I’m not exactly sure how my former friend gets through the day without bumping his head or falling down more, but his following reply kinda scares me. He actually thinks scientific theory and evidence is his to decide if he believes it or not. We aren’t talking about a conversation with Cliff Clavin at Cheers. You don’t get to decide if gravity is real or not. You don’t interpret scientific findings as a layman and decide if they are full of hokum.
He is delusional when he references seven different conclusions from 10 scientists looking at scientific results. And I almost fell over when I read his Dr.Behe comment. I so wanted to get into the whole irreducible complexity bullshit but as you’ll soon find out there wasn’t time. Does he even know the Scopes Trial is the biggest creationist failure in history?
This is a person, by the way, who is only alive because of science. He is a diabetic and needs a few shots of insulin every day or he would die. I would love to ask him why he believes that needle is going to save his life but the same scientific method that proves there never was a global flood is wrong. Anyway, here is the next chapter of our debate.
SHAWN’S RESPONSE TO MY FLOOD EMAIL: We as humans have to believe something, based on some amount of evidence. The definition of “evidence” that I subscribe to is as follows: information that makes a belief more probable than not, or more probable than competing beliefs. Webster defines “evidence” as “proof” of something. Now I guarantee we will not all agree on what constitutes proof, let alone an agreed upon definition of proof.
Now, let me tread carefully here. When science discovers something, that something has to be tested. And when the test results come back, we have to interpret those results. You and I both know that if you take 10 different people looking at the results, you will get 7 different conclusions.
That’s the way it is.
Simply put, my interpretations are different than yours.
When we enter into the arena of people’s interpretations of evidence, this is where we all become equal.
Yes, I said it. I just went there. We are all on equal footing when it comes to interpretations (assuming our interpretations are reasonable and leave out things like space aliens and such, which crop circle people use for the reason for crop circles). Even one of the world’s top biochemists, Dr Michael Behe (an Intelligent Design proponent) has other world-class biochemists disagreeing with him, flatly stating, “You are wrong!” I’ve read 2 of Dr Behe’s tomes, and I’ve interpreted them accordingly. You can read Darwin’s Black Box and interpret it differently.
We adjust our interpretations as more evidence (see above) becomes available.
Science is not a democracy. If one credible scientist interprets a discovery one way, and 99 scientists disagree, even if peer-reviewed, that does not make the 99 correct.
A very real and little discussed problem exists in academia: that of peer pressure and fear of losing one’s job if you side with the creationists. It’s difficult to get some of these scientists to speak, for obvious reasons, and I’ve researched the topic a bit, but it appears many scientist’s public statements differ from their private beliefs.
Yes, you are correct in questioning Dr Snelling and his relationship with AIG. I’m very familiar with AIG. I failed to mention that fact. I do not slavishly accept everything Dr Snelling states. I’m intelligent enough not to kid myself, and I firmly believe in a global flood. Even tho one of my Christian heroes, astrophysicist Dr Hugh Ross (who AIG dislikes as a thorn in its side) believes in a local flood, that is, confined to the Middle East area only, I am not swayed to that view point. I interpret the data presented as evidence for a global flood differently than you do.
AFTERWARD: We weren’t merely chatting via email. We also exchanged friendly texts and had periodic phone conversations. During these exchanges we agreed to move on to other topics. I could’ve schooled him on so many more angles in relation to the Great Flood myth and used his own beliefs against him, such as the fact that there is mathematically no way we could have as many people on the planet that we do now if all humans were erased just 12K years ago. So we moved on to other topics, which I’ll chronicle soon.
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