Interesting article about science and ignorance

[Soxy]

Linkage

 

How to Make Sure Children Are Scientifically Illiterate

By LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS

Published: August 15, 2006

New York Times

 

Voters in Kansas ensured this month that noncreationist moderates will once again have a majority (6 to 4) on the state school board, keeping new standards inspired by intelligent design from taking effect.

 

This is a victory for public education and sends a message nationwide about the public’s ability to see through efforts by groups like the Discovery Institute to misrepresent science in the schools. But for those of us who are interested in improving science education, any celebration should be muted.

 

This is not the first turnaround in recent Kansas history. In 2000, after a creationist board had removed evolution from the state science curriculum, a public outcry led to wholesale removal of creationist board members up for re-election and a reinstatement of evolution in the curriculum.

 

In a later election, creationists once again won enough seats to get a 6-to-4 majority. With their changing political tactics, creationists are an excellent example of evolution at work. Creation science evolved into intelligent design, which morphed into “teaching the controversy,” and after its recent court loss in Dover, Pa., and political defeats in Ohio and Kansas, it will no doubt change again. The most recent campaign slogan I have heard is “creative evolution.”

 

But perhaps more worrisome than a political movement against science is plain old ignorance. The people determining the curriculum of our children in many states remain scientifically illiterate. And Kansas is a good case in point.

 

The chairman of the school board, Dr. Steve Abrams, a veterinarian, is not merely a strict creationist. He has openly stated that he believes that God created the universe 6,500 years ago, although he was quoted in The New York Times this month as saying that his personal faith “doesn’t have anything to do with science.”

 

“I can separate them,” he continued, adding, “My personal views of Scripture have no room in the science classroom.”

 

A key concern should not be whether Dr. Abrams’s religious views have a place in the classroom, but rather how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board.

 

I have recently been criticized by some for strenuously objecting in print to what I believe are scientifically inappropriate attempts by some scientists to discredit the religious faith of others. However, the age of the earth, and the universe, is no more a matter of religious faith than is the question of whether or not the earth is flat.

 

It is a matter of overwhelming scientific evidence. To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.

 

Dr. Abrams has no choice but to separate his views from what is taught in science classes, because what he says he believes is inconsistent with the most fundamental facts the Kansas schools teach children.

 

Another member of the board, who unfortunately survived a primary challenge, is John Bacon. In spite of his name, Mr. Bacon is no friend of science. In a 1999 debate about the removal of evolution and the Big Bang from science standards, Mr. Bacon said he was baffled about the objections of scientists. “I can’t understand what they’re squealing about,” he is quoted as saying. “I wasn’t here, and neither were they.”

 

This again represents a remarkable misunderstanding of the nature of the scientific method. Many fields — including evolutionary biology, astronomy and physics — use evidence from the past in formulating hypotheses. But they do not stop there. Science is not storytelling.

 

These disciplines take hypotheses and subject them to further tests and experiments. This is how we distinguish theories that work, like evolution or gravitation.

 

As we continue to work to improve the abysmal state of science education in our schools, we will continue to battle those who feel that knowledge is a threat to faith.

 

But when we win minor skirmishes, as we did in Kansas, we must remember that the issue is far deeper than this. We must hold our elected school officials to certain basic standards of knowledge about the world. The battle is not against faith, but against ignorance.

 

Lawrence M. Krauss is a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.

[NorthSideSox72]

Good article.

 

This is one issue where I tend to side firmly on the left. I find this obsession of the religious conservatives to put their beliefs and values onto everyone else to be creepy at best, and downright dangerous to basic freedoms at worst.

 

And the scariest quality about it is the apparent ability of some to willingly embrace ignorance, so that their selected acceptance of fact fits nicely into their oversimplified and fantastical view of the world. The root of this, I would theorize, is at least in part the fact that the world has become so complex. Most of us respond to that by growing and adapting. Others have decided to cower behind simplicity. Its an easy cop out - disregard the complexities in life. And if that meant leaving the city for a cabin in the woods to lead the simple life, then hey - that's adaptation and its positive. But when you try to beat me over the head with your literalist bible translations and attempt to restrict the freedoms of those around you, then you have stepped over the line.

 

Science is discipline and order, and our religious beliefs have no place in it. As soon as we willingly choose blind faith over science, we have become members of a cult.

