Science vs. Creationism

[carolinajazz]

Absolute bulls.... Plenty of fossil ancestors of dinosaurs and plenty of even today's living creatures closely related to dinosaurs. I bet you are eating one every day unless you are vegan.

...nah, not a vegetarian, in fact, I love meat, especially pork! However, to date, scientists worldwide have unearthed and cataloged some 200*million large fossils and billions of small fossils. Many researchers agree that this vast and detailed record shows that all the major groups of animals appeared suddenly and remained virtually unchanged, with many species disappearing as suddenly as they arrived. The fossil record shows, not that there is a gradual accumulation of change, but that for long periods of time, little or no evolutionary change accumulates in most species.

Your belief that all creatures gradually evolved from a common ancestor....is despite a fossil record that strongly indicates that the major kinds of plants and animals appeared abruptly and did not evolve into other kinds, even over aeons of time. Does that type of belief sound as though it is based on facts or on myths? Really, belief in evolution is a MAJOR act of “faith.”

 

[carolinajazz]

An overwhelming majority of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity. Nearly every scientific society, representing hundreds of thousands of scientists, has issued statements rejecting intelligent design and a petition supporting the teaching of evolutionary biology was endorsed by 72 US Nobel Prize winners.
Not sure why we even have this thread. Creationism vs Evolution is like arguing that Earth is flat vs round.

Why do many prominent evolutionists insist that macro-evolution is a fact? Richard Lewontin, an influential evolutionist, candidly wrote that many scientists are willing to accept unproven scientific claims because they “have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” Many scientists refuse even to consider the possibility of an intelligent Designer because, as Lewontin writes, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

In this regard, sociologist Rodney Stark is quoted in Scientific American as saying: “There’s been 200 years of marketing that if you want to be a scientific person you’ve got to keep your mind free of the fetters of religion or the Bible.”

If you are to accept the teaching of macro-evolution as true, you must believe that agnostic or atheistic scientists will not let their personal beliefs influence their interpretations of scientific findings. You must believe that mutations and natural selection produced all complex life-forms, despite a century of research that shows that mutations have not transformed even one properly defined species into something entirely new!

Now, let me address your statement that "Creationism vs Evolution" is like arguing that Earth is flat vs round! First of all, I am not a "Creationist", that is one who believes God created the earth, universe, stars and everything on this planet in six 24 hour days...and that's NOT what the Bible teaches, either!

There are others who reason the same way you do! For example some have said “We might as well doubt that the earth revolves about the sun, or that hydrogen and oxygen make water.” It also declares that evolution is as much a fact as the existence of gravity. But it can be proved experimentally that the earth revolves around the sun, that hydrogen and oxygen make water, and that gravity exists. Evolution cannot be proved experimentally.

These same evolutionists admit that “debate rages about theories of evolution.” But do debates still rage about the earth revolving around the sun, about hydrogen and oxygen making water, and about the existence of gravity or that the earth is flat or round? No. How reasonable is it, then, to say that evolution is as much a fact as these things are?

 

[carolinajazz]

There are fossil links to the beginning of the dinosaurs. There are still dinosuars living today (we call them birds).

....hey, Barney Rubble! How do you figure that "dinosaurs are still living today....we call them birds" when dinosaurs were REPTILES and Birds and not? Dinosaurs....cold blooded. Birds.....warm blooded. Dinosaurs/reptiles have huge, powerfully built, scaled and armor-plated bodies, with their gigantic jaws, meaty, bony, powerful tails and weathered, wrinkled, thick leather-like hides! Birds, on the other hand, have tiny, fragile, porous AIRFRAME skeletal structures! They have rapid heartbeat with rapid metabolisms! They are about as FAR from being the "closest living relatives" to our birds as they can be! Might as well say that the butterfly evolved from a rhinoceros!

 

[babe]

I can also simultaneously believe in astrology and God but that doesn't make astrology true.

Sorry but a story that relies on accidents and randomness is in sharp contrast to showing "the hand of God," but I don't have a problem with the pseudo-science of Darwinism because I believe in God. I have a problem with it because I believe in science.

