My First Question for Brian Tweed, his reponse and my reply.

The following is my first question to Brian (in Green) with his response (in Blue) and my reply (Bold Green).

Hi SP,
I will try to respond to your statements and question(s), but please bear in mind that I am not an expert, nor a spokesperson for YECs, though I will speak only as someone that accepts the bible as the word of God, and also accepts as accurate the interpretation of the bible that places the creation of the Earth as less than 10,000 years ago.

SP writes
“Being that you are a Young Earth Creationist, I am intrigued by the alternate explanations you have for a variety of concepts that are explained currently by scientific theories. To me, YEC means that you accept that all existence is no older than 10,000 years old and at some after the creation event the Earth was covered by water for a year which destroyed all life except that which was brought aboard a ship with eight humans. According to the Ussher Chronology, accepted by most YEC organizations the creation event was in 4004 BCE and the Flood occurred between 2349-2348 BCE, 6016 & 4361 years ago respectively.”

This is mostly true, but I do not stick firmly to particular dates such as those given by Ussher, but I am happy to use them as a template as a ‘rough guide’ to the timeframe. I do not though believe that the Flood “destroyed all life except that which wasbrought aboard a ship with eight humans” as it was only the ‘land dwelling animals with breath in their nostrils’ that needed to be saved, as those plants and organisms that could survive a flood did not need to be taken onboard the Ark.

Brian: Which is why I asked about a list of land dwelling animals that do not currently exist being on the Ark.

SP writes
“The Noachian Flood event is one that I’ve always been interested in as the claims made by creationists about his occurrence are easily tested by the scientific method. One claim that I’d like you to explain is the following. In Genesis 6 & 7 it is claimed that the Ark contained 2 of every beast and foul of the Earth (7 of the clean types) including “every thing that creepeth upon the earth”.

I will simply repeat that this gives the false impression that Noah needed to take every ‘species’ of organism onto the Ark, but this is incorrect as I have intimated above. Noah did not need to bring representatives of ‘every species’ as it was only representatives of the bird ‘kinds’ and the land dwelling creatures that breathed through their nostrils that needed to be taken unto the ark. This means that he only needed to take representatives of the amphibian, reptile, mammal and bird kinds unto the ark. If you check out the number of these ‘species’ living on Earth now there are only about 30000 ‘species’ of these, and many of these, such as bats, have many variations on the same kind of animal. So it has been estimated that there would only have need to be between 2-10000 animals on the ark. Perhaps you are aware that they are building a full size ark in the US at the moment to answer some of the sceptical questions that have been raised about it’s feasibility.

Brian: So then what is a “kind” are all carnivores a “kind”, what about all animals in the same genus???  What is a scientifically testable definition of the word that would apply to all instances?

SP writes
“Creationists also claim that all geological layers of the Earth were formed during this yearlong flood and therefore all the fossils in these layers were animals that existed before the flood.”

As I say, I am not an expert on this, but I would not say that it is necessary for ‘every’ fossil we find to have been laid down during the Flood, as there may have been local floods that created some of the fossil assemblages both before and after the Flood, but it is likely than these types are in the minority, and that most of the fossils are from the great Flood.

Brian: So if we take your statement as is, how would we know the sedimentary rocks that were formed before the flood?  Would we rely on the Law of Superposition only or is there another way to date these pre-flood fossil beds?  The ones formed after the flood would be easy, again Law of Superposition, but they would only contain modern animals I assume?  Would you agree??? Since you are claiming that one Flood that lasted only a year created all these (besides the aforementioned pre&post deposits), how do you explain Aeolian layers (some are so delicate as to contain spider footprints) mixed in with all the other layers?  How does this occur when the whole Earth is completely covered by water?

SP writes
“Taking these claims together means that if you can find an animal in the fossil record, it was part of the menagerie on the Ark and would have included: Dinosaurs, Pleistocene Megafauna (like Glyptodons, Megatherium, Mammoths/Mastodons), Acanthostegians, Ichthyostegians, Temnospondyls, Diadectomorphas, Captorhinids, Gorganopsia, Dicynodontia, Dimetrodons, Anthracosaurs, Cynodonts, & Pterosaurs to name a few.”

Yes I do believe that some dinosaurs were on the Ark, but as we don’t know how many different types there were, I can’t list them, but there may have been 100-500 different kinds of them. As for the other creatures on your list, if we assume that each of them were land living creatures that needed to be on the Ark, then yes, I do believe that representatives of their kinds needed to be on the Ark. I would suspect though that some of them will need to be discussed for other reasons as I am sure that you will want to use them to ‘prove’ evolution, but we can leave that discussion until another time. 

Brian: Actually the short list I gave you was of currently extinct land animal groups which I brought up as they (and the others I did not list) apply directly to my question below: “…why it is that we ONLY find animals alive today that are the most recent in the fossil record and NOT any of the other millions of species…” .  This is the real crux of the question, why would a worldwide flood lead worldwide fossil deposits that contain modern organisms at the top layers only?

