Science vs. Creationism

[MVP]

And how do you suppose those extraterrestrial life came to be then?


Exactly.


There has to be an original originator, ultimately.

So than there has to be original originators originator? And his originator dad and grandpa and so on? Exactly

 

[BENTLEY]

CHARLES DARWIN presented On the Origin of Species to a disbelieving world in 1859--three years after Clerk Maxwell had published "On Faraday's Lines of Force," the first of his papers on the electromagnetic field. Maxwell's theory has by a process of absorption become part of quantum field theory, and so a part of the great canonical structure created by mathematical physics.

By contrast, the final triumph of Darwinian theory, although vividly imagined by biologists, remains, along with world peace and Esperanto, on the eschatological horizon of contemporary thought.

"It is just a matter of time," one biologist wrote recently, reposing his faith in a receding hereafter, "before this fruitful concept comes to be accepted by the public as wholeheartedly as it has accepted the spherical earth and the sun-centered solar system." Time, however, is what evolutionary biologists have long had, and if general acceptance has not come by now, it is hard to know when it ever will.

IN ITS most familiar, textbook form, Darwin's theory subordinates itself to a haunting and fantastic image, one in which life on earth is represented as a tree. So graphic has this image become that some biologists have persuaded themselves they can see the flowering tree standing on a dusty plain, the mammalian twig obliterating itself by anastomosis into a reptilian branch and so backward to the amphibia and then the fish, the sturdy chordate line--our line, cosa nostra--moving by slithering stages into the still more primitive trunk of life and so downward to the single irresistible cell that from within its folded chromosomes foretold the living future.

This is nonsense, of course. That densely reticulated tree, with its lavish foliage, is an intellectual construct, one expressing the hypothesis of descent with modification.

Evolution is a process, one stretching over four billion years. It has not been observed. The past has gone to where the past inevitably goes. The future has not arrived. The present reveals only the detritus of time and chance: the fossil record, and the comparative anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of different organisms and creatures. Like every other scientific theory, the theory of evolution lies at the end of an inferential trail.

The facts in favor of evolution are often held to be incontrovertible; prominent biologists shake their heads at the obduracy of those who would dispute them. Those facts, however, have been rather less forthcoming than evolutionary biologists might have hoped. If life progressed by an accumulation of small changes, as they say it has, the fossil record should reflect its flow, the dead stacked up in barely separated strata. But for well over 150 years, the dead have been remarkably diffident about confirming Darwin's theory. Their bones lie suspended in the sands of time-theromorphs and therapsids and things that must have gibbered and then squeaked; but there are gaps in the graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms but where there is nothing whatsoever instead.(1)

Before the Cambrian era, a brief 600 million years ago, very little is inscribed in the fossil record; but then, signaled by what I imagine as a spectral puff of smoke and a deafening ta-da!, an astonishing number of novel biological structures come into creation, and they come into creation at once.

Thereafter, the major transitional sequences are incomplete. Important inferences begin auspiciously, but then trail off, the ancestral connection between Eusthenopteron and Ichthyostega, for example--the great hinge between the fish and the amphibia--turning on the interpretation of small grooves within Eusthenopteron's intercalary bones. Most species enter the evolutionary order fully formed and then depart unchanged. Where there should be evolution, there is stasis instead--the term is used by the paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge in developing their theory of "punctuated equilibria"--with the fire alarms of change going off suddenly during a long night in which nothing happens.

The fundamental core of Darwinian doctrine, the philosopher Daniel Dennett has buoyantly affirmed, "is no longer in dispute among scientists." Such is the party line, useful on those occasions when biologists must present a single face to their public. But it was to the dead that Darwin pointed for confirmation of his theory; the fact that paleontology does not entirely support his doctrine has been a secret of long standing among paleontologists. "The known fossil record," Steven Stanley observes, "fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid."

Small wonder, then, that when the spotlight of publicity is dimmed, evolutionary biologists evince a feral streak, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Richard Dawkins, and John Maynard Smith abusing one another roundly like wrestlers grappling in the dark.

