"In any case, in the fossil record, dinosaurs predate humans by more than 55 million years, so it is not clear to me how this fact is compatible with biblical creation."

Uh, how about because given biblical creation the fossil record and the geologic column are not interpreted as actual records of the passing of time... ..... ......  

Yes, creationists, or at least the Young Earth variety, believe the earth is 6,000 - 10,000 years old. This belief is based on the biblical chronology.

Scientists measure the Earth as 4.5 billion years old. Many galaxies are so distant that their light would take billions of years to reach Earth. Some White Dwarf stars have been dated to 12 billion years, and the Big Bang is estimated to date to 13.7 billion years. A competitor to Big Bang theory, Brane theory, dates the Universe to at least a trillion years, if it is indeed not infinitely old. Brane theorists have proposed measurements which would kill one of the two theories, depending on the results.

In any case, we have the first few pages of Genesis vs a vast number of actual measurements.

How reasonable do you think it is to criticize one way of looking at the evidence while simultaneously assuming YOUR way of looking at the evidence is correct?

If it wasn't reasonable to debate evidence, life would be a lot less interesting, wouldn't it? And it is an entirely reasonable way to test opposing views.

"If it wasn't reasonable to debate evidence, life would be a lot less interesting, wouldn't it? And it is an entirely reasonable way to test opposing views."

That's not the point.  Your 'trillion year' example for the universe is a case in point.  If the man is right, then all the data previously interpreted in one of the mechanisms will have to be re-interpreted in light of the other.

The "Brane" theory competitor to Big Bang was developed by Neil Turok of Cambridge University, Burt Ovrut of the University of Pennsylvania, and Paul Steinhardt and Justin Khoury of Princeton University.

In order for Big Bang theories to be consistent with the highest fidelity measurements, Einstein's "cosmological constant" must be used as a correction factor. Einstein called this constant the biggest mistake he ever made, but current cosmologists find it necessary in order for Big Bang theory to be viable.

Einsteins's  cosmological constant is equivalent to the energy density of empty space. There's a philosophical question for you: how can empty space contain energy? Basically, it implies empty space has a structure to it, much as a gas, liquid or solid.

The problem is this: The cosmological constant compatible with the Big Bang is about ten-to-the-hundred-power less than the value determined by quantum mechanics! Rather an enormous error.

The alternative Brane theory says that four-dimensional "wavefronts", (branes), in  a global five-dimensional space repeatedly interact, causing many big bangs. There have been enough of these big bang events in the past to add up to the present day cosmological constant consistant with quantum mechanics. If a big bang brane collison happened every 15 billion years on average, the numbers add up to one trillion years, minimum age.

 That, or the information has to be admitted to be intractably illusionary.

I would say I trust our best estimates of the maximum age of the universe to be no more accurate than Lord Kelvin's estimate of the age of the Earth in the 1800s (he guessed 30-100 million years).

On the other hand, it is very clear that the minimum age of the universe is billions of years, as determined by many measurements based on many independent  physical laws. The question is, how many billions.

Its the same in regards to the 'Biblical chronology.'  Given the 'Biblical chronology,' the data is interpreted in light of THAT model.  

What data backs this model? What does seven days mean? What does a day mean, when there is no sun? Why is part of the ocean put up in the sky and how does that fit our observable world?

If you say, "Given that the mutually contradictory model is actually right, let's test the other model" you are engaged in nonsense.

All else being equal, whatever model is most compatible with the data, wins.

Science usually advances by increasing the power of measurement until the existing theories have significant errors. Rival theories emerge and the competition begins.

Given the 'Biblical model,' the geologic column and the fossil deposits are not measures of TIME.  To then turn around and say, "Given that they actually are measures of TIME, let's examine whether or not they are not measures of Time" is irrational to the extreme.

Yes, if you assume the geological column was created "de novo", no time was involved. If God created the universe so it appeared to have many billions of years of history, then it could have been created quite recently. But, why would God deceive us as to the age of the universe?

The other thing is, your comment about  "vast number of actual measurements"  begs the question of whether or not these lead independantly to the model your support, or if they are actually simply interpreted in LIGHT of the model you support.

A very good question, with the proper skepticism concerning human motives. However, we have agreement between measurements using entirely different scientific concepts. For example,

The age of the Earth can be determined by the nuclear decay rate in certain crystals. Billions of years.

The minimum age of White Dwarf stars can be determined using only the thermodynamic laws concerning the cooling of hot bodies. Billions of years.

The minimum distance to the distant galaxies can be determined using simple geometry. Again, billions of years.

Just a few examples.

It so happens, that my model makes use of the same "vast number of actual measurements."   Sure, it interprets it differently, but its the same information.  Its the same data.

