View Single Post
  #281 (permalink)  
Old 06-06-2008, 08:37 AM
a mere housewife a mere housewife is offline.
Puritanboard Senior
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Posts: 2,043
Thanks: 538
Thanked 512 Times in 300 Posts
Ben, Congratulations on having read all the way through the thread. :-) Since PuritanSailor dealt with first part of your reply about science and miracles (and I also disagree that natural explanations should automatically be preferred to supernatural: there are no doubt 'natural' explanations for why a bunch of people would claim that Jesus rose from the dead, for instance), I'll just respond to this:

Quote:
I would like to point out that "theory" in the vernacular is not equivalent to "theory" in scientific terminology. Actually, the objection that "evolution is only a theory" is actually quite laughable, in that scientific theories are more prestigious than facts; the former are organizations of facts (of which no evidence contradicts) that has an explanatory scope and can be confirmed by future evidence. Evolutionary theory has met each of these criteria: evidence exists for it (such as the observance of macroevolution in the laboratory and millions of peer-edited papers), no evidence exists against it (for all alleged "irreducibly complex" systems, natural evolutionary pathways have been found), and it has explanatory scope for future evidence (the fact that humans had one less pair of chromosomes than apes was predictably explained by a fused chromosome in humans). Besides its being a juggernaut in so many fields of sciences, the objection that "it is just a theory" denies so many other branches of God-given science -- to deny evolutionary theory and remain intellectually consistent, one must also deny the germ theory of disease, atomic theory, the theory of gravity, etc. The only reason that people may deny evolution is because it doesn't obviously fit in with divine revelation. But that does not change the fact that evolution is an explicit statement of God's natural revelation.
This seems to demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of the nature of mathematical proof, which GreenBaggins referenced. Actually all the theories you cited are only theories -- none of them have been 'proven'. We may suddenly find new data tomorrow to upset our most basic understanding of many of these things. Science cannot speak authoritatively as regards absolute proof, and it's authority about things not immediately observable -- because there is so much data that it cannot take into account -- is simply non-existent. Some of the most sophisticated atheistic philosophers -- like Bertrand Russell, who was also a mathematician -- speak with far less certainty about these things than you do, because they understood the philosophical limitations and the nature of scientific knowledge. In fact, you are finding Russell, Owen Barfield and such minds laughable in finding the theoretic nature of evolution something of a joke.

As regards the 'evidence' that exists for evolution, and the idea that theories in the scientific world are somehow 'more prestigious' (by which you seem to mean even better established? or are they merely more respected-- because those are two different things) than facts, I am not sure how one could think this. A model is a theoretical construct human minds have come up with to account for data, and other theories. This doesn't mean there is 'evidence' for the construct. It means the construct has been created to fit theories and data (& the 'evidence' of being able to use a theory predictively is something that may change with further data or that other theories could account for). The same data that exists is used in creation science constructs as well -- so I might just as easily say that the evidence supports creation science (indeed I believe it does, but this is not on the authority of science. It is on the authority of God's word).

Many of the opinions expressed on this thread in favor of six day creation represent a more considered, more widely and well read position of more immediate inquiry in scientific and philosophical fields than what you seem to demonstrate so far in your answering statements; and you have admitted that you aren't much acquainted with the grammatical, textual issues. If you disregard the text in a rush to argue the authority of 'respectable' scientific theories then you are indeed subordinating the infallible, divine, absolute nature of Scripture to a fallible human tool. This is what Poimen didn't want propogated on the board, not because we are afraid of facts or of science, but because we are afraid of the consequences to us and to others of undermining the authority of the text -- against what we confess about Scripture. All the best, Ben.
__________________
Heidi
Indianapolis, Indiana

After two days, he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

Last edited by a mere housewife; 06-06-2008 at 09:32 AM..