationist. If he is speaking with a creationist, he is highly likely to take a non-creationist role. O’Reilly is an equal opportunity interrupter. There more conservative commentators who are far more interruptive than O’Reilly when dealing with liberals while over there on CNN we can find liberal commentators who are equally disruptive of the comments of conservative viewpoints. My point is that if it is unfair tactics by one faction, it is equally unfair when deployed by a different faction. (See Arthur’s comment included below.)

Aristarchus said:

Creationists don't have to play fair .. we have God on our side.

Not much to add to that.

Arthur Angler said:

Let us say I only got caught ONCE cheating on a test- does that make me a bad guy?

Perhaps, but the way the local (TSF) community works, I think if this was the final (and only) exam they would be complaining because they failed the course.

And:

That's another thing- Dawkins is a militant atheist, but somehow, HIS pre-existing bias is okay, while those of believers is not- a double standard if ever there was one.

This is the comment I referenced above. There is a lot of double standarding that goes on here.

Kojax said:

Science is a better truth finding system than religion.

Well, it depends on what truth you are looking for. If you are looking for truth about anything that is not naturalistic, it is the worst possible system for finding those truths. The focus of religion is not to discover or express scientific truths, but spiritual truths. Science totally ignores spiritual truths and then claims itself to be the better. Religion does not ignore the natural, it is some in the natural community who ignore the spiritual.

----

There was a long discussion above concerning global warming and, as usual, the participants were discussing two different issues.

There is no arguing that the Earth is in the midst of a climatic change. Does anyone even consider that the Earth is always in the midst of a climatic change? We DO seem to be involved in a period of climatic warming of the Earth’s surface. So what? It's happened before and it will happen again.

The controversy arises over the question as to the effect of human practices on this climatic change. The observation of a result (global warming) has no intrinsic information which suggests the cause. The Earth has heated up and cooled off numerous times in its past including millions of years during which humans were not even present. And such changes have occurred when humans were here but not using fossil fuels.

The political factions attempting to show that humans are the cause are, generally, aligned with business factions which will benefit from legislation designed to curb emissions of certain chemicals into the air.

----

There is also, throughout the thread, the lashing out against alleged tactics of creationism which is probably not a real challenging opponent in scientific discussion. Tactics neither prove nor disprove a position. They only enhance or decrease the acceptace of that position whether or not it is accurate. The people who are actually challenging current science on origin of the Universe and origin of life and macro evolution are the intelligent design community.

Picking on creationism is easy because it does not, at its core, rely specifically on science. Intelligent design, on the other hand, more directly discusses the issues from a naturalistic basis using scientific information from the complexity of living matter to the complexity of the Universe in an attempt to show that they are not the products of random happenstance. ID also challenges the philosophical support for, say Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. What is fascinating is how the naturalistic community completely ignores the philosophical underpinnings of their beliefs.

The idea that "God did it" is not the objective of intelligent design, but is probably a by-product of the ID community since it is the only present alternative to random happenstance. I note that there are very few attacks in this forum on the direct work of intelligent designers other than to attempt to discredit them on a personal basis rather than their findings and conclusions.

Often, if we mention an intelligent designer, he is discredited with a comment such as, "Oh, he is a member of the Discovery Institute," as though membership in a group refutes their information. Perhaps you can suggest that members of the Discovery Institute have a bias toward creationism and intelligent design. But I do not see how this validates or refutes their position any more than membership in the National Academy of Sciences validates or refutes the positions of their members. One might note that there are many scientists who are members of both groups.

Bringing this all back to the OP:

1. Both sides of many of these issues are guilty of unfair practices. It is when we ignore the unfair practices of our favored position that we become as guilty of unfairness as those we are judging unfair.

2. Tactical maneuvers neither prove nor refute the position of the tactician.

Sorry if I did not address your favorite post in this thread.

As an aside, what happened to the preview feature we use to have where we could see how our post looked before we posted it?

daytonturner, actually when you put it this way, you are right!

Originally Posted by daytonturner

And in a discussion about creationist being unfair, this seems to be a very unfair statement.

I might point out that Sir Isaac Newton was a religious person and even Charles Darwin started from a religious standpoint. The starting points of their investigations were spurred by their desire to explain a world they believed was created by a supernatural God.

Isaac Newton also engaged in the (then illegal) occult practice of alchemy. Though he surely didn't want the bad publicity that would come from professing not to believe in Christianity at a time when adherence to the Church of England was a matter of law, I'd say his actual religious leanings are up in the air.

