evolution is for monkeys, page-372

Evidence

Evidence, generally speaking, is in context of an assertion and the necessary aspects to support it, regardless of its strength or weakness. Direct proof is considered the strongest form of evidence. Where indirect (or "consistent") evidence, such as circumstantial evidence, may support (or contradict) the assertion or strengthen a decision.

Both law[1] and science [2] have basic rules concerning evidence and its quality and admissibility.

One of the foundation stones of freedom from tyranny is the requirement of evidence in court proceedings. However in both law and science, tyranny can come in many forms. In science, the tyranny can arise in a small cadre of "gatekeepers" who protect their version of scientific truth, dismissing or ridiculing all others.

The academicians of Galileo's time were all steeped in Aristotelean geo-centrism, so no acadamic forum would hear Galileo's claims to the contrary[3].

This could serve as a warning to Old-Earth-Creationists and the like, who attempt to align Scripture with (often fleeting) secular interpretations of scientific evidence.

Interestingly, DNA matching in criminal cases[4] is very error-prone regardless of the mystique given to it by television drama.

In fact, Hollywood has placed an aura-of-reliability around criminal evidence and the processes of collecting it to the point of setting an entirely false expectation. Criminal evidence is simply not that reliable[5].

This problem is so pernicious that nearly half of all murders go unsolved in the United States, meaning that over 6,000 murderers get away with it[6].

What does this mean? Evidence has greatest meaning in its original context. This is already difficult to reproduce in a criminal case in near-time, but even more so in a scientific case involving deep-time. The passing of time erodes context and so erodes the integrity of the evidence. Many people understand the concept of "contaminated crime scene"[7] where one or more individuals trampling on the scene may add evidence as to their presence or disrupt evidence as to the presence of another.

As for context, in one triple-murder in East Texas[8] the handprint of the accused was found on the bathtub. But the accused was the boyfriend of the victim and was a frequent visitor. In short, the context of the handprint could not be tied to his presence at the time of the killing. Fifteen years later, however, he was convicted when technology had matured enough to properly examine some of the gathered evidence, and the accused confessed to the killing.

If a crime scene starts to grow cold within hours of the crime, and rapidly erodes in the hours thereafter, it can quickly become a "cold case" if no investigators are assigned to close it. Translated to the evolutionary narrative, deep-time context is claimed to be "known" in the same scientific sense as gravity or magnetism[9] but this claim is more a statement of faith than of fact.

If a crime scene can be contaminated in minutes or hours, even after deliberate protection, what does this say for evidence found in-the-wild, with little context and plenty of opportunity for random contamination.
Contents
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1 Burden of Proof
2 Universal vs Functional Truth
3 Scientific Evidence
4 Historical (e.g. Documentary) Evidence
5 Scientific v Historical Evidence
6 Common Evidence
7 Preponderance of Evidence
8 Hostile Witness
9 Scots Law
10 Reasonable Doubt vs Logical Proof
11 Scientific Method
12 Chain Of Custody
13 Reification Fallacy
14 Counterfeit/Fallacy Detection
15 References

Burden of Proof

Is the obligation of one party in a dispute to provide sufficient evidence to sway another party's initial position in favor of their own.

The burden of proof may include confirming and/or negating evidence. If a party perceives failure in fulfilling the burden of proof, this may also translate to challenges towards the conclusions drawn from the evidence.

Two principle considerations are:

1. Who is responsible for the burden of proof? On whom does the burden of proof rest?
2. How much, or to what degree of evidence or certainty is required to support
the assertion(s).

The nature of the assertion will usually determine the quantity or quality of evidence required to meet the burden of proof.

In both criminal and civil proceedings in the United States, the prosecutor and plaintiff respectively carry the burden of proof because American courts are based on a presumption of innocence of the accused[10]. Each must convince a judge or jury that the preponderance of evidence is on their side.

Likewise in matters of philosophy, the party asserting a claim assumes the burden of proof. Why is this important to creationism? The secular community has essentially taken over ownership of the public forums concerning scientific discussion, ensconcing themselves as the gatekeepers of all scientific truth. While practically every claim of the evolutionary narrative remains unproven, secularists do not accept the burden of proof but rather throw it back into the lap of creationists.

The secularists claim neutrality and unbelief but this position is not possible in a human mind, especially concerning human origins (everyone has an opinion on it).

In common philosophical debates, a "gentleman's agreement" may be used in circumstances where both parties agree to certain truths without requiring evidence for support. This is rarely the case in debates concerning creation and evolution, where both sides will not lightly disregard the other side's lack of evidence for support of a claim.

The creationist will do well to not allow the secularist to presume ownership of the truth such that the burden of proof is entirely upon the creationist.

While the creationist should accept a full burden of proof, the secularist should be required to fully justify their position with the same degree of rigor.


Universal vs Functional Truth

Pontious Pilate asked Christ "What is truth?" John 18:38 and Christ had already claimed to his disciples John 14:6 that he was Truth incarnate.

The secular mind rejects such claims and also purports that truth is relative.

Something that is true for one person is completely false for another. Claiming that such differences are universally applicable in the physical world is both naive and foolish on the surface. Humans understand that the concept of "4" is the same for all people, languages, time-frames and locations.

The concept of "4" is the same on the Moon as it is on the Sun, as it was in first-century Rome. The human mind accepts such constants without challenge. By the same token, if a secularist claims that there is "no such thing as absolute truth", this itself is an absolute truth, nullifying the claim.

While the creationist may drive for literal, absolute truth, the secularist will settle for "functional" truth. That is, secularists are willing to accept that certain truths are immutable (e.g. laws of science and logic) but that other truths (e.g. philosphy, morality, justice) are relative.

The primary difference in these two viewpoints is the starting-point of the observer. Even Einstein posited that a frame-of-reference governs the observer's perception of reality.

Both sides agree to some common ground for "functional" truth. But both sides disagree as to what should be absolute. Evolution undermines the authority of universal truth. Creation fortifies the authority of universal truth.

Without the ability to declare a universal truth, the secularists are left without meaning. Aldous Huxley [11] actually claimed that this was a good thing. However, once the secularists have "won the argument" and all things are declared meaningless, so are their own words. They are essentially sawing the limb off behind themselves. As some have answered

If you are striving for the meaningless of your own words, why not start now? We'll just agree that your words are meaningless and move on. Win-win.

While such sentiments and humorous and tongue-in-cheek, they do not address the more serious nature of the problem, that mankind, according to God, really wants life to have no meaning for the very reasons that Huxley championed: liberation in sexuality and politics. Power and sex are very powerful prime-movers in the human heart and cannot be swayed by human logic alone.Xddzx is obsessed by sex!


Scientific Evidence

A scientific observation or assertion, or scientific evidence, is acquired knowledge through controlled, reproducible experimentation. This is then reviewed by others to eliminate bias and mistakes in the process that could lead to erroneous conclusions. It is normally used to accept or reject a hypothesis.

Scientific assertions should be based on evidence. While mathematics is often used to fortify or extend the reach of a claim, basing the claim on mathematics alone is problematic. Recent claims in Population Genetics and Cosmology have been solely based in mathematics rather than the observable universe, creating a false basis for trust in the claims. A case in point is Black Holes and the Oort Cloud, neither of which have ever been observed but are surrounded by scientific calculations and mountains of lore just as though they are real.

Scientific assertions are strongly bound to what is testable, repeatable and observable. And while all these activities might be "in the past" for any given experiment, they are certainly reproducible in the present. Such evidence is generally cumulative, ammassed as a body of knowledge that is applicable in ongoing or planned experimentation.

As for burden-of-proof, a standard approach is to require the person contending with established science to defend the claim (see Burden of Proof) against the challenges of reviewers, the marketplace or observations that challenge the claim. A hypothesis is not generally rejected until the claimant has exhausted all defenses.

Concerning scientific evidence in court, a common aspect of the court system and the scientific community at large is the role of a "gatekeeper". In courts-of-law, the judge is given the authority of gatekeeper. The judge may draw testimony from experts and other sources, but ultimately the judge holds the final authority in the decision as to whether scientific evidence is admissible. Generally speaking, several factors apply to the judge's decision:

(1) Is the approach/method widely accepted?
(2) Can it be both subjected to and survive peer review?
(3) Is the rate of "false positive" acceptable, or are errors acceptably explained?
(4) Is the theory or technique testable?


In creationist context, some of the above gateways may problematic for the acceptability of purely creationist assertions. For example, creationism may be widely accepted by the public but not by the majority of the scientific community. Peer review is also problematic because the secular scientific community claims to own this discussion with themselves as the sole gatekeepers. They do not consider a creationist to be a scientist, regardless of education, secular accomplishment or significant contribution to science. So they certainly do not consider such a person to be their peer. However, a peer in its legal definition, is someone who is like-minded to the defendant (e.g. a jury-of-peers). The courts may then construe that the scientific research of a creationist may be reviewed by the peers of the creationist, such as other like-minded scientists.

But again, with the judge as the sole gatekeeper, it is up to the judge whether this definition of "peer" is acceptable.

Many judges have taken sides with the secular scientific community in rejection of creationist peers. The Supreme Court [12] ruled that it was unconstitutional to require creation to be taught in school. In another case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, ultimately decided against creationism in US District Court on 12/20/2005.

At issue was not whether the science was valid, but the method and agenda through which the science was introduced to the schools. Testimony clearly revealed that the decision-makers in the Dover district were infusing the subject matter for religious purposes rather than a pursuit of academic excellence or broader scientific inquiry.

More unfortunately, the last two factors, false-positives and testability, are rarely if ever applied in the courts to claims from secular scientists in regards to origins or anti-creationist assertions. In fact, the anti-creationist assertions are often considered the standard that must be disproved by the creationist [13].

A primary difference in courts-of-law versus the scientific community is the Burden of Proof. In a court, the quality and amount of evidence required may be significantly lower than the threshold required by the scientific community. Both, however, require or honor the same types of evidence, which may include testimony, documentary or physical evidence.

Forensic Science is using scientific knowledge that was gathered in controlled observations and applying it as a baseline of comparison to conditions or events in the past. This is usually done to intersect the past events and conditions with the baseline of knowledge, such as authenticating ancient artifacts or determining innocence or guilt in a court proceeding.

The forensic analyst must be careful not to make broad presumptions about the state of the past. Case in point: If a perpetrator places evidence in an icebox and then removes it one year later, the lack-of-decay in the evidence may change the presumed context of evidence's origin and may artificially remove it from the original crime-scene's timeframe. Likewise if a historical artifact has no corroboration as to the context of its discovery, this can either compromise the authenticity of a true historical artifact or disqualify an artifact as fraud.
Historical (e.g. Documentary) Evidence

Generally applied in courtroom proceedings as a defacto standard. Historical evidence is ordinarily regarded as physical evidence such as artifacts, documents, latent biological elements such as fingerprints or DNA, any electronic or time-sensitive record that can establish a timeline, etc. In courtroom proceedings, the most significant aspect of such evidence is the preservation of its original context (see also Chain of Custody) because this fortifies authenticity.

Unsupported evidence such as that gathered outside of a Chain of Custody or testimony violating "rules of hearsay" may be excluded from examination for purposes of maintaining the integrity of the proceedings. Testimony entered into a public record follows a formal, protected process so that all words used have a common, known source of record.

For example, in defamation cases, any defamatory content placed into the public eye by the plaintiff is inadmissible because the plaintiff is in court ostensibly to have such content suppressed. The "public eye" therefore, is different from the "public record".

Historical evidence in archaeology or documentary authentication may use additional metrics such as carbon dating, chemical testing, etc. to establish authenticity. For example, mid-20th-century nuclear testing has put certain isotopes into Earth's environment that show up in a variety of ways. One if these is in authenticating wine.

Any wine bottled before this time will not carry the telltale signs of nuclear contamination, which is one method of guarding against fraud. More generally applied to such things as antiques or art, other factors may be the type of pigments used, the composition of the canvas, the chemicals in them, carbon-dating of the chemicals, certain pollens or spores that were indigenous to the artist's homeland and many more. These are converged to authenticate an artifact to a high statistical standard.

Establishing a timeline for an artifact is critical to its authentication because fraud takes place in near-time with an attempt to simulate the original timeline history of the artifact. This is especially true of something found "at the scene of the crime" because it is only material to the case if it can be placed at the scene during the timeframe of the crime itself. A perpetrator may have removed articles or may have "salted" or contaminated the scene with irrelevant artifacts to distract or derail the investigation.

Scientific v Historical Evidence

Crime Scene Investigators will use Scientific Evidence as a comparative baseline to historical evidence in an effort to infuse context to the historical evidence. For example, if a Crime Scene Investigator testifies for the evidence in a case, the CSI will be expected to present comparative analysis between known, baseline scientific observations and the evidence gathered at the scene. While the CSI may be able to prove (with photographs, cadavers etc.) that pushing a serrated blade into a human heart will kill that human, this does not automatically translate to asserting (scientifically) that "John killed Mary with a knife on August 10th" because this event cannot be tested, repeated nor observed. The CSI must use other historical evidences and artifacts to establish a timeline that places John at the scene of the crime.

In a February 2014 webinar debate between Bill Nye, popular science personality and Ken Ham, founder of Answers In Genesis [14], Ken Ham presented a case for separating "Observational Science" versus "Historical Science".

Bill Nye made the assertion that "everything is in the past - even what you are seeing now is light that is arriving to you after the event has transpired, so it's already in the past when you are observing it." Such assertions are simply naive and deflect from reasonably accepted truth.

For example, we cannot prove scientifically that Abraham Lincoln was President. We cannot prove scientfically' that Jesus Christ walked the Earth.

But reasonable human minds accept these limitations of science and easily shift context between scientific proof and documentary/legal-historical proof for such things.

However, Ken Ham makes a viable case against the secular scientific community and how it plays on the mind's ability to easily shift context between observational and historical, blurring the distinction to deliberately confuse the human mind into thinking that they are truly interchangeable.

In short, they declare that the "same science" that produces technology is the "same science" that asserts the Earth is millions of years old.

These are not the "same science", but the secular scientific community blurs the distinction in their favor.

This is nowhere more evident than on this forum

In addition, the secularist and creationist alike must guard against selective bias in reporting results or gathering observations.

A case in point: Whenever a scientist sets up an experiment to prove evolution, the laboratory must be "contrived" to look like the presumed evolutionary model.

Anything observed within this model is assumed to be proof of evolution, when in fact the experiment itself was contrived through biased minds.

The Miller-Urey experiment contains this bias[15], as does the Michelson-Morley apparatus[16] and Time Dilation[17].
Common Evidence

The secular scientific community and the creationist scientific community both share the same evidence.

What they don't share, is the same interpretation of the evidence.

