Glenn,
The photo you included is quite amazing! Yes, I do think that there is good
reason for concluding that these may be religious arrangements, but I think
your understanding of good scientific practice is quite different from mine
(and mine has NEVER been to expect 100% certainty as you have ascribed to
me). I will maintain that for good scientific practice, plausible and
reasonable alternatives need to be examined seriously, (and of course, we
should ignore the ridiculously far-out ones, like pixies), especially if
these challenge our pet theories.
I know you don't see this, but clearly to me in your posts, you demonstrated
much defensiveness and bias to see the evidence in only one way to the
exclusion of other plausible and reasonable alternatives. In all fairness,
maybe it is because you have dealt with these concerns before to your
satisfaction, and are frustrated that yet another person is bringing up the
same questions. Maybe that is why you insist that I should go study the
evidence for myself, because you don't want to go through all the trouble of
explaining the basics. If that is so, I understand. But there are better
ways of communicating this without inferring less-than-honest motives and
implying that people are irresponsible. You seem to expect that a person
only has a right to raise a logical concern in this informal forum (which
was what I did) in response to a post if they have read most of the research
in the area. I would say that your expectation is unreasonable. Informal
discussions are just that. Comparing my actions in this forum to what Hugh
Ross did in publication is unfair.
I will let this rest.
Blessings,
Adrian.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Glenn Morton [mailto:glenn.morton@btinternet.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 7:04 PM
> To: Adrian Teo
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Doubt and Science.
>
>
> Hi Adrian, You wrote:
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Adrian Teo [mailto:ateo@whitworth.edu]
> >Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 8:58 AM>
>
>
> >AT: YOu are quite possibly correct, but Don also presents an
> >interesting and
> >plausible alternative. The argument by analogy works both in
> your favor and
> >against you. On the one hand, yes, it makes sense to say
> that the bone
> >arrangement is analogous to what is observed in ancient religious
> >ceremonies. On the other hand, the behavior of showing-off or making
> >creative arrangement is equally ubiquitous and by analogy, these are
> >possiblilities that should also be considered.
>
> Agreed. I am going to go back to the earliest possible
> religious altar, that
> at Bilzingsleben to illustrate the similairities.
> Bilzingsleben dates to
> 400,000 years ago. It is the site of an H. erectus village!
> They have found
> the remains of huts (with doors opening to the south and a
> hearth at the
> entrance to help keep out the cold. A 27 ft diameter paved
> area was found
> with a stone in the center of the circle. At the foot of the
> stone were
> broken human skulls and there was a bison horn on each side
> of the central
> stone.
>
> This structure took lots of work, to pave the area and haul
> in the stones.
> It sounds very similar to a Celtic (Druid) stone circle about
> 20 miles from
> my home here in Peterculter called the Loanshead of Daviott.
> I have just
> uploaded a picture of it
> http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/loanshead4.jpg.
>
> I will leave it there for a few days. This site lacks a
> central stone but
> has a central area cleared of stones. This was a religious
> site. When one
> sees this sort of thing being caried out in 3000 BC (which is
> the age of
> this site) one can't help seeing the similarity between this and the
> Bilzingsleben site of 400,000 years ago. People had to gather
> rocks, arrange
> them drag in the big central stone in Bilzingsleben's case
> and the outer
> stones in the case of Loanshead. If you found H. sapiens bones with
> Loanshead there would be little doubt that it is a religious
> site. (and we
> do have some historical documents which mention these things
> from 2000 years
> ago as religious sites). But why, when we find H. erectus
> with a similar
> site do we suddenly become squeamish? His brain at that time
> was as big as
> ours. THe only difference between him and you was skull shape.
> Postcranially, they were almost exactly like us only having
> slightly thicker
> bones. And this smidgeon's worth of difference is where the
> image of God
> lies? I can't accept that.
>
>
> >AT: Like you admitted in an earlier post, there is some degree of
> >uncertainty. Therefore, in the absence of evidence that could clearly
> >discriminate between two hypotheses, the alternative remains viable.