My feeling is that if God had actually told Moses and Moses had written down the exact full details of the creation, not only would Moses not have understood it, neither would anyone else -- even today. And, it seemed to me that a later post by Barbi suggest a similar feeling – at least to the point that we are still unable to understand or explain the origins of either.

That works a lot better for me too. Consider the Tower of Babel. The idea of building a tower to reach into deep space, or even Proxima Centauri, or the Moon is just funny from a modern perspective.

But you know, if you open this door, you might not like all the possibilities that come through it. Imagine if god is not infinite, but was simply aware that the concept of a 1 with 200 zeros after it would be too confusing to ancient humans, so he just told them his limit was infinity.


　

Kojax said:

Science is a better truth finding system than religion.

Well, it depends on what truth you are looking for. If you are looking for truth about anything that is not naturalistic, it is the worst possible system for finding those truths. The focus of religion is not to discover or express scientific truths, but spiritual truths. Science totally ignores spiritual truths and then claims itself to be the better. Religion does not ignore the natural, it is some in the natural community who ignore the spiritual.

An arbitrary divide, I think. Whatever exists is part of the natural universe. Even if God exists, there must be something about the universe (where we define "universe" as everything including other universes and "the void" or whatever...) that gave rise to God.

----

There was a long discussion above concerning global warming and, as usual, the participants were discussing two different issues.

There is no arguing that the Earth is in the midst of a climatic change. Does anyone even consider that the Earth is always in the midst of a climatic change? We DO seem to be involved in a period of climatic warming of the Earth’s surface. So what? It's happened before and it will happen again.

The controversy arises over the question as to the effect of human practices on this climatic change. The observation of a result (global warming) has no intrinsic information which suggests the cause. The Earth has heated up and cooled off numerous times in its past including millions of years during which humans were not even present. And such changes have occurred when humans were here but not using fossil fuels.

The political factions attempting to show that humans are the cause are, generally, aligned with business factions which will benefit from legislation designed to curb emissions of certain chemicals into the air.

----

Yeah. Some areas of science involve more uncertainty than others.

There is also, throughout the thread, the lashing out against alleged tactics of creationism which is probably not a real challenging opponent in scientific discussion. Tactics neither prove nor disprove a position. They only enhance or decrease the acceptace of that position whether or not it is accurate. The people who are actually challenging current science on origin of the Universe and origin of life and macro evolution are the intelligent design community.

It makes the process of discussing it with them more annoying though, even if it has no direct effect on the likelihood of them being right.

Picking on creationism is easy because it does not, at its core, rely specifically on science. Intelligent design, on the other hand, more directly discusses the issues from a naturalistic basis using scientific information from the complexity of living matter to the complexity of the Universe in an attempt to show that they are not the products of random happenstance. ID also challenges the philosophical support for, say Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. What is fascinating is how the naturalistic community completely ignores the philosophical underpinnings of their beliefs.

The problem is that they don't attempt to show anything. They focus only on refuting, and never on advancing any theories. Their refutations are just by way of pointing out that there is a non-zero margin of error in the findings of professional scientists...... which goes without saying anyway. Science never acknowledges a zero margin of error in anything whatsoever.

It's a creative version of Pascal's Wager. The argument is simple when you break it down.

1) - There is a non-zero chance (and always will be) that science could be wrong about the origin of Earth/Humanity.

2) - This leaves open the option to believe it was created the way the Bible tells me. (However small the odds of being right, it is still not academically dishonest to choose to believe my church's version.)

3) - Believing science would involve betting my immortal soul against the odds their theory is correct, and I don't feel comfortable taking that chance unless the certainty of their findings is absolute.

For everyone else in the secular world, the bet is just whether science's version will yield more accurate calculations when dealing with the relevant subject matter (for instance: using darwin's theory to modify a strain of flax seeds for use in growing food). In most of the bets that concern the secular world, Darwinism has done a stunningly good job of getting results.

For the rest of us, the risk of disbelieving is far greater than the risk of believing. Just research Stalin and Lysenko, and consider the number of people who physically died of hunger because one man chose to disregard Darwinism in favor of another pet theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

Often, if we mention an intelligent designer, he is discredited with a comment such as, "Oh, he is a member of the Discovery Institute," as though membership in a group refutes their information. Perhaps you can suggest that members of the Discovery Institute have a bias toward creationism and intelligent design. But I do not see how this validates or refutes their position any more than membership in the National Academy of Sciences validates or refutes the positions of their members. One might note that there are many scientists who are members of both groups.

What membership indicates is that there is a low probability that any kind of useful discussion will come out of the encounter. It doesn't mean he's wrong or uneducated, but if he gets along with the other members of that group enough to want to affiliate with them then he clearly must find them less annoying than the rest of us do.