Let's see if we can figure this out about the old Piltdown Man

[Audie]

I don't buy it. No ape ever built a computer or a car.

Not by himself. Its always teamwork.

 

[F1fan]

You are forgetting that time dilates in strong gravitational fields (General Relativity) and at fast speeds (Special Relativity). So, God's time might not be our time, depending on where God was relative to the big bang and how fast he was traveling.

That doesn't help the narrative because no matter how the time is acting the earth didn't form at the beginning. It just isn't accurate.

Furthermore, days were measured by the rotation of the earth, and years by the orbit of the earth around the sun. If the sun and earth didn't exist at the formation of the universe, days and years didn't exist either. Furthermore, once days and years existed, they were different lengths of time than they are now.

Also, the bible's translation might be wrong. In Hebrew the word "year" might also mean the word "era."

I think it's best just to acknowledge that the writers were not trying to record a history or factual description, and just leave it at that. Trying to make it fit the facts just makes the story and God look foolish and incapable of being correct. If we are going to assume the genesis stories reflect reality then scientists know more about nature than the creator, which is odd.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Scientists test their theories.
Preachers don't test...they just believe.

Not the ones about the past that cant be tested. Try testing the big bang. Yet we are still told it's reality and scoffed at if we question it.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not the ones about the past that cant be tested. Try testing the big bang. Yet we are still told it's reality and scoffed at if we question it.

The Big Bang has been tested.
Of course, more testing awaits, as always.
How Two Pigeons Helped Scientists Confirm the Big Bang Theory | At the Smithsonian| Smithsonian Magazine
Tests of Big Bang Cosmology - Week2
Keep in mind that the Big Bang involves physics as yet unknown.
There is much interesting work & discovery ahead.

 

[F1fan]

Because of my spiritual background i believe certain things that isn't based on science.

You make this sound as if science makes up explanations and phenomenon. That is what religion does. All science does is explain how nature works.

So are you saying that you believe things that isn't consistent with what science reports?

 

[F1fan]

Not the ones about the past that cant be tested. Try testing the big bang. Yet we are still told it's reality and scoffed at if we question it.

Creationists oppose results in science because it goes against their religious assumptions and beliefs. So these oppositions are unprofessional, unfounded, and absurd. The well educated defer to what science reports because the experts have authority due to their expertise and professionalism. They show their work.

 

[Valjean]

If they can say what they believe and the public believes them, how is that any different than believing what a preacher says?

Because science isn't based on opinion. It's based on observable evidence and repeated attempts to falsify both facts and interpretations. Because science invites testing and criticism. Only when repeated tests of verifiable evidence finds no other explanation for a phenomenon is a scientific theory considered valid.

Religious doctrine is faith based. Religion doesn't test, or even investigate. In fact, it discourages both. Religion is unsupported and untested speculation.

 

[Valjean]

I don't buy it. No ape ever built a computer or a car.

A. What do these things have to do with descent or genetics? Taxonomy has nothing to do with intelligence or technology.
B. Humans built cars. Humans are, biologically, apes. Ergo: apes built computers and cars.

You're working from a wrong definition of ape, I'm afraid.

 

[Audie]

Not the ones about the past that cant be tested. Try testing the big bang. Yet we are still told it's reality and scoffed at if we question it.

Who told you it is " reality"? Nobody.

Questioning, doubting is great. ( just dont
try it in church)
Questioning everything is at the heart of
science.
Keep in mind though, that in any field
asking dumb questions will get a scornful
response. Thats human nature, thats as it should be.

The " questions" , doubts about BB or evolution seen
here are as ill considered as asking
"Why cant i get back the same dollar bill
I deposited in the bank?"
Does one learn from the laughter or pout
and go-


Boo hoo they scoffed me!

Ask informed meaningful questions, and the
respect will follow as earned.

 

[Valjean]

Not the ones about the past that cant be tested. Try testing the big bang. Yet we are still told it's reality and scoffed at if we question it.

