A question for Creationists

[Primula Baggins]

Have you ever noticed that on TV or in the movies, the people who live on the Planet Vulcan are called Vulcans but people who live on Earth are usually called "humans", not "Earthers" or "Terrans"? Does the word "human" then mean only US, or can it be expanded in meaning to include all such beings anywhere?

I don't have any guess what will eventually happen if we do really meet other intelligent beings someday, but I will bet anything that the naming situation will be a whole lot more complex than "Vulcans from the planet Vulcan." We don't even have a single name for Earth; that's the English name. "Human" is English, too. We may call them by the name we find convenient, just as we use "Germany" rather than Deutschland and "Japan" instead of Nippon, in other words the names the people who actually live there use.

The more basic science fiction, which includes pretty much all TV science fiction, tends to have absurdly simple naming conventions. A lot of it overlooks the fact that there would most likely be different countries, each with its own language(s) and name, just as we have here, and that the people would describe each other by many different names based on differences we might not understand or even be able to see. What if they distinguished "races" by scent rather than color, for example?

Uh. Er. Maybe this should be split off.

<sneaks off guiltily>



edited to add quote

[truehobbit]

Biblical Literalists have some definite dimensions of the Ark given in the Bible to rely on, so either they have to suggest that there has been speciation since the flood, or ignore the impossibility of all the known species of land animals fitting onto the ark. It's really not that big.

Oh, I see - thanks! I thought that aspect was just ignored (I agree it would have to have been a pretty big ship).

But...but...a Human and a Vulcan did mate - that's where Mr Spock came from!!!

But, but ... I thought Spock came from the Vulcan Stork!

*pats Faramond*

That's ok - if you want to, I can explain where little Vulcans come from - just PM me!


(Actually, this post was an attempt to bring the thread back on topic, I just couldn't let Faramond's nice joke pass. )

[Aravar]

What do you think about the idea of putting fish genes into watermelon? It strikes me as kind of creepy, because fish are so essentially different from watermelon.

.

While I am cautious about genetic engineering, I don't see it in terms of 'fish genes@ into watermelons. Fishes and watermelons share genes: I understand that we share about half our genes with bananas. There is little truly exclusive genetic material.

[Primula Baggins]

Moving genes around sounds Frankensteinian but is actually a potentially wonderful technique—for example, it will be possible to "create" cows that can produce, in their milk, particular human proteins used as drugs. The cow will still be completely a cow despite having a few human genes here and there, but the drugs will be much easier to manufacture and, if the market functioned freely, much cheaper (the second I doubt, though).

Similar techniques can be used to make food more nutritious (the "golden rice" that has vitamin A in it, for example).

[anthriel]

... and while the scientist in me is endlessly fascinated with ideas like that, there is a part of me that recoils in fear. "The Island of Dr. Moreau" scared me to death, as a kid.




Aravar, I'm glad you didn't start this to be a trap, because, unfortunately, people who are frustrated with the Creationists' point of view DO try to trap them in inconstancies. This was the whole point of the quiz in the other thread, at least in my understanding; it was a venue to see if believers can be trapped in logical quagmires.

The fact is, belief is belief, and science is science, and they are not the same thing. Science certainly changes over time... things that were considered as absolute scientific truth, at one time, are totally debunked now. Faith changes, as well. Trying to disprove one by the existance of the other doesn't work.

The weight of the scientific studies behind evolutionary theory is impressive. I find it exciting, and it piques my interest even further in studying it.

But I also believe to the tips of my very toes that there is a loving, caring God who created this world. How did he get all those animals in the Ark? I dunno. But the idea behind the Ark, the idea that God wanted to save the world from its own miserable denouement, resonates with me.







[Very Careful OT]Personally, I think anyone who does NOT know that Spock is half-Vulcan needs to be bounced off the board. We really need to have some geek-level standards around here... just sayin':P[/OT]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Spock is half-vulcan?

[anthriel]

[yovargas]

Can Marshalls ban themselves?

[Cerin]

Now I've lost track of the pertinent issue here.

Did some people not know that Spock was half-human?

I don't think we should kick them off the board, but I think there should be some sort of penance.

[Faramond]

It's bigger than I thought, based on the Bible description. Actually, likely way too big, for a wooden vessel.

