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slyeagle — Science is not Infallible
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Published: 2008-04-18 21:46:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 8544; Favourites: 159; Downloads: 64
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Scientific knowledge is human knowledge and scientists are human beings. They are not gods, and science is not infallible. Yet, the general public often thinks of scientific claims as absolutely certain truths. They think that if something is not certain, it is not scientific and if it is not scientific, then any other non-scientific view is its equal. This misconception seems to be, at least in part, behind the general lack of understanding about the nature of scientific theories.From The Skeptic's Dictionary
In this day and age people will take anything with a grain of salt up until it has "scientifically proven" attached to it. Then it's accepted as an absolute truth. As a person with faith, I personally have had it up to the ceiling with people whose religion is "scientifically proven" and telling me everything I believe in is "scientifically proven" to be wrong. Once and for all, I'd like to say that science is the systematic observation of the natural world and is simply a mode of human understanding. It can neither prove nor disprove the supernatural.
Furthermore, scientific claims can ALWAYS be amended or disproved by new evidence and should NEVER be accepted as the final answer. People who further scientific claims usually do so with a very human agenda. In the early 1900s, Westerners believed that science had explained everything there was to know and there was nothing new to be learned. This included that bathing was bad for you (Europeans still believed that at this era). Up until 1945, the American law called for compulsory sterilization of the "feeble-minded" or otherwise "unfit," because these people were "scientifically proven" to create defective children. Up until very recently, people fighting for animal rights had a hard time going up against the fact that animals were scientifically proven to be programmed by instinct and were devoid of thoughts and feelings. Just two years ago, Lydia Fairchild nearly lost custody of all three of her biological children because current DNA testing was considered "infallible" in the courts. Makes you wonder how many innocent people we're sending to prison based on faulty science.
So support science AND humanity. Don't accept whatever is the current scientific claim as absolute truth!
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Comments: 205
"Because we live in it, and it has practical applications. You rather be a know nothing and live like a wild animal or would you prefer to have technology and understanding of the world around you?"
We've gone too far, in attempting to seperate ourselves from animals. They and us are one in the same. I mean, we aren't exactly plants or bacteria or something of that sort, correct? yet we are certainly. And thus we are animals.
"Plenty of things carry truth in this world, just many are uncomfortable and/or hard to accept. And sure, there are many lies but that doesn't by extention mean that everything is a lie."
Really? It seems to me, sometimes, that the entire world is just a hurricane of lies. Perhaps we know something, perhaps we do not, but we will never know that we know it. Until, perhaps, it's to late for said knowledge to make a difference.
"So speaks the pinhead, but I digress. You just seem to think radically differently (even to the extent of being irrational)."
Perhaps so, kindly state your point? There is no such thing as an incorrect opinion when it comes to things such as this. Also, I know several people who have similar thoughts to me (One of them is , if you were wondering.) so my thoughts are not really 'radically different'.
"I don't actually watch southpark, that's just the popular name for the defense."
Very well then.
Also, as I'm sure I have said before at some point, I am not trying to confuse you in the least, this is merely what I think.
Also, TV Tropes might not be the best link to back up your point, somehow.
But, then again, I think it's pretty clear that this isn't getting either of us anywhere, don't you think?
And as such, this post ends here, as my fingers are hurting.
Ciao!
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"We've gone too far, in attempting to seperate ourselves from animals. They and us are one in the same. I mean, we aren't exactly plants or bacteria or something of that sort, correct? yet we are certainly. And thus we are animals."
Just because we're animals doesn't mean we cannot better ourselves. Let me ask you this, would you rather live like you do now, or like an actual animal?
"Really? It seems to me, sometimes, that the entire world is just a hurricane of lies. Perhaps we know something, perhaps we do not, but we will never know that we know it. Until, perhaps, it's to late for said knowledge to make a difference."
Then if your worried about hurricanes of lies, stay away from politics. Science on he other hand isn't a hurricane of lies like politics is.
