Question about creationist/geologist?

Question

How many people reading this would actually accept anything a person said about natural history if he claimed to be a geologist while spouting biblical references and declaring his absolute faith in the literal accuracy of the bible? Is there anyone here who would actually entertain the thought that he might really be representing a scientific view? Is biblical literalism still considered an "alternative" science by more than the fundies and ill-informed people who are impressed with their pseudoscience and techno-babble?

Answer 1

So long as the person's findings were based in the scientific method I would consider them. By scientific method I mean use data to disprove all alternatives until only one possible explanation is left.

This method is very cumbersome, of course, because of ALLL the variables that need to be tested for one question. Hence the reason we have very few scientific 'Laws'

However, most 'fundies' who try to pass off literal readings of the bible as scientific findings don't use a scientific method.
They look at data, then pose a question around the data which will lead to a pre-determined answer. For example.......

The avg temperature in Europe is______ which supports human life and plants/animals that humans can eat. Why is this?

Answer, In the bible is says "yada yada yada" so based on what hte bible says we can assume that the avg tempature is ____ because god designed it that way.

The problem is this format does not address other variables such as earths tilt, geography, proximity to ocean, distance to sun, etc etc etc.

That is a long answer to your question. But again, my short anwser is... So long as the findings of a 'fundy' literalist christian scientist are based on scientific method I will consider there hypothesis and findings.

Answer 2

The problem with the bible spouting geologist is that he does not have a rational world view in contemporary science to refer to. e.g Forbidden Archaeology by Michael Cremo, or the Facts of Life by Richard Milton all posit many not the mere one logically required .. but many refutations of the darwinian view. [which is the contemporary paradigm]
the lack of refutation of the darwin paradigm and its total unfalsifiability by new scientific and computational criteria e.g. brian goodwin's work on the spontaneous emergence of the eye in Acetabularia ... does suggest that the bible spouting geologist is on ground as sound as any alleged contemporary 'Darwin scientist'.
Spouting bible therefore isn't so important as reporting observable empirical facts ...
and also being 'scientific' doesn't mean sweeping awkward facts under the big big carpet .. as is evidently the case.

yes please lets bang the drum for rationalism - but that means facing up to the fact that the modern scientific paradigm has more holes than the titanic and its time to start looking around for better models.
I do not say that the bible offers any scientific paradigm except within the humanities - but if science had embraced the new works at www.santafe.edu all this creationism and hooha would not be now happening ... as we would have a whole new era of science and computation free of paradoxes by now e.g. solutions to frege, godel, collapsing wave, turing

don't blame the fundies ... have a look for the enemy within.

Answer 3

Literalism of the Bible is not often claimed as an alternative science but rather an alternative TO science by the fundies (how I was raised). Most real scientists who believe in God (like me now) have come to accept the Bible at most as the inspired word of God. Most of the literalistic followers don't even give real science a chance to be heard.

Answer 4

There are geologists like the Australian Andrew Snelling who have written scientific papers as well as fundamentalist religious papers. In one he follows science and the long age of the earth; in the other he follows the 6000 year old earth of the creationists. He does not quote his scientific papers in his religious papers or vice versa. Some of his work is a complete contradiction of other work he has done. How anyone can support two diametrically opposed ideas at the same time I don't know.

You can read about him here:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/snelling.htm

Answer 5

I used to feel very much the same as you...science answers all etc.. over time and a great many theories later, I have come to realize that science is itself a religion, which we, as scientists use to describe the world around us. Because it is based on "facts" and "observations" and rational thought, we hold ourselves as the seekers of truth and claim our theories and conclusions as real, or as near to real as we can be at the time.

But the theories constantly change... much of what we "knew" to be true 30 years ago, 60 years ago, 100 years ago look foolish to us now that we "know" so much more...even though at the time we were certain we were quite clever. Paleoclimates, plate tectonics, evolution.. how much have they changed in 60 years... and why do we think we "know" now ?

My point isn't that science is wrong and religion is right.. my point is that both are a way at looking at the world.. a model if you will. And to believe totally in science is every bit as whimsical as believing that one persons interpretation of the bible must be right.

there are certainly parts of the bible, which are brilliant in the way they describe how people should think in order to live togather in some sort of harmony.... now should the bible be used in the same way as oxygen isotopes to determine what may/may not have happened in the past.. no clearly not, they are very different models.

I think as a scientist you would do much better to focus on your beliefs in science, your work, your research, and devote less time to pointless arguements about the validity of science vs religion... they are not so different as either side would have you believe...

Answer 6

Hopefully no one would take such hypocrisy seriously.
Hopefully there is no one who would tricked into thinking that biblical literalism is an alternative scientific viewpoint.
Biblical literalism and reality are mutually exclusive.

Answer 7

Bet you won't be getting any responses to this one, but it would be interesting to see what sort of books these idiots have. I know there's some sort of "textbook" they were trying to push in the schools - but that was about biology. I'd dearly love to see a creationist geology book!!! That would be hysterical!

Answer 8

Babble, babble babble!!!
Yada, yada, yada!!!. Blah, blah!

Answer 9

yes