And our DNA is 98% identical to a chimpanzee's.

:blush: Thankee.

alphageek31337 had me nodding in agreement more than once. . . I wanted to mention something about the transitional species, but I couldn't find the right words. So thanks, Alph, for saying what I wanted to.

Space is not nothingness… it is a description of the geometry of the universe. The universe may indeed be finite, and therefore space is finite as well. Sorry, off topic.

On another note, I am not sure that I understand the distinction between presenting something as “fact” and presenting something as “theory” (I’m focusing on the dissemination of ideas in a classroom at this point). I would think that students should be encouraged to test everything that is taught to them. As long as students realize that the only thing human beings can do is provide descriptions of reality, is there really any harm in teaching anything?

Evolution is theory presented as theory because it is constantly being tested, creationism is presented as fact because it is an assertion based on no testing of any sort.

In science, there are no facts. No theory is certain enough to be a "fact" in the philosophical sense. The closest thing in science to a literal fact is what science calls "data", but any step in the collection and/or interpretation of the data is enough to strip it of literal facthood.

Therefore, whenever the word fact is used (if it is) in science, it is shorthand for "we're pretty damn sure".

But creationism is being tested by those who believe in it. As people assimilate more information, they will incorporate this into what they believe to be facts. Creationism, though, is a very simple theory and isn’t dependent upon many observations (at the simplest level, only one observation is needed: people exist). The point is that I can test this. The presentation of the theory is independent of this. The distinction is subtle, but what I am trying to get at is that it is not the presenter’s (be that the teacher, school, government, etc.) responsibility to “classify” arguments into “facts” and “theory”; therefore, I tend not to see the teaching of creationism as crossing the barrier of church / state. Creationism isn’t a “religious” theory; it is a description of reality, like any other, though relatively simple. Perhaps it is better to leave the evaluation of the theories up to the students (hopefully with some guidance from their parents).

"It was magic" is not a scientific theory. It is a religious assertion. It belongs in a comparative religions class, not a science class.

Under that definition, a fact is a theory that has reached some arbitrary level of acceptance. I'm not saying this is incorrect, I'm just using it to illustrate a point; most everyone treats the definition of “fact” as an absolute. However, most people also agree that there are various degrees to certainty, especially with reasonably complicated issues. The complication (for me) comes in when the two are mixed. No description of reality can be presented as an absolute fact (mathematics doesn’t count, it is a language, not a description of reality).

No, it isn't. You don't test the Word of God(tm). By definition it should exist regardless of what we determine by study.

Actually, that statement is a theory. Taken literally, it might be rephrased as “this event had no cause”. I always liked that one, because I have heard the argument many times that such a statement does not qualify as a theory because it is fundamentally not testable (since it ignores causality, which all theories rely on). However, I would point out that the statement *is* testable; give that, in essence, one is simply trying to determine if causality is required. If one is to observe other non-causal events, then one might conclude that such events do happen, and therefore “magic” does exist. Most people don’t do this, though we observe many non-causal events every day (I mean in the strict sense that the actions that led to the state of the event were not observed by us). Usually, we possess other descriptions of reality that would lead us to believe that the event was indeed caused by something else (though we didn’t observe it). However, one that did not have such a background may indeed believe that the event was caused by “magic”.

That made way more sense in my head then it does on paper.

B

Bingo. There’s the distinction I was looking for. The idea that something should not be tested is religion; it is not the statement in itself that is “religious.” That’s where the line is crossed. Theories are not religion; believing that one possesses “facts” is.

In one or more of these evolution debates I've declared myself amongs the intelligent designers ... I don't see why the scientific and the religious views can't co-exist. it's only when one requires the exclusion of the other that we get into these pages-long debates that go nowhere.

Actually, they aren't debates, since rarely does anyone make a change of opinion based upon the information presented. It's opinion-spouting, sometimes backed by facts, sometimes by sheer passion.

