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monolith
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jul 15, 2008 - 01:54am PT
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They always give the error bar Jody. There's nothing absolute about it.
The question you have to ask yourself, does an answer at the edge of the error bar change the hypothesis? That's science.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 15, 2008 - 02:02am PT
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I'm sure the observations are consistent with an earth that is roughly 4.5 billion years, give or take a few tens of million...not just from dating rock, but the age of the solar system...
The oldest earth rocks are something like 4.4 billion years old, the earth has an active geology and recycles a lot of itself. Meteorites provide some of the puzzle, as does the age of the sun.
All in all, though it's been around a bit.
I thought you'd wonder how we know the universe's age...
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jul 15, 2008 - 02:09am PT
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The oldest rocks on earth are metamorphic...
I'm in the camp that puts it closer to 4.7 billion years old, not that it matters.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jul 15, 2008 - 02:35am PT
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".because this stuff is being presented as absolute fact in academia nd they darn well better be sure it is abolutely accurate if they are going to present it as such."
Is it? Did you read the papers? The datings are always approximations, subject to certain conditions.
" Granite, why does it matter how old I think the earth is?"
What does the Bible say? Does it say anything relevant on the age of the earth at all? Also, why do you care how old the earth is?
You are looking for absolutes. That is not what science is about.
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 15, 2008 - 08:58am PT
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Hey Jody,
I have a sincere question for you. Werner's scriptures (the Vedas) state that the moon is 800,000 miles farther away from the earth than the sun is. What do your scriptures state (if anything) on that particular subject? Furthermore, what do you feel about that concept on an intuitive level? I ask because I find it interesting that Werner disagrees with what is the foundation of our (Ed's, mine, Jay's, and a host of others) way of understanding and you do as well. Yet I can't help but ponder and think that you and werner don't exactly see things the same yet ya'll's have yet to have one word of difference on the subject. It's like... we're takin' it from both ends from you guys.... no lube involved either!
thanks,
Doug
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 15, 2008 - 09:10am PT
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"Yet I can't help but ponder and think that you and werner don't exactly see things the same yet ya'll's have yet to have one word of difference on the subject."
That's called tolerance.
I may not agree with Werner or Jody and they may not agree with me. However, I'm not at all interested in stopping them from thinking what they do, in fact I'm glad they think it and hope that it makes them happy.
Remember that atheism has no ideas of its own - no moral framework, no world view and no ideology. For the overwhelming majority of atheists it is just a crude system of being opposed to religion, composed of borrowing or stealing religion's key ideas then adding "not" or "don't" where appropriate.
It's an entirely negative way of thinking, characterised (as this thread shows) by agression and opposition. It should hardly be a surprise then that the one thing we almost never see from atheists is tolerance of other ideas. Not openness to them (that would be a bit much to ask from a system which naes itself for being opposed to another!), just acceptance that others have different ideas and should be allowed to do so unmolested.
If atheists were to learn to do that, we might see some progress from them.
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 15, 2008 - 09:20am PT
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I'm not an athiest.
But you and Werner and Jody are all welcome to, as you state, your opinions. Yet Jody continues to state with absolute certainty that evolution and Darwin's concept of survival of the fittest (which results in evolutionary change) has no merit or is wrong (and he's 100% certain of that and has proof). Yet the proof does not even begin to bare itself out. And thus the argument ensues. I have no problem with Jody or you or anyone viewing the world from a faithful understanding. Where I take issue is where some guise otherwise (like masking it as science) comes to play.
Remember that atheism has no ideas of its own - no moral framework, no world view and no ideology. For the overwhelming majority of atheists it is just a crude system of being opposed to religion, composed of borrowing or stealing religion's key ideas then adding "not" or "don't" where appropriate.
Here again, an opinion (of yours). Filled with a whole lot of negative crap. But then, I still think you are trolling.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 15, 2008 - 09:52am PT
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"Here again, an opinion (of yours). Filled with a whole lot of negative crap"
Yes, that's a good illustration - as I said you just automatically adopt the opposite of what I've said without any actual content.
Of course if I was wrong and atheism did have content beyond what it borrows from religion and crudely inverts or parodies, you would have said what that is - but you don't, you're reliant on me to come up wit hthe idea which you then simply deny as a matter of reflex without qualification.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 15, 2008 - 10:45am PT
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Blight, I think it actually your style of argument, which makes heavy use of argumentum ad hominem rather than actually addressing the issues. I, for one, find your criticisms useful in shedding unnecessary discussion around the issues and pointing out the occasional rhetorical traps that one runs into in debate. But by and large, you seem not to address any of the technical issues and prefer to change the subject to a discussion regarding the people (or group of people) you presume to be making those arguments.
Jody would use argumentum ad verecundiam.
In both cases, it avoids a discussion of the actual evidence and method of scientific enquire, which I know you have criticized in previous posts, but once again by arguing about scientists and their presumed biased mindset rather than arguing about the science.
This is a form of argument that has, unfortunately, become the major,modern criticism of science: that scientists are human. A fact well known by scientists and a major driver in the intense self-criticism that takes place in the science community. Sometimes that criticism gets personal and nasty when it doesn't have to, but the science itself seems to eventually emerge. The scientific method, ultimately corrects for human foibles, when it is correctly applied.
Scientists do keep conflicting data and observations around, they provide a strong test for understanding theoretic explanation. Often, some bit of inconvenient data or a puzzling observation will be around for decades, to be explained later with some deeper insight.
These data are not central because they often cannot be addressed by what is currently known. One good recent example was Fritz Zwicky's observation that galactic rotation curves (the velocity of the stars in a galaxy as a function of their distance to the center of the galaxy) could not be explained by our estimates of the luminous mass in the galaxy (stars, dust, everything we could see) and gravitation.
Reconciling this observation, at the time, would require a change in our understanding of physical law, something which didn't seem to be warranted by the evidence, though many people pursued that line of reasoning.
Eventually the hypothesis of dark matter became more and more appealing, that there is a form of matter in the universe that interacts through its gravity, but not much more. Candidates for this matter are likely the result of the interactions of elementary forces, the consequence of which is much broader than just explaining Zwicky's observation.
Dark matter on the cosmological scale helps explain the nucleation of matter to form stars in the very early universe, a conundrum for explaining how the universe got to where it is now...
Amazingly to me, this has happened during my scientific career, a breathtaking array of knowledge, explaining many observations and unifying a host of experimental results. It's beautiful to my eyes.
As much as has been explained are those new questions that we are pursuing the answers for... looking in the theories we have developed, or imagining new theory for that which we know can't be explained by our current theories.
It is truly an endless frontier.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 15, 2008 - 11:14am PT
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"Blight, I think it actually your style of argument, which makes heavy use of argumentum ad hominem rather than actually addressing the issues."
There is a certain keen irony in watching you complain that I'm not addressing the issues then immediately try to establish credibility for the scientific evolution case by citing success in completely irrelevant areas of scientific study!
As for your defense of science: well that's just the same tired old positivism from last century dusted off and spruced up with a lick of cosmology. I'll not insult your education by going any further into that: it was done to death 50 years ago.
Science has certainly produced its share of curiosities and wonders, I agree. But using it as a blunt tool with which to hit people you don't like - as we see in this thread - is as much a misuse of science as propganda posters are a misuse of art.
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drgonzo
Trad climber
east bay, CA
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Jul 15, 2008 - 11:17am PT
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Ed, I thought you had "chewed through the bag" to freedom...
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jul 15, 2008 - 11:22am PT
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"Remember that atheism has no ideas of its own - no moral framework, no world view and no ideology. For the overwhelming majority of atheists it is just a crude system of being opposed to religion, composed of borrowing or stealing religion's key ideas then adding "not" or "don't" where appropriate."
Try to stick to the topic. Evolution is not only "an idea of its own" its one you don't understand.
blight
Noun
1. a person or thing that spoils or prevents growth
2. any plant disease characterized by withering and shrivelling without rotting
3. a fungus or insect that causes blight in plants
4. an ugly urban district
Verb
1. to cause to suffer a blight
2. to frustrate or disappoint: blighted love
3. to destroy: the event blighted her life [origin unknown]
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jul 15, 2008 - 11:32am PT
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Blight is a troll.
I'll repeat what I said almost 2 years ago in another Darwin thread.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=269282&msg=271009#msg271009
"Before spending very much time putting together detailed, thoughtful responses to Blight's demands, look at the previous postings on evolution here on Supertopo and form your own conclusion as to whether Blight is genuinely interested in learning more about evolution or if he is only seeking to confound."
Look at that thread and others to see what was already covered.
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 15, 2008 - 11:42am PT
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hehe... good one gc. The ironic part about that thread is that TiG, who I rarely agree with much, questioned blight. And yet again he side-stepped the issue and attacked the scientists and not the science. Is he a troll? I'm not sure he his. At least not in the way trolls usually operate. I think he actually believes his opinions to heart and thus isn't really a troll. But he sure knows how to twist the words of others to get under the skin of those that don't see the blatant fallacies of logic or don't see the thinly veiled attacks.
BTW, thanks Ed. You wrote exactly what I was thinking. Well, except for those fancy words in italics. And except for paragraph two through the end. And except for paragraph one. Otherwise spot on what I was gonna say.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Jul 15, 2008 - 12:42pm PT
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I would like to hear from Jody and/or Werner what experiences they have had that make them believe in God.
I'm not being facetious. I'm curious what drives their faith. It can't just be reading the Bible or listening to preachers. I would think it is much deeper and personal. Is it a feeling? Has God communicated to you in some way? How? What was it like? Is it even possible to explain it?
Again I'm not being facetious or negative, I just want to know what drives your convictions. I keep hearing we need to listen, but for what?
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 15, 2008 - 12:52pm PT
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I've never read the bible. I have no clue what it says.
I chant the Maha-mantras .......
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 15, 2008 - 01:15pm PT
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Jody, I didn't ask what the bible said. I asked what you thought of the concept. You can think beyond what's written in the Bible, right?
And why does it matters? Because someone asked you sincere question they were curious about. It would be fair to read a little into why as I eluded to it if you like.
Werner: Which is your Ishta Devata to whom you chant your Maha-mantras? Hanuman seems to be mine...
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Jul 15, 2008 - 01:20pm PT
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OK, good point. I did ask. And you answered that (I've never read the Bible so I wouldn't know). I went on to further ask:
Furthermore, what do you feel about that concept on an intuitive level?
So my bad...
woo 600!
Edit: and I certainly didn't ask expecting we'd debate. I suspect you feel/think the moon is roughly 384403 km away from the earth while the sun149476000 km from the earth.
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Jul 15, 2008 - 02:09pm PT
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No, I am saying that YOU have no proof that the above is true.
. . . there have been many instances that obviously had God's hand involved.
It's called the placebo effect. I've been wondering what you would call "proof".
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 15, 2008 - 02:23pm PT
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See you there, my friend. We can spend an eternity arguing about the Clash of Civs.
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