From the BBC:
The Albertan, who has a longstanding interest in fossils, was digging a basement for a new home in Calgar…
One is tempted to wonder whether the government-funded Beeb hack has any idea what digging out a basement in Calgary might even mean.
Aren’t we all eating pineapples now, instead of sweeping up our underground furnace rooms?
Whatever. Meanwhile,
“No, it hasn’t changed my mind. We all have the same evidence, and it’s just a matter of how you interpret it,” he told the paper.
“There’s no dates stamped on these things.”
But Dr Zelenitsky – while she might disagree about fossil dating – praised Mr Nernberg for his awareness of what the fossils were.
“Most people would have overlooked these – when these were uncovered, Edgar right away recognised them,” she told the paper.
“An ordinary person might have just seen blobs in the rock.”
Actually, he is not an “ordinary person”; he is an Albertan. 😉
Follow UD News at Twitter!
Now just for some fun, the iconic “Alberta” folk song:
Eating, yes, but growing, no (I assume). Although there does appear to be a warming trend.
He can’t be a genuine creationist. If he were, he’d know that those marks in the rock are a few thousand years old at most and paleontologists are all part of a government-funded conspiracy to fool ordinary folk into thinking the world is much older than it is.
None in the Bible either.
OT: Over at TSZ, fossils of reason occasionally appear, quite by accident.
Elizabeth Liddle: I do not think the ID case holds up. I think it is undermined by any evidence for the putative designer – no hypothesis about what the designer was trying to do, how she was doing it, what her capacities were, etc.
Mung: The ID case does not hold up because it is undermined by any evidence for the designer. Classic.
Mung, identification of an empirically detectable, reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration — thus of a design process — is a strong sign of a designer back of that process. Further, designs typically indicate much regarding the knowledge and skill of the contriver; hence why we talk of crude vs sophisticated designs. But then, what is at work is, plainly, no design and no designer can be accepted so let’s find a plausible rhetorical peg to hang our before the fact ideologically predetermined conclusions on. KF
PS: whatever its age, the body plan in the fish fossils strongly speaks to sophisticated complex organised functionality that is information rich. FSCO/I, pace EL and co, is a strong sign of design as cause.
Mung #3,
Okay, so Elizabeth Liddle doesn’t have an argument against ID. This can happen to the best of us… men & women.
What is truly astounding, though, is what she can come up with. Does she read her own stuff?
In this instance, Box, no, and thus failed to spot a typo, which I have now amended:
Although why this should be discussed in a thread about a fossil find in Calgary, I have no idea.
If you would like to discuss it further, I warmly invite you to do so in the TSZ thread that Mung posted:
the son of liddle gods
Lizzie #6, your addition didn’t help at all: you are still not making any sense. This article by Vincent Torley may be a good starting point: No evidence for God’s existence, you say?
Mung, I have headlined, here:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....-designer/
KF
PS: I think the focus of this thread is sufficient to not divert it; e.g. consider the discovery some years back of soft tissues in dinosaur bones and IIRC reports that these remnants, after a claimed 70 MY, still reek of death and decay. Then, ask how a YEC would process such, why.
KF,
“Erroneously” is my guess.
God created the heavens and the earth. God created rocks just as God created man. Man fashioned a watch from rocks.
But isn’t a rock a more awesome design than a watch? I believe so. The fine tuning required to create a rock on a heath boggles the mind. I mean it boggles a human mind.
When you’re hard core ID, you’ll see evidence of design everywhere. In a rock on a heath on a tiny blue dot. Tiny blue dot lol.
A fossil in a rock? Design Sensor overload:)
Just to note KF, I think you were spot on about calling out Lizzies attempt to persuade posters to respond at her site rather than here. To suggest that the alternative to a site which sometimes unfortunately must moderate some discussions, is better done her way is ludicrous.
What is so valuable about a website which allows posters to just spew hate rhetoric and childish abuse at will, without being forced to carry on a real conversation? He can she claim this is a positive environment. What level of childishness is too much for her? Apparently none.
She stopped posting there for over a year, just because she claims she had to post at talkrational instead, and now she comes back and is singing the praises of her freeforall shoutfest?