Discoveries in molecular biology destroyed Darwin's "gradual, successive, slight modification" story. There is really no science-based place to go from there.

I'm giving Pearl and "A" for the course because of the position taken here.

When people invoke meaning to nonsense and try to insist it is valid because one or two letters in each "word" is "correct", I won't call it "language". When people insist that the "meaning is there" even if all the words are horribly misspelled, I won't call it "smart".

What we have today is a whole generation raised on phony science who fundamentally don't know what science is, or was, or should be. . . . . not even the professors.

"Darwinism", like the idiot cult of Einstein worshipers' "time travel", is not scientific at all. "Evolution" as it commonly is understood is not science either.

Science is the accumulation of valid knowledge based on observation, demonstration, and connection of ideas with results. While I have to admit there is some utility for "extrapolation" and "inference" based on our measured or demonstrated data in forming theories, theories that extend those ideas beyond our knowledge base is not what I call "proven", or "science". It shouldn't be the job of a scientist to speculate, or develop grand theories of the universe that conform to his or her special prejudices and proclivities.

You don't need to "believe" in "Darwinism" or "evolution" to disbelieve in God. Until someone can demonstrate God, and lay out a procedure anyone can follow and obtain the same result, "God" is not something science can evaluate or take a position on, fer or agin.

Neither can science determine the origin of life, in my opinion. No one has demonstrated the process, or given us a method whereby we can reproduce the same results... . . anyone who thus infers or extrapolates form known relations between life forms is not talking "science" but speculating on probable relationships. A person who disbelieves in any purposed or "intelligent" behaviors inherent in nature is fundamentally also disbelieving in "science" itself, as well as their own purposes or intelligence, because the very act of any person trying to act on purpose or intelligence is thereby proving that the phenomena exists in nature, whether there is any putative kind of God at all, or even whether there is any putative discipline called "science" that we can place any trust in.

In one sentence. . . . .

The more you strain at the gnat to disprove your phobia for "God", the more you swallow the camel that science is pure nonsense, and prove you're an idiot.

OK, that was hyberbolic.

Here's the better way. . . .

There's no "scientific" way to disprove anything you can't define. . . . like "God". . . . nor any scientific way you can prove anything you can't define. The terms "Darwinism" and "evolution", invoke a meaning to observations or correlations in denying "God", and that's the only reason some of you care to discuss the subject of this thread.

 

[TroutBum]

CJ... Hahaha, wow.

 

[Hotdog]

I'm giving Pearl and "A" for the course because of the position taken here.

When people invoke meaning to nonsense and try to insist it is valid because one or two letters in each "word" is "correct", I won't call it "language". When people insist that the "meaning is there" even if all the words are horribly misspelled, I won't call it "smart".

What we have today is a whole generation raised on phony science who fundamentally don't know what science is, or was, or should be. . . . . not even the professors.

"Darwinism", like the idiot cult of Einstein worshipers' "time travel", is not scientific at all. "Evolution" as it commonly is understood is not science either.

Science is the accumulation of valid knowledge based on observation, demonstration, and connection of ideas with results. While I have to admit there is some utility for "extrapolation" and "inference" based on our measured or demonstrated data in forming theories, theories that extend those ideas beyond our knowledge base is not what I call "proven", or "science". It shouldn't be the job of a scientist to speculate, or develop grand theories of the universe that conform to his or her special prejudices and proclivities.

You don't need to "believe" in "Darwinism" or "evolution" to disbelieve in God. Until someone can demonstrate God, and lay out a procedure anyone can follow and obtain the same result, "God" is not something science can evaluate or take a position on, fer or agin.

Neither can science determine the origin of life, in my opinion. No one has demonstrated the process, or given us a method whereby we can reproduce the same results... . . anyone who thus infers or extrapolates form known relations between life forms is not talking "science" but speculating on probable relationships. A person who disbelieves in any purposed or "intelligent" behaviors inherent in nature is fundamentally also disbelieving in "science" itself, as well as their own purposes or intelligence, because the very act of any person trying to act on purpose or intelligence is thereby proving that the phenomena exists in nature, whether there is any putative kind of God at all, or even whether there is any putative discipline called "science" that we can place any trust in.