SP writes
“the Law of Superposition & Radiometric Dating are used to determine the relative and absolute ages of life we find in the fossil record, which brings me to my question.”

As I am sure you are aware, I will dispute the accuracy of these dating methods, but since this is not part of your present question, I will leave this for the moment.

Brian: I hope when you “…dispute the accuracy of these dating methods…” you also will explain why alternative geochronological techniques using different materials all converge on the same dates. 

SP writes
“Given that there has been a HUGE variety of life that has existed on the Earth (as evident from the fossil record), that YEC’s claim that all the fossil bearing rock (even all strata) were produced during the Noachian Flood event, and that at least two of all beasts and foul were carried on the Ark that existed before the flood, why is it that we only find animals alive today that are the most recent in the fossil record and NOT any of the other millions of species that, according to modern science, date to the end of the last ice age?”

Perhaps the best way to start my reply to this question would be to clear up some common misunderstandings / misconceptions which are promoted in the books of most of the evolutionary biologists that I have read.
I am not aware of any YEC that believes that the life-forms which are with us today are in the exact forms as the ones that were created by God in the beginning. Any YEC that I know of, accept a limited form or ‘evolution’ if you define the word as ‘change over time’. This seems to be one of the roots of the misconceptions which are perpetuated by many evolutionists.
YEC accept both natural selection and mutations as real processes that can explain some of the variations of the different kinds of creatures that we observe. So we do believe that the original kinds of creatures that God created have ‘changed over time’ and therefore we do not deny every type of ‘evolution’ if this is how you define it. Maybe you should define what you mean by ‘evolution’ as maybe I accept a lot more of it than you think ;-)

To further address your question above, I only believe that a few thousand kinds of land animals needed to be on the Ark. I would also believe that after the animals left the Ark many of them had to adapt to new and unfamiliar environments.

Brian: Ok, so your opinion is that only a few “kinds” needed to be on the Ark, but I still would like to know why the most recent fossil species are the ones found current living and why we do not find species deeper in the fossil record/radiometricly  dated to be older currently alive?

 This would have meant that genetic variability, natural selection and mutations, lead to variations and adaptations in the populations of these kinds of animals.
I am not sure that there were ‘millions’ of species in the past, but many that are now called separate species, were perhaps just numerous variations on the kinds of animals that left the ark. When you mention ‘millions’ of species you are probably referring to the vast majority of organisms that did not need to be on the Ark, such as plants, insects and aquatic life.
Even within the 30,000 or so land living, air breathing creatures on the Earth at the moment that are many different variations of the same type of animals. Apparently about 1/5 of all mammals on the Earth at the moment are bats! When you also consider the many different ‘breeds’ of dogs there are, it is quite easy to understand that many of what are described as ‘new species’ in the fossil record, are really only variations of already ‘discovered’ creatures.
As for when the last ice age was, many YEC believe that the Flood may have started an ice age which lasted for a 1000 years or so, and this means that many of the creatures that are alive today are only the survivors of both the Flood and the different climate that ensued after the Flood. Not all of the creatures would have adapted equally well to the new conditions, and no doubt many of them have gone extinct since the Flood due to a number of different reasons, including predation by man.

Brian: So I’m still waiting for you to explain why only the most recent animals in the fossil record are the ones alive today and why we do not see those recent organisms distributed throughout the fossil record?

SP Writes
“Concurrently, why are none of the species that currently exist found in any of the other layers of sediments if they were all laid down during one event, the Noachian Flood, and, as claimed by YEC’s, all organisms found all sedimentary layers must have existed together before the flood?”

This is again a misconception, though we believe that the ‘ancestors’ of all living kinds of animals were on the Ark, we do not claim that they have all survived to this time, nor that they have not changed. We accept that many of the descendants of those that were on the Ark have not survived to this day, for a number of different reasons, so we do not believe that the animals that live today existed in the same form back on the Ark or before it. If you want to narrow down your enquiry to something more specific I will be happy to reply, but this is just a general reply to a general question.

Brian: I refer again to my question directly above. You must have some type of explanation for why only the top most layers of the fossil record represent the current flora/fauna existing today and why, if a worldwide flood caused all (or nearly all) the sedimentary layers we do not find any recent organisms mixed into the older/deeper layers or any organisms of those older/deeper layers alive today.  This seems like a question that YEC’s like yourself would have to answer to be taken seriously when denying modern evolutionary biology’s explanation for the same facts.

I have attempted to answer your question and I await your response to my last post before we move on.

Brian: I’m sorry, but I don’t see an answer to my question. Can you please try again.

SP

Q & A with Brian Tweed. His first question(s) & my response.

Instead of trying to keep up with an exponentially growing thread, I asked Brian if we could restart out conversation asking one question.  He agreed and both his question(s) along with my response is below...

