I have some questions about the "Local Flood" of Noah

[PDPrice (Paul Price)]

@jammycakes

Deuteronomy 25:13-16 does not draw a distinction between “historical” and “operational” sciences. They both have to obey the same rules and principles of accurate and honest weights and measures.

Well, that’s because you’re taking that verse egregiously out of context. And obviously so. The verse is about not cheating people in transactions, not about historical/operational science.

@RonSewell

I am debating with somebody who doesn’t accept that applications of science are based on generalizations of science.

False.

@RonSewell

Science is ultimately about finding underlying principles which can then be generalized within their defined domain.

No, that’s operational science. Operational science inductively looks to establish the rules by which nature works in an ongoing manner. This requires assuming to begin with that such is even possible. If nature is unpredictable, then inductive reasoning is useless.

@RonSewell

Historical science is then just one applied generalization of scientifically established principle.

Historical science is an entirely different kind of process. It cannot be tested or repeated. All of its theories are underdetermined by the data available. One cannot know if the data are being rightly interpreted. The same set of data can be interpreted in more than one way.

@RonSewell

Outside of YEC, t the observational vs historical science discussion is more about semantics and philosophical context than any substantial gulf in acceptance of what is known about the past.

Handwaving?

@RonSewell

Even if an argument can be mounted that there is a more fundamental distinction, there is a world of difference between the statement “we infer this occurred because we have observed the same phenomena”, and “we infer this occurred because, even though what we are proposing has never been observed, we do not care because we hold that no observation of science can ever violate scripture anyways.”

That’s not what we’re doing. We’re starting with Scripture as the highest epistemological authority, recognizing that historical science is fundamentally uncertain. We also recognize that the principle of uniformitarianism doesn’t hold throughout all time, because primarily of two massive supernatural disturbances: 1) Creation and 2) the Flood. Therefore all attempts to reconstruct history by extrapolation, while ignoring this biblical history, are bound to fail.

@RonSewell

Observational science says the speed of light is constant? We will just make up our own!

False. See below.

@RonSewell

Nobody has observed the rate of nuclear decay vary? Who cares!

False again. Variances have been observed. However, not on the scale we would need to explain what we see. And that’s expected. After all, if we could observe these variances today, then that would just be more uniformitaranism, wouldn’t it? Creation and the Flood are not happening today. They will never happen again. You can’t reproduce their results in any lab.

We do have evidence that rates have changed in the past, however. That comes to us via the RATE research team, with helium leakage in zircons. I assume you’ve studied these results?

@RonSewell

It is an falsehood that “creationist and secular scientists just interpret the evidence differently” - the difference is that YEC disregards observational science.

And that is relevant.

It’s relevant that, just as I predicted, you are displaying a severe lack of understanding in this debate, despite your being very vocal in it.

@deuteroKJ

However, what YECs mean by the distinction and its implications is not what mainstream scientists (who use the distinction) do.

I handled this in my Journal article, which I’ve already linked to here. We do mean the same thing, but we deal with the implications more honestly.

@jammycakes

It’s not about “accepting the distinction.” It’s about not inventing distinctions where none exist.

No point in debating the lower half of somebody’s torso while the rest of them is stuck in the sand.

@Witchdoc

Hey, don’t forget, many creationists posit that we can’t really do science at all, because many of them claim the universe is actually anisotropic ,

This video explains the physics rather clearly. I see no indication it’s made by creationists, either.

Why No One Has Measured The Speed Of Light