Originally posted by RJHinds
This may be difficult to explain to someone who does not know anything about
Physics, so I hope you at least had High School Physics.
The problem in dating the age of the earth is complicated by the different
world views of the creationists and the evolutionists. The creationists
view the universe and the earth as being created fully formed and ready f atures of creation and can not be used
as valid estimators of age.
Do you understand this?
The creationist you mention does not have a hypothesis that is subject to falsification conditions. That means he should rightfully get ignored when it comes to scientific work aimed at establishing the age of the earth. Let me explain why this is so.
The creationist you mention basically holds that the earth was created only thousands of years ago but in a mature form that ostensibly looks much, much older that what it really is. Well, that certainly seems broadly possible. But please tell me exactly what testing conditions would serve as falsification conditions for this hypothesis. In other words, please outline for me what observations we could make in principle that would show that this hypothesis of yours is thereby disconfirmed. This is exactly where the problem comes in. Your hypothesis entails that the earth is only thousands of years old. In order to falsify this, the natural thing to do would of course be to submit evidence that suggests that, on the contrary, the earth is much, much older than only thousands of years. But, your hypothesis already provides that the earth should ostensibly appear and test as much, much older than it really is; so it appears your hypothesis is so plastic that it can stretch to accommodate any such observations and simply deny that they constitute falsification conditions.
Do you understand my point? Look at what you are doing in this post of yours. For example, you say that scientists estimate the earth's age as billions of years, based on various testing methods; then you object to their estimate on the basis that they have not considered the aforementioned creationist hypothesis that the earth was created recently but in a mature form that ostensibly tests as much older than what it really is. But, sorry, these scientists are not obligated to consider that. In fact, on the contrary, they are pretty much obligated to ignore it, since it has no working falsification conditions. You can always say, "Well, your tests suggest that the earth is that old because God created the earth in a mature form consistent with that observation; but, nevertheless, God created it only thousands of years ago." This is not a competing scientific hypothesis that anyone should take seriously. If a hypothesis has no disconfirmation conditions, it basically does not assert anything that scientists can take seriously. Them's the breaks.
Just because you can clutter up the scientific discussion of the earth's age with such considerations, it does not follow that scientists are obligated to take you seriously or that they are obligated to retract their previous work. If you bring a supposedly competing hypothesis to the table, you are responsible for making sure it satisfies very basic criteria, like having disconfirmation conditions. Failing that, you get ignored, and justifiably so.
Such Foolishness
15 Dec '11 16:37
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