NationStates Jolt Archive

First of all, we need to distinguish some terms here. Creationism first off is not intellegent design. They are two diffrent theories. Intellegent design states that the world cannot be the way it is through chance, due to its ordered nature, and that therefore there must be a guiding, intellegent force behind it. There is a level of merit to such a discussion but it is not what I am here adressing.

Creationism is an interpreation of scientific evidence that points to a set of conclusions which are radically diffrent from the mainstreem scientific opinion. These opinions include such things as the Earths age only numbering in the thousands of years, and life emerging in a far more spontanious way than is accepted by the majority of scientists. There are viable interpretations of evidence to suggest this.

Evolutionism is not evolution. Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case

Neither creationism nor evolutionsim can be declared science. Why? Well science is defined as "systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and study. Also, the methodology used to acquire this knowledge". Now evolutionism and creationsim come to a conclusion based on evidence, but you cannot experiment this evidence. You can examine the evidence in a scientific fashion, but the conclusions you draw from the evidence are intepretations. Not science. In much the same way that historians can come up with diffrent interpretations from the same evidence, so is the case here. You cannot emperically examine wheter evolution happened because you cannot witness it. You can only examine the evidence of the past. You can come to conclusions, but those conclusions can be debated.

I want to reply but the obvious first grade understanding of science and evolution is so pervasive in that post that I would have to write for about 20 minutes and I don't have the energy. :(

maybe later.

Um, good effort, but no.

Evolutionism certainly isn't a science: it's a blanket term the religious right applies to the beliefs of anybody who isn't a creationist.

Evolutionism certainly isn't a science: it's a blanket term the religious right applies to the beliefs of anybody who isn't a creationist.
Lol, no, that's "Darwinism." The religious-righters have a hard time understanding that there are people in the world who AREN'T looking for a Prophet to follow :).

That was a pretty sensible post. I agree that both are not very scientific. In other words, I cannot use the scientific method to prove creation or evolution ocurred. I personally believe both would more accurately be considered philosopy if not religious beliefs.

I want to reply but the obvious first grade understanding of science and evolution is so pervasive in that post that I would have to write for about 20 minutes and I don't have the energy. :(

maybe later.

We could save a lot of time and bandwidth by directing them to the talk.origins FAQ.

We could save a lot of time and bandwidth by directing them to the talk.origins FAQ.
You should have been here long enough to know that that never works...

In other words, I cannot use the scientific method to prove creation or evolution ocurred.
A little humility, folks, if you please. Just because you are unable to do something doesn't mean everybody else is. I've personally used the scientific method to confirm scientific predictions generated by evolutionary theory. Hell, I was doing that as an undergrad. And I'm not terribly bright.

You should have been here long enough to know that that never works...

Oh, so they expect us to go there, and cut and paste the answers back for them... :rolleyes:

Evolutionism is not evolution. Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case.Please tell me what the bold part has to do with the first paragraph...

Creationism is an interpreation of scientific evidence that points to a set of conclusions which are radically diffrent from the mainstreem scientific opinion. These opinions include such things as the Earths age only numbering in the thousands of years, and life emerging in a far more spontanious way than is accepted by the majority of scientists. There are viable interpretations of evidence to suggest this.

You've got it backwards, my dear. In Creationism, one must first assume that Creationism is correct. Then, you look for anything to back that up, while ignoring anything else that is present. This is how the so-called "creation science" has been run, and continues to be carried out. One cannot assume a foregone conclusion and pretend that what one does is science.

Evolutionism is not evolution. Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

Natural selection is a large part of evolution, but this sounds basically right.

Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case

The difference here is that there is no foregone conclusion. If evidence were brought forth that actually disproved the estimates of the age of the Earth, or that life came forth from a series of chemical reactions, then scientists would change the prevailing theory.

On the other hand, no matter how much evidence is uncovered that a literal account of creation is inconsistent with, Creationists will never change their "theories". They remain the same, because the conclusion is assumed before the evidence is examined, instead of being drawn from the evidence.

Neither creationism nor evolutionsim can be declared science. Why? Well science is defined as "systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and study. Also, the methodology used to acquire this knowledge". Now evolutionism and creationsim come to a conclusion based on evidence, but you cannot experiment this evidence.

(a) Creationism does not come to a conclusion through evidence. It assumes a conclusion and then searches for evidence. There is a difference.

Creationism:
http://www.kommy.net/~downtym/images/danielle/flatearthism.bmp

(b) Yes, you can.

You cannot emperically examine wheter evolution happened because you cannot witness it.

No, but you can empirically measure what it is doing now, and then extrapolate that back. Anything inconsistent with your extrapolations disproves them.

You can only examine the evidence of the past. You can come to conclusions, but those conclusions can be debated.

As they should, but in a scientific manner, not a religious one.

Creationism is an interpreation of scientific evidence that points to a set of conclusions which are radically diffrent from the mainstreem scientific opinion. These opinions include such things as the Earths age only numbering in the thousands of years, and life emerging in a far more spontanious way than is accepted by the majority of scientists. There are viable interpretations of evidence to suggest this.

No, it's not. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that supports the creationist argument; the only argument they use against evolution is that there are still parts of the theory that are as of yet undiscovered, and therefore their theology should be taught as evolution's equal. It is not, and never will be, (barring direct intervention by the deity) a scientific theory.


Evolutionism is not evolution. Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

No, that's totally wrong. Evolution occurs through the mechanism of natural selection.


Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case

Mainstream scientific opinion is mainstream because the observations that comprise it have been verified through the use of scientific processes and have been tested and the results duplicated in multiple tests and trials.
The scientific community rejects "other explanations" because they are not science, plain and simple.

Never debate anything with someone who can't spell "intelligent".

First of all, we need to distinguish some terms here. Creationism first off is not intellegent design. They are two diffrent theories.

Creationism is not intelligent design... but intelligent design most certainly IS creationism. Neither even remotely qualifies as a theory in the scientific sense of the word.

Intellegent design states that the world cannot be the way it is through chance, due to its ordered nature, and that therefore there must be a guiding, intellegent force behind it.

And every time it tries to present a concrete example of this it gets absolutely dismantled.

There is a level of merit to such a discussion but it is not what I am here adressing.

Creationism is an interpreation of scientific evidence that points to a set of conclusions which are radically diffrent from the mainstreem scientific opinion.

That's hilarious. Creationism is the adoption of a religious creation myth, the insistence on it's accurate (literal or not) depiction of how the universe came to be, and the subsequent complete disregard of the majority of scientific evidence which contradicts that conclusion.

These opinions include such things as the Earths age only numbering in the thousands of years, and life emerging in a far more spontanious way than is accepted by the majority of scientists. There are viable interpretations of evidence to suggest this.

I would dearly love to hear what must be your rather bizarre definition of "viable".

Evolutionism is not evolution. Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case

Neither creationism nor evolutionsim can be declared science. Why? Well science is defined as "systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and study. Also, the methodology used to acquire this knowledge". Now evolutionism and creationsim come to a conclusion based on evidence, but you cannot experiment this evidence.

Yes, you can.

You can examine the evidence in a scientific fashion, but the conclusions you draw from the evidence are intepretations. Not science.

No, actually they are science.

In much the same way that historians can come up with diffrent interpretations from the same evidence, so is the case here. You cannot emperically examine wheter evolution happened because you cannot witness it.

Yes, you can. And we have.

You can only examine the evidence of the past. You can come to conclusions, but those conclusions can be debated.

Only to a certain extent.

That was a pretty sensible post. I agree that both are not very scientific. In other words, I cannot use the scientific method to prove creation or evolution ocurred. I personally believe both would more accurately be considered philosopy if not religious beliefs.

You can't use the scientific method to prove that anything occurred, so of course you can't use it for this. The scientific method can only be used to disprove or support hypotheses, not to "prove" them.

Never debate anything with someone who can't spell "intelligent".Some of the smartest people I've met are dyslexic...

Lol, no, that's "Darwinism." The religious-righters have a hard time understanding that there are people in the world who AREN'T looking for a Prophet to follow :).
No, believe it or not there actually are members of the religious right who use terms like evolutionism and evolutionist. Possibly they've not actually heard of Darwin, because he wrote books in defiance of God's holy scripture and they don't read anything like that.
Frightening, isn't it?

In other words, I cannot use the scientific method to prove creation or evolution ocurred.
So presumably the whole of the fossil record and the genetic research demonstrating relationships between seemingly unrelated species (which can only be explained away by them sharing a common ancestor) doesn't actually exist, then?

No, it's not. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that supports the creationist argument; the only argument they use against evolution is that there are still parts of the theory that are as of yet undiscovered, and therefore their theology should be taught as evolution's equal. It is not, and never will be, (barring direct intervention by the deity) a scientific theory.

I never said it was scientific theory. I said scientific evidence can be intepreted to support it.



No, that's totally wrong. Evolution occurs through the mechanism of natural selection.

No. Natural selection is one way. Radom mutation is another.


Mainstream scientific opinion is mainstream because the observations that comprise it have been verified through the use of scientific processes and have been tested and the results duplicated in multiple tests and trials.
The scientific community rejects "other explanations" because they are not science, plain and simple.

You cannot scientificly prove an intepretation. Nor can you emperically prove evolution occured because it happened in the past. You can prove that animals change and adapt now, but that is not the same thing as saying they came from primordial soup.

So presumably the whole of the fossil record and the genetic research demonstrating relationships between seemingly unrelated species (which can only be explained away by them sharing a common ancestor) doesn't actually exist, then?

No, it does exist. But it is evidence. Evidence can be intepreted in multiple ways.

Some of the smartest people I've met are dyslexic...

Never debate anything with someone who excuses their poor spelling on dyslexia.

First of all, we need to distinguish some terms here. Creationism first off is not intellegent design.


Incorrect. ID is simply creationism repackaged with the God references removed to slip under the Constitution.


They are two diffrent theories. Intellegent design states that the world cannot be the way it is through chance, due to its ordered nature, and that therefore there must be a guiding, intellegent force behind it.


And how do you prove that? You can't prove or disprove God's involvement so it's a question that is not asked.


There is a level of merit to such a discussion but it is not what I am here adressing.

Then why bother. This is basically saying this is what I think and you can't change that?


Creationism is an interpreation of scientific evidence that points to a set of conclusions which are radically diffrent from the mainstreem scientific opinion. These opinions include such things as the Earths age only numbering in the thousands of years, and life emerging in a far more spontanious way than is accepted by the majority of scientists. There are viable interpretations of evidence to suggest this.


Well you left off the branches of Creationism(ie: Flood versus young earth....).


Evolutionism is not evolution.
Correct Evolutionism and Darwinism is a Religous term.


Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

Incorrect. It' is not simply genepool. Take the prosimians known as lemurs. If monkeys were introduced to their environment, the lemurs would disappear. They go hand in hand.


Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case

Care to try that again?


Neither creationism nor evolutionsim can be declared science. Why? Well science is defined as "systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and study. Also, the methodology used to acquire this knowledge". Now evolutionism and creationsim come to a conclusion based on evidence, but you cannot experiment this evidence. You can examine the evidence in a scientific fashion, but the conclusions you draw from the evidence are intepretations. Not science. In much the same way that historians can come up with diffrent interpretations from the same evidence, so is the case here. You cannot emperically examine wheter evolution happened because you cannot witness it. You can only examine the evidence of the past. You can come to conclusions, but those conclusions can be debated.

Hmmm? Ok where did you cut and paste this from?

You cannot scientificly prove an intepretation.Eh? You're confusing "scientifically prove" with "prove".

I never said it was scientific theory. I said scientific evidence can be intepreted to support it.
What scientific evidence supports it? Are you certain of this?

No, it does exist. But it is evidence. Evidence can be intepreted in multiple ways.
There are some interpretations of the evidence that aren't terribly convincing, however.

Never debate anything with someone who excuses their poor spelling on dyslexia.I don't ask people to defend their spelling. It's bad form.

No, it does exist. But it is evidence. Evidence can be intepreted in multiple ways.

Correct. And then one looks if the interpretation fits *other* facts as well. Evolution does quite well there.

You cannot emperically examine wheter evolution happened because you cannot witness it. You can only examine the evidence of the past.

these two statements are both mutually contradictory and objectively false (which is actually rather impressive on your part).

if you are examining evidence, then you are looking at something empirically. that's what the words mean.

Never debate anything with someone who excuses their poor spelling on dyslexia.

Being a grammar Nazi is not a condition of victory in a debate.

I never said it was scientific theory. I said scientific evidence can be intepreted to support it.

As I showed in my first post, "scientific evidence" can be interpreted to support the idea that the Earth is flat. There is a reason that, in order to be accepted by the scientific community, all available evidence must support your conclusion, with none disproving it.

No. Natural selection is one way. Radom mutation is another.

The two go hand in hand. Random mutation creates a creature with a survival advantage. Natural selection results in said creature being selected for and thus propogating more than its peers.

You cannot scientificly prove an intepretation. Nor can you emperically prove evolution occured because it happened in the past.

No one is trying to "empirically prove" evolutionary theory. It isn't logically possible. You can either support it (which, thus far, evidence does quite well) or disprove it (which, thus far, hasn't happened.)

You can prove that animals change and adapt now, but that is not the same thing as saying they came from primordial soup.

No, it isn't. Of course, "They came from primordial soup," isn't a theory. At this point, it is a hypothesis with some evidence to back it. Until further evidence is gained, it will remain a hypothesis.

Incorrect. ID is simply creationism repackaged with the God references removed to slip under the Constitution.

shit, the evolution from one to the other is actually a classic example of punctuated equilibrium

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=453036

I never said it was scientific theory. I said scientific evidence can be intepreted to support it.

First, supply evidence that has been independently verified by scientific institutions and that conforms to accepted research standards that supports the creationist argument. No one on the creationist side has done that to date.




No. Natural selection is one way. Radom mutation is another.

Random mutations occur, but not all of them are passed on. Why? Because random mutations that do not provide an advantage to the organism possesing them are weeded out by natural selection.


You cannot scientificly prove an intepretation. Nor can you emperically prove evolution occured because it happened in the past. You can prove that animals change and adapt now, but that is not the same thing as saying they came from primordial soup.

Evidence supports evolutionary theory. However, it cannot be proven, and that is why it is still a "theory", making it open to revision and change as new evidence is discovered. However, just because you can't "prove" macroevolution is true through direct observation doesn't mean that creationism is a legitimate alternate explanation.

No. Natural selection is one way. Radom mutation is another.

actually, natural selection is a filtering mechanism for the random mutations.

Nor can you emperically prove evolution occured because it happened in the past.

and neither can you prove that the earth is round or that things fall because of gravity. sfw?

shit, the evolution from one to the other is actually a classic example of punctuated equilibrium

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=453036

Excellent post. I missed it last time. Thanks for the link!

I make a copy for future references! :)

You can't re-create the Big Bang, but the 2.7K cosmic background radiation and redshift of galaxies gives solid scientific backing to the theory.

So for example, we can test again and again to see if the cosmic background radiation is there, we can measure the recession velocity of galaxies again and again. Similarly for evolution, we can repeatedly date skeletal remains and always come to the conclusion that they steadily changed form over time.

And anyway, antibiotic resistance of bacteria, anyone? :rolleyes:

And anyway, antibiotic resistance of bacteria, anyone? :rolleyes:

In the event of a bird flu pandemic I think that creationists should be offered a choice between vaccination against the evolved virus or vaccination against the 'Noah's Ark' strain.

What do they have to worry about? They don't believe in evolution.

I just ripped off my arm and threw it at a monkey.

In the event of a bird flu pandemic I think that creationists should be offered a choice between vaccination against the evolved virus or vaccination against the 'Noah's Ark' strain.

What do they have to worry about? They don't believe in evolution.
Hehe, funny thought.

It's pretty pitiful to see really, people who believe in the supernatural encountering reality and being offended by it, as if reality gives a damn about whether it challenges people's world views. Like the spherical nature of the Earth, heliocentricity, Hubble's Constant and cosmic background, it's not going away, so they should just stop whining and move on.

You can't re-create the Big Bang, but the 2.7K cosmic background radiation and redshift of galaxies gives solid scientific backing to the theory.

Yes, but that doesnt make the theory "science". It makes it a theory. One based upon scientific evidence. In the same way creationism is based upon scientific evidence, and is evolutionism.

I agree that it's impossible to prove beyond doubt that life on earth came into being because of random chemical reactions. But, just because a scientific theory isn't proveable with the information we have the tools to acquire doesn't mean it isn't scientific.

There's a fundamental difference between evolutionism and creationism.

Evolutionism is a theory that was arrived at by observation of evidence and speculation about the most likely cause of the existance of that evidence. It is disproveable: If it were not true, it would eventually be possible to disprove it. If it were possible to do an experiment that replicated the exact conditions of early earth and watch it over billions of years, and nothing happened, it would disprove evolutionism. It's simply far beyond our means to run that experiment.

Creationism is a theory that can not be disproven. No matter what you say, you can explain it away just by saying 'Yeah, God made it look that way as part of his divine plan'.

So. I don't know if evolutionism is true, but it's the most logical hypothesis to come to strictly based on observing the evidence. And it is a scientific theory.

In the event of a bird flu pandemic I think that creationists should be offered a choice between vaccination against the evolved virus or vaccination against the 'Noah's Ark' strain.

What do they have to worry about? They don't believe in evolution.

Can you read the original post. There is a distinction between believing life was created by random chance and believing that life forms evolve and develop over time

Yes, but that doesnt make the theory "science". It makes it a theory. One based upon scientific evidence. In the same way creationism is based upon scientific evidence, and is evolutionism.The book of Genesis doesn't fall into the category "evidence"...

The book of Genesis doesn't fall into the category "evidence"...

I never suggested it did. Can you quote me on that.

I never suggested it did. Can you quote me on that.You failed to suggest anything as "scientific evidence" in favor of creationism.

First, supply evidence that has been independently verified by scientific institutions and that conforms to accepted research standards that supports the creationist argument. No one on the creationist side has done that to date.

That is because the scientific institutions are biased in favour of mainstreem intepretations. But that bias is not in itself valid. It is just a bias and is no better or worse than the bias in favour of creationism


Evidence supports evolutionary theory. However, it cannot be proven, and that is why it is still a "theory", making it open to revision and change as new evidence is discovered. However, just because you can't "prove" macroevolution is true through direct observation doesn't mean that creationism is a legitimate alternate explanation.

I did not say that by disproving evolution you prove creationism.

Nor can you emperically prove evolution occured because it happened in the past.
Send me your address, and I'll send you my collection of Sherlock Holmes. ;)

You failed to suggest anything as "scientific evidence" in favor of creationism.

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm

The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

Oh yeah, that's where you should look for non-biased information. not mainstream, peer-reviewed science.

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm

Now that's funny. As someone who has racked up several thousand posts on that site's discussion boards, a significant percentage of it in their evolution areas where a number of phd scientists hang out killing time crushing the pathetic creationist arguments that keep getting tossed at them by some of the creationist board regulars I just find it incredibly amusing to see anyone at all referencing CARM as an authoritative source of information on evolutionary theory.

Please, please try to get your scientific information from an actual scientific source, not an online ministry.

Send me your address, and I'll send you my collection of Sherlock Holmes. ;)

Nice point. Those who deny evolution must also deny the criminal justice system. Afterall, how can a thing be proved if it's in the past? It can only ever be a theory and so everyone must be presumed innocent.

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm
There isn't really any evidence apart from "The Bible says this" and "a friend of mine says this" and "other stories say this" and "semantically, this is true in the Bible". It's a pretty weak case with no real evidence.

Nice point. Those who deny evolution must also deny the criminal justice system. Afterall, how can a thing be proved if it's in the past? It can only ever be a theory and so everyone must be presumed innocent.

I say that you cannot prove evolution to be science. I didnt say you could not prove it. It is widely accepted for example, that the second world war took place.

Yes, but that doesnt make the theory "science". It makes it a theory. One based upon scientific evidence.

so we add 'science' and 'theory' to the list of words you don't understand, yes?

