Walter Hicks wrote:
> Wayne, I go to a church with about 2000 members. It is
> non-denominational but dominantly Baptist oriented. There are many of
> what you call YECs and many scientifically oriented people who disagree
> with each other. We even have calsses to discuss it and nobody gets all
> high and mighty about who is wrong and who is right.
>
> It takes two people to tango or to make a fight, not one.
>
Fair enough.
Hence, if creationist really want YEC science taught in
schools, they will need to demonstrate that YEC science
can get the predictions right: but it is not only the
predictions that are important in science, but the _unity_
that gives science its credibility.
No, science is not perfect. It is a human enterprise and
subject human frailty, but hardly a day goes by that we
don't see some discovery that builds on those unify
principles of science.
No, I do not expect that science can discern all things
(indeed it would be foolish to think so), but it has proven
reliable. Is it reasonable to think that millions of scientist
working every day for their daily bread would insist on some
utterly bunk notion simply because it promoted an atheistic
world view? If YEC ideas really worked with the far greater
power than evolutionary models worked, do you really think
for one minute that millions of scientists would still stick
stubbornly to their precious evolutionary models? Or more to
the point, do you really think that I would stick with that
evolutionary model if I found _any_ serious reason to
challenge it?
I commend Allen Roy for trying to explain the Haymond deposits,
and especially for being halfway civil about it. Indeed, he has
even shown some keen observation skills that I do respect
as a scientist. However, I have yet to feel that this is
any ground I can stand on. I must rely on frequent tsunamis
to produce 15k layers (which I gather are rather flat),
but then typically a scientist would try to pin down a date on
the layers, and that gets into radioactive dating and beds of
fossils in other areas that usually correlate with
each other and with the radioactive dating. So this also
requires accepting a radical explanation for why radioactive
dating is not to be trusted, and then we ask how these
explanations are to be reconciled with the astronomical data,
and we get other incredible explanations. Perhaps such arguments
are plausible, but they are hardly something to construct a
unifying picture of a universe on.
In the end, maybe it was all so incredible and we (millions of
scientist working day to day refining the principles we have
learned in our education and in our experience) are just too
thick to get it. I can accept that. At some point however,
we must lay our cards on the table, and what we have learned
through experience as practicing scientists is the best hand
we have.
By Grace we do proceed,
Wayne
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 12 2002 - 11:12:15 EST