Once again, I've decided that it's not a total waste, so I'm taking the time to transplant a discussion to the proper thread. I know there are some among us who may not know better. They consider this forum to be some sort of glorified chat room, and probably don't give much thought to the topic headings. Others however, have a history of complaining about off-topic posts; those with such a history have no excuse for attempting to derail threads.

Silly as the situation may be, the following discussion was obtained from a thread about Noah's ark.
http://herballure.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=37942&page=1
Originally Posted by CTD
Originally Posted by Russell2
Hi Russ

Which part of that statement was wrong? You can say that science has been wrong before, it obviously has, but it was good science that worked that out in almost all cases but the statement above is the current best information we have.
If by 'science' you refer to empirical science, you are mixing apples and oranges. The issues are historical in nature. If you mean 'science' in a broad and proper sense, this includes historical investigative methods. Proper historical methods will not give the results you support.


Originally Posted by Russell2
Hi CTD

If by 'science' you refer to empirical science, you are mixing apples and oranges. The issues are historical in nature. If you mean 'science' in a broad and proper sense, this includes historical investigative methods. Proper historical methods will not give the results you support.

Yes I am referring to empirical science. You’ll have to show me the apples and oranges here; it’s all apples as far as I can see. The age of the earth is determined by empirical observations from many different fields of research all of which give consistent answers. The only field which disagrees is human historical records. Humans are fallible beings, subject to flights of fancy and imagination, subject to the whims of deceptions purposeful and pious, is there any real mystery that Chinese whispers from so long ago don’t carry with them accurate historical information? Is there any real wonder that we find historical records written by ancient and ignorant peoples from thousands of years ago to be wanting in accuracy when compared with information that predates them by billions of years, a span of time they could not even imagine in their wildest dreams?


Originally Posted by CTD
I thought about responding to this in the thread devoted to history, but it's not worth making the transfer.

A couple moments' reflection is all that's required to understand that empirical science isn't the right tool for investigating history. Whether you want to know what happened 10 minutes ago or 10 centuries, the most effective way to find out is to ask someone. It's the fastest and the most accurate way to investigate the past. Empirical methods, on the relatively few occasions they are employed, serve a secondary, supplemental role.

Intuitively everyone learns this as a small child. I don't think most folks bother to analyze the hows & whys of learning processes - they just use them. Anyone who cares can analyze the methods and figure it out. Not hard at all.

Feel free to blame me. As soon as I pointed out that there was an appropriate thread, the avoidance thereof was a matter of evocustom.

You see, discussing topics in the proper thread facilitates what? Clarity and understanding. Both are strong contenders for the title "The Bane of Evolutionism".

Originally Posted by LindaLou


I take it you mean this in all seriousness? Have you ever played Chinese whispers? Do you automatically assume that every person you ask is being completely honest with you and with themselves, and that they have the capacity to accurately recall every fact you are asking about? You're confident that they are an authority -- that they can correctly interpret the events and relate them without error?

So witnesses in court are always completely reliable are they? And their stories never contradict each other?

We can also ask someone about something that happened centuries ago, can we? And this is more reliable than trying to find empirical evidence?

I'm still waiting myself for an explanation of what are the apples and what are the oranges. Looks more like a fruit salad to me.
Note how the last paragraph applies to the argument, if you care for a chuckle.

Originally Posted by CTD
Asking someone is the primary method everyone employs. Just monitor yourself, or check out a little history. The reason this method is so commonly employed is because it is the best, and often the only method available.

You can't find an historian who doesn't look first to what's written about a given event. You couldn't function in your day-to-day life without this method, unless you're some sort of independent hermit.

Further discussion shouldn't be needed, but anyone who wants me to waste further time explaining the obvious should post in the appropriate thread.
See? What's the excuse? There is none. That thread is about Noah's ark, so there's only one topic they consider off-limits therein. You guessed it! Noah's ark.
Originally Posted by LindaLou
LOL, you just ignored most of what I said.

So you really do believe that all witness statements are the absolute truth, and they never contradict each other?

Sure, talking to people is one way of gathering information. It can be a very flawed way though, which is why we do other things as well like look at empirical evidence.

If this is part of your own personal system for discovering truth, so be it I guess . . .

Originally Posted by Russell2
Hi again CTD

Observation in all its forms, Empiricism in other words, is the source of knowledge. Word of mouth, written words on paper etc are methods of passing on what has been discovered empirically. How does the man down the street know what he knows about the world? Either he observed it or he was told about it. If he was told he was told by someone who either observed it or who was told. Except for imaginative inventions, fairytales, fictional stories, gods etc the buck stops with observation other wise its turtles all the way down.A lame attempt to claim observation is the exclusive domain of empirical science. All sciences are based upon observations. Anyone care to diagnose the fallacy here? A man breathes oxygen. A fire breathes oxygen. A tomcat and a whale do too. That doesn't make everything that breathes oxygen a man, does it?

[quote=Russell2]Who can tell us what the earth was like before man was here? Empiricism, correctly used can give us information.
Correct answer would be "anyone who witnessed it".

Originally Posted by Russell2
Who can tell us about the great flood of Noah? There are stories from cultures all over the planet about great floods but the details don’t mesh. If there’s truth there it’s hidden by inaccurate copying over many generations. At face value it seems more likely that they are not talking about the same event so how can we know about it. We observe what floods do around us as they still happen today so we can go out and look for the evidence you would expect to find if this story was true. Empiricism applied to history. Of course you already know that the evidence just isn’t there, the great flood did not happen at least not as described in the bible.
Again, the witnesses are the best source.

Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

"We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution." - Judge Jones Kitzmiller case
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Falsify.cfm

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