Each group approaches the evidence from a different starting point, which establishes the context within which the evidence will be examined, interpreted or even included/excluded.

This approach can be illustrated with the following continuum:


Evidence->Context->Interpretation->Reason->Truth->Faith


That is, Evidence, gathered and preserved with its Context can be Interpreted by human minds through the application of Reason. This leads the human mind to Truth, usually an integrated truth, which is a foundation for Faith.

This makes Christian faith a reasonable faith, that is founded in earthly things that ultimately describe heavenly things.[18]

The opposite of this continuum begins with faith-first. That is Faith, a person's presuppositions, constrain the boundaries of "acceptable Truth", which is then used to guide all forms of Reason.

This then constrains all Interpretations, effectively excluding or accepting the Context within which Evidence is admissible, and likewise accepting or rejecting Evidence based on presuppositions. This is often seen when unreasonable assertions, claims or even methods of defense are used to fortify a position. Invoking unknowns in the natural world (such as strings, black holes, Oort clouds, wormholes, dark matter, dark energy, convoluted mathematics and the like) to justify observations in the natural world, are entirely unreasonable.

Applied to the evolutionary narrative, the secularist accepts on Faith that the theory of evolution is true, and this drives What John Sanford has called "The Primary Axiom"[19] that man is the product of mutations plus natural selection. Any scientists guided with this Axiom, holds to an immutable boundary that taints all Reasoning and Interpretation of Evidence. It is the only Context within which Evidence will be included, excluded or examined.

Secularists will accuse creationists of following a faith-first approach without realizing that they themselves follow the faith-first approach on a regular basis. Evolution is not science, but a narrative that must be accepted on faith. Secularists are constantly being caught in their inconsistent application of evidentiary standards as a direct result of their presuppositions[20].

Josh McDowell, in Evidence that Demands a Verdict points out numerous cases of people who were unwilling to hear or regard evidence that disagreed with what they already believed.

And in one case, of a man who refused to hear additional evidence because he knew that, upon hearing it, he would be responsible for it. Such positions are unreasonable.

In the final analysis, we can use DNA, the fossil record, geology etc and interpret them in equally reasonable ways toward a creationist conclusion or a secular/evolutionary conclusion. The real test, then, is whether the conclusion is borne on all evidence in all context, or borne on selective evidence in a limited context.
Preponderance of Evidence

The court systems apply certain rules because they align with human nature and the ability of human minds to seek a "truth" (or the nearest truthful conclusion) in a matter. The concept of "logical proof" never enters a courtroom because the human mind can only use logical proof as a stepping stone. Logical proof supports reason but cannot replace it.

For example, a computer could be used to hear all the testimony in a courtroom and render a decision. What the computer cannot see nor understand, is the additional context gathered by a human juror in real-time. Did the defendant fidget in the witness stand? Did the other witnesses have mannerisms or behavior that makes their testimony credible, or less so? Was the witness believable? Is the evidence credible? Computers cannot discern the subtle nuances of context that humans so easily and automatically discern.

The court requires and supplies means for a structured "preponderance of evidence"[21] which is based on the weight and value of evidence rather than the amount of it. In fact, in today's information-rich society, a flood of evidence can muddy the truth or make it harder for proponents/opponents to sift through in making a case[22].

However, in the case of fossil evidence, too much is in the favor of creationists primarily because of an easily discernible pattern in the aggregate of the fossils: lack of transitional forms. Darwin himself lamented the lack of fossil evidence as being a reason his theory could not be fully accepted[23][24]. With the proposal of Punctuated Equilibrium, Gould and Eldredge publicly and formally recognized that the gaps throughout the fossil record are pervasive and immutable, and required an answer. Moreover, the scientific community's public acceptance of their assertion is derived from the theory's widespread and heralded popularity: that gaps rule the fossil record.

How does preponderance apply to creationism? The many "evidences" for an old Earth may be rich in number but are light in weight. Any one of them can be easily dismantled into a pile of assumptions and presuppositions. However, secularists reject interpretations of the data that yield unacceptably young ages for the Earth, even when the very same uniformitarian principles are clearly applied. Apart from a wide range of scientific proofs for creation and a young earth, the evidences for the construction and preservation of the Holy Scripture are fewer in number but are heavy in weight, and not so easily dismissed.
Hostile Witness

Also known as "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," which in the case of creationism, is not completely true but its side effects are very useful. The creationist's enemy may be nay-sayed or countered by another of his enemies. But in tearing down his enemy's argument, they are doing the creationist a favor that should be exploited.

A strong argument that brings weight to the preponderance is the availability of a witness to testify in our behalf, but is also predisposed to be biased against us. A case in point is a man who is accused of murder of another man's wife. In the proceedings, it is learned that the man was also having an affair with the victim. However, the victim's husband was with the defendant during the timeframe of the murder so can testify in his behalf. This is a classic hostile-witness case. The victim's husband, on account of adultery, has every reason to want the defendant punished. That he will testify in the defendant's behalf, carries strong weight for the jury's consideration.