Certainly, you can just say: "God willed it so". That will explain any data, but it kills all inquiry. How do you test for "why" God made a certain gene from a virus?

The way one independently arrives at an argument for the validity of a model is different than the data that is interpreted in light of that model.

Usually, one has data and tries to build a theory to explain it, not the other way around. Sometimes we have two theories which explain the same data. Then huge amounts of energy is wasted in debate until new data settles the issue one way or another.

This is one reason why creationists are not nonplussed by 'evidences' put forward for macroevolution.  The creationist models can handle most of the same evidence, so these evidences hardly serve as evidence AGAINST creation.  It reduces to nothing more than a different way of looking at the same material.

I agree that is what happens, but the creationist models are not science. They will not lead to new medical advances. They will not aid us in countering new diseases. They will not predict what new organisms are likely to evolve.

This is a big issue I have with biblical literalism. Not just in regards to origins, either. Apparently, everything there is to learn about God was learned no less than 2000 years ago. Do you really believe that?

That is a fundamental difference with science, which KNOWS it is imperfect and constantly tries to improve. Good science is driven by curiosity.

"All else being equal, whatever model is most compatible with the data, wins."

But that is an epistemological judgement.  You could have a model that is very compatible with the data that is nonetheless false.  If you are willing to create enough epicycles, you could (with a great amount of effort, no doubt) return to the Ptolemaic model and create a 'compatible model.'  Here we might turn to Occam's Razor.   Yet, pure parsimony doesn't necessitate truth, either.   I know you said 'all else being equal,' but that leaves out quite a few things that ought be considered and some would argue 'wins out.'  Ie, some might say, "all else being equal, whatever model is simpler, wins."  I have heard it.

Yes, all else being equal, the model with the simplest assumptions wins. But "all else being equal" then means the models under consideration match the data equally well. In any case, models which do not match the data are discarded, since they have no practical use.

These are epistemological questions that exist completely apart from the data itself.

Indeed, but the point of a model is to predict the data correctly. Having a simple model does not help if it predicts incorrectly.

"Yes, if you assume the geological column was created "de novo", no time was involved. "

That is not the creationist position, though, is it?

Depends on the creationist. In the Young Earth version, Earth's structure is created de novo either during the seven days or by Noah's flood. Whether in a day or in a year, either version is instantaneous compared to geological time.

Likewise with the creation of the stars, the sun and the moon.

"If God created the universe so it appeared to have many billions of years of history, then it could have been created quite recently. But, why would God deceive us as to the age of the universe?"

On the other hand, given a trillion years worth of time, it is certainly possible too that this current manifestation only appears to be old, as well, and is in fact only a fleeting second.  We can go further:  It is possible that there was a BANG only a second ago and we were produced, replete with all the memories we have and the 'knowledge' we have, but they are nothing more than the manifestation of a certain pattern of electrons.  Pure reductionism and unlimited amount of time to play with allows such things.  How do we know that we are not in such a situation?  Harry said on my "Harry's Huckleberry" thread that given enough time, anything thats possible will happen.  The above is possible- it will happen.  How do we know it hasn't happened and we are in fact in it?

Certainly, and I can go further and claim all reality is an illusion.  Who can prove me wrong? But such theories predict nothing, can't be falsified, and are therefore useless.

If, using your example, the world was created a second ago, then all history is an illusion. Likewise with Young Earth theories, the billions of years of geological and astronomical history are an amazingly detailed illusion. Again, why would God go to such trouble to deceive us?

These sorts of questions are not at all limited to theism.  Nor does it follow that simply because God might decide to create a man from scratch, with apparent age, mean that he was trying to deceive anyone.  What did you want him to do?  Create the embryo without a womb and nurse it in the open air for 9 months and raise the first man through infancy and childhood until he reached the years of critical thinking so that the first man wouldn't feel deceived?

Certainly, it was quite practical that God created Adam and Eve full grown (with or without navels!). But the argument falls apart concerning geology and astrophysics.

Either by creation or flood, why create layers of rock containing radio-active crystals indicating great age, all neatly sorted? Why the magnetic evidence that the continents have moved great distances? Why the fossils in each layer of rock, properly cataloged in order of increasing complexity? Even the fossil pollen grains in each layer are consistent with that layer's fossil plants. Why go to all this trouble?

Why create stars billions of years old as well as relatively young ones? Why place galaxies of stars billions of light-years distant? The light from these distant galaxies is dynamic, showing supernovas and gamma-ray bursters exploding and then fading. So, did God not only create these distant galaxies, but all the billions of years of light in transit, including the supernova "movies"? To what purpose?

He can create the stars, but not the light in transit, so that future skeptics who don't even believe in him anyway won't feel deceived when they think that they can measure time and/or distance from that light?   You'd put your faith in a God who can create a star but not light?  An embryo, but not a man?

