Denialism

Helpful hints for Creationist Cults

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by

MarkH
in

Answers Research Journal, the teleologic, Apologetic, unscientific screed put out by Answers in Genesis has so far done nothing resembling science. But I now have an idea for them, although I’m not sure if it’s been proposed.

So far, their “research” has taken the form of trying to find “facts” to fit their conclusions that the Bible is an inerrant science and history text. Well, here’s an idea for them. Since I’m not a biologist, it will ned some cleaning up.

Hypothesis: The Biblical Deluge occured at a certain time which is knowable from scripture. The events surrounding it is known from scripture. Therefore, scientific facts should confirm these events.

What is one of the singular biological events of the Flood? Two. By. Two. A small founder population of each species to repopulate the globe. If this in fact happened, it should be possible to do genomic analysis to show a founder that dates back to the year of the flood.

This is actual science. Either genetic history of extant species bears out this few thousand year old founder hypothesis, or it doesn’t.

Onward Christian scientists! Show us what ya’ got!

Comments

  1. Chris

    As a geologist, there’s a nice little piece of evidence I’d like to see to convince me of a world-wide flood. A single, universal flood deposit across the entire earth at the exact same place in the geological record.

    I’m yet to hear of any such layer existing.

    Which is surprising considering there’s just such a layer that pinpoints the KT impact event. A world-wide flood would leave incredible geological evidence. Quaternary flood deposits in places you’d never expect them – like at the top of mountains.

    Reply
  2. SES

    Pal, you make the mistake of believing (OK, maybe not) that they are actually in search of objective facts.

    Reply
  3. Ramel

    Been a long time since I read the bible, but I seem to remember that the “clean” animals went into the ark by sevens, the unclean went by twos, and the dino’s forgot their tickets.

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  4. tresmal

    um…um…er that is…genetic entropy! Yeah! That’s it, genetic entropy! You see neutral mutation rates accelerated post flood, so it just looks like there has been no population bottleneck.
    And Chris? It turns out the Flood waters were unusually rich in Iridium and due to much faster rates of atomic decay in the olden days there has been a thousand fold error in the dating of the relevant rocks.
    Another bullet dodged.

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  5. Elf Eye

    Ramel, actually, the number of animals is given twice in Genesis. In one verse, it is two of each; in another, it is seven of each ‘clean’ animal but a pair of each ‘unclean’ one. There is no attempt to reconcile the numbers. They are simply given without comment. Presumably at least two variant accounts of the flood were in circulation, and both were swept up into book. A similar situation exists as to the account of creation. There are two versions in Genesis, both given without comment.

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  6. tresmal

    “there has been a thousand fold error in the dating of the relevant rocks.”
    Meant to say ten thousand

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  7. Brian Ogilvie

    Elf Eye: to see what a real scholar does with the doublets (variant versions of the same story) in the Bible, see Richard Elliott Friedman, Who wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit Books, 1987).

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  8. richCares

    1. around the time they say the flood occured, Egyptions were building clay tombs above ground.These were very magical as the flood did not wash them away

    2. jesus, the son of god (a god himself) died for the christians, imagine a god that can’t die, gave the life he didn’t lose for us and our sins, gave up a lot, wild huh!

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  9. Bing McGhandi

    If anyone is interested, I am still running my Answers in Genesis contest, where I will give a piping hot gift certificate to anyone who announces that the paper they had published in ARJ was a hoax. This is a chance at Sokalesque glory and also forces them to doubt every crummy paper that gets sent in! (Which they should do anyway, but go figure.) I wouldn’t mention it if it weren’t relevant. And if I really didn’t want to see that journal even more completely discredited very, very badly.

    HJ

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  10. wrpd

    The concept of clean and unclean animals wasn’t known until the days of Moses when god made him write down all of that silly stuff, like rabbits chewing their cud and bats are birds. God must have had to tell Noah whether an animal was clean or unclean one animal at a time. “Clean, clean, unclean, clean, clean, clean, unclean, unclean, I meant clean, It looks clean to Me and I should know. Clean, clean, ewwww, unclean as hell, clean…” It must have taken years just to divide the animals

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  11. Sigmund

    Thats far too complicated for them (they don’t know what genetics means). How about something easier like getting them to put a figure on the minimum number of separate ‘baramins’ that currently exist and providing some evidence why this is the correct figure.
    After that they can move onto the problem of how Noah and his bunch could survive the enormous air pressures and temperatures caused by the sudden appearance of enough water to cover every mountain on earth.

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  12. Anonymous

    and the dino’s forgot their tickets.

    If your Jack Chick, the dinos did get on the ark and get off it with all the other animals. But there were fewer trees on earth after the Flood, so the thinner air made dinosaurs slow and easy to catch and they were hunted to extinction. For serious, this is what he believes: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1038/1038_01.asp

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  13. STeve S.