How does this apply to creationism? The secular scientific community is renown for tearing down the argument and assertions of their secular peers. In so doing, however, they are also providing fodder for the cannons aimed against them as a whole.

A case in point is the aforementioned Punctuated Equilibrium[25], first posited by Gould and Eldredge as an answer to the abject lack of transitional fossils in the fossil record. This theory was hailed throughout the world as having explained the problem of missing transitional fossils. Yet it merely explains the lack of evidence. First the secularists said evolution happens so slowly we can't see it (gradualism[26]) and now they say it happened so fast we missed it. All they are really saying is that there's no evidence at all.

This is a case of using a hostile witness (Gould and Eldredge are no friends of creationism) and using their words to shift the weight of preponderance to creationist side.

Another case in point is the propensity of secularists to rely on uniformitarian[27] presuppositions in that the unobservable deep-time processes in nature have always proceeded at the same rate and in the same way as those in the current-day. This is then extrapolated into the past to "show" long ages for the earth. However, secularists are constantly presented with new findings that challenge such presuppositions. Mary Schweitzer's discovery of soft parts in dinosaur bones (complete with vertebrate DNA) did not cause the secularists to slap their foreheads and say 'we were completely wrong about how old the dinosaurs are' but rather elicited statements such as 'we need to figure out how soft parts could last so long'. So even in the face of the evidence, the secularist will not budge from their a-priori assumptions.
Scots Law

A common practice in court proceedings is to require at least two independent pieces of evidence with corroborating witnesses. One witness alone cannot be used to corroborate both pieces of evidence. This protects against false accusation and wrongful conviction.

This is also the reason why God establishes truth through more than one witness Deuteronomy 18:15 because one witness can twist the truth. The creationist has to overcome this aspect because the "truth" of evolution is "established" by many hundreds of witnesses in the secular scientific community. Or is it?. The secular scientists interpret what they see in a common way, but their interpretations do not establish truth. They are not simply rendering an observation, but an observation with an interpretation. In courts of law, witnesses are expected to testify as to what they saw but not to interpret it. Creationists can deflate secularist claims by sticking with the observations and countering the secular interpretation.
Reasonable Doubt vs Logical Proof

While the human mind readily leverages logic to conclude basic thoughts, the more rigid aspects of logical proof can easily confuse an untrained human mind. Logic is expressed in both verbal syllogism or mathematical proof. Human minds are trainable in each of these, but also recognize their weaknesses in representing reality. For example, the concept of "4" is only in the human mind. It is applied as a mnemonic to the real world, and all human minds, once trained, can agree on what "4" means, but the concept itself remains in the human mind and is not part of the natural world.

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, ultimately makes the following statement of logic: The existence of the universe, as it appears, seems improbable. If God created the universe, then God is also improbable. The glaring hole in this logic is that the universe seems improbable without God to have made it probable. Introducing God simply to accuse him is an ad-hominem attack and would disqualify the most experienced debater.

Conversely, people have made the following error: "Things that are designed are clearly the products of intelligent minds. Humans are clearly the product of design and understand how to design things so that design itself is understood by humans." This is countered by "You claim that God is not a product of design and apparently has the ability to design things. Therefore if we presume that mankind is not the product of design, why is it odd that mankind knows how to design things?" The logical trap is the logic itself - because reasonable minds can discern, without the rigors of logic, that God can design and create, and that we have no a-priori knowledge as to God's origins so cannot make any assumptions about it. In short, each assertion of the logical sequence must stand on its own. But "the origin of God" cannot be known so is invalid to assert. Likewise with the origin of life. Anything requiring an a-priori assumption must be agreed upon by the participants, but the "origin of God", being unknown, is accepted by faith on one side of the argument and rejected on a lack-of-faith by the other side. Neither side accepts it as standalone truth that is objectively true for both sides.

A believer falls into a trap by accepting such premises at all. It opens the door for other strawman premises that likewise have no weight.

The reasonable conclusion is that "intelligent minds can design things" and this truth is reasonably understood by human minds. Therefore if evidence of design is a reasonable interpretation of the data, it is likewise reasonable to assume the involvement of an intelligent designer.

This is one of many reasons the court systems are based on the concept of "reasonable doubt"[28]. This approach presumes the innocence of the accused and requires the accuser to prove guilt "beyond reasonable doubt". If the jury has are reasonable doubt about the guilt of the accused, the jury should find for "not guilty". Some additional legal standards of proof include "reasonable suspicion", "probable cause" (as for arrest), "prima facie evidence", "credible evidence", "substantial evidence", and "clear and convincing evidence".

Anecdotally, trial attorneys use grandstand tricks to leverage reasonable doubt in their favor. One in particular was when a defense attorney claimed that the police had found the actual perpetrator and were about to bring him through the doors of the court, then he waited for an awkward pause and said - you really believed that someone else could have done this, and that's called reasonable doubt. This tactic backfired on the same attorney when his client didn't look backward with everyone else, signaling to the jury that he already knew nobody was coming!