Hi SP
Thank you for informing me that you are now ready to resume our discussion, and I hope that it will be beneficial to us both.

As you are well aware, reading discussions between atheists and theists of any sort on the internet is not always an uplifting way to spend your day, mainly, but not only, because rarely do you find that the two parties have much courteous or respect for the oppositions point of view. Whilst it is certain that we shall disagree vehemently on the subject matters, hopefully we can approach the debate in a manner that acknowledges that our opponent has the right to disagree, and we will not need to portray them as ignorant or foolish for seeing things differently than we do ourselves.

I know that your preference is to have a discussion solely about the validity of the evolutionary biological version of the ‘creation story’ as opposed to the biblical view of the origin of life that I hold, and I am more than happy to discuss the details of that shortly. I would though like to lay out some of my objections to your viewpoint before I ask you my first question.

I am off the opinion that the universe as a whole requires an explanation, as there is an astronomical amount of matter out there, (pun intended ;-) the simple fact that the universe exists at all seems to require some sort of explanation.

In my view, before this universe began, there existed a very powerful, intelligent Being, (whom I believe is now known as the God of the bible) that chose to create the universe, and at the same time, created laws to govern the universe, so that it can be understood by you and I, creatures that this Being also created. So, my view postulates that before this universe or any of the matter that it contains ever existed, there was a Being capable of creating all of it, and endowing it with the properties that we see in the here and now. Since the appearance of the universe from nothing requires an explanation, the bible I believes gives me a plausible one, in that God, who existed before all of time, space and matter, used His power to create it all that we can see.

You would agree, I will assume, (and await any corrections to any errors I may make in presenting your view) that the origin of the universe requires an explanation, but as an atheist, you reject the view that God exists, and therefore you reject this explanation of why time, space and matter came into being. In your view, (if you agree with the majority of atheists that I have heard give there explanation of why there is a universe at all) all of the matter that we can observe in the universe appeared suddenly, for some unknown reason, out of nothing. Apparently, at this time, again for no known reason, all of the laws that govern the universe began to guide the formation of our present observable universe. Since the beginning, which you believe was about 13.7 billion years ago, the matter in the universe has simply followed ‘laws’ (for which you have no explanation of), and the combination of these ‘laws’ working on the matter, over extremely long periods of time, have ‘created’ stars, planets, and the inhabitants of the planets. In your view, you and I are simply the product of unguided processes that have worked over immense periods of time to ‘create’ the complex systems such as the ‘fine tuned’ universe and of course the human brain, by which we can learn about, and make sense of it all.

In short, you believe that order came from disorder, laws came from lawlessness, and intelligibility came from unintelligibility. I don’t know if you think that this sounds reasonable and logical to you, but to me it seems like a gigantic stretch of credibility, and I don’t have enough faith to believe it ;-). But if this is what you want to believe, I am open to hear your logic in coming to this position.

I find it far more logical and reasonable to believe that the ‘fine tuning’ that we observe in the universe indicates a ‘Fine-tuner’, the order in the universe was the product of a Planner, and the complexity of life and life processes, is the result of a Grand Designer, which is real and not just illusory.

So, with that background for why I find your position illogical and against common reason, I will focus down on the area of evolutionary biology that I would like to discuss first. I will start with a simple question, which can be answered by you by a simple yes or no. I will then hope that you will follow up this simple answer with further details of why you agree or disagree with the statement.

Here are some quotes from the book ‘Why evolution is true’ by Jerry A. Coyne.

“For the process of evolution- natural selection, the mechanism that drove the first naked, replicating molecule into the diversity of millions of fossil and living forms- is a mechanism of staggering simplicity and beauty.” (Introduction xvii)

“The truth - that we, like lions, redwoods and frogs, all resulted from the slow replacement of one gene by another, each step conferring a tiny reproductive advantage – is surely more satisfying than the myth that we were suddenly called into being from nothing.” (Introduction xxi)

“Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species - perhaps a self-replicating molecule- that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.” (P3)

So, after reading these statements my question to you is:
Do you believe that natural selection, “the mechanism that drove the first naked, replicating molecule” through the “slow replacement of one gene by another”, is the process by which “a self-replicating molecule” has been transformed into mankind?

Brian 

 My response follows...

Brian,

I’ll leave your opinion on Cosmology and instead address the end of your post about Biology, but will say that I view your description of the scientific explanation for physical cosmology as a straw-man of the actual facts that the Big Bang theory explains. I think that before I can address this statement I will need to see you give a synopsis of what the majority of  physicists articulate as Big Band theory compared to what I perceive as your misrepresentation of that scientific theory.

