Well then okay. I concede. Carroll did not say science disproves these religious beliefs. He only says this: “And science says: none of that is true.”

It’s Carroll who needs to read Fine’s paper, at any rate. I didn’t say science says none of it is true. I said exactly the opposite. And you’re excoriating me for equating Carroll’s conclusion that “And science says: none of that is true.” with “science disproves it.” If “science disproves it” is a false statement (which it is for more than one reason), it is Carroll’s false statement, slightly paraphrased by me.

I am more than well aware that science does not “prove.” Goodness knows I had that drilled into me in grad school. But science does disprove,

Good grief: you need to get past Popper (or at least the popular misinterpretation of Popper) and read up on the philosophy of science. (I recommend Arthur Fine’s delightful paper, and see also here.) And in any case, I can’t believe that your criticism of Carroll turns on the legitimacy of using the word “proof”. His argument, and mine above, is that the Resurrection is an untenable hypothesis, no more plausible than the existence of a snowball at the center of the sun. (I can’t demonstrate that there isn’t one, but there’s no good reason to treat it as a serious proposition.)

You need to follow your own advice and be more careful about your attributions, Geoff. Really. You left this out

No I didn’t leave anything out, because I wasn’t quoting anything you wrote, I was stating my interpretation of something that you wrote (see below). Your comments above about getting the interpretation right, and partial ambiguity, are entirely beside the point.

Anyway, here’s what you wrote, with a few highlights of my own. My summary seems exactly on the money:

What about cases where the Bible and science actually confict? In the case of young-earth creationism, I would say the conflict is only apparent. It is not the Bible that’s wrong, it’s a certain interpretation of the Bible. I don’t believe in the young earth version of origins, because I think there is adequate evidence in the natural world to overrule that interpretation, and that there is a way of looking at Genesis chapters 1 and 2 that honors its intended [sic - presumably "intention"] on an older-earth perspective.

(It is also conceivable that the evidence from science is incorrect, and that young-earth creationism is more accurate, but at this point I would consider that quite unlikely. The scientific evidence is very strong. The grounds for considering young-earth creation the only possible interpretation of Genesis are less strong. As many Bible scholars have pointed out, God has spoken through his word and through his creation. Both of them must be interpreted, and it is entirely appropriate to permit the evidence from one to influence one’s interpretation of the other. Properly understood, properly interpreted, what God says through both must agree, for God does not contradict himself.)

Do you understand why the word “prove” (or “proof”), with or without the “dis” prefix, is not part of the scientist’s lexicon? If you did, the rest of your comment is nonsensical

What then did Carroll mean by “And science says: none of that is true”? If you say he meant, “Science has shown that none of this is true, but it hasn’t disproved it,” then I would call that a distinction without a difference.

And goodness gracious, science does disprove things. Falling objects? Would you say that Aristotle’s view is not disproved? Would you say the 19th and early 20th century view of the extra-nuclear cell as a homogeneous blob of undifferentiated protoplasm is not disproved?

Is there nothing that has ever been believed in the history of ideas for which it could be said, “Science has disproved this”? What if someone said lightning is the sudden flash of a string of Christmas tree lights. Would it be “not part of the scientist’s lexicon” to say science disproves this?

I am more than well aware that science does not “prove.” Goodness knows I had that drilled into me in grad school. But science does disprove, and I hope you can acknowledge how obviously wrong your statement on that is. It’s okay sometimes to admit you’re wrong.

You say my position is tautological, which is odd, because at the same time you show how it could be falsified:

On this view, every proposition is either consistent with GROH, and therefore true, or inconsistent with GROH, and therefore false.

If a true proposition is found that is inconsistent with GROH, or vice-versa, then my position is falsified. I don’t think that’s happened. But it does provide our method of testing, which means it’s not tautological.

How does it advance the argument? It’s not an argument, so I don’t know why you would ask that question. I stated it to correct your mistaken depiction of my views. I suppose if you want it to have some place in some argument, this would be it: it gets us talking about what I actually hold to be true, rather than what I do not hold to be true. It would be rather silly to argue over something neither one of us believes, don’t you think?

Tom has already conceded that there is no unambiguous documentary source (since his preferred text is to be interpreted and understood in a manner contingent on the state of scientific understanding and other observations).

You need to follow your own advice and be more careful about your attributions, Geoff. Really. You left this out:
<blockquotehristians have not always got that interpretation right, just as scientists have not always got their interpretations of nature right. It’s a learning process that proceeds over time, as is also the case with science. Some things are quite well established, however, both in Biblical interpretation and in science.

Just because a portion of a body of knowledge is ambiguous does not mean the whole body of knowledge gets tossed out. Physics and biology would be in quite a mess if that were the case.

I doubt we’ll get anywhere fruitful with all these misattributions and quotes out of context that are thrown my way. We’ll see, I’m willing to see if it improves, though.

(I’m used to having comment preview/editing, by the way. That’s no excuse for the typos and slight errors in what I wrote, like using “he” at the start of the previous comment). They’re still wrong, but I’m having to adjust to a different style of working. I’m sure you’ll bear with me on that, since it’s not so unusual in the world of blog commenting.)

Give me a break….

Different religions make very different claims, but they typically end up saying things like “God made the universe in six days” or “Jesus died and was resurrected” or “Moses parted the red sea” or “dead souls are reincarnated in accordance with their karmic burden.” And science says: none of that is true.

Did he use the word “proof”? I didn’t say he did. And I think you also need to be caught up on what science can and cannot claim to do with respect to prove, for I did not use the word “prove.”

I attributed to him the believe that science had disproved these things. Carroll did not say that was impossible, for obviously science can disprove. It disproved Aristotle’s theory of falling objects. Did science prove the later theory that every object falls at the same speed in a vacuum? Actually not; in fact that too has been disproved, if I remember correctly. Science can disprove, Carroll knows it, and I attributed that to Carroll. You need to follow your own advice about being careful about attributions and citations, Geoff.

Now I’ll admit he did not use the word “disprove” either. He just said, ” science says: none of that is true.” Don’t you think that’s close enough?

As I said, you need to follow your own advice.

Of course there’s a separate question, which is whether one can construct the set of all true propositions. Tom has already conceded that there is no unambiguous documentary source (since his preferred text is to be interpreted and understood in a manner contingent on the state of scientific understanding and other observations).

Overall, this seems to be a dead end.