Falsification Archives – Rational Faith

Conspiracy Theory: You Killed JFK (And other false claims and abuses of Evidence)

Posted on November 18, 2018 by Duane Caldwell

JFK Motorcade

NO EVIDENCE. In what amounts to an abuse of evidence, atheists are fond of saying that there is no evidence for the existence of God. If you doubt that, take a look at this brief collection of atheists telling the world that very thing. But is that a true claim? When a proposition is not true, you would expect to find no evidence for that proposition.

Take for example the proposition in the title – that you, yes you dear reader – killed JFK on the fateful day – November 22, 1963 at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. All reading this could no doubt refute that claim. But those born after that date have a particularly easy and obvious piece of evidence that falsifies the proposition. The claim that they weren’t even born yet backed with a birth certificate to prove it. Continue Reading

Doubt the Bible? You Might be a Conspiracy Theorist

Posted on May 16, 2017 by Duane Caldwell

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy does an amusing routine you’ve probably heard at least pieces of. He points out a situation that only an “unsophisticated” person would think is normal, and suggests if you do such things, “you might be a Redneck.” I say “unsophisticated person” because Foxworthy defines those he references – Rednecks – as someone having a “Glorious absence of sophistication.” In case you haven’t heard any of his routines, here is a small sample of behaviors and thoughts that might qualify you as a “Redneck”:

“If you think a Quarter horse is that ride in front of K-mart…
…You might be a Redneck.

“If you think fast food is hitting a deer at 65 mph…
…You might be a Redneck.

“If you wear a dress that is strapless with a bra that isn’t…
…You might be a Redneck.

“If your wife has ever said, come move this transmission so I can take a bath…
…You might be a Redneck

It’s in that tongue in cheek vein that I present another set of behaviors that might qualify you for a group that is as distinguished as those who Foxworthy targets for his jokes. This group consists of people with a certain mind set who cannot be dissuaded from their beliefs regardless of the evidence that is presented to them. In fact the more evidence you give them, the more likely they are to see it as a confirmation of their original belief. They are conspiracy theorists. And while this is presented a bit tongue in cheek, like most humor, it starts with a grain of truth – and it’s that grain of truth we’ll be targeting to see if those truths have taken root in your thinking. So if you exhibit a number of these behaviors – you just might have the mindset of a conspiracy theorist. What are they? Let’s take a look. Continue Reading

Lessons from Pluto

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Duane Caldwell

New Horizons approaches Pluto

On January 19, 2006 the “fastest spacecraft ever launched”[1] – the New Horizons space probe – lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to Pluto. In February of 2007 it collected data from Jupiter as it flew by for a gravity assist catapult as it continued on to Pluto. On July 14th, 2015, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto. Scientists have now had an opportunity to review the initial data and pictures from New Horizons about the dwarf planet[2] Pluto, and many have been forced into a stunning but unavoidable admission: they’ve been wrong about Pluto for a long time.

What they found on Pluto was not at all what they were expecting to find. Scientists were expecting to find it heavily cratered, “a flat, dead world similar to our moon.”[3] Instead, what they actually found was:

Icy Volcanoes
The heart shaped area (right side partially faded) visible in the picture above named sputnik planum, of which scientists note “…this Texas sized basin of ice appears to be boiling.” [4] Planetary scientist Jani Radebaugh likens it to “a lava lake in slow motion”[5] made of nearly frozen Nitrogen cooled until the texture is that of tooth paste.
Other areas feature a young looking surface, with no record of crater bombardment as expected. “These features are very, very young…Pluto is active today. That’s the headline.”[6] says Planetary scientist Dan Durda.
An active geology driven by heat
and “there’s pretty good circumstantial evidence that Pluto has a massive ocean in its interior”[7] says New Horizons mission principle investigator Alan Stern.

Secular Blindness

While scientists are willing to fess up to being wrong when confronted with objective data like that supplied to them from their own instruments aboard the New Horizons space probe, it is unlikely that they are willing to acknowledge error with regard to the below lessons, save the first, which they cannot deny without being accused of being science deniers. Continue Reading

Should Christians believe in a multiverse? 7 Reasons Against

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Duane Caldwell

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Cor 4.2

Non-believers will likely consider the above scripture irrelevant and unpersuasive and will ponder the wisdom of starting an article on the multiverse with a verse of scripture. In so doing they will have confirmed the scripture (blind to spiritual truths) while setting up my two points: First – this is not merely a discussion of physics – but of metaphysics. (Metaphysics being those things that lie beyond the realm of observable physical reality and so strictly speaking, are beyond the realm of the questions that physics can answer.) Second, not only is the multiverse “pure metaphysics”[1] as Christian apologist William Lane Craig puts it, but many scientists seem blind to the fact that they are engaging in metaphysics – not physics – when proposing the multiverse as a “scientific” answer to a number of the problems their theories have. They have fallen into the same error that philosopher of science and apologist John Lennox chides theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking for: engaging in metaphysics while failing to recognize he is doing so.[2]

Truth in advertising

Having identified multiverse theories as claims that deal with the metaphysical, we can make the following observations: Continue Reading

Evolution Falsified-Again; Follow-up

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

Dr. Colin Menter traces out a simplified human evolutionary tree in the sand

Evolutionists attempting to defend evolutionary theories further highlight fatal flaws

Apparently my previous article –Evolution falsified – again struck a nerve among evolutionists. They took issue with me pointing out that evolution has been falsified because a bacteria has been found that has not evolved in 2 billion years. Aside from the ad hominem attacks, a number of Twitter commenters (like this one) stated that no change (in form) is expected if there are no (natural) selection pressures. Since the cited article indicated there was no change in the environment, many evolutionists quickly and conveniently jumped to the conclusion that no environmental changes means there were no selection pressures. But is that a valid conclusion given evolutionary assumptions? Continue Reading

Evolution falsified – Again

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

The irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum

Darwinian evolution has been falsified many times. With the recent bacterial find, it’s been falsified again.

A recent bacterial discovery once again demonstrates that evolution is false, and that adherents believe it on a faith basis, not an evidentiary, scientific basis. To fully appreciate that point one must understand how faith is expressed. As a Christian, there are certain things that I believe that you will not change my mind on. For instance, I hold the following as true:

God exists
God is good
God is love
Jesus is the image of the invisible God

I have good reasons to believe all these things¹, which makes my belief a rational one. (More on that here.) But the fact that regardless of what you show me, I will still believe them indicates that they are un-falsifiable statements, which make them statements of faith, not of science.

That is precisely how faith is supposed to work. Care must be taken that you place your faith in an object worthy of faith. Such as Jesus and the Bible. Once that requirement is met, you continue to have faith in revealed truth because your object of faith (God) has presented evidence of the truthfulness of what you believe. More importantly he knows more than you do about things you now question, like why or how did __x___ (fill in the blank) happen. God will at some future date resolve your questions and make sense of apparent contradictions, but that which he has made clear – like the fact of his existence²
– he expects us to continue to believe regardless of the nonsense and lies unbelievers present.

On the other hand, science is not supposed to work that way. Continue Reading

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