[vandy125]

I am tired of being called ignorant because of my beliefs. Now, I too agree that the science classroom is not the place to throw in personal religious beliefs that cannot be proven because they are studying what science can tell us. Science can only give natural explanations about our environment because it is a study of natural phenomenon. It can project back into the past on what it thinks has happened based only upon what is happening and can be tested today. There is no way to test a direct intervention by a diety at some point in time through natural phenomenon. The two occurences are mutually exclusive. One is natural, and the other is not natural.

 

However, I still do believe that the universe was created thousands of years ago and not millions of years ago. I do not think that we can take a strictly uniformitarianistic view of history. I do not believe that the way things are happening now is exactly the same as they behaved years and years ago. How is it that one of the main rules of nature is that things tend to move toward disorder, except for this one case, evolution? The universe expands, we and everything around us age and decay, but somehow life has bucked that trend?

 

These are my beliefs which I do agree do not belong in the science classroom. However, because of them I am labelled as ignorant, stupid, uneducated, far right, simple, etc. Can we get past the labelling and just state the claim that unnatural explanations of history do not belong in a naturalistic study of the world like modern science?

 

Some people have absolute belief and faith in science being able to tell us everything. I do not. Does that make me part of a cult? What about naturalistic science? Why is blindly saying that there can only be natural explanations for everything not considered a cult? I am not saying that we should stop searching for scientific answers, I just think that we should be able to say that this is what science says, and here is why they say it. This is what someone else says, and here is why they say it. Believe in what you think is true.

[Balta1701]

However, I still do believe that the universe was created thousands of years ago and not millions of years ago. I do not think that we can take a strictly uniformitarianistic view of history. I do not believe that the way things are happening now is exactly the same as they behaved years and years ago. How is it that one of the main rules of nature is that things tend to move toward disorder, except for this one case, evolution? The universe expands, we and everything around us age and decay, but somehow life has bucked that trend?

You're fundamentally misinterpreting the second law of thermodynamics. The second law says that an isolated system will move towards an equilibrium by maximizing its disorder, or entropy. The Universe can theoretically be treated as an isolated system, if one assumes that all energy/mass in the universe is constant from the creation of the universe (probably a safe assumption, but I for one sure can't prove it.)

 

However, the Earth is by no means a closed system. The earth through time has had a massive input of energy, mainly from the sun. When you input energy into that system, some of that energy is used in the formation of complexity, just in the same way that cleaning up and ordering a messy bedroom takes energy.

 

If one were to treat the entire solar system as an isolated system, which is a much better approximation but is still not entirely true, then because of the massive expenditure of energy by the sun, the solar system itself is moving towards a minimum energy/maximum entropy equilibrium state. The growth of complexity on Earth is just one way of releasing/using the energy pumped into the Earth by the sun and a few other sources.

[vandy125]

You're fundamentally misinterpreting the second law of thermodynamics. The second law says that an isolated system will move towards an equilibrium by maximizing its disorder, or entropy. The Universe can theoretically be treated as an isolated system, if one assumes that all energy/mass in the universe is constant from the creation of the universe (probably a safe assumption, but I for one sure can't prove it.)

 

However, the Earth is by no means a closed system. The earth through time has had a massive input of energy, mainly from the sun. When you input energy into that system, some of that energy is used in the formation of complexity, just in the same way that cleaning up and ordering a messy bedroom takes energy.

 

If one were to treat the entire solar system as an isolated system, which is a much better approximation but is still not entirely true, then because of the massive expenditure of energy by the sun, the solar system itself is moving towards a minimum energy/maximum entropy equilibrium state. The growth of complexity on Earth is just one way of releasing/using the energy pumped into the Earth by the sun and a few other sources.

 

Very good point on that. That was something in my head that never made sense, and it is why I sometimes enjoy talking about what I think/believe in order to get a better understanding. Thank you for the good explanation. The learning continues.

[vandy125]

One other thing that I have never gotten. Where did all of this energy come from in the first place? I don't think that I have heard a good explanation for the Big Bang. If you want to just go to PM about this, let me know since I have several questions, and this is completely derailing the topic.

[NorthSideSox72]

I am tired of being called ignorant because of my beliefs. Now, I too agree that the science classroom is not the place to throw in personal religious beliefs that cannot be proven because they are studying what science can tell us. Science can only give natural explanations about our environment because it is a study of natural phenomenon. It can project back into the past on what it thinks has happened based only upon what is happening and can be tested today. There is no way to test a direct intervention by a diety at some point in time through natural phenomenon. The two occurences are mutually exclusive. One is natural, and the other is not natural.