And there are indeed lots of Christians who take an ever-so-slightly less literal interpretation of Genesis. They might even be considered to be an (even more) silent majority of the silent majority.

It has never been my assertion that creationism is wrong, only that it isn't science. The only real debate as to creationism is which creationism is the right one?

It's hard to prove something has no evidence indicating which deity is responsible...

You have no idea how many posts I have deleted just for that very exact reason. There's things that are so very clear in your head, and then when you try to enunciate them, they all of a sudden seem muddled up.

However, you did make plenty of sense to me. At least, if you meant something along the lines of what I tell my son: "If there's absolutely no reasonable explanation for it, it must be magic." To which he asked, "but, what IS magic? I told him, "Science we haven't figured out yet."

Queen of simplification? y/n?

Sort of. Think of it this way – I walk outside to get in my car and leave (fully expecting my car to be there), only to discover my car isn’t where I parked it. I now need to develop a theory to explain what has happened to it. I might surmise that it was stolen. This would be reasonable, since I have prior experience with such events. However, I might also conclude that my car was transported to neverland. So I decide to test both theories; I call the police, report my car stolen, and sure enough, they tell me it has been found miles away. My theory is, therefore, adequately confirmed. Now I want to test the other theory. How do I do this? Most would say that I can’t, since there is nothing to test. However, what am I really testing? I am really trying to see if events that occur without explanation are reasonable. Since I encounter events like this numerous times every day (since most of what occurs I do not observe directly), I might conclude that such an explanation is reasonable. In fact, I would argue that all people who believe in what is generally described as “religious fundamentalism” most conclude that the aforementioned hypothesis is reasonable. I am not trying to put anyone down; the validity of one’s beliefs is none of my business. However, such an assertion is not, at its base “religious”. It is merely a judgment call on how much information is needed to validate a theory. Religion comes in when one believes that no justification is required or allowed.

The main point of all this is that a common argument for not teaching creationistic theories in public school is that such theories are “religious”. When pressed, people will sometimes say that since creationist theories are akin to magic, they are fundamentally not testable, and therefore should not be taught. My assertion is that they are testable; easily, in fact. Even a child should be able to recognize the weakness of the theories easily.

I think that if my child asked me a similar question, I might well reply in the same manner as you. Of course, I might try to explain what I meant as I did above, which would very likely be futile. Then I would buy us both ice cream.

: )

(maybe I'm being thickheaded)

D'you mean that an easily recognizeable weakness in a thoery disproves it?

While your example is obviously true, I'm not grasping your reasoning because I'm sure that there's going to be discoveries in the future that would be just ridiculous to think of now, i.e.: you couldn't convince people a few centuries ago that the world was round because they walk on the flat thing all the time.

You know what I'm getting at?

Like I said, perhaps I'm just being dunderheaded.
-and I gotta leave work soon, won't have internet connection till monday. El Sucketh. But I'll catch up with this then.

No, not at all. I’m just not explaining it very well. The root of the issue is what is appropriate to be taught in school. In the U.S., it is generally accepted that religious ideals are not to be taught in public schools. Most would group creationism into this category. What I have tried to show is that the argument that most people use to keep such theories out of public classrooms is not valid; such theories are not un-testable… they are just very simplistic.

I was also attempting to show that there is no difference in believing in creationism on religious grounds and believing in evolution because it is accepted; the two paths are the same. For most people, creationism is easy to reject as a plausible theory of human existence; evolution is much more difficult to reject, perhaps because it is more complicated, or possibly, because it is a better description of reality.

When we dismiss ideas out of hand without attempting to validate them, we are engaging in the exact same behavior that religious fundamentalists do. I do not see the harm in teaching creationism. If a student cannot reject it on his or her own, how does not teaching it improve the situation?

I only require the exclusion of magic from science classes. And I fully expect that many Sunday School classes will exclude science. And I have no problem with that. You don't go to a science class to learn about magic, and you don't go to Mass to learn about science. It's real easy.

