Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The Hallowed Ground of the Scientists

When the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confidently declared that it's over 90% sure that global warming is not only a significant problem, but that it's being caused mostly by human activities like driving cars and running power plants, it naturally convinced a lot of people. Even John McCain and Joe Lieberman declared it as fact in the Boston Globe last week, referencing "broad consensus in this country, and indeed in the world," and concluding, "This report puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming."

Actually, what it does for me is put the final nail in objectivity's coffin about anything the scientific community comes up with. I had always suspected that much of their aura of scholarship was a rich mixture of things they actually knew and things they only wanted people to think they knew. Now it’s abundantly clear.

About as soon as the ink was dry on this IPCC report, convincing rebuttals came forth from The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, exposing the politics behind the scenes. When significant scientific opposition is banned from participating in the panel, it’s hardly a thing of wonder that consensus can so easily be reached by the remaining scientists, though word has it that even then it took some lobbying. Consensus was very a very important goal to them, as even they admitted. How odd that consensus should now be a determining factor in scientific analysis.

Their report, purporting to knock the objections over the matter out of the ring once and for all, turned out to be nothing more than another bell between rounds.

It’s in the very same light, I hasten to add, that we ought to see any declarations of the “scientific community” on matters in which they alone seem to have privileged access.

Like evolution, for instance. It’s hard to get them to even debate the matter, which suggests to me that for them it’s some sort of Holy Place where questions of legitimacy are blasphemy. If on a rare occasion they do debate, their talk is peppered with technical language no doubt meant to get the rest of us poor idiots wondering not only about our objections, but why we ever questioned such geniuses in the first place. As in the case of the IPCC, the matter seems for them to be settled by the mere confidence with which they make their pronouncements. You’d question us? And who are you? Don’t you know consensus has already been reached?

The age of relics, or of the earth itself—an integral component of evolution, of course—is another matter in which I am amazed that it is so hard to find ever, anywhere, or by anyone, an explanation of just how they arrive at the dating of artifacts. You’d think museums would have an exhibit on this somewhere, but I’ve never seen one. Carbon-14, unanium half-life, and the like, are notoriously flawed, even by their standards. So instead, the hallowed ground simply becomes a place of silence. And the rest of us are supposed to have an instinctive awareness that faith is the substance of things not seen.

And while we’re at it, here’s one more matter on which I have long mused. Admittedly I’m going out on a limb here, because I have never seen anyone question this, ever. Did you ever look up at the stars on a summer night and wonder how far away they really are? Gazillions of light years? Well, people like our bright friends at the IPCC have me second guessing even those kinds of scientific assertions. I mean, how do they know? Don’t tell me it’s parallax view. On something that far away? I can scarcely believe their instruments can make any such distinction in degrees, even if measurements are taken from one side of the earth, or solar system, to the other. I’m guessing—yes, purely guessing—that their determination has to do with the color of the light they see coming from a star. But what if their base assumptions are flawed here, as they are in so many other areas? What if those stars are of an entirely different nature, and much closer than a number of years with as many zeroes behind it as there are evolutionary hoaxes? Somebody tell me if I’m all wet on this one; I certainly could be, I readily admit. But I’d really like to know.

One thing I do know, and the jury is in: the scientists are as religious about their dogma as the rest of us are about ours, and about as dedicated. On any given matter on which they make confident assertions it is virtually as likely that they do as that they do not have scientific proof to back it up.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the past year or two several steam locomotives pasted through town on exhibit. When I was down wind the smoke and soot was stifling, which brings me to the point. The industrial age of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries was coal powered; any kind of coal; soft, hard, high sulfur, high acid, etc. "I could be wrong now, but I don't think so". The average temperature was lower, in fact much lower, but the pollutants had to have been much higher then today. Coal fired home and business heating, electrical generation, trains, factories, steel mills, ships, even the Stanley Steamer!

Anonymous said...

Great Scott, Father Eckardt!

I agree with you about Darwinism but you then go off in an unfortunate direction...

"I am amazed that it is so hard to find ever, anywhere, or by anyone, an explanation of just how they arrive at the dating of artifacts. You’d think museums would have an exhibit on this somewhere, but I’ve never seen one."

The place you find such explanations are in things called "science books" not museums. Please try to read one now and then. I have some layman-level science texts in this room with simple and understandable explanations of carbon and radiometric dating, astronomy, etc. that have strong supporting evidence not "assertions".