 

However, I still do believe that the universe was created thousands of years ago and not millions of years ago. I do not think that we can take a strictly uniformitarianistic view of history. I do not believe that the way things are happening now is exactly the same as they behaved years and years ago. How is it that one of the main rules of nature is that things tend to move toward disorder, except for this one case, evolution? The universe expands, we and everything around us age and decay, but somehow life has bucked that trend?

 

These are my beliefs which I do agree do not belong in the science classroom. However, because of them I am labelled as ignorant, stupid, uneducated, far right, simple, etc. Can we get past the labelling and just state the claim that unnatural explanations of history do not belong in a naturalistic study of the world like modern science?

 

Some people have absolute belief and faith in science being able to tell us everything. I do not. Does that make me part of a cult? What about naturalistic science? Why is blindly saying that there can only be natural explanations for everything not considered a cult? I am not saying that we should stop searching for scientific answers, I just think that we should be able to say that this is what science says, and here is why they say it. This is what someone else says, and here is why they say it. Believe in what you think is true.

 

First, let me apologize if you think I meant to call you any of those things. I did not. I am specifically referring to science and religion as a balance. You can believe anything you want, and further, I have no particular reason to say those beliefs are wrong or in valid in any way.

 

The ignorance I refer to come into play when those BELIEFS are taught as scientific FACTS. That is ignorant and small minded. And that is what I was refering to.

 

Science does not have all the answers.

 

Your statement that "unnatural explanations of history do not belong in a naturalistic study of the world like modern science" is perfect. I agree completely.

[vandy125]

First, let me apologize if you think I meant to call you any of those things. I did not. I am specifically referring to science and religion as a balance. You can believe anything you want, and further, I have no particular reason to say those beliefs are wrong or in valid in any way.

 

The ignorance I refer to come into play when those BELIEFS are taught as scientific FACTS. That is ignorant and small minded. And that is what I was refering to.

 

Science does not have all the answers.

 

Your statement that "unnatural explanations of history do not belong in a naturalistic study of the world like modern science" is perfect. I agree completely.

 

One of the things that got me going along that way was the following statement from the article:

 

“I can separate them,” he continued, adding, “My personal views of Scripture have no room in the science classroom.”

 

A key concern should not be whether Dr. Abrams’s religious views have a place in the classroom, but rather how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board... It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.

 

It is with statements like this that make people with my beliefs out to be ignorant or stupid, etc. Apparently, if you believe in a young earth (something that we cannot go back in time and check), you believe that cars and planes work by magic. There are some people who believe that science can tell us an incredible amount about how things work, and it can even give theories and glimpses into the past of a naturalistic way that things may have occurred in the past. That does not mean that we believe that is the only explanation.

 

Dr. Abram's is being told that he cannot hold a certain public position because of what he believes even if he is able to separate his beliefs from what is taught. To me that is very wrong.

[Balta1701]

It is with statements like this that make people with my beliefs out to be ignorant or stupid, etc. Apparently, if you believe in a young earth (something that we cannot go back in time and check), you believe that cars and planes work by magic. There are some people who believe that science can tell us an incredible amount about how things work, and it can even give theories and glimpses into the past of a naturalistic way that things may have occurred in the past. That does not mean that we believe that is the only explanation.

 

Dr. Abram's is being told that he cannot hold a certain public position because of what he believes even if he is able to separate his beliefs from what is taught. To me that is very wrong.

To try to avoid the insult above...here's the real key point. All of science is based on inductive reasoning. You see one thing happen over and over, and eventually you generalize from that specific case to say that this is what happens under all circumstances. For example, if I press with a certain amount of force on a known mass, I produce a known amount of acceleration. Or if 2 bodies have known masses, they attract each other with a known force. And so on.

 

Now, I can't go backwards in time or forwards in time either and see for certain that 30 years from now Gravity won't just decide to triple in intensity. But I can say that if you accept the principle of inductive reasoning, that one can learn general truths about the universe from observing more limited cases, and that those general truths are always applicable, then I have no reason to conclude that there will be an unexpected defiation.