"Perhaps so, kindly state your point? There is no such thing as an incorrect opinion when it comes to things such as this. Also, I know several people who have similar thoughts to me (One of them is , if you were wondering.) so my thoughts are not really 'radically different'."
Well if an opinion cannot be wrong, then who are you to sit here and say my opinion is wrong?
And wow, you can actually find others that think similar to you; Here's a cookie.
But honestly does it matter if other people think like you? After all you can get people to believe and do all sorts of stupid things, the fact that people have similar delusions (For lack for better words and in my opinion) doesn't man your not 'radically different' when it comes down to it. Look at Scientology for a little while. Second of all even if your ideas aren't radically different, that doesn't mean they aren't wrong.
"Also, as I'm sure I have said before at some point, I am not trying to confuse you in the least, this is merely what I think. "
You come off as confusing, illogical, and irrational. Which comes off as a chewbacca defense even if it is accidental.
"Also, TV Tropes might not be the best link to back up your point, somehow."
It simply explains what a chewbacca defense is. You heard the phrase 'The concept is valid regardless of its source.'?
"But, then again, I think it's pretty clear that this isn't getting either of us anywhere, don't you think?"
Probably, after all both us are stubborn and arrogant.
"And as such, this post ends here, as my fingers are hurting."
That is the weakest excuse I've heard. I'd expect you to be able to give a better excuse then "My X hurts".
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"Just because we're animals doesn't mean we cannot better ourselves. Let me ask you this, would you rather live like you do now, or like an actual animal?"
To be completley honest, I don't know.
"But honestly does it matter if other people think like you? After all you can get people to believe and do all sorts of stupid things, the fact that people have similar delusions (For lack for better words and in my opinion) doesn't man your not 'radically different' when it comes down to it. Look at Scientology for a little while. Second of all even if your ideas aren't radically different, that doesn't mean they aren't wrong."
Nor does it mean they aren't right. Flip side of everything, after all. But actually, when you look into, a lot of my actual beleifs -besides the beleif that we don't know anything/the world could be a dream/etc- aren't so different from yours.
"Probably, after all both us are stubborn and arrogant."
Glad you realise that.
"That is the weakest excuse I've heard. I'd expect you to be able to give a better excuse then "My X hurts"."
It was better than rambling on. And, in fairness, my fingers *did* hurt.
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"To be completley honest, I don't know."
Would you give up the house you live in, the money you have,food etc. and have to live off the land without and support from the civilized world?
"Nor does it mean they aren't right. Flip side of everything, after all. But actually, when you look into, a lot of my actual beleifs -besides the beleif that we don't know anything/the world could be a dream/etc- aren't so different from yours."
Hence why I said it was moot.
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"Would you give up the house you live in, the money you have,food etc. and have to live off the land without and support from the civilized world?"
I probably would, for a little hile, to know what it was like. You mean you wouldn't?
Also; I'm broke, live in the middle of nowhere, and know what plants are/are not poisonous, so I could give up the things you said easily.
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"I probably would, for a little hile, to know what it was like. You mean you wouldn't?
Also; I'm broke, live in the middle of nowhere, and know what plants are/are not poisonous, so I could give up the things you said easily."
Mmmmm, I'm talking your whole life, just like any other animal.
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"Mmmmm, I'm talking your whole life, just like any other animal."
I like to think that I could, but, alas, I would probably miss the internet too much.
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That's kinda my whole point.
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I would like to, but I daresay I wuld be too much of a coward too. If I could, I would.
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That's the problem, most humans can't do it.
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Exactly. Humans are deceitful and cowardly, myself included, and in my opinion other creatures are now much more...I don't know...good, I guess, if there was such a thing as good and evil.
On a rather unrelated note, how did we change subject this much? Oh well.
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Well animals are basically mindless when it comes to human-like activities, their innocent of any of the things that humans do. But that doesn't really make them any better.
For all of humanities's faults it's still pretty good.
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*Certainly alive. I forgot a word. Cannot type today.
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.... Can you try doing some research before getting back to me? (linking silly tv shows found on youtube doesn't count - the media is clearly biased) The canned responses are not clever and very boring.