I an a new Lutheran and I'm already growing weary of Lutheran science-bashing at every turn.

"have me second guessing even those kinds of scientific assertions. I mean, how do they know? Don’t tell me it’s parallax view. On something that far away? I can scarcely believe their instruments can make any such distinction in degrees"

Great Caesar's Ghost! This shows that you haven't even tried to understand the most basic of scientific discoveries of the past century.

"On any given matter on which they make confident assertions it is virtually as likely that they do as that they do not have scientific proof to back it up."

How can you make such a confident assertion when you obviously haven't even cracked open the most elementary of science books to try to understand what you are attacking?

Holy Smokes!

BTW, Father, Gottesdienst is THE premier Lutheran journal and I am a rabid supporter. Just please don't soil such a fine publication with anti-science speculation -- Lutheran publications are rife enough with such stuff.

Fr BFE said...

OK Brother Jon, lay it on me; I'm waiting to hear. Who said I was anti-science? I am no scientist, to be sure, but are you? Carbon-14 dating, you ought to be aware, is never used for things that are older than thousands of years, right? And as for uranium half-life dating, I believe it also has its flaws, as the scientists who use it will also attest. I mean, if I'm so wrong, just show me.

Susan said...

I want to know why we decided Copernicus was right. The Church had hissy fits over his assertion that the earth was not the center of the universe. It was proved that the planets revolve around the sun and not around the earth. But couldn't we say that maybe, just maybe, the earth IS the center, and the sun (with all the rest of the solar system rotating around IT) rotates around the earth??? After all, we're talkin' space here: motion has to be relative.

Fr BFE said...

Actually the Copernican theory nicely cuts man down to size. It says, You thought you were the center of everything? Nope, the sun is. Aha! See how nice that works with theology? And as for the man in the moon, just who did you think that was? And what does it signify? Hmmm?

Past Elder said...

The Coperican theory did not seem to cut Man down to size, but remove him from a central position in the universe, therefore not the special object of God's loving action. It seemed to contradict faith -- as if faith rested on a certain science being true.

That's the problem. A little Aquinas wouldn't hurt anyone on this. God is the author of both revelation and the object of scientific study; one ought have nothing to fear from the other.

What article of faith is threatened by the theory of global warming? Unlike those who might have to change, read, spend money, their products or manufaturing methods if it were true, we don't have a dog in this fight.

Great Caesar's Ghost, and oh happy day to find I am not the only one in the Lutheran blogosphere who says that. Was noch -- a scientist emerging from a meeting in St Louis muttering "Still, it's getting warmer"?

Lawrence said...

One thing about most Lutherans, at least in my experience, is that we are taught to approach learning with an open and often skeptical mind. It should be no surprise that thinking Lutherans approach science from a similar open and yet skeptical mindset.

Just because someone wrote a science book on radiometric dating or global warming does not require us to shut off our intellect and blindly embrace every politically correct agenda that comes down the pike.

A couple points:

Radiometric dating is based on the mathematical approximation of nuclear decay half-life. While these approximations are accurate enough for use in one scientific context it does not mean they are accurate enough in other contexts.

Yes, the temperature of the earth has increased 2 degrees over the last 100+ years, but this is not enough justification to prove global warming. Take the studies of the ice sheets in Greenland (google it). The temperatures in Greenland over the past 1000+ years have varied back and forth over a 25 degree span of temperature. And, the current increase in global temperatures falls well within this historical trend, proving that nothing out of the ordinary is actually occurring.

As Lutherans:

We are skeptical of much science, especially that which strives to prove or deny God and God's creation.

Creation of nature is a Miracle, and natural science is a consequence of that creation.

As long as scientists strive to focus on science as the answer to Creation, rather than Creation as the answer to science we Christians and Lutherans will continue to be skeptical, both in private and in public.

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir,

The reason I don't want to debate you is that I have years of education that you don't. I accept evolution because I understand it. I know the predictions it makes and the countless problems it has solved. I don't mean to sound like a snob but quite simply you don't know what you are talking about and I have grown tired of being asked the same nonsense questions. For instance, see your comments on carbon and radiometric dating.

I’ll bet you can’t even define the Theory of Evolution. I’ll give you a hint; it’s not “Survival of the Fittest” like that nitwit Coulter seems to think.

