Kids, School, and liberal Science?

[sigmtnman]

It's Hubris.

Theories have come and gone with new evidence and change of reference. Academic Science is funded by grants which requires that data be crafted to prove the theory to get more grants. Anyone who upsets the status quo and questions accepted theory is generally ostracized by the scientific community.

"Peer review" is often used as a mechanism to accomplish this. Is peer review needed? Yes. Is it perfect? No. The problem seems to be with scientists and their own hubris. There are not many folks who are willing to accept that something they have believed or championed for a good portion of their life may be incorrect.

See Dan Shechtman and Quasicrystalline structures for such an example. http://www.architectmagazine.com/blogs/postdetails.aspx?BlogId=mindmatterblog&postId=106076

[BigK]

This is a fascinating debate and I've learned a lot. However, nothing has changed my opinion, yet, but I'm keeping an open mind.

It seems the big bang theory of creation and the evolution theory of the origins of life go hand in hand. One attempts to explain the origins of the universe the other the origins of life as we know it. However, both seem incomplete explanations, relying on the faith that "it was just there" as the jumping off point.

I find that leap of faith no more believable than saying God made the mattter and made it go bang and that God made life and caused/allowed it to change over time to fufill his design. I do agree that one is science and the other is theological from that point forward, but any scientific teaching of evolution/big bang should include the admission that just like in Creationism, "we cannot prove where the stuff that went bang came from and the stuff that evolved came from".

For the record, there are some outright lies about one statistic. Gallup and other polls seem to indicate that as much as some hate to admit it, far, far more people believe in God than do not. The attacks on all the details in the Holy Bible seem not to have affected peoples' faith over the decades.

Edited August 30, 2012 by BigK

[Daniel]

DaddyO, it's not a dumb question. In fact science is the term we used to describe the collection of observations that we use to form theories and hypothesis to explain what was previously unknown or unobserved and their relation to one another. Science has developed and continues to develop as we observe and learn. As I stated in my first post, it is far from the absolute some want to wrap themselves in. One small previously unobserved item can and usually changes everything we previously "knew". Kind like how we thought the cell was the smallest thing, then a nucleus, .........

Thus the reason science is supposed to be a highly critical study always looking to disprove, not trying to prove. Which is ironic because most liberal science has so much arrogance in their assumptions and security in "known" science when that attitude is the very opposite of the scientific method. Kinda like the grief Columbus received from all the "scientist" of his day. Funny that is was the Christian who set sail for discovery, while the "scientist" tried to prevent it.

Strong evidence suggests Columbus was a Jew.

[Garufa]

With all this talk of "liberal" science, what is "conservative" science?

[mikegideon]

With all this talk of "liberal" science, what is "conservative" science?

Same thing. Different funding.

[Smith]

Strong evidence suggests Columbus was a Jew.

So was Jesus and most of the first Christians.

With all this talk of "liberal" science, what is "conservative" science?

Science.

[Oh Shoot]

It's Hubris. Theories have come and gone with new evidence and change of reference.

Hubris/ego and hope/fear are the primary underlying reasons for our bent toward magical thinking also.

Should our species actually survive until Sol fries Terra, even should we become "immortal" by dispersing our seed to the stars, it is possible that aspects of our perceivable universe will always be unknowable. And it may well be thus for any other species in the ~100 billion galaxies in the currently observable plane of the universe.

But that seems a poor reason to perpetuate magical explanations that at heart have changed little since the first Homo Erectus shaman realized that he could get fed without having to kill the mammoth himself.

- OS

[piercedan]

It's a sincere question.

It's interesting to me how any question regarding creation/evolution from the Christian perspective is met with skepticism and sometimes outright hostility.

Ok, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off like a jerk. I've had that question and similar asked many times before, and it is normally a setup by the questioner to say, "Ah ha! Then it's man made, and who made man?". It turns into a circular argument. So I'm a little suspicious of the motivation behind the question.

First, science is the method that we use to discover the universe that surrounds us. It isn't some tangible thing, it is a method that we apply to our environment. We humans are notoriously susceptible to errors in gathering and understanding information presented to us by our built in senses. Things like pareidolia, poor memory recollection, false memory reinforcement, confirmation bias, etc. make it necessary to carefully examine the data in a controlled and methodical way.

Enter the scientific method. For the sake of being brief I will have to cut and paste. It's taken two hours to write this much, as my day has become insanely busy.

A linearized, pragmatic scheme of the four points above is sometimes offered as a guideline for proceeding:^[44]

1. Define a question
   
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
   
3. Form an explanatory hypothesis
   
4. Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
   
5. Analyze the data
   
6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
   
7. Publish results
   
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
   

The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step methodology goes from point 3 to 6 back to 3 again.

For a better understanding, please see the entire article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Unfortunately, I have to stop here and get back to work. Please give me your feedback and I will try to give a more complete answer later.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester I agree with your premise, but you still only see one side. Evolution needs to prove itself and it cannot (macro) just like creationism. There is just as much evolution "fact" as there is for creationism. They may even coexist. To say one needs to prove itself to the other is errant in either direction.

If I have to prove an eternal God, you have to prove an eternal universe. I propose it is far simpler to understand an eternal creator who creates than an eternally neutral universe that suddenly and randomly creates something from nothing.

