Real Science

There is a common myth that 99.9% of people fall for in regards to Science. It is the difference between ‘observational’ science, and ‘historical’ science. The two are qualitatively and fundamentally different, and acceptance of this is critical.

‘Observational’ science is the real science, it is the science where you can actually test hypothesises like the spherical nature of earth for example. The object of this hypothesis is an extant factor, this means that we can go out and make verifiable measurements as to the nature of the earth. We can measure angles and actually fly totally around the longitude and latitude lines of the earth. This can be tested and verified both others at any later time.

But ‘historical’ science is qualitatively different. It is an interloper, it barely qualifies as science at all. This sounds harsh, radical and almost heretical to those who haven’t pondered the philosophy of science before.

The fact is that nothing in the past is verifiable, especially events that are prior to the historical record. How can we observe the emplacement of fossils to test the creation or evolution hypothesises? The deposition of fossils occurred in the past, and the past is a place that is impenetrable to observation. So if data is unobservable, then it isn’t verifiable and thus can not be considered science.

We can certainly speculate using the scientific method by examining data like fossils which themselves are extant and therefore verifiable. But any speculation as to the origins of the fossils is totally outside the realm of the scientific method.

The scientific method is only a very narrowly useful tool. It’s power as a explanatory device is prodigious when it is used appropriately within it’s purview, but we must be careful not to extend it’s use to outside natural bounds and try and use it like a omniscient fountain of knowledge.

Do Australians Want Gay Marriage?

I am bemused by the logic of a recent poll in Australia that was touted as evidence that Australians are in favour of Gay Marriage.

The Galaxy Poll asked the question whether ‘it was inevitable that Australian laws would be changed to allow same-sex marriage’.
Apparently 75% of respondents said yes. But this isn’t what I am objecting to. What I object to is the conclusion that Gay Marriage advocates draw from this. They triumphantly claim that most Australians are in favour of Gay Marriage!

Just in case you fail to see the absurdity of this conclusion (which I didn’t pick up straight away either), I will explain using an analogy:

If a poll was conducted in Australia or America asking the question whether ‘it was inevitable that a terrorist attack would occur on your soil in the future’, I’m sure most people, if not all, would respond with ‘Yes’.

But does that mean we want it to happen? Or think it is a good thing? Of course not!

So neither is the conclusion true that Australians want Gay Marriage just because they think it is inevitable!

Agnosticism: The most Egregious Form of Fence-Sitting

Wiki defines Agnosticism as “the view that certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.”

But how valid is this position really? Does anybody actually know for certain that God does or does not exist? I mean 100%. Can these people give compelling logical proofs or disproofs?

Not even the infamous anti-theist Richards Dawkins claims to know 100% that God does not exist. What about theists? I’m a devout Christian, but I can’t say that I know for sure. In fact if you press most Christians hard enough, they too will admit that they don’t know for certain.

This may surprise many atheists, and some Christian’s may recoil at the mere suggestion. But what we have to remember is that Christ never said that admission to Heaven requires certainty, in fact the totally opposite is true. Christ constantly stressed the importance of faith in the Salvation that is given by God (Matthew 25:21, Mark 5:2, Luke 5:20, Luke 7:50).

No demand was made for 100% certainty. How can anyone be 100% certain when our fallen, sinful existence is defined as being divorced from God’s presence?

So if both atheists and theists admittedly only hold their positions by faith, then where does this lead the agnostic? It seems as though it leaves him in an untenable intellectual position.

I can understand the agnostics who are genuinely perplexed and ambivalent as to the existence of God, but it is those agnostics that try and define Agnosticism as a legitimate belief system in itself that I find frustrating. It is a refusal to even genuinely debate the matter. It is a pusillanimous refusal to put ones neck on the line.

But what these types of agnostics don’t seem to realize is that their neck is on the line whether they like it or not. Either God exists or He doesn’t; when your last breath departs from your lungs, you will quickly find that there is no fence to sit on after all!

Could Neanderthal be a highly intelligent, bipedal ape?

Being a Young Earth Creationist (YEC), I have tended to view Neanderthals as a highly diverged race of humans. There is very little evidence to suggest that they are anything other than this.

But one thing that I had never considered before, is the thesis explained by the author of this video; that the collection of skeletons known as Neanderthal were actually highly intelligent, bipedal apes.

Of course this would not be a surprising revelation to any evolutionist, but how would this fit into a YEC theory? The bottom line is that there is no reason why God would not have created a highly intelligent species of ape that fully aligns with what the author of the video describes. This animal would certainly have been given safe passage by Noah on the Ark during the Global Flood, and flourished afterwards in the frigid ice age continent of Europe.

