Evidence for Creationism and Against Evolution

[Rían]

Originally posted by Cirdan
I'm still having a good chuckle about the Mt. St. Helen's rock.

Enjoy it while you can, Cirdan *wistful smilie*

So, we have a rock that some radiometric test or tests were run, that yielded inaccurate results. This proves that one must assume the age prior to testing?

No, you have it quite wrong.

The lab's own statement that says the method is suitable for samples of a certain date range proves "one must assume the age prior to testing".

[Cirdan]

Labs only run the tests that the client requests. If the client has some motive to get the wrong answer that client might be tempted to intentionally request an inappropriate test. A true blind sample test would run the full spectrum of tests.

*still chuckling*

[Rían]

As I said before, enjoy it while you can, Cirdan *wistful smilie*


I'm looking forward to the "instant replay" when I get home to heaven. Should be quite interesting - I hope we can get one!

[brownjenkins]

anyone want to take a venture at my question from earlier...

if you buy the creationist belief, is there any way to to theorize which version of creationism is more or less likely?

or might it very possibly be one we haven't even thought of yet?

[Insidious Rex]

I would assume the creationist point of view that is as close to the evolutionary point of view is the more likely. the more young earth and dogmatic literalist you get the more painfully obvious how bogus it is. But I know people who believe a creator is responsible for everything and for humans in particular and that evolution has been guided to that end.

[Rían]

Originally posted by brownjenkins
anyone want to take a venture at my question from earlier...

if you buy the creationist belief, is there any way to to theorize which version of creationism is more or less likely?

or might it very possibly be one we haven't even thought of yet?

If you're talking about "more or less likely" in a scientific sense, the only version of creationism that I've seen put into scientific form is the Biblical version, so I guess the question can't really be answered until other versions can do the same thing, if possible.

(by "if possible", I mean that some people have equated the Biblical version of creationism to a simple one-line thing, like "A giant turtle made the universe." Well, a one-line thing like that CAN'T be put into any time of scientific question, whereas the Biblical account CAN, because there are more specifics listed, such as immutability of kinds, and catastrophism.)

But as I said before, I think science was hijacked by evolutionists to try to support a philosophy that is outside the realm of science in the first place (and is very comfortable mentally; i.e., no God, no moral accountability!), and then creationists, reacting against how "painfully obvious how bogus" (to borrow a phrase from IRex) some of the ideas evolutionists came up with were, and that people were actually believing them as scientifically proved, decided to jump into the fray themselves and do the best they could. Science was originally "let's find out how things work!" and involved making hypotheses and doing experiments and observing and measuring. BOTH evolutionism and creationism are "let's make an educated guess about what happened in the past, and do experiments where we can, and just make conjectures about the rest, because we really believe in our philosophy about how things got here, and we want to try to show it's true, as much as possible."

[Rían]

I thought I'd include a bit from G. K. Chesteron's book, The Everlasting Man (written in 1925). I wish he were alive today, he seemed like a really cool guy - intelligence coupled with great wit and love. Anyway, he had some observations on what we've been discussing here (and I have a quote from him in my sig that I really like.)

excerpts from G. K. Chesteron's book, The Everlasting Man
Far away, in some strange constellation in skies infinitely remote, there is a small star, which astronomers may some day discover. At least I could never observe in the faces or demeanour of most astronomers or men of science any evidence that they have discovered it; though as a matter of fact they were walking about on it all the time. It is a star that brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very strange animals; and none stranger than the men of science. That at least is the way in which I should begin a history of the world, if I had to follow the scientific custom of beginning with an account of the astronomical universe. I should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun, but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the dehumanised spectator. Only I do not believe in being dehumanised in order to study humanity ....

One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little. For the joke of it was, of course, that it never occurred to him to notice the title of the book itself, which really was blasphemous; for it was, when translated into English, "I will show you how this nonsensical notion that there is a God grew up among men." My remark was strictly pious and proper; confessing the divine purpose even in its most seemingly dark or meaningless manifestations. In that hour I learned many things, including the fact that there is something purely acoustic in much of that agnostic sort of reverence. The editor had not seen the point, because in the title of the book the long word came at the beginning and the short word at the end; whereas in my comment the short word came at the beginning and gave him a sort of shock. I have noticed that if you put a word like God into the same sentence with a word like dog, these abrupt and angular words affect people like pistol-shots. Whether you say that God made the dog or the dog made God does not seem to matter; that is only one of the sterile disputations of the too subtle theologians. But so long as you begin with a long word like evolution the rest will roll harmlessly past; very probably the editor had not read the whole of the title, for it is rather a long title and he was rather a busy man.