No, they are not testable. If you spot a problem in a religious assertion, they can say "God is omnipotent and inscrutable, and He made it that way", and presto! The hole is gone.

It's easy for me and it's easy for you but it's not going to be easy for the kids that are going to have the fundie adgenda shoved down their throats. Especially the non-christian kids. :(

Basically what I mean is this:

Evolutionism=question, study, theorize, test.

Creationism= here it is. That's it, move along.

To pseudo-paraphrase Happy Monkey, with creationism, you can fill in gaps just by saying "that's the way God made it!"

<b>That</b> is where the harm in it starts.

Taking up the Creationist Science side, no one in Creation Science thinks "God made the world as it is today and it has not changed at all ever". Of course it has changed. Of course speciation and mutations occur. That is observable. It happens.

What you are describing is speciation, or mutation, which are one of the 6 definitions of evolution. Again, speciation and mutation happens. No question of that.

Actually, the peppered moth experiment was proven to be a hoax. They glued the moths to the trees. I cited the many references in this or a another EvC thread here on the cellar, but it's not hard to find if you google it.

Exactly so. Evolution in the "molecules to man" sense means a GAIN of information. Which we NEVER see. All we can see (and prove) is a LOSS of information.


Evolution in the "mutation or speciation" sense, absolutely.

You are correct. God did make a perfect world. Then Adam and Eve ate the apple, and God told them, in effect, that's it, you've screwed it up for everyone now, and things began to deteriorate and change. In the bible, everything, every animal and person, were vegetarian. After the fall, it was open season, and animals began eating each other, and God made the first clothes from animal skins.

No, we have proof speciation and mutations happen. Not proof that man evolved from a primordial soup billions of years ago.

Agreed, and more "evidence" that we can't prove transitional species even existed. They may have, but we don't have proof. And isn't observable and/or recreatable proof what science is based upon?

I don't buy the "intelligent design" theory as put forth as "God used evolution". In my opinion, that is a cop out theory that tries to fit man's theory of evolution into a biblical framework. I'm a literal creationist. God did it like he said he did it in the bible. Trying to fit man's theories into that framework doesn't work for me. That is mostly because if I accept that God was lying when he said "DAY" (yom) and "he saw it was good", then what else is he lying about? That is why this issue is so important to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

www.answersingenesis.org

Pokes holes in evolutionary theory AND puts forth new SCIENTIFIC theories that prove a young earth could have happened just as easily as an old earth.

And therefore the ORIGIN OF MAN has no place in a science class.

Evolution Theory as it relates to origin of man cannot be tested either.

Yes, I have been. Again, I'm open minded. And it is possible that I'm completely wrong on this. And if you can PROVE to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that human beings evolved from a primordial ooze, then I will admit I am wrong.

Until then, I choose to believe 100% that evolution as it relates of origin of man didn't happen the way most scientists (who are proven wrong more often than right) try to force feed me it did.

IOW, until you have personal understanding and proof of the nature of the last billion years, you'll believe that all this was set up by an invisible man.

I'm far from eloquent myself, so join the club!

Well, there are lots of different "theories" out there, but I'm one of those silly literalists, meaning I believe God did it the way he said he did it in Genesis. That makes the earth about 6,000 years old, all of creation formed in 6 literal 24 hour days, it makes the earth formed before the sun, and it makes the evolutionist's idea that man showed up on the scene after millions of years of death and carnage completely wrong, because there was no death before Adam ate the apple.

Some other people (Hugh Ross and his intelligence design folks) try to fit millions of years of history into the bible, but the language and grammer of the old testament are pretty clear that day means day, not undetermined period of time.

Actually, if you take the bible literally, and Man has been around as long as everything else, that means that all of the technology and knowledge known to the egyptians and babylonians and alexandrians came handed down from Noah and his 3 sons. Remember how long people lived in the bible? 900 + years is a long time to learn stuff and memorize it and hand it down to your kids (and their kids and their kids...) God wouldn't need to simplify anything.