>
> I think you may be mistaking science for something that gives absolute
> certainty. The job of the scientist is to give the most probable
> explanation and this even includes physics. Science doesn't
> prove things,
> it ascertains what is most likely the case. Do the laws of
> gravity actually
> apply? Not necessarily. If all motion in a graviational
> field were caused
> by invisible pixies who always by agreement moved everything
> with a t^2
> manner, then there is no law--it is an agreement of pixies.
> How likely is
> that? low probability, but, it is still possible and as you say,
> alternatives should always be considered. ":^>
>
>
> Yes, I
> >fully admit that I am no expert in this field, but what I am
> critiquing is
> >the logic. I am asking to understand why these other
> hypotheses have been
> >discarded - what is it that gives these scientists the
> confidence to reject
> >all other explanations except the religious one. What you
> have presented in
> >detail is why these should be considered religious behavior,
> but you have
> >thus far offered little explantion for why the alternatives
> are unlikely.
>
> Give me reasons to rule out the pixies! The problem with
> your approach is
> that in science there are an infinitude of possible
> explanations for any set
> of facts. This is what one learns in philosophy of science.
> One can't rule
> out all possibilities. If you disprove pixies existence then
> I can claim it
> is leprechauns. And if they are ruled out, then it is faeries
> etc ad nauseum
> and eventually I will get to God personally moving each object in the
> universe. You will never be able to rule out all the
> alternatives. Thus, I
> won't try. The approach to take is to look at the evidence
> and see what is
> most reasonable.
> We can disagree on what is reasonable. As I said to someone
> earlier today,
> we are all allowed our personal interpretations of the fact
> but no one is
> allowed a personal set of facts. You can have your
> interpretation. I think
> it is not likely but if you do, then more power to you.
>
> >
> >=====
> >Glenn: The first thing to do is read the articles if you are
> serious in
> >doubting
> >them. To do anything less is to avoid the responsibility of the
> >researcher.
> >Go read the articles and then decide.
> >
> >AT: The last I checked, this is a forum for anybody interested in
> >the issues
> >of science and religion. My understanding is that it is to
> be a fairly
> >casual environment where people are free to think creatively, ask
> >questions,
> >and challenge ideas.
>
> Without a doubt this is an open forum as you describe. You demand to
> challenge me, so please allow me the same freedom to challenge your
> qualification and seriousness of effort you have put into
> your objection.
> Not every objection is of equal value. For instance, to return to the
> pixies, everyone on this list would have good reason to doubt
> the knowledge
> of someone who actually said pixies moved the planets and not
> natural law.
> They can object that all alternatives should be taken
> seriously but that
> objection won't find too many serious takers.
>
>
> I am not a researcher in this area, don't
> >have the time
> >to do careful research into the what's been discovered in
> the past few
> >years, and am NOT looking to publish a competing hypothesis.
>
> And this is one of the problems that comes into play often in
> apologetics.
> People feel free to challenge without doing the hard work of
> learning. When
> I challenged one writer personally, Hugh Ross, on some of the
> things he was
> writing, he claimed that he wasn't an expert in anthropology
> and that is why
> he 'stayed away from that area'. My initial thought was that
> someone is
> writing articles in your name and placing them in your newsletter!
> And without doing the hard work of learning, he still feels free to
> criticize things he doesn't understand.
>
>
>
>
> If the latter
> >was true, than it would indeed be my responsibility to do
> the leg-work.
>
> It is your responsibiltiy anyway. What you have shown me at
> least is that
> you are simply doubting for doubtings sake. If you were
> serious, you would
> start doing some reading.
>
>
> >However, as a subscriber to this forum, I am simply bring up
> >concerns I have
> >in this discussion. If my concerns are unfounded, show me,
> or if you think
> >it would be a waste of your time, ignore me.
>
> Don't expect others to do your work for you. I am not
> responsible to show
> you anything you want on demand. No one feels so compelled to
> do that for me
> either nor should they.
>
>
> But do not imply that I do not
> >have the right to raise doubt just because I haven't read all the
> >papers you
> >have. Logic is logic.