 

Biology and geology work the same way as all of the other varieties of inductive reasoning in science. For example, with something like radioactive dating, one of the main tools of determining the age of the earth: I go into a lab, and I can take radioactive elements and measure their decay rate. I can see how many atoms of Uranium decay into daughter products in one timespan, and I can see how much of those daughter products I wind up with. I can do this over and over and over and get the same result, whether it's in 1945, it's a Tuesday, it's a hot day, etc. I can then generalize this into a set of rules...based on the amount of radioactive decay that has happened, I can tell how long something has been sitting there decaying.

 

So, when I go out to the field and find a hundred meteorites, and use the same technique on them, they all give ages of around 4.5 billion years. When I look at very old rocks on earth, I find they're slightly younger, a little over 4.2 billion years, which is what one would sort of expect to see as the earth takes time to join together and cool.

 

So now, here's the point of all of this...you've accepted that your car goes because you put gas in it and every time that gas undergoes a chemical reaction to give off a finite amount of energy. You've accepted that the Earth orbits the sun because there is a defined law that explains that behavoir and you can see it with your own eyes. The principle of inductive reasoning is one of, if not the single foundation block of modern science. But when, in this specific case, every single scrap of evidence conflicts with what is written in a piece of religious text, the entire set of evidence, all the rules, and everything else is discounted. Inductive reasoning, and in other words, every single principle of scientific inquiry, is thrown away.

 

So if a person then says that in this specific case, he feels that inductive reasoning is wrong, and that there is no reason to believe it, then why is he qualified to speak on scientific issues in general? If a person throws out the entire foundation of science in one case, why should anyone accept that person's opinion on science in other cases?

[vandy125]

Now, I can't go backwards in time or forwards in time either and see for certain that 30 years from now Gravity won't just decide to triple in intensity. But I can say that if you accept the principle of inductive reasoning, that one can learn general truths about the universe from observing more limited cases, and that those general truths are always applicable, then I have no reason to conclude that there will be an unexpected defiation...So if a person then says that in this specific case, he feels that inductive reasoning is wrong, and that there is no reason to believe it, then why is he qualified to speak on scientific issues in general? If a person throws out the entire foundation of science in one case, why should anyone accept that person's opinion on science in other cases?

 

Here is were we differ. I think that the accuracy of the predictions grow less and less like fact the farther back you go, and become more and more theories and guesses. Kind of like say you look at a set of ballplayers who played from 2006. From there, you project back to what you think an average ballplayers batting average would have been back in 1900 without knowing a whole lot about 1900 (including everyone's BA). You may know of a few examples of some ballplayers from back then, but it is sufficiently far enough back that you have limited data.

 

My point is that you are projecting current environments (ballparks, strength of players, etc) back in time to something that you do not have much knowledge of (again you may have a few remnants). A much more accurate case would be made if you projected only back to 2005.

 

I'm not sure if I made that too clear or not, but it is easy to say that something that works one way at the current time in the current environment and under its current circumstances probably worked that way a few years ago. I do not think that you can project your reasoning (which may be sound at the current time) back millions or billions of years, IMO.

 

What I am saying is not throwing out science, it is saying that the projections way back into the past are not as accurate as they are in the most recent past because we do not know what the circumstances could have been back then well enough to recreate the environment. If the universe is really billions of years old, we are basing our thoughts on what happened billions of years ago on what is an incredibly small set of observations from hundreds of years.

[NorthSideSox72]

Here is were we differ. I think that the accuracy of the predictions grow less and less like fact the farther back you go, and become more and more theories and guesses. Kind of like say you look at a set of ballplayers who played from 2006. From there, you project back to what you think an average ballplayers batting average would have been back in 1900 without knowing a whole lot about 1900 (including everyone's BA). You may know of a few examples of some ballplayers from back then, but it is sufficiently far enough back that you have limited data.

 

My point is that you are projecting current environments (ballparks, strength of players, etc) back in time to something that you do not have much knowledge of (again you may have a few remnants). A much more accurate case would be made if you projected only back to 2005.

 

I'm not sure if I made that too clear or not, but it is easy to say that something that works one way at the current time in the current environment and under its current circumstances probably worked that way a few years ago. I do not think that you can project your reasoning (which may be sound at the current time) back millions or billions of years, IMO.

 

What I am saying is not throwing out science, it is saying that the projections way back into the past are not as accurate as they are in the most recent past because we do not know what the circumstances could have been back then well enough to recreate the environment. If the universe is really billions of years old, we are basing our thoughts on what happened billions of years ago on what is an incredibly small set of observations from hundreds of years.

