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Sources vs Science

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
saying that there is no evidence for a big boat with eight people being carried through the waters of a worldwide flood, is not scientific evidence.
There are many situations in which the absence of evidence for X is strong evidence for not-x.

For example, if the bible's story of Noah's flood were true, then there would have to be
─ a single geological flood layer covering all continents and islands and the ocean floor and not more than ten thousand years old
─ a genetic bottleneck in the genes of all species of land animals, with all the bottlenecks dating to the same date
─ over one billion cubic miles of water more than the water presently on the earth​
and the manifest absence of all of those things is an overwhelming demonstration, completely satisfying in scientific and forensic terms, that there was no such flood in reality.
Nor is saying that, there is no evidence Jack Jack lived 3000 years ago, scientific evidence.
There are many good reasons in biology and medicine to be confident that humans have never lived to be 150, let alone 3000 years old. This is a clear case of an extraordinary claim being required to meet a very high standard of demonstration that it's correct. Why would any impartial hearer think it was true?

Forgive me if I don't now immerse myself in the Uzziah question.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Quite a vague answer.
I know of no geological test carried out to determine if a boat survived a worldwide flood, where it was verified by observation.
Perhaps that's a secret only skeptics possess.
You asked a vague question, you got a vague answer. What else did you expect.

Tell us your model of the Flood of Noah and we can tell you how we know that it did not happen. You will need to answer some specific questions, but you will get the specific answers that you are demanding.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
For example, saying that there is no evidence for a big boat with eight people being carried through the waters of a worldwide flood, is not scientific evidence.

True. That wouldn't be evidence against the story.

But the story making testable predictions saying "if this story is accurate, you should see this and this in the genetic record of extant species", and then going out and analyzing those genetic records and not finding the predicted genetic data... this "absence" of data IS scientific evidence against the story.

Nor is saying that, there is no evidence Jack Jack lived 3000 years ago, scientific evidence. Discovering that a Jack Jack lived 3000 years ago as was, claimed by a document, would be scientific evidence.

It would be evidence of "a" Jack living at that time. It would not, in and of itself, be evidence that is THE Jack from the story.

What I want to focus on is the limits of science to confirm, verify, or refute a source.
So back to the article The earthquake in the days of Uzziah
Is it necessarily the case that Josephus' story is wrong, or could it be right (not saying it is)?
In otter words, could there have been an earthquake, at the time Josephus said, and one after, at the time scientists calculated, so that two quakes occurred within a two year period? How would scientists know whether a quake occurred shortly before the one they calculated?
Or, should we assume the source would mention two, if they actually were, within a two year period? Could the source have referred to just one - the one personally witnessed, and not referred to the other?

Your questions are not answerable.

No matter what scientists can find out about earthquakes, we don't have access to this Josephus' thoughts so we can't know what he meant or what he was thinking about or why he thought referring to just one was enough or if he even knew about the second one etc etc etc.


With such anecdotes / stories / claims, all we can do is look at those claims and see if we can derive testable predictions from it and then test those predictions.
And if the tests are succesful, then we can say that the specific parts that included those predictions, are accurate (or as accurate as the tests can confirm them to be).


For example....

"Spiderman threw a schoolbus into river X".

Suppose you then go dive into river X and lo and behold, you find a schoolbus.
Does that mean that Spiderman threw it in there?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Oddly, though, they'll accept the bizarre and wildly anti-intuitive claims of other sciences, like physics, over the observable, demonstrable claims of biology.
confused-smiley-013.gif

Or as Traci Harris once put it so elegantly:

"I don't get it... You have no problems believing in a physically impossible flood, in talking animals, in talking burning bushes, in a man living inside a fish for a couple of days,... but the simple concept of evolution apparantly blows your mind..."
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
You're using the terms differently than most of us understand them, then.
Could you clarify/define, SVP?

To me a creationist is someone who believes God created the universe, regardless of whether they believe in evolution or not.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
Repeating an error does not make it correct. It does not matter if you believe in a creator, that is not what the word "creationist" refers to any more than my example of calling a NASCAR fan a racists because he likes races. This is a case where the use of a dictionary is appropriate:

Definition of CREATIONISM

: a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis

creationism | Definitions, History, & Facts

created by God out of nothing (ex nihilo). It is a response primarily to modern evolutionary theory, which explains the diversity of life without recourse to the doctrine of God or any other divine power. It may also reject the big-bang model of the emergence of the universe. Mainstream scientists generally reject creationism.

Catholics are not "creationists". Yes, they believe in a creator, but you are abusing the term.

Young Earth Creationists and Old Earth Creationists are both creationists and they both reject the theory of evolution. You need another term for standard Catholic beliefs.

