-Minuet:
Your website and theonion one about “intelligent falling” are amusing but frustrating, because equivalent to one side calling the other names without taking time to find out what they actually believe (and why). Read some of the AIG TJ links I sent. You’ll be surprised to find that actual science is used, and if the Bible is quoted in those articles, its usually only so that scientists can reinforce to their Christian friends not how something is true but why it is important to believe it.

-Bosk: You say you can repeatedly TEST evolution through prediction. Interesting, sounds very clairvoyant. What exactly do you mean by that?
“If evolution is true then we should find "A" or "B". We find A & B therefore evolution is true”.
Reason: “Bravo!”
So neither of you understand the principles of LOGIC? It’s like saying:
“Cats are animals that have legs. This animal has legs therefore it is a cat.”
“Ahh no, it’s a dog.”
“What? Pssh, you are so anti-science!”

-You missed the whole macro vs. micro debate, i.e. losing vs. gaining genetic information, and the discussion re: anti-biotic resistant bacteria. NEXT!

-“Creationism & ID see any criticism as part of a conspiracy against it.” Actually, creationists quite often critique each others theories. Their quote is “Scripture is true but not exhaustive”. They pose theories, much like secular scientists, to ‘fill the gaps’, then use real science to test them, but when further developments show those theories to be untrue, they are rejected.

-Re: Ockham’s Razor:
“In science, we often apply a principle called ‘Ockham’s Razor’ when linking facts with theories. Applied to my own work it basically states that ‘the simplest explanation for geological facts must be the correct explanation’. Despite the tendency of most geologists to apply millions of years to the data, I have found that in reality the data ‘fits’ far more easily into a young Earth/Flood model for Earth history (thus fulfilling Ockham’s requirement). (Emil Silverstru).

-The holocaust, treatment of Aborigines and recent US high school shootings have all been justified by “science”. Beneficial, huh?

"Deuc: http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/acceleration.asp which I've mentioned talks about Rh-Os."
Yes. I know. That section of my post was in reply to that. My link details why the process talked about in your link could not produce a significant difference in age measurements.

"World-wide flooding is not a miracle. If it all happened at once, we might consider it unlikely without divine intervention,"
No we would consider it utterly in-f*cking-possible, because there's not enough water, and if there had been then there is no way for the world to not have been significantly flooded beforehand, or for it to have disappeared, without divine intervention.

"THE EXISTENCE OF THE UNIVERSE IS IMPROBABLE (1/ 10^273) without divine interference,"
We're in absolutely no position to determine the probability of that, because we don't know enough about it. Probability itself doesn't make much sense until the big-bang because it relies on the existence of time. (Although similarly we don't know enough about that.)

"Re: experimental evidence for flooding, we do find 'millions of dead things, buried in rock layers, all over the world'."
Um, OK, here's the thing. Experimental evidence comes from experiments, ie. tests done to check if a hypothesis is correct. And evidence is something that can be used to support or indicate the correctness of a claim. "[D]ead things, buried in rock layers," is neither.

"but editors are EXTREMELY biased, and anything with an openly Creationist conclusion is not likely to be published in a secular journal."
Damn their bias towards evidence! No, really, a credible journal won't (shouldn't) publish anything with *any* conclusion that isn't supported by sound arguments and evidence. Which means that things with creationist conclusions, rather than supported criticisms of current theories, will not get published because they make an unsupported (unsupportable?) conclusion.

Faith: "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." (from dictionary.com)
Ie. the exact opposite of what should be in a scientific journal.

About Occam's razor, um, no. "God did this, this and this" assumes (many many) unnecessary things unlike "natural processes".

This post was harsh, but you seem to have let go.

Yng,
I would disagree with your example. To use an obvious fallacy to reduce a logical argument is over simplistic and I believe you are intelligent enough to know this.

Bosk made the simple point that theoretical testing applies to the past through application of known conditions to a set of known past circumstances and seeing whether the current results match the expected results. This does not rely on clairvoyance as you take the results as you find them: if the results do not match the theory, the theory is wrong. Again, this is what good science is.