Thanks Smith

One scientific view is that one can never completely prove a notion. The best one can do is to say that a theory hasn't been adequately falsified and so it remains possible that the theory might be "true". And some theories are true only within certain constraints. Newtons laws are "close enough for rock'n'roll" in our day to day lives in our corner of the universe but not general enough for all conditions. Newtons laws have not been experimentally falsified within local-normal conditions but at extremes of scale, velocity, mass, they break down.

Sometimes people get a "hunch" and then make a hypothesis and then design experiments which might falsify the hypothesis.

Sometimes there is a long laborious stage before the hypothesis, of data-gathering. The scientist doesn't know what the heck makes something behave the way it does, so he makes measurements and pores over the measurements trying to come up with an explanation which makes sense. If he is lucky enough to think up something that seems to fit, then he can posit the hypothesis, and then additonal experiments can be designed to stress the hypothesis and see how easily the concept can be broken.

Then there are the open cases where if you do a certain procedure you get a certain result, but nobody yet has a good explanation why. In those situations the science involves repeated study of the phenomena attempting to get a handle on it. There isn't a theory to falsify. Just a phenomena to falsify, and if it can't be falsified, it needs further study and replication until theories can be proposed.

Science is only one method of "knowing" which is incomplete and ever-changing. If god comes to you and tells you whats up, or a bug-eyed-alien bestows special knowledge, then it should be adequate for your "knowing". I'm not gonna contradict your personal experience. But if you want me to believe what god told you, then I need better evidence than just your story. The only time a creationist needs to justify his belief, is if he wants other people to believe it.

You don't have to prove an eternal god unless you want to teach it in science class. To my knowledge an eternal universe is not taught in science class nowadays. Evolution seems to fit the evidence pretty good in some cases. Evolution will be refined and possibly parts will be falsified by new evidence. It just works in certain situations in the science game. I wasn't there and haven't the foggiest idea how it happened, but evolution works pretty well according to scientific rules of the game.

Good scientific topics need to be falsifiable. If you can't test the theory, then what's the point? There is a psychological issue in that you need to be able to "prove" a proposition at least adequately enough that somebody else will take it seriously. And it needs to be testable. If I claim that an invisible dog follows me everywhere-- This invisible dog has no mass and doesn't make any sound and there is no physical way to detect the invisible dog, but believe me, he is always there! For one thing it would be difficult to be taken seriously, but in addition, if there is nothing about the dog that can be detected, then how can we falsify the proposition?

That was what I asked a couple of messages ago-- If you design a creationism module for 7th grade science class, what will you teach? What theories will you present which are falsifiable? Maybe you are thinking of entirely different stuff than me. Am not trying to make straw men, but for instance there really are some who believe in a 6000 year old universe, where millions of years old light in the heavens and millions of years old fossils and minerals in the rocks, were placed there by the creator to fool the unfaithful. If one goes that route, that god can do any crazy thing and maybe he really only made the universe this morning but he created it in its exact current state with an "apparent history". How in the world could you scientifically falsify that theory? Even if it is 100% true, how can it be tested? And if it can't be tested, what is it doing in science class?

So if you set ground rules so that you can't explain any inconsistency by the hand of god. If both sides agree to same rules of evidence-- How do we test whether or not a creator made man? Or how do we test whether or not a creator made the universe? If you can't test it, then what are you gonna teach in science class?

I'm probably thinking about it all wrong. Please let me know what should be taught during creation week in the 7th grade science class.

[sigmtnman]

Hubris/ego and hope/fear are the primary underlying reasons for our bent toward magical thinking also.

Should our species actually survive until Sol fries Terra, even should we become "immortal" by dispersing our seed to the stars, it is possible that aspects of our perceivable universe will always be unknowable. And it may well be thus for any other species in the ~100 billion galaxies in the currently observable plane of the universe.

But that seems a poor reason to perpetuate magical explanations that at heart have changed little since the first Homo Erectus shaman realized that he could get fed without having to kill the mammoth himself.

- OS

Of course many people of religious faith are just as guilty as those of the faith of "modern science".

Aspects of our universe will always be unknowable due to our limited frame of reference. Magic is just not being able to comprehend the process behind something mostly due to perspective and limits in frame of reference.

Science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive.

[peejman]

This is a fascinating debate and I've learned a lot. However, nothing has changed my opinion, yet, but I'm keeping an open mind.

Agreed.

It seems the big bang theory of creation and the evolution theory of the origins of life go hand in hand. One attempts to explain the origins of the universe the other the origins of life as we know it. However, both seem incomplete explanations, relying on the faith that "it was just there" as the jumping off point.

I find that leap of faith no more believable than saying God made the mattter and made it go bang and that God made life and caused/allowed it to change over time to fufill his design. I do agree that one is science and the other is theological from that point forward, but any scientific teaching of evolution/big bang should include the admission that just like in Creationism, "we cannot prove where the stuff that went bang came from and the stuff that evolved came from".

For the record, there are some outright lies about one statistic. Gallup and other polls seem to indicate that as much as some hate to admit it, far, far more people believe in God than do not. The attacks on all the details in the Holy Bible seem not to have affected peoples' faith over the decades.