(con't)

[Rían]

excerpts from G. K. Chesteron's book, The Everlasting Man, con't
But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. ... But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. ....

But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the ascent of a slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an illogicality as well as an illusion; for slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with the stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking through the air, in a leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some explanation. Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on something dilatory in the process of things. There will be something to be said upon particular examples elsewhere; the question here is the false atmosphere of facility and ease given by the mere suggestion of going slow; the sort of comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman travelling for the first time in a motor-car.

[brownjenkins]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
If you're talking about "more or less likely" in a scientific sense, the only version of creationism that I've seen put into scientific form is the Biblical version, so I guess the question can't really be answered until other versions can do the same thing, if possible.

well, there are many scientists for example, that accept the whole 'there must be some intelligence behind the universe' argument... in fact, there may even be more of these than atheists... einstein was one

they see evolution and god as completely compatible

i guess what i'm asking is what theories specifically address the biblical interpretation, and not the general idea of creationism as a whole?

for instance, you say a fish can't become a llama, or whatever... but what's to say that a godlike being didn't do successive 'creating' over a long time period... creating the earth 5 billion years ago... creating bacteria 2 billion years ago... creating dinosaurs a few 100 million years ago... allowing them to die out... creating humans a million years ago?

[Rían]

Originally posted by brownjenkins
for instance, you say a fish can't become a llama, or whatever... but what's to say that a godlike being didn't do successive 'creating' over a long time period... creating the earth 5 billion years ago... creating bacteria 2 billion years ago... creating dinosaurs a few 100 million years ago... allowing them to die out... creating humans a million years ago?

Several things go against successive creating (nice term! did you come up with that?) in, specifically, Biblical creationism.

1. The account of all types of animals being created, including mammals, at one point in time, and described as specifically procreating after their own kind.

2. The specific association of death with the sin of man - death did not enter into the world until man sinned.

3. The absense of any indication of other creative events besides the account in Genesis 1.

[brownjenkins]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
Several things go against successive creating (nice term! did you come up with that?) in, specifically, Biblical creationism.

1. The account of all types of animals being created, including mammals, at one point in time, and described as specifically procreating after their own kind.

2. The specific association of death with the sin of man - death did not enter into the world until man sinned.

3. The absense of any indication of other creative events besides the account in Genesis 1.

kind of the the answers i expected

but i was trying to separate the 'science' part in creationism from the 'belief' part... the issues you bring up are based upon a book written a long time ago (and some are contradicted by other ancient writings on how the earth was created), not upon observable evidence

is there any physical evidence that might infer the things you mention?

for instance, the age of the earth has been approximated by things like artic core samples where you can count the years, or carbon dating... you can argue the veracity of the methods, as you have... but at least there are physical methods to argue about when it comes to determining the age of our planet... these seem to be missing from the creationist pov

[Rían]

Originally posted by brownjenkins
kind of the the answers i expected

but i was trying to separate the 'science' part in creationism from the 'belief' part... the issues you bring up are based upon a book written a long time ago (and some are contradicted by other ancient writings on how the earth was created), not upon observable evidence

But you're missing the whole point - evolutionism is ALSO based upon a 'belief' (the belief that there are only naturalistic forces behind what we see) and different scientists take different beliefs and then see if they can formulate hypotheses based on them and then see if evidence supports them. The beginning of both creationism and evolutionism is the same - a belief about what happened in the past.

is there any physical evidence that might infer the things you mention?

Yes.

for #1 - observable genetics as far as breeding more obviously supports creationism, IMO - see my write-up. What we SEE is that change of kinds is bounded, even for the really fast reproducing things where you can get lots of generations. For example, whoever brought up that fly example - well, it was STILL a fly, and a seriously damaged one at that. Call it a new species of fly, it doesn't matter - it's a damaged FLY.

(and btw this is prob. a good area to point out something... I imagine that when some people read the fly example, and the line about how a new species was produced, they went "oooohhh! Cool! evolution proved again!"

People! please realize that this is NOT evolution proved AT ALL! A "new species" is NOT a measurement, like determining weight or mass or voltage or chemical make-up. It's basically a decision made by some scientists to call something a little different a "new species". That's ALL. THAT'S ALL. And it's STILL a fly. This supports creationism more than evolutionism, IMO.)

