Why I believe in Creation not Evolution.

[LuftWaffle]

My response:

1) You are confusing history with methodology. The scientific method does not allow for, nor can it allow, non-natural events, forces, objects, etc. If such were the case, the foundation of all scientific knowledge, and the method used to acquire that knowledge, would be called into question. In other words, following your ideas we effectively replace science with theology.

Not true. As I pointed out the belief in creation hasn't hampered the progress of science at all. Quite the contrary. The notion that if a divine explanation is allowed then scientists will make ad hoc reliances to the divine, is historically false.

2) You are confusing the ideas and opinions of individuals with the methodology of science. Within the scientific community there are a variety of viewpoints on religion. A Hindu and an atheist, for example, doing an experiment should get the same results regardless of their religious beliefs.

Science is practised by individuals, is it not?

Also you're assuming that origins science is purely experimental and objective, but that begs the question. I'm saying it isn't and I provided examples to prove my point.

3) You are confusing the lack of a stance regarding "the divine" with actively being against something. Within methodological naturalism one simply doesn't care about possible supernatural elements.

You haven't really addressed my point. I'll copy it and highlight the salient point, "Science's allocation as only tool for explaining origins is a positive and deliberate philosophical choice in favour of materialism and against the divine."

Also, OldEnglish asked you the same question that I asked D-9 in terms of the predictive power of evolution. Can you answer?

Edited April 20, 2011 by LuftWaffle

[LuftWaffle]

This is perhaps the most common absurd claim by creationists. It is easily testable, yet for some reason we have no data.

I have provided examples so the statement that we have no data is demonstrably false.

Out of the millions of scientists on the planet, you cherry pick a handful of statemnets that are about God.

If I listed some obscure backyard scientists then you might have a point, but some of the names are highly respected scientists that are making irresponsible statements. Stephen Hawking and Edwin Hubble are representatives of their fields.

Then you have Scientific American making a clear statement when they refused to hire an experienced science writer, not because of merit or lack thereof, but because he believed in creation. Again this isn't some obscure example but a very popular and highly esteemed scientific magazine making decisions based on an anti-religious bias instead of sticking to doing science.

Go through medline, you can pick a day, a year, a decade, and search all the scientific articles and see how many are about proving or disproving God. Or, go to the NIH, NSF, American Cancer Society, American Heart association, etc websites, and the Canadia + europorean equivalents and search the biomedical research grants that are about God.

I find it interesting that you'd pick an operational science such as medicine and not an origins science in your example.

Are you aware that we make a distinction between origins science and operational science?

Let me make a declaration so that I can refer to it, in future.

Declaration S1

We YECs (if any YECs here object let me know) distinguish between origins science and operational science. We define origins science as the speculations about the unobservable and untestable past that attempt to explain how natural phenomena and processes came about, (macroevolution, abiogenesis, big bang theory etc).

We define operational science as the study of processes that is observable, repeatable, testable, falsifiable in the present (chemistry, medicine, physics, information science etc)

We do not have any objections to proper repeatable, testable, falsifiable operational science, however we do object to naturalistic origins science.

Given declaration A above, I trust you understand that we do not have a problem with medicine, as it is testable and repeatable in the present.

Edited April 20, 2011 by LuftWaffle

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

If I understand you correctly, then you are arguing that science is not a valid means for obtaining knowledge.

You don

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

All I'm saying is that we have limited knowledge. Surely you can agree with that?

Certainly.

To the best of my knowledge, at this point in time there is not enough evidence to compute the likelihood of life arising on planet Earth.

Totally true, but again the results won

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

It appears that a lot of people posting in this forum are misinformed about evolution, or have an obscured idea of what it actually is. Evolution occurs in slow gradients over billions and billions of years.

You're simply misinformed about the theory.

The earth is supposed to be a scant 4.5 billion years old, 3.5 billion of which have supposedly been life-permissive, and in which all multicellular life arose and diversified in the past one billion years.

