Evolutionary Science-v- Creationism

[Fudge Armadillo]

Originally Posted by elf

"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.

: )

[elf]

(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.

[Fudge Armadillo]

Originally Posted by elf

(maybe I'm being thickheaded)

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?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by wolf

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.

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.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Fudge Armadillo

My assertion is that they are testable; easily, in fact. Even a child should be able to recognize the weakness of the theories easily.

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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

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.

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.

[elf]

Originally Posted by Fudge Armadillo

If a student cannot reject it on his or her own, how does not teaching it improve the situation?

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.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by alphageek31337

Since this got dredged up from the dark, horrible recesses of the Cellar, I feel I must add my opinions. I don't necessarily buy evolution part and parcel, but I see it as a much stronger jumping off point than "God made the world as it is today and it has not changed at all ever".

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.

Darwinian competition ("Survival of the Fittest") can be observed in the world today, with the evolution (yes, whether you believe evolution started it all or not, you cannot deny that it is happening today) of such things as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the commonly cited case of Peppered Moths in Britain.

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.

For those of you unfamiliar with the moths, the basic idea is thus: there are moths in England that tend to gather on a tree with white bark. These moths varied in color from almost pure white to pure black. A pure black moth is easy for predators to spot, so the population tended to include very few pure or mostly black moths, with the dominance of color leaning toward the white moths. Around the time of the industrial revolution, however, a shift occurred. Coal smoke from nearby factories blackened the trees, suddenly making white moths very visible and black moths quite well hidden. Thus, obviously, the population swung toward black moths.

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.

Now, it has been argued that since no new genetic information was created, that evolution did not occur, and this is true.

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.

The moths are simply an example of natural selection, the driving force, the keystone if you will, behind evolution.

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

If an omniscient, omnipotent being created all the creatures of Earth, why do things like this have to change? Creatures needn't adapt, because they were created in perfect balance by a perfect being.

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.

One might also note Albert's Squirrel on one side of the Grand Canyon versus the Kaibab Squirrel on the other side. The two are almost perfect genetic matches, with minor physical variations, and cannot interbreed. New genetic material and a new species were both created, theoretically by the Grand Canyon forming and splitting the populations. There we have proof that evolution does happen, though it will be impossible without some interesting manipulations of the fourth dimension to prove that it *did* happen.

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

Never has it been observed that God plopped a new species onto the Earth, though if Creationism is correct in its assumptions, he wouldn't have to. There will also always be gaps in the fossil record, because we must note that it is an extremely rare occurence for an animal to be fossilized after death. Even in extremely successful species with millions in population at one time (and, we must assume, an exponentially greater number of deaths), there are not terribly many preserved fossils, especially those of full bodies of a single organism, which would prove infinitely more useful than single or small groups of bones, which could easily be attributed to the animal before or after the transitional species. Transitional species are just that, transitional. They exist for a short time as one archetype moves toward another. There are not nearly as many of them as there are of successful archetypes, and they do not exist for as long a time (hence, fewer bodies and exponentially fewer fossils).

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?

On another note, one of the more common arguments for intelligent design is what I refer to as the automobile theory, essentially that evolution is just as likely as a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a complete, running automobile. The problem with this theory is that it assumes one junkyard, one planet on which life could possibly have evolved. Given that the universe is infinite (space is nothingness, nothingness can extend onward indefinitely, therefore the universe must be infinite in size), and that there are an absolutely mindblowingly large number of planets in the universe (a number large enough that it can be considered, for practical purposes, infinite), what is the likelihood that there is *not* a planet on which life could evolve? Essentially, given 1 junkyard and one tornado, the chances of assembling an automobile are infintessimally small, but given an infinite number of junkyards and an infinite number of tornados blowing through each of them, it is almost a guarantee that, at least once, the parts will come together by chance and form a running automobile. This is the same theory I present to people who don't believe that intelligent life exists off of the planet Earth: given an infinite number of attempts over time, even at infintessimally small odds, Earth cannot be the only place in the universe that fell within that precise range on the bell curve that permits intelligent life to develop. In fact, it is safe to assume that there are a vast multitude of civilzations throughout the universe.

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.

Also, as a sidenote for intelligent design theorists who wish to argue, "your theory is wrong" != "my theory is right". Simply poking holes in evolution does not mean that there is a God. Come up with scientifically backed data that withstands scrutiny and provides mechanisms to explain the changes in organisms that we have observed, and you will begin to actually prove your theory.

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.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

A public school system is not free to teach religion in science class.

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

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

You teach the theory of evolution in science class.

You teach intelligent design in a comparative religion class.

It's not terribly complicated.

Intelligent design isn't a theory because it cannot be tested.

You would also have to teach all of the intelligent design "theories", pagan, hindu, xtian, etc, before I would even accept it as a true intelligent design concept.

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

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

OC, have you ever - in your life - been "100% certain" about something, only to learn that you were wrong?

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.

[Undertoad]

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.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by elf

I’m not the most eloquent person in the world so bear with me if you please . . .

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

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why couldn’t it be that God did make people from primordial ooze? Did He carve Adam out of rock or sculpt him from clay? It makes more sense to me that a higher power would have prompted it to grow with a mere thought or will to make it so.

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.

Does God have hands? Why would he? ‘In his own form’, so it says . . . but then, his own form would have needed air and food to survive just as we do. If He doesn’t need it, then why do we breathe and eat? Is it ‘in his own form, only not as spiffy?’

It says it is so in the bible, and therefore that’s the way it is. Would it be too much of a stretch that pehaps the bible had been simplified to understandable terms for the mindset of the peoples thousands of years ago?

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.

Just like schoolbooks are simplified to make it so that children can grasp the concepts, and then move on to make their own decisions and understand more deeply.<b> School is not the end-all be-all of education, and seeing as the bible is a tool of religious education, isn't there room for your own questions or conclusions? </b>Or do you have to read it and accept it just as it is worded (translated? How many times? To mean how many different things?) and not question?

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.

To be perfectly honest, I find it difficult to believe any one theory. People’s minds and their souls are so very complicated that it is rather difficult to think that it was completely and purely evolutionary, and yet, to have God just decide to and proceed to slap together what is now ‘human’ and make everything just the way it is now, and just plunk them down onto a fertile ground seems kind of hokey to me as well.

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.

The fact that different people view God differently tells me that there’s more than one way to believe and to have faith. The bible is not the only way, and therefore it doesn’t belong in school. The teaching of religion belongs in your house or your church.

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.

Something scares me about teaching creationism in the classroom. It begs children not to question. No? I was taught evolutionism. No one ever brought me to church and told me “this is what you need to think” – or even “This is what we believe”. I was taught that science is just that, ‘science’ – studying, assuming, testing, drawing conclusions and linking things together in a way that makes sense.

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.

And yet still I believe in <i>a</i> god. it’s just not necessarily <I>your</I> God. Or, rather, not the <i>same way</i> you think of Him. I think it would be comforting to close you eyes and imagine that God looks familiar.

It seems so much easier to <i>know</i> wholly and completely that your belief is correct.
…

Wow, this got a lot wordier than I had intended. Must be off for now, work to do and all that rot.

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.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

I'm a literal creationist. God did it like he said he did it in the bible.

Which one?

Which one?

[jinx]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

The Creator I believe in can do it right the first time,

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?