Regarding the big bang, I found this to be exactly what it's intended to be, a very interesting thought experiment.

http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf

I also heard something very interesting on (of all places) the Free Beer & Hot Wings radio show yesterday morning. They were discussing Bill Nye's recent statements about creationism. A caller made a comment to the effect of the following (I don't remember the exact words), which I found quite intriguing....

He said there is no concrete time scale at the beginning of the Bible. Earth may have been created in 7 days, but how long was a day? We don't really know. After that, how long did Adam spend in the Garden of Eden before God created Eve? How long did the two of them live before they bit the apple and were cast out into the world? Could've been days, could've been billions of years....

[piercedan]

Just to reiterate, in case I haven't already said it. God could still be the originator of the universe and life on earth. Nothing in evolution says otherwise. It doesn't answer the question of how life started, just how it progresses. Comparatively, our theories of the Big Bang or other similar theories do not answer the question of how the universe started, they try to give explanatory light onto what happened after it started. You still are left with the question of how a complex being such as God began, but that is entirely a deeper discussion. Could God have started it all? Certainly so.

[sigmtnman]

Thanks Smith

One scientific view is that one can never completely prove a notion. The best one can do is to say that a theory hasn't been adequately falsified and so it remains possible that the theory might be "true". And some theories are true only within certain constraints. Newtons laws are "close enough for rock'n'roll" in our day to day lives in our corner of the universe but not general enough for all conditions. Newtons laws have not been experimentally falsified within local-normal conditions but at extremes of scale, velocity, mass, they break down.

Sometimes people get a "hunch" and then make a hypothesis and then design experiments which might falsify the hypothesis.

Sometimes there is a long laborious stage before the hypothesis, of data-gathering. The scientist doesn't know what the heck makes something behave the way it does, so he makes measurements and pores over the measurements trying to come up with an explanation which makes sense. If he is lucky enough to think up something that seems to fit, then he can posit the hypothesis, and then additonal experiments can be designed to stress the hypothesis and see how easily the concept can be broken.

Then there are the open cases where if you do a certain procedure you get a certain result, but nobody yet has a good explanation why. In those situations the science involves repeated study of the phenomena attempting to get a handle on it. There isn't a theory to falsify. Just a phenomena to falsify, and if it can't be falsified, it needs further study and replication until theories can be proposed.

Science is only one method of "knowing" which is incomplete and ever-changing. If god comes to you and tells you whats up, or a bug-eyed-alien bestows special knowledge, then it should be adequate for your "knowing". I'm not gonna contradict your personal experience. But if you want me to believe what god told you, then I need better evidence than just your story. The only time a creationist needs to justify his belief, is if he wants other people to believe it.

You don't have to prove an eternal god unless you want to teach it in science class. To my knowledge an eternal universe is not taught in science class nowadays. Evolution seems to fit the evidence pretty good in some cases. Evolution will be refined and possibly parts will be falsified by new evidence. It just works in certain situations in the science game. I wasn't there and haven't the foggiest idea how it happened, but evolution works pretty well according to scientific rules of the game.

Good scientific topics need to be falsifiable. If you can't test the theory, then what's the point? There is a psychological issue in that you need to be able to "prove" a proposition at least adequately enough that somebody else will take it seriously. And it needs to be testable. If I claim that an invisible dog follows me everywhere-- This invisible dog has no mass and doesn't make any sound and there is no physical way to detect the invisible dog, but believe me, he is always there! For one thing it would be difficult to be taken seriously, but in addition, if there is nothing about the dog that can be detected, then how can we falsify the proposition?

That was what I asked a couple of messages ago-- If you design a creationism module for 7th grade science class, what will you teach? What theories will you present which are falsifiable? Maybe you are thinking of entirely different stuff than me. Am not trying to make straw men, but for instance there really are some who believe in a 6000 year old universe, where millions of years old light in the heavens and millions of years old fossils and minerals in the rocks, were placed there by the creator to fool the unfaithful. If one goes that route, that god can do any crazy thing and maybe he really only made the universe this morning but he created it in its exact current state with an "apparent history". How in the world could you scientifically falsify that theory? Even if it is 100% true, how can it be tested? And if it can't be tested, what is it doing in science class?

So if you set ground rules so that you can't explain any inconsistency by the hand of god. If both sides agree to same rules of evidence-- How do we test whether or not a creator made man? Or how do we test whether or not a creator made the universe? If you can't test it, then what are you gonna teach in science class?

I'm probably thinking about it all wrong. Please let me know what should be taught during creation week in the 7th grade science class.

Thanks Lester for the lucid post.

For starters, I'd rather there not be a creation week in school. By the same token, I'd prefer that all scientific theories be presented as observations that are generally agreed up given current perspectives, though unverifiable as 100% fact. This is often trivialized and it the main falling down point in my mind.

How can evolution ever be proven given our limited frame of reference? Has anyone been around long enough to verify that radiometric dating is accurate? I recall discussions about decay rates actually changing in different environments. Is that change enough to impact the technique? Who knows for sure given that no one had been around long enough to prove or disprove it. Science is full of it's own invisible dog proofs. Just because folks get endless grants to come up with tests to try to prove the existence of those invisible dogs and scientists agree for a time that the data supports the invisible dog, there is always a chance that the dog really didn't exist and in fact it was an invisible cat.

