Dinosaurs

[Jemand]

To use a favorite phrase as of late, let's all be "intellectually honest".

You have on the "Christian side" people who work for organizations such as Creation Research Institute and Answers in Genesis who are known to have been dishonest in their work. You also have such people on the "evolutionary side" who created evidence or jumped the gun (Piltdown and Nebraska man being everyone's pet example) to support a certain theory. On both sides you also have people who are honest and have a desire to find out the truth, even if that means they will need to alter their beliefs, however drastically.

We can all sit atop our ivory towers and threaten ultimate prices for "slander" but lets get real for a minute. You're all painting Christians and evolutionists with an extremely broad brush - generalizations are destructive, you people don't need to be told this.



Bill attacks whoever supported Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man. You attack AiG and CRI. I hope you both understand you're doing the same thing from opposite sides of the street.

Let us set the record straight. I am posting from an informed perspective, having been an evolutionary biologist who has read claims by the Institute for Creation Research (not the Creation Research Institute—let us at least be accurate in our wording) that were deliberately, willfully, and knowingly false. They believe and practice the philosophy that it is all right for Christians to sin if they do so for the ultimate good—a very false belief. The folks at Answers in Genesis habitually talk from both sides of their mouth; on the one side assailing the theory of evolution as though it is a doctrine of the devil himself, and on the other side strenuously arguing for the theory of evolution (not just microevolution—but macroevolution on a grand scale) in order to account for the hundreds of thousands of genetically discreet populations of animals now on the earth, and the tens of thousands of genetically discreet populations of animals on the earth after the flood but now extinct. I am not slandering anyone; I am posting objectively true information that I have documented in other posts.

During the past 20 months, I have lost approximately $350,000 of my personal wealth due to the deteriorating economy in the United States. I am not an economist and therefore I do not know whose fault it is that our economy has so very seriously deteriorated; and since do not know whose fault it is, I am not claiming that the Republicans, the Democrats, or any other group is at fault. Bill, on the other hand, is slandering evolutionary biologist and other scientists who believe and teach that the theory of evolution is supported by science, and he is calling the science that they practice “junk science.” There is a substantial difference between teaching, based upon an extensive and related education, that a cat is a cat, and off the cuff falsely accusing a cat of being a dog.

[Jemand]

Hi, everyone! I haven't had an opportunity to read this entire thread yet, so please forgive me if someone has already posted information about what I am sharing with you now. I thought you all might like to take a look at some evidence through history that mankind has lived with dinosaurs. There are so many depictions in artwork all around the world. I find it absolutely fascinating. Here's a link you might find of interest. My favorite is the Cambodian temple carving of a stegosaurus (I think that's what it's called).


http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm

These claims remind me of people who have looked at clouds in the sky and have photographed images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, or so they thought. These claims also remind me of a group of people viewing a painting in an art gallery—one person seeing one thing in the painting, and each of the others seeing something very different. Fascinating? No, but very imaginative!

[Philemon9]

It's discouraging to come this site and read the condemnation that some posters cast down on individuals who choose to take a scientific, common sense, or intellectual approach of the data we have been recording for centuries, and I pray these individuals steer far clear of a university setting when out "evangelizing" this stance.

Your fourth grade teacher was right: Dinosaurs were wiped out about 65,000,000 years ago. This is a scientific fact so universally collaborated that it's taught in fourth grade. There is no massive conspiracy that somehow simultaneously involves every credible scientist in the world.

I often wonder what the individuals who make the "Do you trust man or God" statements do in the event of a medical emergency. Surely they don't go to the hospital, a place that is a modern product of the scientific method - the same witchcrafty scientific method that suggests the dinosaurs lived millions of years before man.

[Athanasius]

Let us set the record straight. I am posting from an informed perspective, having been an evolutionary biologist who has read claims by the Institute for Creation Research (not the Creation Research Institute—let us at least be accurate in our wording) that were deliberately, willfully, and knowingly false. They believe and practice the philosophy that it is all right for Christians to sin if they do so for the ultimate good—a very false belief. The folks at Answers in Genesis habitually talk from both sides of their mouth; on the one side assailing the theory of evolution as though it is a doctrine of the devil himself, and on the other side strenuously arguing for the theory of evolution (not just microevolution—but macroevolution on a grand scale) in order to account for the hundreds of thousands of genetically discreet populations of animals now on the earth, and the tens of thousands of genetically discreet populations of animals on the earth after the flood but now extinct.