In the same way creationism is based upon scientific evidence

that's just laughable

so we add 'science' and 'theory' to the list of words you don't understand, yes?

that's just laughable

Makes you wonder where all the meth produced in the US is smoked, eh?

I say that you cannot prove evolution to be science. I didnt say you could not prove it. It is widely accepted for example, that the second world war took place.

:confused:

Eh?

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm

Meh!

The fact they are keeping the Lady Hope myth going brings the legitimacy into question. Rather long diatribe talking about peoples characters and suggested plots to keep things secret.....

The dino living with men arguement......

:confused:

Eh?

I am saying you cannot prove evolution happened in the same way you prove that gravity is what keeps us on the surface of the earth, or that light travels at 300,000 KPS (aprox). It is not "science" in that sense.

I am saying you cannot prove evolution happened in the same way you prove that gravity is what keeps us on the surface of the earth, or that light travels at 300,000 KPS (aprox). It is not "science" in that sense.

Gravity does not keep us on the surface of the earth. We can leave any time we expend the energy to do so.

In fact, gravity is only a concept intended to encapsulate the idea of distorted spacetime.

Evolutionism is a theory that was arrived at by observation of evidence and speculation about the most likely cause of the existance of that evidence.

Just to be pedantic, "Evolution" is the theory. "Evolutionism" is a made-up word used by fundamentalists who want to make science seem like religion.

That is because the scientific institutions are biased in favour of mainstreem intepretations. But that bias is not in itself valid. It is just a bias and is no better or worse than the bias in favour of creationism

Scientific institutions are not "biased in favor of mainstream interpretations," they are biased in favor of scientific interpretations, as they should be. No matter how hard anyone tries, "God did X," is not and cannot be a scientific interpretation as it invokes the supernatural - the untestable. Meanwhile, there has yet to be a "creation-science" study that didn't start by assuming the conclusion. Thus, there has yet to be such a study that has followed the scientific method. No scientist who did not first assume Creationism to be true has found any evidence to lead her to the conclusion that it is.

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

Maybe you should try peer-reviewed scientific journals or even scientific textbooks, although they are always at least a few years behind. Then come back to us when you are actually somewhat informed.

I am saying you cannot prove evolution happened in the same way you prove that gravity is what keeps us on the surface of the earth, or that light travels at 300,000 KPS (aprox). It is not "science" in that sense.

You have heard of Bird Flu right? The virus which has evolved into a new form?

That was a pretty sensible post. I agree that both are not very scientific. In other words, I cannot use the scientific method to prove creation or evolution ocurred. I personally believe both would more accurately be considered philosopy if not religious beliefs.
The only reason you considered it a sensible post is that you don't know what science is, as your post demonstrates.

I am saying you cannot prove evolution happened in the same way you prove that gravity is what keeps us on the surface of the earth, or that light travels at 300,000 KPS (aprox). It is not "science" in that sense.

Ok. Here is something you should know

Science doesn't prove anything!

It only offers an explanation to why things happen. In time an explanation can change due to new discoveries.....

You have heard of Bird Flu right? The virus which has evolved into a new form?

Random, shhh. We've just found another chicken inspector...

I say that you cannot prove evolution to be science. I didnt say you could not prove it. It is widely accepted for example, that the second world war took place.
My point was that Sherlock Holmes uncovered the truth of past events by looking at and experimenting with empirical evidence, evidence available in the here and now.

I am saying you cannot prove evolution happened in the same way you prove that gravity is what keeps us on the surface of the earth, or that light travels at 300,000 KPS (aprox). It is not "science" in that sense.

Actually, it is science in exactly that sense. We take measurements, we do experiments, we come to conclusions based upon them. If further experimentation contradicts our conclusions, we change them. And so on, and so on.....

In either case, we prove nothing, but simply support our hypotheses. It may not have ever happened, but tomorrow, I could drop my computer and it could float upwards, and everything I know about the forces on this Earth would have to be altered (note: with all the evidence we have that such a thing should not happen without some pretty amazingly odd circumstances, I don't think it will happen, but the point remains). That is how science progresses. Old hypotheses are found to be untrue, or not quite true, and we move on from there...

Yes, but that doesnt make the theory "science". It makes it a theory. One based upon scientific evidence. In the same way creationism is based upon scientific evidence, and is evolutionism.
Bullshit. :rolleyes:

A theory is a falsifiable hypothesis. There has to be a mechanism for proof or the converse. The recession of galaxies showed that the Universe is expanding, had a single point of origin, and allowed its age to be calculated - 13.7bn years, give or take 0.2bn years. The precision continues to be improved with more accurate calculations of Hubble's Constant. If there was a single point of origin, a "Big Bang", there should be residual heat. We measure it. 2.7K, in the microwave spectrum. It fits. Now particle physics with its mathematics and particle accelerators have a field day discovering ever more fine detail about the structure of matter and nuclear forces, so we have a timeline showing just how the explosion expanded. Go read a cosmology website, you will understand. This is science.

Creationism is not a falsifiable hypothesis. There is no mechanism to verify it - an act of faith is required. Thus it is not science. Indeed, it has no implications for observable reality, thus the question itself is meaningless.

The tragedy is that you do not even know the terminology of this debate, let alone any details.

That is because the scientific institutions are biased in favour of mainstreem intepretations. But that bias is not in itself valid. It is just a bias and is no better or worse than the bias in favour of creationism.
Science is not political. Irrational people such as yourself, attach political meaning to science, where none exists. This is a form of paranoia. There is no Scientific Establishment Conspiracy to spread a single world view that someone invented, and decided it was the best. Science observes, measures and explains reality. You consider the findings to be a threat to your world view, because they undermine it, just as the Catholic church considered the moons of Jupiter to be a threat to their dogma that everything rotates around the Earth and Mankind. This is your problem, no-one else's.

The fact that you do not like reality, does not change it.

Dare I recommend a book? The Case for the Creator, by Lee Jordan

The fact that you do not like reality, does not change it.

i find it incredibly sad that this statement actually needs to be voiced - and apparently way more frequently than it is, at that.

Dare I recommend a book? The Case for the Creator, by Lee Jordan
Another bulls**t "intelligent design" book. Read it. Not worth paying money for.

Where is this site where PhD's hang out and crush creationists, sounds like good reading?


Bobary: Mind giving us some excerpts?

Dare I recommend a book? The Case for the Creator, by Lee Jordan

Why not? I read Dembski's Intelligent Design and it didn't offer anything different to the argument.....

Another bulls**t "intelligent design" book. Read it. Not worth paying money for.

Nahh! Get it from a used bookstore! That way he gets the money instead of the author! ;)

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm

BWAHAHA. You said that you don't think evidence against evolution is evidence for Creation then you posted a site that does nothing but TRY to poke holes in evolutionary theory.

This thread is just sad. You don't understand that all science is THEORY. A theory that is completely based on all available evidence, is testable, is in its simplest form (no extra parts that have nothing to do with observed phenomena) and has never been falsified is a scientific theory. Evolution meets all of these requirements. Creation does not. It requires one to reject any evidence that conflicts with Creation. That's not science. It's not even logic.

Tell you what. Let's play a game. List five pieces of evidence that support Creationism. Explain how they support Creationism. And do so without ever mentioning evolutionary theory, other than parts you consider to be a part of creation theory as well. In other words, do it without poking holes in evolutionary theory (just as evolutionary theory doesn't mention Creationism even once).

I want to reply but the obvious first grade understanding of science and evolution is so pervasive in that post that I would have to write for about 20 minutes and I don't have the energy. :(

maybe later.
*pats*
I feel your pain.

Tell you what. Let's play a game. List five pieces of evidence that support Creationism. Explain how they support Creationism. And do so without ever mentioning evolutionary theory, other than parts you consider to be a part of creation theory as well. In other words, do it without poking holes in evolutionary theory (just as evolutionary theory doesn't mention Creationism even once).
I have never seen anyone sucessfully do that

I have never seen anyone sucessfully do that

No, they never even try. But I'll give this poster the benefit of the doubt.

No, they never even try. But I'll give this poster the benefit of the doubt.
I wouldn't

I have seen many people that feel a need to discuss and share and hold their independent views.

This person just seems to take a juvenile flyby, sooooo borderline trollish

I have noticed that anyone who claims that it's possible to poke holes in the evolutionary theory fails to do so.

I have noticed that anyone who claims that it's possible to poke holes in the evolutionary theory fails to do so.

even worse, they always seem to have no idea what the theory of evolution says in the first place

even worse, they always seem to have no idea what the theory of evolution says in the first place

This poster was actually doing well until s/he linked to a site that makes ridiculous accusations. It doesn't say the evidence can be interpreted different ways like he claims, but that evolution is wrong.

By pretty well, I mean that s/he wasn't claiming much in the way of false things about evolution (except that he got it mixed with abiogenesis), but more offering misunderstood views of what science and scientific theory are.

This poster was actually doing well until s/he linked to a site that makes ridiculous accusations. It doesn't say the evidence can be interpreted different ways like he claims, but that evolution is wrong.

By pretty well, I mean that s/he wasn't claiming much in the way of false things about evolution (except that he got it mixed with abiogenesis), but more offering misunderstood views of what science and scientific theory are.

He also seemed to think that natural selection and mutations were not only completely separated from each other, but also somehow separated from evolution, when both integral parts of evolutionary theory, and when natural selection wouldn't get very far without some sort of mutation going on.

But I do agree, the biggest problem here seems to be a misunderstanding of science in general and exactly what is (and is not) involved in it. Saying, "This can be interpreted in different ways," is nice, but you can get *any* result if you interpret a specific set of evidence a specific way.

The thread poster fell over at the "definition of theory" hurdle, ie the introductory chapter of any high school science textbook.

The thread poster fell over at the "definition of theory" hurdle, ie the introductory chapter of any high school science textbook.

Yes, exactly.

Yes, but that doesnt make the theory "science". It makes it a theory. One based upon scientific evidence.

In the same way creationism is based upon scientific evidence, and is evolutionism.



...(blinks)...

...(stares at statements for about twenty minutes)...

...(blinks again)...

Your statements above are the most meaningless, flawed, and thoroughly embarrassing things I've ever seen. No hyperbole, no exaggeration.

I actually feel somehow injured by even being exposed to your profound misunderstanding of the words you use.


Jesus Christ with a dead hooker in his trunk. Man, that was bad.

Yeah, I'd say you're about right Saint Curie.

Yeah, I'd say you're about right Saint Curie.

The next time someone in the engineering department won't give me information I need, I'm going to quote Adriatica II at them until they either give me what I want or jam mechanical pencils in their ears.

Of course, then I'm exposing myself to the pathogen...

I think this Chick Tract (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp) portrays the opinions of people who argue against evolution pretty well. They treat made-up ideas as facts, discount things that are generally accepted by the scientific community and attribute things to people who consider evolution to be science that no educated person would say. I mean, really - "gluons?" Come on!

I think this Chick Tract (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp) portrays the opinions of people who argue against evolution pretty well. They treat made-up ideas as facts, discount things that are generally accepted by the scientific community and attribute things to people who consider evolution to be science that no educated person would say. I mean, really - "gluons?" Come on!

Notice all the "sources" are Dr. Dino?

Well, the ones that are actually "cited," yes. I love the line about Leakey finding the skull that was 200 million years old - without citing anything. Yay for pulling things out of your ass, right?

Jesus Christ with a dead hooker in his trunk. Man, that was bad.

:D Lol. The only good thing to come out of this thread, and i believe thats the first time I've used a smiley on NS.

What, you don't enjoy making fun of Jack Chick?

What, you don't enjoy making fun of Jack Chick?

Hmmm, maybe I'll have to read the rest of the thread. Creation/Evolution threads normally cause me to lose the will to live, but if Chickys in there I may try it.

I think this Chick Tract (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp) portrays the opinions of people who argue against evolution pretty well. They treat made-up ideas as facts, discount things that are generally accepted by the scientific community and attribute things to people who consider evolution to be science that no educated person would say. I mean, really - "gluons?" Come on!

You aren't disputing the existence of gluons, are you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon

On the other hand, Creation scientists are doing science (just a very few examples):

Polonium Radiohalos: The Model for Their Formation Tested and Verified (#386)
by Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D. (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=2467)

Evidence for a Young World (#384)
by Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1842)


New Rate Data Support a Young World (#366)
by Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=114)

RATE stands for "Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth," a research initiative launched in 1997 jointly by the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and Answers in Genesis. See book in ref. 4, and numerous pages about the RATE project at www.icr.org.

Ten Misconceptions about the Geologic Column (#137) (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=242)
by Steven A. Austin, Ph.D.
Abstract
It may sound surprising, but the standard geologic column was devised before 1860 by catastrophists who were creationists. Adam Sedgewick, Roderick Murchison, William Coneybeare, and others affirmed that the earth was formed largely by catastrophic processes, and that the earth and life were created.

The ten strata systems that geologists use (Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary) compose the "standard geologic column" and are claimed by many to contain the major proof of evolutionary theory. Several erroneous notions have been attached to the geologic column. The following are the ten most common misconceptions.

Misconception No. 1. The geologic column was constructed by geologists who, because of the weight of the evidence that they had found, were convinced of the truth of uniformitarian theory and organic evolution.

It may sound surprising, but the standard geologic column was devised before 1860 by catastrophists who were creationists.1 Adam Sedgewick, Roderick Murchison, William Coneybeare, and others affirmed that the earth was formed largely by catastrophic processes, and that the earth and life were created. These men stood for careful empirical science and were not compelled to believe evolutionary speculation or side with uniformitarian theory. Although most would be called "progressive creationists" in today's terminology, they would not be pleased to see all the evolutionary baggage that has been loaded onto their classification of strata.

Misconception No. 2. Geologists composed the geologic column by assembling the "periods" and "eras" which they had recognized.

The geologic column was not composed by assembling a chronology of "periods," "eras" or other supposed measures of time, but by superposition of objectively defined sequences of sedimentary strata called "systems." The "periods" and "eras" were later appended to the system nomenclature of the "geologic Column" transforming it into a "geologic time scale."

Misconception No. 3. The strata systems of the geologic column are worldwide in their occurrence with each strata system being present below any point on the earth's surface.

The notion that the earth's crust has on "onion skin" structure with successive layers containing all strata systems distributed on a global scale is not according to the facts. Data from continents and ocean basins show that the ten systems are poorly represented on a global scale: approximately 77% of the earth's surface area on land and under the sea has seven or more (70% or more) of the strata systems missing beneath; 94% of the earth's surface has three or more systems missing beneath; and an estimated 99.6% has at least one missing system.2 Only a few locations on earth (about 0.4% of its area) have been described with the succession of the ten systems beneath (west Nepal, west Bolivia, and central Poland). Even where the ten systems may be present, geologists recognize individual systems to be incomplete. The entire geologic column, composed of complete strata systems, exists only in the diagrams drawn by geologists!

Misconception No. 4. Strata systems always occur in the order required by the geologic column.

Hundreds of locations are known where the order of the systems identified by geologists does not match the order of the geologic column. Strata systems are believed in some places to be inverted, repeated, or inserted where they do not belong. Overturning, overthrust faulting, or landsliding are frequently maintained as disrupting the order. In some locations such structural changes can be supported by physical evidence while elsewhere physical evidence of the disruption may be lacking and special pleading may be required using fossils or radiometric dating.

Misconception No. 5. Because each strata system has distinctive lithologic composition, a newly discovered stratum can be assigned easily to its correct position in the geologic column.

Sandstone, limestone, dolomite, shale, chert, salt, conglomerate, coal and other rock types are not diagnostic of specific strata systems. Therefore, a rock's physical appearance cannot, with certainty, distinguish the system or strata level to which a rock may belong. The sequence of rock types is more useful, but hardly an infallible guide to correlation. Thus, the Cambrian System on an intercontinental scale is typically composed of quartzose sandstone, overlain by glauconitic sandstone with dark-brown shale, overlain by impure, light-brown limestones.3 The correlation of "Cambrian" strata is further strengthened by the presence on an intercontinental scale of an unconformity (surface of erosion) at or near the base of the system. Each rock type is not distinctive of the Cambrian, and neither is the unconformity, but the sequence may be.

Misconception No. 6. Fossils, especially the species distinctive of specific systems, provide the most reliable method of assigning strata to their level in the geologic column.

Bed-to-bed correlation of strata to their "type system" area is the most reliable method of assigning strata to a system. The data from oil well drilling, seismic surveys, and surface geologic mapping is of such character that subsurface correlation of lithostratigraphic units of the thickness of systems is possible on a continental scale. Although some fossils appear to be distinctive of certain systems (most fossil taxa range through a few to several systems), care must be exercised in correlation by fossils. First, the stratigraphic range of a fossil type is always open to extension as new fossils are discovered. Second, when an extension of a fossil's range may be required, geologists may call upon erosion (reworking fossils into younger strata or leaking fossils into older strata) and structural events (overturning or faulting strata and fossils). An example of the first problem is the monoplacophoran mollusk Pilina, which might otherwise be considered diagnostic of the Silurian System, except for the startling discovery that Neopilina lives today, and, therefore, would be expected in any system overlying the Silurian. For these reasons correlation by fossils must always remain tentative awaiting further confirmatory evidence from lithostratigraphy. We should look very skeptically at strata correlations which rely solely on fossils.

Misconception No. 7. Sedimentary evidence proves that periods of millions of years duration were required to deposit individual strata systems.

Before radiometric dating was devised, uniformitarian geologists postulated "periods" of millions of years duration to slowly deposit the strata systems. A single sedimentary lamina, or bed, was supposed by uniformitarian geologists to represent typically a year or many years duration. It was concluded, therefore, that multiplied thousands of laminae and beds superimposed required millions of years. Recently, however, geologists have discovered that laminae and beds form quickly on floodplains of rivers during floods, in shallow marine areas during storms, and in deep water by turbidity currents. The evidence of rapid sedimentation is now so easily recognized that geologists observing a strata system these days often ask where to insert the "missing time" of which the strata do not show sedimentary evidence. Catastrophism, quite naturally, is making a come-back. There is good reason to believe that entire strata systems, and even groups of systems, were accumulated in a hydraulic cataclysm matching the description of Noah's Flood in the Bible.

Misconception No. 8. Radiometric dating can supply "absolute ages" in millions of years with certainty to systems of the geologic column. 10

Geologists and geochronologists assert that radiometric dating verifies that individual strata systems and their strata are millions of years old. When asked to document the most reliable radiometric age dates, geologists usually point to isochron and concordia plots which employ multiple isotopic analyses, which they claim will remove the effects of original "contaminants," and display the "age" of a rock in graphical form. However, we find geologists often reporting isochron plots which are discordant with the accepted "ages" of strata systems.4 Frequently, these discordant isochron plots "date" strata systems much older than even the accepted old ages customarily assigned to the systems of the geologic column. Geologists should be asking which, if any, of the isochron plots should be accepted as "absolute ages," and if the discordances do not falsify the assumptions upon which radiometric dating is based. Geologists need to consider radiometric methods which indicate ages of thousands of years for strata systems,5 as well as general indicators supporting young age.

Misconception No. 9. The environmental "pictures" assigned to certain portions of the geologic column allow us to accurately visualize what its "geologic ages" were like.

Books, films and museum displays contain illustrations asking us to visualize what earlier "geologic ages" were like. These "pictures" show supposed primitive earth conditions, specific environments with sediments being slowly deposited, inferred "transitional organisms" evolving toward familiar forms, and whole communities of organisms "at home" with other organisms absent. Perhaps the most blatant environmental picture" has been assigned to lower Precambrian strata, formed when the earth supposedly had a reducing atmosphere and an "organic soup" in which life evolved. Yet, geologists have yet to find sedimentary evidence for the reducing atmosphere and the soup.6 This reminds us that accepting an environmental "picture" requires much imagination from a meager supply of facts.

Misconception No. 10. The geologic column and the positions of fossils within the geologic column provide proof of amoeba-to-man evolution.