You're showing your ignorance of the subject you're opining about, again.
Do you think science comes up with its theories out of thin air?
If you don't understand why science believes as it does, you might want to reserve judgement.

 

[F1fan]

A. What do these things have to do with descent or genetics? Taxonomy has nothing to do with intelligence or technology.
B. Humans built cars. Humans are, biologically, apes. Ergo: apes built computers and cars.

You're working from a wrong definition of ape, I'm afraid.

That is definitely part of creationist strategy, to make simplistic, untrue, and confusing references that just muck up any discussion. Look at the "we see no cats come from dogs" type of absurd claim. Debate with creationists is like quicksand, they set a trap that the better educated step into by correcting the creationist error, meanwhile the creationist has set another trap for someone else. And they never admit their errors. They never learn.

 

[viole]

I don't buy it. No ape ever built a computer or a car.

Well, since we are great apes, it comes without saying that apes cab build computers and cars. I wonder why you find it difficult to believe.

Well, since ape appears to hurt your ego, what about primates? Can primates build computers and cars? If not, what about mammals? I think it is obvious we are mammals, that is why we girls have feeding breasts (and you nipples for some mysterious divine reason). Is mammal better than ape? Why? Honestly, I would prefer to be confused with a gorilla than with a rat.

For your information, we are: great apes, a subset of primates, a subset of mammals, a subset of vertebrates.

At which level would you put us, according to your Book?

Ciao

- viole

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I think it's best just to acknowledge that the writers were not trying to record a history or factual description, and just leave it at that.

I believe that those stories were considered accurate accounts before it was shown that they aren't, and that calling them less than fact was once considered blasphemy. Why would it be any other way?

Believers don't call their stories myths until they have to. They sometimes call them allegory or metaphor, but they are not that. Both of those terms refer to substituting symbols for something known. The ancients didn't know anything about the subject, were guessing, and guessed wrong. When they said that the rain leaked through holes in the firmament, they meant this literally. This was not a symbolic account of the water cycle. It was merely a guess and a wrong one.

In fact the more scientists discover, the more they realize how wrong their theories, especially Darwinian evolution, are. None of it holds up under scientific scrutiny.

This is incorrect. All existing scientific theories are on a firm foundation, evolution among them. The evidence for the theory being correct is compelling. The theory of biological evolution unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture.

The science in crisis trope seems to be common among creationists. We are told how the edifice of science is crumbling. It's not. There are upheavals form time to time, but this is how science progresses, at times necessitating paradigm shifts to account for newer evidence. The narrative is always the simplest one that unifies the existing data, which is why deities are never inserted into scientific theories, as they add unnecessary complexity to the narrative without increasing its explanatory or predictive power. But add a finding best explained by the existence of an intelligent designer, and the narrative will evolve to reflect that.

Falsify evolution, and over night, science embraces an intelligent designer hypothesis, although not calling it supernatural, as a naturalistically arising race of superhuman extraterrestrials is still a more parsimonious answer than positing a tri-omni deity to play the part of the deceptive agent that studded the earth and DNA with millions of false leads to make it appear that naturalistic evolution had occurred. This is how science works. It would then reevaluate the deceptively placed data that in the light of the falsifying find, and upon confirming that the falsifying find wasn't a hoax, only an intelligent designer would be possible. Boom. Huge paradigm shift.

A simple example is the fine-tuning of our universe. There are such impossible odds of it having coming to arrive as it has, all 4 fundamental laws of the universe tuned to just the right degree, that they come up with the theory of multiverse. An infinite amount of universes until the one we exist in arrives. This is metaphysical hocus pocus and is [not] real science. Superstitious mumbo jumbo with no foundation in the real world.

I added a word [in brackets] that I think you intended but left out.

I disagree, but even if you were correct, you've just described belief by faith, albeit in terms you wouldn't use such as metaphysical hocus pocus and superstitious mumbo jumbo.

Also, when challenging science, don't you think you should get the science right? You seem to be confusing the four forces with the fundamental physical constants:

God's word said the earth was round (a sphere) and hung on nothing thousands of years before science discovered it to be true.