I did not deny you were posting from an "informed perspective," I am aware of your credentials. Also thank you for expanding on your position regarding AiG and ICR. However, as with the above I did not deny this either; I am aware of their double speak. In regards to the above I don't understand what it is you believe you need to set straight, I've not challenged these things.

I am not slandering anyone; I am posting objectively true information that I have documented in other posts.

Well here's the thing, I'm not accusing you of slander (or perhaps I have and don't recall, a lack of sleep is messing with my memory). What I am saying, however, is the following (repeat):

We can all sit atop our ivory towers and threaten ultimate prices for "slander" but lets get real for a minute. You're all painting Christians and evolutionists with an extremely broad brush - generalizations are destructive, you people don't need to be told this.

If you're going to equate this with my accusing you of slander then be my guest. However with that said, I'm not. I appreciate and understand your posting "objectively true information" in your posts, though here's the thing. From what I've read of your posts in this thread the most potent thing you've come up with is, "My friends are evolutionary scientists and they are sincere in their search for truth". Good for them, I know a few Scottsmen myself. What I'm saying is this: there are evolutionary scientists who are sincere and there are those who aren't. There are Christian scientists who are sincere and there are those who aren't. I'm sure I can find a Christian scientist with friends just as sincere as yours - it doesn't make a difference. Especially since all you or Bill are doing is posting documented and some what famous screw ups by either side.

Don't take it personally.

During the past 20 months, I have lost approximately $350,000 of my personal wealth due to the deteriorating economy in the United States. I am not an economist and therefore I do not know whose fault it is that our economy has so very seriously deteriorated; and since do not know whose fault it is, I am not claiming that the Republicans, the Democrats, or any other group is at fault. Bill, on the other hand, is slandering evolutionary biologist and other scientists who believe and teach that the theory of evolution is supported by science, and he is calling the science that they practice “junk science.” There is a substantial difference between teaching, based upon an extensive and related education, that a cat is a cat, and off the cuff falsely accusing a cat of being a dog.

I don't understand how this at all relates to what I said. I am sorry to hear about your personal loss.

Why do you think the Big Bang and macroevolution are philosophy? Do you think that because they conflict with your interepretation of the Bible or because of something in the science you have discovered?

Science is the study of nature/the universe. Philosophy is the study of the abstract like the meaning of existence, knowledge, beauty, justice, validity, etc. How does the Big Bang and macroevolution fit into that definition?

I've said absolutely nothing about my interpretation of the bible

The Big Bang and Macroevolution are still restricted to philosophy because according to the almighty scientific method you can't - as of March 9th 2009 - 1) observe it, 2) test it or 3) repeat it. So until you can do those three things it's not science, it's philosophy. That's not a bad thing, it's just not science. Science can say, "we think this is what happened" and then it's the job of philosophers (and apparently there aren't many too well versed in science anymore) to figure out that course of events until science gives conclusive evidence of those facts (which as of yet it hasn't).

Did you just honestly attempt to define philosophy?

[Philemon9]

The Big Bang and Macroevolution are still restricted to philosophy because according to the almighty scientific method you can't - as of March 9th 2009 - 1) observe it, 2) test it or 3) repeat it.

Hmm by your definition of science does the earth revolving around the sun fall into the philosophy or science category? Just curious.

[Athanasius]

Hmm by your definition of science does the earth revolving around the sun fall into the philosophy or science category? Just curious.

You're going to have to expand on this.

[Jemand]

a lack of sleep is messing with my memory....

Okay; read my posts again after you have gotten some sleep.

[Athanasius]

Okay; read my posts again after you have gotten some sleep.

My remembering things shouldn't have an affect on my comprehension skills. Sorry to say.

[Itinerant Lurker]

You're going to have to expand on this.

