>Glenn,
> Didn't Darwin himself utilize this ploy of appealing to
>the future for corroborating evidence for his theory, particularly
>in the area of the alleged "innumerable transitional forms"? If
>it was OK for Darwin to do this, why is it not OK for advocates
>of ID to do so?
>
>Dennis Durst
I caught lots of flack for that post. Let me try to clear things up. There is
a difference between looking to the future for negative evidence, and looking
to the future for positive evidence. If I say that a prediction is that the
future will continue to show NO examples of abiogenically produced life, when
can I say it is fulfilled? 10,282 A.D.? There is no way to know when it is
over. The question is, When has a sufficient lapse of time occurred?
One can say that the fossil record will always have gaps. The gaps look like,
fossil A - gap - fossil B
Everytime a new fossil form which fits in the gap is found the number of gaps
increases by 1! The situation now looks like:
Fossil A - gap - Fossil C - gap - Fossil B
Thus one can always and forever continue to
If I say the dating processes are wrong and the future will prove this, this
is an example of looking to the future to overturn evidence against a YEC
position. There is lots of evidence against the YEC interpretation of
geochronology. To say that the future will turn this around is
procrastination. This is different than a prediction that says If the universe
is young we should see:
no stars further away than 6000 years
short-lived isotopes with halflives <600 years which were present at creation
no helium on the sun since it hasn't had time to be generated
Then when we look at the stars and see that none are more distant than 6000
light years and we see the short-lived isotopes and fail to find helium in
appropriate quantities, then we can say that the universe is young. This
latter prediction is ok. The former is wrong.
A really good example of the danger of depending upon negative evidence is
what Hugh Ross has done in anthropology. He has often said that the Bible can
only tolerate mankind (spiritual art-producing mankind) back to 60,000 years.
Now, his prediction was that the future would still show no evidence of human
produced art. Then along comes the 75,000 year old Australian art work. He
has proven wrong.
Negative evidence can never prove a theory. ONly positive evidence does that.
If Hugh Ross, like me, had predicted human-like activity prior to 60,000
years, he too could claim confirmation of his view.
For ID to say that the future will continue to show gaps in abiogenesis is
resting your theory on negative evidence. It is dangerous and can never
confirm your theory.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm