Science or The Bible?

One of the coolest things about the scientific method is a built in mechanism for criticism and self correction.

Also, discs are round. The irony was that floppy disks were squares. Of course they were round inside.

 

Great OP. Fun! Fun! More Fun!

 

Yes, great fun!

When you cannot point out flaws in science and your own version of science is at odds with the facts we play a game where we look for things that were wrong in the past and hope no one notices that you are just handwaving.

The title of the thread is a false dilemma. There are many folks who have found within their heart the possibility of accepting both what God has revealed in His Scriptures and in His Creation without having to pretend that one is wrong.

If you really have some errors in science to deal with, come visit us on our Science forum. There are many active topics without much in the way of YE support.

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/forum/66.html?

 

You say this and you follow it with this:

And here we see one of the strangest things about YE.

You admit that there is no word for "sphere" and that the word used means "circle." However, based on what you know from extra-Biblical sources, you are content to re-interpret the verse according to your own view even though you freely admit that the literal reading is something else.

Another great example is when the sun stood still for Joshua. The scripture plainly states that it was the sun that stood still. However you know from sources outside of the Bible that the earth actually orbits the sun and that the path of the sun across the sky is caused by the rotation of the earth. So you, again, simply reject the literal version based on things you know and accept from science, and re-interpret the Bible to fit your own notions.

Now, when someone takes this a step further and realizes that since a literal, recent six day creation is at odds with the reality of God's creation and therefore concludes that God must not have been speaking literally, you condemn them for such action. Even though it is no different than the steps you are willing to take based on your own understanding of the world.

 

There was not a word for "sphere." A word was used that does not mean "sphere" but instead "circle" or "round." You re-interpret this as "sphere" based solely on what else you know and not because the original word actually meant "sphere."

 

The BA Kid is right in one respect, namely that science is not always right. And any good scientist will admit that.

I think however that we sometimes add our own designs to the Bible, seeing it as a "scientific snake oil" that can tell us everything about everything. The Bible is primarily a theological work, designed to tell us about God and His plans for us.

I think it's wrong-headed to see things as "science versus the Bible" - believe only one or the other.

We don't consult a science book to learn the plan or salvation. Why do we consult the Bible in looking at the geology of earth?

 

I have a correction to be made...

But it may not help you...

Your premise is even incorrect in your statement about why the word for circle was used. The author could have used the word "duwr" which is listed in Strong's as meaning "ball" or "circle." Might that have been a more accurate term to use if God was trying to literally tell us the shape of the earth?

Do you think that perhaps something else besides the shape of the earth was the inteded since a term was chosen which reflects how the people at the time viewed the world and not the spherical shape we know of today?

Why then do you condemn those who recognize that since the literal interpretation is at odds with the reality from God's creation that perhaps something else is intended?

 

There are a lot of things about science that I believe, for example the Second Law of Thermodynamics which the evolutionists reject because it refutes evolution.

 

OldRegular, that canard about the second law of thermodynamics has been refuted decisively many times.

To begin with, life always accelerates the normal flow of entropy. Jesus equated life with disorder once Himself, when he spoke of how rust and MOTH both corrupt.

 

I think that goes: "moth and rust doth corrupt" (Matt. 6.19).

The reason that "moth and rust doth corrupt" is because of decay and death brought on by sin in the Garden via Adam and Eve. Rust and decay are not natural and not created by God; they are the consequences of sin and a corrupted world. So I would have to strongly disagree that Jesus was "equating life with disorder!"

 

The Second Law has never been refuted either decisively or indecisively. Also evolution doesn't begin with life it begins with nothing.

 

The Second Law has never been refuted either decisively or indecisively. Also evolution doesn't begin with life it begins with nothing.

The second law of thermodynamics neither supports nor refutes evolution. It is not applicable since the system is not "closed" (the sun is pumping tons of energy into our atmosphere daily).

 

You theistic evolutionists need to get your blinders off. You generally want to speak of evolution only in terms of the earth. However the atheistic doctrine of evolution includes the universe. As far as your remarks about the Second Law and Closed systems consider the following:

Harvard scientist John Ross, in a letter to Chemical and Engineering News [July 7, 1980], writes: "There are no known violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second Law is stated for isolated systems, but the second Law applies equally well to open systems. . . There is somehow associated with the field of far from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of Thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself."

Thermodymanicist Arnold Sommerfeld author of Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics [Academic Press, 1955] writes [page 155]: "The statement in integral form, namely that entropy in an isolated system cannot decrease, can be replaced by its corollary in differential form, which asserts that the quantity of entropy generated locally can not be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not, and irrespective of whether the process under consideration is irreversible or not."

 

And we still have not had a YEer tell us just what exactly it is that entropy is supposed to prevent in the evolution of life. The way you try and state it, it should not be possible to have any local entropy decreases. Life itself violates your version of entropy yet here we all sit in front of our keyboards typing away. The second law applies to both open and closed systems, however all it says is that the total entropy must increase. Read your second quote, the one from Sommerfield, closely and you will see that this is what he is saying.

My trusty, handy thermodynamics text states the second law in these three interchangeable ways.

"No apparatus can operate in such a way that its only effect is to convert heat absorbed by a system completely into work.

No process is possible which consists solely in the transfer of heat from one temperature level to a higher one.

It is impossible by a cyclic process to convert the heat absorbed by a system completely into work."

Now. please, explain to us which step in the evolution of man from his last common ancestor with the other apes is supposed to have violated these actaul statements of the second law.

And I know where you will head from here so one more quote from Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics Smith and Van Ness
4th Edition 1987.

"From a microscopic point of view we therefore associate an increase in entropy with an increase in randomness or a decrease in order at the
molecular level."

The disorder of thermodynamic entropy is in the physical arrangement of the molecules and has nothing to do with what you think of as order in the macro sense. As the analogy goes the last time you brought this up goes.

Now, does anyone want to tackle that thorny issue of telling us all specifically what process of evolution violates which specific statement of the second law and how?

I'd be willing to wager we continue to get hand waving and assertions but no answer. Most likely, you will go back to the order / disorder thing without ever reconciling that with what thermo says specfically is meant by disorder when talking about entropy nor telling us what it is supposed to prevent.

 

UTEOTW

Your thought experiment is not relevant to the question of the Second Law and evolution. With a little work it might be used to explain the presence of dew on a cool morning but nothing else.

 

Biological evolution does not address the universe at all. It is a way to explain the diversity and interrelationships of life on earth.

I suppose that it could apply on other worlds where similar life may have arisen, but trying to suggest that evolution is false based upon some premise that the entire universe is a closed system is fundamentally flawed.

The earth is not a closed system and we are talking geobiology only.