The process would necessarily be ongoing. Even the most liberal estimates of the divergence of humans from the common proto-human ancestor that we'd have shared with chimps is simply a blip of 6 million years ago, in which we'd we've evolved a difference of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150,000,000 base pair differences from our supposed cousins - which would average out to two divergences to sweep across one or the other population every month to create that kind of distance.

The Cambrian explosion, and other 'punctuated equilibriums' are further challenges to this oversimplification you're proposing here.

Essentially, through an aggregate of small changes, simple organisms have the capacity to become more and more complex over time.

Everyone know that this is the theory, but it fails when we try to extrapolate what we observe, which is the deterioration of the genome within a population over time.

If what evolution suggests is true then we should be able to observe simpler organism becoming increasingly more complex, especially the asexual single celled organisms that we can observe to replicate in the billions of generations. Asexual reproduction is very effective at passing on mutations, and therefore selection elects environmentally advantageous ones for propagation. The efficiency of asexual reproduction, laboratory controlled conditions, and the rapid reproduction rate facilitates observation in months that couldn't be expected to occur for mega-fauna in millions of years and yet we never see even single celled organisms become multicellular - how much less then could we expect slow reproducing, vastly more complex, sexual reproducing multi cellular organisms to produce vastly greater gains in complexity in fewer generations in harsher conditions?

As Dr. David Berlinski expresses, it's like pointing to a man jumping and flapping his arms and saying that a man flying is possible because it's just more of that.

I will not go over the proof since it is available all over the internet and in museums.

Everyone says that. This elusive proof is always assured to be just beyond the young earth creationists reach, but we're always assured that we need to believe it really is out there.

It is OK to be Christian and believe in evolution.

Having been one myself, I can assure you that this is an oversimplification.

When I was an evolutionist I loved Jesus but I could not understand the Bible. I though I did, but I had to reject much of what it said and ascribe meaning that it does not communicate, and that necessarily at the expense of points it makes.

The foundation of everything is origins and if you're off on that then everything is affected.

Evolution and science have no claims on anything spiritual or outside of observation, it is not an enemy of Christianity.

Science belongs to Judeao-Christianity alone, but the materialistic reductionism that championed as science today is a philosophical bias that seeks to divert from where the evidence actually points, and it is very successful in that endeavor.

Before developing an opinion, the least you can do for yourselves is personally look at the evidence instead of reading biased sources.

I already mentioned I was an evolutionist. I resigned my evolutionary position unwillingly, painfully and angrily. I fought with every fiber of my intellect to cling to my evolutionary beliefs.

LLC, don't make the error of assuming that those who disagree with you do so out of ignorance of the facts.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

So in summary:

1. The idea that the practising science in the context of a supernatural creation, and taking that into account will somehow hamper science is false based on the history of science.

2. The idea that science is neutral where theism is only conceptually true, but in practise this is demonstrably false.

3. Science's allocation as only tool for explaining origins is a positive and deliberate philosophical choice in favour of materialism and against the divine.

My response:

1) You are confusing history with methodology. The scientific method does not allow for, nor can it allow, non-natural events, forces, objects, etc. If such were the case, the foundation of all scientific knowledge, and the method used to acquire that knowledge, would be called into question. In other words, following your ideas we effectively replace science with theology.

2) You are confusing the ideas and opinions of individuals with the methodology of science. Within the scientific community there are a variety of viewpoints on religion. A Hindu and an atheist, for example, doing an experiment should get the same results regardless of their religious beliefs.

3) You are confusing the lack of a stance regarding "the divine" with actively being against something. Within methodological naturalism one simply doesn't care about possible supernatural elements.

Sam you're acutally confusing method with philosophical naturalism.

We all agree in methodological naturalism which means that the methods we employ in conducting scientific investigation assume consistency with physical reality, but you're clearly deviating from method (the only realm in which methodology exists) with philosophy which theorizes that what we see arose from strictly natural, material means. This is a fundamentally deeper epistomological statement than you're making it out to be.

Let's just for a second shelf who believes what and examine that approach from an objective standpoint:

If it were the case that something came about supernaturally, and if scientific investigation were the means by which we can analyse truth, then by necessity since science deals only with physical/natural/material aspects, then necessariliy science must lead us away from the truth because of its limitations, not because of the reality of possiblity.

