Redeeming science-2

ANONYMOUS SAID:
“Claiming that the myriad tools that science uses to estimate the earth's age might actually be misleading w/o some serious science to back it up is as frivolous as the claims of those you take to task for positing outlandish hypotheticals (evil demons, parallel universes, brains in vats etc.).”

You need to pay more attention to what was actually said. I never said such methods were “misleading.”

1.Indeed, my contention is that periodic processes were never intended to lead one way or another as far as chronological inferences are concerned.

2.You also miss the point that it’s not a question of having some “serious science” to back it up. For we’re dealing with metascientific assumptions regarding the initial conditions and uniformity of nature.

This is not subject to scientific confirmation or disconfirmation, but is, rather, an axiomatic assumption.

“If you have good reasons to question the methods science uses to estimate the age of the earth, let's hear them, but appealing to a completely unsupported hypothetical does nothing to advance your argument.”

Actually, I gave some reasons which you choose to deny rather than disprove.

1.I have given additional reasons elsewhere, but as long as you fail to engage the reasons I already gave in this post, there’s no point in my giving any additional reasons.

2.Care to identify the “unsupported hypothetical”?

“If the scientific evidence for an old earth is solid, but the bible leaves little room for such a hypothesis, then the charge of deception is not unreasonable.”

It’s unreasonable for the reasons I gave in this very post, which you make no effort to argue down, but merely deny.

“Besides, Calvinist's don't rule out the possibility of deception when it is directed at retrobates, right?”

Which isn’t relevant to this particular debate.

Moving along:

DANIEL MORGAN SAID:

“I would love to hear how we could scientifically differentiate between a "mature appearing" universe/earth and one that really is that old.”

That’s an arbitrary restriction on our sources of knowledge. If, for example, the Creator of the world has told us how old the world is, then that’s the best evidence you could have.

“I think you're equivocating. Did God make trees that bore rings to show seasonal aging? Did God make stars in all different stages of stellar evolution? Did God make the earth with telltale statigraphic formations bearing hallmarks of erosion that requires long periods of time? Did God make every isochron pair of radiometric isotopes "pre-decayed"? Did God make it such that the lowest strata always bear the most primitive fossils, and the progression of complex forms matches the prediction of evolutionary theory? etc., etc., etc...”

1.Am I equivocating? No. You simply suffer from a ADS.

In my review of Poythress’ book I already distinguished between functional traces of mature creation, and secondary features which would overextend the logic of mature creation.

2.I do not attribute all geological strata to the creation week.

3.According to Ernst Mayr, who knows a lot more about it than you do, there’s a mismatch between the natural record and the prediction of evolutionary theory.

4.As an antirealist, I don’t believe it’s possible to offer a detailed reconstruction of the distant past. So I regard many questions like these as simply unanswerable one way or the other.

“A judgment based on the perfect convergence of all those lines of evidence I outlined above, along with more I didn't mention.”

Scientists like Kurt Wise and John Byl would deny your sweeping assertions. Take it up with them.

“As I pointed out above, there is more than just the distant starlight problem for YEC.”

Even if that were true, you are ducking the issue of why it’s “deceptive” for stars to look older than they really are, but not deceptive for stars to look younger than they really are.

“AnswersinGenesis offers an insight into arguments about ‘appearance of age’ with respect to astronomy.”

Now he’s substituting AiG’s contention for mine. Another bullet-dodging device.

All we get from the first article is an assertion, not an argument.

The second article is both fallacious and a straw man argument. YEC doesn’t claim that God “arbitrarily” changes the laws of nature.

Moreover, immutability is an incommunicable attribute. The fact that God is unchanging does not imply the same for the universe.

Indeed, there’s an obvious equivocation here, for even AiG would deny that the universe is immutable.

“I suggest you clarify what you mean here. Are you referring to verifiability? You understand that physicists can model what they observe, such that verification comes from the basic laws of physics, right?…So are you saying that the observations don't verify the physics? The models don't fit all the data? What?”

The problem is that you’re taking the actual existence of the universe as your point of reference. But that begs the question of how the status quo quem was instantiated in the first place.

“If the speed of light is constant, then it doesn't matter what its ‘function’ is.”

It matters what it’s function is if you’re going to level a charge of “deception.”

If I use a metric tape measure to measure distance in inches, feet, and yards, then I’ll mismeasure the distance since a metric tape measure uses the metric system.