This is just the opening section of Berlinski's essay "The Deniable Darwin." To call his reasons for questioning Darwin's theory "hack-like" makes me wonder if Berlinski's critics are more interested in their professed pursuit of truth (wherever it leads) or shouting down those who would dare oppose them.
If anyone would like to continue reading it's good stuff. I only posted maybe 10% of the essay:
https://www.discovery.org/a/130

 

[Deleted member 848]

Like I said. The capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is not science.

Umm yes it is.

The difference between you and I is that you ain't critical of the elements in your story or the likelihood of them happening through accidental generation.

Pardon me? I am not critical of the elements of my story? You know nothing about me. The only difference between you and I is that I am more critical of ID than evolution, because I try to remain unbiased with my thought unlike yourself-- that is the difference.

This is my interpretation of your story:

2 different types of amoebas accidentally rub against each other in a puddle of prehistoric goo and the one with the accidental weenus shares it with the one who doesn't have it. Then they both have a weenus. Hooray!

The problems with you story:

Ooh, telling the Genetics student the problems with my theory. This should be exciting

Asexual organisms don't have sexual differentiation (male and female parts). They reproduce by making copies of themselves. So how did one of the amoebas have a weenus in the first place, and how was there another species to exhange DNA with?

Again, your lack of knowledge in microbiology is evident. The F plasmid found in the diagram is the fertility plasmid, which encodes for genes that allow the process of bacterial conjugation (most primitive form of inter-species sex) to occur. A gene was created that coded for the fertility plasmid, which included the sex pilus. The pilus (which is very penis-like in certain ways) draws the two bacteria together-- in fact, the only reason it isn't called a bacterial penis is because instead of transmitting DNA through the pilus, the pilus simply anchors the DNA, allows it to bring the two bacteria together until they fuse, and then cause a one directional transfer of bacteria from the original donor to the acceptor.

If your question is "how did the bacteria suddenly get a pilus that can attach to other bacteria and allow for fusion", bacteria have spontaneously mutated to contain certain parts of the sex pilus in lab strains. So nice try. A swing and miss for you, as usual. Again, if you weren't using the pre-constructed arguments of others, you wouldn't fall in these logical sink-holes.

I guess if an amoeba had an accidental weenus and shared it with another amoeba that process would keep going even though making copies of themselves is a whole lot easier and efficient.

Shocker!! Guess how well your knowledge of microbiology is showing through?? Take a wild guess.


Bacteria can lose their fertility plasmids in certain environments, because it is annoying for bacteria to carry those plasmids unless it's absolutely crucial to their survival-- as replicating all of the extra DNA is a biological disadvantage. This is why all bacteria cannot conjugate. It's a trade-off, if you have 'bacterial sex', you have to spend more resources replicating the DNA-- so sometimes it's fine just reproducing asexually every 40 minutes or so, as opposed to using a pilus to try and spend ATP to attach to other bacteria and what not.

But then again if sexual reproduction was a designed process occurring between designed creatures of the same species it would definitely keep going, because it feels good and stuff.

Is this a joke? Sexual reproduction is beneficial in some circumstances, and not beneficial enough in others. This is why many bacteria are still asexual exclusively.

So

IF all the elements were accidentally there to make this process happen it might continue.

But

IF all the elements were purposely there to make this process happen it would continue.

That's why the concept of "natural selection" is useless.

Both are wrong. The only useless aspect to this discussion is your application of logic. Try again.

 

[babe]

I watched Ken Ham's part of the debate. There was an interesting thing he said in regards to the age of the Earth at 2:19:44

He said, "I really challenge Christians, if you are going to believe in millions of years for the fossil record you have problems with the Bible and that is then you have to have death, disease, and suffering before sin."

What do you Mormons/Christians think of this "challenge?"

Some of the smarter "Mormons" would say something like "Mormonism is whatever is true", or "I don't know", or "We still don't know how the whole Universe got wound up in the first place", while saying something like, "To the extent that evolution happens, we have no problem with it" and "It appears that the geological evidence supports a very old earth, on the order of 5 billion years old, just like Joseph Smith said." (Henry E. Eyring), or maybe something to the effect that the Biblical narrative on the creation is something of a figure of speech, an allegory or metaphoric presentation of the creation. (Brigham Young).

