“So your only criteria for rejecting a scientific idea (eg: gravity, which is only a scientific theory to explain why we don’t fall of the world) is whether it conflicts with your old book?”

If you change that statement to:

So your only criteria for rejecting an interpretation of data (eg: gravity, which is only a scientific theory to explain why we don’t fall of the world) is whether it conflicts with your old book?

Then I’d say “Yes. Now you’re starting to get it. My only criteria for accepting or rejecting an interpretation of data is whether or not it agrees/conflicts with my “old book”.

YUP.

And as for the ‘hour hand’ idea, I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Are you saying that “Gravity is true because it’s easily observable but Evolution is TRUE as well, though it’s NOT easily observable and instead must be deduced from a system of measure?”

I don’t really like the clock ananlogy because I’m having trouble seeing how Gravity is the ’short hand’ and Evolution is the ‘long hand’. I’m kinda getting confused.

“When I see a ball falling off a table towards the ground, I can say “Hey. That attraction of the ball to the floor is called ‘gravity’”.”

As I say, only because a scientist has given it that label and put forward a theory which I’m sure neither of us fully understand.

I would totally disagree with your conclusion.

Gravity is like the second hand of a clock. You can sit and watch the clock and the movement of the second hand is easily observable.

Evolution is like the hour hand. If you stare at the hour hand, you will not see any visible movement. The only reason you know it’s moving is because you have a system to meaure it by - if you come back in an hour you will see it has moved on one hour.

We have ways of markiong the age of fossils, which then show a distinct patern of evolution.

Like this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5363328.stm

Forgive my presumption, but I’ll anticipate where you’re heading with this…

Gravity isn’t a religious system that establishes itself against scripture with competing ideas regarding the origin, nature and purpose of the universe.

Gravity doesn’t challenge anything in a straightforward reading of the Bible. It’s simply the name given to a constantly observable happening. (And if one would say “AHA! GOT YOU! Evolution is constantly happening all around you!” I would respond, “Well, adaptation and micro-evolution is constantly happening all around me. That IS true, but I’ve never contested that. I DO contest macro-evoluton; the suggestion that adaptation and micro-evolution lead to increasingly complex organisms of different species or genus. I DO NOT see that constantly happening all around me.”)

Gravity isn’t a philosophical and theological framework that calls for specific reinterpretation of many different sorts of observable and testable data.

And if one were to suggest that believing in gravity and NOT in evolution is inconsistent logic, I would simply ask if one to show me, from Scripture, how gravity challenges or conflicts with Scripture. If one would show THAT to me, I’ll gladly renounce gravity and start a campaign against it’s evils.

I’m sorry if that makes me sound like a smart alec, it’s hard to transmit ‘tone’ in pure text. I’m serious though. Show me where the concept of ‘gravity’ challenges the Bible and I’ll stop believing in it.

“Science”, as I understand it, is basically the process of observing something, attempting to make an explanatory hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis.

“Evolution”, on the other hand, is an unverifiable interpretive presuposition through which data is filtered, hence the “glasses” analogy. (which you so eloquently said yourself when you said “Evolution is actually a fact like gravity. How it works is the theory”. It would appear that you presuppose the factuality of Evolution and then attempt to discover it’s mechanics.)

SO in the end, I’m saying that when I approach ANY scientific task, I either wear my “biblical” glasses OR my “NON-biblical” glasses.

The people with science glasses on have managed to use them to discover medicines which keep us alive much longer than before, but you would say the glasses were useful in that situation.

It seems to me you are saying the science glasses are useful unless they contradict the Bible. At whcih point you have to take them off and use your Bible glasses.

Sounds inconsistent to me. At least I only wear one set of glasses. You seem to be wearing two sets - what you see must be very blurred.