From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The Search for Noah's Ark
Date: 30 Jul 92 15:24:46 GMT
Reply-To: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
Organization: ACUSON, Mountain View, CA

In article <1992Jul29.195856.1766@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com> max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb) writes:
>In article <1992Jul27.211851.20754@acuson.com> lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:
>
>>As for your "cleartext," I have no problem with the facts.  I simply do
>>not place the same interpretation on them that you do.
>
>Fascinating. I have yet to hear a single creationist put forth any
>interpretation at all of radioisotope dating results, unless you
>count: "Well, all 10 of the ice-core dating techniques agree because
>... uh ... God just made it look that way! Yeah, that's the ticket!".

I see no need to address this, as I have never considered myself a
creationist.  As far as I can tell, Creation Science is a political
movement by those who understand neither science nor theology.

Although this is not the appropriate group (I don't get talk.* groups),
I will elaborate on your "explanation" above, so that I don't look like
I'm ignoring your points.

My view/philosophy/theology is that humans in mortality are expected to
live by faith and are allowed to make choices.  If all physical
evidence showed that the Earth is VERY young, people would accept the
creation without faith.  In this, it is of value for there to be other
explanations available for those who do not accept that view.


>>As for mind control, yours seems to be firmly in the grip of those who
>>hold that all truth is quantifiable and value neutral.  Who
>>indoctrinated you?
>
>Bullshit. I rest secure in the knowledge that, though I often make
>mistakes, I practice techniques that allow me to eventually detect them.
>Since you feel comfortable discarding 150 years of biological investigation
>by just _choosing to believe_, how do you plan to detect the mistakes
>you make?

I am not discarding anything.  I do not discount the discoveries of the
biological community.  I do not deny genetic similarities in primates
and humans.  You deny that it is possible for man to be more than
genetics.  I have some problems with this.

You consider me to be closed minded because I accept things which I
did not witness and cannot quantify.  Then you _insist_ that I accept
your view of what happened in the distant past (1,000,000 years?).  I
suspect that you "choose to believe" the postulates (I refuse to call
them laws) of thermodynamics, although they are not proven (except in
lacking counterexamples).  I also "choose to believe" Fermat's (sp?)
Last Theorem, although it has not been proven.  Science rests upon
faith at least as much as religion does.

I am not asking anyone to discard any entire groups of aquired
knowledge, but remember that science (particularly taxonomy)  has
"changed its mind" many times on discovering that the earlier workers
didn't have all the facts.


Before I'm flamed, let me state that I will not post further on this,
as it is getting more of a talk.origins (which I don't get) flavor.  I
will respond in e-mail if there are other posts.

-- 
Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.paranormal