That it was not written as "science" is an irrelevant criticism. It was written as a "faithful" attribution to God of the essential place of Man in creation. . . . a high purpose and design for a place in the lead of life on earth, with a station as "caretaker" for the earth and all living things in this world, and with a duty to serve.

The fossil record does show that there was "death" in this world, and well before the Biblical chronology on the order of 7 thousand years since Adam and Eve were "cast out" of the Garden of Eden. . . .

A Mormon of the original brand might realize there is something we don't know, or haven't been told in the story. . . . Mormons will follow the narrative for practical purposes in the sense that it seems to satisfy some logical or doctrinal criteria to relate "sin" with the consequent "death", for the purpose of understanding that God has a plan for us, that our "sin" is a "death" of sorts, and that an atonement is necessary, and provided in the atonement of Jesus. We avail ourselves of the part of that which casts us out of the presence of God by confessing faith in Jesus and repenting of our sins, and in subsequent events overcoming the conditions of our existence in this world by following Jesus not only in this world but worlds to come.

A Mormon might find pause to consider the incompleteness of the Biblical narrative in the light of statements like Brigham Young's that Adam and Eve, and other life, was brought here from another world.

Some parts of the story might involve events that did not happen in Missouri, where Mormons have been taught the Garden of Eden was physically located.

 

[babe]

Umm yes it is.



Pardon me? I am not critical of the elements of my story? You know nothing about me. The only difference between you and I is that I am more critical of ID than evolution, because I try to remain unbiased with my thought unlike yourself-- that is the difference.



Ooh, telling the Genetics student the problems with my theory. This should be exciting



Again, your lack of knowledge in microbiology is evident. The F plasmid found in the diagram is the fertility plasmid, which encodes for genes that allow the process of bacterial conjugation (most primitive form of inter-species sex) to occur. A gene was created that coded for the fertility plasmid, which included the sex pilus. The pilus (which is very penis-like in certain ways) draws the two bacteria together-- in fact, the only reason it isn't called a bacterial penis is because instead of transmitting DNA through the pilus, the pilus simply anchors the DNA, allows it to bring the two bacteria together until they fuse, and then cause a one directional transfer of bacteria from the original donor to the acceptor.

If your question is "how did the bacteria suddenly get a pilus that can attach to other bacteria and allow for fusion", bacteria have spontaneously mutated to contain certain parts of the sex pilus in lab strains. So nice try. A swing and miss for you, as usual. Again, if you weren't using the pre-constructed arguments of others, you wouldn't fall in these logical sink-holes.




Shocker!! Guess how well your knowledge of microbiology is showing through?? Take a wild guess.


Bacteria can lose their fertility plasmids in certain environments, because it is annoying for bacteria to carry those plasmids unless it's absolutely crucial to their survival-- as replicating all of the extra DNA is a biological disadvantage. This is why all bacteria cannot conjugate. It's a trade-off, if you have 'bacterial sex', you have to spend more resources replicating the DNA-- so sometimes it's fine just reproducing asexually every 40 minutes or so, as opposed to using a pilus to try and spend ATP to attach to other bacteria and what not.



Is this a joke? Sexual reproduction is beneficial in some circumstances, and not beneficial enough in others. This is why many bacteria are still asexual exclusively.


Both are wrong. The only useless aspect to this discussion is your application of logic. Try again.

Dal, you're doing an excellent job of discrediting "science". "Science" is not didactic denials of ideas unsupported by evidence, nor is it a process of carefully selecting "evidence" and weaving into a doctrine that others must swallow whole-hog.

Here, Pearl is doing a better job of applying scientific processes in her reasoning. I'm sure you could do a better job, too.

While imagination is useful in the scientific process in both originating a testable hypothesis and in interpreting the results, a didactic denial of any objection is not anything to do with "Science".