    If there were a world wide flood, you would find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. That’s what you actually find. Keep exchanging the truth for a lie and you will become one with a foolish and darkened heart, boasting among ourselves for your own self justification. Eternal hell is the outcome.

    Reply
  14. Bing McGhandi

    @Steve
    Why don’t you pick up a geology textbook? It staggers me that someone would take their science instruction from a preacher. It seems to me as ill-advised as going to a piano tuner for a colonoscopy. Seriously, dude. If your faith depends on that peculiar interpretation of the bible, then it is no wonder that your defense must be a shrill appeal to force. (Threatening rock collectors to go to hell for understanding what they are collecting! Goofball!)

    @anonymous
    if you write that up for ARJ, you could easily win the AiG prize.

    HJ

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  15. Ramel

    I’m calling Poe on STeves.

    Reply
  16. tg

    Steve.S is onto something guys…. I mean, T-Rex can’t swim, you know? And since we can all agree radiometric dating is a bunch of hooey, and that fossils are the result of being drowned alive, it’s pretty darn gosh simple, ain’t it?

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  17. Paul

    Don’t the mitochondrial Eve/Y-Chromosome Adam studies pretty much blow the 6,000 year old earth idea to smithereens? Or is Satan clouding our minds with confusion and deceit?

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  18. Suricou Raven

    Creationists have a nifty handwave called sin. To them, sin is not merely a moral concept. Sin is what makes people ill. Sin causes mutations, explaining the genetic dating problems. Sin is what turned harmless animals into predators. Sin speeds up all natural processes, including isotope decay. Sin to a creationist is the solution to almost every problem.

    I tried to ask one creationist recently exactly how they propose that sin was able to cause animals to grow teeth. The conversation resulted in mutual incomprehension – our approaches were just too different. To her, it’s self-evident that sin can do all those things. It doesn’t need an explantion.

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  19. Eddie Janssen

    There is another anomaly. Noah and his three sons shared the same Y chromosome. Their four wives on the other hand had (four, unless two or three of the young women were sisters) different Mt/DNA.
    A good study could show how many of the young women were sisters by determining the ratio in variance between Mt/Dna and Y chromosomes. Assuming of course a similar rate/tempo of mutations. (The difference in ‘mutation-speed’ could be taken account of.)
    If that ratio would come out to be 4:1 none of the three younger women were sisters; if it came closer to 3:1 it might be safe to say that two of them were sisters; with 2:1 the three of them might be sisters. Any smaller ratio would be thinking the unthinkable…

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  20. mark

    So the unclean animals got washed in the flood of the jam.

    We know the dimensions of the Ark. If we conservatively use the 2-each assumption, and take our best estimate of the number of species of animals (I guess all plants can hold their breath), can they all fit? Did Noah crawl into every cave that holds a unique species and drag out a pair? Did he build a little Ark to sail to Tasmania, Madagascar, Staten Island, and other far-off places to fetch critters scattered across the globe? When does incredibly convoluted thinking kick in to allow us to pretend it’s all true?

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  21. D. C. Sessions

    Once again, we run into the First Law of Denialism: rejection of Occam’s Razor. Whether it’s religious fundamentalism, medical woo, antivaccinationism, conspiracy theory, or any other sort of conclusion-driven “thinking,” there is one thing they have in common.

    They all start from their conclusions, and for every obstacle that appears they unblushingly manufacture more assumptions in reply. Given a large enough set of axioms, you can support any wacked-out notion. We’re just seeing that particular principle play out in more-or-less-real life.

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  22. Salad Is Slaughter

    When we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park last year, the tour guide said that for a female rhino to go in to heat, there has to be a second female rhino near by. So much for the two-by-two of every kind of animal argument unless there’s a footnote somewhere that we all missed.

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  23. Mike Kennedy

    The only problem I see is a lot of scientist are just as lame as the creationist. You believe in really lame fabricated theories that have no basis in fact. When are you just going to admit that you’re religion is the “New Science”?

    Explain this. Order can’t come out disorder. Stack a deck of cards in order by their suits and then shuffle them. After about seven shuffles them will meet their maximum state of disorder where the remain, even if you shuffle for all eternity. It’s one of those provable laws of thermodynamics you can’t get around. I sure there are more sub atomic particle in the cosmic soup, That have a built in order so hey combine in an orderly fashion to form atoms, molecules and so on.
    An while we are on thermodynamics if the universe was always here, it would have already run down, so there had to be a point when the universe began.

    Science can’t be used to prove if God exists or not. The whole idea is silly.

