Talk:Creation science/Archive 14

message: What is this supposed to mean and where is a reference "the radionuclides in question need not have been the initial conditions of the rocks?"  I have throughly studied polonium halos and have not once heard this objection.EMSPhydeaux 23:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference is in the see-also-ed article: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html HrafnTalkStalk 12:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Radionuclides

message: Further candidates for this article's Geophysics section include Hydroplates (Tectonophysics), Vapor canopy (Atmospheric science) & Rapid-decay theory (Terrestrial magnetism). HrafnTalkStalk 04:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick note, to date I've only edited this article for structure, not content. I'm assuming that the latter will occur after it has gone 'live' (assuming that this proposal wins acceptance). HrafnTalkStalk 07:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

text: It needs more of the opposing, scientific ideas, e.g. an explanation of continental drift, etc. Adam Cuerden talk 07:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. My intention was to to work on the restructuring aspect until the merger is live, and then concentrate on the content issues when there is be a permanent talkpage & article history to document the process. The lack of opposing scientific views is in the proposed-to-be-merged articles themselves, so simple merger of them doesn't worsen this, and provides us with a centralised place in which to correct it. HrafnTalkStalk 08:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I've explicitly tagged the three sections as having neutrality problems. HrafnTalkStalk 08:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One suggestion would be to reference a peer-reviewed journal rather than to talk origins.  Although my personal opinion is that it has been shown that there is no radon in polonium halos( Gentry, R.V. 1974. "Radiohalos in Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Science 184, 62 ).EMSPhydeaux 13:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geophysics section 

message: "Justify" has several meanings. I changed "justify" in the first sentence to "justify or rationalize" to clarify the meaning. Either can apply depending on the person or situation. "and" or "and/or" might be better than "or" but superficially the two are defined as necessarily distinct so I chose "or". But someone can desire to find science data (that for him provides rationalization; i.e. he already believes it for other reasons) in order to evangelize another for whom it would be justification (i.e. it would be one of the reasons he actually accepts a belief). WAS 4.250 11:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Those terms are pushing it.  They imply or presume to the adherents specific psychological motives and need a source.Professor marginalia 00:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  justify 

message: I think the article is confusing and contradictory about the differences.  Are they terminologies identifying two clearly distinct movements?  Two terms with overlap or differences depending on the context?  The article distinguishes the two at some points, and interchanges the two at others, without really explaining the reason in either case.Professor marginalia 20:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Creation Science is a subset of Creationism, generally distinguished by more sophisticatedly pseudoscientific apologetics and by practitioners who have some degree of scientific or quasi-scientific qualification. The boundary is however a rather ambiguous one. The term 'Creation Science' is also more closely associated with Young Earth Creationism, as that faction has a wider need to discredit mainstream Science (particularly Geology) than other forms of Creationism. You may note that most of 'areas of study' mentioned in this article are on issues that only have significance to YEC. HrafnTalkStalk 04:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the explanation.Professor marginalia 20:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Guillermo Gonzalez comes immediately to mind. Generally those who advocate for Fine tuning and Rare Earth ideas proving the existence of divinity have intentionally tried to distance themselves from creationists. Weirdly enough, I'm not sure whether Hugh Ross considers himself an advocate of intelligent design. I'd venture to say that he doesn't. ScienceApologist 17:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The sentence in the introduction is misleading summary of the pages of Dover case court record identified as the source of the claim.  The court record shows Dover schools used the Pandas and People book, that the term "creation science" and "creationism" were originally used in the first drafts of the book, and that those terms were changed shortly after the Edwards ruling to read "intelligent design".  The term, and the ID doctrine itself, may have been born from the failure of "creation science" in schools.  That doesn't mean, necessarily, that creation science itself just took a new name.  It may have done, but we can't know from this source.  That conclusion would be an illogical fallacy.  But the wording currently in the intro implies to me this is exactly the case, that creation science simply changed its name.Professor marginalia 15:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Gonzalez didn't get involved until well after ID split off. He only got his PhD in 1993, and I've seen no indication that he was involved in ID before he finished his post-docs and took up a position at Iowa State some years later. Ross is a OEC, started his Apologetics Ministry in 1987 (about the same time as Edwards) and apparently rejects ID. Thus neither would appear to falsify my hypothesis. Was anybody using Fine-Tuning as a Creation Science argument prior to ID splitting off? HrafnTalkStalk 16:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Creationism vs Creation Science

