Science In The Bible

[naomi24]

A day or two back a contributor here said….

“It's [the Bible's] contents are scientifically sound on matters that human researchers discovered only at a later date.”

…. but he declined to elaborate.

I know the bible fairly well, but I can’t think what he might be referring to. Does anyone have any idea?

Or perhaps he would like to explain?

[Khandro]

jomifl; I think you prove my point that it was false observation.
naomi please note.

[naomi24]

Khandro, you're playing with words again - but that doesn't explain why you want me to keep out of whatever it is you want me to keep out of - and I would like an explanation please. Quite extraordinary!

[vetuste_ennemi]

Haven't followed all this - been working - so don't know if these have been mentioned by Feelgood etc.
"He hangeth the earth upon nothing" = gravity.
"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." = entropy increase.
The vessel had a rim, Jim, and the false pi calculation was taken from the interior diameter (so the apologists tel us).

1

[jomifl]

Khandro, Au contraire, I have just demonstrated that if you base an argument upon false assumptions as you do time and again then you will lose your argument. You didn't bother to check whether your assumption was correct, you just blustered in the hope that you would win the argument with bullsh1t. As it happens winning the argument has never altered the facts ( a fact being something that is demonstrably true to all practical purposes (the earth cannot be shown to be flat on any scale)).

[Khandro]

jomifl; I said to jim "once upon a time the Earth was considered to be flat (a 'fact' at that time); - a reasonable assumption, the known world being much smaller, it worked well, and still does on short distances, whenever we lay out a map on a table top and plan a route, it works but it isn't true."
What is wrong with that? What are you trying to prove, do you just want to be argumentative? because along with naomi you are beginning to look rather silly.

[naomi24]

Khandro, nice try, but it doesn't work. ;o)

[jomifl]

Khandro, are you deliberately missing the point? which was that you based your argument that people thought the earth was flat because they had no way of detecting it's curvature. I just pointed out that the curvature of the earth was evident to anyone who had eyes and lived near the sea or a large lake. I also pointed out that your argument was based upon a flawed assumption which you cannot refute. Well you can try but I wouldn't advise that you do. Did you find the link useful?

[Khandro]

jomifl; //your argument that people thought the earth was flat because they had no way of detecting it's curvature.// Nowhere did I say that -show me. I said to the people of antiquity, the Earth being flat was a "reasonable assumption". Do you disagree?

[Hypognosis]

No doubt we've all heard it said that sailors used to hug the coasts and feared to sail out of sight of land, for fear of losing their bearings in fog and not finding the correct bearing to find it again.

So there is no need to invoke observers on shore, struggling to see 'tiny boats' (@Khandro) shrink from perspective effect before they could be seen to dip below the horizon. The shared experience of sailors was that the land dipped below the horizon, if you sailed too far away from it.

However, if the people in power (king, pope etc.) look out from their ivory towers, see that the world is 'self-evidently' flat and issue proclamations and decrees to this effect then those with real-life experience to the contrary just have to button their lip.

"Common knowledge" becomes that which is held by the majority - the land-lubbers, not the sailors. It's common knowledge because it is spread by word of mouth among those who will never head to see in their entire lives.

Still, it's a good enough 'working theory' to allow you to get on with your (land-based) daily life without further thought. Useless for repeatedly navigating to that city far away with the expensive spices but, hey, you can't win 'em all.

[Hypognosis]

@jim360

//Our scientific understanding changes, evolves, and improves. That change to fit the available data is its great strength. //

Experimental Data doesn't change with the passage of time either. Before a 'paradigm shift' can happen, the new hypothesis has to both fit with and re-explain (in a better way) all the old experimental results.

For example Darwinism explained how animal form and function go together better than Lamarckianism. Competing ideas like Punctuated Equilibrium have been formulated in recent decades but it is a lightly modified version of Darwinism and has yet to gain wide acceptance (at least TV progs have yet to bring it into wider public awareness). The fossil record keeps growing by the year, so the competing theories will be either be reinforced or eroded by the addition of fresh datasets.

