Questions outside the scope of science.

You are correct that science is always changing. Pluto ring any bells?

I'm glad that you don't have blind faith in science. I just get agitated by those that claim things as facts when the evidence is circumstantial at best.

I definitely rely on science. I listen to my doctor in most cases. I trust the majority of epidemiological studies when it comes to my 6 month old boy's vaccination schedule.

However, I also have a healthy skepticism when science overreaches. Some. (glad to see that's not you) see one scientific study and take it as fact. (ignoring the plethora of conflicting reports)

"Science cannot discover absolute truth because science is always changing. Any scientific finding or theory may be discarded or revised tomorrow or a hundred years from now. All scientific observations and theories must be open to criticism and to possible correction or rejection. No scientific theory should be protected from criticism, because it may some day be proved to be wrong. This is the central policy of the scientific method."

If that's true, then why do SO many point to evolution as fact and point to those who disagree as morons? If science is so pliable as you suggest? To me it seems that most don't have such a pliable view because its inconsistent with the labels they throw on those who disagree.

 

GT WT. Surely you know that 1000's disagree with this theory and they are all highly educated as well. I choose to align myself with ideas based on the evidence or lack thereof. Not based on how many people believe it. Need I remind you that in the 15th century most found the world to be flat? Boy, all the scientists said it. I'd be stupid not to follow it.

I found this quote on the handy dandy evolution refuter website. Hilarious!! The site isn't the best, but it does lay out some of the general arguments. I found this quote fitting to our discussion.

"Theories about the beginning of the world or of life generally cannot be tested experimentally. This is because nobody observed or can repeat what happened in the ancient past history of the earth.

Since no humans were present at the beginning, no scientists could be on hand to record the conditions and the events. Furthermore, those conditions and events cannot be repeated experimentally. Therefore, the only evidence available is that found in the present world*in the rocks, fossils and living things. The data collected by observation and experiment in the present world, and advanced in support of one or the other theory of origins, is circumstantial evidence.3

By "circumstantial" we mean that the meaning or interpretation given to the data depends strongly on the assumptions and presuppositions of the interpreter. Furthermore, any objection raised against a theory of origins can often be answered by some additional new assumption. And this new assumption generally cannot be tested experimentally either. Thus theories of origins, be they evolutionary or creationist, cannot conclusively be proved false by experimental test.4 Therefore, they are, strictly speaking, outside the realm of scientific theories."
The Link

 

Thanks Mia. Well said.

 

Why does time only move forward?

 

Time does not have a preferable direction in the fundamental laws of physics.

We experience time as only going forward because we are classical bodies we and our world are subject to the laws of thermodynamics. The material and energy flow of our world is one way, and we mentally associate that with time. We are evolved that way. We "sense" time, we don't intellectualize it.

Early physics used this sense definition of time. Modern physics ' definitions are independent of the sense definition.

 

Math mudrat,

What I meant by control is to say. We KNOW that rock y is XX years of age. I mean, we saw it formed out of the ground and we know like we know like we know the back of our hands that it is xx years of age. If we had THAT... then we test to find out what its age is. When we do have a good guess that a rock is 70 years of age. (we saw it form out of a volcano) The testing methods do NOT match.

 

GT. I thought this was already covered ground. But micro-evolution is pretty much indisputable. It's the "we all had a common ancestor" line that I find hard to believe.

"The biblical Christian faith provided the philosophical foundation for the structure of modern science. This foundation is the concept of an orderly, rational, reproducible universe purposefully designed, created, and sustained by the infinite-personal, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, sovereign Creator. Many of the greatest names in the history of science, people who laid the groundwork in theory and experiment for modern science, were devout believers in Jesus Christ and in the Bible. Notable in the last century were Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Lord Kelvin (William Thompson). Faraday, who pioneered in experimental chemistry, electricity and magnetism, is called the greatest experimental scientist of all time.7 Maxwell developed the famous Maxwell equations for electromagnetic waves (such as radio waves) before such waves were even discovered.8 Lord Kelvin, a great British physicist, made important contributions to thermodynamics, geophysics, and many other fields of science.9 Each of these men was a Bible-believing Christian and a man of sterling character as well as a great man of science. Every field of science today owes much to the efforts of these and other Christians who have labored in scientific research, and many scientists today are Christians.10 How sad it is, not to say absurd, that so many people have been led to think that science must be tied to atheistic materialism."

So i guess you'd throw out a bunch of your conclusions too? Just because some Christian came up with it?

 

it's not so much that.... let me ask you this question.

why would someone challenge the scientific data that suggests the worlds is billions of years old unless.....

trying to prove the world is 6k years old is a direct result of trying to validate the timelines found in the bible.

 

There are reasons why we have different subjects in school, you know. Take history, for example:

Why did the Roman Empire fall?
Who was to blame for the Great War?
Is there such a thing as "American exceptionalism"?
Why has decolonization been such a failure in much of the world?

I can think of other subjects:

What is the nature of tragedy, and why does it affect us?
Why does Hamlet delay?
Why does OU suck so badly?

I could go on. But my point is that not everything can be studied scientifically.

---

 

Uniformitarianism doesn't say that the air had to have the same percentages, it says that the processes that formed the air were the same as now. Uniformitarianism says that the processes governing things today where also active in the past,

 

Came across this article today that I found pretty interesting, and deals with a few things discussed so far in this thread (including the possible existence of other universes): The Link