 

OK. If we are going to delve into this topic, let's go cannonball.

 

Riddle me this...

 

Dinosaurs?

 

Glaciation?

 

Vulcanism?

 

There are three things there which have occurred well into the past - a lot more than a few thousand years - and which we have not a little, but a LOT of evidence to prove. And in the latter two cases, they still happen today.

 

So... what's the story there, in your view?

[Balta1701]

Forgive me for launching into this debate, but at some level, I feel I'm fighting for my life, but I guess since I am a geologist, on some level that makes sense. :-)

 

You are fully correct that as you go back in time, you're going to understand less, and the margins of error are going to go up (at least on most measurements). If I date a rock that is 4.2 billion years old and a rock that is 1 billion years old, the rock that is 4.2 billion years old is likely to have a higher margin of error on the measurement, because in 4.2 billiion years there are more things that can have affected the measurement.

 

However, just because the margin of error goes up on many measurements, and because we don't have as many rocks from the Precambrian as we do from the more recent epochs, I don't think we should just throw up our hands and say "oh, it's all just garbage." We can't tell every single thing that happened on every single day throughout Earth history, but there is an enormous amount of data in what we do have available. We just have to know where to look, and learn correctly how to look.

 

Yes, as things change, environments get different, and modern analogs don't work as well. However, there is also knowledge to be gained from learning why modern analogs don't work for certain events in the past. For example, until about 2.5 billion years ago (give or take a few hundred million years, the people on my floor can tell you better numbers), there was virtually no oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. We know this, because we can see the time that significant changes happen in the rock record, and we can interpret what caused those changes based on, again inductive reasoning (in this case, you go from having anoxic sediments to oxygenic sediments in places, isotopic systems shift worldwide, there may be a snowball earth event, etc.). So even when one of those massive shifts happens, we can learn about when the shift happened, why it happened, and what it changed on earth, by looking at the various lines of evidence which we do have.

 

No, we don't have every detail sorted out yet, and we don't understand every little nuance. But what you seem to be arguing is that because we don't understand every single detail, we can learn nothing from the evidence we do have, or that we shouldn't trust the things that we can learn, and I would argue that those lines of thought just are not true.

[vandy125]

Forgive me for launching into this debate, but at some level, I feel I'm fighting for my life, but I guess since I am a geologist, on some level that makes sense. :-)

 

No, we don't have every detail sorted out yet, and we don't understand every little nuance. But what you seem to be arguing is that because we don't understand every single detail, we can learn nothing from the evidence we do have, or that we shouldn't trust the things that we can learn, and I would argue that those lines of thought just are not true.

 

I do not mean to say that we cannot learn anything from the evidence that we have. I just have a different viewpoint that the time scale may be different. In which case, if I am wrong, then take this opportunity to give me a lesson in how you come upon the assertions that you make that such and such took place millions or billions of years ago. I actually do want to understand this better. How do we know that it was such a large scale that it took for these geological events to take place? Is it all based upon radio-carbon dating? How do we know that radio-carbon dating works now in exactly the same way that it worked thousands of years ago? If I remember correctly, that dating comes from isotopes losing protons? at a certain rate. How do we know that the rate is the same now as it was thousands of years ago?

 

You will not get me to say that dinosaurs did not exist like a certain baseball player. The evidence is overwhelming for that. I am not sure about what you are saying about vulcanism or about glaciation. Maybe you can give a good explanation on those. Or, if you do not have the patience to explain all of these things to me and prefer to direct me to a good source about all of this, that is fine as well.

 

We have already gone through the second law of thermodynamics in this thread. I wonder what else we can bring up.

[santo=dorf]

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Aug 15, 2006 -> 03:32 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If the universe is really billions of years old, we are basing our thoughts on what happened billions of years ago on what is an incredibly small set of observations from hundreds of years.

Bulls***.

 

I'm hoping I'm not too ignorant here, but why are you so strong to form an opinion on something when you are clearly clueless on the subject? Why should Balta take you by the hand and explain everything to you?

Edited August 15, 2006 by santo=dorf

[NorthSideSox72]

Bulls***.

 

I'm hoping I'm not too ignorant here, but why are you so strong to form an opinion on something when you are clearly clueless on the subject? Why should Balta take you by the hand and explain everything to you?