You should bring you definition of creationist up to date. As QuestioningMind said, Young Earth Creationists are just a subset of all creationists. I have to bring my definition of atheist up to date and not say any more that it is only people who deny the existence of god or gods. You should bring your definitions up to date also. :)
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
How was that tested and observed?

The biblical flood story makes testable predictions concerning geology and biology, for starters.

When you have a story that makes testable predictions and when tested the predictions are shown inaccurate, then the story can not be correct.

In the case of this story of a worldwide flood, the claim is that 99.999% of all life perished and that only a handful of breeding pairs of each species was "preserved" on some boat. This would result in a MASSIVE genetic bottleneck. In fact, biologically speaking, none of those species would still be a viable population for survival. It is generally considered that a population of around 200 individuals is a minimum to still be viable. Otherwise, the lack of genetic diversity would doom it to extinction.

Anyhow, we can test this claim... we can take extant species that supposedly survived this cataclysmic event and sequence their DNA. And if the story is accurate, then there should be a universal genetic bottleneck in ALL species, dating to roughly the same period. And what we find is that such a universal bottleneck does not exist. Not even a little bit.

The conclusion is that no such cataclysmic event ever happened.

If it did, the universal bottleneck would exist. But it doesn't.

This alone, is enough to dismiss the entire story.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
I thought YEC came about because an Irish archbishop 370 years ago had too much time on his hands.

There was little reason to doubt that the Genesis genealogies were anything but full genealogies 370 years ago,,,,,,,,,,so the earth was about 6000 years old then, especially when one read the Bible literally and saw each day of creation as one 24 hour day.
I think young earth creationism developed as a reaction to the theory of evolution.
I hear a Seventh Day Adventist thought that the geological record could be seen as the results of the Great Flood and so YECism was kicked off as a science, even if it is called a pseudo science because it has predetermined answers and it brings God into the equation.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
@ChristineM wasn't talking about boat, when mentioning “geology”.

It means that excess water will show evidence on rocks, like flooding.

Ancient trees will also show signs of drought, flooding and forest fire on the tree rings.

Likewise, ice core samples and bog peats will show similar evidence, whether there were droughts or floods.

And at archaeological sites, presence of excess waters would be found on walls of buildings and fortifications, as well as flood debris that are commonly found.

All these are date-able evidence.

Flooding often leave evidence. And with a flooding that Genesis described, that should leave even more evidence, everywhere, pointing a single date.

But the absence of such huge event, can only mean one thing: Genesis Flood never happened.

Yet translations of the particular passages in the Bible can be done that show the flood to have been a large local flood. There is evidence for this in the geology of the area where Noah lived. There is also evidence for many floods at that time around the world, at the end of the last ice age. There is no reason except tradition imo to see Noah's flood as having been one flood that covered the entire earth. Many smaller floods would have the same result that God wanted.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Yet translations of the particular passages in the Bible can be done that show the flood to have been a large local flood. There is evidence for this in the geology of the area where Noah lived. There is also evidence for many floods at that time around the world, at the end of the last ice age. There is no reason except tradition imo to see Noah's flood as having been one flood that covered the entire earth. Many smaller floods would have the same result that God wanted.

If the Flood was local, then there would be no needs to built an ark that large, nor carry so many animals that weren’t needed.

And if patriarch had long life (eg 950), Noah received when he was aged 500, and Flood came when he was 600, then wouldn’t it make much more sense if Noah simply moved his family to safe location, rather than build an ark and wait for a flood?

A local flood would make Genesis story completely senseless.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
If the Flood was local, then there would be no needs to built an ark that large, nor carry so many animals that weren’t needed.

And if patriarch had long life (eg 950), Noah received when he was aged 500, and Flood came when he was 600, then wouldn’t it make much more sense if Noah simply moved his family to safe location, rather than build an ark and wait for a flood?

A local flood would make Genesis story completely senseless.

Probably all the animals in the local area with all the food they needed meant that the ark was just the right size.
Noah could have moved but God did not want that because (as the New Testament says) Noah was a preacher in those days. He was there building an ark and telling everyone why he was doing it and this was to not only prove his faith but to turn people from their evil ways, and who knows, he may have been successful to an extent.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Quite a vague answer.
I know of no geological test carried out to determine if a boat survived a worldwide flood, where it was verified by observation.
Perhaps that's a secret only skeptics possess.

Sheesh, not a boat but a world flood, as i made clear in my first post to tour OP


I don't know what you are trying to say, honestly.

Yes,
two can play at that game.

You made a statement, i asked you a civil question regarding your statement and you have now avoided answering twice.

I asked questions.
Is that arguing stuff?
If you don't know, just say so.
I don't pretend to know.

You appear to be pretending here but it may just be ignorance of the subject you are pushing

Whatever it was.

Again, yes. Good this ploy isnt it?
 
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