Creation science

Tater:

Juntel, you insist that evolution is not treated as a religion. Look around you

Tater, do I really treat evolution as a religion? I mean, really? Look in this thread for evidences of my treating evolution as a religion... a religion being sets of dogma that can't be questionned by experience nor logic.
I've never here treated evolution and the theories trying to explain it's existence as infallible; I've merely said, at most, that it hadn't been defeated yet by arguments such as ICR's or the ones invoked by Lurker. I've even said that in the future evolution and the theories of evolution could indeed be brought down (in this post, to be exact).
Do you and others at ICR ever say that Creationism (ICR's brand) could be brought down by experimentations, by research? NO. Because ultimately that is dogma, that is faith. And because of this, ICR's Creationism is religion, not science.

So, if after all you do think that I treat evolution as a religion (which I don't think you have said so so far), then I don't think I could convince you otherwise; I'll let our Entmooter friends decide that by themselves.
But if you really don't think that I treat evolution as a religion, that I suggest that you look around in litterature, in universities, etc... the official position isn't much different from mine (as exposed here in this thread). If evolution was a religion, ICR and others wouldn't be pointing out at debates among evolutionists about mechanisms of evolution, and other debates where evolutionists do question the structure itself of evolution and the theories pertaining to it, they do still do research on that field because they know we don't know all there is and there is still much to learn. They know that evolution and its pertaining theories aren't perfect (and they never deny this), in the same way that all sciences are not perfect.

And that is not only my personal opinion on this, it is the usual philosophy that scientists have towards their art.
However strong you may try to deny this...



Lurker:

"The things that I will forever believe: God does exist. God did cause the Universe to come into existance."

I of course will not try to debate against this. I believe that the truth or falsity of these are outside of sciences or logics.


"The things that I will debate..."

I do expect from you that you will support your bible scenario on its own grounds, by that I mean that, unlike the people at ICR, you will try to find direct evidence pointing towards its acceptability, rather than just try to destroy the actual scientific explanation and thinking that only the bible explanation would survive.

As for the old-Earth theories, I'll do my best to see your arguments, think them over, study them.

"I do not contend that [creationsim] is part of science"

Then at least we two have one thing less to disagree on. That you "do feel it overlaps with the natural world in many places" isn't a problem at all for me.


"I must beg to differ here" (about the billion year old petrified human skeleton finding scenario)

I can't prevent you from begging to differ.
I did choose that big number (1 billion years) for good reasons.
As for discrediting the dating, well, the dating could be done over and over again. When I say that the skeleton would be dated 1 billion years old, it does take into account independant dating from different labs, etc. (i guess i should have made that more precise in my original scenario)


"Science makes definitions to suit the theory-du-jour as well"

Not totally false, not totally true. Definitions and assumptions are important in science, that's true. But the theory must not be impervious to testing in experimentations.
But it ain't true that a definition can be made to make an already existing theory true. If one changes or makes definitions, the explanation or theory is changed, and must be treated as such.
So, one doesn't make or change a definition to suit a theory, but rather to make a new one, to make a new explanation, that in turn must be tested itself.

But, coming back to the subject of transitional forms, so if ICR's adepts do change what is to be considered a transitional form, then they shouldn't expect a theory of evolution to abide by it, since it isn't even what it was predicting anyway: ICR's position on transitional forms is of their own making, and not what is predicted by theories of evolution.


"I guess your literary suggestions might count as some enrichment"

It may come to a point when I'll only do that, literary suggestions.


"Philip E. Johnson"

Haven't heard of this book. Is it available at Chapters (probably not if it's coming from Harper!), or Indigo?

"The Lost World"

I did enjoy my browsing through the "Jurassic Parc" book; the mathmatician was rendered a bit too stupid in the movie though.
Haven't browsed through LostWorld yet... but do be sure that I won't see the movie before browsing through the book: I know from reports that the mathematician is the main character! The last time I saw a mathematician as main character in a movie is Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs"!
I wonder how far Crichton has pushed the "chaos" issue...


"if I can make you question your beliefs, then I guess that's worth a bit"

I'm already very good at questioning my own beliefs, whatever some others might think. And yes, the material of this thread will enter into my counter-arguments I will make against my own arguments.

I hope I will not be the only one getting out of here enriched...



"Even nice people who did almost nothing wrong in their lives?" (my quote)

What makes you ROFL on this one? I did say "almost"...
But I guess that not believing in god is the most ultimate wrong doing in your religion...


