# Welcoming Ben Kissling

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Tags:** Introduction\
**Created:** [March 15, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393 "2019-03-15T15:36:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![cwhenderson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/cwhenderson/32/72_2.png) [@cwhenderson](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/cwhenderson)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/22 "2019-03-15T20:47:00Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> Why else would we be here?

Personally, I come here to learn - it’s a hobby of mine! I gather new information practically every day, and there are some really good threads (links have already been provided) that represent progress toward reconciliation between a conservative view of Genesis 1-3 and the evidence for evolution that God has made evident in His creation.

> [@swamidass](#):
>
> To understand and be understood.

Also a worthwhile goal. There is a lot of potential for reward without the need for endless arguments.

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 8:51pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/23 "2019-03-15T20:51:40Z")

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So is this Gap or Day Age or something else? I’m not sure how informed you are but no old earth view is going to be accepted by YECs any time soon, regardless of what you think about Adam and Eve. Seems naive to me that you think Adam and Eve is the only issue. It’s not even the main issue.

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/24 "2019-03-15T21:02:50Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> It’s not even the main issue.

What is the main issue then?

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**Author:** ![AllenWitmerMiller](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/allenwitmermiller/32/2519_2.png) [@AllenWitmerMiller](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AllenWitmerMiller)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/25 "2019-03-16T15:22:23Z")

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Welcome, BenKissling.

> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> I’m not sure how informed you are but no old earth view is going to be accepted by YECs any time soon …

I was a YEC for many years, having been heavily influenced by _The Genesis Flood_ (1962, Henry Morris & John Whitcomb Jr.) after I heard Dr. Whitcomb speak on such topics at a church in my area. I considered my YEC position an inextricable pillar of my born-again Christian theology.

I eventually abandoned that YEC position while studying Hebrew exegesis in Genesis. After my retirement, I had the time to learn much more about the copious evidence in God’s creation which totally contradicted most of what Morris and Whitcomb had been claiming. So when you say “no old earth view is going to be accepted by YECs any time soon”, that has not been my experience—whether in terms of my own realizations or in those of many YEC colleagues I knew who also eventually accepted God’s revelations in the scriptures and in his creation which point to an old earth.

I’ve learned much about science in this Peaceful Science forum. For my part, I try to contribute on matters of Biblical linguistics and exegesis as well as scripture exposition. So many of the participants on this forum have advanced academic training and many years of experience as professional scholars and researchers. The diversity of expertise is quite amazing. With just about every topic raised, somebody will respond who has significant expertise in the relevant academic discipline.

For most of us here, our purpose is understanding others and learning from the weighing of all available evidence. For those of us who are Christ-followers, that includes both scripture evidence and the evidence found in God’s creation. We believe God reveals his truths in both. That is why we can trust what God has made evident in his universe as well as in his scriptures. (I reject the many false dichotomies which were emphasized in the YEC tradition of my life experience. I found most of them both unscriptural and misinformed.)

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/26 "2019-03-16T16:07:44Z")

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The main issue is we don’t think science takes precedence over history when the subject under consideration is a nonreproducible, unobserveable historical event.

I’ve never read the Genesis Flood. I read Genesis and I know the limits of scientific knowledge. Many don’t seem to understand that, especially theologians.

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/27 "2019-03-16T16:11:24Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> The main issue is we don’t think science takes precedence over history when the subject under consideration is a nonreproducible, unobserveable historical event

So the main issue is with your understanding of how science works, not with the science itself.

How do you think detectives solve murders when there were no eyewitnesses and no way to recreate the murders? How do you think the FAA determines the cause of aircraft accidents (with minimal to no black box data) without crashing a second aircraft?

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/28 "2019-03-16T16:14:29Z")

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In both the instances you mentioned, intelligent cause is an option. Perhaps you should go with a different analogy.

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/29 "2019-03-16T16:15:35Z")

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That has nothing to do with our ability to understand historic events based on the evidence the events leave behind.

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/30 "2019-03-16T16:17:38Z")

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So you are going to argue that consulting a record of events in a black box recorder or an eye witness is more like science than history? You my friend have too much KoolAid in your system. And I don’t have enough posts to waste on this conversation.

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/31 "2019-03-16T16:19:50Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> So you are going to argue that consulting a record of events in a black box recorder is more like science than history? You my friend have too much KoolAid in your system. And I don’t have enough posts to waste on this conversation.

I specifically said with minimal to no black box data. Try reading the words written and not what you want to see.

Do you really think no field of inquiry can determine past events without eyewitness testimony?

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/32 "2019-03-16T16:49:55Z")

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Sometimes, they don’t solve the mystery without that kind of information.

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**Author:** ![Michael\_Callen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/michael_callen/32/897_2.png) [@Michael\_Callen](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michael_Callen)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:57pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/33 "2019-03-16T16:57:34Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> Sometimes, they don’t solve the mystery without that kind of information.

But do they look? Or do they say that, sometimes, that information cannot solve the mystery and move on?

