RE: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)

I do not want to belabor the point, but your bringing up the issue of "the nature of the designer/artificer (human in this case)" may suggest that my original point of view is based on some beliefs like ID. That is certainly not the case. True, the subject matter of forensic science is more complicated since it may involve communicating, human witnesses, which is certainly not the case in cosmology and historical biology. However, in crimes classified as cold cases, most, if not all, of the evidence is physical and so the difference between forensic science and historical sciences is minimal.

Moorad

________________________________

From: Don Nield [mailto:d.nield@auckland.ac.nz]
Sent: Fri 5/20/2005 5:56 PM
To: Michael Roberts
Cc: Alexanian, Moorad; George Murphy; Keith Miller; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)

Moorad:
I agree with George and Michael. The analogy bewteen cosmology/biology
and forensic science/archaelogy is not valid, because for the latter we
know the nature of the designer/articifer (human in this case), and
hence we can estimate the capability of, and guess the likely motivation
of, that agent.
Don

Michael Roberts wrote:,

> Moorad
> How many times do we have to say that no given scenario is assumed. I
> don't know where you get your ideas from but they are simply utterly
> wrong and mistaken.
>
> Michael
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexanian, Moorad"
> <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; "Michael Roberts"
> <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>;
> <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 5:44 PM
> Subject: RE: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)
>
>
> George,
>
>
>
> I do not want to belabor the point. Nevertheless, forensic science is
> just as much and no less historical science than cosmology,
> evolutionary theory, etc. There is no difference whatsoever. One
> always supposes/assumes a given scenario and goes about to prove it or
> to discard it.
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> Sent: Fri 5/20/2005 11:55 AM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad; Michael Roberts; Keith Miller; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; "Michael Roberts"
> <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>;
> <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 5:07 PM
> Subject: RE: Kansas Closing arguments
>
>
>> How should we then speak of the Big Bang? As assumed? Extrapolated from
>> present data? Believed? Supposed? Don't we assume/propose/suppose
>> theories in physics and deduce logically from them?
>
>
> Of course we assume things. We (or at least I) assume, e.g., that
> general
> relativity is true until we run into phenomena that suggest that it
> may not
> be. But that's a very different thing from an "assumed timeline." As I
> pointed out earlier, the timeline in relativistic cosmologies has
> varied by
> an order of magnitude over the last 70 years. In fact in the 20s &
> 30s the
> age of the universe was thought by many to be on the order of
> _trillions_ of
> years on the basis of Jeans' work on stellar motions.
> Cosmologists have no "assumed timeline" in the sense of an /a priori/
> timetable into which observational data is forced.
>
> Give it up Moorad. It just isn't there.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
>
>
>

--
Donald A. Nield
Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
ph  +64 9 3737599 x87908
fax +64 9 3737468
d.nield@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.esc.auckland.ac.nz/People/Staff/Nield/