>
> Logic is based upon assumptions and if you don't understand
> why certain
> assumptions are made, then you have the wrong chaing of
> logic. This is the
> mistake young-earthers make when they claim that radioactive
> dating can't
> tell how much of a material was initially present in a rock.
> It can and
> does, but since they don't do the hard work of learning, then
> they get the
> wrong chain of reasoning. They do similar things with
> geology. Remember
> the most important sentence in this note is "Logic is based upon
> assumptions."
>
>
> >AT: Raising doubt is alway a good practice in science.
>
> Not always. If I always doubt that V=IR no matter what is
> presented to me,
> it is not good science. It becomes silly science. Science is about
> understanding what happened and creating theories, not about doubting
> anything and everything one wants to doubt. Frankly, I can
> doubt everything
> in this world. The unvierse was created as it is 5 seconds
> ago. Prove me
> wrong. It is doubt but it is not good science.
>
>
> >
> >=====
> >>Glenn: Why else
> >>would people take bear skulls (only skulls) into a dark
> cave and place
> >>one
> >>of them on a big rock in the center of the cave starting a
> fire behind
> >>it?
> >>
> >>AT: Wait a minute! This is a highly suspect argument. Just beacsue
> >>one can't
> >>imaigne it to be otherwise does not automatically permit one to
> >conclude
> >>that therefore there are no other possibilities.
>
> THat's right, there very well may be other possiblities. But
> name them! If
> you can't, you have simple useless doubt which is of no value
> in science. If
> you were to say that they took them into the cave not for religion but
> because you believe Neanderthals were dark-loving troglodytes
> who hated the
> sun and that was the remains of their cooking fire, then you
> would have
> scientific doubt. What you have is simply doubt.
>
>
> >
> >Glenn: The doubt anything that we can't overcome argument.
> While logically
> >true, I
> >can apply your methodology to historical temples. Just
> because someone
> >says
> >that it was used for religious purposes doesn't make it so. Do you
> >beleive
> >every thing you read in the press?
> >
> >AT: I think you have really missed my point. I am not adopting a
> >position of
> >total skepticism. I am saying that your argument is faulty.
> IT goes like
> >this:
> >
> >I cannot imagine X. Therefore X must not be true.
> >I cannot imagine any other reason why "people take bear skulls
> >(only skulls)
> >into a dark cave and place one of them on a big rock in the
> center of the
> >cave starting a fire behind it", THEREFORE, any other reason
> must not be
> >true.
>
> As I said, there are always other possibilities we may not be able to
> imagine--the universe is a 100,000,000 dimensional object and
> each person
> lies on one dimension. How would you disprove that? It is an almost
> unimaginable possiblity, and thus of little scientific value.
>
>
> >Look Glenn. This is nothing personal and I am not seeking to
> diminish your
> >credibility nor that of the scientists you quoted.
>
> I am not taking this personally. You are doing something
> which I have seen
> thousands of yecs do. Doubt without offering much. Doubt is easy,
> explanations are hard.
>
> And don't take this response personally either. I am merely arguing
> against your methodology.
>
> I am raising an
> >issue for
> >discussion, and as a result of having done so, I am chided for being
> >irresponsible and biased. I may have my biases, but it is
> NOT in this issue
> >of whether these are humans or not. In fact, I find that
> your theory makes
> >more sense than others I've read, but as scientists, we have to be
> >*especially careful* of theories that we *agree* with
> (because of personal
> >bias), and for good reason, we should scrutinize these in
> greater detail.
> >That is in fact what I am doing. I am looking to be educated by
> >experts like
> >yourself in this area. Tell me why I am wrong in my questioning,
> >but please,
> >do not pretend that you understand my motivations nor judge me as a
> >less-than-honorable person because I raised a question about your
> >conclusion.
>
> See above.
>
>
> >
> glenn
>
> see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
> for lots of creation/evolution information
> anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
> personal stories of struggle
>
> >Sincerely,
> >Adrian.
>
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