message: Professor marginalia's question has got me thinking. Would I be correct in thinking that the only 'Creation Scientists' who changed the name of their field from 'Creation Science' to 'Intelligent Design' were those working in the field of Creation biology (Dean H. Kenyon being the most famous example that comes to mind) and that the Flood Geologists and 'Creation Astrophysicists' around at that time stuck with 'Creation Science' (typically remaining with YEC organisations such as the Institute for Creation Research)? Can anybody think of any Creation Scientists other than Creation Biologists who decamped? For that matter were there any Creation Biologists of any significance that stayed behind? HrafnTalkStalk 03:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Guillermo Gonzalez comes immediately to mind. Generally those who advocate for Fine tuning and Rare Earth ideas proving the existence of divinity have intentionally tried to distance themselves from creationists. Weirdly enough, I'm not sure whether Hugh Ross considers himself an advocate of intelligent design. I'd venture to say that he doesn't. ScienceApologist 17:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The sentence in the introduction is misleading summary of the pages of Dover case court record identified as the source of the claim.  The court record shows Dover schools used the Pandas and People book, that the term "creation science" and "creationism" were originally used in the first drafts of the book, and that those terms were changed shortly after the Edwards ruling to read "intelligent design".  The term, and the ID doctrine itself, may have been born from the failure of "creation science" in schools.  That doesn't mean, necessarily, that creation science itself just took a new name.  It may have done, but we can't know from this source.  That conclusion would be an illogical fallacy.  But the wording currently in the intro implies to me this is exactly the case, that creation science simply changed its name.Professor marginalia 15:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Gonzalez didn't get involved until well after ID split off. He only got his PhD in 1993, and I've seen no indication that he was involved in ID before he finished his post-docs and took up a position at Iowa State some years later. Ross is a OEC, started his Apologetics Ministry in 1987 (about the same time as Edwards) and apparently rejects ID. Thus neither would appear to falsify my hypothesis. Was anybody using Fine-Tuning as a Creation Science argument prior to ID splitting off? HrafnTalkStalk 16:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creation Science vs Intelligent Design 