I think it simple to say that the proposition ‘God created the world’ cannot be applied to science. As I have stated all along, I do not agree or disagree with creation. In fact, I think both creation and evolution can walk peacefully hand in hand – in the world of philosophy and ideology but not in science.

The concept of creation is not so much about the physical world as conjecture on the meaning of it’s existence and purpose. Like the origins of the Laws of Thermal Dynamics. We don’t simply claim ‘God created them’ and not take it further. We explore and test them, coming up with a theory. Why not the same for creation? Because the creation (i.e. a divine being placed us here) has no impact on the physical world. It’s existence does not affect your cat, dog or the dolphins. Knowledge of creation does not assist in understanding the dynamics of cellular mutation. It is a philosophical position to assist a sentient being in deciding it’s nature, purpose and best way to exist, through accompanying values, etc.

Does this help in seeing the difference in believing in creation and teaching it in a class of science?

Yng

quote Bosk: You say you can repeatedly TEST evolution through prediction. Interesting, sounds very clairvoyant. What exactly do you mean by that?
“If evolution is true then we should find "A" or "B". We find A & B therefore evolution is true”.
Reason: “Bravo!”
So neither of you understand the principles of LOGIC? It’s like saying:
“Cats are animals that have legs. This animal has legs therefore it is a cat.”
“Ahh no, it’s a dog.”
“What? Pssh, you are so anti-science!”

Actually Yng I have a degree in logic. So I think I'm fairly conversant in it.

To answer your question 1) in logic when a statement is made such as If we find "B" then "A" must be true. It follows from this that if you agree with the premise then you MUST agree with the conclusion since the conclusion follows from the premise.
In logic this would be phrased as: If & only if "A" is true then "B" is true. "A" is true, therefore "B" is true.

Now the theory of evolution states that if, & only if, it is true then we should find certain things. Do we find them? Yes we do. Therefore our conclusion must be that the theory of evolution is true since our conclusion followed from our premise!

Your example of a cat & dog however is somewhat misleading. The conclusion in your argument did NOT follow from the premise & therefore was invalid. The arguments that I have given above however are quite valid. Feel free to check them with your lecturers.

This is the type of prediction that science deals in. It has NOTHING to do with mysticism & everything to do with a premise based on a hypothesis & then checked out to see if it is true or false. But please don't take My word. ANY evolutionary scientist will tell you exactly the same thing.

Yng
Allow me to respond to your other points.
-“Creationism & ID see any criticism as part of a conspiracy against it.” Actually, creationists quite often critique each others theories. Their quote is “Scripture is true but not exhaustive”. They pose theories, much like secular scientists, to ‘fill the gaps’, then use real science to test them, but when further developments show those theories to be untrue, they are rejected.

Really? Then let me ask you this? What evidence would you accept as proving that creationism is FALSE? I think you'll find that NO creationist will be able to answer that question. Ask yourself why? If their hypothesis is based solely on the facts then they should have no problem in stating if we find "A" or "B" then creation could not have occured.

-Re: Ockham’s Razor:
Any reply I could make to your point concerning occam's razor is more than ably covered by Deuc & Spendocrat.

Next the beficiality of science.

-The holocaust, treatment of Aborigines and recent US high school shootings have all been justified by “science”. Beneficial, huh?

I find these remarks strange. Science did NOT justify the holocaust, racism did. Ditto the treatment of Aboriginals. Science was used to increase the efficiency of the holocaust. Science was also used to save the lives of many of its victims when the camps were liberated & to help treat those same survivors' psychological problems. Wasn't that a benefit? Doesn't that show that science is morally neutral? In point of fact it is the uses to which it is put that are good or evil not science itself.
None of which however destroys my point about the benefits which come from science when it is used in the service of humanity. In comparison I need merely point out that there are NO benefits apart from a benefit to the ego that come from adoption of creationism.

Bosk,
Quote, "I need merely point out that there are NO benefits apart from a benefit to the ego that come from adoption of creationism." Really! Your constant defense of atheism we would have thought was an attempt to retain your intellectual position and your ego!