Darwin imagined that a purely materialistic formula could account for life in all its manifestations, and others have imagined that some observable phenomena could fit into that schema. Confirmation of any hypothesis is rarely absolute. . .. usually our experiments can define some aspects within the observable and duplicatible capacities of our equipment, our materials, and our expendable time, and we can take comfort that some things fit into the hypothetical pattern. But a scientist cannot properly ignore alternative explanations that meet the same criteria, or deny plausible possibilities that we just haven't conceived of yet. . . . and so good scientists stick to the specifics of their knowledge base and pursue further evidences/results while holding back on the expansive assertions that are clearly beyond that reach.

The problem with a purely materialistic conceptualization of the Universe. . . . is the use we make of it to confirm or deny ideas that are clearly out of the realm of "materialism". Ever hear of the term "extrapolation"?

I bet you'd see the problem if I started trying to tell you that electric charge can't exist because all matter is just mass. What is an electric charge, anyway? Can you demonstrate it's existence with a ruler?

So what we conceive of as "material" requires certain tools and measures before we can explore and explain. What we conceive as "Life" requires something more than the set of material tools, and the effort to confine the discussion to merely "materialistic" features is not very convincing. If living things could be adequately described by simple materialistic measures, I suppose we could take a corpse and "fix it" and make it live again, from any state of decay. Even a bone has all the genetic information. . . . Sci-Fi deals with this and comes up with Frankenstein unhuman life that is just a fearful monster. We just don't know, in material terms, what makes "intelligence", what makes the human attributes of love, compassion, or comprehension. . . . things like cognition clearly transcend the "material" existence. . . ..

The purely "material" world has no explanation for our ability to plan or act upon ourselves or our circumstances/environment. From it's modern importance in the social systems we created in the nineteenth century, "materialism" has been a tool to suppress human liberty, merely a dogma used to trivialize and control the "human cattle" which some elitists have intended to corral within their little greedy clutches, and use for their own purposes.

"Materialism" is a necessary assertion of fascists in particularl, and of statists generally, who want to deny the essential capacities of human beings and the validity of human rights. It has no scientific credentials because it is a blind assertion of a philosophy, rather than an informed self-consistent "Scientific Theory". Science, in its proper application, cannot disprove or deny anything. . . . any idea or concept. . . . that is untestable with available equipment. It is true that such things cannot be affirmed as "Science", either. . . . .

 

[PearlWatson]

Pardon me? I am not critical of the elements of my story? You know nothing about me. The only difference between you and I is that I am more critical of ID than evolution, because I try to remain unbiased with my thought unlike yourself-- that is the difference.

That statement is funny coming directly after your attack on what kind of Christian I am, and proclaiming how different you are from me.
You are more critical of one, but you are unbiased? Okay.

Again, your lack of knowledge in microbiology is evident. The F plasmid found in the diagram is the fertility plasmid, which encodes for genes that allow the process of bacterial conjugation (most primitive form of inter-species sex) to occur. A gene was created that coded for the fertility plasmid, which included the sex pilus. The pilus (which is very penis-like in certain ways) draws the two bacteria together-- in fact, the only reason it isn't called a bacterial penis is because instead of transmitting DNA through the pilus, the pilus simply anchors the DNA, allows it to bring the two bacteria together until they fuse, and then cause a one directional transfer of bacteria from the original donor to the acceptor.
If your question is "how did the bacteria suddenly get a pilus that can attach to other bacteria and allow for fusion", bacteria have spontaneously mutated to contain certain parts of the sex pilus in lab strains. So nice try. A swing and miss for you, as usual. Again, if you weren't using the pre-constructed arguments of others, you wouldn't fall in these logical sink-holes.
Shocker!! Guess how well your knowledge of microbiology is showing through?? Take a wild guess.
Bacteria can lose their fertility plasmids in certain environments, because it is annoying for bacteria to carry those plasmids unless it's absolutely crucial to their survival-- as replicating all of the extra DNA is a biological disadvantage. This is why all bacteria cannot conjugate. It's a trade-off, if you have 'bacterial sex', you have to spend more resources replicating the DNA-- so sometimes it's fine just reproducing asexually every 40 minutes or so, as opposed to using a pilus to try and spend ATP to attach to other bacteria and what not.
Is this a joke? Sexual reproduction is beneficial in some circumstances, and not beneficial enough in others. This is why many bacteria are still asexual exclusively.
Both are wrong. The only useless aspect to this discussion is your application of logic. Try again.