message: The choice of sources in the article is poor many places.  For example, Lenny Flank is a self-published writer.  Supreme Court decisions aren't obscure historical events, and WP editors should never need to resort to self-published authors and single focus internet forums for sourcing such major national events like creation/evolution in schools.  Better sources can be found, I'm sure.  Reference to Popper in footnote 12 is totally WP:SYN.  Footnotes 13 and 14 sourcing definitions of "uniformitarianism" and "catastrophism" are unnecessary-the WL is sufficient. What's required is a source demonstrating the creation science "rejects geology" due to uniformitarianism.  If the editor hear is trying to show "creation science rejects uniformitarianism, geology means uniformitarianism, therefore creation science rejects geology" that interpretation needs to be sourced, not the definition of uniformitarianism--otherwise it too is guilty of WP:SYN.Professor marginalia 20:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've cited Edwards v. Aguillard directly to the court decision itself -- it states (near the top): "The Act is facially invalid as violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because it lacks a clear secular purpose." -- which should be clear enough & authoritative enough for anybody. HrafnTalkStalk 03:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Couldn't find any of the other problems you mentioned. Can I take it that they were all fixed in your recent flurry of activity? HrafnTalkStalk 03:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed a few more of the Lenny Flanks today.  I fact tagged where the one creation scientist used the Popper to say evolution isn't science.  That source doesn't work because it is clearly written as a persuasive essay from the point of view of one particular author who does not assert that it is a position true of creation science as a whole.  Some references I have found to use in its place are problematic because the claim as used here is a sweeping generalization of the field while the sources found speak much more narrowly of specific cases.  I think restructuring the article would be good - especially to separate discussion into the different "phases" so to speak that creation science appears, allowing more focus on the most prominent arguments or positions evident in that particular era.Professor marginalia 18:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole popper thing is a bit of a red herring also, .  WLU 00:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Popper argument made against evolution may miss its mark, but let's please not go to those dry wells anymore to source claims.  Editors have to resist pulling in sources from usenet and other self-publish websites to pull this article together.  We need more solid, standard issue published sources only.Professor marginalia 16:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: Creationist cosmologies has been tagged as unreferenced for a year (since November 2006) and has only two references -- each only supporting a single bullet point in lists of criticisms. I am therefore recommending that it be merged into this article which already has a short section on the topic, after purging unreferenced material (i.e. virtually the whole of that article). Any comments? Any brave soul willing to make the attempt at rescuing it by finding a sufficient number of citations to make it worth keeping? HrafnTalkStalk 07:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Creation science is already very long, the creationism cosmologies is decently written and though unreferenced, I recognize both the arguments and counter-arguments.  If you remove the unreferenced stuff, it is indeed a very short article that could be merged.  But surely it wouldn't be hard to find some sources, Talk.Origins must have both the counters, but also the original arguments in at least some cases, correct?  I'd love to give it a try were I to have the time, though I can't dedicate myself now.  The history will always be there if we want to try recovering it later.  WLU (talk) 00:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that getting the article referenced is the best option, but it quite simply isn't happening. And as I have neither a strong interest nor strong background in the subject and numerous other articles where I could be more usefully employed, I am loathe to attempt it myself. I therefore merge-tagged it to see if anybody wanted to step up, or if nobody does to remove this rather egregious violation of WP:RS. HrafnTalkStalk 02:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure.  I've added a couple links to the talk page at CC, and asked our old friend Inspectre if he'd like to help contribute usefully.  I'll try to get to it within the next week or so if possible, and start hammering out references and citations (but no promises, my contributions have been spotty for the past while).  If you still feel strongly or there's consensus for the merge, go ahead and I'll try drafting something on a sub-page with info pulled from the edit history.  WLU (talk) 12:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: While an edit war of sorts rages over whether or not Darwin should be identified as an "eminent scientist", has anyone read the sentence? When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 this work of natural theology won over the scientific establishment, and by the 1900s evolution through descent with modification was widely accepted as the unifying principle of biological development.  I've never heard OoS characterized as a "work of natural theology" and don't believe the source says this either.  Also the source given seems to present a very different claim, that Darwin's mechanism (presumably natural selection) won favor for about 10 years and then seemed to slip away from favor by 1900 until its resurrection through the modern synthesis of around 1930.  I can't find a discussion of claim about "descent through modification" via search string, and doubt that the particular distinction would salvage the claim here.Professor marginalia (talk) 01:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would agree with your characterisation of this. HrafnTalkStalk 02:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The section needs to be rewritten, but it's going to require rethinking what should be said as well.  The term "natural theology" doesn't apply at all to Darwin, but there are other problems with the discussion there.  The "background history" as written currently co-mingles different ideas together, and the section needs to be either expanded to be more accurate, or pruned to highlight just a key point or two.  The concept that became "widely accepted" by 1900 was not Darwinian evolution but neo-Lamarckian evolution.  "Fixity of species" was no longer accepted in the scientific community, and Darwin's book was certainly influential to the acceptance of the idea of common ancestry in evolution, but Darwin's explanation (natural selection) was not widely accepted yet.  Since historians of the evolution debates frequently characterize creation science as a reaction against social and theological implications of Darwinian "survival of the fittest" (creation scientists persist in addressing their criticisms toward "Darwinian evolution")- it's probably essential to sort out better the various post-OoS theoretical metamorphoses that have come in and out of favor within the scientific community. For example social Darwinism played a major part in the reactionary anti-Darwinian creation science movement.  Meanwhile, I'll edit the OeS "natural theology" passage because it's clearly wrong.Professor marginalia (talk) 17:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Darwin and natural theology

