Phil Doubts it!

"Michael Walsh" wrote in message ...

Paul Blay wrote:

Maybe someone who's got better access to the material actually used
can provide an idea of how common this sort of 'evidence based
creationism' is.

I never suggested and certainly would not approve of "Creationism"
being taught as a science.

I restricted myself to claiming that "Creationism" is internally consistent
and cannot be disproved.

That is only true for certain values of 'Creationism' - and you have put
forward nothing to indicate how common those values are.

Paul Blay wrote:

"Michael Walsh" wrote in message ...

Paul Blay wrote:

Maybe someone who's got better access to the material actually used
can provide an idea of how common this sort of 'evidence based
creationism' is.

I never suggested and certainly would not approve of "Creationism"
being taught as a science.

I restricted myself to claiming that "Creationism" is internally consistent
and cannot be disproved.

That is only true for certain values of 'Creationism' - and you have put
forward nothing to indicate how common those values are.

I have no idea and little interest about researching how many believers
in "Creationism" go to the trouble of building up a logical basis for
matching what is observed by scientific investigators so that it conforms
to their own beliefs. The common factor in the belief of "Creationism" is
a literal interpretation of the Bible and usually the King James version.

Many of the believers in "Creationism" don't worry about this and just
accept what is written in the Bible. This means that many of them don't
except scientific dating concepts. Some of them do wonder what the
length of a "day" would be in a 7 day creation before the earth was formed.
True literalists cover it by the presumption that since God knows everything
he certainly can figure out a 24 hour day in advance.

What is it that you believe we are arguing about?

Mike Walsh

"Michael Walsh" wrote ...

Paul Blay wrote:

That is only true for certain values of 'Creationism' - and you have put
forward nothing to indicate how common those values are.

Many of the believers in "Creationism" don't worry about this and just
accept what is written in the Bible.

It which case their "Creationism" is only as internally consistant as the Bible
they are using.

What is it that you believe we are arguing about?

Your statement

""Creationism" is internally consistent and cannot be disproved."

is provably incorrect for the first half for a significant (and in my opinion
probably majority) of values of "creationism".

The second half of the statement is misleading in that while certain
types and claims of "Creationism" can not be disproved they often
put forward 'proof' and 'logic' to support their beliefs and _those_
supporting arugments can often be disproved.

Paul Blay wrote:

"Michael Walsh" wrote ...

Paul Blay wrote:



What is it that you believe we are arguing about?

Your statement

""Creationism" is internally consistent and cannot be disproved."

is provably incorrect for the first half for a significant (and in my opinion
probably majority) of values of "creationism".

The second half of the statement is misleading in that while certain
types and claims of "Creationism" can not be disproved they often
put forward 'proof' and 'logic' to support their beliefs and _those_
supporting arugments can often be disproved.

What I was pointing out was that any set of beliefs can be made
internally consistent by couching observation in terms of the
belief system.

For instance there is a "Flat Earth" society that provides counters
to the obviously overwhelming evidence against them. The
"flat earthers" have the advantage that they don't seem to really
believe in their concept.

Also, try to disprove any conspiracy story. All of the evidence
against it is regarded as another conspiracy.

Mike Walsh

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 19:25:22 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Chosp"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as
to indicate that:

Creationism is a disproved theory.

No, Creationism is a non-disprovable theory, which is why it doesn't
belong in science classes (which is not to say that it doesn't
necessarily belong in schools).

Creationism has both empirical aspects and non-empirical aspects.
The empirical aspects are disprovable

They are not.

I have a theory that the entire universe was created ten minutes ago,
complete with memories. Disprove it.

It is not a statement relating to anything empirical. There is
nothing to test. There are no empirical aspects to disprove.

Michael Walsh wrote in message ...
What I was pointing out was that any set of beliefs can be made
internally consistent by couching observation in terms of the
belief system.

Yes, it can. Nevertheless, a set of beliefs that adjusts to
data in such a way *can* be disproved - and often is.

It cannot be disproved in *one way* - by pointing out a
logical inconsistency in its single, latest interpretation.