This is also a primary reason that God does not appeal to logical proof, but to reason. Isaiah 1:18 Come, let us reason together, I Peter 3:15 ...be ready always to give an answer to any man who asks you a reason of the hope that is in you..., I Samuel 12:7 ...stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord...

How do these concepts apply to creationism? Secular scientists will attempt to disprove God using logical syllogisms that do not play out in the real world. Reasonable people can easily discern the simplest of evidences, connect them to the real world and dispel the absence of God with reasonable doubt. In fact, the Bible says that reasonable doubt about God's existence is impossible Romans 1:20 .

One particular logical syllogism follows:

P:Religious fervor can have dangerous consequences.
P:Dangerous consequences should be avoided.
C:Religious fervor should be avoided

The problem with the above sequence is the use of the word "should". There is no secular standard of morality to determine "should" or "ought" (they reject God and embrace moral relativism). In using this argument, they have betrayed the fact that they don't really subscribe to moral relativism at all, but another form of moral tyranny - their own morality imposed upon another. They want to control the behavior of others (make them stay out of religious fervor) while decrying what they already think is an unacceptable control model (religious fervor).

In addition, if we presume that God is the accused in the discussion, that is, accused of being non-existent, the burden of proof is on the accuser to prove reasonable doubt as to God's existence. Likewise if we were to place Jesus Christ of Nazareth on trial for lying about his claims to be God-in-flesh, could we reasonably exonerate Him or convict him? By the same measure, if we were to place Jesus on trial for lying about having Resurrected from the dead, could we reasonably exonerate or convict him?

A common logical trap follows: "Can God make anything that he cannot destroy?" This question attempts to prove that God is not omnipotent. If we answer "No" that we have identified something God cannot do, but the same is true if we answer "Yes". However, we are told in Scripture that God is unable to sin[29] and it is impossible for him to lie[30] or break a promise[31]. A promise from God arrives as words from God, which are claimed to be eternal[32].

This means God can already make something he cannot destroy: a promise. This is simply an example of attempting to place God into a logical box.

In the above cases, reasonable doubt plus a preponderance of evidence allow the human mind to both grasp a functional truth and embrace a universal truth.
Scientific Method

Interestingly, the Scientific Method cannot be used to prove anything[33]. Thus we can never use science to prove the existence of God. Likewise acience cannot prove that God does not exist[34]. Secularists will simply use this as "proof" that there's nothing to consider. In short, something that cannot be scientifically proven nor disproven is outside the realm of science to address. The "first origins" questions fall into this bucket as well, that neither creation nor evolution can be proven because they cannot be reproduced. Likewise if a process (such as evolution) requires millions of years, it is impractical to attempt observing it. It is ironic that evolution is at the forefront of "scientific" discussion when it is already outside the realm of science to address. Ken Ham had it right, this is historical science and an entirely different method of proof is necessary. Observational science does not apply.

This applies in creationism in that the claims of deep-time are beyond the capacity of science to validate. If one attempts to validate deep-time assertions, one requires the same documentary or legal-historical proof as would be required of any historical claim. Yet with evolution, no such proof can be obtained because no eyewitnesses existed in deep-time. This places the claims of evolution outside of science and outside of the capacity of the Scientific Method.

The Scientific Method is also subject to tautology, that is, circular reasoning. David H. Freedman points out[35] that scientists regularly attempt to skew their observations in favor of their hypothesis, selectively include/exclude evidence that would disfavor the hypothesis, or simply outright falsify the results. This is largely due to the extraordinary expense of scientific experimentation. If a hypothesis fails, funding sources are often unforgiving. While Edison may have failed over 1000 times in attempting to create a light bulb, he brushed it off as "being a process requiring 1,000 steps"[36]. Today's high-tech and high-expense research landscape is unforgiving for such repeated failures, eliciting fraud and deceit among scientists who want to keep their funding dollars flowing. It is simply a matter of survival and the funding sources are highly skewed in favor of evolutionary claims.

The Lenski evolution experiment[37] has attempted to reproduce the evolutionary process but instead has actually proven a loss-of-function model as outlined by John Sanford Genetic Entropy through generational genetic decay and Specialization (Genotype). The researchers attempt to "spin" the observations to support evolution but in the end, they are lining-up to a loss-of-function model, not a gain-of-function as required by evolution. Nor are the bacteria evolving into new and different life forms. After 50,000 generations, they remain bacteria. This is a clear example of the person making the claim but never achieving the threshold of the burden of proof. Claiming victory is very different from achieving it.
Chain Of Custody

An important aspect of evidence integrity and authenticity is the validation of chain-of-custody, particularly where it applies to ancient artifacts.

For example, Oded Golan[38] was acquitted of forgery but the artifacts he promoted and sold are still under investigation for their authenticity. If he is not a fraud, then the worst he is guilty of is sloppy recordkeeping. He has no documentation or verifiable testimony as to the origin of these artifacts. If they are truly forgeries, this merely means he was brokering forgeries without prior knowledge. We can see, however that a documented chain-of-custody reduces doubt as to the authenticity of an artifact.

