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Talk:Falsifiability of Creation (view source)
Revision as of 14:25, December 8, 2008
, 14:25, December 8, 2008So how would one go about "falsifying" this theory?
: There is a third possibility: That what you see as an inconsistency is not actually an inconsistency. The first part of the account is chronological, the second is not, yet you make a chronological claim about it. The NIV translates {{Bible ref|Genesis|2|19}} as "Now the LORD God ''had formed'' out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air." (my emphasis).
: There is a third possibility: That what you see as an inconsistency is not actually an inconsistency. The first part of the account is chronological, the second is not, yet you make a chronological claim about it. The NIV translates {{Bible ref|Genesis|2|19}} as "Now the LORD God ''had formed'' out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air." (my emphasis).
: The language of Genesis 1 is that of narrative, and the [[Creation week|experts agree that it was meant as history]]. And that's a point to keep in mind: The Bible was not written as a ''science'' textbook, but it does contain a lot of ''[[history of the Bible|history]]'', and some of that history does overlap areas that science claims. But is it really science (observation and testing) or ''history'' that is in dispute? We can run tests to see if scales have the capability of turning in feathers, but we can't run tests to see if that's what actually happened in the past. The former is ''science'', and the latter is ''history''. Okay, the two are not mutually exclusive, and certainly science can aid our understanding of history, but we must not blur the distinction.
: The language of Genesis 1 is that of narrative, and the [[Creation week|experts agree that it was meant as history]]. And that's a point to keep in mind: The Bible was not written as a ''science'' textbook, but it does contain a lot of ''[[Bible history|history]]'', and some of that history does overlap areas that science claims. But is it really science (observation and testing) or ''history'' that is in dispute? We can run tests to see if scales have the capability of turning in feathers, but we can't run tests to see if that's what actually happened in the past. The former is ''science'', and the latter is ''history''. Okay, the two are not mutually exclusive, and certainly science can aid our understanding of history, but we must not blur the distinction.
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:09, 25 October 2008 (EDT)
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:09, 25 October 2008 (EDT)
I see we're probably about to enter an identical debate as the one on the Roman Catholicism talk page, but I would like to respond here before moving the debate.
After reading it even more carefully, I insist on my assertation that the second account is chronological. It does not include specific lengths of time, like the first account, but it certainly contains order. Gen 2:4-7 clearly describes the creation of man before "there was field shrub on earth and grass had sprouted." More importantly, Gen 2:8-9 very clearly says that the creation of plant life took place subsequent to the creation of man, which is contradictory to the first creation story. Gen 2:18-20 asserts that God created animal life in response to man's being alone (also my translation, NAB, does not have "had" in 2:19...even if it did I would argue that it meant "had created" in the sense of "ordered to be created"). I honestly fail to see how this can't be taken chronologically.
You say that experts agree Gen 1 was meant as history, but I utterly disagree with this claim. The Catholic Church's ''official doctrine'' is that the creation stories were not meant to be taken literally. Whether or not we agree with this claim, the Church's stance is at least evidence that the experts ''do not'' agree about the intent of Genesis. Now, for fear of entering into a doctrinal battle (as per my user page, I want to avoid those), that is all I will say on that particular matter.
Finally, you establish a dichotomy between science and history, whereas any professional historian will tell you that history must follow the scientific method. In the course of historical studies, a narrative must be treated as the primary evidence on which hypotheses are made. Testing these hypotheses becomes difficult to impossible, which is one reason why the fossil record is only weak evidence for any origins thoery. Evolution is actually tested in completely different ways, which I discuss in our debate on "counterexamples to evolution" discussion. --[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 11:44, 25 October 2008 (EDT)
: Yes, the second part of the account does have ''some'' chronological statements, but it is not primarily chronological. I would also point out that if a document that has been around for a long time and accepted as authoritative for a long time by many people ''appears'' to have a contradiction that has somehow gone unnoticed by so many people for so long, then perhaps the apparent contradiction exists only in the minds of those seeing the contradiction. Much of ancient society was a "high context" culture, where the context of a writing was assumed to be understood, instead of being spelt out. What I'm getting at is that the second part of the account should be read ''in the light of'' the first part, and not as a totally separate account. If I said to you that Abdul's two wives often argued with each other, and someone else told you that Abdul was no bigamist, then you might conclude that one or other of us was lying or mistaken. But if you already knew that Abdul was married, widowed, then married again, but that his second wife knew the first wife well before she died, then you would understand what I said in a different light. And although you might argue that my wording wasn't clear to you, you would at least have to concede that it wasn't incorrect. Nothing in the second part of the creation account clearly and unambiguously contradicts the first part. The only contradiction is from taking an overly-literal understanding and looking for contradictions. So when {{Bible ref|Genesis|2|4-7}} ''appears'' to contradict Genesis 1, you should be saying, "but plants had already been created, so what is this referring to instead?". [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/881/ This article] explains that Genesis 2:4-7 would have been talking about ''cultivated'' plants, and clearly {{Bible ref|Genesis|2|8-9}} is talking specifically about the Garden of Eden, not plants in general. I've already answered regarding {{Bible ref|Genesis|2|18-19}}, but will add that naming them and finding Adam a helper was why God brought the animals to him, not why they were created in the first place.