Round and spherical are not synonyms (coins and hula hoops are round but not spherical), and the earth isn't hung on anything. Those are errors of fact. You also have a logical fallacy here: "The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred." You've chosen to ignore the multitude of scriptures that describe the earth as flat, fixed, immobile, having corners and edges, resting on pillars, and covered by a hemisphere like a snow globe, and fixed on the one scripture that comes closest to the science as if it existed in the Bible alone. That's a classic example of the fallacy.

Many things regarding evolution are widely heralded and accepted as true, then conclusions sometimes change upon further discoveries or investigations.

That's how good science progresses. This is not a defect, but rather, a feature of scientific progress.

the Piltdown Man is a rather extreme example of that which is fraudulent or untruthful yet accepted by many

But it's not science. The debunking was science.

the mainstream community of what is accepted as science not only has logical and reasonable gaps that cannot be bridged except by conjectural assessments as to their placement in the theory, but which are promoted as true by the mainstream scientific community.

Scientific dicta are provisional. Scientists and sophisticated lay consumers of science understand that even if others do not.

Also, I'm aware of no logical gaps in science, just gaps in evidence. Maybe you are thinking of something like abiogenesis. There is no logical gap there. The logic is that life exists, and must have originated naturalistically (abiogeneis) or supernaturalistically (divine creation), neither of which can be ruled in or out at this time, making them each viable candidate hypotheses, albeit not equally so. A naturalistic hypothesis is always more likely than a supernatural one.

The gap is in evidence for each, not logic. The evidence for abiogenesis is intriguing and consistent with the hypothesis, but not robust enough to call compelling. There is no evidence for divine creationism apart from holy books, which is about as far from robust as evidence gets, much less intriguing.

 

[Wandering Monk]

So now, for many years it was broadly accepted that fossilized bones put together were the remains of an early human. Although not everyone accepted it, yet it was widely accepted as indicative of an early human. The hoax was finally verified in 1953. Seems that in 1912, a man named Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the "missing link" between ape and man. Finally found out to be a fraud even though accepted by many for decades.

Who discovered that it was a hoax? Other scientists. Go figure!

From the outset, some scientists expressed skepticism about the Piltdown find (see above). G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together".[13] In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration, inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.[3]

In November 1953, Time magazine published evidence, gathered variously by Kenneth Page Oakley, Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark and Joseph Weiner, proving that Piltdown Man was a forgery[14] and demonstrating that the fossil was a composite of three distinct species. It consisted of a human skull of medieval age, the 500-year-old lower jaw of an orangutan and chimpanzee fossil teeth. Someone had created the appearance of age by staining the bones with an iron solution and chromic acid. Microscopic examination revealed file-marks on the teeth, and it was deduced from this that someone had modified the teeth to a shape more suited to a human diet.

The Piltdown Man hoax succeeded so well because, at the time of its discovery, the scientific establishment believed that the large modern brain preceded the modern omnivorous diet, and the forgery provided exactly that evidence. It has also been thought that nationalism and cultural prejudice played a role in the less-than-critical acceptance of the fossil as genuine by some British scientists.[9] It satisfied European expectations that the earliest humans would be found in Eurasia, and the British, it has been claimed,[9] also wanted a first Briton to set against fossil hominids found elsewhere in Europe.​

Piltdown Man - Wikipedia

 

[F1fan]

Who discovered that it was a hoax? Other scientists. Go figure!

From the outset, some scientists expressed skepticism about the Piltdown find (see above). G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together".[13] In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration, inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.[3]

In November 1953, Time magazine published evidence, gathered variously by Kenneth Page Oakley, Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark and Joseph Weiner, proving that Piltdown Man was a forgery[14] and demonstrating that the fossil was a composite of three distinct species. It consisted of a human skull of medieval age, the 500-year-old lower jaw of an orangutan and chimpanzee fossil teeth. Someone had created the appearance of age by staining the bones with an iron solution and chromic acid. Microscopic examination revealed file-marks on the teeth, and it was deduced from this that someone had modified the teeth to a shape more suited to a human diet.