The few people that have acquainted themselves with it and argue against are making a great deal of money doing so. They have, of course, published no papers. Here is a story of two of them.

When William Dembsky had the opportunity to testify under oath about how wrong evolution is he did not bother to show up. (He did keep his sponsors money.) Behe did testify and was made to look a fool. The transcript is available on line. (I’m referring to Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. The Christians took a bath and for whatever reason God did not jump in to save them.)

If you want to see the TOE in action I invite you to make your way to a teaching hospital and see what is going on. When was the last time you saw somebody with polio for instance?

Tell me, please, a disease that studying the Bible has conquered. I anxiously await your response.

Lawrence said...

Dear Bacchus,

I'm not sure which sir you are referring to.

Someone with a truly rounded and grounded education would understand that miracles such as creation are special because they are supernatural, not because they can be explained or denied in human terms.

What you effectively argue in your post is that your belief in science proves that miracles such as Biblical creation couldn't have happened.

We are wrong in trying to disprove the Miracle of Creation in mere human scientific terms, just as we are wrong in trying to explain or prove it.

Just because you can't understand it or explain it doesn't mean that God didn’t or couldn’t do it.

My suggestion is to stop trying to package God into your human-limited point of view. Open your mind just a crack and consider the greater possibilities of omnipotent God.

Lawrence said...

Tell me, please, a disease that studying the Bible has conquered. I anxiously await your response.

Firstly, the Bible tells us what God can and does do for us. The Bible clearly articulates that God can certainly cure Polio or any other disease should He choose to do so.

Yet, for some higher reason, God has allowed us the ability to cure polio using our God given scientific knowledge. Is this not the very proof of a Miracle that you seek?

Furthermore, the Bible offers a number of methods by which we can halt the spread of any number of diseases simply through proper hygiene, eating proper foods, etc, as well as teaching us to controlling our natural urges to embrace sexual promiscuity, for examples.

Anonymous said...

Hi Lawrence,
I was referring to the person who wrote the blog entry that I was responding to.

I find it very amusing and odd that a Christian is telling a scientist to have an open mind. That’s one for the ages.

Moving along, I see no reason at all to think that there is any such thing as “miracles such as creation.” There is certainly no reason to think it happened, but I’m not trying to disprove it, in fact I don’t think I even mentioned it. I don’t care one way or the other about it. What I do care about is the dissemination of ignorance, and comments such as the one in the blog entry about radiometric dating do just that. The main thrust of my statement was that until you understand the TOE I don’t want to debate it.

It was no miracle that cured polio, it was a lot of hard work. If “God” wanted to cure it I don’t understand why he would allow it in the first place, and why he would cause so much suffering before “curing” it. Why did he wait until 50 years ago? Why is the vaccination necessary? Please try to understand why it is things like this that make these discussions so tiring.

And then the big question: Why didn’t he get the cell right, they we wouldn’t have to be waiting for a cure for cancer. (I think I’m safe in saying that there will never be a single cure. The cell is a kludge, and each type of cancer will take a separate fix.)

Things like proper hygiene are not science, they are common sense, and most people on this planet have figured it out without the Bible. Not eating something that harms you, say pork, is not science either, it is fear and ignorance. Figuring out why it hurts you and then moving on is science. Just for the record I had ham for dinner tonight.

You are aware that it was not until the Enlightenment that science really got going, when we stopped things like blood letting and burning twelve year old girls and so forth. That is also when we loosened the churches hold on government in Europe. Imagine that.

Lawrence said...

Bacchus,

No I guess you didn't mention "miracles such as creation", but it provides an interesting discussion point.

You are lecturing on keeping an open mind with regard to science, but exclusively to science and not to religion.

While we can argue that there is no reason to think Biblical Creation miraculously happened, there is also no reason to deny it out of hand.

Your arguments based on science are effectively arguing something that science just doesn't and can't address. This is no different that Christians trying to argue Biblical truths about things that the Bible just doesn't talk about. Except that the Bible does talk about Creation as a miracle of God, rather than a natural accident in terms of science.

When Christians discuss Miracles we are by definition admitting that these actions can not be fully understood in human terms. Because if we could define them such they would no longer hold any special significance.

It isn't wrong for Christians to be skeptical of scientific theories. And it isn't necessarily wrong for scientists to be skeptical of miracles.

Being skeptical is one half of keeping an open mind. The other half is is not ruling out possibilities just because we don't want to believe them.

Lawrence said...