As for your question about natural selection, no I do not believe that natural selection is responsible for humanity.  I know that Natural Selection is the best scientific explanation (along with Genetic Drift from Founder Effect & Bottle Necks, Gene Flow, Sexual Selection, Biased Mutations, among other mechanisms) for the fact of the diversity of life found today and in the fossil record. I do not accept upon faith (believe) what others have told me about how life on this planet has changed over time, but instead I have researched the facts and explanations of those facts and understand that Evolutionary Biology is the best account for the fact of common descent with modification. 

Yours,

SP

Brian Tweet from 29Mar2012

Brian,

I moving our conversations here as Facebook is not the best area to keep track of or reply to your posts (one reason being I cannot access it at my school).  This post will be a reply for both the comments on the 29th of March. One is copied the other is just a link to another video (both links below)...

Hi SP,
I find it very interesting that you continue with your evolutionary propaganda on twitter, and criticise (sic) those that do not answer your questions to your satisfaction, but yet you have not replied to several of my posts yet, nor answered the questions I posed to you.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt for a little longer and assume that you may have ordered or purchased the book I recommended for you and are presently reading it.

In the meantime, here is a short video illustrating some of the flaws in the evolutionary story, which features the author of the book I recommended to you.

By the way, if you wish to recommend a book to me to read which will help to convince me that your view is correct, please feel free to, as I am happy to read any book which you feel 'proves' your point of view.

Brian Tweed

 ...and your second recommended video is found here

Now before I respond to (or even watch either of these videos) I need you, Brian, to clarify for me what evidence you believe the videos are giving you that refutes why current Evolutionary Biology is not the most valid theory to explain the facts that are observed.

The reason I will not watch the videos before your explanations of what the video is telling you and why you think it refutes Evolution, is that I find the idea of saying read this or what that without explaining why to be repugnant to our conversation.  If we are to learn from each other why each of us holds to our point of view it cannot be done by proxy of telling the other person to watch/read without explaining why it supports your point of view.

Yours,

SP

Conversations with Brian Tweed on Facebook.

Recently I've been having a conversation with Brian Tweed on Facebook, but we have both been hindered by the limitations of this format for our type of discussion.  As such I have moved his last post here so to allow for a greater ease of use and  response. Enjoy...

Hi SP, as there seems to be little continuity to our discussion on here, as you do not reply to many of my posts, I will have to start another new post, in an attempt to focus our discussion.

(Scientia Perceptum writes) Our discussions have had nothing to due with theology (I thought I explained that to begin with),

I am afraid you this was not my understanding, as your initial response to me stated 

 I'm sorry for the misunderstanding Brian.  When I started our conversation I thought that I pointed out that my interests were only in the purely scientific reasons that creationists claim they have a better explanation than that given by modern Evolutionary Biology.  This meant that our conversations would be limited to changes in life over time and not dealing with the origins of the Universe, solar system, or life.

(Scientia Perceptum writes) “My aim is to understand the basis for and purpose of the belief that creationists hold” 

Since you stated that this was your aim, it is obvious that those that you refer to as ‘creationists’ are going to have a worldview which has theology as its “basis”.
You also betray your own “theology” which you acknowledge as atheism, by promoting both your atheism and anti Christian opinions in your last few tweets.
It is interesting that you claim to want to have a meaningful discussion, but when you are given the opportunity to do so with a Christian that accepts the young Earth position, you claim that you are very busy, whilst at the same time you continue to post your atheistic worldview tweets that attack both Christianity and ‘creationists’.
I sense that you are not as sincere as you are trying to make out. This is very disappointing, as I saw this as an opportunity to have a meaningful discussion with someone holding an opposing viewpoint, that was capable of presenting their views in a rational and reasonable manner, you have not showed yourself willing to engage in this up to this point. 

 Of course the basis of creationism is theology (thank you for admitting that as some creationists will not), but that does not mean that every question can be answered with "God did it" and be considered an alternative to the scientific theories of Evolutionary Biology that explain the facts observed.


As science cannot say anything about the existence or non-existence of any deities it is neither atheistic or theistic in nature. The fact that I am an atheist also has nothing to due with a scientific discussion between you and I whether creationism can be considered a scientific alternative to Evolutionary Biology and I will never use it as such.  


As for your claim that I attack creationism in my tweets, it is true, yet I do so ONLY on a scientific nature and their religion or religious beliefs do not enter into it (unless they are making a claim about history of life that is completely unscientific and it is only their attacks on science that I address).  To your claim that I've attacked Christianity, I looked back at the last month of tweets and cannot find one time that I've said anything of that nature, so I await evidence of this statement.


Lastly, as I've stated a few times now, the reason I've moved our discussion here is to give me more time to allow for our conversation to occur.  Facebook is blocked at my school and moving here will allow me much more time and access to our discussions. As for tweets, those require almost no time and, if you have been following them closely over the last month, are almost purely devoted to current news event relating to Evolution including people & a thread with one particular creationist requesting that he back up his claims with facts.

(Scientia Perceptum writes)… but instead I've hoped would be based purely in science.  