God would deceive skeptics so that they don't feel deceived? Well, I don't believe the world is only 6,000 years old, so I am not burdened with explaining the paradoxes of a false history.

..your examples leave aside the possibility that even your dating with crystals and the age of the white dwarf stars are derived only after you've accepted the assumptions underpinning the model you've already accepted.

Clearly there are assumptions. For example, it is assumed that the laws of physics were the same long ago as they are today. However, starlight from distant galaxies show the same pattern of atomic spectral lines as we get from atoms here on Earth, so there is good evidence to back this assumption.

"Certainly, you can just say: "God willed it so". That will explain any data, but it kills all inquiry."

Or you could say, "It just evolved" and that will explain any data, too.  

Very different. "God willed it so" places no constraints on what is observable and therefore has no predictive power. Evolution places strong constraints on what is observable and therefore allows prediction.

Gotta break off, my daughter needs my computer.

"Indeed, but the point of a model is to predict the data correctly. Having a simple model does not help if it predicts incorrectly."

Predict the data?  I think you are misspeaking.  The data is interpreted in light of the model.  The model then helps predict how NEW data will be consistent with it.  Different things.
Quote:

""That is not the creationist position, though, is it?""
 
"Depends on the creationist. In the Young Earth version, Earth's structure is created de novo either during the seven days or by Noah's flood."

I've never met a YECcer that thought that the geologic column was created de novo.  Noah's flood is the prevailing notion.  As such, a worldwide catastrophic flood that is responsible for the geologic column naturally can't be expected to yeild reliable estimates of age.

"Whether in a day or in a year, either version is instantaneous compared to geological time."

But that begs the question, because there is no such thing as 'geologic time' given a catastrophic worldwide flood model.  That's exactly what I'm talking about.  "Geological time" is a concept imported from an entirely different model, and one which happens to be a mutually contradictory interpretational model.

Its not that the geologic column is ignored.  It is interpreted in a way consistent with the model.

"Certainly, and I can go further and claim all reality is an illusion. Who can prove me wrong? But such theories predict nothing, can't be falsified, and are therefore useless."

Exactly.  And it is similarly useless to propose theological equivalents.

"If, using your example, the world was created a second ago, then all history is an illusion. Likewise with Young Earth theories,"

But you've just said such theories are useless.  So, instead of trying to paint how things are as an attempt to 'deceive,' a point I've rebutted, why not acknowledge that there are other alternatives, one of which is that:

"the billions of years of geological and astronomical history"

Are not histories at all, and not even a proper basis of history, and so not even possibly an illusion.   Clever people can make 'histories' out of anything.  That doesn't mean its reasonable or rational to do so.

"Certainly, it was quite practical that God created Adam and Eve full grown (with or without navels!). But the argument falls apart concerning geology and astrophysics."

It doesn't fall apart.  Its categorically the same thing (without navels, I'd say).  If its practical that God would create Adam and Eve full grown, why is it not practical that he would create light already on its way?  If you don't like the idea that the stars were created to give our earth light because of some sort of ethnocentric repulsion, certainly its not so severe to allow that our own sun was created for our purposes.  The scale is more limited, but the principle is the same:  to appease skeptics in the future, does God need to create the sun as a stellar embryo and not create the sunlight on its way to the earth just to avoid challenges of 'deception'?

There is another alternative.  Let me tell you how I would go about handling it if I were God...  I'd dismiss such objections as petty and infantile, and create it however the heck I wanted without waiting for the latest polling to tell me how it could possibly be perceived.

Even spite makes more sense as a motive to me than deception.

"God would deceive skeptics so that they don't feel deceived? Well, I don't believe the world is only 6,000 years old, so I am not burdened with explaining the paradoxes of a false history."

I don't believe the world is 4.5 billion years old, so I am not burdened with explaining the paradoxes of a false history, either.  You've got plenty of your own, you know.  We need go no further than your description of a POV that puts a minimum age of the universe at a trillion years.  

""Or you could say, "It just evolved" and that will explain any data, too.""
 
"Very different. "God willed it so" places no constraints on what is observable and therefore has no predictive power."

Its not different at all.  The only difference is what God can will conceivably in a moment you think the universe can do provided it has enough time.  There is no predictive power to a theory that allows time to make all things possible.

"You cannot predict anything from a theory that "God willed it so" unless you have some model of God which can predict his actions."

Well, to cut you off at the pass, my model isn't exacty "God willed it," anyway.  I'm just continuing that language because you used it.

Here is the break down of the two different ideas.  You think it is worth our trouble to create models for things that are completely outside the scope of observation.  There are limits to the epistemological value of extrapolations into the distant past from passing observations we have today.  I am comfortable with that fact.  You seem not to be.

"All useful scientific knowledge is expressed as restrictions on possibilities. What restrictions are there on God?"

You are couching this in terms of 'science' but for no good reason.   For one thing, I never said that I was offering a 'scientific' model.   I don't think an experimentalistic model for the interpretation of past events is a very good idea.   But there is a larger philosophical objection.

Your 'scientific' model is nothing more than an explanatory model.   Is it really reasonable to think that everything can be understood in scientific terms?  You acknowledged that 'science knows its imperfect' and you thought that was a very humble thing.   I can tell you in no uncertain terms just how 'humble' I think science is.

By contrast, my view understands that different phenemon require different ways of looking at them and examining them.  The nearest equivalent to your view of 'science' would be my self-coined term 'experimentalism.'  Experimentalism has no need to be humble, or acknowledge it is 'imperfect.'  It can simply acknowledge that it is LIMITED in scope and reach.

And it can keep itself within its limits.

Your desire to try to create 'scientific' models for every aspect of reality doesn't really impress me.  I don't happen to think that we need to explain everything in reductionist terms.  Without that assumption, I can be open to other types of explanations.  To me, that is a critical asset, because the fact is that you can create 'explanations' for things derived from certain assumptions that nonetheless have no correlation to reality.

If I want to make it an assumption that I will only interpret everything in light of the 'fact' that they are all made of smurf meat, I can create a model that will do that.  I can even make it consistent.  This will 'explain' everything.

But it will not be true.

"One cannot PROVE that mitochondria were originally bacteria,"

You are evading the point.  Obviously you can't PROVE it.  That isn't the point.

"I know of none. Do you?"

Yea, I do.

""Oooooooh. Well, I've been dying to hear an evolutionist tell me what the next step in human evolution is going to be. Care to share the next ten steps? ""

"Since gene engineering has become a reality, it is important to know where the hazards lie. One might modify a corn plant in a seemingly harmless way, but only a few simple evolutionary steps may lead to harmful consequences. Likewise with diseases. Where lies the greatest risk for new pathogens evolving?"

I asked you to provide predictions about the next step in human evolution and you talked to me about corn?    Boy, you don't have to tell me that a 'few simple evolutionary steps' may lead to harmful consequences.  That's been a central point that I've contended consistently.  But you're trotting out this whole macroevolution thing as a mechanism for making predictions.

If all you can do is tell me to take my full course of antibiotics, I have to say that I think very little of the predictive powers of the evolutionary model, if only because most models predict the same thing.  If that's all you got, we can turn to the 'explanatory powers' of evolution, but then that just returns me to the point that I am not impressed by models that begin by precluding certain possibilities, only for the sake of being 'scientific' and then interpret the data in light of those possibilities.

Why not simply acknowledge that not everything is conducive to being investigated SCIENTIFICALLY?  Whatever that means.

I discredit it because it means nothing. You claim everything was 'created' for the benifit of human life yet you can offer no proof of this creation or it's creator.  

The evidences of evolution offer the more reasonable explaination that life evolved to fit the enviroment, not the other way around.

I know, I know, you're going to start whining how I dismiss the supernatural out of hand and am biased toward naturalistic explainations.

As I have answered before, yes I am biased towards reality and against fantasy. Supernatural claims have never been proven to be true. No demonstrations of any underlying reality of supernatural claims have ever been made.

So. Have you finally given up on the Harry thread? Can you now admit there exists nothing substantial to formulate a resonable belief that the supernatural exists?

I'd be willing to bet that I never said anything like that.

Didn't exactly say that, true. Didn't say anything like that. I differ.

the ones that will save you from accepting that evidences concerning the anthropic principle are meaningful.

I have failed to see any reason to believe that the principle is meaningful.

I'm only trying to give you some reasonble basis for investigating the possibility that there is a God

As I have said numerous times, save yourself the typing. I say it is always reasonable to investigate the possibility. Let's move on.

I shouldn't have to be battling with you to at least consider the possibility that there is a God

Again, I consider the possibility. It is possible. Move on!

I see others are keeping it alive.

Hmmm... I'll check again, looks dead to me.

Can you now admit that there exists nothing substantial to formulate a reasonable belief that your existence didn't actually just begin a half-second ago?

Sure. There is nothing substantial to formulate a belief my existance didn't begin a half-second ago.

While I'm at it.........

There is nothing substantial to formulate a belief that invisible pink unicorns do not exist.

There is nothing substantial to formulate a belief little green leprecauns do not exist.

There is nothing substantial to formulate a belief I am not God.

Oh wait..... Other than lack of evidence. Does that count as "substaintial"?

I am perfectly happy to say that gods, invisible pink unicorns, little green leprecauns, life popping into existance a half second ago, me as God, invisible flying pigs, (insert anything you wish here)  are a logical possibility. There is just no reasonable evidence to license such a belief. ---