Time was (within the last couple thousand years) when people could read and believed the book as it was written. If you read the book as literal, without ANY presuppositions or assumptions, you would have absolutely NO clue from the text about millions of years. It's just NOT there. Why are you trying to fit man's fallible ideas into an infallible book and then calling the book wrong?? Read it as it's written.

If you're an omnipotent God, and this is your rule book, and your primary basis of communicating your wants and requirements to your believers, aren't you going to make sure it's right? I don't know what kind of diety you may worship (if any), but the one I believe in can make sure the books and verses he wants in the book stay in the book.

Which brings me to another point: The Creator I believe in can do it right the first time, but simply willing something into existance, without needing millions of years and death and destruction to do it. Another reason I have a problem with the ID theorists.

But see, he DIDN'T make it as it is now. He made it perfect about 6,000 years ago. Then the serpent came and since he was miserable and wanted to make everyone miserable with him, he lied to Eve, told her that God was wrong, don't believe him when he says "if you eat off this tree you'll die". She didn't trust what God said, and CHOSE to believe the serpent instead, and now everything has gone to shit over the last 6,000 years or so. God didn't make it like this. He made a perfect world and humans screwed it up for everybody. Now the serpent is using men to try to convince people that God is wrong (again) about what he said (In the beginning God created...), and people are choosing to believe the serpent instead. Same story, same species, just a different lie.

I absolutely and totally agree. However...evolution as taught as origin of man is a religion too. And my children shouldn't have to learn it in school, either.

Science is science. and it is studying, testing, drawing conclusions and then testing those conclusions, then having OTHER people test the same conclusions in the same way and getting the same answer, every time. (Assumption is not science.)

Evolutionary theory as it relates to origin of man is NOT science. It is all about assumption and guessing. You can't prove any of it. It's not science.

I agree. My Creator may not be the same as your God. And he/she might not be the same as Elspode's Creator God, or the Hindu God, or the Egyption Dieties.

And I don't think Creationism or Intelligent Design or Evolution as it relates to origin of man need to be taught in school with my tax money.

Which one?

Which one?

The thing that always gets me is the difference between the vertebrate and the cephalopod eye. Why would the creator have created the eye 2 different ways? Why would squids have a superior eye if man was created in gods image? :confused:

No, I'll believe that an Omnipotent Creator God that believes that Free Will and Personal Responsiblity are the keys to returning to a perfect world one day made the heavens and the earth in 6 sets of 24-hour periods called days.

I believe that there is an opposing force to this Creator God, a Destroying force, and that he is a liar and a cheat and well, a destroyer. He tricks people into turning away from the Creator God, and he's using this made up bogus fake theory that all humans simply spontaneously generated from a non-living soup of acid, and that we're all just animals, and that one "race" of humans are more evolved than another, and that there is no Creator God at all, and everything is random chance, there's no after life, you're just here for a miserable so many years, and then you're gone.

Well I don't believe the Liar, and I think that all the science that some people use to "prove" millions of years can be reinterpreted to "prove" a young earth of about 6000 years or so.

And I believe that no one has to agree with me or my interpretation of my beliefs.

I believe that my children should NOT have to listen to some schmuck with a 4 year teaching degree (in some cases less) tell them that they came from acidic muck billions of years ago when NO ONE can prove that ANY MORE than they can prove my Creator God exists.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i1/retina.asp

Talks all about the eyes.

And that means what?

Well, I can't speak for all creationists, (there are differing opinions even within the Creationist circles) but Genesis tells us that Adam actually named all the animals and was given dominion over all the animals. (The hebrew verbage is important here, specifically, the word nephesh, which indicates an animal with a soul, ie NOT insects.) This gets rather complex, so I'll refer you to the AIG site I go to alot when I think about stuff like that.

http://www.answersingenesis.org

So they're saying that the blind spot isn't that big of a deal for most people most of the time, and because we have flashlights and microscopes, our eyes are just as good as they need to be. Huh. :3_eyes:

The hebrew text of the old testament and the (mostly) greek text of the new. Yes, there are some minor changes between different translations, and when they differ completely in mean from one to another, I consult the hebrew text and dictionaries, and use the translation most closely matching that.