In courts-of-law, any evidence presented must have been kept under a strict chain-of-custody. Any breach in this chain means that the defendant may be acquitted. Any number of cases in the news (and ripped-from-headlines for television drama) play on this need for maintaining authenticity through chain of custody. Some of the sloppy forensics in the famous OJ Simpson trial[39] created reasonable doubt in the jury when they discovered that many evidentiary artifacts had not been entered into a formal chain of custody.

The scribes who preserved Scripture kept a strict chain-of-custody driven by their zealotry to serve God. An example of this preservation is exemplified in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly the book of Isaiah[40] [41]. The discovered copy of Isaiah was dated to before the first century, bridging almost 1000 years from the earliest known copy. Apart from minor punctuation, they were identical. Historians called this "miraculous" but it is perfectly explicable in the light of the scribes' dedication to maintain the integrity of the Scripture. Their rules for transcription far exceed those commonly used in modern-day computer operating systems for copying data[42].

Some "ancient" manuscripts that seemingly "popped into existence" with little wear-and-tear but were "found" in trash heaps or obscure locations. Where is the chain-of-custody? How do we know those weren't placed there fraudulently? These include the Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Thomas, Lost Books of the Bible, Lost Years of Jesus, etc.

In this group of ancient manuscripts, two additional artifacts are strongly held in question because of the obscurity of their existence, clear lack-of-use (pages are not worn) and lack of a chain-of-custody. These artifacts have strongly influences the construction and content of modern Bibles. They include the Codex Vaticanus [43] and the Codex Sinaiticus[44] [45] [46].

How does this apply to creationism? In attempting to link transitional fossils, secularists must resort to drawing imaginary lines between known life forms and filling the gap with a "narrative". There is no true transition between the forms and no means to go back and reproduce the transition. This "transition" is just as representative of a chain-of-custody as that required of any trial court. How can we know for certain that one set of genes handed-off to another?

The famous Tiktaalik[47][48] was discovered in the rocks, dusted-off and rushed into the courtrooms just in time for final arguments. This so stretched the credulity of onlookers that the find was (much later) dismissed out-of-hand. Later follow-up completely dismantled the argument in favor of Tiktaalik, but the court case was concluded and decisions made. This race-to-judgment is typical of the scientific community, considering that Nebraska Man[49] was used in the Scopes Trial as ammunition against the creationists, but shortly thereafter was found to be a pig's tooth. Evolution lost in the Scopes Trial. In both cases however, sloppy forensics, lack of identification and foreshortened processes of scientific integrity led to serious and embarrassing mistakes in judgment.
Reification Fallacy

This fallacy is committed when a subject or idea is given emotional or other human characteristics[50]. A common fallacy in presenting or discussing scientific evidence are the following reification statements:

(1) That's not what the evidence says
(2) Let the evidence speak
(3) You are disagreeing with the evidence
(4) Scientists seek a consilience of evidence
(5) The evidence indicates/suggests/points/elicits/calls for/etc

This fallacy asserts that evidence has independent objectivity outside of the human mind, when evidence is passive, inanimate matter and cannot speak or act on its own. Evidence must always be interpreted, analyzed, compared etc by a human mind. It is the human mind that speaks, disagrees, finds consilience, indicates, suggests, calls-for etc. Evidence has no capacity whatsoever to do any of these things. People do that.

Considering that evidence must be interpreted, we now understand that the interpreter is shaping the evidence toward the interpreter's bias. There is no such thing as an objective interpreter.

This fallacy is a logical trap for creationists and rears its head regularly in debates and discussions. How is this fallacy managed without appearing as if the evidence itself is being rejected?

The Book of Proverbs says this Proverbs 26:4-5

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

This "don't answer/answer" approach is very effective in dealing with reification. If we answer according to their folly (their fallacy) we are agreeing that their initial assertion has a basis. If we don't answer within the context of their fallacy, but rather answer the fallacy itself, we gain the higher ground.

A possible response might be: "Evidence is passive, inanimate matter and cannot speak for itself. So I am not disagreeing with the evidence. I am disagreeing with the interpretation of the evidence coming from biased human minds."

A common practice of creationist believers is to examine a scientist's white-paper or abstract and filter the observations from the interpretations. Secular proponents of evolution rarely do this, rather they glean the interpretations and use them as interchangeable with the observation. When this is pointed out, we invariably see that the observations can be easily interpreted to support creationism, and are often better explained in the light of creationism. In short, the scientist's interpretation is flawed and the secular argument are based on these flaws, not the observations themselves.

In Genetic Entropy, John Sanford make a compelling argument that Darwinian natural selection does not apply to genetics in any form whatsoever. In fact, the genome is invisible to selection because it must occur in all-or-nothing form. Natural selection has no ability nor visibility into individual genes. An individual of a population is accepted or rejected in-total, not through gene-level selection. Likewise, genes appear in unbreakable linkages which are part of unbreakable clusters, many of which may be buried in several layers of functional activity. Natural selection has no visibility to any of this, so any mutations (good or bad) that appear on a given individual (a) cannot be presumed to pass to the next generation and (b) cannot be naturally unhooked from their biochemical moorings in support of selection. Humans can engage in selective breeding, but this is an artificial injection of human intelligence to the process.

