Creationist bill passed by Louisiana House of Representatives

[Borek]

If the humanity is so smart then why can we not figure out cancer? Why have we not found cure for illness. Why can't we live forever?

Compare what we know today with what we have known 100 years ago. Ask your questions in 100 years from now. Just because we don't some answers yet, doesn't mean we will not know them in the future.

It also doesn't mean we will know them, but that's another story.

And judging Earth age from Bible is not that hard. There are long lists of genealogy in Genesis, like

• Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.
• And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah.
• And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber.
• And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg.
• And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu.
• And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug.
• And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor.
• And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
• When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah.
• And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.
• After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

that tells who lived how long and so on. It is not a rocket science to add these numbers to trace time between Christ and Adam and Eve. That's not very accurate, but it gives around 6000 years.

 

[Moridin]

Stevedye56, the genealogies are right there as well as the age of the people. It is all in the bible.

 

[Borek]

It is all in the bible.

Trick is, it takes an atheist like me to read it

 

[Kurdt]

This thread looks like its skating on thin ice. I suggest people only comment on the original article and not how to calculate the age of the Earth from the bible lest it be locked by the mentors.

 

[Gokul43201]

So you think a book that has been transcribed hundreds and hundreds of times with errors only in punctuation is a made up fairy tale..

Strawman.

 

[seycyrus]

Stevedye56, the genealogies are right there as well as the age of the people. It is all in the bible.

*SIGH*

The bible does not ever claim to be a second by second, minute by minute relation of events that have happened.

It is easy to bypass whis by simply stating that not all "facts" are meant to be taken literally, but are meant to convey a different message. Such as, in this case, a lineage.

 

[Vid]

It's kind of hard to just write off several billion years of lost time.

 

[seycyrus]

And to respond to Borek's request.

In my opinion, creationism should not be taught in school.

Perhaps the bible might be examined in a class on comparative religions, or maybe a literature class.

That's it.

 

[Stevedye56]

Wow this is ridiculous. I am clearly just getting shot down on what I know is right so I am done here.

 

[Stevedye56]

Strawman.

Might want to re-read these:

Guidelines on Langauge and Attitude:
Foul or hostile language will not be tolerated on Physics Forums. This includes profanity, obscenity, or obvious indecent language; direct personal attacks or insults; snide remarks or phrases that appear to be an attempt to "put down" another member; and other indirect attacks on a member's character or motives.

 

[Alfi]

Originally Posted by Stevedye56 View Post

So you think a book that has been transcribed hundreds and hundreds of times with errors only in punctuation is a made up fairy tale..
YES.

And I believe it should stay out of public schools.
I also believe the members of government have better things to do than waist time on bills like this one.

oh btw - 'strawman' is a type of argument, not a put-down on the poster.

 

[NeoDevin]

Wow this is ridiculous. I am clearly just getting shot down on what I know is right so I am done here.

You make a claim

No it can't [be calculated from Old and New Testament genealogies].

And are shown very clearly how to calculate it, thus being proven wrong. Then you claim to know you are right? I'm sorry but I don't follow your reasoning.

 

[seycyrus]

It's kind of hard to just write off several billion years of lost time.

Huh? It's easy, and makes me ask you to perhaps open a book or two by intellectual christian thinkers. Unless you think that this is a new question that has never EVER been examined?

I believe there is a passage in the bible, where Kermit says something like "A thousand years to you is but a moment to me."

 

[Moonbear]

I just want to point out that while the assumption here is that this opens the door for creationism to be taught in the classroom, the wording of the bill is simply allowing additional materials beyond the textbook to be used. This could also have a beneficial side. A lot of textbooks inadequately teach the subject of evolution, which is why so many people with no science education beyond high school are easily misled into believing other nonsense like Creationism. This would give a good teacher some flexibility when a student asks about some of these misconceptions to bring in further sources on evolution to explain how much more there is to the theory and to clarify points of common confusion and misunderstanding so students are better armed to not be so gullible about the Creationist's arguments.

I agree it also allows for exploitation by Creationists, but as long as there is a review process in place in the case of complaints, let's hope sane parents will complain and demand review of the material if their kid starts to get taught Creationism in school.

 

[NeoDevin]

Strawman.

Might want to re-read these:

Guidelines on Langauge and Attitude:
Foul or hostile language will not be tolerated on Physics Forums. This includes profanity, obscenity, or obvious indecent language; direct personal attacks or insults; snide remarks or phrases that appear to be an attempt to "put down" another member; and other indirect attacks on a member's character or motives.

Strawman is not a put down, he is characterizing the quality of your argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

 

[seycyrus]

You make a claim
And are shown very clearly how to calculate it, thus being proven wrong. Then you claim to know you are right? I'm sorry but I don't follow your reasoning.

Wait a sec. How long did Moses pause between when he (supposedly) parted the Red Sea and when he started to cross? How long did it take him? My bible doesn't talk about that. Do you have the teacher's version or something?

 

[NeoDevin]

Wait a sec. How long did Moses pause between when he (supposedly) parted the Red Sea and when he started to cross? How long did it take him? My bible doesn't talk about that. Do you have the teacher's version or something?

Why are you putting up strawmen?

 

[seycyrus]

Why are you putting up strawmen?

It is not a strawmen. It is exposing a strawman!

Because the bible does NOT claim to record every moment of time. Since it does not record all moments, the claim that bible can be used to accurately date the universe is incorrect.

This viewpoint has been accepted by christians for some time, and is a coherent.

To claim that judeo-christian-islamic belief is flawed due to an argument that they do not support is creating a strawman.

Actually, I don't know what the majority of muslims believe, so I'll back out of that part.

 

[Cyrus]

How could you consider it falsified- because you don't believe it? The Big Bang is falsifiable you obviously haven't looked very deeply into it. If the Big Bang DID happen how do you get from there to life. If the humanity is so smart then why can we not figure out cancer? Why have we not found cure for illness. Why can't we live forever?

Obviously, YOU don't know what the hell you're talking about.

 

[Cyrus]

Wow this is ridiculous. I am clearly just getting shot down on what I know is right so I am done here.

You're clearly wrong and instead of admitting it, you deem yourself right. Thats the definition of a fool.

In all honestly, don't bother coming to this form and asking people for help if you don't have the integrity to learn and understand science and what it means to be a scientist.

Im not saying anthing about being religious. But do NOT waltz in here and think you can say, 'no its not a true', 'no, its not a valid theory', only because you hear what you want to hear, and not what is true.

 

[seycyrus]

Obviously, YOU don't know what the hell you're talking about.

How are you guys usig the term "falsifiable"?

A scientific theory HAS to be falsifiable to be scientific. Einstein's theory is falsifiable, doesn't make it wrong.

 

[NeoDevin]

Because the bible does NOT claim to record every moment of time. Since it does not record all moments, the claim that bible can be used to accurately date the universe is incorrect.

You are correct that the bible does not claim to record every moment of time. But we don't need to know every moment in time to calculate the age. If the ~6000 yr date is innacurate, then one of the ages listed in the geneologies in the bible must be innaccurate.

To illustrate, I could give you a list of major events which happened in my lifetime, and the amount of time which passed between each. Using this information, without having a second by second recording of my life, you can make a reasonable approximation to my age. A similar thing can be done with the geneologies in the bible.

That is why your claim that the bible does not record all moments is a strawman.

 

[Vid]

Exactly, one does not need to know how long it took Moses to part the red sea if the bible say Moses was 120. The whole is the sum of its parts.

 

[Moridin]

*SIGH*

The bible does not ever claim to be a second by second, minute by minute relation of events that have happened.

It is easy to bypass whis by simply stating that not all "facts" are meant to be taken literally, but are meant to convey a different message. Such as, in this case, a lineage.

How do you know what to take literally and what to interpret as mere symbolism? Is Christ dying on the cross only symbolic? If the genealogies are not literal, but symbolic, then the notion that Christ is from the house of David is not true. That pretty much screws up much of new testament doctrine.

 

[seycyrus]

You are correct that the bible does not claim to record every moment of time. But we don't need to know every moment in time to calculate the age. If the ~6000 yr date is innacurate, then one of the ages listed in the geneologies in the bible must be innaccurate.

The data set is incomplete, as you have admitted. There is nothing to suggest tha tthe event depicted are nothing, but snapshots in time, with perhaps a given exposure, but not a known interval. Perhaps T0 is defined, but there is no criteria given as to the time interval between frames.

Btw, some of the ages listed in the genaologies are undoubtedly incorrect.

To illustrate, I could give you a list of major events which happened in my lifetime, and the amount of time which passed between each. Using this information, without having a second by second recording of my life, you can make a reasonable approximation to my age. A similar thing can be done with the geneologies in the bible.

You are positing a complete data set. You know the time "between".

That is why your claim that the bible does not record all moments is a strawman.

This all boils down to the fact that not everyone who is religous believes those "facts" are literal.

The bible is not meant to be a chronological record. You can claim that the part about the age is incorrect, but you cannot claim that the whole thing is necessarily incorrect due to that one fact.

It is much more logical to just say that you don't believe in Kermit, than to say you don't believe in Kermit because Kermit's book has some incorrect items.