The Piltdown Man hoax succeeded so well because, at the time of its discovery, the scientific establishment believed that the large modern brain preceded the modern omnivorous diet, and the forgery provided exactly that evidence. It has also been thought that nationalism and cultural prejudice played a role in the less-than-critical acceptance of the fossil as genuine by some British scientists.[9] It satisfied European expectations that the earliest humans would be found in Eurasia, and the British, it has been claimed,[9] also wanted a first Briton to set against fossil hominids found elsewhere in Europe.​

Piltdown Man - Wikipedia

And the person who perpetrated the fraud was not an expert in science, but a lay person who knew enough to create a convincing fraud. This is why ethics and expertise is crucial in science, and there is pressure for experts to be accurate and ethical. I argue the irony is that it is a set of religious movements called creationism and Intelligent Design that are unethical and commit fraud. The irony is that theists often argue that religion and God are critical to morality yet these movements sabotage any good characterization of Christianity as a whole.

What astounds me is that even moderate Christians who do not openly admit to belief in creationism will have doubts about evolution, and this illustrates that the influence of these more conservative groups of Christianity to other sects.

 

[Spirit of Light]

You make this sound as if science makes up explanations and phenomenon. That is what religion does. All science does is explain how nature works.

So are you saying that you believe things that isn't consistent with what science reports?

Yes I do do not think science has all answers

 

[Audie]

And the person who perpetrated the fraud was not an expert in science, but a lay person who knew enough to create a convincing fraud. This is why ethics and expertise is crucial in science, and there is pressure for experts to be accurate and ethical. I argue the irony is that it is a set of religious movements called creationism and Intelligent Design that are unethical and commit fraud. The irony is that theists often argue that religion and God are critical to morality yet these movements sabotage any good characterization of Christianity as a whole.

What astounds me is that even moderate Christians who do not openly admit to belief in creationism will have doubts about evolution, and this illustrates that the influence of these more conservative groups of Christianity to other sects.

Yes but why do you adopt the creo- claim of
it being a fraud?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Actually all the findings in support of evolution have turned out to be negative over the years. They get a lot of press in the beginning, and when they have to revert their findings, its usually a small blip in the back of the paper. There was a recent thread I saw on this website that said there is proof of evolution everywhere, when there is really no real proof. In fact the more scientists discover, the more they realize how wrong their theories, especially Darwinian evolution, are. None of it holds up under scientific scrutiny.

A simple example is the fine-tuning of our universe. There are such impossible odds of it having coming to arrive as it has, all 4 fundamental laws of the universe tuned to just the right degree, that they come up with the theory of multiverse. An infinite amount of universes until the one we exist in arrives. This is metaphysical hocus pocus and is real science. Superstitious mumbo jumbo with no foundation in the real world.

Imagine the greats of science such as Stephen Hawking resort to this hocus pocus in statements such as: "Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing."

Does that make any sense? Gravity is something. It is not nothing. So the fact that gravity exists is not proof that the universe came from nothing. These intellectuals of the world that champion materialism that the people look up to resort to magical blind faith statements that have no basis in reality to uphold the tenants of their beliefs.

Nonsense.

Oh and the multiverse hypothesis or the universe "coming from nothing" has nothing to do at all with evolution. Double nonsense. By the way, how did you figure out the "impossible odds" of the universe coming into existence as it is, if you have no other universes to compare it to? What you've described here is not how statistics are calculated.

 

[Valjean]

Yes I do do not think science has all answers

Nor do scientists.

 

[Audie]

Nonsense.

Oh and the multiverse hypothesis or the universe "coming from nothing" has nothing to do at all with evolution. Double nonsense. By the way, how did you figure out the "impossible odds" of the universe coming into existence as it is, if you have no other universes to compare it to? What you've described here is not how statistics are calculated.

Its just a recitation of moldy creoclaims.
Zero understanding of anything involved.