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Most atheists do not know what science says about our origins

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skeptical said:
Actually, that's not correct. They are determined to be the oldest through radiometric dating methods. Most rock formations around the world cannot be dated to the earliest periods on earth, but there are few areas where the rocks date to around 3.5 bya or older. http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html
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Perhaps Jerome can explain the present and past ratio of Vanadium 50 to its decay products?
 
Ocelot said:
Not really. The mathematical models we use make no predictions for t=0. They are inapplicable. As such the big bang does not contravene any laws of physics and maths. The problem is that these laws have nothing to say, not that they say something in opposition to the big bang.


For analogy the law of gravity has nothing to say about electrostatic replusion. That doens't mean that electrostatic replulsion violates that law of gravity.
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Your analogy does not follow. Gravity is not violating electrostatic repulsion.
 
Upchurch said:
There is always, always a margin of error in empirical science. There is always the possibility that some new piece of information will come along that will disprove or adjust current understanding. The key is to minimize that margin of error as much as possible.
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Agreed.

Steady State Theory has explicitly been proven false..
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Then it should be easy to evidence. Please do.
 
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JEROME DA GNOME said:
You missed the point.

Than you believe in fairies because science can not evidence that they do not exist?


This was the premise proposed. This premise is silly and ridiculous.
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Proposed by whom? By you? I certainly said nothing of the kind, nor implied it, nor agreed with your attempt to reformulate the issue.

It is not the case that if science has not shown evidence for something that we should believe in it, or that we should necessarily not believe in it (we can only say that we do not know for sure). The issue raised was your choice of words -- and you have done it again above. You altered the issue from has not shown evidence to cannot show evidence. My point all along is that is not the proper approach. Science has not yet shown absolute evidence that life can arise from non-life, but it does not follow that science cannot show this at some point in the future.
 
skeptical said:
Before you say that the quote above is just a claim and not evidence, the quote is explaining the evidence, the quote is not itself the evidence, the results from the tests are the evidence. In order to think that the claim is wrong, you have to believe that the scientists are just making up their data. If you are going to ignore the data from the tests, you have to explain what grounds you have for rejecting the data (i.e. lying scientists, bad instruments, etc).
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We should examine radiometric dating.

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~pgore/geology/geo102/radio.htm
Each radioactive element decays at its own nearly constant rate.
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What known factors change the rate of decay?
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Proposed by whom? By you? I certainly said nothing of the kind, nor implied it, nor agreed with your attempt to reformulate the issue.
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By you.

Nope, won't work. The scientific evidence shows life coming from life, a trivially true proposition. It doesn't show that life only comes from life.
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Nope, won't work. The scientific evidence shows life exists, a trivially true proposition. It doesn't show that fairies do not exist.
 
skeptical said:
Jerome, I would also add that long before radiometric dating, geologists in the 18th century knew that the earth was on the order of at least hundreds of thousands of years if not millions simply by looking at the sedimentary layering in outcrops of rock around Scotland. James Hutton published his theories about the formations, providing copious evidence of layering and thrusting, and by the beginning of the 19th century it was pretty well accepted that one could tell relative ages of rock formations, though not yet absolute ages, and that the earth was very old indeed.
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A reasonable theory for relatively short periods of time, yes. Do you really believe that the Earth's environment has been consistent enough to rely on this theory to determine the long term history of the Earth? The Earth belches new matter, which was old matter, constantly today. We see the Earth changing always. Up to down, down to up. There is not enough consistency to rely on this method for long term dating.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
By you.
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Oh, good. Then you can show me precisely where I said this, because I have no memory of it. I remember quite well how you misrepresented what I did say. Please show me now where my supposed proposition that faeries exist lies. I would really love to see it.



Nope, won't work. The scientific evidence shows life exists, a trivially true proposition. It doesn't show that fairies do not exist.
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Science does not prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that faeries do not exist by direct observational means, but that sort of observational evidence (no one has ever seen a faerie) is not the only evidence that we use to arrive at a decision. We pair this with other evidence -- fairies are found in stories where they are known to be inventions of the human mind. So there is no reason for anyone to believe that they exist in reality given those two facts -- no one has ever seen one and we know them to be fictional creations. That is how "proof" works a posteriori.

The same is not true for abiogenesis. We have plenty of evidence showing that it is likely very possible, for one, despite the fact that all of the pieces have not yet been assembled.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
A reasonable theory for relatively short periods of time, yes. Do you really believe that the Earth's environment has been consistent enough to rely on this theory to determine the long term history of the Earth? The Earth belches new matter, which was old matter, constantly today. We see the Earth changing always. Up to down, down to up. There is not enough consistency to rely on this method for long term dating.
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Jerome, What are the conditions needed to vary the rate of radioactive decay?
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Oh, good. Then you can show me precisely where I said this, because I have no memory of it. I remember quite well how you misrepresented what I did say. Please show me now where my supposed proposition that faeries exist lies. I would really love to see it.
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I presented your logic in post #1707.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
You missed the point.

Than you believe in fairies because science can not evidence that they do not exist?

This was the premise proposed. This premise is silly and ridiculous.
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That premise is indeed silly and ridiculous, and it was not the premise proposed. The premise proposed is that science cannot demonstrate the nonexistence of something. It can only demonstrate the existence of something. So in the case of fairies (or bigfoot), it is up to the proponents of fairy theory to demonstrate that they exist. It is not up to science to demonstrate that they don't.

The same with your idea about circular time. Common sense observation shows that the same time never repeats. It is up to you to demonstrate that it does.

In the case of the big bang, it is up to the proponents of the big bang theory to demonstrate that it happened. Which they have done to the satisfaction of the majority of mainstream scientists.

The equations of general relativity (sans Einstein's "fudge factor" - the cosmological constant, which he disowned) show that the universe must either expand or contract. The observed redshift of galaxies demonstrates that the universe is expanding. If everything is moving away from everything else, they must have been closer together in the past than they are now. Greater density means greater heat. Some remnant of that heat must still be visible in the universe, and the Cosmic Microwave Background is it. Therefore, there must have been some kind of hot big bang in the past.

All the rest is just working out the details.

Jerome, you claim that you're not a creationist. What do you believe?
 
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JEROME DA GNOME said:
I presented your logic in post #1707.
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Um, what? In post 1707 you said: By you. Then you took a quote from someone else and mangled it. You presented none of my logic. Would you like to try again? There is nothing silly about the proposition that science cannot absolutely disprove the existence of faeries, though. Why would you have a problem with that?
 
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