All the animal phyla, including chordate fish, are now known as fossils in the Cambrian System. No ancestral forms can be found for the protozoans, arthropods, brachiopods, mollusks, bryozoans, coelenterates, sponges, annelids, echinoderms or chordates. These phyla appear in the fossil record fully formed and distinct, in better agreement with the concept of "multiple, abrupt beginnings" (creation) than with the notion of "descent from a common ancestor" (evolution).

REFERENCES

1. R.Ritiand, "Historical development of the current understanding of the geologic column: part II," Origins, Vol. 9, 1982, pp. 28-47.
2. Estimated by the author using data from J. Woodmorappe, "The essential nonexistence of the evolutionary-uniformitarian geologic column: a quantitative assessment," Creation Res. Soc. Quarterly, Vol. 18, 1981, pp. 46-71.
3. D.V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley, 1981), P. 11.
4. C. Brooks, D.E. James and S.R. Hart, "Ancient lithosphere: its role in young continental volcanism," Science, Vol. 193, 1976, pp. 1086-1094.
5. R.V. Gentry, et al., "Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to the time of uranium introduction and coalification," Science, Vol. 194, 1976, pp. 315-318.
6. S.A. Austin, "Did the early earth have a reducing atmosphere?" ICR Impact 109, July 1982, 4 pp.

Related Topics
» Catastrophism
» Geologic Column Strata
» Sedimentation

No, but just the word "gluons" with no description of the forces at work? Unlikely.

<flawed geology snippage> I'll refute this when I get my housing for next year sorted out. Maybe tomorrow. 'Till then, TAG.

I propose a truce: everyone can believe whatever they please and stop making 50 creation vs evolution threads a week.
:fluffle:

I propose a truce: everyone can believe whatever they please and stop making 50 creation vs evolution threads a week.
:fluffle:

Cool. If no-one tries to teach creationism or ID in schools.

Hmmm, maybe I'll have to read the rest of the thread. Creation/Evolution threads normally cause me to lose the will to live, but if Chickys in there I may try it.


Kill yourself! DO IT!

Can I have your stuff first? :p

I'm hoping that the response to the geology will be shorter, because that was way too many words to read for someone like me who has never taken a geology class.

LOL, so many inverted commas, you have to question his credibility as a "scientist". :rolleyes:

No-one is going to mount a successful challenge of radioisotopic dating. We have nuclear reactors. Why? Certainly not because some non-Christians pulled some numbers out of their arse. We can see it in solar spectra. We can see empirical evidence in the form of oil and natural gas. What, compressed dead marine plant and animal matter left at 85 deg C for a few thousand years formed oil? Rubbish. The "Young Earth" idea is present-day wishful thinking on the part of a minority of Christians, a relatively modern idea which doesn't even have anything to do with the bible.

Meh.

http://www.nap.edu/html/creationism/

I'm hoping that the response to the geology will be shorter, because that was way too many words to read for someone like me who has never taken a geology class.
Shouldn't be too hard, I'm only a first year, but I should be able to handle this.
Oh crap, I've comitted myself now.

Kill yourself! DO IT!

Can I have your stuff first? :p

no :p

*dies*

You have committed yourself. Now translate it so that a music performance/biology double major can understand it.

LOL, so many inverted commas, you have to question his credibility as a "scientist". :rolleyes:

No-one is going to mount a successful challenge of radioisotopic dating. We have nuclear reactors. Why? Certainly not because some non-Christians pulled some numbers out of their arse. We can see it in solar spectra. We can see empirical evidence in the form of oil and natural gas. What, compressed dead marine plant and animal matter left at 85 deg C for a few thousand years formed oil? Rubbish. The "Young Earth" idea is present-day wishful thinking on the part of a minority of Christians, a relatively modern idea which doesn't even have anything to do with the bible.


This is a key point. Not only is "creation science" a religion, rather than science, but it is a very specific branch of Christianity. Most major Christian sects reject creation science and embrace the existence of evolution.

Edwards v. Aguillard (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=482&invol=578). 482 US 578 (1987).

Evidence for a Young World (#384)
by Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1842)

Sniplots of Cutnpaste nonsense from ICR.



This one is funny. His justification for saying that men would have developed agriculture sooner if "evolution" is true is that men were just as intelligent then as now.

OK, fine. Why didn't they start using modern yokes until the middle ages for oxen or even steel working?

These are all attacks on "Old Earth" concepts stating the " Biblical time scale is much more likely". , and, as usual, w/o offering any actual competing evidence to prove thier hypothesis.

Once again. Saying, "you're wrong so we must be right" is NOT science.

People can believe what they like and I don't care, but I do care when they try and get me to believe something without any good reason. I'm a Christian and I think that ID is a load of crap. It really is just saying "I think that X is impossible therefore Y must be true."

What no one has ever seemed to realise in all of these arguments, is that it is folly to try and prove the origin of all things through just one. Evolutionism and Creationism are both true.I don't need to give evidence, bothsides have already done it for me. It merely requires opening your mind up a bit further, than it is. If you actually examine the facts, all the facts, they support each other.

I'm not going to subscribe to this, I'm not even going to return. debunk it, and disprove it all you wish. In the end, I will be the one who is right.

I think it's safe to say that we're here because we're bored, not because yet another pointless discussion on the NS messageboard is the best way to expand our minds.

Big shout to all beleivers in the Flying Spaghetti Monster

(more info at http://venganza.org/)

may you all be blessed by his noodly appendeges

What no one has ever seemed to realise in all of these arguments, is that it is folly to try and prove the origin of all things through just one. Evolutionism and Creationism are both true.I don't need to give evidence, bothsides have already done it for me. It merely requires opening your mind up a bit further, than it is. If you actually examine the facts, all the facts, they support each other.

I'm not going to subscribe to this, I'm not even going to return. debunk it, and disprove it all you wish. In the end, I will be the one who is right.

There's a worldview I envy, you'll never be (Read: think you're) wrong.

There's no point in responding to Ri-An, he said he wouldn't be back. But it is true that no amount of discussion will ever change anyone's mind.

LOL, so many inverted commas, you have to question his credibility as a "scientist". :rolleyes:

No-one is going to mount a successful challenge of radioisotopic dating. We have nuclear reactors. Why? Certainly not because some non-Christians pulled some numbers out of their arse. We can see it in solar spectra. We can see empirical evidence in the form of oil and natural gas. What, compressed dead marine plant and animal matter left at 85 deg C for a few thousand years formed oil? Rubbish. The "Young Earth" idea is present-day wishful thinking on the part of a minority of Christians, a relatively modern idea which doesn't even have anything to do with the bible.

I thought of an objection to radioisotope dating back when I was a child and believed it.

Question: how do you verify the original state of the material being measured? How do you verify the original ratios? And how do you verify that no natural process has added or taken material away over time?

Answer: you make lots of assumptions, and tweak them until they match the data. Then the public assumes that you went the other way, from data to theory. :rolleyes:

I thought of an objection to radioisotope dating back when I was a child and believed it.

Question: how do you verify the original state of the material being measured? How do you verify the original ratios? And how do you verify that no natural process has added or taken material away over time?

Answer: you make lots of assumptions, and tweak them until they match the data. Then the public assumes that you went the other way, from data to theory. :rolleyes:
Use other methods of data to move backwards in time (eg, calibrate it). Next.

I thought of an objection to radioisotope dating back when I was a child and believed it.

Question: how do you verify the original state of the material being measured? How do you verify the original ratios? And how do you verify that no natural process has added or taken material away over time?

Answer: you make lots of assumptions, and tweak them until they match the data. Then the public assumes that you went the other way, from data to theory. :rolleyes:

Yes. Its all part of the vast evolutionist conspiracy.

There is no nuclear science. Nuclear reactors are really just using hamsters to generate electricity.

I thought of an objection to radioisotope dating back when I was a child

and this probably cuts to the heart of your problem

Yes. Its all part of the vast evolutionist conspiracy.

There is no nuclear science. Nuclear reactors are really just using hamsters to generate electricity.

Of course. Where do you think those phosphorescent rodents came from that have been in the news

What's wrong with tweaking your theory so that it matches the data?

Yes. Its all part of the vast evolutionist conspiracy.

There is no nuclear science. Nuclear reactors are really just using hamsters to generate electricity.
He has a legitimate point, one that had quite a large number of scientists' faces red way back when. They'd forgotten to calibrate the damn c-14 levels, messing up quite a bit of data until someone realized they could string back wood rings (ice, sediment, etc) to get the proper year, and then use the c-14 data from those samples to give the proper ratios.

That was fixed back in the 70s-80s though.

He has a legitimate point, one that had quite a large number of scientists' faces red way back when. They'd forgotten to calibrate the damn c-14 levels, messing up quite a bit of data until someone realized they could string back wood rings (ice, sediment, etc) to get the proper year, and then use the c-14 data from those samples to give the proper ratios.

That was fixed back in the 70s-80s though.

But remember, errors made a generation + ago are still valid denunciations of science even if they have been corrected.

But I like hamsters.

But remember, errors made a generation + ago are still valid denunciations of science even if they have been corrected.
Of course.

I say that you cannot prove evolution to be science. I didnt say you could not prove it. It is widely accepted for example, that the second world war took place.

Aha, that's only because the historians are biased in favor of mainstream interpretations! ;)

I thought of an objection to radioisotope dating back when I was a child and believed it.

Question: how do you verify the original state of the material being measured? How do you verify the original ratios? And how do you verify that no natural process has added or taken material away over time?

Answer: you make lots of assumptions, and tweak them until they match the data. Then the public assumes that you went the other way, from data to theory. :rolleyes:
Such a shame that since you came up with that as a child, you never bothered to read up on the subject. :rolleyes:

I am not an expert in the natural sciences. I can show you some of the things I have read in the area.

http://www.carm.org/evolution.htmHilarious site that...

I particularly liked (from http://www.carm.org/evo_questions/dolphinevolve.htm) :

QUESTION: Why would the dolphin evolve on land, then return to the sea where it would have to re-evolve every feature that it had spent millions of years working on?

RESPONSE: It doesn't make any sense to me, either. There is no reason!
[...]

That's enough to make my point... There is no reason... Exactly! Because the only 'decisions' are the instantaneous "does this animal survive?" circumstances. Any animals that get a resounding "Yes" every time this question is asked (up to/including the point it begats/nurtures the next generation) get to be a parent, and then maybe an ancester...

If you seek for meaning where none is needed, you're making more assumptions than you're accusing the scientists of...

The dino living with men arguement......It's interesting, you know, that the part of the world (China) that seems to be particularly associated with stories about dragons (assuming Marco Polo or someone else didn't take the tales eastwards along the silk-trade routes) is the very same country that countains a region where fossils of fossil flying-dinosaurs/bird precursors have been regularly uncovered by the local farmers since time immemorial...

Or maybe it's a coincidence, but it's a thought, eh?

Erm...

http://www.carm.org/rael/falsifiable.htm

Sound familiar?

...(blinks)...

...(stares at statements for about twenty minutes)...

...(blinks again)...

Your statements above are the most meaningless, flawed, and thoroughly embarrassing things I've ever seen. No hyperbole, no exaggeration.

I actually feel somehow injured by even being exposed to your profound misunderstanding of the words you use.


Jesus Christ with a dead hooker in his trunk. Man, that was bad.
Have my babies

i find it ironic that someone attempting to grasp these concepts made so many grammatical and spelling errors.

No. Natural selection is one way. Random mutation is another.


Evolution takes into account random mutation. If a mutation gives an organism a disadvantage then many organisms with that mutation will die off, eventually removing the mutation from the gene pool. If a mutation gives an organism an advantage, then organisms with the mutation will flourish and eventually the mutation will become commonplace in the gene pool.

It's interesting, you know, that the part of the world (China) that seems to be particularly associated with stories about dragons (assuming Marco Polo or someone else didn't take the tales eastwards along the silk-trade routes) is the very same country that countains a region where fossils of fossil flying-dinosaurs/bird precursors have been regularly uncovered by the local farmers since time immemorial...

Or maybe it's a coincidence, but it's a thought, eh?

Well it could be that stories of dragons were created from finding fossils.

It can't be from slaying them as say a head would be a prized artifact.....

i find it ironic that someone attempting to grasp these concepts made so many grammatical and spelling errors.

Wellllllllllllll

There are a great many PhD types that can't write.....

Wellllllllllllll

There are a great many PhD types that can't write.....

Yeah, but why so many in the Lit department...

I think it's time for a threadjack.

Evolutionism certainly isn't a science: it's a blanket term the religious right applies to the beliefs of anybody who isn't a creationist.
Post 4. Crippling blow from the get-go. And the thread limps on ...

EDIT:
And here's where the limping took on an even more peculiar gait, where the OP'r opted to use the wounded leg as the sole source of cadence ... that's gotta be just humiliating ....
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10372661&postcount=46

Oh, so they expect us to go there, and cut and paste the answers back for them... :rolleyes:
That way they can point out the people who actually give a sh*t, and thusly put them on their *ignore* list. :D

There isn't a single thread here that doesn't live well past its time.

There isn't a single thread here that doesn't live well past its time.
You mean today's crop?
I wouldn't know.
I just got here ... and i frankly don't have the time to make a fool of m'self & others on every single thread.
Besides, on occasion, one or another ends far too soon. :(

Never debate anything with someone who can't spell "intelligent".
*FLORT*
Hahahaha!!!!
:D


...thanks. Made my night!!

I wasn't implying that you don't know what's going on here. I just think that people drag out threads past their usefulness because they're bored. Hell, I'm still posting here.

I don't ask people to defend their spelling. It's bad form.
Given the OP, it was a strong symptom indicative of a much larger malady.
*nods*

I wasn't implying that you don't know what's going on here. I just think that people drag out threads past their usefulness because they're bored. Hell, I'm still posting here.
Amen to that! :D
I might move on m'self. Depends on what catches my fancy.



EDIT: So it would appear me and that other fella showed up just in time ...

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10376785&postcount=135

I just ripped off my arm and threw it at a monkey.
And then, the monkey laughed at you, and after wiping some tears away and sighing, he put his arm around you and chided you for not choosing instead to fling excrement.
Then he sighed and skirted off into the tree canopy.

There's hardly anything better to do at 1:30 in the morning when you're not tired.

There's hardly anything better to do at 1:30 in the morning when you're not tired.
Again, i find myself in just about full agreement with you.
The History Channel's special on Stonehenge is on right now, and some of the dialogue's a little slow ... although they just showed a very cool part about smelting Cu ... I've been driving all day. Somewhere in 'tween is my attention span.

Stonehenge is awesome but I don't own a TV.

In the interests of boredom then. Would it be possible to sue, and prevail, creationist commercial enterprises under the same theory which Nike was recently sued? Force them all to put "For Entertainment Purposes Only" on all of their for profit products, use the settlement to either commission or buy the copyrights a rigorous highschool-college level biology textbook. That would be hysterical.

What no one has ever seemed to realise in all of these arguments, is that it is folly to try and prove the origin of all things through just one. Evolutionism and Creationism are both true.I don't need to give evidence, bothsides have already done it for me. It merely requires opening your mind up a bit further, than it is. If you actually examine the facts, all the facts, they support each other.

I'm not going to subscribe to this, I'm not even going to return. debunk it, and disprove it all you wish. In the end, I will be the one who is right.
Drive-by, yo.
:(
Aw, c'mon and play!

Stonehenge is awesome but I don't own a TV.
Well, MUCH of their stuff is researchable ...
I personally can't fault you for disregarding TV. Not much good on it.
But i have to personally vouch for The History Channel.
And MXC.
And Mythbusters.
And Futurama.
And The Daily Show/The Colbert Report.
And Carnivale.
Not much else i can prop, really. At least right now.

http://www.HistoryChannel.com

Digging For The Truth: Stonehenge: Secrets Revealed
-

In the interests of boredom then. Would it be possible to sue, and prevail, creationist commercial enterprises under the same theory which Nike was recently sued? Force them all to put "For Entertainment Purposes Only" on all of their for profit products, use the settlement to either commission or buy the copyrights a rigorous highschool-college level biology textbook. That would be hysterical.
Two things came to mind ....
one was the fact that even the Catholic Church's most recent post of official stance was that Genesis isn't to be taken literally ...
and the second was that there was a textbook source that revoked the privilege of the use of their materials by the dipf*cks in Kansas who started pushing this bilge in the latest Scopes redux.
You probably already knew that ...
I wouldn't mind a bit your idea coming to fruition.
*nods*

The Reformation orginally came about as a way of dealing with the corruption within the Catholic Church, but nowadays the Catholics are hardly the biggest threat to those who don't think like them.

As for TV, I like it but I have no money. None. :p

Maybe there needs to be a secular non-profit organization who's mission is to persecute out of control evangelism call it Pax Romana.

The Reformation orginally came about as a way of dealing with the corruption within the Catholic Church, but nowadays the Catholics are hardly the biggest threat to those who don't think like them.

As for TV, I like it but I have no money. None. :p
...so, are you taking the college/library's WiFi or something? ;)

Maybe there needs to be a secular non-profit organization who's mission is to persecute out of control evangelism call it Pax Romana.
You're giving me the distinct impression that you've got source material for your riffs here ... ;)

On the other hand, Creation scientists are doing science (just a very few examples):

Polonium Radiohalos: The Model for Their Formation Tested and Verified (#386)
by Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D. (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=2467)

Evidence for a Young World (#384)
by Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1842)

None of that is science. In the first, the conclusion is assumed at the start of the research - a standpoint that a scientist cannot take. In the second, there are all sorts of references to "evolutionary theory" that have nothing to do with it. Evolutionary theory does not state a single thing about the age of comets or planets or galaxies. Sorry. Meanwhile, it makes the classic Creationist mistake of assuming that all changes throughout the entire Universe occur at a constant rate and have been doing so since the beginning of time. The third mentions God at the very beginning, bringing an untestable premise into the research, and thus marking it as non-science straight off.
Misconception No. 1. The geologic column was constructed by geologists who, because of the weight of the evidence that they had found, were convinced of the truth of uniformitarian theory and organic evolution.

Whoever said this? It is, in fact, the other way around. The geologic column is part of the evidence that led to and supports current evolutionary theory.

Misconception No. 2. Geologists composed the geologic column by assembling the "periods" and "eras" which they had recognized.

The geologic column was not composed by assembling a chronology of "periods," "eras" or other supposed measures of time, but by superposition of objectively defined sequences of sedimentary strata called "systems." The "periods" and "eras" were later appended to the system nomenclature of the "geologic Column" transforming it into a "geologic time scale."

Semantics. They recognized distinct sections and called them something or other.

Misconception No. 3. The strata systems of the geologic column are worldwide in their occurrence with each strata system being present below any point on the earth's surface.

Not sure who ever claimed this. There are all sorts of geologic events that can shake things up a bit.

Misconception No. 6. Fossils, especially the species distinctive of specific systems, provide the most reliable method of assigning strata to their level in the geologic column.

Not sure who said this either. Even in the most basic geology classes, we are generally taught that fossils are sometimes used to date strata and strata are sometimes used to date fossils. Usually, they try it both ways to see if they are consistent.
Misconception No. 10. The geologic column and the positions of fossils within the geologic column provide proof of amoeba-to-man evolution.

Not sure where this came from either. First of all, there is no "proof" in science, only evidence. Second of all, one wouldn't expect to see fossils of *all* creatures, as the process required to fossilize single-celled creatures or even non-vertebrates would be rather different from those of vertebrates. And finally, evolutionary theory does not state that there is an amoeba-to-man evolution. The amoebas that we study are just as evolved as human beings.

Makes me wonder what they think of General Relativity.
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/GenRelativity.html

You're giving me the distinct impression that you've got source material for your riffs here ... ;)
Hey, if you've got an idea how I can make a million bucks making snarky and ironic observations to really tiny audiances in someone else's popular venue I'm all ears.

But only slightly more seriously, I find I have one really good idea a day. The only problem is I can't really force it to be in an area where I can do a whole lot about it. I pretty much assumed most people were the same way. So alas Pax Romana will probably go the way of Thermochromic Hair treatments (one of my favorites).