Bacchus: Things like proper hygiene are not science, they are common sense,

Yet, common sense is based on trial and error, which is exactly what scientific discoveries are based on. Scientific trial and error is more likely to prove successful, but it is still trial and error.

Regarding cancer cells, you ask why God didn’t get the cell right? Well, who can claim with certainty what God did or did not get it right?

And I leave the question of why God allows bad things to happen to good people for Father Eckardt to answer.

Regarding "the Enlightenment". While we may have loosed the Roman Catholic Church’s hold on government, we did not separate Christianity from Western Culture.

It is not also interesting that various Christian church groups where an integral part of eliminate the blood-letting, and developing the public education systems we now have. The American public education system may be a secular humanistic construct in its current state. But secularists can’t take credit away from Christians for initiating development of our cultural priority to educate our populace and our youth in theology as well as in science. Without the help of the Christian religious community we would not have the natural science, engineering, and medical developments we currently enjoy.

And yes, we do hold our scientific achievements in high regard with respect to previous cultures. However, previous cultures developed vast and grand scientific achievements using tools and methods seemingly inferior to our current standards. I.E.: We still don’t know exactly how the Egyptians or Mayans engineered and built their grand pyramids. We have only a rudimentary understanding of how the early Polynesians navigated the vast Pacific Ocean. And we are still uncovering fantastic Roman naval engineering developments buried under the Mediterranean Sea.

Lawrence said...

Bacchus said..."What I do care about is the dissemination of ignorance, and comments such as the one in the blog entry about radiometric dating do just that. The main thrust of my statement was that until you understand the TOE I don’t want to debate it."

With regard to the dissemination of ignorance, I think we are all in agreement.

Perspective One:

Radiometric dating is based on formulas designed to measure energy release over a short factor of time. The short-term energy release factor of the equation reflects a scientifically measurable constant. But the time factor of the equation is a theoretical logarithmic approximation.

These formulas where designed to approximate short term energy release, not to approximate vast expanses of time. They can't be used as a valid fact in proving or disproving a historical or natural date because the formulas use theoretical time factors.

We can't prove a theory with another theory. Yet with radiometric dating we attempt to do just that.

Perspective Two:

Biblical Creation is explained as a supernatural Miracle reflecting that nature is a consequence of Creation, as opposed to the scientific perspective the creation is a consequence of nature.

Which came first?
Is Creation a consequence of nature?
Or is nature a consequence of Creation?

The Biblical account says that Creation came first.

Fr BFE said...

Wow, you guys have really been having at it while I was away.

Hey there, Bacchus, you say you don't mean to sound snobbish, but just excacly what else could you call this?: "I have years of education that you don't." You say you don't wish to debate, but then why do engage the argument? Speaking of being amused, it strikes me as a thing of wonder that someone as erudite and learned as you would take the time to respond to us poor unenlightened Christians.

Of course your slash and burn technique is not really a call for debate, so why don't we just cut to the chase?

You, I, and all mankind, are a fallen race. That's why there are things like polio, and, more importantly, death. You have a cure for polio? Wonderful, kudos! But we have a cure for death, by One whose resurrection is an established fact of history. We routinely bend the knee before Him, and invite you to repent and do the same, and you shall have life.

Anonymous said...

Oh boy! This is why I don’t like to get into these discussions. Lawrence, what makes you think I needed you to explain radiometric dating to me? And if you are going to do it why don’t you make the effort to get it right?

But back to the original post, there is this gem:

“The age of relics, or of the earth itself—an integral component of evolution, of course—is another matter in which I am amazed that it is so hard to find ever, anywhere, or by anyone, an explanation of just how they arrive at the dating of artifacts.”

Can you type “radiometric dating” into Google or is that too hard for you?

I was going to give you the link to Wikipedia just to show you how easy it is and in the process found this. It is an excellent description of the whole thing. And it is written by a CHRISTIAN! Probably because people like Eckardt are an embarrassment.

Here is the link. You will find his name, email and snail addresses.
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.html

Here is the Wikipedia one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating

About this education thing, it was obvious from your comments that you didn’t know what you were talking about. But since you took such offense I took you up on your invitation and went to your other site and looked up your cv. Just as I suspected there is diddly squat there about science but you don’t let that stop you from going on like you’re an expert. The fact is neither one of you knows an isotope from an archaeopteryx.

