Which is NOT remotely the same as you saying that gravity or light changed by 100s of 1,000s of times just a few 1,000 years ago. They are (given their publication, though "letters" are just that) a cogent theory for some issue related to the very very very very early universe. Further I'm guessing you have not even seen these papers but got this list from some creationist site, and are taking that sites word for their significance, right? Why don't you contact the authors and ask them directly if one assumes their theory is correct does that imply that the universe might only be 6,000 years old.

For any one specific past conversation sure, but the point is that the event can be reproduced at will, and recorded and verified by as many observers as we want. As I went over before, for an event that we are all very familiar with and upon which no great impact rests (e.g. I just mention hey I talked to joe yesterday) of course we just take the persons word, their testimony. But if it is a very unusual act (like conversing with god) or upon which some serious matter rests (like using this as an alibi) then much more evidence will be needed. For the question of "can you really have conversations with people", we can reproduce this event with as much observation and recording etc as we like on demand. For god you can not, all you can do is testify that you can do so, but you can not demonstrate this ability to anyone.

Your insistence on stereotyping is rather annoying. I responded only to what you posted.
Correct as we have no evidence beyond testimony that the supernatural exists at all while we have massive evidence of the natural.

Which leaves my question above unanswered. Do you accept (find trustworthy) the testimony of billions of people that other Gods exist?

Can be. But is not. Nor is it ever even requested to.

If I tell you that I had a conversation with a friend of mine, do you really believe that I did because its possible that I could pay for your plane ticket, bring you over here, and re-enact this conversation?

No of course not.

But if reproducibility is that huge of an issue, then we have a severe problem with historical events. They cannot be "reproduced".

Should we then disbelieve all historical events because they cannot be reproduced? Or do we realize that we shouldn't use science to try and analyze history?



Its clear that you have a different standard. For events you claim are "unusual", testimony, no matter how trustworthy is insufficient. For events you do not feel are "unusual", testimony is sufficient.

How do you differentiate between the two types of events?



But "Can you have conversations with people" is not the question I'm asking. I'm dealing with beliefs on whether or not certain conversations have occurred, or if they have not.



Its clear however, that for specific claims of conversations, this "potential" ability bears no weight for you. You don't ask for reproduction of this conversation. You never take advantage of this possible ability for reproduction. You believe based on testimony alone. Its only when you want to disbelieve something that you bring up this "demonstration" capability.

It sounds a lot more like justification after the fact, and nothing more than that.



It isn't a stereotype if its true.



I disagree actually.

We have two types of evidence for natural phenomenon. Our direct observations and our indirect ones. The skeptic discounts our direct observations with regards to miracles, saying that our senses can be deceived, our senses can mislead us, we can hallucinate, we can wrongly extrapolate from the senses and so on and so forth.

Well, let's be consistent. If our senses cannot be trusted then the cannot be trusted. With regards to the miraculous or the "normal".

As for indirect observations what are indirect observations but testimony? It is both testimony when the scientist says "I have made this measurement and the result is X" and if someone else says "I have observed Christ walking on water and being raised from the dead". Moreover, by any probabilistic reasoning, the scientific measurement is just as "improbable" as the miraculous one.

If testimony cannot be trusted, it cannot be trusted.



If you understood what I said, you would realize that your question has no answer.

I can answer whether or not I trust specific testimonies from specific individuals. Not whether I trust testimony from generic, unknown, individuals.

jg,

Either these "universal constants" are sacrosanct or they are not.

Making them "sacrosanct" (as applied to creationist scientists) but not sacrosanct for big bangers is simply not consistent.

Making them sacrosanct for ten billion years but not for the other few billion seems rather arbitrary, ad hoc, and convenient.
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Now I apply the same rules to both. I think they BOTH have no solid epistemic base (from pure science anyway). How can you say what the rest of the picture is like when you are only observing one three hundred thousandth of the picture?

There are tings that science CAN do. And there are things that science CAN'T do. Pre-human history is simply one thing that I categorise as something sience CAN'T do - simply because it lacks a solid epistemic basis.

IMHO creationist cosmologies are as much balony (from a pure science point of view) as big bang consmologies. I put them in the speculation category. According to science alone, they could possibly be right as could big bang scenarios. But there are also infinite numbers of other scenarios that could be equally valid.

Just think about it. If you are looking at one three hundred thousandth of a picture and it is a unform hue and intensity (e.g. red), is it then valid to say confidently that the whole picture is that same hue and intensity?

Of course not. It's a possibilty of course, but there are also an infinite number of other possibilities.
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Oh, one last question.
Although you are not sure, you seem to think time had a beginning.
What caused the beginning.