From wikipedia:

Seaworthiness: The Ark is described as 300 cubits long, the cubit being a unit of measurement from elbow to outstretched fingertip. Many different cubits were in use in the ancient world, but all were essentially similar, and literalist websites seem to agree that the Ark was approximately 450 feet (137 m) in length. This is considerably longer than the largest wooden vessels ever built in historical times: according to certain sources, the early 15th-century Chinese admiral Zheng He may have used junks 400 feet (122 m) long, but the schooner Wyoming, launched in 1909 and the largest documented wooden-hulled cargo ship ever built, measured only 350 feet (107 m) and needed iron cross-bracing to counter warping and a steam pump to handle a serious leak problem.[11] "The construction and use histories of these [late 19th-century wooden European] ships indicated that they were already pushing or had exceeded the practical limits for the size of wooden ships."[12] Literalist scholars who accept these objections—not all do[13]—believe that Noah must have built the Ark using advanced post-19th century techniques such as space frame construction.[14]

Capacity and logistics: The Ark would have had a gross volume of about 1.5 million cubic feet (40,000 m³), a displacement a little less than half that of the Titanic at about 22,000 tons, and total floor space of around 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²).[15] The question of whether it could have carried two (or more) specimens of the various species (including those now extinct), plus food and fresh water, is a matter of much debate, even bitter dispute, between literalists and their opponents. While some literalists hold that the Ark could have held all known species, a more common position today is that the Ark contained "kinds" rather than species—for instance, a male and female of the cat "kind" rather than representatives of tigers, lions, cougars, etc. The many associated questions include whether eight humans could have cared for the animals while also sailing the Ark, how the special dietary needs of some of the more exotic animals could have been catered for, questions of lighting, ventilation, and temperature control, hibernation, the survival and germination of seeds, the position of freshwater and saltwater fish, the question of what the animals would have eaten immediately after leaving the Ark, and how they could have travelled to their present habitats. The numerous literalist websites, while agreeing that none of these problems is insurmountable, give varying answers on how to resolve them.[16]

[yovargas]

This debate has struck me as silly for so long. Jesus fed a multitude with a couple fish and loaves. Nobody asks how that was done and yet the ark thing comes up in convo all the time. The answer is the same - God did it.

[MithLuin]

But yov - Noah built the ark (arky arky).

So yes, it can be a miracle, but not the same type of miracle as crossing the Red Sea. God had to work through Noah on this one.

The proportions of the ark are pretty good - it comes out like a barge. I never did know what a cubit was, though.

The point of the story is not "how to build a boat" nor "how to be a zookeeper," though, so I agree with you - the whole point is that when God tells you to do something, you'd best do it, and he'll take care of making it work. (So, Frodo, you are going to walk by yourself to Mount Doom, which is about 1,000 miles from here, and right next door to Sauron's stronghold....)

[halplm]

For the ark to work as it's described, no matter how you define "kind" or its size, or its construction... would take a miracle.

There are lots of miracles in the Bible... why should this one need to be described in a non-miraculous way?

This is somewhat of a fundamental disconnect between people that argue the only way to explain history is through scientific theory, speculation, and study... and those that argue science CAN'T explain everything, and when miraculous things occur, it's not about being able to understand all about the event (or even replicating it)... but about theorizing what would have been the result of such a miracle and what would we observe now as a result of it?


For instance (and I'm not bringing these things up for debate, merely as illustrations)... given our understanding of how the universe works (which we must still admit is a very limited understanding)... everything simply could not have been the result of being created in "seven days."

However, one could theorize (as some have), that considering what we know of time, relativity, the forces that were at work at the moment the Universe came into existance... it's VERY possible, that through some frame of reference in space-time... it took 7 days to create everything. That's putting it very simply of course... but the simple fact of the matter is... time is not a constant... and billions of years could go by from the poitn of view of the decaying isotopes we find in the earths crust, while the being poking around with animals genes making a fish-type-creature into a mammal-type-creature might be doing it in an afternoon...

Or, to use an example from the quiz discussed recently... perhaps when Noah created the ark, God made squares into circles and 1+1=72 for 40 days and 40 nights so all the animals could fit in a tiny boat...

Perhaps the difference is simply this. Those that believe in true miracles... think they happen outside what we call the "natural laws," and there is no way we can see how they work... while people that believe miracles are not supernatural... believe we just don't know how to explain them... YET.


Almost everone in the "modern world" views advancement of the Human race as a matter of understanding the universe. The more we can understand and explain, the more we can do. To truly advance the human race, then, we must believe that EVERYTHING can be explained. Something that can't be explained is admitting we don't know everything, and can't figure everything out. I think we'd all be surprised at how many people would object to thinking there are things we can't explain.

Can we hope to explain God? To understand everythign about him?