I can get behind that statement.
Yeah I interpreted your rudimentary chart in a rudimentary way, and misinterpreted parts, but if we both agree on that fundamental part the rest doesn't matter.

Thanks for your detailed response. I learned from it.

 

[carolinajazz]

We need to change the name of this thread from: "Science vs. Creationism" to "Science vs. Creation" and here's why!

BILLIONS of people have read or heard what the Bible says about the beginning of the universe. The 3,500-year-old account starts with the well-known statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Many people, however, are unaware of the fact that Christendom’s leaders, including so-called creationists and fundamentalists, have spun the Bible account of creation into numerous tales that deviate from what the Bible really says. These interpretations fly in the face of scientific fact. Even though those tales are not found in the Bible, they have caused many people to dismiss the Bible account as mythical allegory.

The real Bible story of creation has gone largely unnoticed. This is a shame, for the Bible actually presents a very logical and credible explanation of the beginning of the universe. What is more, that explanation harmonizes with scientific discovery!

The Bible states that God created “the heavens and the earth.” This broad statement, however, makes no reference to the length of time involved in creating the universe or to the methods he used to shape it. What about the widespread creationist belief that God created the universe in six literal 24-hour days? This concept, widely rejected by scientists, is based on a gross misunderstanding of the Bible account. Consider what the Bible really says.

The Bible does not support fundamentalists and creationists who claim that the creative days were literal 24-hour days.

The Bible frequently uses the term “day” to designate various periods of time. In some cases these periods are of an unspecified length. The account of creation found in the Bible book of Genesis is one example of this.The Hebrew word yohm, translated “day,” can mean different lengths of time. Among the meanings possible, William Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies includes the following: “A day; it is frequently put for time in general, or for a long time; a whole period under consideration .*.*. Day is also put for a particular season or time when any extraordinary event happens.”1 This last sentence appears to fit the creative “days,” for certainly they were periods when extraordinary events were described as happening. It also allows for periods much longer than 24 hours!


In the Bible account, each of the six creative days could have lasted for thousands even millions of years! If a paleontologist wants to claim that a dinosaur bone is a million years old....this DOES NOT disagree with the Bible's account in Genesis of "creation!"

God had already created the universe, including a lifeless planet Earth, by the time the first creative day began.

Evidently the six creative days were long periods during which God prepared the earth for human habitation.

The Bible account of creation does not conflict with scientific conclusions about the age of the universe.

 

[Deleted member 848]

That statement is funny coming directly after your attack on what kind of Christian I am, and proclaiming how different you are from me.

I really don't care if you find it funny or not-- it still doesn't take away from the fact that you know nothing about me

You are more critical of one, but you are unbiased? Okay.

Glad we came to agreement so quickly.

I can get behind that statement.

New genes/gene alleles are created via the process of evolution constantly. If you add mutagen to a plate of bacteria, plate it on a medium deficient of histidine (essential amino acid), most bacteria will die but SOME will survive due to the mutagen creating a NEW gene that synthesizes histidine autonomously. That is what I meant when i said "creation". Mutagens enhance the rate of gene mutation, but things like DNA Polymerase can still create mutated strands by chance just because of the sheer number of nucleotides it is polymerizing per second. Is this still something you can 'get behind'?

Thanks for your detailed response. I learned from it.

Thanks for taking the time to read it-- glad your took something from it.

 

[Deleted member 848]

Dal, you're doing an excellent job of discrediting "science". "Science" is not didactic denials of ideas unsupported by evidence, nor is it a process of carefully selecting "evidence" and weaving into a doctrine that others must swallow whole-hog.