Evolutionism says that things can go from fish-like thingy to bird, based upon assuming naturalistic forces behind things, and based on assuming macroevolution is true, and based upon seeing what is called microevolution happen. But as far as observing, microevolution does NOT go beyond ... microevolution, which is a perfect fit to the hypothesis of creationism in this area.

For 2 and 3, that would fall under background thoughts to formulate the theory. Just like the background thought to formulate the theory of evolution is that naturalistic, non-intelligence-driven forces are behind what we see, and change was based on mutations that were advantageous (and again, the actual observable evidence as far as mutational change disproves evolutionism more than proves it - typically the best example of an advantageous change is the sickle cell anemia one - pretty poor example, IMO, and there's tons of examples of harmful changes). Based upon that thought, things like PE were proposed.

for instance, the age of the earth has been approximated by things like artic core samples where you can count the years, or carbon dating... you can argue the veracity of the methods, as you have... but at least there are physical methods to argue about when it comes to determining the age of our planet... these seem to be missing from the creationist pov

There's certainly some room in creationism to allow a millions-of-years-old earth, but NOT to allow for macroevolution. Earth being millions of years old doesn't kill creationism. But please remember dating techniques are MASSIVELY extrapolative and therefore a bit dangerous to base things on. Also they often rely upon initial estimates being correct, which is quite dangerous, as was shown in the Mt. St. Helens rock example.

[brownjenkins]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
But you're missing the whole point - evolutionism is ALSO based upon a 'belief' (the belief that there are only naturalistic forces behind what we see) and different scientists take different beliefs and then see if they can formulate hypotheses based on them and then see if evidence supports them. The beginning of both creationism and evolutionism is the same - a belief about what happened in the past.

i was trying to put aside comparisons with other theories for the moment and compare types of creationism... accepting for sake of clairification that some form of creationism is true

for #1 - observable genetics as far as breeding more obviously supports creationism, IMO - see my write-up. What we SEE is that change of kinds is bounded, even for the really fast reproducing things where you can get lots of generations. For example, whoever brought up that fly example - well, it was STILL a fly, and a seriously damaged one at that. Evolutionism says that things can go from fish-like thingy to bird, based upon assuming macroevolution is true, and based upon seeing what is called microevolution happen. But as far as observing, microevolution does NOT go beyond ... microevolution, which is a perfect fit to the hypothesis of creationism in this area.

again... all this says is that evolution is wrong... it says the variety of creatures on this world must have been created, but it does not address the who or when of creation at all... as such, it could be seen as evidence for creationism, but not biblical creationism in particular

For 2 and 3, that would fall under background thoughts to formulate the theory. Just like the background though to formulate the theory of evolution is that naturalistic, non-intelligence-driven forces are behind what we see. Based upon that thought, things like PE were proposed.

theories are formed upon actual observations and implying things from those observations

saying "we've never seen animals change, so they don't macroevolve" may be right or wrong, but it is a rational argument

saying that "death did not enter into the world until man sinned" is completely irrational in scientific terms... what observations is this based on?

as for 3., there are a whole host of creation myths out their other than the biblical one

There's certainly some room in creationism to allow a millions-of-years-old earth, but NOT to allow for macroevolution. Earth being millions of years old doesn't kill creationism. But please remember dating techniques are MASSIVELY extrapolative and therefore a bit dangerous to base things on. Also they often rely upon initial estimates being correct, which is quite dangerous, as was shown in the Mt. St. Helens rock example.

this is not quite true, as i said before, many scientists believe god created the universe, and guided life to the point it's at today... it would seem to me to be MASSIVELY extrapolative to say that just because things point to life being created it must therefore be biblical creation

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by RÃ*an

People! please realize that this is NOT evolution proved AT ALL! A "new species" is NOT a measurement, like determining weight or mass or voltage or chemical make-up. It's basically a decision made by some scientists to call something a little different a "new species". That's ALL. THAT'S ALL.

actually a new species cant breed with a different species and thats where your branching tree of evolution begins. its not a matter of subtle semantics. if a fly "changes" so much that it can no longer produce offspring with an "unchanged" fly then you got yourself an evolved life form. no getting around that. if its all "kinds" then they should never lose the ability to breed with each other.