My Nuclear physics book had some of it's historical details wrong. At least according to my Nuclear physics proffessor. Does this mean that one of them is not a reputable source of information about nuclear physics? Surely not.

 

[seycyrus]

How do you know what to take literally and what to interpret as mere symbolism? Is Christ dying on the cross only symbolic? If the genealogies are not literal, but symbolic, then the notion that Christ is from the house of David is not true. That pretty much screws up much of new testament doctrine.

Oh, just the time could be screwed up. The parental relationships could be correct.

If your argument is "I don't believe in the bible because it requires an inconsistant degree of faith.", then I find that argument much more acceptable than the "The bible is wrong because the ages don't add up".

If you wonder how people have resolved these inconsistencies, then I would point out that that is a matter requiring much more deliberate and careful thought. I certainly don't have it all wrapped up in my head at all times.

Again, I would recommend C.S. lewis. His nonfiction stuff. I know I've harped on a lot today, but i just recently read his "A grief observed" which he wrote after his wife died. It was very touching.

By the way, you should also read "Why I am not a christian" by Bertrand Russel.

 

[seycyrus]

Exactly, one does not need to know how long it took Moses to part the red sea if the bible say Moses was 120. The whole is the sum of its parts.

Oh yes. I see what you you mean. You are certainly correct on that point.

 

[Moridin]

You still have not answered my question. How do you know what to take literally and what is merely symbolical?

 

[NeoDevin]

If your argument is "I don't believe in the bible because it requires an inconsistant degree of faith.", then I find that argument much more acceptable than the "The bible is wrong because the ages don't add up".

The bible is wrong because it is inconsistant, both with itself and with scientific observations (age of universe, origin of life, etc.). That it contains even one inaccuracies would suggest that everything it says should be carefully considered and weighed against any other evidence. I'm not trying to suggest that everything in the bible is false, only that some things are, and some work (other than simply personal intuition) is required to separate fact from fable.

My own particular atheism is due to my own reasoning, separate from the bible or any other holy book. My (or anyone else in particular's) religious beliefs are not the topic of conversation (and I do believe such a conversation would violate guidelines). I think we can get away with discussing the accuracy and consistancy of the bible, as long as we stick to facts.

 

[vanesch]

I think that a soon as science starts to solve problems that it can't then a debate arises. I pose this question to everyone: What happens with the CERN program if NO new information is found after full operation of the LHC? Is it a dead end? Or, is there a cover made up for why nothing was found?

You seem to have a very erroneous idea of science. Science is not saying "what is" or "what isn't", science is not about "truth" of "falsehood" ; science is about models which can make predictions, which can be confronted with observations. These models can handle all kinds of concepts and ideas, and in fact, it doesn't matter whether you consider these concepts "true" or not: what counts is the coherence of the model and the predictability of observable facts.

So the LHC is going to make observations, unless the machine is broken in some obvious kind of way. There are going to be Petabytes of data taken, again, unless the machine is broken. That's not "nothing". It is observation. And that will be compared to different models people have set up. Maybe all of them will fail to agree with the data. But for sure, it is not possible that there are no data. In fact, it is not possible that the LHC "doesn't find anything" - I guess, doesn't find new particles, such as the Higgs, because that would be the most astounding discovery in 40 years of particle physics. It would falsify about all models that have been set up.

But in wondering what should be taught in science class, one should wonder what predictability the item has. One should wonder whether, with the taught model, one can predict anything or not, and whether that prediction is going to be observable in some or other way. If the answer is yes, then it is science, if the answer is no, it isn't. This is why creationism isn't science, and why evolution is. With evolution, you can make predictions. With creationism, you can't. With evolution, you can make predictions of observations that ought to be in the fossil record, and you can make predictions about what will happen to certain populations under certain environmental pressures. That doesn't mean at all that evolution is "true", it only means that it is a good model, and a good summary of a lot of data. Creationism can't do such a thing, because whatever happens, it can be the will of the gods. So creationism has no predictability. In its naive versions, it makes wrong predictions, but in its more sophisticated versions, it can adapt to any observation and its converse. Such flexibility is what makes a set of statements unscientific.

For instance, if we have a population of bacteria, and we expose them to a certain poison, let the survivors colonize again, expose them again to a certain poison and repeat this over and over, then evolution makes a clear prediction: the mortality under the poison should decrease, or at best, remain stable. It cannot increase. Creationism can't say anything, one way or another: it could be that it is the gods' will to make the bacteria stronger, or it can be that it is the gods will to do the opposite.