As someone else said, why would I need to follow you down that drain?
As a Canadian I have followed this story with great interest.
Mr Nernberg is a YEC and is on the board of directors of Big Valley’s Creationist Museum.
I have followed some of the comments on local news sites such as the CBC and have found many of them disturbing to say the least. From people equating creationist’s to the taliban and as even being more dangerous. It’s now become political suicide to even hint that you believe in the literal creation account found in Genesis. An MP in Canada James Lunney is now sitting as an independant because of his views.
http://news.nationalpost.com/n.....erbullying
For thousands of years a literal approach to creation was not even questioned. Now your made to look like a backwoods hillbilly if you even mention it?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/.....-1.3090047
I realize that YEC is difficult to defend and
am wondering if any of the members here would consider themselves to be YEC or perhaps once were: but you have given up that view?
I am a YEC and I find it quite easy to defend.
R_S,
You raise sobering issues.
To begin to clear the air, I suggest we may find it helpful to first note from the most significant single work of modern science, Newton’s Principia which was the work that launched modern science as a dominating intellectual movement because of the breakthrough it put in the public domain.
Let us cite the General Scholium, effectively some contextualising remarks for the whole work in was it the 2nd edn:
Unquestionably, one can adhere to ethical theism, and to the Biblical, Judaeo-Christian worldview and be not only scientifically literate but a contributor, even a major contributor, to Science. Indeed, the list of great scientists who were and are Christians has been long, distinguished and is yet growing.
So, we must not allow ourselves to be fazed by those who would try to smear Christians with the blame for what the Taliban et al have been doing . . . which the very same people will immediately recognise is not even properly to be projected to all Muslims.
To be Christian, and to take the scriptures seriously, is not to be extremist. And, to have moral concerns about dangerous or foolish or questionable but fashionable trends or fads — e.g. we here in the Caribbean just had to deal with School kids naively playing the ill-advised Charlie Charlie game and going off into erratic behaviour or becoming obviously ill, in several territories — is not to be extremist. Indeed, likely, it is the very opposite that is the case: the real extremists are seeking to turnabout the situation by projecting blame and accusations. A notorious propaganda tactic that too often works in situations where people are over-wrought, manipulated and prone to hysterias.
It is time to start with worldviews foundations issues and put forth, consistently, a solid case for both the Christian faith and the wider framework of ethical theism. (I will be revisiting this at UD in the next day or two, DV.)
In that context, it is no accident that when — as Ac 17 reports — Paul had to confront intellectual elites on the grounds for the Christian Gospel and discipleship, he began where they were. He highlighted that God is the root of reality and has placed us here with an adequate base to reach out to him. He did not go into Bible expositions to those who are not ready for such; he began from what is evident to all. This is the same approach we see in Rom 1:
Those who demand the approval of evil are going to try to twist good into evil and evil into good, to accuse those who refuse to go along. This, we see in Isa 5:
In that context, the credibility of the gospel and the scriptures will be under challenge and even dismissal.
Paul’s approach in Ac 17 and 1 Cor 15 is pivotal: the key offer of warrant for the Christian faith is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, with over 500 witnesses, leading to the onward transformation of millions across the ages by the power of the Living God who stands behind the gospel.
I find this video a good start-point for serious minded discussion of that bedrock foundation:
http://vimeo.com/17960119
Once that is in hand, we can then address the pint that our attitude to the Scriptures should be that of our Risen Lord.
And, on origins, Job 38 is humbling:
We should therefore be duly restrained in our attempted reconstructions of the remote, unobservable actual past of origins, and we should be open to the idea that Someone who was there may have somewhat to speak to us about it.
KF
PS: I forgot to include the contribution of Biblical theism and especially Christians tot he rise of modern liberty and democracy a matter that is often distorted or even hotly denied in the teeth of evident facts, e.g. cf:
http://www.angelfire.com/pro/k.....htm#librts
Actually, Plantinga highlighted the farcical nature of this nonsense EL has been peddling about the necessity for identification of a designer, when he focused on the madness, the sheer folly of the materialists’ conviction that, since Darwinism is not proved impossible, therefore it’s true?