I can see that you have a high regard for the discipline of science and the scientific method, as do I, but we must be aware that ‘science’ does not tell us anything, and it is how we ‘interpret’ the information that we discover that makes the difference.
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that our worldviews effect HOW we interpret the information we are presented with. Whilst ‘science’ may not have a bias, it is people that ‘interpret’ the results, and they most certainly do have a bias.
My point is that whilst you may wish to exclude ‘theology’ from the discussion, this is not something that is possible in actuality. The position that we hold as regard to God and a Creator greatly affects the conclusions we arrive at.
You also seem oblivious to the fact that Christianity is the only worldview that makes total sense of the world around us. You think that you can use science, reason and logic to reach your opinion, but ignore the fact that if atheism is true, there is no reason to trust science, reason or logic! Atheism cannot account for the fact that there are laws of logic, or laws of nature, and instead you must rely on the Christian God to account for their presence in the first place. 

Before addressing the nature of science, I will again reiterate that any theological stance is not allowed and if one is letting their "...position...(that they) hold as regard to God and a creator..." affect their conclusions, than right away we know they have left the realm of science and are discussing only theology.  I will not address the claims about laws in logic or nature, as again by limiting them to being only explainable by the deity of Christianity your claims are purely theological in context and not a discussion I'm interested in having.

To the point about the nature of science, as the final part of the process is that of peer review, the point about "bias" can be disregarded as the only bias is that supporting the methodology of science itself. Science is systematic method builds theories to explain facts about the world & that works to eliminate biased interpretations of those facts.  For a more detailed explanation of the nature of science (which matches and expounds upon my statements above) see the official position by the NSTA.

(Scientia Perceptum writes)…I've tried to take time to read, reread, clarify, and find citations for my comments

I have seen very little actual content from you, as you have not answered my questions, even though I have answered yours.

Which, again, is why I moved out conversations here off Facebook, the FB format was not working.

(Scientia Perceptum writes)…(at this point I will request that we, again, address evolution {with geological evidence} as the focus of our discussions)

I have told you that I am happy to answer any questions that you address to me, and you have stated that you wanted to take one topic at a time. I understood that when I answered your questions that I was free to ask you any question I wished as ‘My aim is to understand the basis for and purpose of the belief that atheist evolutionary biologists hold’.

Again you are confusing theology with science.  There are many Evolutionary Biologists who are religious, including Christian, and they understand that their theology cannot and should not influence the science they study and report on.

I can understand why you want to avoid this, as I am sure you are aware that atheists have very few reasonable answers to the questions that interest most people, such as the origin of matter, physics and chemistry, which are essential prerequisites for the origin of life. It appears that you want to ignore discussing how the lego bricks were manufactured or how they came to exist in the first place, and jump straight to the assembled models themselves.

My field of study is not the origins of matter, my understanding of physics is limited to conceptual, but I have taken some higher level chemistry courses (including organic chemistry in college), but again how life originated (there are many working hypotheses in Abiogenesis) has NOTHING to do with the study of Evolution.  Life on Earth could have originated in various ways, but the fact of increasing morphology throughout geological history, convergent phylogenetic trees from paleontology and genetics (to name a few) and other observed facts are not explained by any other scientific theory EXCEPT the one I studied for my Bachelors in Science; Evolutionary Biology.  The claim you've made is a common straw man fallacy that should be dropped.

I did though attempt to focus our discussion in an earlier post, one which you have yet to reply to, in which I suggested that we focus on one of the main claims of common ancestry, and we examine the Primary axiom, which is the ‘supposed’ mechanism, by which evolutionary biologists seem to place their ‘faith’ in.
I have suggested that we take genetics as our first topic, and examine the ‘evidence for evolution’ which you seem to feel is conclusive. Have you given any consideration to my post? As I have yet to learn if you are willing to discuss this topic, which was on your list of ‘evidences’ for evolution.  

Please re-post the question here and I will get to it shortly.  The "timeline" aspect of Facebook does not allow easy or uninterrupted access that I need to keep this conversation on the track we are both requiring.

(Scientia Perceptum writes)…but again request that we make sure that science be to only topic in our conversations.

I am happy to discuss science, but to restrict our conversation to ‘only’ science seems to be very narrow minded, as my worldview can explain why science can even work in the first place, whilst yours has no reason to accept science as a reliable basis for knowledge, and instead you rely on the Christian worldview to explain the basis of science, and then reject the conclusions that it leads us to.

I see that as another theological statement that has nothing to do with how the current Nature of Science.  If you would like to start another conversation on history of the philosophy of science, I would be interested, but it must be a different thread so as to not distract from our discussion of the scientific validity of creationism or Evolutionary Biology.

Scientia Perceptum writes)…Given your statement above, are you claiming that "Creationism" is not scientific, but instead is a religion?