I said MICRO evolution is true. Or something reasonably similar. We can see the effects of it today.
Macro evolution is the unproven assumption that all living things evolved from a single organism. (Read "origin of LIFE" not "origin of universe")
The Big Bang theory is an idea about the origins of the universe based on the observation that the "edges" of the universe seem to be expanding and is unrelated.
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Evolution is true, the only difference between micro and macro evolution is time scale. That's like saying you can walk 10 feet, but talking 10 miles is impossible.
Evolution and Abiogenesis are not the same thing, you obviously know less then someone that spends 5 minutes to read the wikipedia page on it.
The bigbang and Abiogenesis have a little evidence, but not nearly as much as evolution. The reason why most modern medicine works is because of evolution.
And just because you don't understand how it works doesn't make it invalid. Let me ask you this, do you have any proof that evolution is invalid? Do you have a way to prove that all the evolution related evidence is false?
We have the fossil record, DNA, embryology and many others that confirms evolution. In fact in our genome we only have 2 differences between us and a chimp's.
Also, just because it's on youtube doesn't mean it's wrong. There are many intellectuals on youtube, just not as many as I would like.
Let's see the 14 fundamental falsehood's of creationism shall we?
[link] 
Read all 15 (14 has 2 parts) movies.
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What I thought was a simple request is apparently too difficult to adhere to.
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I did research, have you? You claim to know a lot but you don't even know the definition of evolution.
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You keep changing definitions on me and arguing semantics and parroting the common government-funded propaganda at me.
You also leave me with little confidence that you're bothering to consider what I'm saying, but are rather looking for loopholes in the terms I'm using to "disprove" me. The terms themselves have different connotations, and you're trying to force me to change what I'm saying by seesawing about. I'm tired of it, because it's what you mainstream sheep are always sarcastically bleating and feeling clever and superior about. You're welcome to let them tell you what to think. I don't care.
But I made this stamp to combat bullshit like this, from educational policy asserting that Darwin's theory of evolution fully explains the complexity of living things down to eating a bowl of Cheerios every day will prevent you from having a heart attack.
I never said macro evolution doesn't "work." I said there's no firm evidence. I said that Darwinists (maybe Neo-Darwinists?) twist or ignore the data to adhere to the same "life tree" that has been the key element of the theory of...okay, I'll use macro evolution this time, and maybe it'll mean the same thing to you next post and maybe it won't - for several hundred years. Evolutionary scientists that do not adhere to this are ostracized. I've given specific examples and links that you apparently did not bother to read. I guess I'll give a few more examples, despite that fact that I have pressing things to be doing.
The Evolution of the Horse - Often upheld as the champion of the Macro-evolutionist cause, fossil research, embryonic research, and genetics (especially of hybrids) have nice and beautiful thorough charts of how the horse has "developed." The charts are actually usually simplified, but there is a lot of evidence that modern equids share a common ancestor. The problem? A horse is a horse, and there is no evidence that the horse developed from a non-horse ancestor. Look for it. What came before the horse? It's always glossed over. What came before the horse-ancestor will be attributed to some between creature that we have no evidence of but "must have" existed. "The fossil record is incomplete." they always say. Huh.
"Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory." from The Origin of Species
So as it happens, when they say "the fossil record is incomplete," what they mean is "we have no evidence for this theory, but we'll assume it exists somewhere and we just haven't found it yet."
"About half of the major animal groups appear, fully formed, in the Cambrian strata of rocks, with out any fossilised ancestors...For evolution to be true, there must be a gap here – not just a small gap of one or two intermediate forms – but a truly massive gap of intermediates for at least 19 different phyla. Such a huge imperfection in the fossil record is the only explanation which evolutionists can give." - [link]
And speaking of intermediaries, the prime example of the intermediary creature is good old Archaeopteryx, which looks like a flightless bird with teeth. Can you think of any other examples of intermediary species? Come on, according to the theory, there must be millions of them. Any other examples? No?