In one sentence. . . . .

The more you strain at the gnat to disprove your phobia for "God", the more you swallow the camel that science is pure nonsense, and prove you're an idiot.

OK, that was hyberbolic.

Here's the better way. . . .

There's no "scientific" way to disprove anything you can't define. . . . like "God". . . . nor any scientific way you can prove anything you can't define. The terms "Darwinism" and "evolution", invoke a meaning to observations or correlations in denying "God", and that's the only reason some of you care to discuss the subject of this thread.

babe always bringing it. Love his takes. Even if I dont agree.

Im an agnostic. I dont how anyone can "believe" in one side or the other tbh... Neither has been proven or disproven. I suppose I could just take a wild guess and take a stand on one side or other, but Im honest with myself. I have no clue whether we were created or not. Science is a long ways a way from ever understanding that. I can see both sides and the reasoning. I just dont think there is enough evidence to say either way. Its a lot of speculation going on.

The arument is a paradox anyways. If we were created, then who created the creator? In science, its, well if there was a big bang, then what was before the big bang? What made the big bang? I dont know how anyone can wrap there mind around this stuff. Its maddening.

Cue the always intellgent, you are an idiot responses.

 

[One Brow]

...the eye witness "documentation" for there being a Creator is clearly seen or evident by the intricate design and complexity of the Universe and all living things on this planet!

There is no test for design, and never has been. Design is always imputed subjectively.

 

[One Brow]

The fossil record shows, not that there is a gradual accumulation of change, but that for long periods of time, little or no evolutionary change accumulates in most species.

This is false.

 

[One Brow]

If you are to accept the teaching of macro-evolution as true, you must believe that agnostic or atheistic scientists will not let their personal beliefs influence their interpretations of scientific findings.

What about all those scientists that are Christians, Muslim, etc.? Atheistic scientists are the minority.

You must believe that mutations and natural selection produced all complex life-forms, despite a century of research that shows that mutations have not transformed even one properly defined species into something entirely new!

Evolution does not teach that something can transform one species into "something entirely new".

Now, let me address your statement that "Creationism vs Evolution" is like arguing that Earth is flat vs round! First of all, I am not a "Creationist", that is one who believes God created the earth, universe, stars and everything on this planet in six 24 hour days...and that's NOT what the Bible teaches, either!

You are not a Young Earth Creationist. You are an Old Earth Creationist.

Evolution cannot be proved experimentally.

Evolution has been proven experimentally.

These same evolutionists admit that “debate rages about theories of evolution.” But do debates still rage about the earth revolving around the sun, about hydrogen and oxygen making water, and about the existence of gravity or that the earth is flat or round? No. How reasonable is it, then, to say that evolution is as much a fact as these things are?

There is no scientific debate about evolution. If you allow religiously-inspired debate, there is still debate about the earth revolving around the sun, or whether the earth is flat.

 

[One Brow]

How do you figure that "dinosaurs are still living today....we call them birds" when dinosaurs were REPTILES and Birds and not?

Birds are a specialized form of reptiles (as are mammals).

Dinosaurs....cold blooded. Birds.....warm blooded.

Some ancient dinosaurs were warm-blooded.

Dinosaurs/reptiles have huge, powerfully built, scaled and armor-plated bodies, with their gigantic jaws, meaty, bony, powerful tails and weathered, wrinkled, thick leather-like hides!

Your are not describing most present-day reptiles, much less historical reptiles. Most lizards and snakes do not have armor plating, nor powerful tails, nor wrinkled hides.

Birds, on the other hand, have tiny, fragile, porous AIRFRAME skeletal structures!

So did some ancient dinosaurs.

 

[One Brow]

Science is the accumulation of valid knowledge based on observation, demonstration, and connection of ideas with results. While I have to admit there is some utility for "extrapolation" and "inference" based on our measured or demonstrated data in forming theories, theories that extend those ideas beyond our knowledge base is not what I call "proven", or "science".

