How not to stage an atheist debate, part 3

I want to digress from the format of the debate to look closely at some of the content that Ross hurled out there at breakneck pace. I'm looking at a yellow piece of paper, of which a copy was left near every seat in the house. The title is "RTB Testable Creation Model Predictions." It lists under four major sections: "Origin of the Universe," "Origin of Life," "Origin of Animal Species," and "Origin of Humanity."

I can't find a copy on the net and I'm not interested in typing the whole thing, but let me just grab a representative example. This is just one that especially caught my eye. Under "Origin of Humanity," prediction number 3 says: "Humanity's origin will prove to date back to between ~40,000 to 150,000 years ago."

All by itself, this is a perfect representation of what Hugh Ross cluelessly imagines to be a scientific prediction. First of all, because it's absolutely non specific in what the nature of the evidence might be. How will humanity's origin prove to date back to that point? What kind of artifacts will be uncovered that will confirm this? Where shall we attempt to look for these things?

This may be a prediction, but it is not a testable prediction, because there is no concrete plan of action to actually perform the testing. Hugh Ross is perfectly content to sit on his ass and say "Future scientists will prove that I was right" -- not entirely unlike George "only future historians can judge me" Bush I might add. (Cheap shot!) There is also no time frame for this "prediction" -- if it never comes true in Ross's lifetime, oh well, we have the rest of future history to wait.

And the second thing is, it's really not a prediction of creationism. Oh sure, it's a prediction of this particular model of creationism, so tautologically it says "If humanity came into existence more than 150,000 years ago, then my theory that humanity came into existence more than 150,000 years ago is falsified." Doesn't make the slightest impact on the general proposition of whether creationism is true.

To satisfy yourself that this is the case, I want you to imagine that conclusive evidence were found indicating that humanity came into existence 150,001 years ago. Furthermore, let's suppose that this evidence were so incredibly persuasive that Rana and Ross had no choice but to accept it. Yeah, I know this strains credibility, because there is nothing a creationist is required to accept when it comes to fact-checking, but just play along. Suppose that tomorrow Ross were genuinely convinced that humanity came into existence at least 150,001 years ago.

Now my question is: Can you honestly imagine Ross going on to say "I guess that proves that creation is wrong, then!" Because I sure can't. At most, I can see Ross going back to his little Word document, and quietly changing it so that NOW it says "Humanity's origin will prove to date back to between ~40,000 to 160,000 years ago." Then he'll claim he has updated the model, and the new model has not been falsified.

This is the problem with a theory that presumes the existence of an infinitely powerful being. It confounds all possible attempts at prediction. The god can just as easily do things one way as another. Sure, you can SAY something like "My theory predicts that life originated abruptly" (which Ross does, in the "Origin of life" section, bullet point #3). But if your god felt like creating life slowly, then he could create it slowly. Hence life originating abruptly is actually not a prediction of the theory at all, because if the prediction is wrong then it doesn't falsify the theory.

To his credit, Michael Shermer made a good effort to drive this point home later, but here he was both helped and hindered by the extremely stacked audience. During his presentation, he yelled out "If this prediction were shown not to be true, would you all stop believing in God?" and the crowd obligingly yelled back "NO!!!!!" To people who already understood his point, Shermer drove it home again. But to the people who were actually shouting at him, it went right over their heads. I could hear them: they were PROUD of themselves for having the conviction to stand up for their faith. They obviously didn't feel like a point had been made at their expense. In my opinion, Shermer needed to back up his showmanship with an easily understandable explanation about how none Ross's predictions constitute falsifiability even to Ross himself. It might be the time constraints, but I didn't feel that this came across.

Okay, this is turning into quite a marathon, but my notes are much sparser for Rana and Shermer's presentations. I'll get to them next time.