That’s all the time I’m wasting on this. Anybody that thinks he has “conquered death” is a little too far round the bend for me to take seriously Have a nice day.

Anonymous said...

Blaming the entire "scientific community" for the "global warming" excesses of a few scientists, enhanced by the clymer media, is probably... excessive. There are other scientists, many with established physics, meterological, or similar science degrees and professional experience who have questioned the IPCC "conclusion". A few, in fact, have been threatened with the loss of their jobs and/or loss of grant money; for pointing out the flaws in some global warming predictions; others have been ordered by their administrators to refrain from speaking out in public. Hell hath no fury like a scientific adminstrator scorned!

Don’t tell me it’s parallax view. On something that far away?

Yes, stellar parallax is indeed one of the ways to measure the distance, d, to a star. It requires a very accurate telescope and very precise measurements.

The parallax, p, is half the measured angle a star appears to move relative to a more distant star as the earth travels from one side to the other of its solar orbit, with a radius = 94 million miles = 1 astronomical unit (1 AU). From the trigonometric relationship, sin p = 1 AU / d, the small angle approximation is used to give p = 1 AU / d, where p is the angle in units of radians (π radians = 180 degrees). For p = 1 arc second, d = 206,265 AU = 3.26 light years = 1 parsec.

In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, a Lutheran astronomer in Konigsberg, was the first person to measure the distance to a star using the parallax technique. Bessel, used a Fraunhofer heliometer to measure the star, 61 Cygni. Bessel's measured parallax (p) was 0.314 arc-seconds, which gave a distance of 10.4 light years (modern measurements have determined the distance to be 11.4 ± 0.02 light years). For that accomplishment Bessel won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1841. Today, satellite telescopes can measure star distance out to about 1,600 light-years.

Beyond that distance, to determine the parallax, p, another method is used, which compares the apparent brightness or magnitude, m, of a star with its absolute magnitude, M. The M value for a star in the main sequence of stars is determine using the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, developed independently by Ejnar Hertzsprung, a Danish Lutheran astronomer and Henry Russell, an American astronomer. To determine the distances to other galaxies, astronomers have used Hubble's Law (formulated in 1929), in which the redshift in light coming from a distant galaxy is proportional to its distance. It was in the 20th century before Hubble and other astronomers discovered there were galaxies outside of our own Milky Way.

While uncertainty increases with an object's distance, the accuracy of astronomical measurements has improved over time (and with space telescopes). It is very unlikely that relative errors of many orders of magnitude are to be found in previously measured distances of stars. The observable universe is billions of light years in size and filled with billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars.

Anonymous said...

"Carbon-14 dating, you ought to be aware, is never used for things that are older than thousands of years, right? And as for uranium half-life dating, I believe it also has its flaws, as the scientists who use it will also attest. I mean, if I'm so wrong, just show me."

With accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), C-14 dating can be done out to at least 50,000 years. In addition to uranium dating there are a number of other long lived isotopes that can be used to measure times of millions or billions of years.

And then there is the Oklo natural nuclear reactor.

There are always errors due to types of materials, sample preparation, and instrumentation calibration. In any responsible scientific reporting, these and other sources of error are investigated and reported as well as the determination of the overall uncertainty.

Anonymous said...

Susan said... "I want to know why we decided Copernicus was right... But couldn't we say that maybe, just maybe, the earth IS the center, and the sun (with all the rest of the solar system rotating around IT) rotates around the earth??? After all, we're talkin' space here: motion has to be relative.

There is much evidence that it is the earth that revolves and moves around the sun and not the sun around the earth - the Coriolis effect, seen in hurricanes; Earth's weather patterns; the famous Foucault pendulum (which can be set up in a grade school); the equatorial bulge; limitations by the speed of light; the geostationary satellites that make up our GPS system; and pretty much the entire understanding of our solar system's movement within the Milky Way galaxy, which along with some 50 other galaxies form the Local group, which along with 100 other groups is part of the 200 million-light-year-wide Virgo Supercluster, as it moves, along with other superclusters, at about 1,000 kilometers per second toward what has been called the Great Attractor, which has the mass of about 50 million galaxies.

Yep, we're talking about motion in space here!

Fr BFE said...