Evolutionary theory does not extend beyond our knowledge base. It's been a tool for extending our knowledge base. Famous predictions include things like the existence of the naked mole rat and Tiktaalik rosae.

You don't need to think science is pure to accept it's results.

 

[TroutBum]

babe always bringing it. Love his takes. Even if I dont agree.

Im an agnostic. I dont how anyone can "believe" in one side or the other tbh... Neither has been proven or disproven. I suppose I could just take a wild guess and take a stand on one side or other, but Im honest with myself. I have no clue whether we were created or not. Science is a long ways a way from ever understanding that. I can see both sides and the reasoning. I just dont think there is enough evidence to say either way. Its a lot of speculation going on.

The arument is a paradox anyways. If we were created, then who created the creator? In science, its, well if there was a big bang, then what was before the big bang? What made the big bang? I dont know how anyone can wrap there mind around this stuff. Its maddening.

Cue the always intellgent, you are an idiot responses.

You're an idiot.

Not for this post though, just in general.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

babe always bringing it. Love his takes. Even if I dont agree.

Im an agnostic. I dont how anyone can "believe" in one side or the other tbh... Neither has been proven or disproven. I suppose I could just take a wild guess and take a stand on one side or other, but Im honest with myself. I have no clue whether we were created or not. Science is a long ways a way from ever understanding that. I can see both sides and the reasoning. I just dont think there is enough evidence to say either way. Its a lot of speculation going on.

The arument is a paradox anyways. If we were created, then who created the creator? In science, its, well if there was a big bang, then what was before the big bang? What made the big bang? I dont know how anyone can wrap there mind around this stuff. Its maddening.

Cue the always intellgent, you are an idiot responses.

Pretty much views exactly.

Could never be a Christian honestly. I've always been bothered by the fact that some dude who rapes and murders kids could decide to be a Christian a few weeks before he died, get all religious and emotional, then go to Heaven. Like I would have to chill with that dude in Heaven while there are some pretty awesome people in Hell.

You could cure Cancer, travel back in time and kill Hitler, and save 1,000,000 puppies and kittens and still go to Hell if you don't believe some omnipotent space alien's son didn't die for your sins. What?

 

[TroutBum]

Pretty much views exactly.

Could never be a Christian honestly. I've always been bothered by the fact that some dude who rapes and murders kids could decide to be a Christian a few weeks before he died, get all religious and emotional, then go to Heaven. Like I would have to chill with that dude in Heaven while there are some pretty awesome people in Hell.

I'm not God, but I have a feeling that's probably not how it really works.

 

[One Brow]

Some people describe evolutionary theory as "Darwinism". After Darwin and the re-discovery of genetics, the Modern Synthesis (produced in the 1930s and 40s). PZ Myers today listed some of the way our current understanding is no longer reflected by the Modern Synthesis. This much change to a theory developed decades after Darwin died, yet somehow people still use "Darwiniac".