Personally, I don't think so.

[Aravar]

But I also believe to the tips of my very toes that there is a loving, caring God who created this world. How did he get all those animals in the Ark? I dunno. But the idea behind the Ark, the idea that God wanted to save the world from its own miserable denouement, resonates with me.

But this is part of what I don't understand: for me it doesn't have to be historical fact to resonate with me.

There is no evidence that a global flood occurred.

I have no particular problem with the idea that the Noah stroy may be an exaggerated account of a flood that occurred somewhere in the Middle East which has been embellished for cultural/religous purposes into the story we have today. I believe sometinhg similar with regard to King Arthur. There may well have been one, or perhaps more than one, Roman-British leader who stemmed the tide of the Saxon influx. It would have been nothing like the portrayal in the Morte D'Arthur, or Excalibur. The legend has outgrown the history and the moral lesson more important than the history.

I don't think the test in the other thread was there to trap believers: I'm a believer but was not trapped, and I know work colleagues who aren't who were. I'ts not trying to trap Creationists with inconsistencies but rather to point out that to the outsider there are apparent inconsistencies and find out firstly whether that is realised and alos what the repsonse to the inconsitency is.

There are theological implications to the idea that God either miraculously removed the evidence for the Flood, or that the Flood miraculously left no trace.

[halplm]

or, that the flood was so large, we can't even comprehend what the evidence would be.

Seriously, flooding the entire planet? That's a cataclysm we can barely fathom.

[Aravar]

or, that the flood was so large, we can't even comprehend what the evidence would be.

Seriously, flooding the entire planet? That's a cataclysm we can barely fathom.

Why not? We know what happens in floods.

And there are the questions

Where did the water come from? Sufficient to cover the whole of the land surface world in a layer a good six miles deep.

Where did it go?

And so on.

[anthriel]

But I also believe to the tips of my very toes that there is a loving, caring God who created this world. How did he get all those animals in the Ark? I dunno. But the idea behind the Ark, the idea that God wanted to save the world from its own miserable denouement, resonates with me.

But this is part of what I don't understand: for me it doesn't have to be historical fact to resonate with me.

Define historical fact.

Actually, I agree with you! I am a scientist, and have a pretty suspicious view of "facts", anyway... anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of particle physics comes away with something that they thought was impossible as now a new theory.

Not that I tend to disbelieve all scientific evidence! I am thrilled with scientific evidence, and scientific discovery. If that seems discordant with my faith, so be it. I have no issues.



Edited to fix TWO typos... oy...

[halplm]

There are theories out there about what could have happened... they involve the fundamental structure of the world being changed, not only causing the flood, but also causing the land to change significantly.

We know what happens in local floods. We theorize about what would happen if the polar ice caps melted and water levels rose significantly as a result.

But we don't KNOW anything about what would happen in a flood large enough to cover all the land at the time...

This is a debate I've had before, and am not really interested in having again, but there is a fundamental assumption in all study of the past... ant that is that things were basically the same as they are now... What if they were NOT? What if atmospheric conditions were SO different that life worked in different ways? What if the evidence you're looking for is actually really THERE, but we have no way of seeing it, because it's so different than what we expect to see.

As smart as we think we are, we are still pretty much limited to what we observe. We have great imaginations, but for the most part, our imaginations build on what we know, rather than come up with things based entirely on new ideas.

That's why leaps in scientific understanding usually occur when people think of things that seem absurd... New ways of looking at things completely change how we understand things.

Anyway, you can say there's no evidence for a global flood, and so it's foolish to think there was one.... and you may even be right. But I don't choose to look at the world through the lens that everything must be proven.

Honestly, whether or not there was a global flood thousands of years ago... is not going to have any effect on me at all my entire life. It's fun to me to speculate on how it could have happened, what it might have meant, what we might observe from such theories, and how it might improve our understanding of ancient earth.

But it's all speculation, as I wasn't there to see it, even if it did happen.

[Primula Baggins]

We actually can see life from a long time ago, hal. Microbial spores 250 million years old have apparently been successfully revived and grown in the lab (link). And they aren't different in any important way from contemporary microbes. We also have ancient water and atmosphere samples from ice cores dating back 740,000 years, and those tell us that the climate has fluctuated but that the atmosphere was not radically unlike the modern one. (Cleaner, though.)

I'm not getting into this, really; I just want to point out that it is not correct that we know nothing or can learn nothing about the ancient earth. These aren't extrapolations or theoretical constructs; they are actual physical specimens that are that old.

[halplm]

we think they're that old