    Science has now become too full of itself to realize there are questions it can not answer–that will always be the case. Science should always explore for answers to all questions, but when did scientist become such college educated idiots unable to say “we don’t know”? It would make sense to me that the first intellectual move of a true scientist would be to acknowledge the things he does not know.

    The lamest and most stupid remake I ever heard a scientist say was ” The fact that the universe exist proves that no mater how improbable that the universe was created by chance, proves that it was.”

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  24. PalMD

    This one deserves a thorough fisking…moment please…

    Reply
  25. PalMD

    The only problem I see is a lot of scientist are just as lame as the creationist. You believe in really lame fabricated theories that have no basis in fact. When are you just going to admit that you’re religion is the “New Science”?

    I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to say what you did here, but as far as I can tell, you’re just slinging around ad hominem and ad ignorantiam arguments. All theories are “fabricated” in the sense of “constructed”. If you mean “illogically created out of whole cloth” that really only applies to creation myths.

    Explain this. Order can’t come out disorder. Stack a deck of cards in order by their suits and then shuffle them. After about seven shuffles them will meet their maximum state of disorder where the remain, even if you shuffle for all eternity. It’s one of those provable laws of thermodynamics you can’t get around. I sure there are more sub atomic particle in the cosmic soup, That have a built in order so hey combine in an orderly fashion to form atoms, molecules and so on.

    I have to admit that I’ve never understood the whole “information” argument. This deck of cards thing is similar to the infamous “peanut butter” argument. It simply demonstrates that you haven’t the knowledge nor imagination to investigate beyond Godditit. And by the way, there is no reason to think that the cards will not return to the original order eventually. Eventually may be an impossibly long time, but it is certainly possible.

    What you are saying is that playing cards can change over time based on interaction with their environment, and that this interaction somehow disproves…something. Minus 3 points for lack of clarity.

    An while we are on thermodynamics if the universe was always here, it would have already run down, so there had to be a point when the universe began.

    What the hell? Science certainly does not predict that the universe was “always there”, but that it had a discrete beginning. Read!

    Science can’t be used to prove if God exists or not. The whole idea is silly.

    Science cannot PROVE whether or not God exists, but it can be used to PREDICT whether or not God exists. God is rather improbable based on the evidence. Keep shuffling though.

    Science has now become too full of itself to realize there are questions it can not answer–that will always be the case. Science should always explore for answers to all questions, but when did scientist become such college educated idiots unable to say “we don’t know”? It would make sense to me that the first intellectual move of a true scientist would be to acknowledge the things he does not know.

    Um, science is based on the question “I don’t know”—it just happens to always be followed by “but I’ll sure as hell try to find out.” That’s how it works.

    The lamest and most stupid remake I ever heard a scientist say was ” The fact that the universe exist proves that no mater how improbable that the universe was created by chance, proves that it was.”

    That particular misinterpretation of the anthropic principle is rather silly. The existence of a universe that supports life simply proves that there is a universe that supports life. The fact that we are here proves that this universe is capable of sustaining us. It doesn’t say anything about cause.

    Reply
  26. Bing McGhandi

    It’s like playing idiot T-ball, isn’t it?

    HJ

    Reply
  27. PalMD

    It’s a problem. Even when the Creation Cultists are smart (not like this case!) they get bogged down in the illogic of their positions.

    Reply
  28. Hank

    Check out the “God Delusion debate” between Richard Dawkins & John Lennox. Their discussion on this topic adds a lot of fire to this debate about creation / evolution!
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=988134574542478162

    Reply
  29. Mike Kennedy

    Well I’m glad you agree with me in part!-if the shuffled cards can come out of their maximum state of disorder to form an ordered deck again-no matter how improbable, I will accept that you must also believe that God also can exist because it is like wise just as improbable.

    I will re-read about enthalpy and entropy. My understanding comes from science text books. I’m sure they state that thermodynamics trumps statistics. They stated the old statistical view of give a monkey a typewriter and enough time he will eventually type out “War and Peace” is complete fallacy. System continue to maximum state of disorder, they don’t somehow all of a sudden achieve an ordered sate with out an outside force. Otherwise we would be seeing a lot more pieces on toast with he Virgin Mary on them on Ebay! The universe is continue to become disordered and running down. Do you disagree that the universe will one day be cold and dead?
    Also as a past president of Maine Mensa I might just have an IQ higher than most of you.

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  30. Wes

    I’m tempted to call Poe’s law on Mike Kennedy.

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  31. LanceR

    Past president of Maine Mensa? Uh-huh. Bullsh*t. Anyone with the intelligence to be invited to join Mensa would never trot out the tired old “deck of cards” tripe.

    You wouldn’t be a retired 747 pilot, by any chance?

    Entropy can be reversed locally, if there is an outside source of energy feeding into the system. Here on Earth we call that the Sun, or the DayStar. Go outside and look up. See that bright thing surrounded by blue? That’s the Sun. It pumps energy into the system we call Earth. This makes Earth *NOT* a closed system.

    Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

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  32. PalMD

    Lance, please don’t encourage him to stare at the sun…

    It is possible, perhaps, to score well on an IQ test and yet have no facility with the English language, and also have no ability to understand basic physics.

    Ordering of cards is not about order and disorder. The order of cards is, essentially, chance. Given enough reshuffles, various patterns will emerge, and perhaps even repeat. Some patterns are so improbable to repeat that the time required may be longer than the life of the universe, but it still violates no laws.

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  33. Anonymous

    Jesus, I hope Wes is right about Mike Kennedy. But just in case:

    “I’m sure they state that thermodynamics trumps statistics.”

    Modern thermodynamics is based on statistics.

    “Otherwise we would be seeing a lot more pieces on toast with he Virgin Mary on them on Ebay!”

    Where did this become quantitative enough for you to infer that?

    “Also as a past president of Maine Mensa I might just have an IQ higher than most of you.”

    Mensa: an organization for people slightly over two standard deviations from the mean to self-aggrandize. Even as appeals to one’s own authority go, that’s pretty underwhelming.

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  34. Escuerd

    Jesus, I hope Wes is right about Mike Kennedy. But just in case:

    “I’m sure they state that thermodynamics trumps statistics.”

    Modern thermodynamics is based on statistics.

    “Otherwise we would be seeing a lot more pieces on toast with he Virgin Mary on them on Ebay!”

    Where did this become quantitative enough for you to infer that?

    “Also as a past president of Maine Mensa I might just have an IQ higher than most of you.”

    Mensa: an organization for people slightly over two standard deviations from the mean to self-aggrandize. Even as appeals to one’s own authority go, that’s pretty underwhelming.

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  35. Escuerd

    Sorry about the double post.

    Oh, and this one apologizing for it. 😉

    Reply
  36. Ames

    This is a fantastic post. I would love them to actually try it. The problem is that any scientific experiment could potentially turn out to falsify creationism… meaning it’ll never get past the AiG mission committee, or whatever cabal-like group they’re likely to have.

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  37. mark

    Explain this. Order can’t come out disorder.

    No? Take a magma, with various ions dancing about in the heat. Rather disordered. Let it cool. Look at the pretty crystals that grow. They are very nicely ordered–their ions have very definite geometric arrangements.

    Thermodynamics trumps statistics? What a strange thing to say. I didn’t join Mensa, but I think people who study thermodynamics find statistics to be very useful in their studies.

    I’ve heard a lot of people claim that science is a new or alternative religion, but they never bother to explain what they mean by that. Some scientists wear silly hats, but usually only during graduation ceremonies. Many talk to beings that they cannot see, but usually they are using telephones or radios. Some cut animals open and examine the entrails, but they are looking for evidence of cancer or something induced by some treatment. Can someone explain what makes science a religion?

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  38. kai

    I think Mike Kennedy might want to look up the Poincaré recurrence theorem.

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  39. penn

    Mike, everyone else has already schooled you on your gross abuse of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but I wanted to make another point about your deck of cards analogy.

    Let’s say you shuffle those cards. And let’s say you really like red face cards, and let’s call you “Natural Selection”. Now let’s say you go through the shuffled deck of cards and you place your favorite red face cards in a pile called “Survivors” and all of the other cards in a pile called “Extinct”. After going through the deck you’ll have a very ordered pile of red face cards. If the cards could mutate and provide extra aesthetic advantages or disadvantages it would make the analogy better, but that is the gist of it.

    If you take something random, and you apply a non-random filter to it you will get something more ordered. That’s natural selection.

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  40. Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT

    Also as a past president of Maine Mensa I might just have an IQ higher than most of you.

    The only time I ever see anyone mentioning their membership in MENSA is when they are trying to cover up for their public embarrassments.

    Have you ever met Vox Day Mike?

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  41. LanceR

    *whispering* Did he actually go away? Amazing…

    I promise only to use my powers for good! <grin>

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  42. Mike Kennedy

    You used the argument of people unable to defend their positions, you claim your opponent wasn’t smart enough. I brought up Mensa to prove I do have an IQ in he upper 2% of the population. If your definition of idiot is those with IQs that high, who really is then being idiotic? I was countering your foolish argument that only the dull can believe in god.

    That fact that sub-atomic particle combine in repeatable patterns is an order in itself, just like my deck of cards. The universe is a closed system. Natural selection happens within this closed system with things that are alive(that’s called evolution, right?). Are you saying that sub-atomic particles went through evolution also? I’d like to see you get a paper published about that!

