Also, how carefully were some of the ambivalent-to-negative comments edited to to turn them into endorsements.
1 Like
Following up on my comment above, just to jog your memory:
Under “Discussion of Big Science Today” (Discussion of Big Science Today, by an Important Member of the National Association of Scholars - #571 by Eddie), comment 566, John Harshman asked:
“Isn’t the existence of an omnipotent, transcendent intelligence that cares about life on earth also an extraordinary claim?”
To which I replied (comment 572):
"But to come back to your question, I think it would be good to have the answer of @Mercer. He has said several times that he is a Christian, which means that he believes in:
“‘the existence of an omnipotent, transcendent intelligence that cares about life on earth.’
“Since he is a Christian, he must have found some way to justify belief in what you call an “extraordinary” claim. But oddly, he has never presented his case for God during all the time he has spent on two sites run by Christians: BioLogos and Peaceful Science. I find that odd.”
Note that this question was asked politely. It was not answered.
I thought that book was about evolution.
How many of them have relevant expertise?
That much is true.
Still, how many of them actually have a good idea what they’re talking about?
True enough, but that guy’s not into evo-devo. Different field. So your little aside is irrelevant, as is the bit about cancer. I know what’s evolutionary biology and what isn’t, but you apparently don’t, so my claim is chock full of warrant.
Some subjects, not others. Hey, remember Linus Pauling’s obsession with vitamin C? And he had two Nobels!
I’ll give you the first, but the second would depend on whether he knows the subject, and there’s no evidence he does. Have I ever mentioned that Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry used to claim that life violated the laws of thermodynamics?
1 Like
You’d have to be a serious thinker yourself to make that assessment - but you’re such a shallow thinker that you mistook a quote from a film for an insurance guideline.
But I wasn’t, and neither were you. That’s what you called an “illegitimate sleight-of-hand”.
Unsupported assertions rejected.
He can deny it all he likes, but he gives presentations to creationist organisations, based his work on a creationist idea, and wrote a section for a creationist textbook.
You seem to accept everything Behe and the other DI leaders say without question. That’s a clear sign that you are a very shallow thinker indeed.
3 Likes
It doesn’t really matter. Eddie was trying to escape the consequences of all the “core claims of ID” also being claims made by creationists.
Noted for future use.
2 Likes
Turning on Slow Mode.
Ah yes, that guy. Sorry, I did not recognize the name from that discussion. In fairness, I think this is understandable on my part given what an utter non-entity he seems to be, everywhere other than in the very narrow and insular far right bubble you seem to inhabit.
My earlier point remains germane, I believe. You compare Turner to Sagan and Asimov, but I think a more apt comparison (in terms of their effect on the public understanding of science) would be Erich von Däniken. Though Turner, to date, has realized only a modicum of his success.
You personalize everything. It’s all people, all the time.
What about the primary idea behind Nick Lane’s book? It certainly isn’t “I, Nick Lane, know my stuff.”
What about Tour’s silly idea about what abiogenisis research must do?
Why doesn’t Tour engage with Lane’s primary idea? Why don’t you? Has Tour ever even mentioned the metabolism-first hypothesis?
Which is personalization, meaning that by your very own definition, you’re not a scholar.
No, I didn’t punt. I said that I’m not your monkey to a different question, and that still holds.
And that wasn’t your challenge, as I do endorse the standard Christian doctrine that God created not only the world, but everything. That’s the very reason why ID is theologically vapid as well as scientifically vapid. It turns God into a tinkerer who iteratively reuses everything.
^^^Those are ideas that you don’t want to discuss.^^^
Yes, but as you very clearly wrote:
You made no attempt to keep people out of it. You stated that a scholar would actively do that!
More evidence that you’re not a scholar!