Perhaps you could be more specific, as I am not sure which statement you are referring to. As for your terminology, I do not use the term “Creationism” that is your term, and one which is usually used in a derogatory manner. I believe that God created the heavens and the Earth, and that science can help us to learn about His creation, but as for your ‘beliefs’, I think that there is little support for them in real science, and it is necessary to ignore a lot of the things that real science has revealed to support your evolutionary beliefs.

That sounds like a great beginning to a conversation on whether Creationism (I believe you have claimed to be a Young Earth Creationist) or Evolution is scientifically valid explanation of the observable facts.

Scientia Perceptum writes)…My reason for asking is that my concerns over the "creationism vs evolution controversy" is that both are claimed to be purely based in science by creationists and that is my only focus.

I would be interested in a citation, as I do not know of any biblical creationists that claim this. We acknowledge that both creation and evolutionism ;-) rely on information that is ‘beyond’ the reach of the scientific method. You cannot use the scientific method to support your beliefs, and must at some point admit that science is unable to answer every question.

I defer to my prior statement seen directly above the answer to this one.

Scientia Perceptum writes)… So, in your view, is creationism (the one you claim to follow) based purely in science and if so, how so???? 

I have explained to you before, that my beliefs are based on information that I have gathered from various different disciples, including physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, cosmology and biology. They are not though limited to these, as I also include logic and reason, as well as historical records in coming to my point of view.
My belief in God as the Creator of the universe takes all of these things into consideration, but as I have also stated before, I have more than all of these, as I have the testimony of an Eyewitness Himself who was actually there and has given us a reliable account of what happened in the book of Genesis.

In opposition to this, your view requires you to ignore reason and logic and historical information, and to deny several scientific principles to reach your conclusion that all life ‘evolved’ by natural processes from a common ancestor.

So no my views are not based ‘purely’ in science, but then neither are yours.

I will defer this to my prior statement and during our discussions on whether our evidence, your accepted form of Creationism or my acceptance of modern Evolutionary Biology, will prove to be a more scientific explanation as to the diversity of life on Earth.

Scientia Perceptum writes)… I am (I glean from your comments and page you are retired) heavily involved in work, professional life (today I ran a naturalist walk through a local conversation land informing my audience on the natural history of the area), and personal life and think should realize that my replies are based on my own sense of conveying the known facts in science and cannot delve into metaphysical conjecture.

I found it extremely amusing that your ‘interpretation’ of the information was so faulty in working out my age, and yet I am sure that this will not dent your confidence too much in believing that you are right about the age of the Earth, even though you must make so many assumptions to reach your conclusion, which may be equally as bad as the false assumptions you made about me ;-)

As we go into the facts which are explained by scientific theories , we will see which of our claims are backed up as to the age of the Earth.

Scientia Perceptum writes)… I suggest that we start our conversation anew based purely on the common descent of all life as inferences about the origin and nature of the universe are not my field of education/inquiry nor do they concern the fact that geological, morphological, embryological, fossil, and genetic information {all fields taking evidence from different facts} give matching phylogenetic tree, as the origin of the Earth/Universe does not (in my opinion) affect events that occur after the start of life on Earth itself.

As I have said before, I do not think that all of this information produces the unified picture that you imagine, and I have said that I would be willing to discuss any and all of them one topic at a time. I have suggested that we start with genetics, I will leave you to decide if you want to start with this one of the other fields you mention, but as you believe that all life has ‘evolved’ from a common ancestor, it would seem sensible to discuss the feasibility of the ‘supposed’ mechanism for this process.

Brian

Ok, so the start of our conversation will be whether genetics supports your Creationist view (again from previous conversations I am assuming you are a Young Earth Creationism advocate as you've indicated you believe the Earth to be around 10,000 years old) or if my mainstream scientific view best explains the evidence and proves common ancestry of all life on Earth.

Thank you again, Brian, for your time and please make all responses here (again I cannot access Facebook at school, where I do most of my work) and when needed I will start a new thread on new lines of conversation that we start.

Yours,

Scientia Perceptum

Back in the Saddle again.

I'm back in the saddle again.  After a long hiatus due to work, the birth of my first child & a new house, I've decided to start posting to my blog on a regular basis with in-depth views of interactions I've had with creationists (mainly from Twitter).  Let's start by checking out CopyPasta poster-child "Cowboy" Bob "Piltdown Superman" Sorensen the "StormBringer"(pretentious much) whose Twitter and Blog accounts are a testament to scientific illiteracy.

There are many posts at his Blog that I'll be tackling, but the first thing to remember (before your visit) is to research evidence for the brand of anti-science that Bob spouts aka Young Earth Creationism ...most of what you will read is Copied and Pasted directly from some creationist website with Bob just repeating fallacious creationist icons.  Often when you read his commentaries, you start to question if he even read the article he is referring to, as repeatedly it has nothing to do with the article he copies from and/or is giving a link for you to check out . 