    Mark, Magma does not randomly form into crystals. You need to go back to chem and geo 101. Crystals form in extremely ordered fashion based on orderly charges in molecular structure. Remember they are able to identify minerals that way? Quartz has a structure different than say Lead? Quartz does not randomly form the same crystal shape each time does it? It is a highly order system. I can’t believe you said something so foolish. I seriously doubt your ability to conduct any scientific experiment. If your the Mark at the side bar on the top of this page I now understand the problems with this page. Perhaps the answer are too simple for you to accept with all your schooling.

    The very kernel of the argument is this: I believe that God does exist. It is unprovable. It is taken by faith. That is what I call religion. I see you as likewise having a religion. You believe an unprovable event, that order can come from disorder in a close system. You can not construct a repeatable experiment that shows order coming out of disorder in a close system. Sure you can say it might, but I say entropy and statistic are wedded together. You can not separate them. They are perhaps two sides of the same coin. Closed systems go towards maximum disorder, not to order. The universe is a closed system. If you shuffle with computer simulations on all the computers in the world for the life of the universe, the deck of card will not return to their ordered state. Much, much shorter repeatable experiments will show this. I still contend you misunderstand the science behind entropy and statistics.

    I find it odd how scientist like you are now like the Jerry Farwell evangelists they so despised. Actively evangelizing people of faith to become atheists. .

    What is the great hope that you call these people to? An entropic universe, cold and dead.

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  43. PalMD

    If your definition of idiot is those with IQs that high, who really is then being idiotic?

    I believe he was defining an idiot as someone who, despite being intelligent, refuses to give up a position no matter how heavily the evidence weighs against it.

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  44. LanceR

    Once again, “Mike” “Kennedy”, nobody is disputing entropy. But you’re doing it wrong. Entropy can, does, and has been repeatedly shown in experiment to, DECREASE locally in open systems. The universe is a closed system, yes, but we inhabit one tiny portion of that system. In our tiny portion of that system we have an engine that funnels vast amounts of “energy” into our local environment. We use that “energy” to decrease entropy locally. For example, when I eat a portion of “vegetable” matter, I turn it into highly ordered “cell” structures throughout my “body”.

    Seriously, if you think thermodynamics in any way disputes evolution, then you are ignorant. If you continue to persist in this delusion, you are an ignorant idiot.

    Good day sir.

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  45. mike kennedy

    I didn’t say I disputed evolution did I? Your not really hearing what I am saying at all. Evolution, the age of he universe, and such I do not dispute at all. I do not dispute any science at all. I love science-ask anyone that knows me! I have fossil millions of years old in my collection. I have a ham radio license. I’m a techno junkie. I am disputing he unscientific concept of order out of disorder. With people who claim to be scientifically minded I am talking science. I talk religion with those in religion. Locally entropy does reverse. Life is anti-entropic as you point out. As anything lives it creates a highly ordered system-I thinks it is wonderful. The universe is a close system, and even with the local entropy reversals will eventual run down. I do dispute the current “believe it as fact or your out” view you present. Did the universe have a beginning? Was it random or not at the beginning? In the first microseconds of the life of the universe did order just suddenly happen? Did subatomic particles form with an order of how they would combine? I don’t buy your scientific explanations-they are totally inadequate. I see science as having a viable explanation for the end of the universe, but not for the beginning. Perhaps one will come later, but the current one is not very good.

    What about that Magma comment? I see you didn’t reply.I assume you realized that was not a well thought out example.

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  46. PalMD

    I am disputing he unscientific concept of order out of disorder.

    Science…ur doing it rong!!!

    I you are correct, we couldn’t be having this discussion. We would long ago have dissipated into a soup of maximum entropy. Since we have not, you are not correct (and no saying “but goddidit”)

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  47. LanceR

    Life is anti-entropic as you point out.

    I am disputing he unscientific concept of order out of disorder.

    Reading for comprehension? EPIC FAIL!

    Anti-entropic *IS* order out of disorder!

    Go back to 6th grade. Learn to read correctly. Then attempt to tell us about science.

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  48. Dan L.

    Mike Kennedy:

    He probably didn’t respond to your rebuttal of his magma argument because he was stunned that you could have misinterpreted it. When liquids composed of polar molecules cool to sufficiently low temperature they crystallize. You’re probably aware of this behavior in water, so let’s rephrase from magma to water:

    The H2O molecules in water are disorganized. They do not have a fixed position and are free to slide by one another. While the molecules ARE bonded, the bonds are transitory. If we cool it past 0 C, we see crystals start to form. Crystals are more ordered than liquids; the molecules have specific fixed positions (kind of) and the molecule to molecule bonds are long-lived. The same process occurring in magma is what the other gentleman was talking about.