*snip*
Have I told you lately that I love you?

:headbang: Hellow its me that insane comy.


Wrong actually im not insane or a comy( i dont know wat i am) but evalution happens from adation and chang of the body. we have evalved (sorry god luvers) from big strong thick skinned people to meany different kinds of people, thick skin, big mussels, tall, short, missing lims, ect. The point is evalution really isnt chois it just happens, and no one can stop it not even god/god's/godeses. ( and i am not an athyist im open to all religion).I think it impasible for all religions to be right but it isent imposible for them all to be right.:D

( i just have to have a gun):gundge:
http://www.funpic.hu/swf/numanuma.htmlits really neat!!
http://www.funnyjunk.com/pages/world.htmits about the end of ze world!!!:eek: :fluffle: ;)

Hey, if you've got an idea how I can make a million bucks making snarky and ironic observations to really tiny audiances in someone else's popular venue I'm all ears.
Eyes, you mean?
Seriously, though ... so far you've got public domain. A forum? :eek:
Well as long as you've got your copyright stuff down ...

But only slightly more seriously, I find I have one really good idea a day. The only problem is I can't really force it to be in an area where I can do a whole lot about it. I pretty much assumed most people were the same way. So alas Pax Romana will probably go the way of Thermochromic Hair treatments (one of my favorites).
My experience is that as people get older they lose even their one really good idea a day, traded for tedium and responsibilities.
I can also personally relate since i've spent quite a while researching a prospective/fledgling book. I think i get your Thermochromic Hair treatment idea as well .... i think ... something like a mood ring perm?
I'm not gonna steal it, i've got plenty of my own. Good luck with that.
But there's more than a few shifty folk here ...
*looks in Lunatic Goofballs's direction*

Eyes, you mean?
Seriously, though ... so far you've got public domain. A forum? :eek:
Well as long as you've got your copyright stuff down ...


My experience is that as people get older they lose even their one really good idea a day, traded for tedium and responsibilities.
I can also personally relate since i've spent quite a while researching a prospective/fledgling book. I think i get your Thermochromic Hair treatment idea as well .... i think ... something like a mood ring perm?
I'm not gonna steal it, i've got plenty of my own. Good luck with that.
Eyes ears sure.

Perhaps, I notice I didn't have a good idea today. (Post Seahawks depression most likely.) But it could be ol' father time too.

Honestly, I don't think Thermochromic (Hypercolor if you remember the T-shirts) hair would be patentable, it's pretty obvious. It amounts to swapping one fiber to another. The specific process to make sure the grey<->blue dye sticks to the hair might well be something to patent. But for just straightup thermochromic hair the best bet would be to get there first, and promote the holy hell out of it. But obviously newer, more sensitive, versitile colorful dyes would be patentable. And those would probably be worth some change, but that's a little bit of a different animal to develop.

I'm kind of suspicious that it's already been/being done, as there's nothing I've turned up in the course of a casual investigation that seems to present a significant problem.

First of all, we need to distinguish some terms here. Creationism first off is not intellegent design. They are two diffrent theories. Intellegent design states that the world cannot be the way it is through chance, due to its ordered nature, and that therefore there must be a guiding, intellegent force behind it. There is a level of merit to such a discussion but it is not what I am here adressing.

Creationism is an interpreation of scientific evidence that points to a set of conclusions which are radically diffrent from the mainstreem scientific opinion. These opinions include such things as the Earths age only numbering in the thousands of years, and life emerging in a far more spontanious way than is accepted by the majority of scientists. There are viable interpretations of evidence to suggest this.

Evolutionism is not evolution. Evolution is the process whereby animals change and adapt to their enviroments through random mutation. Conversely, evolution is not natural selection. Natural selection is the process of animals adapting to their enviroment by suvival of the fittest due to a large gene pool.

Evolutionism is the interpretation of the scientific evidence that is consistant with mainstreem scientific opinion. IE that the Earths age is several million years and life was a result of a series of chemical reactions. There are viable interpretations of the evidence to suggest this could also be the case

Neither creationism nor evolutionsim can be declared science. Why? Well science is defined as "systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and study. Also, the methodology used to acquire this knowledge". Now evolutionism and creationsim come to a conclusion based on evidence, but you cannot experiment this evidence. You can examine the evidence in a scientific fashion, but the conclusions you draw from the evidence are intepretations. Not science. In much the same way that historians can come up with diffrent interpretations from the same evidence, so is the case here. You cannot emperically examine wheter evolution happened because you cannot witness it. You can only examine the evidence of the past. You can come to conclusions, but those conclusions can be debated.
Evolutionism has been proven with carbon dating.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have i told you lately that Rod Stewart has aged rather gracefully in the visage department?

Eyes ears sure.

Perhaps, I notice I didn't have a good idea today. (Post Seahawks depression most likely.) But it could be ol' father time too.

Honestly, I don't think Thermochromic (Hypercolor if you remember the T-shirts) hair would be patentable, it's pretty obvious. It amounts to swapping one fiber to another. The specific process to make sure the grey<->blue dye sticks to the hair might well be something to patent. But for just straightup thermochromic hair the best bet would be to get there first, and promote the holy hell out of it. But obviously newer, more sensitive, versitile colorful dyes would be patentable. And those would probably be worth some change, but that's a little bit of a different animal to develop.

I'm kind of suspicious that it's already been/being done, as there's nothing I've turned up in the course of a casual investigation that seems to present a significant problem.
Maybe the trick is to get in on the thinktanks and the people who are looking for an angle on a new investment. RonCo comes to mind ... ;)
R&D could of course be a bit spendy.

You've got it backwards, my dear. In Creationism, one must first assume that Creationism is correct. Then, you look for anything to back that up, while ignoring anything else that is present. This is how the so-called "creation science" has been run, and continues to be carried out. One cannot assume a foregone conclusion and pretend that what one does is science.

Creationism does indeed begin with 'truth' through relevation. Naturalism (the philosophy that Darwin embraced) begins with its own version of truth, and interprets all that it finds in the light of that truth. Both Creationism and Naturalism begin with their own version of 'truth'. The 'truth' being an assumption upon which all of the interpretation of the data is based. In both cases, we humans are not in a position to test for the correctness of the assumption through the scientific method.

I think it rather unfair of you to say that Creationism ignores anything else that is present (that doesn't support it). Perhaps there are people who do this, but creationism itself does not do this.



The difference here is that there is no foregone conclusion. If evidence were brought forth that actually disproved the estimates of the age of the Earth, or that life came forth from a series of chemical reactions, then scientists would change the prevailing theory.


In the same way, since creationism depends on a miraculous event, when science is in a position to provide evidence that such a miracle did not occur, then it can show that creationism is wrong. Because science cannot investigate miracles, this will never happen.

And, yes, there is a forgone conclusion within naturalism. One of the being that all of life came form a single ancestor. For example, recently I was reading through a paper related to my work. The title is The Evolutionary History of Quorum Sensing in Bacteria, by Lerat and Moran, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2004. Lerat and Moran have found that bacteria are basically divided into two groups, based on the DNA sequences of the quorum sensing genes. They have constructed two trees, one based on the DNA simiarlities of Quorum sensing genes, and the other based on SSU rRNA and made comparisons. One of their statements is that the division must mean that quorum sensing is an ancient phenomenon. Do you see the assumption? Quorum sensing is widespread among bacteria. There are two basic families that share no homology. All of life had to have come from a single ancestor. Thus quorum sensing is an ancient phenomenon. Thus evolutionism, or naturalism is based on some 'truths' than cannot be proven (e.g. common ancestry). That makes it no better than creationism, for making unproven assumptions.


On the other hand, no matter how much evidence is uncovered that a literal account of creation is inconsistent with, Creationists will never change their "theories". They remain the same, because the conclusion is assumed before the evidence is examined, instead of being drawn from the evidence.


Once again not true. In my readings I have found much within the theories of creationism that does change, as new evidence is acquired. Some things do not change, e.g., that God created the world. But the same can be said of evolutionism, e.g., common ancestor for all of life.


(a) Creationism does not come to a conclusion through evidence. It assumes a conclusion and then searches for evidence. There is a difference.


Once again a big claim that I just don't see truth to. Sure, there are people who hold to the creationist view who refuse to change their minds for wrong reasons. Same goes for those on the other side too.

And, yes, there is a forgone conclusion within naturalism. One of the being that all of life came form a single ancestor. For example, recently I was reading through a paper related to my work. The title is The Evolutionary History of Quorum Sensing in Bacteria, by Lerat and Moran, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2004. Lerat and Moran have found that bacteria are basically divided into two groups, based on the DNA sequences of the quorum sensing genes. They have constructed two trees, one based on the DNA simiarlities of Quorum sensing genes, and the other based on SSU rRNA and made comparisons. One of their statements is that the division must mean that quorum sensing is an ancient phenomenon. Do you see the assumption? Quorum sensing is widespread among bacteria. There are two basic families that share no homology. All of life had to have come from a single ancestor. Thus quorum sensing is an ancient phenomenon. Thus evolutionism, or naturalism is based on some 'truths' than cannot be proven (e.g. common ancestry). That makes it no better than creationism, for making unproven assumptions.
This is not an unfounded assumption at all - it is an assumption made in the context of this particular paper because it has already been supported by the wealth of scientific evidence. The authors of this paper would no more feel the need to re-prove the assumption than the author of a paper on the Earth's rotation would feel the need to begin by re-proving that the Earth is round : they can assume that the Earth is round, and work within that assumption, because it is already established beyond reasonable dounbt.

Creationism is different because it assumes a miraculous event which has not already been proven, and which, as you say, cannot be proven. Therefore, it is inherently unscientific.

The first people to talk of "creation science" already assumed a divine creation (based not on evidence, but on scripture) and worked to make it sound scientifically plausable. The first evolutionary scientists did not pre-assume a single common ancestor : they concluded it as a result of their research.

If Lerat and Moran had other evidence which suggested that the division was not ancient, then they would be able to challenge the single common ancestry assumption; but in the absence of such alternative evidence, the premise stands, because it is supported by other scientific research and does not contradict their findings.

In my readings I have found much within the theories of creationism that does change, as new evidence is acquired. Some things do not change, e.g., that God created the world. But the same can be said of evolutionism, e.g., common ancestor for all of life.
Creationism changes its story in order to explain away new evidence which contradicts it, not because it finds new evidence to support it. AFAIK, "creation scientists" haven't uncovered a single new scientific fact, and has never successfully predicted any new scientific discovery (which good scientific theories should).

If it was discovered that all life did not have a single common ancestor, but that abiogenesis occurred independently two or three times, it would not shatter evolutionary theory (which doesn't even deal directly with abiogenesis), although it might require some adjustments and refinements. But creationism depends entirely on an unproven and untestable premise, which is why it is not science.

Creationism does indeed begin with 'truth' through relevation. Naturalism (the philosophy that Darwin embraced) begins with its own version of truth, and interprets all that it finds in the light of that truth. Both Creationism and Naturalism begin with their own version of 'truth'. The 'truth' being an assumption upon which all of the interpretation of the data is based. In both cases, we humans are not in a position to test for the correctness of the assumption through the scientific method.

I think it rather unfair of you to say that Creationism ignores anything else that is present (that doesn't support it). Perhaps there are people who do this, but creationism itself does not do this.
The difference is that naturalism's "truth" is the mechanism of discovery. We are in a very good position to test the correctness of that.

This is not an unfounded assumption at all - it is an assumption made in the context of this particular paper because it has already been supported by the wealth of scientific evidence. The authors of this paper would no more feel the need to re-prove the assumption than the author of a paper on the Earth's rotation would feel the need to begin by re-proving that the Earth is round : they can assume that the Earth is round, and work within that assumption, because it is already established beyond reasonable dounbt.

I disagree. The idea of a single ancestor has not been proven. The evidence which suggests a single ancestor is based on another assumption, that life is capable of evolving from non-life and into every form of life today, using only natural forces. This is a long way from being proven. Far from a wealth of scientific evidence, it would more appropriately be a wealth of 'scientific assumptions'. We can indeed show that the world is round. We cannot show that natural forces are sufficient to take a big bang and turn it into the world we see around us today.


The first people to talk of "creation science" already assumed a divine creation (based not on evidence, but on scripture) and worked to make it sound scientifically plausable. The first evolutionary scientists did not pre-assume a single common ancestor : they concluded it as a result of their research.


OK. They did conclude a single ancestor as a result of their research, but only when interpreting their data in the 'light' of the assumption that natural forces are sufficient. Try as you like, you cannot remove evolution from this basic assumption.


If Lerat and Moran had other evidence which suggested that the division was not ancient, then they would be able to challenge the single common ancestry assumption; but in the absence of such alternative evidence, the premise stands, because it is supported by other scientific research and does not contradict their findings.


Because Lerat and Moran had already bought into the naturalistic thinking, they were committed to an explanation of the data that allows only naturalistic forces. There is plenty in our world that challenges single common ancestry (e.g. Cambrian explosion) and makes it look unlikely, although nothing that I have ever seen that proves a single ancestor wrong.

The point about being supported by other scientific research is a weak one, because when the other scientific research is also based on such assumptions (eg common ancestry), you are in on dangerous ground of using assumptions to support assumptions. That doesn't make those assumptions true or false. It just means that you have to be ever so careful of forgetting that the assumptions are still there. That is why I am arguing that evolutionism cannot claim superiority over creationism in this area.


Creationism changes its story in order to explain away new evidence which contradicts it, not because it finds new evidence to support it. AFAIK, "creation scientists" haven't uncovered a single new scientific fact, and has never successfully predicted any new scientific discovery (which good scientific theories should).


You can have your opinion, just like I can have mine.



If it was discovered that all life did not have a single common ancestor, but that abiogenesis occurred independently two or three times, it would not shatter evolutionary theory (which doesn't even deal directly with abiogenesis), although it might require some adjustments and refinements. But creationism depends entirely on an unproven and untestable premise, which is why it is not science.

You still do not see it. How can you not see that it doesn't matter if there was a single common ancestor or three common ancestors? The point is that common ancestry is assumed, not proven, and thus evolution depends on 'an unproven and untestable premise, which is why it is not science', just to use your own words.

The difference is that naturalism's "truth" is the mechanism of discovery. We are in a very good position to test the correctness of that.

So let's investigate nature with a world view that only allows natural forces, and see what we get. By Jingos, look what we have!! Only natural forces. Well, that solves the riddle then!! (to be read with sarcasm)

Willamena, would you like to suggest a method by which we can test the idea that only natural forces are sufficient? Or what about the other big one, that we are all decended from a single ancestor. How is your naturalism's ''truth'' going to test for the correctness of that one?

So let's investigate nature with a world view that only allows natural forces, and see what we get. By Jingos, look what we have!! Only natural forces. Well, that solves the riddle then!! (to be read with sarcasm)

Willamena, would you like to suggest a method by which we can test the idea that only natural forces are sufficient? Or what about the other big one, that we are all decended from a single ancestor. How is your naturalism's ''truth'' going to test for the correctness of that one?


Are you actually against the mechanism of evolution, or are you just trying to annoy him?

Are you actually against the mechanism of evolution, or are you just trying to annoy him?

I'm certainly not trying to annoy anyone (Willamena is a female, so far as I know). Neither can I deny the sort of evolution mechanisms for which we humans have seen with our own eyes.

And in this thread, I am not even (yet anyway) arguing either for or against evolution. I am simply trying to point out that both creationism and evolutionism (to use terms that others are already using) have some basic points in common, particularly that of the role of assumptions within both view points.

There is this common view point (an uneducated one, in my opinion) that thinks that creationism is all about blind assumptions that ignores the facts, and that evolutionism is simply being honest and logical with the facts, letting the data tell its own story.

So let's investigate nature with a world view that only allows natural forces, and see what we get.
Oh, look! We get "science".

By Jingos, look what we have!! Only natural forces. Well, that solves the riddle then!! (to be read with sarcasm)

Willamena, would you like to suggest a method by which we can test the idea that only natural forces are sufficient?
Sufficient for what, though? That's the thing. When you go and redefine "science" as "the search for an ultimate truth", and include "unnantural forces" as a possible cause, for some the supreme cause, then you're no longer looking for natural explanation. For some, it is nothing more than "looking for God" in the evidence. That's not science.

Or what about the other big one, that we are all decended from a single ancestor. How is your naturalism's ''truth'' going to test for the correctness of that one?
I don't know. I'm not a scientist.

I'm certainly not trying to annoy anyone (Willamena is a female, so far as I know). Neither can I deny the sort of evolution mechanisms for which we humans have seen with our own eyes.

And in this thread, I am not even (yet anyway) arguing either for or against evolution. I am simply trying to point out that both creationism and evolutionism (to use terms that others are already using) have some basic points in common, particularly that of the role of assumptions within both view points.

There is this common view point (an uneducated one, in my opinion) that thinks that creationism is all about blind assumptions that ignores the facts, and that evolutionism is simply being honest and logical with the facts, letting the data tell its own story.

In other words, by being deliberately vague, you try to form a rough equality of creationism and evolutionism.

Of course, there is nothing inconsistent between the two. It is only creation science and other anti-evolution spin-offs that is incompatible with evolution. It is also incompatible with the majority of Christian sects.

As for your pet theory about how evolution and creation both start from a place of truth and have equal guesswork, you are full of it.

So let's investigate nature with a world view that only allows natural forces, and see what we get. By Jingos, look what we have!! Only natural forces. Well, that solves the riddle then!! (to be read with sarcasm)

Willamena, would you like to suggest a method by which we can test the idea that only natural forces are sufficient? Or what about the other big one, that we are all decended from a single ancestor. How is your naturalism's ''truth'' going to test for the correctness of that one?

Strawmen.

First, you are talking about evolution as first-order, rather than merely a second-order question. Evolution as a science is a second-order question.

Second, you are attributing views to evolution that are not necessary to that viewpoint.

Third, you are ignoring the degree to which the hypotheses are testable.

Fourth, in the creationism version of things, we all descended from a common ancestor. Adam and Eve. So how is proving that true or false relevant only to evolution?

Oh, look! We get "science".

Hopefully, it is a science that is intelligent enough to find the answers, not to ignore them, wherever they may be.

But you ignored my point. If you are trying to account for a particular phenomenon in nature, if you only allow natural forces in your explanation, you should not be surprised when the data points to natural forces. Nothing terribly complicated about that! And it does nothing to prove that natural forces can indeed account for the phenomenon. You have only succeeded in removing all other forces, not through science, but through assumption.


Sufficient for what, though? That's the thing. When you go and redefine "science" as "the search for an ultimate truth", and include "unnantural forces" as a possible cause, for some the supreme cause, then you're no longer looking for natural explanation. For some, it is nothing more than "looking for God" in the evidence. That's not science.


Science is about looking for explanations, and about using these explanations to discover more about the universe. I suppose we could agree on this point. What we might not disagree about is whether we can conclude that the evidence does indeed point to a designer. We would have to look at the details of nature for that. Thus we are limited to studying the natural world, but not necessarily limited to unintelligent (natural) forces, in my view. Trying to make those poor dumb forces of nature construct intelligence is, in my view, not what science is about. In my books, that is a far greater abuse of anyone's intelligence, indeed, of science itself. That isn't science either.

I don't know. I'm not a scientist.

Wisely avoided. In that case, you will have to agree that science is not in a position to decide which assumptions are the better ones.

First, you are talking about evolution as first-order, rather than merely a second-order question. Evolution as a science is a second-order question.

Second, you are attributing views to evolution that are not necessary to that viewpoint.

Third, you are ignoring the degree to which the hypotheses are testable.

Fourth, in the creationism version of things, we all descended from a common ancestor. Adam and Eve. So how is proving that true or false relevant only to evolution?
What are these "first-order", "second-order", questions?

And, yes, there is a forgone conclusion within naturalism. One of the being that all of life came form a single ancestor.