To Carl Vehse,

Some fascinating things you've given us there. I'm still a bit skeptical of some of what you say, but it certainly makes sense. I didn't know that parallax view was involved in the measuring of the distance of stars, which I'd be more inclined to believe than light color. So the base of the trinagle needed is the line segment which could be drawn from the earth as it sits on one side of its orbit to where it sits on the other side of its orbit, a considerable distance. Yes, that makes sense; although as you say, you'd need some pretty sensitive equipment. Anyhow, my original point in all this is that it's awfully hard to know when scientists are seeking to be fully objective (which I would concede is likely to be the norm) or when they have a political axe to grind, leading them either consciously or subconsciously to skew their results. Who's looking over their shoulders?

Anonymous said...

Who's looking over their shoulders?

Short answer: Other scientists.

Long answer: Usually scientists' discoveries or results are published in scientific journals after being reviewed by other experts in the field (and, in some sense, competitors for funding and recognition). Also, many scientific papers have multiple authors who are supposed to check each other for errors or fudged data, if only to protect their own reputation. Both these have had some embarrassing failures, leading to retractions by the authors and ruined careers. In one case the discovery of two new elements had to be recanted. OTOH, even Albert Einstein didn't get a free pass; his claim about hidden variables in quantum mechanics was disputed, albeit by a recognized giant in physics, Neils Bohr.

Another important check is reproducibility by other scientists. Examples of this check are 1) the 1986 claim of making superconductors at temperatures far higher than possible according to the established, tested and well-accepted, Nobel-prize-winning superconductor theory; and 2) the 1989 claim that nuclear fusion (use by stars and H-bombs) could be produced in a container filled with heavy water and a piece of palladium metal. Scientists around the world immediately tried to duplicate the results of either claim, both of which initially seemed preposterous. The superconductor results were successfully duplicated by many (a new theory, of course, had to be developed to explain the phenomenon). The efforts to duplicate the cold fusion claims were negative, though a few people keep trying.

Third, there's the general rule of thumb that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This tends to stop most (but not all) of the really "kook" theories, but it also slows up, often by decades, the acceptance of some valid scientific break-through advancements. The discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, and (Lutheran) Ole Roemer are some historical examples. Victor Hess (cosmic rays) and Alfred Wegener (plate tectonics) are a couple of 20th century examples.

P.S. Whether groups of scientists knowingly participate in conspiracies to cover up or protect "politically correct", but false theories is debatable. Every profession has its dishonest people, and scientists (or pastors) are no exception. But competition for funding and fame (Nobel or other) is strong, and with increasingly open communications via the internet, it's harder to carry out deliberate deception. Delusion is easier. For a long time scientists learned as a child at their mother's knee that inert gases (neon, krypton, xenon) were chemically inert... until Canadian chemist Neil Bartlett in 1962 decided to try making a stable, solid compound with an inert gas. He did; then others did too.

Fr BFE said...

Whether groups of scientists knowingly participate in conspiracies to cover up or protect "politically correct", but false theories is debatable. Every profession has its dishonest people, and scientists (or pastors) are no exception. But competition for funding and fame (Nobel or other) is strong, and with increasingly open communications via the internet, it's harder to carry out deliberate deception. Delusion is easier.

Right; and when there's competition, there's a worry about objectivity. The trouble with going against the grain on something is that the stronger the grain, the more likely it is that one will invite trouble. Stories pop up here and there about researchers at places like the Smithsonian who suggest the possibility of Intelligent Design, who lose their desks in a big hurry. I have no interest in debunking the scientific profession, as I expect there are a lot of brilliant and straightforward people in it, but I think it's healthy to be aware that everyone works with biases.

Lawrence said...

Bacchus said...Lawrence, what makes you think I needed you to explain radiometric dating to me?
...The fact is neither one of you knows an isotope from an archaeopteryx.


I have nothing that I need to prove here, you are the one trying to prove something.

It is a requirement of my job and my career that I understand radiometric dating in both theoretical and practical context. I don't need to prove that radiometric dating theory is faulty in the extreme. It is obvious that whatever data I provide in support of my arguments will be rejected by you.

Yet, I did provide at least a simplistic explanation of my point of view. All you have provided for proof of your argument is insult an innuendo.

"That’s all the time I’m wasting on this. Anybody that thinks he has “conquered death” is a little too far round the bend for me to take seriously Have a nice day.

So, it is worth your time to insult us, but not worth your time to explain yourself with more that wiki page references?

And you want us to take you seriously?

We are not the one stomping off in a huff because our belief in science is being challenged in open debate.