    This proves quite clearly that (at least in an open thermodynamic system) entropy can sometimes decrease. The water molecules went from an UNORDERED state to an ORDERED state. And this is the point; life formed in an OPEN thermodynamic system – earth.

    It might be helpful to envision an open thermodynamic system as heat gradient between a hot pole and a cold pole, similar to how an electric circuit is a potential gradient between a positive pole and a negative pole. Just as you can use the current that flows from the negative pole to the positive pole to do work, you can use the heat flow from the hot pole to the cold pole to do work (literally — that’s what a Stirling engine does; other engines work on variations of the same principle). If you can do work, then you can reverse entropy locally.

    Now the sun is the hot pole — it beams energy directly to earth in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Space is the cold pole; the earth radiates excess heat as (much lower frequency) electromagnetic radiation out into space. The earth itself stays roughly the same average temperature; however, it’s being used as a conduit to pass a tiny fraction of the sun’s energy out into space. On its way through, that energy can (for example) evaporate water from the ocean forming a cloud that is pushed by prevailing winds into a mountainous region where cold air falling from the top pushing against the warm moist air from the sea causes the evaporated water to go from a highly disorganized mist to a bunch of very highly organized ice crystals.

    Now if we consider the sun as part of the system, we see that the system is radiating HUGE amounts of unordered energy into outer space; entropy is positive for the solar system considered as a whole. We, as earthlings, are borrowing from the sun’s huge amount of entropy to decrease it locally. This is how your car works. This is how your fridge works. This is how your computer works. If your “thermodynamic” argument against evolution works, then it works against these things too. Do you think maybe you should rethink your position? (Hint: you’re using a computer right now)

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  49. Dan L.

    Retraction: Mike Kennedy was not arguing against evolution. However, he was using an argument often used against evolution as a positive argument for theism. This does nothing to change my refutation of his argument.

    As far as how the universe began, well, we can’t get any information from before about 400,000 years after the big bang, so it’s all speculation. If it makes you warm and fuzzy to think that there’s some magic sky pixie that started the whole thing off, please feel free to do so. But don’t try to tell me my arbitrary explanation isn’t as good as yours.

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  50. mark

    Mark, Magma does not randomly form into crystals. You need to go back to chem and geo 101. …blah, blah…

    I have taught introductory geology, and am a professional geologist. Dan L. has already responded to Mike’s incredible comment–thanks, Dan. I think the reason Mike utterly failed to get the point about magma is that he assumes evolution is random change, like the tornado blowing through the junkyard producing a 747, or a cat randomly giving birth to a dog. Natural selection (which may not be the only mechanism involved in evolution) applies a non-random filter to variability, which leads to speciation. Analogously, a magma contains a bunch of unordered ions (well, some may already be partly ordered–e.g., tetrahedra comprising a silicon ion coordinated with 4 oxygen ions) that come together into ordered crystals as the magma cools (in this case it is ion sizes and charges that are important factors in which mineral crystals are formed). The process of crystallization isn’t exactly random–it follows chemical and thermodynamic principles–but the result is initially disorder, then order.

    The very kernel of the argument is this: I believe that God does exist. It is unprovable. It is taken by faith. That is what I call religion. I see you as likewise having a religion. You believe an unprovable event, that order can come from disorder in a close system. You can not construct a repeatable experiment that shows order coming out of disorder in a close system.
    No Mike, we do not “believe” unprovably that order can come out of disorder. We describe it all the time, whether crystallization from a melt or solution, a governing order arising from a congregation of people initially stangers to each other, or any kind of self-organizing system that’s been in the literature recently. And as was pointed out, although the universe may be closed, local variations can occur without upsetting the system as a whole.

    By-the-bye, I am not the Mark at the top of this page, so I guess Mike still does not understand this page.

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  51. Mike Kennedy

    Again, your point on natural selection, I don’t dispute. Your lumping me in with others with out knowing my position. Your site on self organizing system is interesting, and I will study. It has a flaw in the very being of it. It assumes an ordered set of natural laws created the order, or help the order to occur. Again you are using a detailed highly organized system to bring about order. Where did the ordered system come from? You are going to fall back on “it was just there” are you? A magnet behave because of inherent natural organized laws.

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  52. LanceR

    And there we have it, folks! The goalposts have been moved! Do we have another entrant in the Trollympics? Stay tuned for more exciting developments!

    Reply
  53. William Wallace

    (Repost to correct article)
    While looking for news articles on relatively recent study that purportedly showed humans have a common ancestor dating to the time of the flood (with no allegations that the researchers were young Earth creationists), I found this

    Blacks, whites and Asians have different ape ancestors – and did not come from Africa, claims scientist

    A public claim by a fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographic Society that humans did not all come from Africa � and that blacks, whites and Asians have different ape ancestors � has been dismissed by world experts as “dangerous”, “wrong” and “racist”.