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/34 "2019-03-16T18:25:19Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> Sometimes, they don’t solve the mystery without that kind of information.

Many times they do deduce what happened just by examining the evidence left behind. Are you claiming we can learn **nothing** about the past from the physical evidence?

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/35 "2019-03-16T18:39:26Z")

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What I am saying, Tim, is that we have historical evidence for our origins and even your proposed examples implicitly admit that when we have such evidence it takes priority over scientific reconstructions.

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**Author:** ![AllenWitmerMiller](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/allenwitmermiller/32/2519_2.png) [@AllenWitmerMiller](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AllenWitmerMiller)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/36 "2019-03-16T18:44:24Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> The main issue is we don’t think science takes precedence over history when the subject under consideration is a nonreproducible, unobserveable historical event.

Why do you think science is somehow in competition with history—or even divorced from it? Every scientific observation involves collecting data _from the past._. In a typical laboratory experiment, we observe what happened several nanoseconds ago, because it takes light that long to reflect off objects near to us and reach our eyes. If the experiment involves electronic sensors, the signal speed depends upon many factors but we’d typically still be dealing in nanoseconds. Yet, when we observe the sun, we are seeing the sun as it appeared about 8.3 minutes before. When we view the night sky, we can observe some stars as they appeared just a few years ago (e.g., Sirius is around eight light years from earth), while the appearance of other stars can date from many centuries ago (e.g., Deneb is about 1500 light years from us.) With powerful telescopes astronomers literally observe the history of the universe many millions of years in the past. Science doesn’t “take precedence” over history and history doesn’t “take precedence” over science. It sounds like you are implying a false dichotomy.

> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> I read Genesis and I know the limits of scientific knowledge

I read Genesis and I know the limits of theological knowledge. Humans have imperfect knowledge of both science and theology—but that doesn’t make examination of scientific evidence [based on our observations of God’s creation] and scripture evidence futile activities. It is a false dichotomy to pretend that our interpretations of scientific evidence are hopelessly flawed while our interpretations of the Bible are not. Nevertheless, this theme is common among some ministry leaders in our day.

> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> Many don’t seem to understand that, especially theologians.

What is your evidence of that? Are you thinking of anyone in particular?

Meanwhile, I don’t know of _anyone_ in the science academy who doesn’t know the limits of our scientific knowledge. (If our knowledge of science was unlimited, all scientists would be out of a job.)

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/37 "2019-03-16T18:44:46Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> What I am saying, Tim, is that we have historical evidence for our origins and even your proposed examples implicitly admit that when we have such evidence it takes priority over scientific reconstructions.

I’m asking you **can we ever use physical evidence to reconstruct historical events?** It’s a simple question.

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**Author:** ![BenKissling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/benkissling/32/3891_2.png) [@BenKissling](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/BenKissling)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:50pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/38 "2019-03-16T18:50:31Z")

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Sure you can. But it doesn’t carry the same epistemological certainty as reproducible, observable experiments do, and you cannot take the same sort of certainty and authority that science has from the one and apply it to the other.

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**Author:** ![AllenWitmerMiller](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/allenwitmermiller/32/2519_2.png) [@AllenWitmerMiller](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AllenWitmerMiller)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/39 "2019-03-16T18:52:59Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> So you are going to argue that consulting a record of events in a black box recorder or an eye witness is more like science than history?

Consulting a record of events in a black box recorder is a very fitting reminder that science and history are not unrelated. A black box record is a collection of scientific data. It tells us about the history of a flight.

As to eye witnesses, in a court of law, they are typically considered the least reliable of all evidence for a past event. Yes, untrained people often assume that eye witnesses matter most but their testimony is often unreliable and subject to skewing and even manipulation. The peer-reviewed literature is filled with examples. That’s why forensic science is so important to the criminal justice system. Indeed, it has exonerated many false-accused individuals, some of whom spent years on death row due to the mistakes of eye witnesses.

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**Author:** ![Timothy\_Horton](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/timothy_horton/32/9410_2.png) [@Timothy\_Horton](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Timothy_Horton)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:55pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/40 "2019-03-16T18:55:51Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> Sure you can. But it doesn’t carry the same epistemological certainty as reproducible, observable experiments do

Do you understand when we scientifically investigate historic events the event itself doesn’t have to be reproducible and observable, just the tests on the evidence the event left behind have to be reproducible and observable?

To be clear, you admit we can reconstruct past events with a high degree of certainty even though there was no written eyewitness account. Correct?

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**Author:** ![AllenWitmerMiller](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/allenwitmermiller/32/2519_2.png) [@AllenWitmerMiller](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AllenWitmerMiller)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/welcoming-ben-kissling/5393/41 "2019-03-16T18:56:21Z")

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> [@BenKissling](#):
>
> But it doesn’t carry the same epistemological certainty as reproducible, observable experiments do

I’m not so sure that you understand the meaning of _reproducible_ in science.

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