You already claimed that in the "String Theory Illegal" thread and I think we already pointed out to you that this is false. Naturalism does not make any such claims.

In other words, by being deliberately vague, you try to form a rough equality of creationism and evolutionism.

Of course, there is nothing inconsistent between the two. It is only creation science and other anti-evolution spin-offs that is incompatible with evolution. It is also incompatible with the majority of Christian sects.

As for your pet theory about how evolution and creation both start from a place of truth and have equal guesswork, you are full of it.

I don't say that they start from truth, but 'truth'. That means that they start from assumptions that they hold to be true, but cannot prove via the scientific method.

If you like, you can point out exactly where I was being vague, just so you don't fall into the same trap.

I was never trying to form a rough equality of the two. They are, of course, like chalk and cheese in many regards. But it may be helpful to point to the similarities. One should never stop hoping that intelligence can win over prejudice.


Strawmen.


Which point, exactly?


First, you are talking about evolution as first-order, rather than merely a second-order question. Evolution as a science is a second-order question.


First order, second order? What is that all about? And how that make your point?


Second, you are attributing views to evolution that are not necessary to that viewpoint.


Like what, for example? The one about a single ancestor? Or the one about natural causes?


Third, you are ignoring the degree to which the hypotheses are testable.


Are you suggesting that these hypotheses are testable to a degree? Perhaps you could provide an example. It is such a help against vagueness.


Fourth, in the creationism version of things, we all descended from a common ancestor. Adam and Eve. So how is proving that true or false relevant only to evolution?

Which would mean that creationism has it's share of assumptions, something I have accepted all along. But a common human ancestor for humans is not the same as a common ancestor of life. That is a major difference between creationism and evolutionism. Interestingly, science has shown that there is a common human ancestor, mitochondrial Eve, or if she wasn't human, she had to at least be very close to human.
While it is possible to prove a common human ancestor, it is impossible to prove a common ancestor for all of life.

You already claimed that in the "String Theory Illegal" thread and I think we already pointed out to you that this is false. Naturalism does not make any such claims.

It does, most of the time. I have several papers that I could reference for you, if you like.

It does, most of the time. I have several papers that I could reference for you, if you like.

Some quotes would be enough.

Hopefully, it is a science that is intelligent enough to find the answers, not to ignore them, wherever they may be.

But you ignored my point. If you are trying to account for a particular phenomenon in nature, if you only allow natural forces in your explanation, you should not be surprised when the data points to natural forces. Nothing terribly complicated about that! And it does nothing to prove that natural forces can indeed account for the phenomenon. You have only succeeded in removing all other forces, not through science, but through assumption.
I didn't meant to ignore yours; I was just making my point. And again, "science that is intelligent enough" for what? What is the goal, what are you accounting for? Ultimate truth? A knowledge that God is responsible? Science will never uncover that, it cannot. We humans are limited by our senses, our perceptions, our limited ways of thinking, limited by our place in time --there is no "truth" of the sort you seem to expect from science. Science uncovers "what we can know" at any given time, which is all it has to do.

I could perhaps make a stronger point that knowledge that God is behind it is not useful information, not useful at all. To me, science's forte is its usefulness in practical application, to improve the quality of our lives and provide the means for us to grow. Knowledge of spiritual things, like God, doesn't accomplish that, is provided through other means, and is useful for other purposes.

Science is about looking for explanations, and about using these explanations to discover more about the universe. I suppose we could agree on this point.
To run with your definition, I would say, rather, that science is about having explanations, and the only kind we can have are those that we can account for. We must account for them, using science. We cannot know the supernatural, we cannot account for it. That which cannot be tested for cannot account for anything scientific.

What we might not disagree about is whether we can conclude that the evidence does indeed point to a designer. We would have to look at the details of nature for that. Thus we are limited to studying the natural world, but not necessarily limited to unintelligent (natural) forces, in my view. Trying to make those poor dumb forces of nature construct intelligence is, in my view, not what science is about. In my books, that is a far greater abuse of anyone's intelligence, indeed, of science itself. That isn't science either.
Right; science is necessarily limited to those natural (unintelligent) forces and systems, so that, in that cause-and-effect world in which it operates, it can only uncover natural explanations. That's all it has to do. We can do the rest, fill in the blanks so to speak.

Wisely avoided. In that case, you will have to agree that science is not in a position to decide which assumptions are the better ones.
"Better" is an entirely subjective assessment in this case. "Better" for what?

If it's uncovering explanation that's useful to us, then I think science is in the best position to say its assumptions are better.

I disagree. The idea of a single ancestor has not been proven. The evidence which suggests a single ancestor is based on another assumption, that life is capable of evolving from non-life and into every form of life today, using only natural forces. This is a long way from being proven.
The evidence for a single common ancestor is not based on that assumption at all. Life evolving from non-life is abiogenesis, not evolution, and if it was proven that the very first living organism was put here by a deity, then that organism would be the single common ancestor. The theory of evolution would stand, and the evidence that there was a single ancestor, however it came into being, would remain valid.

Far from a wealth of scientific evidence, it would more appropriately be a wealth of 'scientific assumptions'. We can indeed show that the world is round. We cannot show that natural forces are sufficient to take a big bang and turn it into the world we see around us today.
We can show that natural forces are sufficient to take life from simple beginnings to its complex existence today. That is all that is covered by evolution.

OK. They did conclude a single ancestor as a result of their research, but only when interpreting their data in the 'light' of the assumption that natural forces are sufficient. Try as you like, you cannot remove evolution from this basic assumption.
The basic assumption is irrelevant. Research into evolution did not begin with the assumption that natural forces are sufficient. Darwin himself was a Christian in his earlier years. His research drove him to the conclusion that god had no place in the process of evolution : he did not begin with that assumption.

Because Lerat and Moran had already bought into the naturalistic thinking, they were committed to an explanation of the data that allows only naturalistic forces. There is plenty in our world that challenges single common ancestry (e.g. Cambrian explosion) and makes it look unlikely, although nothing that I have ever seen that proves a single ancestor wrong.
Scientists buy into naturalistic thinking because that's where the evidence points, and because there is no other thinking which has a shred of evidence to support it. Nobody requires any scientist to recite a creed or dogma that there is no god and then work from there.

You still do not see it. How can you not see that it doesn't matter if there was a single common ancestor or three common ancestors? The point is that common ancestry is assumed, not proven, and thus evolution depends on 'an unproven and untestable premise, which is why it is not science', just to use your own words.
Common ancestry is not untestable, in that it is not unfalsifiable. For example, the discovery of a single organism with a DNA or other "life blueprint structure" which is incompatible with the DNA we know would disprove common ancestry at a stroke. The belief in common ancestry is based, at least in part, upon the fact that all known life forms do have a compatible basic structure, that there is massive evidence that the structure developed and diversified over time, and that the mechanisms by which that happened are explainable and testable.

Even if the evidence isn't 100% conclusive, common ancestry remains its best explanation and therefore can be used as a working assumption until such time as it's disproved. Since divine creation is undisprovable and untestable, it is not a working assumption (in the way that common ancestry or the roundness of the Earth is), it's an absolute and totally unsupported assumption, i.e. an article of faith which must forever remain faith and not science. The difference between a working, and potentially disprovable, assumption and an absolute faith-based assumption is huge and fundamental to the validity of the two approaches.

What are these "first-order", "second-order", questions?


Its a complicated subject and I've been up all night. I though those debating evolution and creationism would be familiar with the concepts.

Look at the work of Langdon Gilkey.

Here is some creationism trial testimony (http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/pf_trans/mva_tt_p_gilkey.html)where he gave some explanation:

Q: Doctor Gilkey, can you state for us, please, in your professional opinion what the differences are between religions theories and scientific theories?

A: Well, let me begin by saying that I think that all theories which purport to explain or seek to explain, and that is he general use of the word `theory' that I presume we are using here—all theories do have certain things in common. They appeal to certain types of experiences and certain kinds of facts. They ask certain types of questions and they appeal to certain authorities or criteria.

Thus, they have a certain structure. That is, they go by the rules of the road. They have in what in some parlances are called canons. That is to say, rules of procedure. I would like to suggest that while both religious theories and scientific theories have this general structure in common, they differ very much with regard to the experiences and facts that they appeal to, to the kinds of questions they ask, the kinds of authorities they appeal to and, therefore, to their own structure.

And I would like to make some comments at the end, the experiences and facts that science has, so to speak, in its own consensus come to agree this is what we appeal to are first of all, observations or sensory experiences.


194

A: (Continuing) They are, therefore, repeatable and shareable. They are in that sense quite public. Anybody who wishes to look at them and has the ability and training so to do can do so. These are objective facts in that sense, and experiences are somewhat the same.

I would say that most religions, and certainly our traditions, when they appeal to those kinds of facts appeal to those facts rather as a whole to the world as a whole, as illustrating order or seemingly to a purpose or goodness, and so forth. So, they can appeal to those kinds of facts. That isn't quite so public, because someone might say, "It's very disorderly to me," and so on. It's not quite so public.

But also religions appeal to what we call inner facts, facts about experience of guilt, facts of being, facts of anxiety, death, and the experience of the release from those anxieties or miseries, or what have you.

These are public in the sense that they are shared by the community but they are not public at all in that sense. They are not objective in that sense.

The kinds of questions that they ask are significantly different, it seems to me. That is to say, science tends to ask `how' questions. What kinds of things are there? What kinds of relations do they have? What sort of processes are there? Can we find any laws within those


195

A: (Continuing) processes? Can we set up a set of invariable relations if P then Q, if this, then that. This is the kind of question. These are `how' questions, process questions, if you will.

Religion asks, might ask some of these questions, but basically it is asking `why' questions. It is asking questions of meaning. Why is the world here? Why am I here? Who am I? What am I called to do? What is it my task in life to be? Where are we going? How are we to understand the presence of evil? These are quite significantly different kinds of questions.

Correspondingly, science appeals to the authority, and this is decisive, of logical coherence and experimental adequacy. It also appeals through coherence with other established views and to some things that are called fruitlessnesses. There is also a sense of elegance. Now, when you work that out in terms of its cash value, you have, as has been said before, the consensus of the scientific community on these matters. And there almost always is a consensus of the community making such a judgment.

This is an earned authority. It is not granted by some other power. It is earned by expertise, by training, by excellence at work. Religions generally appeal to revelation of some sort, not always to the same sort, but


196

A: (Continuing) some manifestation of the divine or some place where the divine is encountered

.....

Q: Does modern protestant Christianity include the Bible as the scriptural source of authority?

A: I would say it better.

Q: Is that a yes answer?

A: That is a yes answer.

Q: As a religious source of authority, do the concepts inspiration and revelation also form a part of it?

A: Yes, and there is a good deal of debate about what they mean. Revelation is a fairly consistent word throughout the history of Christian, and I think I could say Jewish, thinking.

The meaning of inspiration has varied a good deal. Now, we were talking about the kinds of questions. I wanted to go on and talk about the kinds of theories. In science, theories are generally laws; that is to say,


198

A: (Continuing) universal, necessary, automatic, impersonal, "if P then Q" kinds of statements. One of the most basic rules of scientific inquiry is that no non-natural or historical cause, that is, no supernatural cause, may be appealed to.

Thus one could say, I would rather take the canon as the scientific inquiry. It's not a presupposition; it's a canon; it's a rule of the road.

....

Q: You were taking about theories.

A: Yes. It reflects, as I said, a universal necessary concept of law or separate and variable relations. It does not and cannot, and I think this is also true in the discipline of history and, perhaps, of the law, cannot appeal to a supernatural cause in its explanations. It is verified by a particular shamble, objective, sensory kind of experiment and has its origin in that, or as better put falsified. Non-falsifiable by those. And where religious theories concern God in our tradition they use a quite different kin of language, a symbolic language, about God. They invoke personal causes, intentions, will. God created the world with a design, God created the world in order that it be good, God created the world out of compassion or out of love, and so forth and so on. These are familiar ways of speaking of these kinds of acts.

Above all, perhaps most important, they have to do, religious theories have to do with the relation of God to the finite world and to human beings.

If they specify only relations between persons or only


200

A: (Continuing) relations between forces of nature, they cease being religious theories.

But when they specify the relationship to God, then they become religious theories and obviously God is very much in the picture.

This is very different from a scientific form of theory. They are testable, if that's the right word, in terms of experience and, perhaps, in terms of a new mode of living. That is to say, being released, being redeemed, having a new kind of courage, a new kind of benevolence, and so forth and so on. That is the kind of fruitfulness that religious ideas have where it's quite different than anything scientific.



I hope that helps. I 'll try to explain better later today when I've had some sleep.

First, show me ANY tenet of science or a particular scientific theory that says ONLY natural forces will be considered, rather than we will only look at that which is observable and testable. It's not an assumption. We don't assume that things aren't there simply because we cannot verify them. We simply can't assume they are there BECAUSE WE CANNOT VERIFY THEM.

Second, show me application of creation in the scientific world. Show one benefit to allowing science to accept untestable and unobserved assumptions. Certainly, evolutionary theory has resulted in medical breakthroughs, scientific breakthroughs and even technological breakthroughs.

Basically, stop making assertions and support your wild claims that science is mistreating religion in some way, rather than fulfilling it's primary purpose to explore the natural world and to expand our abilities as humans.

Religion serves a completely different purpose that is not addressed by science and shouldn't be. What possible gain could their be for mixing the two? Other than providing 'faith' for those who don't believe in real faith. Christianity is based on faith. People who seek validation of Christianity from science are merely afraid that without their own faith will falter. Otherwise, give me an alternate explanation, because I"m not seeing it.

Its a complicated subject and I've been up all night. I though those debating evolution and creationism would be familiar with the concepts.

Look at the work of Langdon Gilkey.
Thanks for that explanation of theories, but I still have no idea what "first-order" and "second-order" questions are. I'll try the link

I didn't meant to ignore yours; I was just making my point. And again, "science that is intelligent enough" for what? What is the goal, what are you accounting for? Ultimate truth? A knowledge that God is responsible? Science will never uncover that, it cannot. We humans are limited by our senses, our perceptions, our limited ways of thinking, limited by our place in time --there is no "truth" of the sort you seem to expect from science. Science uncovers "what we can know" at any given time, which is all it has to do.

Yes, the 'truth' that I hope science finds is the useful stuff that helps us in our every day lives to cure cancer and find ways to prevent starvation and disease. I don't ask science to find God, or even to address the question of his existence.


I could perhaps make a stronger point that knowledge that God is behind it is not useful information, not useful at all. To me, science's forte is its usefulness in practical application, to improve the quality of our lives and provide the means for us to grow. Knowledge of spiritual things, like God, doesn't accomplish that, is provided through other means, and is useful for other purposes.

Right, that is a point that you and I can agree on. If I want to know God, I would not use science either. What I mean about science pursuing truth in a material world is that it limits its observations and investigations to the material world. And the evidence that it uncovers, or the 'truth' is that which applies only to the material world.


To run with your definition, I would say, rather, that science is about having explanations, and the only kind we can have are those that we can account for. We must account for them, using science. We cannot know the supernatural, we cannot account for it. That which cannot be tested for cannot account for anything scientific.


No where in any of my posts have I intentionally suggested that we pursue the supernatural with science. Science cannot investigate the supernatural. I think we can put that point behind us. However, that is not the same as allowing that the supernatural may have been a cause. It would mean that there is a cause that we cannot investigate with science. I see it as revealing a limitation that science has, not changing science.


Right; science is necessarily limited to those natural (unintelligent) forces and systems, so that, in that cause-and-effect world in which it operates, it can only uncover natural explanations. That's all it has to do. We can do the rest, fill in the blanks so to speak.


Agreed. One way of looking at all this is that both sides of the argument claim that their version of 'filling in the blanks' makes more sense.


"Better" is an entirely subjective assessment in this case. "Better" for what?


'Better' is not subjective, in this case, IMO. Better would simply be that witch improves our understanding of the material world.


If it's uncovering explanation that's useful to us, then I think science is in the best position to say its assumptions are better.

I think you are mistakenly thinking that creationism is trying to uncover God. It isn't, in my view. It accepts that the universe came about through God, but does not attempt to prove this through science. The sort of science that creationism is potentially capable of simply accepts creation as a starting point, and then moves on to investigate the material world, uncovering answers that will help us live in the material world.

Yes, the 'truth' that I hope science finds is the useful stuff that helps us in our every day lives to cure cancer and find ways to prevent starvation and disease. I don't ask science to find God, or even to address the question of his existence.

You absolutely do ask them to when you say they should not concentrate on verifiable and observable evidence.

Right, that is a point that you and I can agree on. If I want to know God, I would not use science either. What I mean about science pursuing truth in a material world is that it limits its observations and investigations to the material world. And the evidence that it uncovers, or the 'truth' is that which applies only to the material world.

Of course. That's the point of science. You've come full circle. Science makes no claims of applying to anything other than the natural world.

No where in any of my posts have I intentionally suggested that we pursue the supernatural with science. Science cannot investigate the supernatural. I think we can put that point behind us. However, that is not the same as allowing that the supernatural may have been a cause. It would mean that there is a cause that we cannot investigate with science. I see it as revealing a limitation that science has, not changing science.

Science doesn't address the supernatural at all. It doesn't confirm it. It doesn't dismiss it. In doing so, it does allow it as a cause, but refuses to address it as a cause. Everyone recognizes that limitation. Find me a degreed scientist that says science can address the supernatural. You can't. You know why? Because scientists accept that limitation.

Agreed. One way of looking at all this is that both sides of the argument claim that their version of 'filling in the blanks' makes more sense.

No. They don't. Science simply says their version of filling in the blanks has a practical emperical value. Religions often say their version is better for 'filling in the blanks' but science makes no such value judgement of religion. As far as science is concern religion does not fall within it's spectrum of influence.

'Better' is not subjective, in this case, IMO. Better would simply be that witch improves our understanding of the material world.

Good. So you're talking about science.

I think you are mistakenly thinking that creationism is trying to uncover God. It isn't, in my view. It accepts that the universe came about through God, but does not attempt to prove this through science. The sort of science that creationism is potentially capable of simply accepts creation as a starting point, and then moves on to investigate the material world, uncovering answers that will help us live in the material world.

If science 'accepts creation as a starting point', you have just violated your own claim that science not address the question of His existence as it just accepted that He does exist. If God created the universe and science accepts this, it most certainly has accepted the existence of God, something you CLAIM you have no wish for them to address.

Also, accepting that starting point means discontinuing our search to find further evidence of HOW the universe and life came about. It's accepting a position that no evidence will ever address, thus there is no point in searching for evidence.

Science has the duty to accept only positions that can be validated and to search for validity or invalidity in those positions. Any position that does otherwise, while possibly useful to people socially or psychological serves no practical purpose within the realm of science.

No where in any of my posts have I intentionally suggested that we pursue the supernatural with science. Science cannot investigate the supernatural. I think we can put that point behind us. However, that is not the same as allowing that the supernatural may have been a cause. It would mean that there is a cause that we cannot investigate with science. I see it as revealing a limitation that science has, not changing science.
But there is no "knowing that the supernatural [is] a cause" and so "may have been" is not useful.

'Better' is not subjective, in this case, IMO. Better would simply be that witch improves our understanding of the material world.
It is subjective to us, the group called humanity. It is our purpose that determines which is the better set of assumptions.

I think you are mistakenly thinking that creationism is trying to uncover God. It isn't, in my view. It accepts that the universe came about through God, but does not attempt to prove this through science. The sort of science that creationism is potentially capable of simply accepts creation as a starting point, and then moves on to investigate the material world, uncovering answers that will help us live in the material world.
I do think that Creationists are looking for God. They want to find him in the evidence, and that is why they do --they do find what they are looking for.

That is not a bad thing, but it is also not a scientific thing. It is akin to divination.

The evidence for a single common ancestor is not based on that assumption at all. Life evolving from non-life is abiogenesis, not evolution, and if it was proven that the very first living organism was put here by a deity, then that organism would be the single common ancestor. The theory of evolution would stand, and the evidence that there was a single ancestor, however it came into being, would remain valid.