    In a paper widely trumpeted and due for release in book form, Akhil Bakshi, the leader of a major 2006 scientific expedition supported by India�s prime minister, claims that “Negroid”, “Caucasian” and “Mongoloid” peoples are not only separate races but separate species, having evolved on different continents.

    Unfortunately, I never found the articles on the genetic study initially referenced above, but oh well. The article I did find illustrates clearly that scientists are not guided only by evidence, but are also guided by politically correct ideology.

    Whether or not humans descended from different apes (and clearly, I do not think they did) is not important. What is interesting is the reactions, and the reasons for these reactions.

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  54. bi — IJI

    Whether or not humans descended from different apes (and clearly, I do not think they did) is not important.

    Sorry, but it is the important issue.

    scientists are not guided only by evidence, but are also guided by politically correct ideology.

    Saying that bogus ‘science’ is “dangerous” means that one’s being “politically correct”. Obviously the way to avoid this “political correctness” is to, well, avoid offending crank ‘scientists’ who bypass the peer review process to publish nonsense — which is of course not a form of “political correctness”. Who knew?

    Or is “politically correct ideology” merely a code for ‘evidence-based scientific theories which I don’t like’?

    — bi, International Journal of Inactivism

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  55. Dan L.

    Mike Kennedy:

    There’s no basis for applying the 2nd law of thermodynamics to fundamental physical laws; it’s a category mistake. For instance, it would be nonsense to say “The 2nd law of thermodynamics remains in the same inertial frame of reference until acted upon by a force.” It just doesn’t make sense. We can’t apply laws to other laws.

    You do have a pretty good point about the fact that the universe is, in some sense, very orderly. First of all, the universe must have started off with relatively low entropy. This is a mystery and one that has not yet been explained through any cosmological models that exist so far. However, I’m not about to conclude that we can’t find an explanation and that God must have done it.

    Then there’s the fact that there is even such a thing as physical laws. Right away the question comes to mind, “What would the universe be like without physical laws?” When you think about it, though, the question doesn’t make any sense. Could you have a universe without physical laws? I think the existence of a universe is contingent on some kind of structure; what other basis is there for identifying the entity as a universe? It’s a little like asking “what would life be like without carbon?” It’s impossible to answer; it’s not even clear that the question makes sense in the first place.

    If you want to deal with this kind of epistemological uncertainty by saying “God did it,” go right ahead. But don’t try to tell me that it’s the only answer that could possibly work, and definitely don’t try to tell me it’s a simple question of whether or not the universe is “orderly.”

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  56. Mike Kennedy

    Bingo! Dan L wrote: You do have a pretty good point about the fact that the universe is, in some sense, very orderly. First of all, the universe must have started off with relatively low entropy.This is a mystery and one that has not yet been explained through any cosmological models that exist so far. However, I’m not about to conclude that we can’t find an explanation and that God must have done it.

    I agree completely and this it is what I saying and is the only point I was making! I stated several times since god is unprovable, god is irrelevant to this discussion. I guess I should have never said I believe in God, it just upset you all too much to stay on topic. You also seem to have an awful lot of prejudices against people of faith. You assume we all think the world was made in a six day time period some six thousand years ago and all kinds of other stuff. Maybe there are some people of very strong faith who don’t fall into all your stereotypes?

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  57. PalMD

    I have nothing against people of faith, especially since they make up most of humanity.

    I simply don’t have a lot of respect for the argument from ignorance, wherein if a phenomenon is not understood by an individual, the same non-understanding must apply to everyone.

    Your misuse of the laws of thermodynamics is an unfortunate coincidence as it is also common among YECs and other oddballs.

    I have a problem with people who’s faith is so limited, and whose opinion of god is so low, that they do not believe that god could have created a universe that works as this one does.

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  58. LanceR

    I agree completely and this it is what I saying and is the only point I was making!

    Liar.

    Order can’t come out disorder.

    You believe in really lame fabricated theories that have no basis in fact.

    You believe an unprovable event, that order can come from disorder in a close system.

    You can not construct a repeatable experiment that shows order coming out of disorder in a close system.

    What is the great hope that you call these people to? An entropic universe, cold and dead.

    I am disputing he unscientific concept of order out of disorder.

    You have made several assertions that are not based in reality. You have thrown around multiple ad hominem attacks, then whined about persecution. You are a troll and a liar. I must mock you now.

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  59. Dan

    Well said PalMD. If we were to believe creationists, we could take almost any problem, and without understanding it say it was do to a deity. Problem solved, no need for science at all. If time travel were possible, I could probably go back with a simple lighter and magically create fire and be thought of as a god. Then they would be writing books about me. What bothers me most is that if people of faith are right, and there is a second coming, they would not believe it. Look at what happened to David Koresh. Wasn’t he the second coming and did he not get sacrificed? He claimed to be the second coming and yet was taken a a crank. Should not the bible be updated, but substituted Jesus be persecuted by the Jews, with David being persecuted by the Christians?