Science becomes harder to overturn, the more data it accumulates. It has a habit of sprouting new branches and represents the accumulated lifetime's work of tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people. I studied one subject to degree level and feel like I only know about one twig's worth.

Only a crank would think they have a chance of toppling the whole thing, single-handed.

[jomifl]

/In antiquity, boats were minuscule compared with today's ocean liners and I think it would have been fair to assume that it had become too small to see, rather than concluding that it's disappearance denoted a round earth. /
The above assumption is not fair, as it is based on either your lack of experience of matters concerning the distance of the horizon and ancient naval architecture or an inability to observe what to some was obvious. Eratosthenes calculated the diametre of the Earth around 200 BC but as this conflicted with religious dogma which held that the earth was the centre of the universe it was quietly ignored by the dogmatists. You based your argument on a false assumption about what people could observe because you did not know what size of ships existed( a greek trireme was about 37 metres long and its deck was 2.15 metres above sea level, which mean that a person standing at the tidemark would not be able to see the hull of a trireme about six miles away) and how much of them could be seen above the horizon and you got it wrong.

[solvitquick]

Dear Khandro,
First let me apologise if I appear to have been lecturing, at least in your eyes. I claim no superiority over any ABer although I sometimes believe that, I am basically right and try to explain why.
In my earlier contributions I made it clear that science embodies self criticism applied to all of its current hypotheses, theories and facts. In other words any can be overthrown or improved by superior evidence. This is the strength of science and technology (applied science) - a pity that the religionists lack that quality.
But to make progress we have to accept that certain tenets have been proven right and work every time i.e.they have become self-evidently true. Unless we accept "facts" we may as well throw away all of our learning and return to our unpleasant cave-dwelling without fire or the wheel.
Why you find these views arguable I do not know.
I see you have inspired a flat-earth argument now! Thanks but this is not the place for re-opening a centuries-old open and shut case.
Of course you will nit-pick the above and anything else. Don't you realise that you are destroying many interesting arguments? Here I am thinking about the sub-debate between Hypognosis and Naomi re the light and the switch. I was interested in that but got deviated from it and possible contribution because I am duty-bound to reply to specific questions put by you and your ilk.
SIQ.

[Zacs-Master]

...In my earlier contributions I made it clear that science embodies self criticism applied to all of its current hypotheses, theories and facts. In other words any can be overthrown or improved by superior evidence.....
Eh?

[naomi24]

V-E, reading that, one could be forgiven for thinking it was taken from the Koran. Nothing specific has been mentioned by anyone, least of all the person who made the original claim.

[Khandro]

solvitquick; //Unless we accept "facts" we may as well throw away all of our learning and return to our unpleasant cave-dwelling without fire or the wheel.//
Of course we accept facts; all I have said is that the facts we accept today are not necessarily the facts which will be acceptable tomorrow.

[mibn2cweus]

//"He hangeth the earth upon nothing"//

Then mutual gravitational attraction as described by Newtonian physics is obviously another one of those tricks the devil uses to deceive us into thinking perhaps the Earth isn't hanging at all but is actually whizzing 'round the Sun at roughly 30km/s. :o/

[naomi24]

Mibs, looks familiar. ;o)

Khandro, that is not all you said.

//Most scientific 'facts' are only guesses in that they are the best understanding at the time, something else might, and often does, come along and provide a better explanation.//

See the word ‘guesses’ in there? That is what people are disputing. Whilst it’s true that “something else might, and often does, come along and provide a better explanation”, science builds upon the available evidence. If there is no evidence, it doesn’t ‘guess’.

[Khandro]

'Guess' (Oxford Dictionary) - to say "I think it likely", wise words!

[naomi24]

Khandro, not so wise. Guesses amount to speculation - and 'most scientific facts' aren’t only guesses as you claim – fact. Playing with words doesn't change that.

[Khandro]

give it up naomi, you're now going from silly to very silly.