OK, not one invisible man but two, which makes for a better narrative.

:D :thumbsup:

ok, here is a better link

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home...2/chapter7.asp

The first one was more focused on retinal photoreceptors, this one is more general.

The highlights: (with snippage)

More than that, Kent Hovind (www.drdino.com) has a segment in his downloadable seminars that has to do with this very question, (and is quite a bit simpler about it), and basically, if the human's eye was constructed like the squid's eyes, we'd all be blind within a very short period of time, because of the inverted nature of the anatomy in the human eyes block certain light waves that underwater creatures dont need to worry about. Thus, the cephalopod eye was made just right for underwater life, and humans eyes were made just right for land dwelling.

I wish I had a more detailed answer on this, but I just don't know enough about it, other than topical information.

But why are there 2 designs? If the creator created it right the first time - why the need for a new design, regardless of which one is "right"?

Although I recognize you're trying to be funny, no, not "one invisible man, but two". No men. Men have nothing to do with it. Omnipotent Creator and to a lesser extent, Destroyer.

Not men.

Because one type lives underwater, and would REQUIRE a different anatomy than the other, who lives above water?

Edit:
Just like respiratory systems. One type "breathes" water, while the other "breathes" air. Same thing.

I don't understand your confusion on this?

Invisible is the more operative word; you don't require any proof of your story at all, right?

Monkey, it comes down to this:

You can postulate that God (et al) made it like the bible says he did. You have no proof of that.

and

You can postulate that by happy random chance, non-life spontaneously erupted into primitive life, and from that life, all different life forms mutated and speciated and added a bunch of genetic information and split and over billions of years, the human race, as we know it, evolved. You have no proof of that either.



So why teach either in public school? Leave it out and teach SCIENCE.

Wrong.

Could it have happened the way the bible says it did? Is it possible the earth is only about 6,000 years old?

Yes.

OK, prove it.

You can't tell a kid "A higher power made people" and not explain who - at which point your kid's teacher just became a preacher. Ohhhh, not good. Therefore, it doesn't belong in school.

Bottom line as far as I can tell is thus:
Evolutionism is based on tremendous amounts of science: question, study, theorize, test. To the best of many brilliant minds' understanding, this is the way things have happened. 1+1=2. It makes sense.

Creationism is based on tremendous amounts of faith in a book, written forever ago by people who had no idea that the human body is made up of cells and that you catch a cold by coming into contact with the germs.

I'm much too tempted start in with the "If God made us in His own image, then what's <i>He </i>standing on?" questions. But that's not what this whole thing is about, so I think I am going to back out of this discussion now.

One breathes oxygen from water, another breathes oxygen from air - all eyes see with light. Cetaceans have inverted retinae.

I concur.

OK, I'm going to say this one more time, in BOLD and CAPITAL letters, so maybe someone will read it this time.

I DON'T ADVOCATE TEACHING BIBLICAL OR ANY OTHER CREATIONIST THEORY IN PUBLIC SCHOOL. NOR SHOULD PUBLIC SCHOOLTEACHERS ADVOCATE OR TEACH THE EVOLUTIONIST ORIGIN OF MAN.

Did you get it this time?


Read previous post about presuppositions. Darwin's origin of man is GUESSWORK. If it was science that life came from non-life, you'd be able to make life come from non-life in a test tube. Since that can't be done, you have NO PROOF!! Just like *gasp* creationist theories!!

Uh, actually, it's been posited that the bible (in the clean/unclean and the "put her away for a week" etc portions) were actually a great idea for the time, and is the FIRST evidence of quarantine as a way to curb contagious diseases. Seems like SOMEONE understood germs way back in the first 5 books of the bible.

