Re: Krause NY Times Op-ed Gross Exaggeration?


Giant Sloth wrote:
Creationists are highly critical of the Lawrence M Krause op-ed in the
August 15 NY Times, in particular the following statement:

****
"To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a
denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry,
astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and
automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable
laws."
****
I can see that in order to believe YECism you have throw out much of
biology, geology, astronomy, nuclear physics. But ALL the results of
these disciplines? Airplanes and automobiles must work by divine
magic? Did Krause get carried away?


Not really. One of the most importants thing about science is
self-consistency. Not only are all the sciences interrelated
at a fundamental level, but so is the technology used to study
them. For example, it takes a lot of fundamental E&M science
and quantum mechanics for an MRI machine to work, and
then I can use it to study important things about the
body. Now if the E&M and QM are wrong, then I have no
reason to trust what it tells me about the body. If special relativity
is wrong, then anything a PET scan tells me about the brain is
supect. The list goes on.

Yet another example, example, you can get a pretty decent
GPS unit for under $100. Stop and think about ALL the
science that has to be right to a gnat's ass for that thing to
work: gravity, E&M, special and general relativity, etc, etc.
If you throw out even one piece of it, then it's just "magic".

This simple but important concept is missed
by anti-science nuts of all stripes (be
they YEC's, antirelativists, Velikovskians, or what have
you).

It's very hard to find any "science" that doesn't owe
something to the fundamental physics you would have
to abandon to get a 6000 year old universe work, and
whatever is left can be just as well written of to dumb luck.
So Krause may be engaging in a *slight* hyperbole, but
he's really not out of line.

There's actually a subtle irony here. These are the
people that adamantly believe that life could not
have arisen from "random chance", and yet by
and large, they believe that complex things like
GPS systems and MRI machines were more or
less invented by trial and error.

-jc





http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/science/sciencespecial2/15essa.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=science&adxnnlx=1155745608-N5S/ZouHffgOx7407cwO+g

GS

.

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