Please tell me what I am casting off as a didactic denial, in verbatim. Thank you. This is in no way one and the same as me proposing that science can be "The capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is not science.".

In fact babe, I feel like you are mixing me up with other posters on this website. I am not purely objectivistic; I am a theist; and many posters would attest that I am not one to weave together theories in such a way where I consider them to be the absolute truth, and consider all other alternatives as notions that should be didactically denied.

I feel like you haven't even read my posts

 

[babe]

Please tell me what I am casting off as a didactic denial, in verbatim. Thank you. This is in no way one and the same as me proposing that science can be "The capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is not science.".

In fact babe, I feel like you are mixing me up with other posters on this website. I am not purely objectivistic; I am a theist; and many posters would attest that I am not one to weave together theories in such a way where I consider them to be the absolute truth, and consider all other alternatives as notions that should be didactically denied.


I feel like you haven't even read my posts

Fair enough.

I'll take a little time and go back to see what I missed.

 

[babe]

Please tell me what I am casting off as a didactic denial, in verbatim. Thank you. This is in no way one and the same as me proposing that science can be "The capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is not science.".

In fact babe, I feel like you are mixing me up with other posters on this website. I am not purely objectivistic; I am a theist; and many posters would attest that I am not one to weave together theories in such a way where I consider them to be the absolute truth, and consider all other alternatives as notions that should be didactically denied.

I feel like you haven't even read my posts

I have noticed that you are well-educated scientifically speaking, which is why I believed you could afford to make the effort to broadly tolerate some earnest religious believers in their set notions, while elucidating some things they might not know yet.

The bolded statement, as I recall, was Pearl's. She and many other "defenders of the faith" will take that position after a cursory reading of Darwin, while failing to note, deep in his text "The Origin of Species" he specifically denies that his proposed view of natural selection has a proper use in discrediting religious beliefs. I was objecting to some comments. . . . possibly I did have some other contributors on my mind. . . .which I felt fell in the class of political rhetoric much used by progressives in minimizing human concepts of God generally.

This response satisfies me, together with the above comment about the mutagen example. Every time we invent a new anti-biotic, and make much use of it, we help to "create" some new strain of drug-resistant bacteria. While it has been my attitude to attribute to "God" a lot things beyond my specific knowledge, and incorporate every finding of science into my schema of the things God has done, I also accept the inadequacy of "Science" to prove the existence of God or anything else that is beyond our power of research. Isn't it great to be free to figure things out for ourselves?

 

[babe]

We need to change the name of this thread from: "Science vs. Creationism" to "Science vs. Creation" and here's why!

BILLIONS of people have read or heard what the Bible says about the beginning of the universe. The 3,500-year-old account starts with the well-known statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Many people, however, are unaware of the fact that Christendom’s leaders, including so-called creationists and fundamentalists, have spun the Bible account of creation into numerous tales that deviate from what the Bible really says. These interpretations fly in the face of scientific fact. Even though those tales are not found in the Bible, they have caused many people to dismiss the Bible account as mythical allegory.

The real Bible story of creation has gone largely unnoticed. This is a shame, for the Bible actually presents a very logical and credible explanation of the beginning of the universe. What is more, that explanation harmonizes with scientific discovery!

The Bible states that God created “the heavens and the earth.” This broad statement, however, makes no reference to the length of time involved in creating the universe or to the methods he used to shape it. What about the widespread creationist belief that God created the universe in six literal 24-hour days? This concept, widely rejected by scientists, is based on a gross misunderstanding of the Bible account. Consider what the Bible really says.

The Bible does not support fundamentalists and creationists who claim that the creative days were literal 24-hour days.

The Bible frequently uses the term “day” to designate various periods of time. In some cases these periods are of an unspecified length. The account of creation found in the Bible book of Genesis is one example of this.The Hebrew word yohm, translated “day,” can mean different lengths of time. Among the meanings possible, William Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies includes the following: “A day; it is frequently put for time in general, or for a long time; a whole period under consideration .*.*. Day is also put for a particular season or time when any extraordinary event happens.”1 This last sentence appears to fit the creative “days,” for certainly they were periods when extraordinary events were described as happening. It also allows for periods much longer than 24 hours!