Well...how about the biological principle that states that if you're not specialized, you die. Did they call that ..."natural selection," maybe? So, logically, a non-specialized mutation, say an intermediary, would be at a disadvantage when it came to survival? Ooh! Maybe that's why there aren't any intermediary fossils! . . . .
Okay, so leave the crusty bones. That's not "modern" science, eh? You want to touch on the DNA claims about the human genome being 96% similar to the chimpanzee's, right (incidentally, that 4% difference represents 40 million individual differences at the nucleotide level)? See, the fossil record is based entirely on bone homology. Naturally, we don't know what the rest of these extinct creatures are like. So let's look at some other organs from modern creatures...hm, how about eyes? Eyes are complex and "highly evolved" organs. Some organisms have very similar eyes. Say, the mouse and the octopus have structurally similar eyes. In fact, the only difference is a reversed microscopic orientation of some of the light receptors. Does anyone suggest that the mouse and the octopus share a common ancestor with highly developed eyes? No? That's odd...evolutionary scientists are happy to link species by bone structures that are FAR more dissimilar. Even the initial horse tree was happy to ignore missing limbs and vertebrae in favor of showing how the horse developed from a five-toed critter to a single-toed one. On the genetic or molecular level, there's a lot of similarities between structurally dissimilar creatures (for example, the proenzymes found in chicken appear closely related to those in humans [link] ). However, these similarities are not considered to be due to common ancestry. ...so, why should ANY similarities be considered to be due to common ancestry?
Lastly, we'll touch on procreation difficulties. I'm annoyed that I can't find that article on cat hybrids...it was a good example. But I'll give a gist. Studies in producing hybrids has shown that organisms have "genetic memory" and a resistance to mutation. You cannot produce a stable hybrid past a certain generation (1-2 generations in animals, 2-3 in plants, I believe - I'm more up on animals than plants). F1 hybrids are the first generation with mixed parents. In animals, hybrids with heterogamatic chromosomes will be infertile (for XY, the males, and ZW, the females), and sometimes the homogamatic as well. When the homogamatic offspring is fertile, it may only be bred with the species of its homogamatic parent to produce an offspring. That offspring will be 100% of that one species, as if their was no hybrid at all. So, say you have a fertile mule, and you breed her with a stallion, her foal will be a horse as if it was her mother's direct offspring. Now, what does this have to do with evolution? Just a bit of proof that DNA will retain itself. Not change.
There's plenty of other evidence you can find against Darwinist theory, but I've already spent several hours typing this up...
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Also, what would to you would prove that macro evolution has been proven?
Next, tell me the reason why you think evolution is false.
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ffs, I just spent three hours typing up an explanation for both.
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Okay, so far over 98% of all scientists say evolution is true, then the smartest scientists agree with it; Now before you go trying to discredit the greatest scientific minds in the world you need to have an good level of understanding for evolution, which it seems you have not.
The main point is both macro and micro have been seen evolving before. There is a lot of geological evidence for evolution, DNA, embryology, etc.
Yet you still remain skeptical (If I can call it that.) even with mountains of evidence proving evolution; Care to explain why?
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Apparently you didn't read what I've been saying. And you are incorrectly asserting that I must DISPROVE a theory that has not been proven. That's backwards.
Also, you're wrong:
"Public TV programs, educational policy statements, and science textbooks have asserted that Darwin's theory of evolution fully explains the complexity of living things. The public has been assured that all known evidence supports Darwinism and that virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.
The scientists on this list dispute the first claim and stand as living testimony in contradiction to the second. Since Discovery Institute launched this list in 2001, hundreds of scientists have courageously stepped forward to sign their names." - [link] [link]
That's about 1000 scientists right there.
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[link]
[link]
During the four days of the petition, A Scientific Support for Darwinism received signatures at a rate 697,000 percent higher than the Discovery Institute's petition, A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.
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From your link:
"I organized this project as a response to the Discovery Institute's four-year petition
initiative which gathered only 400 scientist signatures opposing evolution and
promoting Intelligent Design as a scientific theory."
