Just sitting here pondering my last post about Coyne, his take on religion, the fact that he judges th empirical claims of biblical revelation to be false based on the science he follows although that science is really limited in exactly the same way it is limited for followers of the bible. You can't study the past the same way you can study the facts of life, the laws of nature and so on, tht exist continuously in the present. Whether you like to think so or not you have to resort to a lot of speculation and interpretation rather than anything you can point to as objective fact. Again I refer to the fossil record: it is established by fact entirely based on plausibility and not aon anything empirically testable. Same with natural selection beyond its observable operations on or within a species population.
If yo ca observe it or have direct expreience of it you can do the kine of science he thinkshe's doing on evolution but isnot because evolution isn't observable or directly experienceable just because the main claims made for it are in the pst where nobodey can observe them happening. Science of the sort we think of as science depends on seeing or experiencing, things we can repeat over and over again and see over and over againas they do what we are ob studying.
If we are studying something that happened once in the past, such as the Flood of Noah or the evo;ution of fish to amphibian we can't do that kind of science on it. We need eighther some kind of phyiscla observable facts to point to or we need witnesses to the event. actually we have both in the case of the Flood, but we have neither in the case of evolution from fish to emphibian. Neither. It's ALL sepculation. Yert we are told to treat it as fact. Supposedly it's that well supported. By what though? The fossil record? But that itself isn't well supported and as I keep trying to make clear is belied by the fact that the sedimentary layers fossils are found in can't possibly represent time periods.
But my point is that we are talking about two different kinds of scientific study, one bsed on observation and repeatability, the other on witness testimony or interpretation of clues. I'm still looking for a way to get this said more clearly.
Later. Tuesday Sept 24
There is a major sdifference between belief in scripture and knowledge gained by science of course that needs to be answered. Faith is approriate for scripture because we believe it to be the word of God. Therefore it can't be contradictioed by anything science says. What happens then if we are true believers in scirpture and are faced with a scientific sconstractiion is that we believe the science is wrong and could be shown to be wrong. In other words we don't just believe scripture is right although what they is actual rfact is wrong, we do believe that it could be shown to be wrong, by scientific methosds. That is why I spent so much time over the last twenty some odd years trying to disprove the claims of evolution. I believe it to be founded on error and that error can be demonstrated.
The prblem of course it aht sevolution is not pbased on the kind of empirical science they like to think it is, the kind that is practiced in physics, in the lab etc., where you have continuous observation by many people possible at all times. that's why I'm talking so much about the fct that it is historical science that isn't eamenable to such methodology. It is true that because I believe sciprture to be the unchallengeable word of God I'm not going to change my mind about it, and that is not a standard scientific attitude to say the least, but it is approrpieate tot he metrial involved. For my own purposes I have proved over and over again that my faith bears fruit, I learn more and more because I have faith, I learn about the things I'm told about only in the Bible, I've had what can only be called spuupernatural experiences that confirm parts of it.
I couldn't be able to persuade Coyne of any of that of course. He certainly insnot inclined to trust anything i would say abourt it as he isnlt inclined to believe the Bible itself. But I would say that although he is theoretically open to chanignign his mind about what he belives about evolution, in fact he really isn't beause it's just as irrationally founded as he thinks my belief is. I've tried to say how above. besides trying to show that what he acrually believes, about the fossil record and about the mechanism of natural selection are really just imaginative constructs and not at lall established by scientific methodology.
I'll just say it again here tht he's outrageously unfair to accuse those of us who have faith in the Biblical revelation of using that same kind of thinkoing on any sort of truly scientific question.l; it belongs to the revleation of God and that alone. We believe the witnesses who wrote the Bible and the witneseses they wronte about and that gives us knowlege of the things they wrote about and claim to have experienced. Yes knowledge. If it is true of course which we believe it to be. If it is true we acquire knowledge of those things by beliveing them to tbe true. Actual knowledge.
But again we do have the job of trying to prove evolution to be false which is not easy because whether they like to acknowledge it or not they believe it to be true based on similarly irrational means, which are irrational because they have no foundation for them at all except their own imaginations. We do have the foundation of authority, of a revelation sattested to by millions down the centuries. Yes that is a great deal. But I don't expect him to accept it. he's delucdded that he's convinced of his evolutionist belivefs by science although he is not. He's confinced by plausible speculations and that is it.
Just think about the actual physical fact of the geological column, Mr. Coyne, you are taking things for granted about it that are not ture. Then think about how natural selection would get you from one species to another, you know, step by step, mutation by mutation or whatever, exatly what would have to happen for transform one creature into another over a few million or so years.
All sorts of wonderful variations of a single species are possible just from the genetic possibilities built into the genome of that species, because there are two versions of any given gene that can show up in the offspring, and many genes for just one trait. Enormous variation is possible that way and can be seen both in the wild and in domestic breeding. Huge variations. but your jiob is to tprove that there is wany way to bring about the sort of change that is needed for your claim that the change can continue from the species to something entirely different, and that is ismply impossible. there is no physical genetic foundation for that.
the microbiologist Keven Anderson I mentioned in the next post down being interviewed by TDel tackett, is saying pretty much the same thing.
I think I said this wrong: There are two versions of each gene, one of which is selected at random by the process of sexual recombination to determine the trait of that offpsring. This kind of built in fvariation can procduece enormous changes in a population over time, not a million years, that much isn't needed, but a few generations even though or more.
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