[Rían]

No, it's still a definition, not a measurement - that's why there's a lot of disagreement out there as far as how many species there are, altho ability to breed is a big part of the definition. And you can call it an "evolved" life form, but it doesn't prove MACROevolution by any means. And the biggest point is - it's still a fly And one "species" of finch on the Galapagos island came from another "species" of fish - oh, excuse me, it was a FINCH that the FINCH came from, not a fish

[Rían]

Originally posted by brownjenkins
... it would seem to me to be MASSIVELY extrapolative to say that just because things point to life being created it must therefore be biblical creation

I quite agree and I base my belief that it's the biblical account on other things

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
No, it's still a definition, not a measurement - that's why there's a lot of disagreement out there as far as how many species there are, altho ability to breed is a big part of the definition. And you can call it an "evolved" life form, but it doesn't prove MACROevolution by any means. And the biggest point is - it's still a fly And one "species" of finch on the Galapagos island came from another "species" of fish - oh, excuse me, it was a FINCH that the FINCH came from, not a fish

yes im glad youve grasped the basic 7th grade biology concept that fish dont lay bird eggs rian. your ever so slowly making progress.

[Rían]

Yes, even a 7th grader should know there's NO way to EVER get a bird from a fish, even over [Carl Sagan voice]millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of years ... [/Carl Sagan voice]


(or whatever it is he says)

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by RÃ*an

But you're missing the whole point - evolutionism is ALSO based upon a 'belief' (the belief that there are only naturalistic forces behind what we see)
[/B]

as is genetics. And biochemistry. And microbiology, molecular biology, physiology, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, astronomy, astrophysics, quantum physics, relativity theory, cosmology, geophysics, geology, paleontology, oceanography, meteorology, etc., etc.

None of these resort to supernatural forces, precisely because they (unlike creationism) ARE sciences, and that's what sciences do- they look for natural explanations for the phenomena of the physical world. It's called methodological naturalism.

Ex 1: After Newton's Theories of Gravity and Motion were used to explain the orbits of the planets, it was noticed that there was a discrepancy in the orbit of Mercury. That problem went unsolved for almost two hundred years; that Einstein's Theory of Relativity could account for it was one of the evidences in Einstein's favour.
Strangely, no scientist proposed that maybe the Eldil of Mercury was becoming Bent and refusing to take his proper place in the Field of Arda (or am I getting my cosmologies mixed up?.

Ex. 2: BSE or Mad Cow Disease: This disease baffled biologists- it was clearly infectious, yet

Pickling in concentrated formalin, autoclaving at high temperatures, bombardment with intense radiation, and exposure to powerful ultra-violet light all destroy nucleic acids -- and inactivate known viruses. Yet these treatments have no effect on the ability of the T.S.E. infectious agent to cause disease in a new host. Whatever that agent is, it is small enough that it cannot be visualized, even by electron microscopes that reveal the tiniest viruses yet known to science. (Clumps of protein fibrils caused by the plaques that accumulate in cases of T.S.E. can be seen in electron micrographs, but researchers have yet to make positive visual identification of the infectious agent itself.) Furthermore, animals infected by this mysterious agent produce no antibodies against it. Even the unusual Human Immunodeficiency Virus provokes an antibody response from the immune system.

Now, if our intrepid biologists had not been so blindly committed
to 'the belief that there are only naturalistic forces behind what we see' they might have given up and (like IDers) gone off in search of supernatural causes- hexes cast by malevolent neighbours, failure to perform the proper sacrifices to the Cattle Spirit, grazing on old Druid graveyards, blasphemy committed by someone in the afflicted farmers's family.

Instead, they came up with prions, even though

prions challenge a central tenet of modern biology: that every entity able to reproduce itself [b]must[/] contain a nucleic acid -- either DNA or RNA.

(emphasis in original)

Science is committed to methodological naturalism, because so far it has worked- whereas belief in supernatural agencies to explain the natural world has been, to understate, somewhat less successful.

Incidentally, this is a good counter-example to all the creationists whining that they can't get published in scientific journals because of the prejudices of the ruling orthodoxy

From the beginning, even Prusiner viewed this hypothesis as "consistent with experimental data but ... clearly heretical."
<snip>
In this case, as in others, scientists view data that do not fit into established models of the world with skepticism. This skepticism is an integral and essential part of science that distinguishes it from other ways of thinking. The function of skepticism in science is to encourage efforts to prove or disprove a rogue hypothesis. If new findings are upheld, they create a gradually building acceptance that, at some point, sparks a transformation in the way scientists think. (The comparatively sudden acceptance of the prion hypothesis was demonstrated by Prusiner's receipt of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology )

"When Science Faces the Unknown"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/madcow/faces.html

[brownjenkins]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
Yes, even a 7th grader should know there's NO way to EVER get a bird from a fish, even over [Carl Sagan voice]millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of years ... [/Carl Sagan voice]


(or whatever it is he says)

billions