The only thing in this video that I couldn’t take seriously was the claim that the vastly distinct Neanderthals were mating/raping human females resulting in healthy offspring.

If there is anything that we know for sure in biology it is that different types of animals that have been totally separated for tens, or hundreds, of thousands of years CAN NOT produce viable offspring. This just does not happen.

The reason why the author suggested that humans and Neanderthals have mated in the past is because that DNA of Neanderthals closely aligns with humans. This fact, coupled with their virtually identical physiology of modern human, is what leads YECs to assume that the two are only different races of humans.

So is he right? The only thing that we can know for certain is that nothing is certain! As contradictory as this sounds, it is true. Skeletons tell us very little about the functioning of the organism. The whole farce with the coelacanth should serve as an important lesson.

True or not, I can appreciate the author thinking outside the box. It is certainly a very exciting thesis!

'The Critical Decade’ Report

The first thing that startled me was the highly politicised nature of this report. It was written by a scientist with the aura of being a scientific report, but what I read in the report was a quasi-scientific document that had been totally white-washed and tainted with a heavy tarnish of semantic wordplay.

The most prominent example of this was the almost total absence of the term ‘global warming’, which had been exchanged for the term ‘climate change’. This has been a conspicuous tactical change recently in a desperate effort to give the moribund AGW (Anthropogenic global warming) theory some semblance of credibility.

Despite the superficial similarities between the two terms, there are substantial differences. The traditional term ‘global warming’ is self explanatory; the globe is proposed to be warming (the correct term is ‘which emphasises the human factor of the alleged warming, but this is almost always shortened by dropping ‘anthropogenic’). But due to the significant credibility crises that the theory has had of late, this term has been dropped in favour of the term ‘climate change’.

The term ‘climate change’ is also self explanatory. But what is it’s relevance to AGW? Well, nothing! The climate always changes naturally from day to day; month to month; year to year and decade to decade. So while you can dispute the implications of the term ‘global warming’, you obviously cannot dispute the fact that the climate changes from day to day.

So here we have a political ploy to exchange a disputable term with an indisputable term with the intention of having the credibility of the fact that the ‘climate changes’ credited to the idea of AGW; a very deceptive and subtle ruse.

Such semantic ploys result in painfully asinine reading and nonsensical predictions as vague as this one:

“what we can say with certainty is that rainfall patterns will change as a result of climate change and often in unpredictable ways, creating large risks for water availability” pg 22.

Who would have thought that you could be certain about rainfall patterns being unpredictable, and will change as a result of the climate changing? What an epiphany!!!

The second thing to startle me, and the most egregious, was the almost total absence of an address of the main criticisms of AGW. This is highly significant because it reduces the credibility of the report to almost zero. For a report that is clamed to settle the scientific debate, this is appalling, and it goes to show how desperate the AGW proponents are that they have no other recourse than to ignore the powerful evidence against it.

This is no more obvious as when the report addresses the ‘climategate’ event. The author of this report merely mentions it as being an event in which somebody hacked the computers of scientists. The author simply ignores the fraud and prodigious data manipulation by the UN Climate Panel of scientists that the leaked documents and emails revealed.

The third thing that should give any critical reader pause for thought, is prominent use of terms such as "semi-empirical" and "significant uncertainties". The frequent use of these words and others synonymous terms really emphasises why the public has trouble accepting various pontificating by politicians that “the science is settled”.

Fourthly, whenever Antarctica is mentioned, the author is always careful to omit any reference to East Antarctica. Whenever he mentions Antarctica as a whole, he is sure to word it so as to only refer to the Western portion of Antarctica.

This is because, while Western Antarctica is indeed experiencing temperature rises and ice sheet loss, it has always been known but seldom mentioned that the Eastern portion of Antarctica – which is four times the size of Western Antarctica - is actually getting colder and forming thicker ice, and in amounts that actually offset that which is being lost on the other portion of the continent! This important fact is almost always omitted by AGW proponents. This is especially seen in this report where the author has gone out of his ways to give the strong impression Antarctica as a whole is warming and losing ice, when this is most certainly not true.

Having read this newest report that is claimed to settle the debate on human caused global warming, I am more unconvinced than ever. It is quite evident that this whole report is an egregious piece of political propaganda, NOT impartial science that it claims to be.

You can find 'The Critical Decade' report at this website.

For further information on the evidence against anthropogenic global warming.