In the Bible account, each of the six creative days could have lasted for thousands even millions of years! If a paleontologist wants to claim that a dinosaur bone is a million years old....this DOES NOT disagree with the Bible's account in Genesis of "creation!"

God had already created the universe, including a lifeless planet Earth, by the time the first creative day began.

Evidently the six creative days were long periods during which God prepared the earth for human habitation.

The Bible account of creation does not conflict with scientific conclusions about the age of the universe.

I'm pretty sure that in a hundred years, most bible believers will rely on a view much like this. No way every kid who ever takes a cursory look at Genesis will care to make it out that way though.

Probably just as true, the people who told the stories of the faith that were later compiled into the bible text meant to make it a "faithful" account, or "faith-promoting" rather than accurate or absolute fact. Science as a discipline of investigation was not invented yet. . . . well, at least it was not established as a necessary standard of judgment.

I agree in broad terms the biblical "creation" story has some points supported by current science. I'm happy enough to let my faith ride on a God who doesn't need science to deserve our love.

 

[PearlWatson]

I have noticed that you are well-educated scientifically speaking, which is why I believed you could afford to make the effort to broadly tolerate some earnest religious believers in their set notions, while elucidating some things they might not know yet.

The bolded statement, as I recall, was Pearl's. She and many other "defenders of the faith" will take that position after a cursory reading of Darwin, while failing to note, deep in his text "The Origin of Species" he specifically denies that his proposed view of natural selection has a proper use in discrediting religious beliefs. I was objecting to some comments. . . . possibly I did have some other contributors on my mind. . . .which I felt fell in the class of political rhetoric much used by progressives in minimizing human concepts of God generally.

This response satisfies me, together with the above comment about the mutagen example. Every time we invent a new anti-biotic, and make much use of it, we help to "create" some new strain of drug-resistant bacteria. While it has been my attitude to attribute to "God" a lot things beyond my specific knowledge, and incorporate every finding of science into my schema of the things God has done, I also accept the inadequacy of "Science" to prove the existence of God or anything else that is beyond our power of research. Isn't it great to be free to figure things out for ourselves?

That's a mis-characterization of me.
This debate was the first I've heard "creationism" or "young earth" expounded on. I always just thought of "creationism" as general belief that God created the life on Earth.
I'm critical of Darwin's theory based on scientific and/or logical criticisms, not religious ones. I was fine to go along with the theory before I learned more about it and the criticisms of it.

I also find in my experience that the more liberals support something the more there is something wrong with it, so I tend to be more critical of the things they support. lolz.

If the capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is science, then this Mormon diagram is science:

 

[PearlWatson]

I really don't care if you find it funny or not-- it still doesn't take away from the fact that you know nothing about me

Funny as in hypocritical.
Well, that ain't true unless everything you've said on this forum about who you are is a lie.
As for the one thing I claimed about you...if you are critical of Darwinism you haven't let it show. In fact your continued push for it would mean you've wholeheartedly bought into it.

 

[One Brow]

... humans came from fish ...

Technically, humans are fish that have adapted to breathe on land.

 

[One Brow]

You just got through saying so, and you probably preach it all the time.

Like the Ken bloke in the debate said, there is observation/experimental science and then there is historical science (beliefs/assumptions about the past).

All science is observational, all science is experimental, and all science is historical (once an experiement is over, you can never repeat it exactly again). Ham's difference is artificial and pointless.

But to say one led to another is a belief system in which the scientific method cannot be applied.
The capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is not science.

We have made predictions based on these diagrams and tested those predictions. That's what you want to call experimental, right?

 

[One Brow]

Could those in the Darwinian camp explain to me how simple cells and DNA came to exist on earth?

1) That has nothing to do with evolution.
2) The problem is not the lack of an explanation, but that we have something like a dozen different explanations, and few good reasons to choose among them.