1 Like
I don’t think that the question whether Eberlin’s book is complete junk is open. Here’s a quote, addressing human reproduction as an unsolvable mystery:
One might posit that cervix ripening was a selective advantage acquired over many generations of blind evolution, but notice the problem. If in the first-ever baby delivery, the cervix was not able to hold the baby in place and then open at the right time, this poor pioneer infant would have been expelled too early or been trapped inside the mother’s womb, leading to the death of both child and mother. No first baby, no chance for gradual evolution over many generations. Proper dilation at the right time of the cervix is a prerequisite for human reproduction.
Now, one can only feel sorry for anyone dim enough to think that a book with material like that in it can possibly be worthwhile. How to explain a Nobel winner praising it? Good question, but the high merit of the book obviously cannot be the answer.
4 Likes
Just curious, but I’m wondering if other species of mammals also reproduce, and if they have cervixes (cervices?) too. Question for Eberlin, really, but he’s not here. Nor are any of his prestigious endorsers, who might have been asked too.
4 Likes
I guess we’ll have to put it in the pouch to ask later. 
5 Likes
I have no idea what is included under “everything” that is not included in “the world”, but you are welcome to explain.
More important – and this was my original question – why do you accept that doctrine, since, as John Harshman says, it is an “extraordinary claim”. On what grounds do you accept that claim? Because the Bible says so? Or for some other reason? And if so, what is the other reason?
No, it doesn’t, but you are welcome to provide specific ID texts where you think this is happening. I realize you are averse to doing a close study of texts, but the claim you are making can’t be substantiated without such a study.
@Eddie seems to have missed the Copernican revolution.
3 Likes
All of them.
Not a useful response.
But that, as your colleague John Harshman has said, is an “extraordinary claim.” Why do you believe this claim? What is the evidence that convinces you of the truth of the claim? Or, to put it in your language, what are the “data” that lead you to accept the claim?
One important thing is that many students and professors come to biblical studies as Christians and leave as agnostics or atheists. We have no documented cases where a student came to biblical studies as an atheist and then became a Christian.
How are “the chemical details behind macroevolution” different from the “the chemical details behind” reproduction more generally? Does Tour believe that we don’t understand the chemical details behind reproduction sufficiently that he can say for certainty that he is in fact his parents’ son? If not, on what basis is he casting doubt on macroevolution?
Such comments suggest that, outside his expertise in carbon materials chemistry and nanotechnology, Tour’s statements should not be considered reliable.
4 Likes
This is correct. However, you don’t see the contradiction between this and your earlier statement from the Tour-Farina discussion:
“Bible scholarship starts with a preferred conclusion (God inspired the Bible) and then makes absurd and unfounded “observations” (It’s magic, it predicts the future!) about the Bible that fit that claim, ignoring or discounting all the contradictory evidence.”
If Biblical scholarship did start from that “preferred conclusion”, students who come to study under Biblical scholars would not end up as agnostics and atheists. They would, rather , be confirmed in their religious beliefs by the religious professors. But in fact, students run into professors such as Bart Ehrman (whom you have referenced), and Hector Avalos, and Ed Sanders, and they start to doubt that the Bible is the word of God, and learn to see it as a human production filled with human errors and prejudices. That’s why Biblical studies, and especially New Testament studies, is such a factory for unbelief (except at very sheltered conservative Protestant Bible colleges and the like).
Well, you know of no documented cases; it doesn’t follow that there never have been any. But even if this is true, it is incompatible with the religious prejudice you imputed to the field in your earlier statement. If the Biblical studies profs were convinced of the divine origin of the text, surely that would rub off on at least some students, and you’d see a few conversions from agnostic/atheist to Bible-believing Christian. It’s precisely because so many Biblical studies profs are atheist, agnostic, or ultra-liberal themselves, that studying under them rarely produces orthodox Christian belief.
So based on your current statement, you seem to realize, on some unconscious level, that your original statement about “Biblical scholarship” is false. Now all you have to do is make that acknowledgment conscious, and you will have improved your understanding.
You expect us to believe that biblical languages are often taught in a seminary by a person without a PhD in that subject. What seminary would that be? Harry Potter?