I think what he's getting at is that we can't recreate a solar system in order to test a scale model of the earth going around the sun. We can't go outside the solar system, turn around, and observe the planets orbit. . .at least not yet. So if your definition of science is that you have to be able to repeat an entire process, test it, and repeat it then just about all fields of science are, according to such definitions, philosophical. Fortunately this is not the actual definition of science. With heliocentrism as with big bang cosmology we look at the predictions each theory postulates and observe to see how many of those predictions are true. Additionally, we look at how well a theory explains observable phenomena - the stronger it's explanatory power, the stronger the theory.

[Athanasius]

I think what he's getting at is that we can't recreate a solar system in order to test a scale model of the earth going around the sun. We can't go outside the solar system, turn around, and observe the planets orbit. . .at least not yet. So if your definition of science is that you have to be able to repeat an entire process, test it, and repeat it then just about all fields of science are, according to such definitions, philosophical. Fortunately this is not the actual definition of science. With heliocentrism as with big bang cosmology we look at the predictions each theory postulates and observe to see how many of those predictions are true. Additionally, we look at how well a theory explains observable phenomena - the stronger it's explanatory power, the stronger the theory.

I have an issue if this is the sort of equivocation intended, but I'm awfully tired and will post on it tomorrow or the day after.

[th1bill]

Quote:I know for a fact that it is not true, and I know that as a man educated and trained in the biological sciences with an emphasis in evolutionary biology, and as a man who worked side-by-side with evolutionary biologists—men and women of outstanding honesty, integrity, and a life-long commitment to learning the evolutionary relationship between organisms, and using that knowledge for the good of all of us regardless of ethnicity, race, color, and religion. Personally, I was not able to accept some of their conclusions, especially their conclusions regarding the evolution of the vascular plants and the evolution of man, but the devotion of these scientists to learning the truth is beyond question.

... You have said this in spite of NebraskaMan, Peking Man and of course others. I'm soory for you, you might, very well, be just as honest as you propose to be and I cannot say one way or the other. However, you do stand in the light of your predecessors and that is not an attractive position to be found in.

I believe that the slandering of anyone is an extremely serious sin, and that those who participate in that sin will pay the ultimate price for it.

... And I have agreed and do agree with you on the matter of slander but I have not slandered you, nor shall I. In my statement I spoke to relevent proclamations of folks working in your field of endevor. I must assume that you are as honest as you proclaim but at the same time I'm left wondering about your relationship to forgiveness.
... I am guilty of being biased in the matter of intelligent design and the lack of fairness, in the classroom, because of the atheist's support for your chosen work only tends to increase my resistence to the theory of evolution. The very fact that there is, after better than one hundred and fifty years of research, such a lack of credible evidence does nothing to change the light that the people involved in evolution research are viewed in.
,,, You see, I did not attack you and I sincerely believe what I have stated here. The fact that you have moved this string from intelligent discussion to personal attack might very well be the end of it all. We must all of us be careful, not to attack one another.

[trance750]

What is the biblical evidence for dinosaurs? also maybe any extrabiblical early Jewish/ancient literature?

Did God create dinosaurs in the time of Adam and Eve? hard to imagine a t-rex eating grass lol

Here's a favorite theory of mine ( not saying it's the case, just more of a 'what if').... What if there were no dinosaurs at all, and God merely placed the fossils, trying to get us to come up with our own theories and conclusions about them?

[Itinerant Lurker]

... You have said this in spite of NebraskaMan, Peking Man and of course others. .

Can we apply this logic universally? Can I, by extension, label all creationist science as "junk science" and impune the motivation of all creationist scientists if I can find one or two instances in the last 80 years of fraud & error?

[Philemon9]

Here's a favorite theory of mine ( not saying it's the case, just more of a 'what if').... What if there were no dinosaurs at all, and God merely placed the fossils, trying to get us to come up with our own theories and conclusions about them?

I don't believe God would intentionally deceive. What would He be trying to prove? Is anybody's salvation based on when dinosaurs walked the earth?

[Philemon9]

[/color][/b]
... The very fact that there is, after better than one hundred and fifty years of research, such a lack of credible evidence does nothing to change the light that the people involved in evolution research are viewed in.

There is not a single credible biologist who would agree with this statement. In reality it is completely the opposite. I'm not sure if you think making statements like this out of thin air somehow substantiates them?