As we continue to find smaller and smaller building blocks, why should we not believe in larger entities than us?

[BigK]

Regarding the big bang, I found this to be exactly what it's intended to be, a very interesting thought experiment.

http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf

I also heard something very interesting on (of all places) the Free Beer & Hot Wings radio show yesterday morning. They were discussing Bill Nye's recent statements about creationism. A caller made a comment to the effect of the following (I don't remember the exact words), which I found quite intriguing....

He said there is no concrete time scale at the beginning of the Bible. Earth may have been created in 7 days, but how long was a day? We don't really know. After that, how long did Adam spend in the Garden of Eden before God created Eve? How long did the two of them live before they bit the apple and were cast out into the world? Could've been days, could've been billions of years....

Excellent point peejman!

This is what bugs about the young Earth creationists that believe the Earth is somewhere b/w 5K and 10K years old. They seemingly adopt this belief despite scientific evidence to the contrary and base their stance solely on literal translations of the Bible. Often anti-creationists use this to refute Creationism in general, since it seem clear that Earth is MUCH older than that.

IIRC this goes back to the simile used in 2 Peter 3:8 to explain the timelessness of God. Peter basically explained not to sit around waiting for "the end" at a promised time, because a thousand years is like a day to God and a day is like a thousand years. But, is it a thousand or a million or a billion or even a fraction of one?

The point is we can never fathom his timeline, which may sound like a convenient loophole to Atheists, but that's the nature of religious faith.

Edited August 30, 2012 by BigK

[sigmtnman]

Thus my time dilation comment earlier in the thread.

[Smith]

Excellent point peejman!

This is what bugs about the young Earth creationists that believe the Earth is somewhere b/w 5K and 10K years old. They seemingly adopt this belief despite scientific evidence to the contrary and base their stance solely on literal translations of the Bible. Often anti-creationists use this to refute Creationism in general, since it seem clear that Earth is MUCH older than that.

IIRC this goes back to the simile used in 2 Peter 3:8 to explain the timelessness of God. Peter basically explained not to sit around waiting for "the end" at a promised time, because a thousand years is like a day to God and a day is like a thousand years. But, is it a thousand or a million or a billion or even a fraction of one?

The point is we can never fathom his timeline, which may sound like a convenient loophole to Atheists, but that's the nature of religious faith.

I've said it several times now that "formless and void" do not translate to not in existence. There are actually several different theories that postulate this is the time period in which Dinosaurs etc lived. Also, if the earth was created in one day, how old was it when created? Did it have all the markings of a billion years or was it brand new. Was Adam a full grown 100 yrd old or 2 yr old. Especially since time was not kept by man until he realized he was mortal and he needed to gauge his existence.

"Young Earth" theories for the most part are based on man's time on earth through the biblical chronology, gene pool dilution, salinity levels, cosmic dust, and several other knowns. The flood would also account for many of the discrepancies in fossilization, large species extinction and adaptation, 4 main ethnic groups, oil deposits, diamond deposits, global weather shifts, etc.

Personally the reason I scientifically do not believe in evolution is that evolution, while it has many explanations, also has many contradictions and too many unknowns and assumptions. The Biblical account of creation and the flood, while also has many unknowns, does not have any real inconsistencies. Those two events allow for all of the known data to fit if taken together. Evolution does not has too exclude certain information because it does not fit..

Keep in mind the Bible is not a scientific text book nor was it ever intended to be. It is a narrative that alludes to many scientific phenomenon. This is where science and scripture should work together and not to each others exclusion. I don't think God thinks otherwise.

[Smith]

Long I know, but worth it if you have the time. It is only an excerpt and not complete but gives an excellent Biblical creation science overview.

The Investigation Of The Beginning

The first two chapters of Genesis are very important in regard to understanding God’s plan. There we find the creation account of our world. There we have the foundation for the rest of the plan all the way to the new Heaven and new earth in the final chapters of Revelation. But the lack of Bible information and the opposing view of evolution have scared many Bible teachers away from this section of the plan.

In this section we will do our best to piece together the fragments of information and build an honest and Biblical model. We lack information at the beginning like we do at the end but it should not cause us to excise those important connectors. The beginning and ending were important to Jesus. He said, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending.†The first few words of the first book in our Bible says, “In the beginning God….â€

Obviously, there are several creation models and theories. Most of what we hear about comes from the government and public educators and is the evolutionary model made famous by Darwin. Many scientists theorize that an enormous explosion occurred in our universe millions or billions of years ago and started the evolution of the species up to the present day – thus, the Big Bang Theory. They promote this view as truth, when, in fact, it is just theory.

A second view ties God into the mix. It is the more theological-scientific-evolutionary model. It says that God created but that He chose to evolve species over millions and billions of years. This seems to be a compromise and a way of understanding the scientist’s evidence in the fossil records of millions of years of evolution without disrespecting the Creator. Neither of the evolutionary models is satisfactory to the true Believer and student of the Bible, primarily because of the Biblical narrative regarding a creation in six days. It is simply man’s attempt to hang on to the Word of God and the word of science at the same time.