One day soon, when the worldly-wise will no longer able to even try to bamboozle the public into accepting that they, the academically-educated are incredibly smart, these sorts of elementary, logical derelictions will be preserved as classical proofs of the contrary case, i.e. that they can be as dumb, nay, more dumb, than anyone else.
Indeed, the very humour of such contentions will be enjoyed to the full by all sections of society, as well as those theistic and deistic scientists who do so now. Specified complexity is actually ‘overkill’, isn’t it? Truculent atheism, the most primitive of all religions, effectively induces brain- death.
KF,
Restraint is fine, but isn’t it time to acknowledge that young earth creationism has been falsified? There is simply no way to salvage it given all the evidence we have today.
DS,
I actually have little interest in the primarily theological, exegetical debates that are at the pivot of young earth/cosmos views on dates over origins.
I leave it to those who are so committed to make their case.
What is far more relevant and indeed is pressing, is the attempt to tar, stereotype and stigmatise Bible-believing Christians in general with the taint of dangerous fanaticism opposed to liberty and progress.
This is based on grievous distortion of history, ethics, political philosophy and a host of other things, and frankly is a part of an ongoing civilisational disintegration that has me very deeply concerned.
That leads me to the call to thought and action I have laid out here:
http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.....ml#u2xfrmn
. . . which rests on the analysis of worldviews presented at 101 level here on (in context, a context that starts with Paul at Mars Hill):
http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.....u2_bld_wvu
Frankly, I think our civilisation is suicidal, and in ways that remind me of the saying that whom the gods would destroy, first they rob of rationality. How else can one explain, say, the recent National Geographic attempt to recast the patently demonically mad Nero in positive terms?
A big part of that suicidal bent lies in the folly long since exposed by Plato in The Laws Bk X, c 360 BC:
It is time to wake up, maybe — God help us — past time to wake up.
KF
Axel
I am currently replying to EL et al in a series for record:
1st: http://www.uncommondescent.com.....-designer/
2nd: http://www.uncommondescent.com.....or-design/
DV more to follow day by day for a little while.
KF
KF,
Naturally, I don’t have much interest in these things either.
I’m interested in the scientific debate (to the extent it exists, which is not great).
Echoing the plea for rationality in your last sentence, isn’t it time “we” wake up and acknowledge that young earth creationism has failed as a scientific theory?
I’m not attempting to stigmatize anyone, just asking that we face the facts honestly.
PP:
if you want to parody Paley, first learn all he said on watches, cf:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....to-design/
Now, let us have a sensible discussion on how you get to a cosmos with terrestrial planets with intelligent, cell based life, that can look at rocks and freely, logically and responsibly ponder how such came to be.
Then, let us contemplate how we come to a living, metabolising, self-replicating cell, with sidebars on Paley’s self-replicating watch thought exercise.
Then, let us ponder how body plans of sponges, fish and humans come to be, and how such may be fossilised.
Then, let us ponder what all of these things are telling us about the very roots of being.
Ready?
KF
DS,
all I say is, has it? Let the advocates thereof answer the case. They are of age, let them speak for themselves.
Meanwhile, I find it of far greater moment that someone living in Canada — Canada! Boringly well ordered, predictable, ever so well governed Canada, the Canada of Vimy Ridge and ever so many more battles for liberty, the Canada of my deepest respect . . . — has had to cry out:
If that does not get your attention bigtime, something is wrong.
KF
PH, thanks. KF
KF,
I’m a little surprised at your agnosticism. You truthfully have no opinion one way or the other?
I agree that equating a YEC with a member of the Taliban is unacceptable. The pastor at the church I attend preaches YEC when he discusses origins (which thankfully is rarely). I see no commonality between him and the Taliban. The worst I could say is that his strategy will turn out to be self-defeating, especially when the young people he preaches to realize that they have received false teachings.
DS, here is what I have had to say at 101 level on cosmology & timelines:
http://iose-gen.blogspot.com/2.....world.html
Secondary issues take a back burner when major and truly dangerous ones are in front of us.