Play nice, please.

[Balta1701]

I do not mean to say that we cannot learn anything from the evidence that we have. I just have a different viewpoint that the time scale may be different. In which case, if I am wrong, then take this opportunity to give me a lesson in how you come upon the assertions that you make that such and such took place millions or billions of years ago. I actually do want to understand this better. How do we know that it was such a large scale that it took for these geological events to take place? Is it all based upon radio-carbon dating? How do we know that radio-carbon dating works now in exactly the same way that it worked thousands of years ago? If I remember correctly, that dating comes from isotopes losing protons? at a certain rate. How do we know that the rate is the same now as it was thousands of years ago?

This is a very detailed, but I think very interesting question, that gets at the heart of a lot of how Geology works.

 

First, to make one thign clear...it is not "radio-carbon" dating that is used by most geologists working on the age of the earth. A better word would be "Radio-metric" dating. Radiocarbon dating refers to one specific type of radiometric dating, using Carbon-14's decay to Nitrogen 14 as the radioactive isotope. Radiometric dating uses one of any number of isotopic systems.

 

Basically, the principles of radiometric dating are this: you take a radioactive isotope with a known decay constant that you can measure in the laboratory today. You measure the amount of that isotope, you measure the amount of its daughter products, you deal with the few occasional other problems that come up which can cause difficulties in making a measurement, and then do a little math, and it produces an age.

 

Now, I'm standing there with an age on a rock calculated with radiometric dating. How exactly can I have confidence in this age is the question we're going for. Well, there are a vast number of things one should look at to see if an age makes sense.

 

First, I mentionned a second ago that there are a non-trivial number of isotopic systems available to geologists. This is quite true. 2 isotopes of Uranium, Thorium, Samarium, Strontium, Potassium, Tungsten, and some others I'm forgetting all have radioactive isotopes that decay a measureable amount during geologic time. And, each of them has a different decay constant, so they will decay by different amounts in the same amount of time. Some of them are orders of magnitude apart, but still usable. So, if I want more confidence in that date, one simple procedure is to test more than one system. In fact, for determining the ages of the oldest rocks on earth and many meteorites, this is exactly what is done, as the Uranium-thorium-lead system had 3 independent chronometers all working - Uranium 235, Uranium 238, and Thorium 232, all of which decay at different rates. So, if I were to test all 3 of these molecular clocks, and come up with the same age, and maybe some other research group does one of the other systems on the same rocks, and they come up with the same age, then there are 2 possibilities: either the ages are representing the age of the rocks, or the decay constants of those isotopes, which seemingly have no relationship to each other, are all changing in an exact and uniform way.

 

So, can I make an argument that the decay constants do not change? Yes I can, because in addition to these very long lived isotopes, there are also many short lived isotopes which will decay completely on human timescales. If I got the same age on these rocks through different systems but the decay constants were changing to screw me up, then the decay constants on an isotope that lives short enough should change within timescales that are measureable in the laboratory. There are isotopes that if you put a block of the stuff on your lab table will completely disappear within seconds, minutes, hours, years, decades, centuries, millenia, and so on. And on all of these, when they've been measured, the decay constant has actually been a constant. The decay rates vary between isotopes, but there has been no variation witnessed in any decay constant, and certainly not a variation that could somehow completely confuse different chronometers in an ordinary way.

 

But, I would also say that this is still not enough. If I want these clocks to be useful, they also have to tell me something that fits in with information I can gather from other sources. For example, if I'm looking through a large rock outcrop of sedimentary layers, and I can tell that nothing has happened to them in terms of deformation, if the rocks span a large enough time, I should be able to look at the rocks on the top of the sequence and find them younger than those on the bottom. I should be able to take rocks from the top of the Grand Canyon and find that they are much younger than those at the bottom of the canyon. I should date meteorites and find that they're younger than the earth. I should be able to establish a consistent story. Geologists can in fact do a lot of work without a specific timeline; that's how things were done in geology for a century, just taking the timeline as it is set in the rocks without knowing exactly how long each period lasted. When radiometric dating came along, all of a sudden, the numbers it produced fit quite well with the story that the rocks themselves told. In many cases it illuminated new facts, but it did not completely overturn everything that had been done in geology previously. Rocks that looked very old through field methods turned out to be very old through other methods.