You're right, it's not what this discussion is about, that's a WHOLE other thread. :) This isn't about why a person belives in one diety or another (or none at all).

You're right.

But the process by which those occur is different. They are each suited for their environments.

I'm sorry, I still don't understand what point you're trying to make.

I don't know where I lost you OC, I'm just discussing one of the reasons why "the creator created it right the first time" doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't seem likely to me that an omnipotent/scient god would create 2 different designs for the same purpose. Slight variations of a design depending on environment I can understand... aquatic animals need a longer eyeball to focus an image in front of the retina instead of behind it etc. that makes sense (but again, why does the squid have one type of eye, and the whale another if they are both underwater as you explained?).

If you're looking for a concrete point, a "I'm 100% certain that...", I'm sorry, I don't have one. I'm just asking questions because I'm interested in the answers.

Ah, I see. Well, I'm not sure that squids and whales have different eyes. I know that squids and humans do, but not about squids and whales. This is why I was posting comparisons to squids and humans, not squids and whales. My fault. Entirely.

I don't know why they have different eyes. Perhaps it's because their nervous systems are completely different, so the way the optic nerve handles information is different? Again, I have no clue, that's just a guess.

My best suggestion is to submit that question to AiG and see what they say. Smart bunch of folks, and lots of them are scientists, like marine biologists, etc. That would be the place to get your questions answered. I'm hardly a scientist of any discipline.

Edit to add:

IIUC, squids do not have contact with the air AT ALL, while whales need air to breathe...so perhaps the eye was formed in the whale differently from the squid because it DOES have contact with the air?? Shamu et all sure spend alot of time above water... ?? I dunno...just something I thought of....

a PDF on Whale eyes (appears to be a children's textbook):

relevant info is on page 3 and 4

http://www.destinationcinema.com/our...ments/v3_3.pdf

quote from page 3:

and a really good explaination of the differences between squid and human eyes:

This is where the idea that the layers provide protection against certain types of light from frying the rods and cones.

Does that help?

There is no proof of any theory.

Your refusal to understand the evidence supporting evolution doesn't negate it. Just as my refusal to accept Biblical literalism doesn't lead me to ask that it be removed from Sunday School classes.

Because God is inscrutible.

As there is no proof in science.

The difference here Monkey is that if you don't want your child taught Creationism, don't send your child to Sunday School.

All children are taught an equally non-provable theory in public school, whether I like it or not. How is that equal?

They are not equal. Evolution is science, whether you choose to understand it or not. Creationism is religion, whatever pseudoscientific trappings they try to dress it in. Science has a place in science classes, and religion does not.

Evolution is one of the most profound and important scientific discoveries in history. Pretending it doesn't exist in science class would be a major disservice to the students. The only thing separating evolution from other sciences is the continual effort by religious groups making distinctions without a difference. If the same groups worked with the same fervor to highlight any holes in Einstein, and promote scientists who disagree with relativity, they could make a website just as extensive as AnswersInGenesis. (And I suspect they actually would go after astronomy next, if they succeeded with evolution.) All science is incomplete. There are always more twists and details to discover. That's just the way science works.

Ok, the root of the argument here appears to be not whether mutation and speciation occur but what is the First Cause of man, correct?

That being the case, I believe that the argument dies when we realize that the current evolutionary paradigm is putting the pieces of evidence together to create a theory as to the most likely cause of our current state of evolution and that the bible says "God says it happened this way."

Science deals in trends and degrees of likelihood, the *insert appropriate religious text here* says with 100% certainty it happened this way.

As to how either of those is presented in a school environment, I can see where a teacher, or even the text, would gloss over the topic of evolution and just say that "scientists say that this is how it happened." That is not a failing of the scientist or the theory, but of the teacher or the publisher.

Again, evolution, when presented correctly, is science, and creationism, no matter how you present it, is religion.

So mote it be...

Does this mean that cats go to Heaven?