KF
KF,
Do you have more to say at the 401 level? Even something tentative, such as “the evidence for an old Earth appears to be more compelling at this time”?
Do you think scientific ID will ever come to a conclusion about the age of the Earth? Is that even a goal? If it isn’t, what does that say about the ID community’s interest in scientific progress?
DS, dating is not a general past of ID [albeit some facets of thought on fine tuning, but not all, are linked to cosmological theories that tie to the physics of large H-rich hot gas balls and typical discussions of say OoL or OOBPs use the currently generally used earth history timelines]. I addressed it in part as that is important for a citizenship level understanding of origins thought, its strengths and limitations. Again, issues of much greater moment are on the table, directly connected to the survival of our civilisation. As just one tiny slice, why is the presence of ISIS in Syria-Mesopotamia of significant civilisational interest and (more significantly) why is that not widely understood? Ditto, on the significance of Plato’s warning as already cited and annotated above. KF
nm
KF
Having followed some of your links I ended up here
http://www.angelfire.com/pro/k.....ssiahs.htm
Not sure if it just me today but I got an adrenaline rush reading that.
Good work!
daveS
It seems you’re a believing Christian — if so, then you’d assert that there is evidence of intelligent design in nature, right?
Again, if that’s correct, then you’re part of the ID community.
DG, Thanks for kind words. Political messianism is a particularly popular and pernicious ideology (and I daresay idolatry) in our day. I go further, as anti-fascism was my first political position, absorbed literally at mother’s knee. Today, many of us — whatever our nominal position — are horrifically close to looking for a Nietzschean, superman, above ordinary law and morality, rescuer of the identity group in the face of today’s allegedly unprecedented crisis. KF
Hi Silver Asiatic,
I’m actually an atheist, but I attend my wife’s church when my work schedule allows (which is about half the Sundays per year).
KF,
I don’t know anything about the calculus of possible worlds, but do you have a reference with some discussion about the following point?
DS,
I am dealing there with set theory (beyond the naive form) and one way to the natural numbers, creating a succession of sets of ever increasing cardinality from 0 on up. In this case, it is embedded in the structure of any world that such may be done and so two-ness cannot not exist once there is not nothing.
Wiki:
KF
daveS
Sorry I misunderstood – thanks.
Regarding KF’s point:
Since every possible world must be distinguished from/against nothing, then there is the empty set as an entity and the possible world as 1.
Therefore there must be two-ness.
That brings us to existence vs non-existence … reality vs non-reality … material vs immaterial … and eventually true vs false.
It’s the foundation for logic which at its most primitive level is the measure of difference between things. To distinguish.
That’s why monism is illogical.
KF,
(my emphasis)
What I’m wondering is whether the bolded part is true. Does every possible world come “equipped” with ZF set theory? And also perhaps other alternate set theories?
I’m assuming others have made this argument as well (it seems fairly reasonable to me). Do you know of any other sources which cite it?
Edit: To take this further, do “aleph-null-ness” and “aleph-one-ness”, etc., exist in all possible worlds?
Silver Asiatic @34: Thanks, that is some food for thought.
DS, SA is in part anticipating what I am pointing to, once there are relationships, two-ness exists. It is part of the necessary substructure of reality. And, as these are abstract entities, though with an inevitable connexion to such physical entities as exist, the full set of natural numbers must exist, including that this grounds the transfinites. Once a world exists, a great number of connexions, truths, relationships etc must necessarily exist . . . a world requires a lot of things to be in place to exist. Where, nothingness proper denotes non-being, so that if there were ever an utter nothing, such would forever obtain. All of this then focusses the question I posed, echoing many before me: why is there something rather than nothing, and particularly, a unified yet diverse, coherent and at least partly intelligible world. Hence, issues over modes of being and non-being. KF
PS: I think a lot of core Math is discovered not an arbitrary invention. A good part of why I do so is the bang there it is impact of the Euler identity 0 = 1 + e^ i*pi, which draws together so much of core math that it is astounding.
KF,
Thanks, that’s helpful.
F/N: Today’s installment, part 4:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....-exercise/
KF