Explicitly no, but implicitly yes. Not to reproduce that specific event, but we are talking about an type of event that we all have pretty much every day. So if there is some great importance to the one past conversation then we will need more evidence, but if it is just the ordinary "hey I talked to X yesterday" then we don't question that as we are all familiar with conversations with other humans.

For history it is a problem and just someone's testimony about an event often is not sufficient. But (as we'll get to in a sec, it isn't history we are talking about).

It might vary depending on the questioner of course. Someone who does not know what a telephone is might indeed have a hard time with testimony that you talked to someone on the phone. But "usual" is exactly the usual (yes pun intended) definition of usual. Everyone knows about it, its common place, its easily demonstrated on demand.

That is much more difficult, so why go that route? You are not only claiming you have had conversations in the past are you? Are you not claiming this is a reoccurring event?

No, its only when the claim is very unusual, not easily demonstrated, etc. There is no "want to disbelieve" here.

Actually yes it would be, but then it would be a stereotype that fit. But here I have not done any of the things you keep accusing me of, its all from other people you have had past experiences with that you now assign to any skeptic that comes along. Its exactly the behavior you claim to dislike when skeptics do it to believers, so isn't it rather hypocritical for you to be engaging in it?

I AM consistent. I have said many times I do not accept testimony of alien abductions, Bigfoot, sea monsters, loch ness monsters, fairies, goblins, spirits, levitation, telekinesis, or....., or gods.

Totally false. If the scientific measurement is a one time thing that no one else saw that can not be reproduced, it will NOT be accepted. (e.g. cold fusion). What the scientists is really reporting is that "I have made measurement X, and so can any other scientist". It is that second part that is key.

and it can't be.

So you are saying that of all the people that believe in the Muslim God, that you are unsure if ANY of those billion or so would be trustworthy.

Indeed, which is why I am not doing this. First you did not answer my question about where you got this list, or if you have seen any of these papers or letters. I'm guessing you have not, nor would understand them if you had (likely me neither). I would guess based on the titles that they are about the very early universe where the physics we know now was not in play, some encompassing physics describes that early state of the universe and eventually is reduced to what we know today. So I would be very surprised if any of them are talking about billions of years.

Further, assuming the are real papers in the journals cited, then they would be proposing a coherent theory around their assertions, which is not what you are doing. You do not have the expertise (me neither) to do so, so you are just asserting something completely silly and wanting people to take you seriously.

Because it is a silly analogy. Lets take a specific clear case. Supernova 1987a . What about that analysis, that shows it to have occurred about 168,000 years ago is faulty?

It seems quite clear you do so only due to your view that the Bible says the universe is only 6,000 years old. After all as i have said before (but you continue to ignore) if this was a valid scientific view and not based on your biblical fundamentalism, then it would be asserted by other than those who share your religions views.

No one knows if it had a cause or if so what that was. There are theories of colliding branes in a higher level universe, but such is just speculation.

Jg,



I don't see how the source is relevant. It is the correctness of the list that is the issue. I don't doubt my source.
I could (of course) go to an appropriate university library, and confirm that they exist, but since I have confidence in the source, it would be a waste of time IMHO.
You are the one who doubts, so you check it out - you will end up with egg on your face after your trouble anyway!
It is clear that the short descriptions given withh the papers are "on the money" since they corellate with the titles.



Do you want me to READ this stuff? Sorry, I'm not into fiction these days.
(remember I have devised rules about what is solid science and what sort of extrapolations constitute "conjecture").



You seem to be making excuses for them - why they are "allowed" to regard "universal constants" as non universal, non-constants. How convenient.



Rememer my rules - no such thing as "coherent theory" at 30M% extrapolations - only conjecture.



Sorry, I haven't made them my priests yet, so I don't just swallow whatever they pontificate.
Since they base their conjecture on 30M% extrapolations, they have no hope of "winning me" round either.