Interesting. NO WHERE on the Discovery Institute's petition or website does it mention "intelligent design." The petition you link is "Opposing the Teaching of Intelligent Design as Science."
Know what that means? Someone could easily sign both. You're twisting facts. They're always twisting facts. It's not an either or proposition here and you haven't paid any attention to anything I've said, only listing basic evolutionary theory (which, come on, we ALL have been taught since first grade) and attacking me on the basis that I'm not smart, haven't read up, or don't know what I'm talking about. I will not respond to you again, as I have a life to lead.
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And claiming science is all biased is rather foolish world view considering how much science has done for you. I really feel sorry for you, but maybe one day there will be enough evidence that you just simply cannot deny that.
If you want a proof of evolution you could ask me, but not once have you asked me. You only assert and insist that evolution is fake or in error, yet where's your proof of that?
Let me ask you this: Why do you remain skeptical of evolution regardless of the evidence?
Also let me ask you this: What would it take for you to accept evolution?
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Here's an interesting thing. Even the pope supports evolution. The American creationist movement is a basically American only thing. You cannot defend ignorance, it is an overall bad stance.
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Well if you don't want to continue this then fine.
Ignorance is bliss, as long as it keeps them happy they don't care how ignorant they are.
The people who twist the facts are creationists, constantly misrepresenting data, quote mining, etc. Sorry but you have no argument except "Argument from ignorance". The thing is you really have no understanding of evolution, only what you think evolution is and ignorance is not a form of proof. You also tell me that you refuse to watch or look at anything that might oppose your world view. If you think science misrepresents data, then how is anything accomplished? Really if your that opposed to science, then don't use anything made by science.
I bet you didn;t even bother to look at any of those movies I showed you so I've come to this conclusion.
Conclusion:
You refuse to look or even question your beliefs. You do not wish to look at anything that might oppose your world view. "They don't want to look at any evidence to the contrary because they are afraid it might mess up there world view."
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Hehehe, that link's a laugh.
[link]
Not to mention that pension has been widely criticized for false information, appeal to authority, and others.
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism states that:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
Just goes to show they have no idea what there talking about, Evolution is the opposite of chance.
Sorry, but did you even bother to read any of the movies explaining how evolution works?
[link]
Watch that at least. (This guy is a christian by the way.)
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I'm sorry, but you obviously have no idea what your talking about.
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Please watch.
Also did you even bother to read the last playlist?
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So...are you an actual person? Or a youtube spambot?
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...Of course science isn't infallible.
That's *why* it's science.
If science isn't always trying to prove itself wrong, if the status quo is accepted, it's not science, it's stagnation.
It's the things that never want to accept they're wrong, the people that never question if something *is* wrong, those are the problem, whether they're on side A or side 2 of issue Gamma.
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I was going to comment this. But yes, exactly. Science does not claim to be infallible, and reassesses its conclusions when new information and new evidence is presented. Some people like to think of science as a thing. Science, within the context of this discussion*, is not a thing. It is a method. It is something that is done, something that is used, a tool. And in spite of the fact that science does not have all of the answers, and the fact that it is limited by human perception, it is the best method we currently have for understanding the world around us.
It's a shame...many people seem to think that because science isn't perfect that makes it an equally valid source of truth to other, far more arbitrary methods of discerning truth, like religious doctrine. This is not the case, for the reasons previously mentioned by both you and myself. Unlike these methods, science isn't afraid of being wrong. And because it makes no claims of absolute knowledge, there is nothing at stake. It does not prove itself to be unreliable or without credibility when it has led to a wrong, or perhaps incomplete conclusion.
*I include this disclaimer simply because of the fact that there is, of course, the fact it is categorized as a noun, and thus, would technically be considered a 'thing' - but that's all grammatical mechanics, while we're discussing concepts here
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THANK YOU! These are things I've been waiting to hear for a long time. I'm totally using this.
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Man, I think this was needed. As a non-religious person, I think that both sides should understand that rather than trying to use science as an all around debunking faith machine or using faith as a means to show how science is wrong because it isn't according to x religious text. There's nothing more cringe-worthy than watching a so-called skeptic using science to bolster their argument because they think it's got no wrong, and when they obviously don't understand what they're even talking about. It's right up there with "atheists" who claim that their views aren't a religion, because when I hear them talk they really don't sound that much different from dogmatic religious people. For me, it's more unnerving because inevitably I get camped with those people. I can understand how things might not work for personal logic, a lot of tenets surrounding faith really conflict with mine, but I don't see how I can say that my way of thinking is right...that's implying that my reasoning ihas god-like infallibility.
Quite honestly, I think the two subjects, faith and science, should remain separate since they mostly deal with two different things. I think that people should also try to learn about both to try to understand, even if they don't agree. On either side, there's always going to be a shade of "well, it mightn't be true" or "we might be wrong", but of course the whole point of faith is to believe something despite the two aforementioned.
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Unfortunately, I also can't use stamps. =/
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You can't? Oh, right. Not subscribed.
Yeah, I'm sick of Christians feeling threatened by things like the theory of Macro Evolution. Similarly, I'm sick of the "atheist" side treating me like an idiot because I believe in the Bible. Both behave in an equal infantile manner, IMHO.
Frankly, I think the Creationist/Intelligent Design camp is barking up the wrong tree. Instead of Intelligent Design being taught too, they should be lobbying for the scientific method to be taught properly in the first place. I mean, really, how useful is it for kids to memorize factoids so they can spit them back out on paper? All you're teaching them is to accept that someone has already explained the universe for them and they should sit down and shut up. How's that education?
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Yeah, it really annoys me when I see the so-called atheists doing that, because there's nothing in science alone that denies that things in the Bible (or for that matter any religious text) to be true. But then again, to these people science is their religion. Equally though, I have a problem with taking every single word of a religious text to be literally true as well. I mean, the Bible for instance has been around for thousands of years and interpretations of just that one text has changed numerous times over the years as human understanding of the world changes, so why can't this be the same? And in my (admittedly probably very ignorant) mind, I've never really understood why the two can't co-exist? I mean I've talked with Bible literalists about it, but it still leaves me sort of baffled...but this may be due to the fact that the supernatural and the natural are really separate in my mind returning again to the fact that science can only deal with observations of the natural world.
I agree that the Creationists/Intelligent Design camp aren't really being too wise about what their campaigning for. But I sort of get the feeling that they'd rather trade off having one set of factoids to spit out on paper for two? If I were them, I would really want to know how science comes to its conclusions since one would/should probably have to use those same methods to come to a different conclusion. It seems to me (from papers that I've read, and I may be speaking in ignorance of more recent studies) that rather than trying to explain an alternate conclusion from gathered/gathering evidence they're really just quibbling over certain conclusions that the rest of the scientific community has come to. I mean, if you're going to be postulating that all creatures were created in one fell swoop that's going to affect not just biology, but geology and physics as well. And one really doesn't need to look to fossils to see how it will be a problem, even among present animals it's going to have to deal with the difference and potential non-differences of species and I'm not certain that simply redefining our idea of species is going to change the issues that come up. How would you define horses and donkeys as being the same species if what they produce is not sterile, if you were to do that? What would you do with an animal that is concluded to be two separate species but can produce viable offspring? Although that in itself would be an interesting experiment, what happens if you isolate two groups of the same creature, would they remain one species or become two?
And, quite honestly, if one doesn't go about trying to see how a theory fits within scientific methods, then the entire system is going to come crashing down, and that would only be a good thing if it can explain those things that have been proven to true according to the tests as well as those theories that are (even by the science community) said to be a theory that has thusfar been only been proven true by current evidence. I'd much rather not have what we utilise everyday for convenience and survival to be turned into a broken system where we can't even explain how we came to those conclusions.
And heck, science is probably one of the easier things to get children interested in because they can use things to work out theories for themselves! And here I go rambling, because I really like discussing things like this. It makes my mind work. XD
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The problem is that the people saying "Science" proves there religion just says how honest they are. Science has nothing to say on the supernatural, therefore cannot say god exists or doesn't exist. Though science can prove the bible wrong because it has to do with the physical world.