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  60. Dan L.

    Mike Kennedy:

    Well I’m glad I got around to where you’re coming from. Please understand that my initial reaction was based on your arguments which fit the YEC mold to a T (as PalMD noted). Besides that, you seemed to conflate entropy and the structure imposed by physical law, which would probably fall into the category of “not even wrong.” You used the old “atheism is a religion!” canard. And to top it off, you seemed to imply that without theism, there would be no art or culture of any kind. If you want to talk metaphysics and not make any atheists see red, I’d suggest steering clear of these arguments.

    Please note that a closed system with an initially low state of entropy is not a logical contradiction given the second law of thermodynamics. The law only tells us about what happens moving forward; it says nothing about initial conditions. There may be very good reasons why anything that looks like the universe would start off with low entropy without relying on God. I would say that the other claim that you conflated with this one (that the existence of natural laws are evidence for theism) is more compelling, though that’s a personal opinion. However, when you make this argument it becomes unclear whether you’re showing that God exists or defining what God is. After all, if you define God as the source of order in the universe, the claim that God’s existence follows from the existence of natural law is trivial.

    My advice would be to rely on faith as a source of spirituality and don’t try to justify that faith on the basis of scientific arguments. Doing so denigrates both science and faith.

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  61. Mike Kennedy

    Yes, “Doing so denigrates both science and faith.” I just think science has a lot of unanswered questions, but some scientist see this as an attack on science. What’s wrong with saying “we really don’t have a good answer for this-yet”? I also don’t like how science has become attached to political views either. I don’t like the “believe this or your out.” I got the impression for my limited study of string theory that some would not welcome you unless you pretty much accepted it as fact. (I use this as an example, I’m not trying to start a discussion on string theory). Don’t you think some science is playing more for what looks good on the discovery channel? I’m 55. I’ve read Scientific America for awhile. I liked it better when it seemed to be more research oriented and you were left to draw you own conclusion. Now it seems to be very political and morally preachy.

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  62. Hank

    Hey Mike,
    check out this link to “The God Delusion Debate”…you might learn something. (the rest of you might also get a kick out of it…Atheist Scientist Richard Dawkins challenges creationist John Lennox.)
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=988134574542478162

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  63. Dan L.

    Mike Kennedy:

    Science is based on saying “we really don’t have a good answer for this yet.” Scientists don’t get grants by studying questions we already know the answer to.

    Scientific conclusions will lead to certain political viewpoints; i.e. if anthropogenic global warming is more likely than not then there is a real political reason to find alternative energy sources. I couldn’t disagree more that this is a bad thing. If anything, our legislators in this country are TOO ignorant of scientific principles, especially given that foreign countries are surpassing us in science and math education and this sort of education is more important than ever in getting jobs and strengthening the economy. Science is a political force, and if this country tries to force science out of the game, we’re going to find ourselves losing our economic hegemony in a few decades.

    I don’t think this is related to the Discovery channel “pop science” that you talk about. The science is what it is; reporters and TV producers sensationalize the conclusions to sell magazines, newspapers, and TV ad spots.

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  64. minimalist

    Willy Wally:

    Unfortunately, I never found the articles on the genetic study initially referenced above, but oh well. The article I did find illustrates clearly that scientists are not guided only by evidence, but are also guided by politically correct ideology.
    So you don’t know what his evidence even is, but you’re certain that the mainstream scientists’ reaction to it is “politically correct ideology.” Could you stop to consider for a second that these are your own prejudices at work?

    Consider, for example, your presumption that Bakshi’s work is “genetic”, though there is zero indication for that in the Times article. In fact, here is his “paper” in toto:

    http://film-india.com/expdtn/Paper%20on%20Continental%20Drift.htm

    Start to finish, it’s built solely on the author’s own ignorance of the present evidence, and chock full of erroneous assumptions (“Why would hominid populations bother to migrate?” he asks, as though environments never change). In fact, the sole nod to genetics is to deny all the genetic evidence in the second to last paragraph! “BAH!”, he snorts with a wave of his hand, “Scientists have been wrong before!”

    It’s shoddy crankwork, and presents zero original scholarship (no references) or research.

    (Yes, yes, feeding an incredibly dumb troll incapable of logic, but the ape in me just can’t resist swatting at the low-hanging fruit.)

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  65. minimalist

    Bah, forgot to redo the blockquote formatting when I copied my comment. Anyway, the first paragraph under “Willy Wally” (ending with “politically correct ideology”) are Wally’s own words, obviously.

    Reply

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