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- Nov 21, 2009
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THE FLOOD AND SANTA CLAUS
Want me to prove to you that Santa is real? Just give me enough arbitrary assumptions, i.e. assumptions made only for the purpose of answering objections to your hypothesis, and it is a piece of cake. For example, you might say that nobody sees his workshop at the North pole. That is because it is invisible. Not enough time to deliver all those toys in one night? Make him and the reindeer move so fast that Relativity kicks in and time slows down. You get the idea.
This same approach is applied by Creation scientists (an oxymoron) in trying to reconcile the Flood tale to scientific knowledge. Lets look at your posted extract.
ARBITRARY ASSUMPTION (AA) People lived 900 years.
There is no evidence to support this claim. We do know that certain mid-Eastern cultures liked to claim extraordinary long lives for past heros and Kings. I think that the Sumerians claimed their earliest kings lived 30,000 years. All the archeological evidence indicates that early humans lived nasty, difficult, and 'short' lives.
But this one assumption is not enough. More are needed
AA Women would be fertile early so as to produce an extraordinary number of children.
Even the Bible does not support this. How many children did Noah have? But in order to make this fantasy work, the Creation scientist (CS) has to have women age normally until puberty and then somehow have aging suspended. And, the CS has to assume that these large numbers of children are somehow never mentioned in the Bible.
AA There was a very large human population prior to 4000 bce.
The CS has to assume that these extra people are rather neat since the archeological ruins suggests only modest population growth and sparse world population at this time
AA There was a large drop in the population that left no archeological record
The absolute arbitrariness of this assumption is obvious
The rest of the CS claims rely similarly on AA in excess to create their imaginary geological history.
What is lacking is any basis for these AA in actual scientific observations.
Want me to prove to you that Santa is real? Just give me enough arbitrary assumptions, i.e. assumptions made only for the purpose of answering objections to your hypothesis, and it is a piece of cake. For example, you might say that nobody sees his workshop at the North pole. That is because it is invisible. Not enough time to deliver all those toys in one night? Make him and the reindeer move so fast that Relativity kicks in and time slows down. You get the idea.
This same approach is applied by Creation scientists (an oxymoron) in trying to reconcile the Flood tale to scientific knowledge. Lets look at your posted extract.
glorydaz said:More evidence for a global flood is the fact that the entire human and animal population perished. In the 1500-2500 years (depending on which time scale you use) between Adam and Noah, the human population would have exploded. With people living to be 900 years old, the population would have multiplied quickly. Using a conservative formula, it is reasonable to place that world population before the Flood at five to nine BILLION! For all these people to even fit on the earth, they had to have been spread out over the entire planet. A global flood would have been necessary to kill them all.
ARBITRARY ASSUMPTION (AA) People lived 900 years.
There is no evidence to support this claim. We do know that certain mid-Eastern cultures liked to claim extraordinary long lives for past heros and Kings. I think that the Sumerians claimed their earliest kings lived 30,000 years. All the archeological evidence indicates that early humans lived nasty, difficult, and 'short' lives.
But this one assumption is not enough. More are needed
AA Women would be fertile early so as to produce an extraordinary number of children.
Even the Bible does not support this. How many children did Noah have? But in order to make this fantasy work, the Creation scientist (CS) has to have women age normally until puberty and then somehow have aging suspended. And, the CS has to assume that these large numbers of children are somehow never mentioned in the Bible.
AA There was a very large human population prior to 4000 bce.
The CS has to assume that these extra people are rather neat since the archeological ruins suggests only modest population growth and sparse world population at this time
AA There was a large drop in the population that left no archeological record
The absolute arbitrariness of this assumption is obvious
The rest of the CS claims rely similarly on AA in excess to create their imaginary geological history.
What is lacking is any basis for these AA in actual scientific observations.