Just one question for young earth creationists.

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jfrmeister
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07 May 2008, 11:37 pm

By what means and with what evidence, would you prove false, the hypothesis that the earth is a few thousand years old, and was created by a supernatural being?

If you can't falsify your hypothesis, then there's no way for you to prove it. If you can't prove it, will you shut up for good?

So let's hear it. How do you prove false, the idea that the world was created by god a few thousand years ago?


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twoshots
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08 May 2008, 12:00 am

Quote:
If you can't falsify your hypothesis, then there's no way for you to prove it. If you can't prove it, will you shut up for good?

You're confusing standards here. I can prove things that can't be falsified (loosely speaking). For example we cannot falsify the hypothesis that God exists. However, if God presents himself to us, we may say that we have proven His existence. Likewise, to a (ideal) conspiracy theorist wack job, the hypothesis that conspiracies exist is pretty much non-falsifiable, but there could certainly be verification. Even if these instances fail, I think you get the idea, :tired:



marshall
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08 May 2008, 12:35 am

jfrmeister wrote:
By what means and with what evidence, would you prove false, the hypothesis that the earth is a few thousand years old, and was created by a supernatural being?

If you can't falsify your hypothesis, then there's no way for you to prove it. If you can't prove it, will you shut up for good?

So let's hear it. How do you prove false, the idea that the world was created by god a few thousand years ago?


Young earth creationism can and has been be falsified, like 150 years ago! The only way people can still accept a 10,000 year old earth is to ignore evidence, rely on total misinformation, or use some kind of absurd ad-hoc reasoning to explain away the inconsistencies in their “theory”. There’s just too many independent sources of evidence pointing to an earth that’s on the order of 5 billion years old.

You don’t even have to go into the whole falsifiability problem. YEC is just flat out BS that can be proven to be BS.



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08 May 2008, 4:26 am

Another good question can be asked to these young earth creationists: Why the continents fits into each others like pieces of puzzle?

They'll tell you funny tales to answer you this question.



sojournertruth
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08 May 2008, 2:10 pm

I think that earth science should be taught in high school along with biology, chemistry, and physics. They could cover plate tectonics, weather patterns, currents, and a little geology.



jfrmeister
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08 May 2008, 9:08 pm

twoshots wrote:
You're confusing standards here. I can prove things that can't be falsified (loosely speaking). For example we cannot falsify the hypothesis that God exists. However, if God presents himself to us, we may say that we have proven His existence.


I'm not confusing standards here. If god presents himself, that wouls constitute emperical evidence, subject to confirmation/rejection using the scientific method.

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Likewise, to a (ideal) conspiracy theorist wack job, the hypothesis that conspiracies exist is pretty much non-falsifiable, but there could certainly be verification. Even if these instances fail, I think you get the idea, :tired:


If there was evidence presented, once again, it would be subject to verification/falsification.

You still can't get around the need for falsifiability.


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jfrmeister
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08 May 2008, 9:09 pm

sojournertruth wrote:
I think that earth science should be taught in high school along with biology, chemistry, and physics. They could cover plate tectonics, weather patterns, currents, and a little geology.


Thank you Captian Obvious. What does that have to do with the question at hand?


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sojournertruth
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08 May 2008, 9:14 pm

I thought it was obvious. If kids were exposed to the overwhelming evidence for plate tectonics at a young age, we wouldn't have as many YECs.



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08 May 2008, 9:20 pm

sojournertruth wrote:
I thought it was obvious. If kids were exposed to the overwhelming evidence for plate tectonics at a young age, we wouldn't have as many YECs.


The YEC's have ways of rationalizing plate tectonics. Again, this goes back to placing the burden of proof with the YEC's to show that they can play within the rules of science.

If they can't play within the rules of science (proposing a falsifiable hypothesis) then they need to STFU.


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sojournertruth
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08 May 2008, 9:44 pm

jfrmeister wrote:
sojournertruth wrote:
The YEC's have ways of rationalizing plate tectonics.


LOL really?!
I haven't heard that yet. I always thought that real geology was one of their biggest bugaboos.