The third model is the creation gap model. It is often referred to as the Gap Theory. It says that between Genesis 1:1; “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth†and Genesis 1:2; “And the earth was without form and void…†there was a great gap of time. There was an

original creation that was perfect – then a huge space of time (allowing for the geologic ages and dinosaurs) – then an earth in a waste and desolation state that required God’s recreation.

A fourth model is the young earth theory. It propounds that the creation took place only 6,000 to 10,000 years ago – not millions and billions of years.

A fifth model includes a 7,000 year segmented time frame patterned after the seven days of creation except that it is made up of seven millenniums or seven one thousand year segments concluding in the Millennium Kingdom of Jesus.

A sixth model incorporates all three of the creation models – a gap of time, a young earth, and a seven thousand year framework.

A Great Gap Of Time?

The Gap Theory suggests a gap of unknown time lapse between verses one and two of the first chapter of Genesis. For instance, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,†(Genesis 1:1) would be the time of the original creation of the earth. “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep†(Genesis 1:2) would be a reference to the chaotic earth. Verse three would then commence with the re-creation process as we would know it from the Biblical record and from a young earth position. Some theologians do not hold to this concept and the creation scientists say, now, that it is unnecessary. But it does help one fit in answers in regard to creation; long geologic time periods, the presence of sin and Satan on the earth, and dinosaurs.

What is being suggested is:

1. An original earth pre-dating Adam

2. Satan’s habitation of this earth for whatever reason and purpose

3. God’s anger, for whatever reason, or Satan’s entanglement, causing chaos and destruction rendering the earth “without form and void†or “waste and desolation.â€

4. The recreation of the earth according to Genesis 1:3-2:25 in six literal days.

For further Bible study, one may want to observe the following Scripture references: Isaiah 45:18; 14:12-17: Ezekiel 28:12-19; 2 Peter 3:5-7; 2:4, Jude 6. Common logic may also warrant the following statements:

1. Something drastic happened to the earth if we take tohu and bohu (Hebrew), to mean waste and desolation instead of without form and void.

2. Some scientists, of recent date, are suggesting a relatively young earth (around 5,000 – 6,000 years).

3. Two creation references surface in the text of Genesis 1 and 2.

4. Satan was in the Garden of Eden. What was he doing there and where did he come from?

5. Creation makes more sense than the theory of evolution.

An Original Earth?

Was there an original earth? Was there some kind of chaos that caused it to become “without form and void†– “waste and desolation?†Was there a great gap of time? Did God recreate the earth from the wasted and desolate condition?

“For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else†(Isaiah 45:18).

Supposing that there was an original earth, differing from the earth we know now, we are unclear as to how long it existed or what lived on its surface. Some would suggest that these were the ages of dinosaurs or the geologic ages. Under this concept, the original earth could be 5 billion years old, or older. But it is this original earth that is being examined, not the recreated earth we know now.

Recently, scientists are promoting a relatively young earth theory; around 5,000 to 6,000 years old. Heretofore, evolutionists have not considered this or the Biblical record which this material is all about. Evolution theory (and it is only theory!) suggests only one uninterrupted course of time over millions of years out of which man evolved from pond slime! There is also mounting evidence, even from sites here in the United States, that man co-existed with certain dinosaurs before the flood in Noah’s day. A site in Texas shows imprints of man’s feet and dinosaur feet together at the same time.

But science tells us that the earth and the solar system are millions, if not billions, of years old. If this is true, how, then, can we reconcile a relatively young earth of 5,000 to 6,000 years old? One answer would seem to be found in the idea of an original earth and a present earth or recreated earth. If this be true, then the Scriptural concept of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth†would cover the entire period from the original creation of the earth.

In the last several years scientists have propounded the Big Bang Theory as the way the earth and solar system started. The Hubble space telescope has cast questions upon this idea. Many scientists, like the ancient philosophers, will also tell us that we started as microscopic particles in a warm incubating prehistoric pond then evolved up through the monkey stages. This is nothing new.

“The Egyptians, as Plato informs us, taught that the earth and the heavens originated out of a kind of pulp, and that men were generated from the slime of the river Nile. Other sages of Egypt held that the world was hatched from a winged egg. Now as Moses was ‘learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians’ (Acts 7:22) how is it that he did not say that the heavens originated out of a kind of pulp, and that the world was hatched from a winged egg? Simply because God revealed to him, probably when he was up on the mount with God, just how the world was created.

...The creation of the ‘Original Earth’ was in the dateless past. It was doubtless a most beautiful earth, covered with vegetation and inhabited with fish and fowl and animal life, and probably with human life. How long it continued in this condition we are not told, but an awful catastrophe befell it - it became ‘formless and void,’ and submerged in water and darkness†[Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth (Philadelphia: Rev. Clarence Larkin Estate, 1920), p.22].

A Chaotic Earth In Need Of Re-creation?

Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep.

The two Hebrew words translated formless (without form) and void are translated elsewhere as waste and desolation.

