From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Date: Thu Oct 02 2003 - 12:57:48 EDT
George Murphy wrote:
> 1) If we never made _any_ prejudgements, we'd never get anywhere. This
> can be simply
> another word for learning from experience. There is some point to the old
> story of the
> little boy who cried wolf.
>
> 2) We should be wary of prejudging whole classes of people - especially
> races or ethnic
> groups for which the actions of one member may have nothing to do with those
> of another.
> It is something else to be suspicious of claims made by members of a group
> defined by a
> particular set of beliefs which in the past has played fast and loose with
> the truth in
> defending those beliefs. That is the case /a fortiori/ when some of these
> claims are
> being made by the same people who have been wrong in the past with similar
> arguments for
> their distinctive views.
>
> 3) It is not possible to "explore these claims" until full information
> (experimental
> arrangements, data, &c) are made available. Making such information
> available is
> supposed to be a major purpose of publication in refereed professional
> journals.
> Until the YECs do that they will, quite justifiably, be subject to the same
> kind
> of suspicion directed to the cold fusion claims announced at a press
> conference. Simply
> saying "I can call spirits from the vasty deep" deserves no credibility.
>
> 4) Evaluation of such claims is not a matter of deciding for or against
> isolated pieces
> of data. Even if these recent YEC claims turn out to be true, we would have
> to take
> into account the facts that
> a) there is still a great deal of observational data that points to an
> old
> earth and old universe, and
> b) we have no theoretical framework in which these putative data can be
>
> encompassed. Simply saying "decay rates speeded up a lot during the
> creation week or
> the flood" is no theory at all. It's just the "It's a miracle" claim again.
> & BTW it's
> the same kind of thing that Humphreys did with his failed cosmological
> model.
>
In general this is my attitude toward this matter too. However, one thing
that is more pressed on us (Christians) is to reflect a life that is changed.
That is surely not easy, especially when I hear the same nonsense repeated
again and again and just when I thought there was a reprieve, someone else
repeats some variation of the same nonsense all over again. Since scientists
rarely have much of a life to begin with, due to the excessive work involved,
that kind of silliness is surely enough to tempt anyone to call the Lord's
name in vain (and a few other words not good for repeat).
Being part Scotsman, I have had to learn the hard way that it is good to know
when to stop sometimes. But unlike the standard science referee, we do
have to make a little more effort to show tolerance toward people who are
different.
By Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
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