 

Give you a great example here...through looking at fossils, we can trace roughly the evolution of many lineages throughout geologic history. We can say roughly at what time the first fish appeared, the first land plants, the first reptiles, etc. With radiometric dating, we can then put an exact age on the dates of those boundaries. So, let's say that I'm a scientists and I want to look for evidence of when fish first started to develop legs and colonize the land. I go and I learn when we see the first fish fossils, I see when we find the first amphibian fossils, and I say to myself "hmm, there's a few million years in here where this transition would have to happen." So what do I do? I try to find a unit somewhere on earth which gives radiometric dates in that gap where I think the fossil should be. I go there, take some samples, and what happens? I find a fishapod fossil...a fossil with some fish characteristics, and some amphibian characteristics, right where it should be based on every chronometer, geologic tool, and so forth.

 

There are many other details I'm leaving out here, of course, as this question basically covers all of geology. But I think you get the idea...the datings make sense, the predictions of those datings make sense, and the whole thing fits together as a package. We have tools to calculate what temperature volcanic eruptions took place at, we look at older rocks, and we find things that erupted several hundred degrees hotter than any current eruption on earth, exactly as we'd predict as the earth cools off. We figure that the Earth and moon should have formed from meteorites and should give younger dates, and they do. And so on.

 

That's basically the story. We're not just doing this or making claims based on one single line of evidence, but we're in fact telling a story. It's a story based on centuries of evidence of a great many types, with each step built on top of the work of others. It is science done exactly the way chemists do it, biologists do it, physicists do it.

[longshot7]

Linkage

 

It is a matter of overwhelming scientific evidence. To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.

 

I believe that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.

Edited August 15, 2006 by longshot7

[vandy125]

Bulls***.

 

I'm hoping I'm not too ignorant here, but why are you so strong to form an opinion on something when you are clearly clueless on the subject? Why should Balta take you by the hand and explain everything to you?

 

You know, I just came out here and put my beliefs on the line to see how they stood up and to see what someone else's perspective was on that. I would expect to get some respect for at least trying to grow in my understanding of this. Balta is a geologist. Why would I not try to take advantage of that knowledge to further my own understanding? Would you rather that I just sat back in "ignorance"? Do you think that is what others should do who do not have your opinions, or have not learned the same things as you? Why don't we all just sit back and have our opinions with out trying to learn anything? That way we can all spew the same things out time again without progressing any further.

 

I think that some very interesting things have come out in this thread that deal with what I think are very important questions. I have actually read quite a bit about these things to form my "clueless" opinion on, and I do know a claim like that can and probably should be taken with a grain of salt on the internet (I am going to make it anyhow) . If you do not feel the same way, that is fine. Stay out of it and let others discuss. I do have several more questions about what he has posted, but if this is going to turn into a bash the guy with a different viewpoint thread, I would rather not continue, and I will get my answers elsewhere.

Edited August 16, 2006 by vandy125

[jackie hayes]

I believe that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.

 

Clarke's third law, baby...

[vandy125]

FWIW, call me crazy, but after going through this thread, and doing some studying up on several things like ice layers, coral layers, tree rings, radio-metric dating, etc (when I run into things like these, I cannot let them go). I have been swayed to change my mind on what I think about things (like the age of the earth, etc).

 

My religious convictions still stay firmly intact, only with a better understanding. There is a lot less of the mess from putting up defenses without thoroughly looking through what they were. Hopefully, other people also check what they believe and continue to form them.

 

Sorry about the complete derailment.

[NorthSideSox72]

FWIW, call me crazy, but after going through this thread, and doing some studying up on several things like ice layers, coral layers, tree rings, radio-metric dating, etc (when I run into things like these, I cannot let them go). I have been swayed to change my mind on what I think about things (like the age of the earth, etc).

 

My religious convictions still stay firmly intact, only with a better understanding. There is a lot less of the mess from putting up defenses without thoroughly looking through what they were. Hopefully, other people also check what they believe and continue to form them.

 

Sorry about the complete derailment.

Wow.

 

I have to say Vandy, that's pretty amazing. I can't remember seeing anyone on this board get into an argument on one side, and after a short period, shift so dramatically - and acknowledge it. I don't think anyone can say you aren't open-minded.

 

Having been raised Catholic, by the way, I do think one can have religious beliefs but not necessarily believe every letter of a given religion's law (or its strictest interperetation). We all make our own version of religion anyway.