"I know that I am justified in my faith, in the same manner that I know I'm sitting on my chair right now. I don't have to see it... I can feel it. Not in the physical sense (except for the chair), but I can feel it right there nonetheless."

I don't doubt that.
I also know that is the same feeling that faithfull muslims, buddhists, jews, hindus, etc... have of their own faith.
That doesn't mean either of you are wrong, though.
Nor right.


"Some of juntel's posts would suggest that this is about whether creation is a science, not which theory is more valid... *shrug*"

A theory that is scientific doesn't make it necessarily valid.
A theory isn't necessarily scientific.
I contend that Creationism (esp. ICR's) is not science.
Could the Creationist theory be valid? Yes, as much as the Matrix scenario of mine could.
All I say is that neither two is scientific.

*Shrug* all you want...


"Maybe you don't use your coccyx..."

I myself use my coccyx in Scrabble. Very helpfull. j/k



Quickbeam:

"Archaeopteryx"

I guess at this point I'll just have to give some literature to read, just for Entmooters to know by themselves what Stephen J Gould has to say about evolution and the theories of evolution:

Some books by Stephen J Gould one should read:

Ever Since Darwin (very nice introduction to evolution through a collection of some articles he wrote in some magazines)
The Panda's Thumb
The Mismeasure of Man (if some still think evolution has anything to do really with racism, geniocraty or eugenistics)
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes
The Flamingo's Smile
An Urchin in the Storm
Wonderfull Life
Bully for Brontosaurus
Eight Little Piggies
Dinosaur in a Haystack
Full House

Too much? Well, begin with the first one...
All can be found i'm sure through Amazon; and most I hope at your local municipal library. Or at bookstores.

Gould is often quoted by ICR... so above are most of his vulgarized works: rather than just reading quotes, go for the books themselves.
You can read Tolkien's bricks? Than you can read Gould!


Your suggestion, Juntel, that these transitions could take place without these intermediates existing is amazing to me. It seems to be a particularly powerful strain of the standard evolutionary 'how much we don't yet know' quasi-argument"

You see evolution of life as a simple ladder, from simple forms of life at the bottom, and more complex at the top, and you want science to find what you and ICR think must be a continuous spectrum of intermediate "rungs" in that ladder.
What can I say? Just that your and ICR's view of evolution simplifies it too much. There is no such ladder of evolution, it is seen rather as a beautifull "tree" with many embranchments, some leading nowhere, some continuing upward by splitting into different branches.
When two forms of life separated by millions of years are said to be related, it doesn't mean one is the direct descendant of the other; it only means they come from the same embranchment.

Again, please Entmooters, do read the above books by SJ Gould, and the books he himself suggests. And do go on reading the ICR site (www.icr.org). Don't believe me or QB, or Lurker or Tater, do go on learn by yourselves.

(btw, QB, "we don't know yet" isnn't an argument, it is a fact. We don't know yet everything there is to know about evolution, the origin of life, the origin of the universe, and oh! so many other things. And science doesn't hide from that fact.)


"Darwin's 'mechanism for evolution' that I referred to was the idea that little things in the blood called 'genomes' (I think that was the term) transmitted information to the sex cells. What he theorized was that when, for example, a relatively short-necked animal stretched out it's neck to reach leaves on trees to eat, the genomes would carry to the sex organs the message that the next generation needed a longer neck. Over many generations, the long neck of the giraffe thus evolved"

Hmm... Darwin as a Lamarckist... I'll leave that one to Lurker himself.
Or IronParrot.


*About "Glen Rose" footprints... I'm sorry that at the time, and right now, I didn't have the name of the ICR own debunker of this. I'll go at the library today and look for the name.


"It's only the verbal or literary 'crossing of swords' that I'm uncomfortable with"

And so am I. I ain't the perfect debater, I admit it.

But when I read (between the lines at least) that geologists, zoologists, archeologists, paleontologists, biologists (molecular biologists, geneticists, etc), astrophysicists, physicists, and others are all adding little lies after little lies just to support evolution and the theories of evolution... it is something that I myself am amazed at that somebody would just take that belief in a series of lies, which amounts to nothing more than a conspiracy of scientists, and believe it.

I guess that if I did offend someone by my words, it was a unconscious reaction to prevent me from smacking my forehead with my hand and hurting myself.


"'And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given among people by which we may be saved.' (Acts 4:12)"

Hmmm... and if I never confess Jeesus as my personal savior, even when I die, I am not saved? Do I go then to hell? Would I ever be in heaven?


"I'm guessing there will be question about that that will be raised in a subsequent post"

Or you could start another thread...