Hi Burgy,
You wrote:
>In a recent class here at Iliff, a Native American was lecturing. He was
>both a Native American and a Ph-D professor of -- I think -- biochemistry.
>At one time in the lecture he wished to express his thoughts by telling an
>Indian folk story.
>
>He began with the words "Now I don't know if the things I am about to tell
>you really happened, but I do know that this story is true."
>
>Try to get your mind around that.
I can accept that. Now tell me how do I say that about "in the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth"? I can't say, I don't know if God created
the heavens and the earth but I am sure that the story is true. It simply
doesn't compute to me. If you can tell me how to make that one both real and
not real, then y'all might be able to convince this obstinate fellow.
You also wrote:
>Glenn, I see you have left YEC but you have not yet left the YEC mindset.
I would prefer to call it the scientific mindset. My job is to decide what
oil wells get drilled, what technology to use to lower the risk and the
validity of the geologic history which people generate in order to explain
why oil and gas are trapped in a particular place. This generation of a
geologic history is an implicit part of the exploration process. We use
well logs to come up with ideas of where river channels were 200 million
years ago, we figure out where the shoreline was at that time, we postulate
where the sands were deposited, where they were eroded, when the earth rose,
when the faulting occurred and thus when the trap formed. We then use
chemical data to estimate when the oil came through the region. If the oil
came by before the trap was there, it is unlikely that we will find oil. If
it came after the trap, there is a chance. We also look at the chemical
history of the rocks. If the rocks cemented up all the pore space before the
oil came through, then we won't have an oil field. Some histories are true
(or closer to the truth) and some are totally false, ignoring vast amounts
of data which falsifies them. My job is to figure out which ones fit in
what category. We don't want to drill a prospect whose history gives us
little chance for having oil or gas trapped there. Thus, my entire job is
to listen to 'concordistic' stories about the data at hand. I have to spot
the flaws.
I think my bosses would have every right to fire me if I told them that we
should drill prospect X even though the geologic history is false. It
wouldn't matter that I told the boss that the geologist came up with a
wonderful geologic story which made me gasp in awe and wonder at his/her
creativity, and that it even left tears in my eyes at the beauty of this
story. I couldn't tell them that it was a wonderful morality tale about the
conflict of great forces in the earth. I couldn't tell them that I don't
know if the history is true, but the story is. That simply won't cut it. We
are about to spend 20 million dollars. Yet, when it comes to spending our
souls (betting our souls) on a given theology of salvation, we think it is
appropriate to base that bet on standards which are less stringent than I
use to spend a mere $20 million. Frankly, my soul is worth more than what I
spend in the oil industry. I absolutely refuse to settle for a lesser
standard of truth. Yeah, that ain't a popular position, but it is the one
that makes sense to me, given the stakes on the poker table.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 02 2002 - 16:59:14 EDT