[table="width: 800"]
[tr][td]
Postmodern reassessment of some central propositions of Darwin and Modern Synthesis
[/td][/tr][/table]
[table="width: 800"]
[tr]
[td]
Proposition[/td]
[td]
Postmodern status[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
The material for evolution is provided primarily by random, heritable variation.[/td]
[td]
Only partly true. The repertoire of relevant random changes greatly expanded to include duplication of genes, genome regions, and entire genomes; loss of genes and generally, genetic material; HGT [horizontal gene transfer], including massive gene flux in cases of endosymbiosis; invasion of mobile selfish elements and recruitment of sequences from them; and more. More importantly, (quasi) directed (Lamarckian*) variation is recognized as a major factor of evolution.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
Fixation of (rare) beneficial changes by natural selection is the main driving force of evolution.[/td]
[td]
Only partly true. Natural (positive) selection is important but is only one of several fundamental factors of evolution and is not quantitatively dominant. Neutral processes combined with purifying selection dominate evolution, and direct effects of environmental cues on the genome ([quasi] Lamarckian phenomena) are important as well.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
The variations fixed by natural selection are “infinitesimally small.” Evolution adheres to gradualism.[/td]
[td]
False. Even single gene duplications and HGT of single genes are by no means “infinitesimally small,” nor are deletion or acquisition of larger regions, genome rearrangements, whole-genome duplications, and, most dramatically, endosymbiosis. Gradualism is not the principal regime of evolution. [And I would add that even point mutations can have large phenotypic effects. --pzm][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
Uniformitarianism: Evolutionary processes have remained largely the same throughout the evolution of life.[/td]
[td]
Only partly true. Present-day evolutionary processes were important since the origin of replication. However, major transitions in evolution, such as the origin of eukaryotes, could be brought about by (effectively) unique events such as endosymbiosis, and the earliest stages of evolution (pre-LUCA [last universal common ancestor]) partially relied on distinct processes not involved in subsequent “normal” evolution.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
Evolution by natural selection tends to produce increasingly complex adaptive features of organisms, hence progress is a general trend in evolution.[/td]
[td]
False. Genome complexity probably evolved as a “genomic syndrome” cause by weak purifying selection in small populations, not as an adaptation. There is no consistent trend toward increasing complexity in evolution, and the notion of evolutionary progress is unwarranted.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
The entire evolution of life can be depicted as a single “big tree.”[/td]
[td]
False. The discovery of the fundamental contribution of HGT and mobile genetic elements to genome evolution invalidates the TOL concept in its original sense. However, trees remain essential templates to represent evolution of individual genes and many phases of evolution in groups of relatively close organisms. The possibility of salvaging the TOL as a central trend of evolution remains.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
All extant cellular life forms descend from very few ancestral forms (and probably one, LUCA).[/td]
[td]
True. Comparative genomics leaves no doubt of the common ancestry of cellular life. However, it also yields indications that LUCA(s) might have been very different from modern cells.[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

 

[carolinajazz]

Could never be a Christian honestly. I've always been bothered by the fact that some dude who rapes and murders kids could decide to be a Christian a few weeks before he died, get all religious and emotional, then go to Heaven. Like I would have to chill with that dude in Heaven while there are some pretty awesome people in Hell.

You could cure Cancer, travel back in time and kill Hitler, and save 1,000,000 puppies and kittens and still go to Hell if you don't believe some omnipotent space alien's son didn't die for your sins. What?

....it's called "Death bed" confession in other religions, like Catholicism....and has no basis whatsoever in the scriptures! Actually, such a belief or doctrine is similar to other misconceptions/lies perpetrated by the same religion such as the "immortality of the soul" "God burns people in hellfire for ever and ever" "eternal torment if you eat meat on Friday" ......all of which are as bogus as....well, butterfly's came from rhinoceroses....and man came from apes!

 

[Zulu]

...look, how many "different" theories are there amongst palaeontologists as to how the Dinosaurs disappeared....a half a dozen or so, at least? That's all I'm saying. Yes, they disappeared suddenly. That they suddenly appear in the fossil record unconnected to any fossil ancestors, and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links, is evidence against the view that such animals gradually evolved over millions of years of time. Thus, the fossil record does not support the evolution theory. Instead, it harmonizes with the Bible’s view of creative acts of God.

How many different theories are out there about Christ between many different religious denominations.... So does that mean there was no Christ, that he wasn't the Son if God, that he wasn't a prophet or the messiah???

 

[Zulu]

You really think time is the important factor in accidentally forming a pseudo-skeleton? How about the accidental part?

Never said accidentally, a mutation arises and if it is heritable and gives an advantageous result then it will be passed on... A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step!!!

 

[Zulu]

I can also simultaneously believe in astrology and God but that doesn't make astrology true.

Sorry but a story that relies on accidents and randomness is in sharp contrast to showing "the hand of God," but I don't have a problem with the pseudo-science of Darwinism because I believe in God. I have a problem with it because I believe in science.

Discoveries in molecular biology destroyed Darwin's "gradual, successive, slight modification" story. There is really no science-based place to go from there.

Yes there was one part of Darwin's theory that hasn't been shown with evidence to be factual, but the rediscovery of Medelian genetics and current molecular studies highly support Darwin's theory on Natural selection!!

 

[Zulu]

Trout where you move to????