message: I am not sure that Encyclopedia Britannica's article supports the wikipedia article statement:
It would be nice to see the article take the more NPOV stance of Encyclopedia Britannica.  Ra2007 (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is weird.  Obviously the britannica source doesn't say anything like that now, though either it used to or it was confused with another source or some other edit.  I've been assembling sources on this article for several weeks with the intention of bringing better focus and broader context to the article.  The opening sentence is very close to the description used by many good sources, and I'm not sure that it is not NPOV.  The problem with britannica is that it is not giving much information at all about creation science--it's about creationism, and creationism has its own article here.  Creation science is a subset of creationism, and one of the features that sets it apart from the others is the obviously the "science" part.  In the meantime, we already have one source for claim, and need to remove the second one to britannica or else add a claim from it to go with the source.  There's just not much else to include from britannica.  BTW, "scientific creationism" and "creation science" are exactly the same thing.  I emphasize this only because there was suspicion expressed by another editor earlier over the use of the term.  But they are the same--it's just "scientific creationism" is the less often heard phraseology now. Professor marginalia (talk) 01:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Ronald Numbers' The Creationists has a chapter entitled "Scientific Creationists in the Age of [William Jennings] Bryan", and Henry M. Morris wrote a book called Scientific Creationism, so it would appear to have been a reasonably widely used synonym for "Creation Scientists"/"Creation Science". HrafnTalkStalk 05:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: We're working with a more sophisticated "spectrum of creationist beliefs" which doesn't use the term "biblical creationism". It's a fair point that most "creationists", except those holding evolutionary creationism, hold an anti-evolution position, and while that may be implicit in divine intervention in the creation of the world, it's good to make it more explicit at the outset. Morris seems to have been focussed on geology at the start, but the "creation science" position became associated with anti-evolution, including Kenyon's position which stated that biblical literalism wasn't a necessary part of it. Have tidied the start of the history section in line with History of creationism, will try to look over the rest of that part. .. dave souza, talk 15:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedia Britannica is less POV  

message: Skeptic Magazine shouldn't be listed under scientific criticism, because, by nature, it is skeptic. Its goal is to obliterate Creation and other beliefs. It is not a neutral point of view. 
It could go in another section.—Preceding unsigned comment added by RJRocket53 (talk • contribs) 18:56, 26 December 2007
:Eh, the scientific viewpoint is essentially skeptical, though no doubt Creation proponents would prefer scientists to be credulous, or perhaps aseptic. .. dave souza, talk 22:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed some abominable typos above (with some assumption about what "asceptic" was intended to mean. Perhaps "lacking a sceptre" - unkingly?) Anyway, while I have a neutral view as to whether the magazine citation is appropriate, I do not have a neutral view on "Creation Science."  Why the devil do these people bother with science as it has usually been understood?  All the truth (Truth!) being in the Bible, there is no point to nit-pick at current or recent scientific research. Creationists can just cite the biblical passages they consider relevant, on any issue, worldly or beyond.  Their world came into being approximately 6000 years ago, with all the fossils, DNA, galaxies, and so on.  One cannot argue with that belief system. It has been debated whether the fossils were put there by God or by the Devil, to fool us, which may be worth further debate by interested parties. But whether the difference in Carbon-14 dating between two scientific researchers is within expected error bounds or "proves" that they are both entirely wrong - who cares - just open your Bible and there you go. Carrionluggage (talk) 19:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skeptic Magazine