Part II of Dystopian Science, my answer part A

Creation vs. Evolution : Responding to Dystopian Science · Part II of Dystopian Science, my answer part A · Part II, part B - CMI on Deeper Waters · HGL's F.B. writings : Carter's Tactics · Back to Creation vs. Evolution : Part III : On Bradley and Bessel · New blog on the kid : Do Lorentz Transformations Prove a Universal Inconditional Speed Limit? · Back to Creation vs. Evolution : John Hartnett Pleads Operational Science · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Steven Taylor on Lorentz Transformations, Speed of Light, Distant Starlight Problem, Creation Week, Miracles

The follow up appeared. I had been waiting for it.

Dystopian science Part 2: Conspiracy theories require a magical world
by Lita Cosner, Robert Carter Published: 4 April 2019 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/dystopian-science-2

I will in this part A mostly concentrate on the charge of more or less hairbrained conspiracy theorising.

Many people today hold to one or more conspiracy theories that, if they were to be consistent, require the world to be unreal, as we documented previously. For example, among these alternate scientific ideas is the thought that the earth is the center of the universe and that everything revolves around us. But that contradicts many, many experiments in basic science. It is not just that NASA must be a billion-dollar lie-generating machine, but scientists all the way back to Newton (who gave us modern physics) must be wrong.

Demonising, is what I would call this. Also known as poisoning the well.

I suspect, while the authorship is joint between Lita Cosner and Robert Carter, it is Carter who is responsible for this strawman.

Speaking of strawmen, was Christ predicting his disciples would be strawmanned?

No, I was probably just misrecalling Luke 23:31, it was about wood, not grass.

For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?
[Luke 23:31]

Conflated with something about saying evil things.

Anyway, a strawman it is.

Let's pick it apart.

• "Many people today hold to one or more conspiracy theories that, if they were to be consistent, require the world to be unreal, as we documented previously. For example"
  
  So, Geocentrism is presented as a conspiracy theory.
  
  Double standard, since many will likewise call Young Earth Creationism a conspiracy theory, which CMI very rightly reject the charge of, saying a conspiracy is not needed where there is such confirmation bias.
  
  
• "But that contradicts many, many experiments in basic science."
  
  None are given.
  
  Confer this, from a later paragraph:
  
  "Natural selection is what we call “non-discriminating information”."
  
  Yes, I would consider the "many experiments in basic science" as non-discriminating on this account. You name them, I show how.
  
  Robert Carter has already debated with or at least tried to refute (I might misrecall the details) one Robert Sungenis, and knows that Robert Sungenis is in contact with Croatian physicist Luka Popov and that any "experiment in basic science" Carter would dare to name, Robert Sungenis has an explanation why the experiment works out in Geocentric Universe.
  
  AND for that matter, would already know that Sungenis invoke the two experiments Michelson Morley with Sagnac to prove impossibility or near such of an Earth moving through space, since Sagnac shows that speeds are indeed added to and detracted from the speed of light.
  
  
• "It is not just that NASA must be a billion-dollar lie-generating machine"
  
  What is your own take on Smithsonian and on National Geographic?
  
  Are they never dishonest? Even on the minutiae of debating critics like you?
  
  Is there no such thing as fooling oneself, quasi bona fide?
  
  
• "but scientists all the way back to Newton (who gave us modern physics) must be wrong."
  
  Supposing of course the explanations of planetary orbits are reducible to the Newtonian couple of gravitattional force and inertial force, determined by masses and positions.
  
  That is, supposing no wills are in any way shape or form influencing the orbit that celestial bodies take.
  
  Sungenis does not even agree on this one, he is dead set on explaining diurnal movement, not by God's ongoing action, but by some kind of conservation of angular momentum, as well as explaining planetary orbits by Machian equivalence.
  
  This said, the common presupposition of Sungenis and Carter that celestial bodies are only influenced as to position by physics is not traditional and also not Biblical.

I think, as I have mentioned the Bible, I should better provide arguments on both issues, the geometric one on Geocentrism and the issue of why Celestial Bodies move, on angelic movers.

First, I think the clincher for Joshua X implying Geocentrism is double, Habacuc 3:11 implies that Son and Moon were both objectively standing still, not just phenomenally (and Habacuc being a prophet was in a position to know), but also in Joshua X the verse 12, Joshua adressing the miraculous command not to Earth and its axis, but to Sun and Moon:

Columbus and Joshua (Imagine Christopher Columbus had worked a miracle)

Just under the title, I have a field of links to earlier parts of a post series, which includes many parts of a debate held on FB.

Second, the angelic movers, here is a little "Bible study" on that one, in response to John MacArthur (whom I also am refuting on his attacks against the Catholic Church):

John MacArthur Confusing Sunworship with Sun as a Person

I not only state (as title implies), that taking Sun as a person (whether angelic mover behind the non-living body, or as a living body of some superhuman and near angelic creature) does not imply giving him any worship of adoration, but also give a series of Biblical reasons for that stance.