One translation of Genesis 1:2 says, “And the earth became waste and desolation....†Possibly, the Bible is describing a chaotic earth. Science has shown that the earth has gone through great and dramatic changes; continent plates shifting, internal pressure pushing up mountain ranges, and the effects of a world wide, undeniable catastrophic flood. Recent studies of the earth from outer space have led scientists to believe that a large meteor splashed into what we would call the Gulf of Mexico creating a huge inland tidal wave, and even an ice age that reached across the continental United States. Many believe that it was a similar “ice-age†that destroyed the giant dinosaurs from the earth. For years scientists have known that the continental landmasses are actually floating on a molten underbody. The point is that the earth has been through chaos, that it is poised for more according to Biblical prophecy, and that there is a possible explanation.

What caused this condition is unclear. But let us examine some known elements about cause and effect from Biblical truth in regard to God, man, and spiritual situations. This may help in our understanding of the genesis of creation and the chaos that is obvious. We know that the serpent and sin were present in the Garden of Eden before man was created, indicating a prior creation, of, at least, spirit beings and moral choice. We know that the devil and evil angels inhabit or live around the earth (Ephesians 6:11, 12), indicating their creation and placement at some time. We know that the devil is a destroyer and waster (John 10:10), a thief and robber, indicating that his power and presence could have been a factor in the chaos of the first created earth. And we know that Satan plays a key role in the chaos of the end time of the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. It seems reasonable that he was the instigator of chaos in the beginning of God’s creation prior to his work in the Garden of Eden.

Some commentators believe that the following passage from the writings of the prophet Ezekiel refers to several aspects of the pre-Adam earth and what went on there during that time.

“Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more†(Ezekiel 28:12-19).

The beginning of this prophecy was directed toward the “King of Tyrus.†Yet most commentators and theologians would agree that there is too much here to be applied solely to an earthly king.

Prophecy commentators argue that this Scripture gives us insight into such things as the original earth (“Eden; the garden of Godâ€), the original state of the devil (“the anointed cherub that coverethâ€), and the fall of Lucifer or Satan.

Since no king ever existed with this description maybe we can deduce that this is, in fact, a description of the devil before his fall and at his fall.

Possibly, Satan, with a host of angels, was placed in charge of the earth or banned to the earth. The Bible is clear that they inhabit the atmosphere around the earth (the devil is not in Hell yet!). Knowing his character, we may also postulate that he brought chaos with him to the earth – even catapulting it into some kind of cosmic disturbance. Another thought is that Satan’s strategy was to use man (Adam) to regain control of the earth. What Made The Earth Formless And Void?

2 Peter 3:5-7 says, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men†(See also 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6, Isaiah 14:12-17).

Some have suggested that the earth was made formless and void by water which covered the earth. Others have followed this thought to suggest that the darkness that covered over the earth caused the waters to be like a cold glacial gel producing the ice-age conditions as science has indicated.

Jeremiah 4:23-26 says, “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.â€

If this is a description of the pre-Adam earth then the earth was inhabited, there were animals and birds, and something caused God’s anger to be directed toward the earth and turn it chaotic.

If there were human beings on the original or pre-Adam earth, they were doubtless involved in Satan’s fall and destroyed. In fact, some have suggested that demons are the disembodied spirits of the inhabitants of the pre-Adam earth, and their efforts to re-embody themselves in human beings, as in the days of Christ, is looked upon as evidence that they once possessed bodies similar to human bodies. This, of course, is conjecture but it is an amusing consideration.

The manner in which the pre-Adam earth was made formless and void, and this refers only to the exterior surface, is possibly referred to by Peter, when he says,

“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished†(2 Peter 3:5-6).

Some commentators say that Peter is not referring here to Noah’s flood. Their conclusion is based on the idea that the world of Noah’s day did not perish completely. Thus, they conclude that Peter was referring to a prior flood to that in the time of Noah. Peter goes on to add that,

“The heavens and the earth which are now (that is, have been in existence since the restoration of the earth of Genesis 1: 3-31), by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (Great White Throne of judgment)†(Revelation 20:11-15, parentheses mine for clarification).

The manner then in which the pre-Adam earth was made formless and void could, very well have been, by water. One commentator has pointed out that if the land surface was even the water would cover the earth to the depth of 11 miles. Therefore, violent convulsions could have easily wrecked the pre-Adam earth and covered its surface with the waters of its oceans. Few creatures, if any, would have remained alive. To all intents and purposes it was a dead planet until God allowed the light to awaken the seeds of life contained in its soil. The cold waters would have preserved the remains of immense creatures, that we might know the kind of animal life that inhabited the pre-Adam earth. This conjecture may have been the glacial period of geologic times.

How long a period elapsed between the creation of the earth and its becoming formless and void under this theory is unknown. Neither do we know how long it continued in that condition. But, under this assumption, when the time came in the purpose of God to restore the earth to its habitable state, and make it fit for man, we understand that He did it in six periods of time. The Hebrew word translated day may mean either a day of twenty-four hours or a longer period of time. The probability is that the time was short. I personally hold to an approximate twenty-four hour day – six days of creation and a rest day. God gives validity to this concept when He gives Moses the Ten Commandments and refers to the Sabbath Day as created by God in the creation account and covers a twenty-four hour period of time.

Larkin is fairly dogmatic about this conclusion when he writes,

“The six days’ work as described in Gen. 1:3-31 is not a description of how God made the original earth, but how He restored it from its ‘formless and void’ condition to its present state†(Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth, p. 24).

[peejman]

Excellent point peejman!

