How real scientists study a possibly intelligently-designed object

Note that they, unlike the ID crew, are able to think of additional experiments to test their ID hypothesis! AFAIK, none have experienced ridicule nor published books aimed only at laypeople.

5 Likes

And indeed they do not stop with trying to rule out non-design explanations. They consider who might have built it and what it’s purpose might be.

4 Likes

Importantly they also have the identity of the builders (humans) and knowledge that humans build such structures.

2 Likes

Naw, the first thing you do is consult your King James Bible. Then you make everything fit that.

2 Likes

No True Scottsman fallacy. Apparently by “real scientists” we mean non-creationists, right? Because only the scientists we agree with are “Real”.

No, because real scientists don’t decide in advance that no evidence against their ideas can ever exist.

8 Likes

It is apparent that “real scientists” means those who actually take a scientific approach to the investigation. When creationists fall short of that - such as when they engage in religious apologetics, like the genetic entropy argument - they are not acting as real scientists.

To substantiate the above comment I will point out that genetic entropy is taken as proof of a Young Earth. Scientifically the evidence on each side must be weighed. The evidence that the Earth is older than YEC allows comes from multiple, strong, lines of evidence. The evidence for genetic entropy is primarily from models - models which address related but not identical concepts. The empirical evidence claimed for genetic entropy is also weak - showing only that small isolated populations may fall prey to eroded fitness. Scientifically genetic entropy must lose until the balance of evidence weighs in its favour - which is why only those with a strong bias in favour of a Young Earth argue otherwise.

3 Likes

And of course the only way to support the YEC timeline for the Earth/universe in light of countless observations to the contrary is to invoke supernatural miracles. And the moment one does so, science becomes irrelevant.

3 Likes

Real scientists accept real evidence.

3 Likes

When you make statements like this, you are not acting as a “real intellectual”, you are acting as a partisan propagandist. There is nothing remotely accurate about the accusations you’re making.

Certainly, but weighing all the evidence is outside the scope of a debate specifically on genetic entropy. I attempt a broad overview of such on my channel in the talk “Missing the Forest for the Trees.”

On the contrary, as I point out the only “accusation” I am making is that claiming that genetic entropy falsifies an old Earth is apologetics rather than science - which seems to be clearly true.

This thread is not specifically anbout genetic entropy. The point is that scienctifically it would be utterly wrong to accept a Young Earth on the basis of something as weakly evidenced as genetic entropy. That;s not propaganda, that’s just fact.

6 Likes

This isn’t true, because genetic entropy is not observed. That is, there are millions of non-extinct species, which would not exist if there actually were GE. You attempt to dispose of this problem by saying that there hasn’t been enough time for that to have happened. Thus evidence that there has indeed been enough time is relevant. When your model is contradicted by the data, you have to blame the model, not the data. And you can’t just ignore the data.

9 Likes

One of my favorite words when I explain the weight of scientific evidence: consilience. And yet most people I encounter have no idea what the word means in a scientific context.

2 Likes

You are the one ignoring data by engaging in circular reasoning. GE is indeed evidence for a young earth (it does not come from assuming a young earth, but rather it results in a conclusion of a young earth). You don’t get to claim “consilience” when you achieve that by dismissing datapoints (like GE, but not limited thereto) which contradict your narrative.

Well, they could also just ask the people who created the wall, if they were still alive. God is alive, you know.

But you don’t have evidence of GE. What you have is the results of a simulation using a particular model of evolution. You have shown that if the model is correct, there is GE, and our species would be extinct in at most 40,000 years from the origin of its lineage. That’s evidence that either that lineage (and presumably all life) is recent or that the model is wrong. To decide which, it would be most useful to examine evidence for the age of that lineage (and of life). If life is old, the model is wrong and GE is not a thing.

To summarize: GE, if it existed, would be evidence for YEC. But you have not shown that GE actually happens, and there is plentiful evidence that the life is old.

2 Likes

Once again, Young Earth Creationist organizations like CMI and AIG literally have dismissing data points that contradict their narrative built right into their faith statements.

2 Likes

Technically you do. If you have twenty similar measurements and one outlier, that’s still consilience.

Could somebody please explain to me how GE is empirical evidence?

Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure.[1]

What “evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure” substantiates GE?

Theoretical population genetic models and simulations are not “evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure”.

2 Likes

GE is not a data point, it is a model which fails in that it is not comprehensive, so you cannot claim any contradiction. But that does demonstrate that your entire motivation has nothing to do with science and everything to do with religious apologetics. Why bother? The last thing you have any interest in is actually extending any understanding of population genetics to incorporate the mechanisms by which fitness is enhanced and adaptation to the environment happens. Scientific advancement is not just beside the point, it is actually disastrous to your objective. That is why it is proper to dismiss creation scientists as not being real scientists. That is not “no true Scotsman”, rather that is recognition that YEC is not about explaining nature, but diametrically the opposite in explaining away nature.

You are not the first to fabricate phenomena that creationists seek to present as evidence for a young earth. It was not long ago that the missing neutrino problem, along with spurious measurements of solar diameter, was commandeered to prove that the Sun derived its output from gravitational collapse and not fusion, and therefore could not have shone for millions of years. It was true that neutrino counts did not match stellar fusion theory, and it was also true that without fusion there was no way the sun’s output could have lasted as long as required for the conventional history of life on Earth. Just like you right here, right now, creationists proclaimed to their flocks that the evidence demanded the world be young.

As with GE, it was all garbage of course, and anyone who was thinking clearly knew. While neutrino behavior was contended, stellar equations of state and conditions for fusion were well understood, applied and tested as a matter of state security for decades. Then there were the neutrinos flavors that were detected, which could only have been produced by fusion. In this greater context, creationists never at any point had a plausible case, but as long as their audience was ill informed, that did not matter then any more than it matters to Sanford today.

As for the problem, the intractable paradox so paraded by YEC, of the missing neutrinos? Improved instruments which could detect them were conceived by scientists, no thanks to creationist pseudo-scientists, the particles were detected, and just like that, the paradox was moot. Even YEC admitted theory and measurement agreed, and the whole line of argument was dropped. So was there a falling out among the adherents? any soul searching as to what pattern of thought led to their being so wrong? Not at all, barely an acknowledgement. Apologists barrelled along with their shell game as before.

So do not pretend Paul, that GE overturns everything that science has learned from the stone age. There is no circular reasoning involved, that is rhetorical manipulation, not reality. The dog wags the tail, the tail does not wag the dog, and the fact that life on earth is ancient stands to falsify GE, not the other way around.

6 Likes