We can test authority. We can see if it should be trusted. And we can reject authorities when needed. But we need to do so cautiously; if we are to do so, we need a good reason. We also need to understand that, if we do so, we are likely not going without any authority, but trading one authority for another. For instance, perhaps ‘Big Pharma’ is only peddling vaccines because they want to make lots of money. But is the person claiming this acting purely out of pure benevolence with no monetary incentives? Often, they also selling or supporting an alternative therapy. Likewise, it’s fine to be skeptical of NASA, but we should be just as skeptical of the random person with a blog. Big corporations have sometimes-sinister motives, but so do individuals. In the end, applying good science and sound reasoning can tell us that, in fact, NASA is not lying about the shape of the earth or the nature of gravity. When they get into exobiology, however, we can disagree with them and still remain on a sound footing.

Now, Carter (or Lita) has completely left the scenario proposed in part I, now we are having access to NASA.

And we are having access to blogs.

I'll get into some problems with the paragraph:

• "And we can reject authorities when needed. ... We also need to understand that, if we do so, we are likely not going without any authority, but trading one authority for another."
  
  If I give an argument and you believe that argument, do I become an authority?
  
  I'd say, if you don't believe relative heliocentrism as presented by NASA because they say so and can be trusted, but because you went through their actual argumentation and found it good, you are not treating NASA as an authority in a very strong sense.
  
  
• "But is the person claiming this acting purely out of pure benevolence with no monetary incentives? Often, they also selling or supporting an alternative therapy."
  
  Supporting an alternative does not mean one is making money out of it.
  
  Precisely as to antivaccers, I don't know any one of them even supporting, let alone selling an alternative. I don't think they believe there is one, except having a good immune system. It's about preferring the risk of dying from infections not intended over the risk of dying from sth introduced into the body deliberately.
  
  
• "Likewise, it’s fine to be skeptical of NASA, but we should be just as skeptical of the random person with a blog."
  
  Here we have a little "let's pretend" game.
  
  Let's pretend that NASA and the blogger have equal prior platform.
  
  Let's pretend that being sceptic of both means trying both.
  
  Let's then pretend very tacitly that scepticism of the blogger (in that noble way) leads to trusting NASA (but it wouldn't be called that way, it would be called not trusting a random blogger, which is supposed to be good sense).
  
  In fact, NASA has a vastly superior prior platform, and being sceptic of the random blogger in practise means not even reading him or allowing others to read him (especially others who are younger than oneself).
  
  And that means being "equally" sceptic of the random blogger is in reality being much less likely to even read his arguments.
  
  How about skipping scepticism of persons and doing - what the original scenario in part I purported to do?
  
  Namely, test if such and such an aspect of science as presently presented can be supported by arguments from known empiric observations, namely test it by logic.
  
  Me vs NASA? I know who's "heavy weight" as long as you make it about persons.
  
  My arguments vs NASA's arguments? Now, that is another matter. Oh, by the way, BOTH arguments based on observed facts as reported by NASA.
  
  
• "Big corporations have sometimes-sinister motives, but so do individuals."
  
  My "sinister motive" is, being a writer, I want to make a living of it. I want to sell books, including to people disagreeing with me, "precisely" as CMI is selling Creation - with the difference, I don't have a paper or the groundwork network to start getting things sold on a large or even moderate scale. Being a layman, I also don't present it as a ministry.
  
  
• "In the end, applying good science and sound reasoning can tell us that, in fact, NASA is not lying about the shape of the earth or the nature of gravity."
  
  The fact is, I have heard a bit too many, I think also from NASA, dismiss "my" angelic movers theory (which I didn't invent, just adher to) as an alternative explanation of gravity, when most definitely it is not, but an agency in addition to gravity and inertia.
  
  This means, I have seen a bit too much evidence for a definite will to actually misrepresent the argument I make. A bit like how CMI (of whom Robert Carter and Lita Cosner are representatives) already would be knowing people who accuse them of denying basics of radioactive decay. Also without actually looking into the actual words of the opponent.
  
  I have suspected them of staging moon landing in order to support Newtonian gravitation model (an explanation of gravitation which cannot be tested by observations conducted only on or not very far above the surface of Earth.
  
  But suspecting and accusing are two different things. And my main motive for challenging the Newtonian model was to preserve a polar distinction as opposed to presence absence opposition of heavy and light, as Aristotle had it, and I think now, this can be done without challenging Newton's model for how heavy objects are drawn to each other.
  
  While I insist the fraud if such is not impossible, I am not accusing them of a fraud on that account.

I think the two paragraphs I anwered here are the most important ones as to Helio vs Geo debate. BUT there are a few more which are more into theology and where in fact they pose a few snares (let's hope for their sakes unwittingly) to the unwary. Those will require a separate part, namely part II, my answer part B. Here I conclude part A of my answer.


Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Pope St Xystus I
3.IV.2019

Romae natalis beati Xysti Primi, Papae et Martyris; qui, temporibus Hadriani Imperatoris, summa cum laude rexit Ecclesiam, ac demum, sub Antonino Pio, ut sibi Christum lucrifaceret, libenter mortem sustinuit temporalem.