: The experts I was referring to were experts in Hebrew and Old Testament, and one (or even several) church organisation(s) does not change that. And even though the Catholic Church has compromised on this aspect in recent times, it's still official Catholic doctrine that Adam was a real person. Furthermore, essentially everyone accepted it as history until the last few centuries when "scientific" ideas started to be applied to it. Even now, most scholars who reject its literalness do so for reasons other than the text itself, as is documented in [[Old Earth Creationism]]. I'm sure this also applies to the Catholic Church.
: Yes, history does to a fair extent follow the scientific method, but only up to a point. It relies to a large extent on ancient documents, and historians have to make value judgments on the reliability of those documents. There's few opportunities to do scientific tests in cases like that. Sure, one can put the stone tablet under a microscope or test its chemical composition to determine that it is authentic, or that it came from a certain culture, or whatever, but what sort of scientific tests does one run on the content of the writing? But then you admit that "testing these hypotheses becomes difficult to impossible", which is another way of saying that they are not really falsifiable, which means that they don't really qualify as science. As for evolution being tested in different ways, what I recall you saying in that other discussion is that evolution is "tested" by how ''plausible'' it is, which is different from testing whether or not it's correct.
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 10:10, 26 October 2008 (EDT)
You raise a number of very good points, and as I have exhausted my rather slim technical knowledge (as opposed to personal knowledge) of the Bible, I would be foolish to try and continue. I have been taught and have come to agree with the idea that the creation stories are meant to be taken figuratively. Others have been taught and have come to agree with other perspectives, and that is fine.
You do mention the importance of placing something in context, and I would argue that the Bible must itself be placed in an historical context. Even if you accept the Bible as the literal word of God, then we still have the idea that He was speaking to people of a different time and place. Times have obviously changed, and although Truth hasn't, I think it may be possible (not certain, only possible) that He would tell us Truth in a different way nowadays.
One last thing that's somewhat related: all science is tested by plausibility. However, plausibility is not something which is determined by how logical an idea sounds. Its plausibility is determined in many controlled experiments, and it is judged plausible if the effects match the expected results 95% or more of the time. That's a lot of uncertainty, which is why science is contstantly reworking past ideas...we don't like uncertainty, but we have to deal with it.
I truly enjoy debating with you, Mr. Rayment, as your thoughts are always well-reasoned and thought-out, but I am afraid "real-world" matters will be occupying my time for a while. Hopefully, I will soon be able to continue, and I look forward to it.--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 11:09, 26 October 2008 (EDT)
: I have little doubt that if God was relating Truth just to us 21st-century people, He would do it in a different way. But you seem to be assuming that He told it to people in a way that was specific to them, rather than in a general way that would be understandable by most people throughout history. Clearly God intended His Word to be passed on down to others, so would know that it also needed to be understandable by us. Of course He would also know that we would have the advantage of having some knowledge of ancient writing styles, etc. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:13, 27 October 2008 (EDT)
==Testable propositions==
Please list several testable propositions, and explain how this would affect support for Creationism if any of them were shown to be false. Please take into consideration the [[standard of proof]] which various creationists would accept, particularly those in the [[Old Earth]] and [[Young Earth]] camps. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 09:25, 8 December 2008 (EST)