[Balta1701]

FWIW, call me crazy, but after going through this thread, and doing some studying up on several things like ice layers, coral layers, tree rings, radio-metric dating, etc (when I run into things like these, I cannot let them go). I have been swayed to change my mind on what I think about things (like the age of the earth, etc).

 

My religious convictions still stay firmly intact, only with a better understanding. There is a lot less of the mess from putting up defenses without thoroughly looking through what they were. Hopefully, other people also check what they believe and continue to form them.

 

Sorry about the complete derailment.

No problem on the derailment. If it's the worst one this hour, I'd be shocked.

 

Anyway, I'm glad that I was able to be somewhat helpful in just illustrating the many techniques we have in Geology which lead towards the conclusions we get. And regardless of what I believe personally, I will say that there is plenty of room in a person's belief system for faith. I, for example, can give no explanation right now as to what the Hell the universe is actually doing here, or why certain constants fall as they do (i.e. why G was low enough that all matter didn't rapidly coalesce back into the center of the universe, and so forth.) And even if someday those questions are answered, that doesn't mean that the first 4 books of the New Testament didn't happen or anything like that.

 

So, I'm at least glad we had an interesting discussion and people learned something. And to the person who said earlier "Why should I spend my time doing this...", well, if someone learns something useful, then there's the answer to that question.

[jackie hayes]

Liberal sugarcoating.

 

vandy, you're going to hell, that's all there is to it.

[Jenksismyhero]

However, just because the margin of error goes up on many measurements, and because we don't have as many rocks from the Precambrian as we do from the more recent epochs, I don't think we should just throw up our hands and say "oh, it's all just garbage." We can't tell every single thing that happened on every single day throughout Earth history, but there is an enormous amount of data in what we do have available. We just have to know where to look, and learn correctly how to look.

 

I understand what you are saying here and in your earlier post about how inductive reasoning can't be thrown away simply because an ancient text says something different. BUT, I see no reason why an answer derived from inductive reasoning is concrete evidence that something happened.

 

My problem comes when science uses inductive reasoning to purport something in which they have very little observations or history of. Case in point: Global Warming. You're a geologist. Looking at your rocks and land masses and land forms, etc etc you're able to study the effects of the weather on the land right? And it's been proven (by said means) that temperatures have increased and decreased dramatically over the last hundred thousand years. BUT, scientists of today rely on 100 years worth of data (a good chunk of which is probably unreliable) to inductively reason that WE are the cause of some impending global warming disaster, never mind the fact that the Earth has been both ice and fire many times over. Can they show a cause and effect of human interaction with the Earth that coincides with a change in the climate? Sure. But does that mean that the human interaction CAUSED the change in climate? No.

 

Having said that, I think the same problem exists with evolution. You can inductively reason all you want that all these bones added up equals what we are today. But simply relying on that is not enough. 10 years ago the scientific world thought DDT was going to ruin the world and kill off every living thing. It didn't. 10 years ago people thought that cell phones were going to cause cancer of the brain. It didn't. There are many more scientific hiccups over history, all of which used inductive reasoning to arrive at their conclusion, most of which are proven to be false today.

 

All I say is question what you hear, from both religious nuts to scientific wacko's and everyone in between. Nothing is fact when it's been hypothesized for so short of a time. I think it’s as ridiculous for religious people to deny any form of evolution as much as I think it’s ridiculous that scientists think evolution is pure, unquestionable fact with what they have to work with.

 

It’s a theory with some bite. That’s all.

[BigSqwert]

Case in point: Global Warming. You're a geologist. Looking at your rocks and land masses and land forms, etc etc you're able to study the effects of the weather on the land right? And it's been proven (by said means) that temperatures have increased and decreased dramatically over the last hundred thousand years. BUT, scientists of today rely on 100 years worth of data (a good chunk of which is probably unreliable) to inductively reason that WE are the cause of some impending global warming disaster, never mind the fact that the Earth has been both ice and fire many times over. Can they show a cause and effect of human interaction with the Earth that coincides with a change in the climate? Sure. But does that mean that the human interaction CAUSED the change in climate? No.

Perhaps you can try sitting in the garage for a few hours with the car running. I'm sure you'll be fine. Multiply those gases into the billions and you'll have our current atmosphere. I'm sure what humans are doing have no effect on global warming.