I’ll start with Mr. Piltdown Cowboy’s blog entry from the 6th of February of this year as seen below...

The first thing to point out is that only the text in black, the top paragraph and next two sentences, are Bob's "original" contributions, with the brownish text below (almost three times the amount of his writing) all copy and pasted from the linked article.  The article Bob is trying to comment on is from Creationresearch.org's "Peer Reviewed" Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal and is titled "Time Required for Sedimentation Contradicts the Evolutionary Hypothesis".  Before going into Bob's "summary" of this article, I'd like to quote from the introduction from the article as the quote is a synopsis of the article as a whole.

My research has focused on empirical experiments showing how strata form, a topic about which little work has been done.

The article makes passing reference to Radiometric Dating, and instead is a critique of modern/historical theories about the process by which sedimentary rock is formed. The attacks in this article are mainly against our understanding of sedimentary rock formation are from Steno and his 17th century writings, a history of studies on the formation of sedimentary rock, and some cherry-picked papers showing how some formations form rapidly.

Getting back Bob. I have to start by asking myself "why does he not give Hovind credit since he does nothing but repeating Hovind almost word for word?"

How can I make this claim? Simple, because, unlike Bob and almost every creationist I've encountered, I back up my claims with evidence.  If you have ever tried to make a count the number of factual errors, scientific misrepresentations, and outright lies about science in a single Hovind seminar, I think you would agree with me that "Seminar 4 - Lies in the Textbooks" wins hands down as you would only need to get about half way though before making the call on this point.  I'll bet that Bob watches Hovind's seminars so often that he repeats Hovind without even knowing it.

Proof #1 that Bob is a Hovind parrot/plagiarist.  Bob said...

One of the largest flaws in evolutionists' "logic" is the circular reasoning of the fossil record. How old is the fossil? You can tell because of the rock layers that contained it. How can you tell how old the rock layers are? Because of the fossils in them.

Which is exactly what Hovind says here.

Next Bob states that...

The so-called geologic column only exists in textbooks, not in nature.

 Boy Bob that sounds familiar...oh ya, Hovind said it here.

Need I say more?

Please comment on my interpretation (as any scientist would expect), give feedback on why you support or do not support Cowboy/Bob/Piltdown Superman/Stormbringer/Sorensen, or any other comments on this post so I can look at my Performance and get Feedback for Revision as per Darwin though Baba.


SP

The text of an agreement for format and subject of a debate between "DoctorAnswers" and myself.

This is an exact copy of that text taken from our Skype conversation.