But since its purpose was never to measure the distance in inches, feet, and yards, rather than meters, centimeters, &c., there’s nothing deceptive about the tape measure.

“The purpose of natural processes has no bearing on whether or not they are uniform and may be extrapolated based on induction. Their purposes have nothing to do with whether or not the span between events correlates accurately to the ‘clock’.”

Once again, their purposes are directly germane to the charge of deception.

And the assumption of uniformity is just that—an assumption.

“Why do all the "clocks" seem to point to the same origin?”

Try creation ex nihilo.

You’re someone who thinks you can just skip over earlier discussions and press ahead with your conclusions even though your conclusions are predicated on crucial assumptions you have left unproven in earlier discussions.

“I will take this famous ‘29 evidences for common descent’"

Yes, I’m sure you will. Notice how he swamps out Mayr’s argument, and swaps in a different argument.

Even though Mayr was “the world’s greatest evolutionary biologist” (Gould), the way he prioritizes the evidence isn’t good enough for Morgan.

“So 2 / 29 are ‘discounted’ by your accusation of circularity based on the aspect of observation of the fossil record.”

Not just any 2 out of 29, but the most convincing 2 out of 29.

Moreover, we’re not actually shown 29 lines of evidence. We’re merely told about 29 lines of evidence. A theory-laden summary of the evidence. No explanation of how fossils from one site are correlated with fossils from another side.

Furthermore, a creationist like Kurt Wise is able to present an alternative explanation for the same data.

“Talk about circularity. The question is, how does one justify uniformity or induction within a worldview in which God can/does whatever God feels like (that brings God glory, or whatever), which sometimes has included the suspension/breaking of natural law and promises remain for a future suspension/breaking of natural law (eg the prophets of the revelation).”

See anything amiss, here? Give us one example in which a divine miracle nullifies a divine promise?

In Scripture, miracles are sometimes instrumental in the fulfillment of a divine promise—never in its abrogation.

Can Danny cite an exception?

“My point is that you have no good reason to suppose that there is such a thing as natural law, aside from observation and induction, which are falsified by belief in the miraculous and definitions such as is offered here.”

Who is the “you”? Poythress or me?

I’ve always said that I don’t believe in natural law. Rather, I believe in providence—ordinary providence.

Observation is scarcely falsified by the occurrence of miraculous, for miracles are typically visible events with visible effects.

The plagues of Egypt (to take one example) were observable events.

Induction is reliable within the limits of induction.

We rely on our senses despite optical illusions and other suchlike. By Danny’s all-or-nothing argument, an optical illusion would falsify the possibility of sense knowledge.

“And so the question is, again, why do the existence of natural laws not evidence a natural universe, whereas in a supernatural universe, there is no reason to suppose them, need them, or invoke them?”

A false dilemma. The existence of providence is (0ne) evidence of a supernaturally designed universe.

“To refer back to another AiG article…This is ridiculous and fallacious.”

Once again, Danny tries to substitute an AiG argument for my own argument, then attacks the AiG formulation.

Clearly he’s not up to the task of disproving my own formulation.

I’m not bound by the AiG formulation. It isn’t my formulation. And I didn’t cite it in support of my position.

Danny’s problem is that my formulations are more sophisticated than the standard fare over at AiG. So he prefers to redirect his fire at an easy target.

AiG is only useful because it has a few articles by Kurt Wise (as I recall).

“In referring back to the earlier article by AiG on uniformity, this argument works both ways, doesn't it? You can argue on one hand that the universe's uniformity is ‘evidence of God's design’, and then deny uniformity when it suits you in order to maintain your beliefs about the method by which we should establish science.”

He continues with his decoy tactics.

I don’t believe in the uniformity of nature. I deny the uniformity of nature.

What I affirm is ordinary providence, which also allows for fiat creation and miraculous “intervention.”

I don’t appeal to “uniformity” as evidence of God’s existence. I wouldn’t deploy a teleological argument which was predicated on uniformity. And a teleological argument does not depend on uniformity.

“My point is that there is no other option than natural law in a natural universe.”

This is a rhetoric trick which simply applies the same adjective (“natural”) to “law” and “universe.” Hardly an argument.

“In employing Ockham's Razor, who gets cut the deepest?”

Once again, Danny is shadowboxing with invisible opponents rather than me.

I’ve criticized Occam’s razor a number of times in the past.

And I’ve also pointed out, which Danny is too indolent to address, that a basic distinction between ontological simplicity and syntactic simplicity.