Errors in Science!

Sky,

Don't call Creationists liars without looking in your own backyard.

No one would deny that there are many in the scientific field who are spiteful of and have aganedas against Christianity. These people would likely consider any young earth position idiotic before even hearing it.

But that does not change the fact that many "creation scientists" are not being fully honest when it comes to reporting; trying (albeit goodheartedly so) to make the YEC stance look stronger.

 

I did a little research on Grote Reber.

Apparently, he graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology with a radio engineering degree and was a ham radio operator who leaped into the scientific scene when he created the first radio telescope and the first radio maps of the sky.

While he was an engineer and not a professional scientist, he published many papers that were published in technical journals and was not shy to delve into controversial issues including papers and lectures on his position that "The Big Bang is Bunk".

Like most scientists of that time, the Big Bang was seen too much as looking like Creationism. Reber felt his data supported a view of the universe that was static with no beginning or end. Einstien's theory of general relativity threw those theories out the door. Since Reber was alive and educated well after general relativity, I'm not sure why he still held those positions.

Wikipedia : Physical Cosmology

 

G.D.,

I don't necessarily rely on Wickipedia, and don't recomment that others do so.

Reber was an engineer, and he was not a professional scientist, however, professional scientists still rely on his work. He inveted the first radio-telescope.


Regarding Eienstein, I believe your results are "backwards." Supporters of Big Bang claimed that Eienstein's theories proved an open system. Reber actually used Eienstein's theories on light to prove that it is a closed system.

 

What light movement in space would that be?

Einstein's relativity doesn't state that the universe is an open system, simply that it can expand and contract.

I would be interested (and so would the entire scientific community) if Reber showed this to be false.

 

Just and fyi that I didn't rely on Wikipedia. I read 5-6 different articles from astronomy and radio teloscopy sources on his life and works. I also skimmed through two of his papers commonly cited by Creationists.

And if you have a problem with the information in Wikipedia, I encourage you to improve it with the "edit this page" feature found on each page. If you know of any pages in Wikipedia that have misinformation, please let me know and I will edit them right away.

 

Actually,

The "edit this page," feature is what really concerns me. Anyone can change the information and present it as fact.

I currently work in higher education, and we're often discussing the fact that more and more students are relying on the Internet for information, and coming up with totally inaccurate information.

Example. I happen to know the DSM-IV used as a standard for diagnosising mental illness. I had copies of an older and the newest edition on my desk. A friend knew this, and their son was writing a paper on a certain mental illness. They wanted me to glance over the paper. To my horror, they reported the exact opposite of what the DSM states, citing the DSM. I asked them to show me where they got their information. It was a website, a totally bogus website that claimed to be quoting the DSM-IV. I sent them to a real library to look it up.

They sent me a thank you note.

 

Put some bad information on a page in wikipedia and see how long it stays there.

Yes there is bad information on the internet. There is also bad information in books, print media and "experts". There is also good information from all those different sources.

 

Gold Dragon,

Absolutely no reputable reference source allows invisible strangers to edit it at will.

I will go a step further and point out that I happen to know several people (I work with them in fact) who write for reputable encylopedia's and reference sources.

These people were already respected in their fields of study, they were contacted by the publishers and asked to assist in writing the material. They then applied for the right to do so, after having been asked to do so. They were read, edited, reviewed, and compared against other sources.

Don't trust a web site that says, "edit" to total strangers.

 

As I said before, find me a page on Wikipedia that has bad information that I shouldn't trust and I will fix it immediately. I'm not saying that such pages don't exist because they most definitely do.

 

Gold Dragon -

If you know that at any point or time anyone can edit that site, without any clue to who they are or what their private agenda is, and you know that some of their site "most definately" has bad information, how can you possibly rely upon it as a reference source? Do you have a list that tells which pages are or are not accurate? Which ones contain the whole story? Which ones don't?

 

Regarding Josephus -

In around the 17th Century a writer/critic said that since Josephus was Jewish, he would not have referred to Christ as "the Christ," and based on that contention, declared the section of the writing to be false. There was absolutely no physical evidence that it was not part of the original writing. Just a critic's opinion that, "He would never have said that!"

Since it was very obvious that Josephus was a respected Jewish Historian, the critic didn't dare toss out all of the man's writing as fake, so he said, "Some Christian added that in there after Josepheus wrote it."

Again - there was absolutely no physical evidence to support that claim.

In 1995 a discovery was made that showed another description of Christ that was very similiar to the phrasing used in the Tesimonium Flavianum. Researchers were fascinated by this and dove into it. The research indicated that they were not copies of one another. Each was an independent document. The Emmaus Narrative of Luke is viewed as an eye wittness interview, and the Josepheus is as well. Meaning, Josepheus himself was not calling Christ, "the Christ," he was reporting what wittnesses told him.

So, there actually is fairly strong physical evidence that Jospheus wrote the Testamonium, and a person's opinion that he didn't "because a Jew wouldn't do that."

 

At any point in time, every reference book, scientific journal and encyclopedia I cite has errors in it. How could I possibly trust anything from them?

The fallacy is the belief that any source is absolutely trustworthy or "agenda free".

 

Gold Dragon,

Text Books and Reference books are reviewed by entire editorial teams, only respected sources are consulted to begin with, and then they are reviewed by teams of professionals before going to press.

That is a FAR cry from, "Don't like this page, click this link and edit it."

Let me ask you, would you rather your Doctor find his diagnositic and surgical skills from a Medical texbook or from a site like Wickidpedia?

 

Like I said, if the quality of the work in Wikipedia is so poor because it doesn't use a traditional review process, please cite one page where it needs work and I will get to work on it.

I would never recommend anyone to rely on a single source for their information, no matter how high the quality of that source is. If they are an "expert" in their field, they definitely should not use a single source for their information, not to mention a general encyclopedia intended for a specific purpose (not Medical training). I'm not sure how someone who relies on one source could even be appropriately be considered an expert.

 

I will get to work on it.

Do you work for the site?

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1456119,00.html

A 12-year-old caught the errors!

 

Yes, it is possible that the Emmaus Narrative found in Luke 24:13-35 is related to what appears to be the edits in Josephus' works.

 

An online Blog Called the Wiki Experiment states that the blog writer went in and deliberately slipped errors into the site, the kind that might come about by accident, and waited to see if they were corrected. Some were out there for over 5 days before the writer corrected them himself.

 

I guess you could say so. I've extensively edited the Baptist page as well as another poster on this board, rlvaughn. I have also made many minor edits to various other pages.

 

Not that I am saying you aren't, but. ..

What authority makes you or rlvaughn an expert on Baptist Beliefs? The members of this board don't agree on a lot of things.

I'd like to know which form of Baptist you are, and what you believe before you create pages for the world stating what a Baptist is.