Just a bit of a tangent here:
@Josheb I agree with your point there, but the problem is that we (or in this context, the scientific community) don't know what we are saying.
Incorrect.
Many of the "
facts" of science change about every 10-150 years but not all of them. A (significant) portion persists despite repeated testing and the revolution of new discovery. Newtonian physics, for example, has never been disproven despite the enormously revolutionary discoveries (uncoveries
) of relativity and quantum mechanics. A huge, gigantic pile of supposed fact was disproven in an instant, but Newton's uncovery,* Newton's math, the facts of gravity in the limited domain of earth persists. There may be additions to these facts yet to come, but there is no evidenceanything new will change the existing facts.
And, sadly, this get mucked up by Christians all the time.
Look for example at the periodic table; the structure makes sense and is supported to this day, but when we first came up with it, we had no idea what it really implied, nor what makes it true.
Bad example. Logically fallacious argument, too. Just because the reason for something's existence is not understood does not mean the existence is incorrect.
It's the same way with all our constructions, our notions and words.
Incorrect.
We don't know what we are talking about.
You may not, but most of us do. I will gladly conduct an experiment with you. I'll stand atop a 30-foot ladder while you sit below me. I will drop a 30-pound dumbbell 100 times and we'll count the number of times the dumbbell "falls" on you. The evidence will prove the fact and do so uniformly, without exception.
The scientific community, and humans in general, have a bad habit of attributing substance to their best thoughts.
And if and when that happens most of us here are competent enough to point out the attributional error.
Gravity, for example, we think we understand, but we have thought that from back in Newton's day. We attribute substance to what is merely (so far) empirical.
Really, really, really bad example. Newtonian views of gravity have not changed one fraction of a fact. We have built upon Newton's uncoveries, not denied them. In point of fact, Newtonian physics is simply one small portion of an ever-expanding much larger concept called "
field theory."
We do not think we understand gravity in the Newtonian sense, we
know we understand it. What we don't know is what
else exists beyond his uncoveries.
Relevance: "Science" progresses in knowledge (and in mistakes),....
That statement contradicts everything you've posted. There is no "
progress" from anything that does not exist. Once knowledge is conceded as existing sufficiently to progress from it you've begged the question and defeated your own argument. You do know something.
This entire branch of the discussion is important for two reasons: 1) The Bible is not a science textbook. It is no more a book on the universe's cosmology than it is a book on physics, botany, biology, zoology, or chemistry. The second reason, and perhaps the most important reason, is that the universe is knowable. The reason creation is knowable, and it is knowable because God has made it knowable. Not only is the universe made knowable, but God has also made creatures capable of knowing the knowable. This is the foundation of all epistemology.
...the problem is that we (or in this context, the scientific community) don't know what we are saying.
You've defeated your own argument from its inception. If what you've just said is correct, then you cannot know what you've just said.