 

[One Brow]

For me the questions come in the mechanism of change and the intermediate steps, which Pearl has alluded to. Without direct evidence of all of the intermediate steps it does require a leap of faith of some sort to get from one to the other, or at least a bunch of assumption.

It's not as it amphibian lungs are exactly like human lungs to begin with. We can see elements of the transition in living creatures today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung

 

[babe]

That's a mis-characterization of me.
This debate was the first I've heard "creationism" or "young earth" expounded on. I always just thought of "creationism" as general belief that God created the life on Earth.
I'm critical of Darwin's theory based on scientific and/or logical criticisms, not religious ones. I was fine to go along with the theory before I learned more about it and the criticisms of it.

I also find in my experience that the more liberals support something the more there is something wrong with it, so I tend to be more critical of the things they support. lolz.

If the capacity to draw a diagram and come up with a story about how things might have happened is science, then this Mormon diagram is science:

all hypotheses are "science" just as much as all experiments, however ill-conceived or moronic. At least in the sense of being part of the historical record. Imagine, all those alchemists with their elemental transmutation methods were "scientists' in their day, and their body of work is still part of the historical record. "Science" is not necessarily "truth" any more than a religious assertion is.

In this sense, "Science" is a process of hypothesis, evaluation, and interpretation. . . . .that is all. . . .

 

[One Brow]

CHARLES DARWIN presented On the Origin of Species to a disbelieving world in 1859--three years after Clerk Maxwell had published "On Faraday's Lines of Force," the first of his papers on the electromagnetic field. Maxwell's theory has by a process of absorption become part of quantum field theory, and so a part of the great canonical structure created by mathematical physics.

By contrast, the final triumph of Darwinian theory, although vividly imagined by biologists, remains, along with world peace and Esperanto, on the eschatological horizon of contemporary thought.

Most of Darwin's theory has, in fact, become even more strongly accepted by scientists than Maxwell's theory, and became evolutionary theory. Most of the lay public can't even tell you what Maxwell's equations are, or what they represent. So even with the general public, evolutionary theory has preeminence. Of course, the real issue with acceptance is that evolutionary theory tells us that we are not special and goes against many closely-held creation myths, but you won't hear Berlinski mention that as the reason for non-acceptance.

This is nonsense, of course. That densely reticulated tree, with its lavish foliage, is an intellectual construct, one expressing the hypothesis of descent with modification.

Actually, it's a model with predictive properties, which has been tested, and either corrected or verified from that testing. Again, Berlinski will not mention this.

Evolution is a process, one stretching over four billion years. It has not been observed.

The second sentence is flatly, totally false.

If life progressed by an accumulation of small changes, as they say it has, the fossil record should reflect its flow, the dead stacked up in barely separated strata.

Fossilization does not occur in a slow, steady way.

but there are gaps in the graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms but where there is nothing whatsoever instead.(1)

Every time we put some fossil into a gap, creationists point out to the two smaller gaps created, and then say gaps can't be filled.

Before the Cambrian era, a brief 600 million years ago, very little is inscribed in the fossil record; but then, signaled by what I imagine as a spectral puff of smoke and a deafening ta-da!, an astonishing number of novel biological structures come into creation, and they come into creation at once.

80 million years is not "at once".

Where there should be evolution, there is stasis instead--the term is used by the paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge in developing their theory of "punctuated equilibria"--with the fire alarms of change going off suddenly during a long night in which nothing happens.

Populations are shaped by their environment. When the environment is stable, the population will be relatively stable. When the environment changes, the population changes, or dies off.

"The known fossil record," Steven Stanley observes, "fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid."

Gradualism would be a characteristic of stable environments.

This is just the opening section of Berlinski's essay "The Deniable Darwin." To call his reasons for questioning Darwin's theory "hack-like" makes me wonder if Berlinski's critics are more interested in their professed pursuit of truth (wherever it leads) or shouting down those who would dare oppose them.

I call it hack-work because it presents plain falsehoods, distorts the current theory, hides certain facts, and exaggerates the level and types of disagreements among biologists.