This is what bugs about the young Earth creationists that believe the Earth is somewhere b/w 5K and 10K years old. They seemingly adopt this belief despite scientific evidence to the contrary and base their stance solely on literal translations of the Bible. Often anti-creationists use this to refute Creationism in general, since it seem clear that Earth is MUCH older than that.

IIRC this goes back to the simile used in 2 Peter 3:8 to explain the timelessness of God. Peter basically explained not to sit around waiting for "the end" at a promised time, because a thousand years is like a day to God and a day is like a thousand years. But, is it a thousand or a million or a billion or even a fraction of one?

The point is we can never fathom his timeline, which may sound like a convenient loophole to Atheists, but that's the nature of religious faith.

The trouble with literal translations of the Bible is that they were transcribed and translated by people. Those people may or may not have had an agenda and the opportunity to "spin it" as they saw fit. And people are fallible, they make mistakes. Translations aren't exact, often times innuendo or nuance can be misinterpreted. The Bible can be viewed a history book, and as we all know, history is written by the victors.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Ok, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off like a jerk. I've had that question and similar asked many times before, and it is normally a setup by the questioner to say, "Ah ha! Then it's man made, and who made man?". It turns into a circular argument. So I'm a little suspicious of the motivation behind the question.

First, science is the method that we use to discover the universe that surrounds us. It isn't some tangible thing, it is a method that we apply to our environment. We humans are notoriously susceptible to errors in gathering and understanding information presented to us by our built in senses. Things like pareidolia, poor memory recollection, false memory reinforcement, confirmation bias, etc. make it necessary to carefully examine the data in a controlled and methodical way.

Enter the scientific method. For the sake of being brief I will have to cut and paste. It's taken two hours to write this much, as my day has become insanely busy.

A linearized, pragmatic scheme of the four points above is sometimes offered as a guideline for proceeding:^[44]

1. Define a question
   
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
   
3. Form an explanatory hypothesis
   
4. Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
   
5. Analyze the data
   
6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
   
7. Publish results
   
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
   

The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step methodology goes from point 3 to 6 back to 3 again.

For a better understanding, please see the entire article: http://en.wikipedia....ientific_method

Unfortunately, I have to stop here and get back to work. Please give me your feedback and I will try to give a more complete answer later.

It's almost as ridiculous as the attempts to reject Christianity by using "science", if you wish to continue in circular vains.

[piercedan]

It's almost as ridiculous as the attempts to reject Christianity by using "science", if you wish to continue in circular vains.

I don't really know what you mean. This has nothing to do with Christianity. The question was what is science. I see nowhere an attempt to discredit Christianity. The scientific method has been shown a very powerful tool for discovery. That is what I answered.

[piercedan]

There is no reason to rush to offense. A good rational debate is what we are looking for here. There are many different views and lively discussion is the best way to listen to them and also hear what is coming out of our own brain.

Edited August 30, 2012 by piercedan

[Guest Lester Weevils]

http://tofspot.blogs...-and-alice.html

The above link is from a long-running blog by statistician and SF author Michael F. Flynn. I believe that some of ya'll would find Flynn interesting to read. I disagree with a great deal but the man is very well-read and thinks clearly. He has deep knowledge of history from copious reading in the original sources. Particularly interested in the history of religion, history of science, and history of philosophy/metaphysics. A catholic feller who took the time to read all the ancient and middle-ages and enlightenment catholic philosophers, etc. A believer in science, religion, and evolution. Sees no contradiction. A creationist who thinks adam was the first self-aware monkey.

Unfortunately as best I know Mike has never organized his many pieces on history of science, metaphysics and the rest in a book or all in one spot. He's written a lot of interesting stuff in various forum posts and his blog is maybe one-fourth full of such writings. But it takes a little work to find them sampling thru the blog archives because articles on that topic are randomly interspersed with rants on statistics, mostly-conservative political rants, and discussions of science fiction and his SF works in progress. Maybe somewhere is a list of all the history-of-science-religion-metaphysics articles all in one place but all I know to advise, is if you find his writings interesting you have to scan thru the topics for the needles in the haystack.

One contention is that the christian faith especially catholics and orthodox were responsible in their attitude for fostering a scientific attitude, and not impeding science as some folk contend. One quote I've seen him use several times, from some old 13th century dude William of Conches, Dragmaticon--

"[They say] 'We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.' You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has he ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."

Thanks Lester for the lucid post.

For starters, I'd rather there not be a creation week in school. By the same token, I'd prefer that all scientific theories be presented as observations that are generally agreed up given current perspectives, though unverifiable as 100% fact. This is often trivialized and it the main falling down point in my mind.

How can evolution ever be proven given our limited frame of reference? Has anyone been around long enough to verify that radiometric dating is accurate? I recall discussions about decay rates actually changing in different environments. Is that change enough to impact the technique? Who knows for sure given that no one had been around long enough to prove or disprove it. Science is full of it's own invisible dog proofs. Just because folks get endless grants to come up with tests to try to prove the existence of those invisible dogs and scientists agree for a time that the data supports the invisible dog, there is always a chance that the dog really didn't exist and in fact it was an invisible cat.

As we continue to find smaller and smaller building blocks, why should we not believe in larger entities than us?