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08 May 2008, 9:48 pm

jfrmeister wrote:
By what means and with what evidence, would you prove false, the hypothesis that the earth is a few thousand years old, and was created by a supernatural being?

If you can't falsify your hypothesis, then there's no way for you to prove it. If you can't prove it, will you shut up for good?

So let's hear it. How do you prove false, the idea that the world was created by god a few thousand years ago?

The only proof creationist need is in the Bible, I have given up trying to be objective with them, and I really don't want to change how they think, why not let them have their beliefs and leave them be. its like this guy is doing --> :wall:



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08 May 2008, 10:30 pm

jfrmeister wrote:
twoshots wrote:
You're confusing standards here. I can prove things that can't be falsified (loosely speaking). For example we cannot falsify the hypothesis that God exists. However, if God presents himself to us, we may say that we have proven His existence.


I'm not confusing standards here. If god presents himself, that wouls constitute emperical evidence, subject to confirmation/rejection using the scientific method.

Quote:
Likewise, to a (ideal) conspiracy theorist wack job, the hypothesis that conspiracies exist is pretty much non-falsifiable, but there could certainly be verification. Even if these instances fail, I think you get the idea, :tired:


If there was evidence presented, once again, it would be subject to verification/falsification.

You still can't get around the need for falsifiability.


Falsifiability is strictly the logical potential to disprove the hypothesis given the right evidence. It in no way coincides with verifiability, or necessarily even meaningfulness. For example, "Falsificationism strictly opposes the view that non-falsifiable statements are meaningless or otherwise inherently bad" even though under Falsificationism a hypothesis requires falsifiability for it to be scientific.

YEC and religion in general are not falsifiable, but this only means they are scientifically meaningless, because they are otherwise entirely verifiable.



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08 May 2008, 10:38 pm

jfrmeister wrote:
I'm not confusing standards here. If god presents himself, that wouls constitute emperical evidence, subject to confirmation/rejection using the scientific method.
The instance would, the god wouldn't. Frankly, though, the hypothesis is the god, and even though a particular instance may be falsifiable, the actual deity would not be falsifiable

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If there was evidence presented, once again, it would be subject to verification/falsification.

You still can't get around the need for falsifiability.

Well, right, but, that does not mean that the hypothesis is unprovable, only instances of proof of that hypothesis can be proven or disproven. twoshots IS right, it IS only one way on issues of falsifiability of certain hypotheses. Let's just say that I argue that a certain blue plastic will turn green at some unspecified time, that is an unfalsifiable idea, but it is certainly verifiable if that plastic turns green at some time in the future.



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08 May 2008, 10:39 pm

LePetitPrince wrote:
Another good question can be asked to these young earth creationists: Why the continents fits into each others like pieces of puzzle?

They'll tell you funny tales to answer you this question.


Also, how do they explain the grand canyon?

The ones that try to argue that it was created by the biblical flood make me laugh. I'm not even educated in geology, yet it makes intuitive sense to me that erosion has to occur gradually to create certain types of patterns.

Erosion by sudden floodwaters looks very different than erosion that came about gradually over millions of years.

Image

Image

Can people guess which one is which?

I think these two pictures disprove the young earth / biblical flood version of creationism. I don't even need to refer to carbon dating or plate tectonics. All it takes is a couple pictures and some physical intuition.



jfrmeister
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08 May 2008, 11:00 pm

twoshots wrote:
Falsifiability is strictly the logical potential to disprove the hypothesis given the right evidence. It in no way coincides with verifiability,


This is the point where you went wrong. Falsifiability is INTEGRAL to verifyability.

When you remove falsifiability, you're left with something called confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is when you start with a premise, and look for facts to fit your premise. By not allowing facts to the contrary, you can "prove" anything.


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jfrmeister
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08 May 2008, 11:05 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Let's just say that I argue that a certain blue plastic will turn green at some unspecified time, that is an unfalsifiable idea, but it is certainly verifiable if that plastic turns green at some time in the future.


Since you have not specified a time period, or a cause, you can't claim to have predicted the plastic turning green. What you're left with is a mere coincidence.


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