[9/6/2009 9:30:43 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Hey Nick.
[9/6/2009 9:31:15 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: I just got home from a few days in the mountains (Hiking/Camping) and saw your message on my profile.
[9/6/2009 9:32:07 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: I don't check my profile page that often so if you would like to get hold of me sooner an e-mail or skype call would be quicker.
[9/6/2009 9:32:48 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: I would LOVE a debate so contact me ASAP about your suggestions for a format and we will bang it out for a time
[9/6/2009 9:32:49 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Thanx,
[9/6/2009 9:32:52 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Yours
[9/6/2009 9:32:54 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: SP
[9/6/2009 9:33:28 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: BTW it is Sunday 9:30 PM my time and 6:30 yours
[9/6/2009 9:35:21 PM] DoctorAnswers: Have you thought of any ideas?
[9/6/2009 9:37:11 PM] DoctorAnswers: I alow evolutionists to give suggestions and then I alow part of what they want to discuss. So that they can't complaine and say that I am formating everything so that they will fail
[9/6/2009 9:42:41 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Hey there. What I ment by format is how the debate will be conducted and what the specific subject will be.
[9/6/2009 9:42:52 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Just a sec, let me get my headset
[9/6/2009 9:44:03 PM] *** Call to DoctorAnswers, duration 11:01. ***
[9/8/2009 5:17:44 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Hey Nick, Have you thought about the format and subjects for the debate?
[9/8/2009 5:25:12 PM] DoctorAnswers: yes I have
[9/8/2009 5:26:09 PM] DoctorAnswers: I was thinking that I might bring up the idea of humans having 46 chromosomes and chimps having 48.
[9/8/2009 5:27:34 PM] Nick: It seems odd that can happen when we know of the disorders children have with 45
[9/8/2009 5:29:08 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Ok, so a subject to start out with would be the chromosome #'s of humans compared with other primates.
[9/8/2009 5:29:13 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: What about the format?
[9/8/2009 5:29:52 PM] Nick: probably have 3 different videos of a subject for both of us
[9/8/2009 5:30:03 PM] Nick: then refute and then conclude
[9/8/2009 5:30:50 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Please clarify? What would you like the debate to look like?
[9/8/2009 5:32:15 PM] Nick: We both have our topics. We have a into vid then 3 I have 3 vids and you have 3 vids and then we refute those vids. Then conclude
[9/8/2009 5:37:21 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: So do you mean what You start with a intro, then I have an intro, then we have 3 rounds of back and fourth, concluding with a final statement from each of us?
[9/8/2009 5:37:38 PM] Nick: Yes
[9/8/2009 5:37:53 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Ok.
[9/8/2009 5:38:02 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: When would you like to start?
[9/8/2009 5:38:50 PM] Nick: I might hava a video up today if I come up with two more ideas
[9/8/2009 5:46:41 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: The reason I asked is that I have a busy week at school (it just started this week) and will not have a lot of time to make a video, BUT can bust one out on Saturday.
[9/8/2009 5:48:23 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: So...how about this as a schedule (which is the next thing we need to talk about anyway): the debate starts Saturday with your Intro. I will produce and post an intro the same day, after yours, and then you will post a response.
[9/8/2009 5:49:01 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: How many days would you like between your Intro and the response to my intro?
[9/8/2009 5:49:20 PM] Nick: I have time on the weekend and Tuesday
[9/8/2009 5:51:54 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: So does that mean that we should have the times between each section as being 3 days??? IE: you post your intro and I post mine on Saturday. You will then post a response on Tuesday and I will do the same. AND then we continue with this pattern?
[9/8/2009 5:52:35 PM] Nick: Yes that is fine because I will have enough break to do my homework
[9/8/2009 5:54:26 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Nice!!! Ok, so I will await your intro on Saturday before posting mine. On Tuesday I will post a response to your intro after you have done the same and then we can work out dates for the additional responses and rebuttals at this point.
[9/8/2009 5:54:41 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Does that sound like a plan?
[9/8/2009 5:54:49 PM] Nick: Good plan
[9/8/2009 5:57:05 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: So to clarify right away I would like to point out that ALL Great Apes (humans, chimps, gorillas, and oranatangs) besides humans have 48 chromosomes, while humans are the only Great Ape that has 46 and that is the topic we are debating with its relation to evolution.
[9/8/2009 5:57:29 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Also I suggest that we have to give references to our claims
[9/8/2009 5:57:45 PM] Nick: Yes I will give URLS
[9/8/2009 5:58:01 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Would you limit yourself to only peer reviewed references?
[9/8/2009 5:58:22 PM] Nick: Yes
[9/8/2009 5:59:29 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Nice. Ok, so I will post this conversation on my blog (given your permission) and advertise the debate on YouTube. Sound like a plan?
[9/8/2009 6:00:22 PM] Nick: permissiongranted and thank you for asking because I know qdragon1337 does not ask
[9/8/2009 6:02:47 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Not a problem Nick. I'll contact you with any additional clarification, questions and references before Saturday and please feel free to mirror my advert video on YouTube before the debate. BTW http://scientiaperceptum.blogspot.com/
[9/8/2009 6:05:04 PM] Nick: My blog although I forgot about it until you brought up yours http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1
[9/8/2009 6:05:18 PM] ScientiaPerceptum: Thank you

There are a few things I would like to point out.

First of all Nick gave me permission to post this conversation at 6:00:22.

Next, we agreed (5:26:09) that the topic of debate was going to be why all great apes besides humans have 48 chromosomes while humans have 46 (although Nick only points out chimps as an example in the above text). I must say at this point that I thought this would be the only subject for this debate, but I guess I should have specified that before closing the conversation.

Lastly it should be pointed out that Nick agreed (5:58:22) that he would back up his claims with PEER reviewed sources.


So, this being said, Nick posted his first video Yesterday, the 11th of September, with a range of topics following the route of obfuscation I like to call "The Hovind Hop"©, which is just a version of the "Gish Gallop". Due to this fact and that the majority of topics he has decided to tackle are not not limited to evolution I will change the debate title to "Creationism vs. Science" to better reflect what is being discussed.

Of course Nick did not give one peer reviewed reference to back up his claims, so I'll remind him of his agreement to do so during my opening statement. I also feel that it will be necessary to point out in my opening statement that he has now chosen the topics he wishes me to address and that responses should be limited to subjects brought up in my rebuttals and the topics of my opening statement.

Well, let the fun begin!

Eric Hovind's Grand Mistake

I just watched Eric's "Grand Canyon" video here and posted this comment on his blog

Eric,

I just thought, for now, that I would point out a HUGE error in your video.

From second 32-35 you state and point to the entrance and exit of the Colorado River, BUT you mixed them up and pointed at the wrong sides. You first point to the Northeast part saying it is the exit, when in fact it is the entrance of the river into the canyon. You then point to the West part and say the river enters here when, in fact, this is the exit.

Oops a major mistake, but on par with your facts about science in general so maybe it was a Freudian slip.

Better luck next time,

SP

Now before pointing out his inaccuracies about the scientific facts of the formation of the Grand Canyon I'm going to wait to see if he posts this comment, or if he erases his video and starts anew.