Thanks sigmtnman. [clicked send too soon]

Arrogant authoritarian know-it-alls are a bane to all walks of live. The profs that seemed most "on the ball" were not ashamed to admit, "I don't know", and the ones that seemed most ignorant, apparently didn't have the words, "I don't know" in their vocabularies.

I read a bit about a provisional finding that the decay rate might be modulated by solar activity or some such. There are also recent findings from the voyager probes that conditions inside the sun's extended heliosphere might be different than outside the "envelope" which the probes are just now piercing. There is lots of new stuff which might change what we think we know.

People can have good reasons for believing things which can't be scientifically investigated at our current state. There isn't much I consider impossible, but OTOH every tribe has its creation myths. If a scientific way to investigate the "validity" of creation myths could be found, an un-biased scientist would try to evaluate all the myths against reality to find which fits best, rather than jumping to the conclusion that a certain desert tribe a few thousand years ago was the only one that got it right, and then working so hard to arrange facts most-favorable to reinforcing that particular tribal creation myth.

A scientist "ought" to let conclusions follow the data, rather than try to force data to support a pre-determined result.

Long I know, but worth it if you have the time. It is only an excerpt and not complete but gives an excellent Biblical creation science overview.

Thanks Smith.You know creationism isn't the only thing criticized as un-testable. Though n-dimensional brane theory may be testable, it has often been criticized as un-testable-- The predicted results would be about the same as other explanations, so maybe there isn't a way to know if that theory is the right one, or which variant is the right one. Quark theory was un-testable for awhile and received the same complaints.

One striking allegation in the summary you posted-- That creation is better because it "makes more sense" than the big bang or evolution. I suppose every person strains at different gnats and swallows different camels, but a creator doesn't "naturally make more sense" to me. I don't understand why people expect the universe to make sense. The religious admit that "God works in mysterious ways" so why would they expect God to make sense? And atheists have even less reason to expect that the universe would make sense. But both groups tend to expect the universe should conform to their wishes and make sense.

The article mentions many different scenarios that creation might have happened, consistent with a few verses in the bible. Are the "Creation Scientists" running experiments to determine which scenario is most likely? I could propose that my headache went away because aliens shot healing rays into my head, which would be an explanation, but maybe a little difficult to either validate or invalidate.

Not trying to tell them their biz, but playing the science game maybe the first test would be to think up an unambiguous way to test whether or not the universe was created by any method, regardless whether it would suitably match a few verses in the bible? I can't think of a way to do that, but somebody smart perhaps could.

After you have solid evidence of creation, then perhaps a subsequent task would be to determine if the ancient jewish creation myth matches the data best. To rule out that the cherokee, norse, east indian, chinese or scientology myths don't match better? Or maybe a hitherto-unknown creation story has a better match? It would be a long row to hoe until definitively drilling down into which variant on the jewish creation myth might best fit the data?

Edited August 31, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[piercedan]

http://tofspot.blogs...-and-alice.html

The above link is from a long-running blog by statistician and SF author Michael F. Flynn. I believe that some of ya'll would find Flynn interesting to read. I disagree with a great deal but the man is very well-read and thinks clearly. He has deep knowledge of history from copious reading in the original sources. Particularly interested in the history of religion, history of science, and history of philosophy/metaphysics. A catholic feller who took the time to read all the ancient and middle-ages and enlightenment catholic philosophers, etc. A believer in science, religion, and evolution. Sees no contradiction. A creationist who thinks adam was the first self-aware monkey.

Unfortunately as best I know Mike has never organized his many pieces on history of science, metaphysics and the rest in a book or all in one spot. He's written a lot of interesting stuff in various forum posts and his blog is maybe one-fourth full of such writings. But it takes a little work to find them sampling thru the blog archives because articles on that topic are randomly interspersed with rants on statistics, mostly-conservative political rants, and discussions of science fiction and his SF works in progress. Maybe somewhere is a list of all the history-of-science-religion-metaphysics articles all in one place but all I know to advise, is if you find his writings interesting you have to scan thru the topics for the needles in the haystack.

One contention is that the christian faith especially catholics and orthodox were responsible in their attitude for fostering a scientific attitude, and not impeding science as some folk contend. One quote I've seen him use several times, from some old 13th century dude William of Conches, Dragmaticon--

"[They say] 'We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.' You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has he ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."

Thanks sigmtnman.

This sounds interesting. I bookmarked it for further reading. Too tired now to have anything soak in.

[piercedan]

Long I know, but worth it if you have the time. It is only an excerpt and not complete but gives an excellent Biblical creation science overview.

I read the first quarter of this and got side tracked and now I'm too tire for it also. I'm familiar with the Gap theory, but this looks well put together, so I will read it for better understanding.

Thanks!

[piercedan]

Hubris/ego and hope/fear are the primary underlying reasons for our bent toward magical thinking also.

Should our species actually survive until Sol fries Terra, even should we become "immortal" by dispersing our seed to the stars, it is possible that aspects of our perceivable universe will always be unknowable. And it may well be thus for any other species in the ~100 billion galaxies in the currently observable plane of the universe.

But that seems a poor reason to perpetuate magical explanations that at heart have changed little since the first Homo Erectus shaman realized that he could get fed without having to kill the mammoth himself.

- OS

Somehow I missed this post. Very nice.