I agree to a point. Which is why I was using the term naturalism, rather than evolutionism, in some of my posts, since naturalism would certainly rule out the possibility of life caused by a deity, while evolutionism applies to a process which may or may not involve a deity. My arguments are more directed at naturalism versus creationism, since both sides accept a limited version of evolution.


We can show that natural forces are sufficient to take life from simple beginnings to its complex existence today. That is all that is covered by evolution.


You definitely cannot show that! You don't even have a fossil record that shows that. You have a series of assumptions and explanations. Period.


The basic assumption is irrelevant. Research into evolution did not begin with the assumption that natural forces are sufficient. Darwin himself was a Christian in his earlier years. His research drove him to the conclusion that god had no place in the process of evolution : he did not begin with that assumption.


The basic assumption is not irrelevant, since it is the point of this thread. The thread starter was pointing out how there are elements of both evolutionism and creationism that cannot be proven with science, and are thus not science. Some people were apparently trying to say that there were no assumptions within evolutionism, but that it was all built on observation of facts. At that point, I was compelled to attempt to point out just how incorrect that was.
If Darwin was a Christian, he was the sort of Christian that did not believe in miracles, e.g., that Jesus was God and rose from the dead. It would not surprise me that such a Christian did not have much room for God in his world view. It has been said before that the world that ones sees is simply his own mind turned inside out. Same goes for Darwin.

You ought to read up more on Darwin. He certainly did begin with the assumption that naturalism makes. His version of God was something that may have existed but did not interfere with nature.


Scientists buy into naturalistic thinking because that's where the evidence points, and because there is no other thinking which has a shred of evidence to support it. Nobody requires any scientist to recite a creed or dogma that there is no god and then work from there.


Scientists that buy into naturalistic thinking do so on the basis of naturalistic thinking. There is nothing about the material world that suggests that there is no interference from God. They are free to make such a choice, IMO, but it doesn't mean that it is any more intelligent than creationism.



Common ancestry is not untestable, in that it is not unfalsifiable. For example, the discovery of a single organism with a DNA or other "life blueprint structure" which is incompatible with the DNA we know would disprove common ancestry at a stroke. The belief in common ancestry is based, at least in part, upon the fact that all known life forms do have a compatible basic structure, that there is massive evidence that the structure developed and diversified over time, and that the mechanisms by which that happened are explainable and testable.


It isn't untestable, only that it cannot be proven, and thus remains an assumption, and thus ''an article of faith which must forever remain faith and not science'' (to use your words) unless we discover an alternative lifeform, in which case it will be proven false rather than true.


There are many mechanisms of evolution that have not been explained. How can evolution explain the Cambrian explosion, for starters? Does evolution have a model by which an organism develops a conciousness? Does it even have a model for the development of flagella? The answer to all these is 'no, it does not!' It does not even have a satisfactory explanation for the control of embryo development, or for the development of prokaryotes into eukaryotes.


Even if the evidence isn't 100% conclusive, common ancestry remains its best explanation and therefore can be used as a working assumption until such time as it's disproved. Since divine creation is undisprovable and untestable, it is not a working assumption (in the way that common ancestry or the roundness of the Earth is), it's an absolute and totally unsupported assumption, i.e. an article of faith which must forever remain faith and not science. The difference between a working, and potentially disprovable, assumption and an absolute faith-based assumption is huge and fundamental to the validity of the two approaches.

The best explanation from the naturalist point of view, perhaps. But whether it is the best for science has to be determined from the level of practical 'truth' that it has given society.

I can see your point about the difference between faith and workable proof, however, I feel that you do not see the 'faith' required for naturalism.

Bruarong, I have a question: Do you work for the Discovery Institute or a similar organization? It's a serious question; I've read their Wedge Doctrine, and your expressed opinions fall remarkably well in line with it. Destroy science as it is currently known, replace it with faith-based, subjectivist supernatural-science, using ID as the first or primary tool. Several other details, too, but that's the crux of the similarity as I see it.

OK, that's done, now onto the biggest destructive characteristic of your arguments: it is the end of empirical reason. So, Descartes proved one thing: that there is no absolutely provable concept or fact in existence except for one's own existence, and that is only provable to oneself, and thus not a communicable proof. Cogito ergo sum Therefore, there is literally every possibility you can possibly imagine open: if I told you that I'm a boogey monster communicating with you from your closet, you couldn't finally prove otherwise to me.

It follows from that that everything else is a matter of maximal possible proving and probabilities, and that the search for objective knowledge requires that we assume nothing and take a self-consistent, empirical approach. The heart of that is Occam's Razor: if there is not a reason to think something is true, do not think so. If given multiple possible explanations, choose that which fits the most evidence the best. If there is evidence that disproves an explanation, given no forces or events that are not observed, cease to consider that explanation. Not only do not make assumptions lacking evidence, but assume all things false unless evidence is there. It's the only way to gain provably self-consistent maximally objective knowledge: the search for truth is only to be truly followed down that path.

ID takes that and shatters it into many tiny pieces. If a creator exists, and you now assume it to exist, and accept the premise that because you lack an explanation for a gap in a theory or gap between theories, that gap must be due to the creator, you've given up empirical reason and the search for objective, provably self-consistent knowledge. With a creator, there are no impossibilities, direct observations and Occam's Razor mean nothing, and the entire search for knowledge is pointless and objectively fruitless.

ID is an assumption that a creator exists and is required to fill gaps in knowledge: if that is so, then all currently held knowledge has been removed of its foundation, and all future knowledge is the same, PLUS the fact that you now assume it to be a divine or pseudo-divine work.

As far as supernatural explanations go, it's utterly pointless and stupid. By definition, a supernatural force cannot be observed; if an object, event, or force can be theoretically observed from any frame of reference, it is natural, because such things must be objectively real and exist, must follow rules, and must be theoretically empirically explicable.

Thus, a supernatural force is one that requires an assumption; if you accept or consider an explanation founded on a supernatural force or event, you are assuming it to be real without reason to think so. If there is evidence that directly supports the existence of something, it must be natural.

That's especially true if you, like ID and creationism, start from a concept (God exists) and attempt to find evidence and derive a supporting logical argument. That's starting from assumed premises and working backwards, which has nothing to do with science, and is doubly so if that assumed premise is supernatural, meaning directly supporting evidence is impossible to exist. And no, complexity does not directly support the existence of a creator. A creator is a meta-explanation that only works if you assume it, and toss out all empirically observed explanations.

In summary: the supernatural is always a story, a myth-assumption without real evidence or logic that by its very definition falls outside of everything but religious faith and storytelling. Any search for knowledge - scientific or otherwise - must be founded on the logical version of one of the rules of the universe: systems always seek the lowest energetic state. Similarly, true logic always seeks to have minimal inherent assumptions. Faith is an assumption. The supernatural is an assumption. The only approach which is not an assumption is empirical reasoning founded on an elaboration of Occam's Razor. Applying that to the real world results in science.

I agree to a point. Which is why I was using the term naturalism, rather than evolutionism, in some of my posts, since naturalism would certainly rule out the possibility of life caused by a deity, while evolutionism applies to a process which may or may not involve a deity. My arguments are more directed at naturalism versus creationism, since both sides accept a limited version of evolution.



You definitely cannot show that! You don't even have a fossil record that shows that. You have a series of assumptions and explanations. Period.



The basic assumption is not irrelevant, since it is the point of this thread. The thread starter was pointing out how there are elements of both evolutionism and creationism that cannot be proven with science, and are thus not science. Some people were apparently trying to say that there were no assumptions within evolutionism, but that it was all built on observation of facts. At that point, I was compelled to attempt to point out just how incorrect that was.
If Darwin was a Christian, he was the sort of Christian that did not believe in miracles, e.g., that Jesus was God and rose from the dead. It would not surprise me that such a Christian did not have much room for God in his world view. It has been said before that the world that ones sees is simply his own mind turned inside out. Same goes for Darwin.

You ought to read up more on Darwin. He certainly did begin with the assumption that naturalism makes. His version of God was something that may have existed but did not interfere with nature.



Scientists that buy into naturalistic thinking do so on the basis of naturalistic thinking. There is nothing about the material world that suggests that there is no interference from God. They are free to make such a choice, IMO, but it doesn't mean that it is any more intelligent than creationism.




It isn't untestable, only that it cannot be proven, and thus remains an assumption, and thus ''an article of faith which must forever remain faith and not science'' (to use your words) unless we discover an alternative lifeform, in which case it will be proven false rather than true.


There are many mechanisms of evolution that have not been explained. How can evolution explain the Cambrian explosion, for starters? Does evolution have a model by which an organism develops a conciousness? Does it even have a model for the development of flagella? The answer to all these is 'no, it does not!' It does not even have a satisfactory explanation for the control of embryo development, or for the development of prokaryotes into eukaryotes.



The best explanation from the naturalist point of view, perhaps. But whether it is the best for science has to be determined from the level of practical 'truth' that it has given society.

I can see your point about the difference between faith and workable proof, however, I feel that you do not see the 'faith' required for naturalism.

Strawman. Your definition of naturalism has NOTHING to do with Science and is not taught as part of ANY science curriculum and IS NOT accepted as a part of science. Ridiculous.

It isn't untestable, only that it cannot be proven, and thus remains an assumption, and thus ''an article of faith which must forever remain faith and not science'' (to use your words) unless we discover an alternative lifeform, in which case it will be proven false rather than true.
There is no one saying that abiogenesis cannot be proven (except you), only that it can be disproven. That is what makes it scientific, testable and verifiable.

Bruarong, I have a question: Do you work for the Discovery Institute or a similar organization? It's a serious question; I've read their Wedge Doctrine, and your expressed opinions fall remarkably well in line with it. Destroy science as it is currently known, replace it with faith-based, subjectivist supernatural-science, using ID as the first or primary tool. Several other details, too, but that's the crux of the similarity as I see it.
Perhaps the similarity is due to their being a common reasoning behind it, that leads one to a similar conclusion.

The suggestion of employment is unnecessary to explain this phenomenon. ;) Occam's razor.

The best explanation from the naturalist point of view, perhaps. But whether it is the best for science has to be determined from the level of practical 'truth' that it has given society.
What is practical 'truth'?

From my amateur viewpoint, it would seem that it has practical 'use' for science that makes it "the best explanation", that being in making extrapolation possible in DNA research, so that further predictions might be made and tested.

Yes, but that doesnt make the theory "science". It makes it a theory. One based upon scientific evidence. In the same way creationism is based upon scientific evidence, and is evolutionism.

In that case all we know cannot be proved because EVERYTHING we know to be fact is merely just a 'theory backed up by scientific evidence.'

We only know that atoms, genes, cells, black holes etc. exist because scientists can back it up with evidence, and since we cannot 'prove' anything without backing it up with evidence from our memories and senses which may or may not be correct, everything we 'know' is just a theory based on your definition.

In that case all we know cannot be proved because EVERYTHING we know to be fact is merely just a 'theory backed up by scientific evidence.'

We only know that atoms, genes, cells, black holes etc. exist because scientists can back it up with evidence, and since we cannot 'prove' anything without backing it up with evidence from our memories and senses which may or may not be correct, everything we 'know' is just a theory based on your definition.

No. Your mistaken

We can actually observe these things happening. Black holes, genes etc. We cannot observe evolution happening to the point it is now. It happened in the past. We can analyise the evidence for it and come up with theories based upon it, but we cannot call the understanding of evolution that we have regarding development of less to more complex animals science in the same way we can measuring the speed of light. It is not currently observable. It is history. Not science. History is subjective, and is very difficult to prove any certianites without a vast ammount of evidence. And contary to popular belief, the fossil records do not provide that.

No. Your mistaken

We can actually observe these things happening. Black holes, genes etc. We cannot observe evolution happening to the point it is now. It happened in the past. We can analyise the evidence for it and come up with theories based upon it, but we cannot call the understanding of evolution that we have regarding development of less to more complex animals science in the same way we can measuring the speed of light. It is not currently observable. It is history. Not science. History is subjective, and is very difficult to prove any certianites without a vast ammount of evidence. And contary to popular belief, the fossil records do not provide that.

The fossil records most certainly suggest it. We have a complete fossil record for the evolution of horses from small, splay footed marsh dwellers into the large, plain dwelling animal that we know today.

Here's a chart: link (http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/images/cej16_05.jpg)

Just search for "fossil record of horses" on google for more information.

What's more, we can observe macro-evolution. Can you propose a mechanism that would prevent these mutations from building up over time due to natural selection and forming new species?

And contary to popular belief, the fossil records do not provide that.

how so?

There is nothing about the material world that suggests that there is no interference from God.
What is "God"?

The material world is open to inquiry. We can observe it, we can perform experiments, we can obtain consistent data.

The existence of supernatural beings, and any influence they have on the physical world, is not an idea open to inquiry. We cannot observe these beings, directly or indirectly. We cannot view their creation, byproducts, death or remains. We cannot attribute any of the world's properties to supernatural agency. We cannot define any qualities or properties of these entities - not even whether a plural is justified, let alone their politics. The existence of any supernatural entity is an act of faith, all properties attributed to them, the product of human imagination. There is no physical evidence, only personal conviction.

Science deals only with falsifiable hypotheses. For any idea to have implications for physical reality, it must be subject to proof or disproof, either in an experiment yielding reproducible data, or by a gradual accumulation of evidence which allows the theory to be refined, whilst surviving repeated attempts at disproof.

The age of the Universe, the origin of the Universe, the evolution of the species, are all subject to these methods. We uncover evidence, make measurements, check whether they are consistent, check whether repeated observations yield the same data, bring us to the same conclusions, etc. This is science.

Supernatural entities are not subject to this mechanism. Anyone can say, "Well it could have been God. And of course it was mine." Someone else can say, "No, there are several, and this is what they are like." Another person can say "It's all a computer simulation designed to fool us", etc. Even if two individuals agree on an arbitrary deity, the mechanism of creation is equally arbitrary. The biblical 6 days, the view that the 6 days are not literal, the view that no, they are, the earth and sky being sewn as a quilt, the product of a conjuring trick involving animals, etc. No evidence can be found for anything. Just because science cannot deal with such absurdities, does not place them on a footing equal to science.

Most religious people have abandoned opposition to evolution and the cosmological model, just as they have abandoned opposition to the spherical Earth, heliocentricity, etc, in the face of science and the empirical evidence it provides.

Science cannot fight religion on the terms of religion, because it does not recognise them. Indeed, science has never truly attacked religion, only the testable aspects of its dogma. The fact that religion has been so badly wounded by science, is purely as a result of religion making every conceivable grandiose assumption about the world, without ever concerning itself with verification. And science, completely unconcerned with religious interpretations, checked the facts. The defeats we have seen are purely of religion's making - the price of arrogance. Now we have reached a stage where religion has one surviving assumption - divine beings, and it mourns its lost territory so intensely, that it has attempted to subvert the tools of science to manufacture evidence for divine agency.

Religion will fail in this endeavour. On the home ground of science, it is doomed to defeat. And yet ultimately it is not threatened. Science does not have the tools to attack the question of supernatural entities. The religious would be wise to take this as a consolation and vacate the battlefield.

Perhaps the similarity is due to their being a common reasoning behind it, that leads one to a similar conclusion.

The suggestion of employment is unnecessary to explain this phenomenon. ;) Occam's razor.

:D Point taken.

No. Your mistaken

We can actually observe these things happening. Black holes, genes etc. We cannot observe evolution happening to the point it is now. It happened in the past. We can analyise the evidence for it and come up with theories based upon it, but we cannot call the understanding of evolution that we have regarding development of less to more complex animals science in the same way we can measuring the speed of light. It is not currently observable. It is history. Not science. History is subjective, and is very difficult to prove any certianites without a vast ammount of evidence. And contary to popular belief, the fossil records do not provide that.

Interestingly, you're very wrong as far as black holes go. If you knew anything about them, or astronomy and astrophysics in general, you'd realize that there's no black holes close enough that the fraction of its light cone we've experienced since the beginning of human civilization is equal to the total fraction of it between Earth and the singularity in question - that is, we've never seen light from a black hole that didn't originate before the birth of our species, much less society. All information on black holes, and pretty much all other stellar phenomena not in the same spiral arm, is history far older than fossils. Relativity and c are wonderful things, ay?

Also, you're still wrong about evolution. Do you know what a 'pathogen' is? What about a 'virus' or 'bacterium'? These are microscopic forms of life we've seen evolve, not just new traits, but into entirely new strains and species of microbe, within the course of human discovery! I know that in common ways of thinking, lack of size guarantees oversight, as does a desire to see only what one wants to see, but we've observed the evolution of both new characteristics and new strains in microbes. So obviously, it can happen, and in labs has in fact been experimentally proven. Go ask any evolutionary biology, microbiology, or pathology major - microbes do it all the time, and researchers have them do it deliberately for various reasons in experiments.

As far as abiogenesis goes, also wrong. Here are some examples:

Miller and Urey experiments: Atmospheric gases ---> amino acids.
Too many different experimenters (mid-20th century) to count: Amino acids ---> proteins.
Fox experiments: Proteins ---> dynamic cell-like structures with some characteristics of life, called protocells.

Another fundamental difference is that abiogenesis can theoretically be experimented upon - give me a billion years to watch protocells, amino acids, and proteins mixing and developing in early Earth-like conditions, and I'll prove - or disprove - abiogenesis to you.

ID, on the other hand, is by fundamental logic in all cases and given any and all requirements untestable, and cannot be proven or disproven. To test, you have to have something to test on, and to disprove, you have to have a real scientific claim that can interact with evidence.

Supernatural entities are not subject to this mechanism. Anyone can say, "Well it could have been God. And of course it was mine." Someone else can say, "No, there are several, and this is what they are like." Another person can say "It's all a computer simulation designed to fool us", etc. Even if two individuals agree on an arbitrary deity, the mechanism of creation is equally arbitrary. The biblical 6 days, the view that the 6 days are not literal, the view that no, they are, the earth and sky being sewn as a quilt, the product of a conjuring trick involving animals, etc. No evidence can be found for anything. Just because science cannot deal with such absurdities, does not place them on a footing equal to science.
As a side note, these things are only "absurdities" because they are put on an equal footing with science. When you compare them with the reality that science presents, the symbols and metaphor have to be taken literally; and when you take trope literally, it loses its meaning.

Most religious people have abandoned opposition to evolution and the cosmological model, just as they have abandoned opposition to the spherical Earth, heliocentricity, etc, in the face of science and the empirical evidence it provides.

Science cannot fight religion on the terms of religion, because it does not recognise them. Indeed, science has never truly attacked religion, only the testable aspects of its dogma. The fact that religion has been so badly wounded by science, is purely as a result of religion making every conceivable grandiose assumption about the world, without ever concerning itself with verification. And science, completely unconcerned with religious interpretations, checked the facts. The defeats we have seen are purely of religion's making - the price of arrogance.
"...only the testable aspects of its dogma" taken literally.
"...religion" that is interpreted literally "has been so badly wounded..."
"...religion" that takes itself literally makes "gradiose assumption about the world..."
"And science, completely unconcerned with religious interpretations," or even non-literal ones, "checked the facts" and found religion wanting. And what is it wanting for, in science's opinion? Literal truth, like science.

Now we have reached a stage where religion has one surviving assumption - divine beings, and it mourns its lost territory so intensely, that it has attempted to subvert the tools of science to manufacture evidence for divine agency.

Religion will fail in this endeavour. On the home ground of science, it is doomed to defeat. And yet ultimately it is not threatened. Science does not have the tools to attack the question of supernatural entities. The religious would be wise to take this as a consolation and vacate the battlefield.
Those religions that do not employ a literal interpretation of myth are not touched one iota by science. The stories still portray meaning, they still speak to spiritual concepts and present an image of God that can be the basis for a relationship with the divine. That hasn't changed; it survives just fine, and mourns for nothing.