I think the history of science confirms my caution.
eg.
1) the earth in our vicinty looks flat, especially when you view the ocean. Some extrapolated the flatness to the extent that they claimed the whole earth was flat.
2) The amazing thing about the Ptolemaic cosmology is that it gave correct answers. The positon of the sun, planets and stars were accurately predicted when appropriate epicycles were used.
That shows that wrong ideas can give correct results.
3) Newtonian physics seems to explain well things on earth and orbits in our solar system. People thought it could be extrapolated anywhere, e.g to ten or fifty times the speed of light.
Indeed, if you extrapolate the speed of the earth in it's orbit (34 klms/sec) to the extent of 30M%, you come to about 30 times c (speed of light).
At 30m%, you would be long past getting correct answers!!!!
On the other hand it worked for large objects (planets and sun) and small (apples and smaller). They assumed it would work however small they extrapolated. Alas it didn't as quantum effects took over.
4) Much closer to our day, in the 1980's, pioneer spacecraft speed towards Uranus and Neptune.
The conscensus of scientific opinion was that gravitational fields in planets existed because of a dynamo effect. They extrapolated what they saw on earth using their theory to predict the size of the gravitional field of Uranus and Nepotune.
Tere predictions were unsuccessful, being out by orders of magnitude.
About the same time they made their predictions, a young earth creationist (Russ humphreys) made predictions based on his understanding of why planets have magnetic fields. His were successful, being "right on the money". Thwy were 1000 times more accurate than mainstream predictions.
5)
More about pioneer spacecraft. Of course scientists have assumed that all the parameters that they call "universal constants" work the same everywhere. They feel that their effect and the way they work could be extrapolated 30M% outside our solar system, or even more.
But pioneer spacecraft seem to be saying otherwise as they ventured way past Pluto. Their course is not as it should by predictions based on those extrapolations. They have an anomolous negative accelaration. We would call it a decelleration (or sunwards accellarion).
Scientists have been furiously looking for answers. Apparently about one paper per week (on average) has been published for the last ten years offering various theories. The fact that papers offering new theories are still coming at that regularity shows that none have captured the "conscensus of scientific opinion".
(By the way, Russ Humphreys - whose predictions of gravitational strengths were right on - has a cosmolgy which expains the effect).

Note that in every case, it was OBSERVATION that caused us to realise that extreme extrapolations were not working in each case. The past before human history is not open to OBSERVATION - only to another extrapolation -

and two wrongs won't make a right.

I'm run out of time, so I will get back to you Jg.

Cheers
Ralph.

Yea its clear given the creationist site you got them from that the papers very likely do not mean what you claim they mean.

Yes of course why become informed when your rules allow you to rationalize that you world view makes sense.

I'm not making excuses I just want to know what the papers actually say and mean, you are clearly not interested in such things.

Fine, make up a figure of 30m% assign it to anything you don't like.



And they did not have actual data about the earth. We have lots of data about the speed of light. Do you content that prior to human history the earth might really have been flat?
[Sure, but again our knowledge is much more extensive and well founded. There is certainly vast things we don't know, things are are wrong about, but that does not mean we are wrong about everything, nor just those things you want us to be wrong about
We are not extrapolating this way (except in your view of course).
You'll have to show the paper to convince me of that, but it might be the case, so what? Did he use creation assumptions to compute it? Again what makes science work is not that once you get a PhD everything you say is correct. Also the acceleration pioneer 10/11 is being subjected to that is a surprise is about 1 billionth of a g. Not exactly a big factor.

If you like, but I don't see much point. Your assertions have no scientific basis so I see no reason to argue about it. You mind is clearly made up so as to rationalize your religious views.

Well then just check it out!



But why are they allowed to have create "changed physics", yet you get upset when creationists do the same.
If God created something out of nothing as Christians believe, then obviously some physics changed somewhere.
How come naturalistic explanatinos need changed physics? Isn't their conclusions driven by extrapolation of existing physics.
Apparently not.




I gave you the example of gravity which we've been testing for less than 500 yrs. 500/15 billion gives 30M%. That's not made up, it's calculated. Other physical quantities are extrapolated even more since we've been testing them for less time.




How is "looking at the earth" not "actual data".



But you have no way of knowing how wrong it is. In 50 years, the picture from science could be totally different. That is what I like about the word of God - it doesn't change every 50 yrs.



To be exacting, not exactly the same way. But the point remains that if these "universal constants" change in the past due to some unknown effect, we would never know from science since we don't have a time machine with all the necessary test equipment on board.
Curiously (as shown above) some big bangers feel that the best way to fix up it's problems is to have "universal constants" changing before a certain point. Other prefer to fix it by introducing exotic physic such as inflation.
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I don't have the paper right on me now, so I'll see if I can get it for a future post. He used creationist assumptions. He believes planetrary magnetic fields were at their maximum 6000 yrs ago at the point of creation, and that they have been decaying since. Measurements of earth's magnetic field indicate that it is actually doing that.



With new attempts to explain it coming out once a week, they seem to think it's important.

What if my "religious views" happen to be right. Of course you've already disqualified that "a priori" haven't you. (hope it's not because of a "science" based on 30M% projections)

When your religious views become the scientific consensus, then I'll embrace them as strongly as I embrace any other scientific consensus. Until then, nothing.