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Okay, so besides the "creation" controversy, which I'll leave alone, what of the Bible has been proven wrong?
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Creation in particular.
Noah's Flood also.
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Nah, there's plenty of scientific evidence for a deluge. And the cultural history evidence for it is overwhelming.
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Also, the Israeli archeologists are unable to find any proof of the Exodus from Egypt in the Sinai peninsula (now most historians consider the Israelites to have originated from Cannan)
Plus, there are no evidence of a global deluge, there is evidence of a increased incidence of "local" flooding due tsunamis caused by volcanic eruptions or a rapid rise in sea level due to the end of the ice age, but there is no proof of a global flood (for one thing, where would all that water go?)
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Most historians what now? There was ever a time they doubted the Israelites originated in Canaan? 'cause, you know it was Canaan that God showed Abraham saying this is the land I give unto you and your descendants will number like the stars, etc, etc... The Israelites came from Canaan, occupied Goshen (in Egypt) for a time, then returned to Canaan (and there is a lot of archeological evidence for this). They never occupied Sinai, so of course there's no evidence. You need a site to dig up and they didn't leave one. 3,500 years won't leave much in the way of camp signs.
Also, I know fundementals want to characterize "waters covered all of the earth" as a literally global flood, but I think a massive sudden flood is sufficient proof. [link] While Noah himself might be more than embellished, I don't see any reason for people to be so nitpicky. A flood that drowns out that much settled land isn't catastrophic enough for you?
I do not understand modern need to disprove the histories in the old testament. It's one of the oldest and best preserved human histories in the world. Why do people so want to believe it's not accurate? I don't see people trying to "disprove" Greek, Chinese or Sanskrit histories. Antisemitism, maybe?
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True, but you are forgetting the bit where in the Pentateuch where the descendants Jacob grew and multiplied in Egypt then decamped en masse for a 40 year long trip through the Sinai ending with the conquest of Cannan. The Peninsula should be covered with the traces of the activity of a few hundred thousand Israelites (living, cooking, dying...), and the historians can find nothing, a bit dodgy is it not?.
Also, the atheist brigade is only obsessed with the old testament in so far that fundamentalist *Christians* keep using it to advance their agenda. When is the last time that the modern Greeks or Chinese tried to push through a bill to ban the teaching of evolution. Furthermore, I care about history, the evidence-based researched variety. Just because a old book said so is not a good enough excuse.
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I didn't forget it at all. How could I when once a year we're meant to live in sukkahs for eight days to remember the wanderings of our ancestors? I'm not an archeologist myself, but from what I understand of the business is forty years of wandering without building lasting structures is not going to leave much of a mark. I find nothing about it dodgy. The Bedouins began wandering the area during the 14th century, if historical texts are to be believed, and no archeological traces of them are left, not even from the very recent British invasion, even though their camps can be 500,000 people strong. I think that suggests the region just isn't kind to human artifacts.
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But not noah's flood, but there was a great flood, but it wasn't world wide.
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Somewhere in there it explains the noah's flood.
The irony is that I came here to agree with you.
Science is not infallible, but it is the closest thing to truth we have; Science depends on being fallible to work, because in order to improve our understanding we must be able to disprove wrong theories/hypothesis's. Which cannot happen if it is biased, Therefore science is not bias by definition. Ir is driven by a need to understand, not a need to believe. It is the direct opposite of a religion.
Remember, truth may be perused, but never obtained; That's why we should listen to people who peruse truth, instead of those who claim to have it.
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Wait, let me get this straight. The Bible (as well as several hundred other ancient records of human history) tells the account of a great flood that "covered all of the earth." There is physical evidence of a great flood a long time ago. But it cannot be the same flood because of...semantics?
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It was a great flood, but not of the exaggerated amount as in the bible. The Euphrates river I think it was called, that one floods every year, but there was one time it flooded way too much and useda great flood.
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