Those religions that do not employ a literal interpretation of myth are not touched one iota by science. The stories still portray meaning, they still speak to spiritual concepts and present an image of God that can be the basis for a relationship with the divine. That hasn't changed; it survives just fine, and mourns for nothing.
True, I was thinking of the dogmatic Big Three rather than the multitude of spirituality-based religions.

Hopefully, it is a science that is intelligent enough to find the answers, not to ignore them, wherever they may be.

As usual, you ignore the fact that science can only logically be used to investigate and explain natural occurrences. One cannot logically expect any empirical evidence of the supernatural, as the supernatural is not bound by the universe - that which can be measured. As such, if you want something that will give *all* the answers, you must be prepared to go outside of science.

But you ignored my point. If you are trying to account for a particular phenomenon in nature, if you only allow natural forces in your explanation, you should not be surprised when the data points to natural forces. Nothing terribly complicated about that! And it does nothing to prove that natural forces can indeed account for the phenomenon. You have only succeeded in removing all other forces, not through science, but through assumption.

Science is, by definition and in of itself, completely based in the "natural forces" assumption. The logic of the scientific method, based in empirical data, cannot be used to describe or investigate the supernatural. Of course, there is no assumption that "only natural causes exist" or "only natural occurrence exist," as this is not falsifiable. Instead, science simply says, "We will only deal with the natural, because it is the only area in which our methods can be used."

Science is about looking for explanations, and about using these explanations to discover more about the universe.

Yes, the universe, not the supernatural, as its methods cannot be applied to the supernatural. Thus, nothing about God can be discovered through science. Nothing that requires direct divine intervention can be discovered through science. All we can look at are the natural processes that occur within the universe.

What we might not disagree about is whether we can conclude that the evidence does indeed point to a designer.

One cannot conclude this without first assuming that a designer exists.

Wisely avoided. In that case, you will have to agree that science is not in a position to decide which assumptions are the better ones.

Science is in a position to use only that which it can be applied to. This does not include the supernatural.

"...only the testable aspects of its dogma" taken literally.
"...religion" that is interpreted literally "has been so badly wounded..."
"...religion" that takes itself literally makes "gradiose assumption about the world..."

Well, if religions didn't actually think God really existed and all of the associated myths and were basically just ethical philosophies of behavior with a reason for following besides "God says so", there wouldn't be a problem, would there? It's only a problem if they actually really think that an arbitrary omnipotent creator-being made everything in 7 days, and that women came from ribs and mud, etc. etc. and try to start a life-, philosophy-, and civilization-defining structure out of it.

As such, if you want something that will give *all* the answers, you must be prepared to go outside of science.

Why is it so hard not to make the baseless assumption that there exists these so-called supernatural forces? The supernatural is the big invisible, intangile, inaudible pot-smoking dragon that REALLY lives in my garage - making any argument on any side of any issue that attacks or apologizes for science because it doesn't take the Magic Undetectable Dragon that you assume must be real into account is betraying the very scientific outlook you're at the moment arguing in defense of.

Well, if religions didn't actually think God really existed and all of the associated myths and were basically just ethical philosophies of behavior with a reason for following besides "God says so", there wouldn't be a problem, would there? It's only a problem if they actually really think that an arbitrary omnipotent creator-being made everything in 7 days, and that women came from ribs and mud, etc. etc. and try to start a life-, philosophy-, and civilization-defining structure out of it.
No, it's only a problem if science thinks that a creator being actually exists, because then the actuality of that being means that it is real, that it is natural and that it is testable and falsifiable. That it is within the universe. Then, by extension, the literal interpetation of the stories is open to be tested, too.

The supernatural is outside the purview of science. One can have a non-literal intepretation of the myths and still believe in a supernatural god. See http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10347340&postcount=82.

A little humility, folks, if you please. Just because you are unable to do something doesn't mean everybody else is. I've personally used the scientific method to confirm scientific predictions generated by evolutionary theory. Hell, I was doing that as an undergrad. And I'm not terribly bright.

So in a laboratory, you bombarded amino acids with radiation, they turned into cells, then into animals and plants? Why didn't I hear about this? Are you up for a Nobel Prize?

Say what you want, but evolution has not been proven. Evolution has not been replicated in a laboratory. The closest anyone has come is the Miller experiment, which did not produce life, and which was flawed anyway (if anything, it suggested a higher intelligence was necessary to produce life, since the scientists tweaked the experiment in ways one would never find in nature).

And before you jump on me, I'm not saying creationism or ID can be proven either. Neither evolutionism nor creationism/ID should be taught as fact.

Say what you want, but evolution has not been proven. Evolution has not been replicated in a laboratory. The closest anyone has come is the Miller experiment, which did not produce life, and which was flawed anyway (if anything, it suggested a higher intelligence was necessary to produce life, since the scientists tweaked the experiment in ways one would never find in nature).

a) The Miller and Urey experiments had one unintentional flaw: they used an atmospheric mixture that was too reducing. That in no way totally invalidates the results - it just means that it probably took longer and wasn't as easy as the original conclusions would indicate. But the basic finding - that more complex organic molecules such as amino acids can assemble from simple chemicals given extremely basic conditions - is still there.

b) The Miller and Urey experiments weren't the only ones. Too many researchers to name hopped on the bandwagon in the mid-20th-century and proved amino acid self-assembly into proteins experimentally. In addition, look up Sydney Fox.

So in a laboratory, you bombarded amino acids with radiation, they turned into cells, then into animals and plants? Why didn't I hear about this? Are you up for a Nobel Prize?

Say what you want, but evolution has not been proven. Evolution has not been replicated in a laboratory. The closest anyone has come is the Miller experiment, which did not produce life, and which was flawed anyway (if anything, it suggested a higher intelligence was necessary to produce life, since the scientists tweaked the experiment in ways one would never find in nature).

And before you jump on me, I'm not saying creationism or ID can be proven either. Neither evolutionism nor creationism/ID should be taught as fact.

Um, you do know you're not talking about evolution, but abiogenesis. They are not the same thing. I dismiss your arguments as the arguments of someone that couldn't be bothered to educate themselves on the theory.

Why is it so hard not to make the baseless assumption that there exists these so-called supernatural forces?

Why is it so hard not to make the baseless assumption that there exist no supernatural forces? Neither assumption has any scientific base on which to rest, because no empirical evidence can be gathered that would lead one to either conclusion.

Science can make neither assumption, as such things are outside of science, whether they exist or not.

And, on top of that, even without the supernatural, there are subjective questions that science cannot answer - that one must go to other forms of philosophy for. There are many questions that lie in the subjective realm and cannot be empirically measured.

The supernatural is the big invisible, intangile, inaudible pot-smoking dragon that REALLY lives in my garage - making any argument on any side of any issue that attacks or apologizes for science because it doesn't take the Magic Undetectable Dragon that you assume must be real into account is betraying the very scientific outlook you're at the moment arguing in defense of.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Believing in God is in no way an attack on science unless I complain that science does not take God into account. I do not. Science cannot take God into account, whether God exists or not.

So in a laboratory, you bombarded amino acids with radiation, they turned into cells,

This has nothing to do with evolutionary theory.

Say what you want, but evolution has not been proven. Evolution has not been replicated in a laboratory. The closest anyone has come is the Miller experiment, which did not produce life, and which was flawed anyway (if anything, it suggested a higher intelligence was necessary to produce life, since the scientists tweaked the experiment in ways one would never find in nature).

You are confusing evolution with abiogenesis. Evolution has been replicated in the laboratory. We have watched bacteria develop antibiotic-resistant strains. We have watched viruses develop new strains, etc.

You are confusing evolution with abiogenesis. Evolution has been replicated in the laboratory. We have watched bacteria develop antibiotic-resistant strains. We have watched viruses develop new strains, etc.


Even now there is a new strain of Polio that is resistent to traditional treatments.....

Creationism does indeed begin with 'truth' through relevation.

A 'truth' that will never be challenged or changed, no matter what the evidence suggests. Meanwhile, Creationism, as a general rule, has nothing to do with revelation, and everything to do with a literal interpretation of a few select portions of Genesis.

Naturalism (the philosophy that Darwin embraced) begins with its own version of truth, and interprets all that it finds in the light of that truth.

No one is talking about your imaginary philosophy here. If science actually assumed the types of things you love to say it does, it would cease to be science.

I think it rather unfair of you to say that Creationism ignores anything else that is present (that doesn't support it). Perhaps there are people who do this, but creationism itself does not do this.

Every so-called Creation-scientist has done this, repeatedly. Their arguments are all based upon completely flawed (often, it seems, intentionally so) descriptions of evolutionary theory, geology, astronomy, etc. And all of them ignore or discount any and all evidence that doesn't fall into a neat little, "My particular interpretation of my particular translation of the Bible is absolutely and completely literally correct, except in the parts that I have decided are not."

In the same way, since creationism depends on a miraculous event, when science is in a position to provide evidence that such a miracle did not occur, then it can show that creationism is wrong. Because science cannot investigate miracles, this will never happen.

That is exactly the point! And if science cannot disprove it, guess what? IT ISN'T SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!

Of course science can't disprove Creationism. Of course, science can't disprove the idea that the world was made 5 minutes ago with all of our memories intact to suggest that we'd been around longer.

And, yes, there is a forgone conclusion within naturalism. One of the being that all of life came form a single ancestor.

That isn't foregone at all. If evidence that contradicted it were found, it would be disproven, and therefore discarded.

Once again not true. In my readings I have found much within the theories of creationism that does change, as new evidence is acquired.

Really? You found a Creationist paper that actually discounted a literal interpretation of the Bible -the conclusion that every single so-called "Creation scientist" starts with? Do tell!

Once again a big claim that I just don't see truth to. Sure, there are people who hold to the creationist view who refuse to change their minds for wrong reasons. Same goes for those on the other side too.

I have yet to meet a Creationist who even bothered to truly understand or investigate any idea other than, "My particular interpretation of my particular Bible is right. Period."

You absolutely do ask them to when you say they should not concentrate on verifiable and observable evidence.


I'm not saying this, neither do I think creationism is saying this.



Science doesn't address the supernatural at all. It doesn't confirm it. It doesn't dismiss it. In doing so, it does allow it as a cause, but refuses to address it as a cause. Everyone recognizes that limitation. Find me a degreed scientist that says science can address the supernatural. You can't. You know why? Because scientists accept that limitation.


In my opinion, it depends what you mean by 'address'. If you mean 'investigate', I would agree, science cannot investigate the supernatural. I have said this in almost all of my previous posts. What I am trying to argue is simply because science cannot investigate the supernatural, it is in no position to rule out a supernatural. I reckon you can agree with me at that point. The next point is that I am trying to show that naturalism is a philosophy that does rule out the supernatural. And thus any 'science' that attempts to rule out the supernatural is not really science, but a philosophy pretending to be science. This has been the major point of my argument. Unless you specifically address this point, you posting irrelevant points to the topic.


No. They don't. Science simply says their version of filling in the blanks has a practical emperical value. Religions often say their version is better for 'filling in the blanks' but science makes no such value judgement of religion. As far as science is concern religion does not fall within it's spectrum of influence.


But I am not arguing religion versus science here. Get back to the real issue. I have never brought religion into this debate. You are, it seems.



If science 'accepts creation as a starting point', you have just violated your own claim that science not address the question of His existence as it just accepted that He does exist. If God created the universe and science accepts this, it most certainly has accepted the existence of God, something you CLAIM you have no wish for them to address.


If God's existence is accepted, there is no point trying to use science to address it.



Also, accepting that starting point means discontinuing our search to find further evidence of HOW the universe and life came about. It's accepting a position that no evidence will ever address, thus there is no point in searching for evidence.


What a silly thing to say. That's like saying that since I accept that God exists, therefore I am completely useless when it comes to discovering 'stuff' about the material world.


Science has the duty to accept only positions that can be validated and to search for validity or invalidity in those positions. Any position that does otherwise, while possibly useful to people socially or psychological serves no practical purpose within the realm of science.

So, because science cannot validate a materialist postion, or that of a naturalist, and it cannot validate a creationist one, what is left? Do you have an alternative?

I'm not saying this, neither do I think creationism is saying this.

Huh, strange since I quoted you saying exactly the opposite. Shall I do so again?

In my opinion, it depends what you mean by 'address'. If you mean 'investigate', I would agree, science cannot investigate the supernatural. I have said this in almost all of my previous posts. What I am trying to argue is simply because science cannot investigate the supernatural, it is in no position to rule out a supernatural. I reckon you can agree with me at that point. The next point is that I am trying to show that naturalism is a philosophy that does rule out the supernatural. And thus any 'science' that attempts to rule out the supernatural is not really science, but a philosophy pretending to be science. This has been the major point of my argument. Unless you specifically address this point, you posting irrelevant points to the topic.

Science does not address the supernatural. I challenge you to find any science that has EVER ruled out the supernatural. Show me evidence of this 'naturalism' you keep trying to associate with science.

But I am not arguing religion versus science here. Get back to the real issue. I have never brought religion into this debate. You are, it seems.

Seriously, do I have to quote you? I already showed that you did.

If God's existence is accepted, there is no point trying to use science to address it.

Wait, I thought you weren't bringing religion into this. Have you even heard of consistency? Science cannot accept or deny God's existence. You called for science to accept that the origin of the universe is God, and then you claimed that science should not address God at all. You are being woefully inconsistent.

What a silly thing to say. That's like saying that since I accept that God exists, therefore I am completely useless when it comes to discovering 'stuff' about the material world.

No. It's like saying if you want them to accept a certain cause for something, then it requires them to stop trying to find other causes. If you said I drove the car into the light pole, and I continued to try and find out if it had hit the light pole another way, would you call that acceptance that you drove it into the light pole? Of course not. Your argument is not rational.

You aren't just asking for acceptance of God's existence (which is not a scientific position and science has no business taking that position). You are asking that science take the position that God is the cause of certain things in the natural world, without evidence and without the possibility of validating this position. To do so means that searching for any alternate causes is to invalidate that acceptance, which suggests it was never accepted in the first place.

So, because science cannot validate a materialist postion, or that of a naturalist, and it cannot validate a creationist one, what is left? Do you have an alternative?
It can continue to only accept positions that can be validated or evidenced. You treat those two views as if they are the only views. Yes, it's true that there either is a God or there isn't, but science has no need to take either position. Science takes the position of I don't know and I don't care. If the evidence supports your view of God, more power to you. If it doesn't, I'm sorry but I didn't make the evidence. But no matter what science isn't going to draw conclusions or accept conclusions regarding God. It does not fall within the realm of science. To suggest that those two positions are the only positions shows that you don't understand science at all.

Bruarong, I have a question: Do you work for the Discovery Institute or a similar organization? It's a serious question; I've read their Wedge Doctrine, and your expressed opinions fall remarkably well in line with it. Destroy science as it is currently known, replace it with faith-based, subjectivist supernatural-science, using ID as the first or primary tool. Several other details, too, but that's the crux of the similarity as I see it.

The answer is no, I do not work for the Discovery Institute. I have a post-doc position and work in Germany. I enjoy my science, write my papers, discuss with my colleagues and try to think for myself. If the DI agrees with me, or I with them, there could be any number of reasons, but I can assure you that I have never met a single DI person in my life. Of course I sometimes read their literature, but I was a creationist before I even heard of them.


OK, that's done, now onto the biggest destructive characteristic of your arguments: it is the end of empirical reason. So, Descartes proved one thing: that there is no absolutely provable concept or fact in existence except for one's own existence, and that is only provable to oneself, and thus not a communicable proof. Cogito ergo sum Therefore, there is literally every possibility you can possibly imagine open: if I told you that I'm a boogey monster communicating with you from your closet, you couldn't finally prove otherwise to me.


The end of empirical reason? Why? Because I accept absolutes? What is more absolute than the one which says that there are no absolutes? Descartes didn't prove anything of a sort. He argued for the lack of absolutes, creating in his mind the one absolute to 'rule them all'. And his arguments for the inability to prove 'stuff' doesn't impress me, because as a scientist, I only have to have a reasonable proof, not absolute proof, in order to e.g. clone a bacterium capable of e.g. boosting crop yields in third world countries.


It follows from that that everything else is a matter of maximal possible proving and probabilities, and that the search for objective knowledge requires that we assume nothing and take a self-consistent, empirical approach. The heart of that is Occam's Razor: if there is not a reason to think something is true, do not think so. If given multiple possible explanations, choose that which fits the most evidence the best. If there is evidence that disproves an explanation, given no forces or events that are not observed, cease to consider that explanation. Not only do not make assumptions lacking evidence, but assume all things false unless evidence is there. It's the only way to gain provably self-consistent maximally objective knowledge: the search for truth is only to be truly followed down that path.


I am familiar enough with Occham's razor. In this case, though, where explanations are completely lacking or inadequate, you simply cannot apply this principle. The principle only works when you have a situation with multiple explanations, in which the simplest one is adequate. Naturalism cannot hold this claim, or at least that is my argument. So long as I can demonstrate the inability of naturalism to explain intelligence, I am perfectly right to claim that Occham's razor has no place in this debate.


ID takes that and shatters it into many tiny pieces. If a creator exists, and you now assume it to exist, and accept the premise that because you lack an explanation for a gap in a theory or gap between theories, that gap must be due to the creator, you've given up empirical reason and the search for objective, provably self-consistent knowledge. With a creator, there are no impossibilities, direct observations and Occam's Razor mean nothing, and the entire search for knowledge is pointless and objectively fruitless.


That is a typical attitude of one who is used to naturalistic thinking. I don't accept God's existence because of the gaps that I see. I accepted God's existence before I was a scientist. Neither have I given up empirical reasoning. But it is based on an absolute, just as Descates needed his absolute to begin his reasoning.

If you were just to think things through, for a moment, you would see how having a creator does not mean that everything is immediately explained. That is an irrational fear, it seems, for many naturalistic thinkers. You may think scientific progress is impossible, but the evidence is against you, since there are many scientists, both before and since Darwin and current who are capable of very good progress, and who still accept God's existence.


ID is an assumption that a creator exists and is required to fill gaps in knowledge: if that is so, then all currently held knowledge has been removed of its foundation, and all future knowledge is the same, PLUS the fact that you now assume it to be a divine or pseudo-divine work.


Yes, that the creator or designer does exist is an assumption, but it isn't about using him to fill the gaps. Rather, it is investigating the natural world based on such an assumption. The idea is that God used a 'miracle' to create and design in the beginning, but that the forces of nature are maintaining everything in an orderly way, so that true randomness does not exist. Because there is no randomness, we humans are capable of investigating our world, making predictions, etc.


As far as supernatural explanations go, it's utterly pointless and stupid. By definition, a supernatural force cannot be observed; if an object, event, or force can be theoretically observed from any frame of reference, it is natural, because such things must be objectively real and exist, must follow rules, and must be theoretically empirically explicable.


Now you are just ranting. No one is suggesting that we try to observe a supernatural force. Use your noggin.


Thus, a supernatural force is one that requires an assumption; if you accept or consider an explanation founded on a supernatural force or event, you are assuming it to be real without reason to think so. If there is evidence that directly supports the existence of something, it must be natural.


Science requires assumptions too. So does naturalism. So did Descartes.


That's especially true if you, like ID and creationism, start from a concept (God exists) and attempt to find evidence and derive a supporting logical argument. That's starting from assumed premises and working backwards, which has nothing to do with science, and is doubly so if that assumed premise is supernatural, meaning directly supporting evidence is impossible to exist. And no, complexity does not directly support the existence of a creator. A creator is a meta-explanation that only works if you assume it, and toss out all empirically observed explanations.


I think you have completely missed my point that all of science and any philosophical position begins with assumptions. Think carefully about this, and you will see that this is true.


In summary: the supernatural is always a story, a myth-assumption without real evidence or logic that by its very definition falls outside of everything but religious faith and storytelling. Any search for knowledge - scientific or otherwise - must be founded on the logical version of one of the rules of the universe: systems always seek the lowest energetic state. Similarly, true logic always seeks to have minimal inherent assumptions. Faith is an assumption. The supernatural is an assumption. The only approach which is not an assumption is empirical reasoning founded on an elaboration of Occam's Razor. Applying that to the real world results in science.

