Re: Out-dated theory

Ken Down wrote:

[Ken asked: How can it be "not based on the evidence" when
every point is referenced? I replied:]
What a strange question. It can be "not based on the evidence"
if the referenced documents are inaccurate or irrelevant. The
fact that obscure journals are quoted could have the meaning
you say; or alternatively it could mean that Coffin has had to
resort to desperate measures to find documents supporting the
view he wants to espouse.

Then, as I point out in another post, the answer is to point out that while
the minor journal says X, the mainstream ones say not-X. That would indeed
be damning - though of course it would not preclude the possibility that the
minor journal might be right.

To give that answer (as *I* pointed out in the very same article
as you were replying to) would require Nick to go trawling through
the geological journals to find out exactly what they do say.
That would be a noble thing for him to do, but you can hardly
expect him to do it every time you post here telling us about
some creationist whose work you find convincing.

Pointing out that the references, on the face of it, are deeply
unimpressive at least gives some help in assessing how likely
Coffin's work is to be correct.

And... If the mainstraem references said the same thing as
the obscure and creationist ones, don't you think he'd have
used them?

Since creationists are responsible for, errrr, rather a lot less
than 50% of the geological literature, 5.5/11 seems to me like
plenty of grounds to "question the impartiality of the work".

Yes, it is grounds to pose the question you suggest and brings the
reliability of the work down to a question of the reliability of the
sources. That is a question I suspect that neither you nor I are in a
position to answer. However it has no bearing on the question of whether
Coffin's paper and his method was "scientific" - which, after all, is what
this argument is all about.

It's only about that because, despite my repeated attempts to
point out that Nick never claimed that Coffin's work was "not
science", you are foisting that claim on him and demanding
evidence for something he never said.

He did say that it didn't look like *good* science, and the
question of the reliability of his sources has plenty to do
with that. It is not good scientific practice to rely on
unreliable sources of information. (Scientists' fondness
for first-hand experimental evidence is a special case of
this.)

If anything your detailed analysis rather goes
to show that Coffin was being "scientific". Isn't falsifiability one of the
touchstones of that elusive quality?

Eh?

--
Gareth McCaughan
..sig under construc
.

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