From: alc@netcom.com (Chris Stassen)
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 03:20:47 GMT
Organization: The Lion's Den, San Jose
Reply-To: stassen@alc.com

Lionel Tun writes:
> Suppose you had a garden. One day you look out of the window and see
> a tree in the middle of if where previously there had been none. Now
> a friend comes to visit you for the first time and looks at the tree.
> He counts the rings and says its been there for 100 years. You say 
> its been there for 1 day. Which of you is correct?

I think Lionel is missing the point that I was trying to make.

The concept that I was trying to get across was: even if you knew that
the object in question was not as old as it appeared, such a perfect
forgery left you without any scientific means by which you could figure
out its True Age (which is different from its "apparent age").

One could argue that the object had perfect misleading appearance of
age, and thus any scientific computation of its age would give the wrong
value.  One could *not* truthfully say that one had any scientific
means which gave its True Age.

However, I enjoyed Lionel's story and I think a different point can
be made if I am permitted to change it slightly:

You see a large tree in a garden, and a good friend of yours makes a
comment that seems to indicate it wasn't there yesterday.  This strikes
you as odd, so you set out to check up on it.  You carbon-date its core,
check the soil around it for settling, count the rings, and all measures
yield an age of about 100 years (in that location) for the tree.

Now, your friend has a history of giving you fabulous spiritual advice,
but he also has a habit of speaking in analogies and telling stories (like
this one) and he is often a little unclear.  You're certain that he is
trustworthy, and that he really knows the age of the tree.  But you also
recall that: a while ago he was telling you something that you interpreted
as saying that the solar system is geocentric (you decided later that you
had misinterpreted him), and he often makes statements that could be taken
as vague hints that the earth is flat (several other people have taken his
statements to mean this, but you know better so you figure he must mean
something else).

Do you accept *what you think your friend means* over the evidence, even
though (through no fault of his) you have made a fool of yourself in the
past when trying to make sense of his comments on similar topics?  Could
it be instead that your friend isn't particularly interested in these
topics, and he's really talking about other things?

> Hint: It depends on your assumptions.
> Advice: Don't make too many assumptions about the origin of the
>         universe and of species.		    ======
		       ==========

Physician, heal thyself!  Didn't you show up in talk.origins originally
claiming that speciation had never been observed?  I would expect that
those whose opinions are formed in an evidence-free vacuum are forced to
make many more assumptions than those who have a command of the data.

I contend that:  while your "assumptions" are in general good and even
true, you are causing yourself problems by applying them to a domain
that they were never meant to cover.

		"It's not a Book about how the heavens go;
		 It's a Book about how to go to Heaven."
-- 
Chris Stassen						stassen@alc.com
DISCLAIMER:  My employer's account, but not their opinions.