The world which we see is simply our minds turned inside out -- MacDonald

In other words, depending on the assumption that you begin with, you may or may not see reality.

It is a misconception that science is free from assumptions. You can't look at the world and conclude that there is no God, unless you already have an underlying world view that has omitted him. In that case, rather than proving God's existence unreal, it will mean that you simply cannot see any evidence for Him. Like MacDonald said, the world that you see is simply what you have already got in your head.

The end of empirical reason? Why? Because I accept absolutes?

Because you attempt base your science in absolutes with no empirical backing. From an empirical point of view, basing a theory around the idea that there is a God is no different from basing it around the theory that there is an invisible and supernatural unicorn holding up the Earth. There is no empirical evidence for either, nor can there be, and thus science cannot address them, and certainly cannot be based in them.

If you were just to think things through, for a moment, you would see how having a creator does not mean that everything is immediately explained. That is an irrational fear, it seems, for many naturalistic thinkers.

Actually, it isn't irrational at all. Look at history and how scientists have been treated when they dared to find evidence about anything that the church claimed had "already been explained". Look at Galileo, for instance, who found that the religious explanation was inconsistent with evidence. How did that work out?

You may think scientific progress is impossible, but the evidence is against you, since there are many scientists, both before and since Darwin and current who are capable of very good progress, and who still accept God's existence.

There is a huge difference between accepting the existence of God and making it a basis upon which science is carried out.

Yes, that the creator or designer does exist is an assumption, but it isn't about using him to fill the gaps. Rather, it is investigating the natural world based on such an assumption.

There is no need for such an assumption when only the natural world and its workings are being examined. One only need assume a God (or a lack of one) if one is investigating the supernatural. So long as one is sticking to the realm of science - the natural - then no such assumption is needed or warranted.

Now you are just ranting. No one is suggesting that we try to observe a supernatural force. Use your noggin.

Yes, you are. By suggesting that a theory can be based in an assumption about a supernatural force, you are either (a) removing empirical thinking from science, by suggesting that we should base theories in an assumption that cannot be falsified and cannot be investigated or questioned or (b) suggesting that we can somehow empirically back up the assumption that God exists.

Science requires assumptions too.

The only non-falsifiable assumptions required by science are that what we measure is correct, and that the universe has ordered rules by which it runs. There are no assumptions made about the supernatural. Only that which can actually be empirically observed is included.

I think you have completely missed my point that all of science and any philosophical position begins with assumptions. Think carefully about this, and you will see that this is true.

It is irrelevant. The fact that assumptions are used in any philosophy does not mean that all assumptions can be used in a given philosophy.

It is a misconception that science is free from assumptions. You can't look at the world and conclude that there is no God, unless you already have an underlying world view that has omitted him.

And, strangely enough, no scientific theory has ever had the conclusion that there is no God. Some scientists think that certain theories bolster their conclusion that there is no God. Some think that the same theories bolster their conclusion that there is a God. But none of the speculation regarding God is scientific.

In my opinion, it depends what you mean by 'address'. If you mean 'investigate', I would agree, science cannot investigate the supernatural. I have said this in almost all of my previous posts. What I am trying to argue is simply because science cannot investigate the supernatural, it is in no position to rule out a supernatural. I reckon you can agree with me at that point. The next point is that I am trying to show that naturalism is a philosophy that does rule out the supernatural. And thus any 'science' that attempts to rule out the supernatural is not really science, but a philosophy pretending to be science. This has been the major point of my argument. Unless you specifically address this point, you posting irrelevant points to the topic.
Science is a set of processes based on a philosophy. Ruling out some potential causes does not suddenly turn it into a philosophy. Even if "real science" did not rule out the supernatural, or any potential cause, it would still be a set of processes based on a philosophy.

Huh, strange since I quoted you saying exactly the opposite. Shall I do so again?

Go ahead. Find a post of mine where I was trying to say so.



Science does not address the supernatural. I challenge you to find any science that has EVER ruled out the supernatural. Show me evidence of this 'naturalism' you keep trying to associate with science.


Firstly, I agree that science cannot investigate the supernatural, for the 100th time. Science that rules out the interference of the supernatural is the sort of 'science' that explains how life came from non-life and how it evolved into humans and all the other life forms through natural forces. It does not directly say that God did not interfere, but that is what it means.

Naturalistic thinking is where a scientist will use only natural causes to explain how e.g. simply life developed into a self conscious life. It doesn't mention God, but it means that if God does exist, he was not involved (usually at least on this side of the big bang).


Seriously, do I have to quote you? I already showed that you did.


Yes, it looks like you will have to quote me.


Wait, I thought you weren't bringing religion into this. Have you even heard of consistency? Science cannot accept or deny God's existence. You called for science to accept that the origin of the universe is God, and then you claimed that science should not address God at all. You are being woefully inconsistent.


The idea of God is not religion, in my books. There are plenty of irreligious people who believe in the existence of god.

I have already raised the question of what do you mean by 'address'. What I am arguing is that it is possible to accept God, but not to investigate Him through science.


No. It's like saying if you want them to accept a certain cause for something, then it requires them to stop trying to find other causes. If you said I drove the car into the light pole, and I continued to try and find out if it had hit the light pole another way, would you call that acceptance that you drove it into the light pole? Of course not. Your argument is not rational.


Of course there will be some changes, perhaps, but change is not a bad thing. If it means that we stop looking for half-monkey half-human skeletons, is that such a bad thing? Will that halt progress for the cure for cancer or AIDS?


You aren't just asking for acceptance of God's existence (which is not a scientific position and science has no business taking that position). You are asking that science take the position that God is the cause of certain things in the natural world, without evidence and without the possibility of validating this position. To do so means that searching for any alternate causes is to invalidate that acceptance, which suggests it was never accepted in the first place.


And you, it seems, agree with the thinking that asks me to accept that ONLY natural forces have to account for the existence of human consciousness, without evidence, and without the possibility of validating this position.


It can continue to only accept positions that can be validated or evidenced. You treat those two views as if they are the only views. Yes, it's true that there either is a God or there isn't, but science has no need to take either position. Science takes the position of I don't know and I don't care. If the evidence supports your view of God, more power to you. If it doesn't, I'm sorry but I didn't make the evidence. But no matter what science isn't going to draw conclusions or accept conclusions regarding God. It does not fall within the realm of science. To suggest that those two positions are the only positions shows that you don't understand science at all.

It seems that you have not understood the postion of naturalism and it's importance in Darwinism and the naturalistic thinking that pervades modern science.

Some people think that science is naturalism, but one only has to point to people who are making progress in science who do not accept naturalism, both past and present, to show how such thinking is without evidence.

Yes, that the creator or designer does exist is an assumption, but it isn't about using him to fill the gaps. Rather, it is investigating the natural world based on such an assumption.
From everything I've read from you, what are you are really talking about is investigating the natural world while holding such an assumption. The assumption is not a "base" for the investigation, but exists despite it. Inspiration aside, the science is still the science.

The idea of God is not religion, in my books. There are plenty of irreligious people who believe in the existence of god.

Ok. Now I recognize the problem. You don't understand English.

Here. I'll help.

Religious -
adj.
1. Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity.
2. Of, concerned with, or teaching religion: a religious text.
3. Extremely scrupulous or conscientious: religious devotion to duty.

Seriously. Religious is a basic term and accepting the existence of God definitely qualifies as a religious belief. It doesn't mean you ascribe to a particular religion, but it is religious.

The idea of God is not religion, in my books. There are plenty of irreligious people who believe in the existence of god.

Plenty of people belive in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, unicorns, elves, and leprechauns, too. And not out of a sense of religion.

That doesn't mean that any of those things exist.

Let's make this a little more clear, shall we?

Assumptions that you make at the beginning of any scientific or logical endeavor are called "postulates".

Postulates are unproven ideas that we build out from. While the ideas that we later build and prove are proven, the original postulates remain unproven, no matter what else we prove.

Thus, to discuss Euclidean geometry (which has only limited application in reality) we start with a few postulates.

You want to start with the postulate that God exists - however, no matter what you prove along the way later, you'll never prove that God exists - your postulate will always remain a postulate.

Never, ever, a proven fact.

It seems that you have not understood the postion of naturalism and it's importance in Darwinism and the naturalistic thinking that pervades modern science.

Some people think that science is naturalism, but one only has to point to people who are making progress in science who do not accept naturalism, both past and present, to show how such thinking is without evidence.

You seriously don't get it, do you? The conclusions of science are not claimed to absolute. They can't be. They aren't. They are the best conclusion we can think of based on the evidence, when that conclusion is limited to that which can be tested. That's it. Science is very limited and everyone knows it and admits it. So take your strawman home. Science says nothing about the existence of God and NEVER will. There is no naturalistic thinking in science at all, by your definition. Because none of science denies the existence of God.

I challenge you to find one scientific theory that denies the existence of God. One. Otherwise, I dismiss your ridiculous claims with the amount of evidence you used to make them. NONE.

You seriously don't get it, do you? The conclusions of science are not claimed to absolute. They can't be. They aren't. They are the best conclusion we can think of based on the evidence, when that conclusion is limited to that which can be tested. That's it. Science is very limited and everyone knows it and admits it. So take your strawman home. Science says nothing about the existence of God and NEVER will. There is no naturalistic thinking in science at all, by your definition. Because none of science denies the existence of God.

I challenge you to find one scientific theory that denies the existence of God. One. Otherwise, I dismiss your ridiculous claims with the amount of evidence you used to make them. NONE.


Better yet, ask him to come up with a scientific theory that has passed scientific standards of peer review and proof, i.e., repeated experiments, that proves that God exists.

Any research paper published in any major scientific journal will do - Nature, Journal of Mathematical Physics - you know.

Better yet, ask him to come up with a scientific theory that has passed scientific standards of peer review and proof, i.e., repeated experiments, that proves that God exists.

Any research paper published in any major scientific journal will do - Nature, Journal of Mathematical Physics - you know.

The funny part the only 'science' that fails to adequately leave religious views alone is *gasp* creationism and ID.

The world which we see is simply our minds turned inside out -- MacDonald

In other words, depending on the assumption that you begin with, you may or may not see reality.
No; that is not what MacDonald is saying*, just the opposite. You will never see reality, not with human eyes. You will always ever only see what you, the poet, see (the mind turned inside out). The world symbolizes our mind.

That's reality enough, for us. But it's not 'reality'.

It is a misconception that science is free from assumptions. You can't look at the world and conclude that there is no God, unless you already have an underlying world view that has omitted him. In that case, rather than proving God's existence unreal, it will mean that you simply cannot see any evidence for Him. Like MacDonald said, the world that you see is simply what you have already got in your head.
You can't look at the world and objectively conclude that there is god, even if you believe in him; not just by looking. Oh, you can recognize him in the symbols of the world, but that's a different thing. Recognition is something we do, with the mind. Turn it inside out, and you have recognition of god as a reflection of self.


*MacDonald was talking about the imagination (http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/imagination.htm), the poet as 'maker' comparable to god as 'maker'; we live in god's image.

The funny part the only 'science' that fails to adequately leave religious views alone is *gasp* creationism and ID.

The even funnier part is that I can be a pentacostal Christian, and still leave the physical explanations of the universe to science.

I'm wondering why Bruarong feels a desperate need to destroy or alter science into religion.

The even funnier part is that I can be a pentacostal Christian, and still leave the physical explanations of the universe to science.

I'm wondering why Bruarong feels a desperate need to destroy or alter science into religion.

Yeah. Ditto. I'm a Christian and I recognize the difference between FAITH and KNOWLEDGE.

Yeah. Ditto. I'm a Christian and I recognize the difference between FAITH and KNOWLEDGE.

Probably not secure in his faith, IMHO.

Please stop talking about people (who can read your posts) in the third person, as if they weren't here. It's rude.

Originally Posted by Jocabia
Yeah. Ditto. I'm a Christian and I recognize the difference between FAITH and KNOWLEDGE.

It is imposable to have faith in God and not belive He is all powerful. If you are a Christian you should KNOW He made the world and everything in it, including you and I.

It is imposable to have faith in God and not belive He is all powerful.

Define "all powerfull". Be careful, combining "all powerfull", "benevolent" and "all knowing" is quite hard if your definitions are not well thought out.

If you are a Christian you should KNOW He made the world and everything in it, including you and I.
I thought my parents made me...

Better yet, ask him to come up with a scientific theory that has passed scientific standards of peer review and proof, i.e., repeated experiments, that proves that God exists.

Any research paper published in any major scientific journal will do - Nature, Journal of Mathematical Physics - you know.

Sir Martin Rees did come up with a mathamatical probability analysis that suggests that this universe is more likley to be someone elses (an outsider force - possibly God) creation. He proposed it was a simulation, but it could be something else.

It is imposable to have faith in God and not belive He is all powerful. If you are a Christian you should KNOW He made the world and everything in it, including you and I.

And what does that have to do with science? I do have faith that I am a result of the efforts of God. I recognize the responsibility of God for all the is, all that was and all that will be. Again, what does this have to do with science? There is a difference between faith and knowledge. Faith is not based on the emperical and knowledge is. I'm sorry that you do not know this.

Sir Martin Rees did come up with a mathamatical probability analysis that suggests that this universe is more likley to be someone elses (an outsider force - possibly God) creation. He proposed it was a simulation, but it could be something else.

An analysis that only works if you make certain illogical assumptions that suggest one can know the number of universes that would be successful (according to our own presumptive definition of successful).

It is imposable to have faith in God and not belive He is all powerful. If you are a Christian you should KNOW He made the world and everything in it, including you and I.
If you are a human without any serious cognitive handicaps who is old enough to be posting here, then you should KNOW that there is absolutely no possible way for you to ever KNOW that God exists at all, let alone KNOW that he made the world and everything in it.

You most certainly can BELIEVE these things, but it is not even remotely possible for you to KNOW them.

It is imposable to have faith in God and not belive He is all powerful. If you are a Christian you should KNOW He made the world and everything in it, including you and I.

Actually... this isn't true.

You have to make certain special assumptions about the NATURE of 'god', to find a disparity between God and science.

Personally, though I am an Atheist... I have always preferred the idea of a God that showed more imagination, more patience, and a less-strictly-human approach to Creation, than a rough 'six-days, made-of-clay' approach.

After all, if I were God, and I had eternity ahead of me, and all the power of creation at my fingertips... I like to think I'd come up with something a little more majestic and cohesive than modelling clay.

Actually... this isn't true.

You have to make certain special assumptions about the NATURE of 'god', to find a disparity between God and science.

Personally, though I am an Atheist... I have always preferred the idea of a God that showed more imagination, more patience, and a less-strictly-human approach to Creation, than a rough 'six-days, made-of-clay' approach.

After all, if I were God, and I had eternity ahead of me, and all the power of creation at my fingertips... I like to think I'd come up with something a little more majestic and cohesive than modelling clay.


For starters, I'd make a universe where it would be possible, if you spent enough effort, to see the underlying patterns - the beauty of the math behind it all.

And I'd make it both elegant and complex, so that it would take nearly forever to figure it all out.

If you are a human without any serious cognitive handicaps who is old enough to be posting here, then you should KNOW that there is absolutely no possible way for you to ever KNOW that God exists at all, let alone KNOW that he made the world and everything in it.

You most certainly can BELIEVE these things, but it is not even remotely possible for you to KNOW them.
Smallgovina is knowing with the heart (i.e. faith).

Actually... this isn't true.

You have to make certain special assumptions about the NATURE of 'god', to find a disparity between God and science.

Personally, though I am an Atheist... I have always preferred the idea of a God that showed more imagination, more patience, and a less-strictly-human approach to Creation, than a rough 'six-days, made-of-clay' approach.

After all, if I were God, and I had eternity ahead of me, and all the power of creation at my fingertips... I like to think I'd come up with something a little more majestic and cohesive than modelling clay.
Literalists.... :rolleyes:

;)

Smallgovina is knowing with the heart (i.e. faith).
The concept of "knowing with the heart" makes as much sense as "digesting with the elbow."

The concept of "knowing with the heart" makes as much sense as "digesting with the elbow."

Ah, yes, I'm certain you've never taken anything on faith. Nothing. Ever. No way. You would never do that. You're too good for that. How dare we mortals even suggest such a thing.

For starters, I'd make a universe where it would be possible, if you spent enough effort, to see the underlying patterns - the beauty of the math behind it all.

And I'd make it both elegant and complex, so that it would take nearly forever to figure it all out.

You know... that kind of reminds me of something...

Some curiously straightforward, yet elusive... strangely obvious, yet esoteric... mechanism.

Can't quite put my finger on it...

Ah, yes, I'm certain you've never taken anything on faith. Nothing. Ever. No way. You would never do that. You're too good for that. How dare we mortals even suggest such a thing.
Huh? Dude, what are you talking about?

I mocked the idea of "thinking with the heart." I've never thought with my heart, and neither have you. What's your beef?

Of course I've had to take things on faith. All humans do, because our finite nature makes it impossible for us to function in an essentially limitless reality without using certain working assumptions. For instance, I "have faith" in the concept of cause and effect, and the principle of materialism, because without these assumptions I would be unable to function in this reality. However, these assumptions are not knowledge. Faith is not knowledge, of any kind. On the contrary, faith is a necessary evil that we use to preserve human sanity when our knowledge (or our courage) has reached its limit.

Huh? Dude, what are you talking about?

I mocked the idea of "thinking with the heart." I've never thought with my heart, and neither have you. What's your beef?

Of course I've had to take things on faith. All humans do, because our finite nature makes it impossible for us to function in an essentially limitless reality without using certain working assumptions. For instance, I "have faith" in the concept of cause and effect, and the principle of materialism, because without these assumptions I would be unable to function in this reality. However, these assumptions are not knowledge. Faith is not knowledge, of any kind. On the contrary, faith is a necessary evil that we use to preserve human sanity when our knowledge (or our courage) has reached its limit.

It's a poetic way of describing the point. That there is a difference between knowledge and faith and I think Willamena described it well. Also, she never said, thinking, she said, knowing, which is quite different.

Huh? Dude, what are you talking about?

I mocked the idea of "thinking with the heart." I've never thought with my heart, and neither have you. What's your beef?

Of course I've had to take things on faith. All humans do, because our finite nature makes it impossible for us to function in an essentially limitless reality without using certain working assumptions. For instance, I "have faith" in the concept of cause and effect, and the principle of materialism, because without these assumptions I would be unable to function in this reality. However, these assumptions are not knowledge. Faith is not knowledge, of any kind. On the contrary, faith is an evil that is necessary to preserve human sanity when our knowledge (or our courage) has reached its limit.
Not "thinking with the heart". No one said anything about that. Thinking is done with the brain.

It is not the physical organ "heart" that we are talking about. I'm sure you know that, though.

Faith is knowing, but faith is not knowledge. Edit: knowing is verb, knowledge is noun. Knowing results in knowledge, but it isn't knowledge.

It's a poetic way of describing the point. That there is a difference between knowledge and faith and I think Willamena described it well. Also, she never said, thinking, she said, knowing, which is quite different.
Meh, I don't think it's poetic, I think it is tragically uncreative. It's a pet peeve of mine. The old "think with your heart, not with your head" thing is so tired, and it insults both the human brain and the human heart. Your heart has better things to do, to be perfectly frank, and your brain is probably not getting nearly as much credit as it deserves.

Not "thinking with the heart". No one said anything about that. Thinking is done with the brain.

It is not the physical organ "heart" that we are talking about. I'm sure you know that, though.

Faith is knowing, but faith is not knowledge. That turns what is essentially a verb into a noun.
Meh. Whatever it is, faith ain't thinking. You can be "knowing" all you want, but you're never going to get to knowledge that way.

Meh. Whatever it is, faith ain't thinking. You can be "knowing" all you want, but you're never going to get to knowledge that way.
So, you've never had a hunch?