We can see the obvious fallacy in play here: Accepting that natural selection is actually selecting anything, or for that matter, accepting that natural selection is a reality. The reality is that the genome is the acting agent and the environment is passive.


Counterfeit/Fallacy Detection

The United States Secret Service is charged with elimination of counterfeiting of American currency. The primary method used for this detection is "education and training concerning the unique aspects of American money"[51]. In short, the subject is first trained on what the "real thing" looks like so that a counterfeit is easily spotted. The secondary training is on counterfeiting techniques, such as the propensity for a counterfeiter to pay for small items with larger bills, effectively laundering the counterfeit into valid currency.

In short, the primary means to guard against "counterfeit science" or "pseudo-science" is to know how science actually works, what doesn't work, and what investigative methods are acceptable to discover the facts. For example, humans know that science should be driven on observation, but much of cosmology and evolutionary biology is not driven on observation, but on mathematical models, many of which are not required to directly intersect with the real world.

In the above example of Genetic Entropy, Sanford points out that the community of biologists and geneticists working with DNA-based experiments passively accepted Population Genetics because nobody promoting it was saying anything other than what they already believed. Population Genetics was borne on the need to preserve the evolutionary narrative because scientists realized that the complexity and depth of the genome precluded natural selection from ever working at all. Seeing Darwin on-the-ropes, they concocted Population Genetics to obfuscate this reality with convoluted math. In other examples in Cosmology, physicists can only use mathematical models coupled with specious interstellar observations. the result is an embarrassing display of mathematical conclusions, everything from wormholes to string theory and even black holes. As of this writing, over six different types of black holes actually exist (all the way up to super-massive!) but none of them have ever been observed or measured. Likewise for the Oort Cloud, dark matter and dark energy.

When cosmological physics cannot explain it, they will retreat to their mathematics rather than engage actual observations. What would Galileo have to say about this?
References

? http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/rulesandpolicies/rules/2010%20rules/evidence.pdf
? https://www.americanbar.org/newsletter/publications/gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/walsh.html
? http://creation.com/the-galileo-twist
? http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/dna-evidence6.htm
? http://www.dallasjustice.com/the-cruel-reality-of-criminal-evidence-its-just-not-that-reliable/
? https://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/may/24/unsolved-homicides/
? http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2005/04/crime-scene-contamination#.Uwl-udGYaFk
? http://www.ktbs.com/story/22348388/guilty-plea-in-east-texas-triple-murder-case
? http://www.icr.org/article/512/220/
? http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/presumption+of+innocence
? http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/quotes/huxley_a.asp
? Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)
? Selman v Cobb County School District, Georgia 2002
? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mAyBwhiAJ8
? http://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis
? http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Michelson-MorleyExperiment.html
? http://www.alternativephysics.org/book/TimeDilation.htm
? John 3:12
? Genetic Entropy, 2005 Elim Publishing, John Sanford, Prologue
? WRONG - Why Experts Keep Failing Us, 2010, Little, Brown and Company, David H. Freedman
? http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/preponderance+of+the+evidence
? http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/is-there-such-thing-as-too-much-evidence-20130424
? http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number5/darwin5.htm
? http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/tis2/index.php/component/content/article/48.html
? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/punctuated%20equilibrium
? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gradualism
? http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Uniformitarian
? http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Reasonable+Doubt
? 2 Corinthians 5:21
? Hebrews 6:18
? Titus 1:2
? Matthew 24:35
? http://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/SciMeth/
? http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsagainstgod/a/GodScience.htm
? WRONG - Why Experts Keep Failing Us, 2010, Little, Brown and Company, David H. Freedman
? http://hundredgoals.com/2012/05/17/failure-is-the-key-to-success/
? http://myxo.css.msu.edu/index.html
? http://www.timesofisrael.com/oded-golan-is-not-guilty-of-forgery-so-is-the-james-ossuary-for-real/
? http://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/forensic-investigation-of-the-oj-simpson-trial
? http://www.history.com/news/unraveling-the-dead-sea-scrolls-six-fascinating-facts
? http://www.science20.com/news_articles/isaiah_scroll_gets_closeup_dead_sea_scrolls_mystery_solved
? http://www.justthesimpletruth.com/was-the-bible-copied-accurately/
? http://www.timetracts.com/Whatarethemostreliablemanuscripts2.htm
? http://www.timetracts.com/Whatarethemostreliablemanuscripts2.htm
? http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/4091/how-authentic-is-codex-sinaiticus
? http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/
? http://www.examiner.com/article/tiktaalik-dethroning-still-shocking
? http://creation.com/polish-tetrapod-footprints-trample-tiktaalik
? http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v13/n4/nebraska
? http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/155-reification
? http://www.secretservice.gov/money_detect.shtml