In the same way, the biblical story of creation in 6 "days", but which leaves of course no observable record anywhere, has no predictive value. However, as others pointed out, the big bang model does. That doesn't mean that the universe is "truly" 15 billion years old - this is only within that model that such concept has a meaning. What I'm concerned, the universe is just a few seconds old, for that matter. However, even if the universe is only a few seconds old, and it was the divine desire to have it the way we see it now, still then the big bang model is a good model of it, in the sense that it summarizes a lot of data, and can make a lot of observable predictions of it.

So science is about model building that summarizes observational data, and that allows to make observable predictions. All the rest is not science, and doesn't belong in a science class. Science is also about ways to make observations, ways to build models, ways to test models against observations and everything that turns around that. Science is not about "truth". (Absolute) Truth is in fact a pretty meaningless concept, but those who want to play with it, are not doing science.

 

[Vid]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel...make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

Article I read a few days ago about watching E. Coli evolve in a non-trivial way that can be replayed from frozen specimens from different generations.

 

[seycyrus]

You still have not answered my question. How do you know what to take literally and what is merely symbolical?

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious that I was conceding that, when I said that I found that argument much more logical and acceptable.

I try to rationalize what I think as the intent of the bible.

Those points which are not necessary to the intent are, well to put it bluntly, not neccessary.

 

[seycyrus]

The bible is wrong because it is inconsistant, both with itself and with scientific observations (age of universe, origin of life, etc.). That it contains even one inaccuracies would suggest that everything it says should be carefully considered and weighed against any other evidence.

That's true in your Nuclear physics book too. And I'm not referring to typos. You don't weigh *everything* extra carefully because it got the names wrong on who was present when the first reactor went online. That's not relevant to the intent of the book.

I think we can get away with discussing the accuracy and consistancy of the bible, as long as we stick to facts.

Was this discussion simply about whether everything in the bible is 100% accurate and consistent?

It's not.

Nor is that a requirement for a christian.

 

[Hurkyl]

May I remind everyone that this is not a religious discussion forum.

 

[Moridin]

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious that I was conceding that, when I said that I found that argument much more logical and acceptable.

I try to rationalize what I think as the intent of the bible.

Those points which are not necessary to the intent are, well to put it bluntly, not neccessary.

So what is taken literally and what is taken symbolically it is basically subjective, varying from person to person and from time period to time period?

This is in stark contrast to predictions made by scientific disciplines. Evolution, for instance, predicts that it must necessarily be the case that humans have a fused chromosome and that you will never ever find a half-mammal, half-bird transitional form. It further predicts nested hierarchies, a fundamental unity of life, shared endogenous retroviruses, atavisms and so on. These are not incidental statements, but necessary predictions. If even one of them turn out to be refuted by experiments, the current scientific theory [scientific theory: a well-supported explanation to any part of the natural world that can incorporate laws, facts, inferences and tested hypotheses] evolution would stand falsified. A similar line of reasoning applies to other scientific theories, such as universal gravitation, quantum mechanics, general relativity, the big bang theory and so on and so forth.

An analogy might help illustrate the difference between science and untestable claims. This is adapted from Sagan (1995). If I claim that I have a dragon in my garage, you might want to see it. After all, dragons occur frequently in mythology. Perhaps you can finally confirm it to the world. We go into my garage and I point vaguely at the corner. You say that you do not see it. Naturally, I forgot to tell you it was an invisible dragon. You suggest that we cover the floor in flour to see the footprints, or through paint around that can stick to it, or test its fire with a heat scanner. What if I then claim that the dragon is actually a flying one? And that it is incorporeal? And that it's fire is heat less? If I counter every suggestion you have to test the dragon hypothesis with some obscure reason why the test will not work, then there is no conceptual or practical difference between the dragon existing and not existing at all. If there is no conceivable experiment that can prove me wrong, then the empirical claim is pretty much useless.

Now, this is not at all subjective in the sense as textual interpretations of old religious scripture, and does not vary from time to time. The Earth is not flat just because you are from a different culture or time period.

The strength of a scientific theory is proportional to its explanatory power, practical application and the amount of bold empirical predictions that have been confirmed. Some empirical claim that purports to explain everything but is in no way testable in fact explains nothing at all, especially if it must assume a great number of things, such as gods or magical spirits that cannot be tested. If I claim that F = 3ma, but that every time we try and test that claim and come up with F = ma, it is actually due to the actions of an invisible and incorporeal dragon, then clearly the empirical basis of science just vanished. Technically F = ma is a definition, but set that aside. Allowing supernatural explanations into science is just as unreasonable as allowing contradictions in logical statements. If you allow logical contradictions, you can prove whatever you want, and logic becomes pretty much useless. The same applies to science and the supernatural. Now this is not a philosophical assumption, but a methodological assumption, that has been justified by centuries worth of experiments and theorizing.

Can you see the dragon? :)

AAAS on evolution -