But it can be disproved in *other* ways - in particular,
by the accumulated weight of evidence to which the set
of beliefs has to adjust in increasingly forced and
fanciful ways. More and more far-fetched assumptions have to be made
to save the belief.

Successive versions of the belief set, adjusting to added data, may
*each* of them be consistent - but they are inconsistent
with each other. The new overbold assumptions invoked to save the
belief consistency suffer violate consistency in another way,
because nobody is ready to accept similar assumptions
in *other* cases.

The accumulating cost of new assumptions eventually becomes
an unacceptable price to pay for saving the old theory. An
untolerable strain develops on the credulity of the "jury" -
usually, the expert community.

And *then* it only requires the appearance of a plausible
alternative explanation for the old belief set to crash irretrievably,
like Humpty-Dumpty. It is then *disproved beyond reasonable doubt*
and rejected by all rational people acquainted with the facts.

And no proof, of *any* kind, in *any* field, can do more.

Even a purely logical or mathematical proof cannot do more - because
there always remains a logical possibility of a logical or
mathematical
error; and also a possibility of an inconsistency in basic axioms.

For instance there is a "Flat Earth" society that provides counters
to the obviously overwhelming evidence against them. The
"flat earthers" have the advantage that they don't seem to really
believe in their concept.

Case in point: see above.

Also, try to disprove any conspiracy story. All of the evidence
against it is regarded as another conspiracy.

Many such theories *have* been disproved in court beyond
reasonable doubt.

It is not a valid test of a valid proof that it be able to convince a
lunatic,
or convince somebody who does not know the proof or is unable or
unwilling to understand it.

Returning to creationism and evolution...

It is a *proven fact* that life forms did not appear
all at once as they are now, that they have evolved;
further, that the family resemblance of man and ape, or of
cat and tiger, is not misleading: they do have common ancestors;
and much further back in time, so have all known organisms.

Any form of creationism so extreme as to deny this basic fact
is simply false, and disproved.

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 03:40:25 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Chosp"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as
to indicate that:

Creationism is a disproved theory.

No, Creationism is a non-disprovable theory, which is why it doesn't
belong in science classes (which is not to say that it doesn't
necessarily belong in schools).

Creationism has both empirical aspects and non-empirical aspects.
The empirical aspects are disprovable

They are not.

I have a theory that the entire universe was created ten minutes ago,
complete with memories. Disprove it.

It is not a statement relating to anything empirical. There is
nothing to test. There are no empirical aspects to disprove.

Just as is creationism.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 03:40:25 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Chosp"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as
to indicate that:

Creationism is a disproved theory.

No, Creationism is a non-disprovable theory, which is why it doesn't
belong in science classes (which is not to say that it doesn't
necessarily belong in schools).

Creationism has both empirical aspects and non-empirical aspects.
The empirical aspects are disprovable

They are not.

I have a theory that the entire universe was created ten minutes ago,
complete with memories. Disprove it.

It is not a statement relating to anything empirical. There is
nothing to test. There are no empirical aspects to disprove.

Just as is creationism.

Creationists have made descriptions of the so-called flood
(and the so-called "canopy" which preceded it) which have
testable consequences. They've made predictions about the
rate of decay of the earth's magnetic fields, changes in
gravity, variations in the speed of light, the second law of
thermodynamics, any number of areas which have testable
consequences. The predictions have uniformly failed to
correspond to reality, however.
These are what I was referring to as empirical aspects and
they can and have been disproven beyond a reasonable
doubt. Not, of course, to True Believers, however.

(jjustwwondering) wrote in message om...
An editing error correction: the word "suffer" should be deleted in
the following sentence I wrote:
"The new overbold assumptions invoked to save the
belief consistency [suffer] violate consistency in another way,
because nobody is ready to accept similar assumptions
in *other* cases."

Or, this could be rephrased as follows:

*Ad hoc* assumptions, repeatedly invoked only to save a
belief set against new data, but not in other cases,
represent special pleading.
They may not violate logical consistency,
but they err against methodological consistency.