Therefore, science cannot be hailed as the means to truth. It has limitations in what it can or can not recommend, and if followed exclusively must therefore rule out real possibilites and would necissarily force erroneous alternatives due to it's inherent restrictions.

Science must be understood to be an investigative toolbox, and is coherent within the frameword of a worldview that allows for immaterial components, since scientific investigation is itself immaterial.

So you're confusing methodology (the study of methods, which is the same for everyone) with the epistomological presumptions of philosophical materialism that are proposed and pursued by those who claim to be under the banner of science.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

This is perhaps the most common absurd claim by creationists. It is easily testable, yet for some reason we have no data.

I have provided examples so the statement that we have no data is demonstrably false.

Out of the millions of scientists on the planet, you cherry pick a handful of statemnets that are about God.

If I listed some obscure backyard scientists then you might have a point, but some of the names are highly respected scientists that are making irresponsible statements. Stephen Hawking and Edwin Hubble are representatives of their fields.

Then you have Scientific American making a clear statement when they refused to hire an experienced science writer, not because of merit or lack thereof, but because he believed in creation. Again this isn't some obscure example but a very popular and highly esteemed scientific magazine making decisions based on an anti-religious bias instead of sticking to doing science.

Go through medline, you can pick a day, a year, a decade, and search all the scientific articles and see how many are about proving or disproving God. Or, go to the NIH, NSF, American Cancer Society, American Heart association, etc websites, and the Canadia + europorean equivalents and search the biomedical research grants that are about God.

I find it interesting that you'd pick an operational science such as medicine and not an origins science in your example.

Are you aware that we make a distinction between origins science and operational science?

Let me make a declaration so that I can refer to it, in future.

Declaration S1

We YECs (if any YECs here object let me know) distinguish between origins science and operational science. We define origins science as the speculations about the unobservable and untestable past that attempt to explain how natural phenomena and processes came about, (macroevolution, abiogenesis, big bang theory etc).

We define operational science as the study of processes that is observable, repeatable, testable, falsifiable in the present (chemistry, medicine, physics, information science etc)

We do not have any objections to proper repeatable, testable, falsifiable operational science, however we do object to naturalistic origins science.

Given declaration A above, I trust you understand that we do not have a problem with medicine, as it is testable and repeatable in the present.

I applaud you for being able to respond to that post, Luft.

Don's post was so left-field I can't even understand how he figured he was addressing your post. No data? Data on what, the contrast of theism verse philosophical naturalism? What's that measured in, kilophilosophies? Immateriabytes? What would you measure it with, a fallacometer?

It makes me wonder if he even read your post of if that's some paragraph he copy/pastes into posts he disagrees with randomly or something.

Weird.

[LuftWaffle]

I applaud you for being able to respond to that post, Luft.

Don's post was so left-field I can't even understand how he figured he was addressing your post. No data? Data on what, the contrast of theism verse philosophical naturalism? What's that measured in, kilophilosophies? Immateriabytes? What would you measure it with, a fallacometer?

It makes me wonder if he even read your post of if that's some paragraph he copy/pastes into posts he disagrees with randomly or something.

Weird.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he meant "evidence", but yes the "data" comment is rather strange. Perhaps he can clarify for us.

"Kilophilosophies", haha.

I owned a non-sequitrailer once...Towed it down to the coast for my holiday, but when I got there it was gone. It seems it did not follow.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

I owned a non-sequitrailer once...Towed it down to the coast for my holiday, but when I got there it was gone. It seems it did not follow.

O man that's beautiful!

You made my day bro.

[LLC]

Yes you are right, disproving the big bang will not stop the theory of biological evolution, you need to find a compatible theory that works. In that sense you are right. However, every theory proposed does so, sans the existence of God, and is formed on wild amounts of random chance and huge massive amounts of time. If you can not find a working theory, then the rest is a moot point. No universe, No planet, No life. So far there is no solid theory that is not based on pure assumption at its start.

They are interconnected, and your right, its not like a Christmas light, where one blinks off and they all go, but yet they are on the same strand, and they all have one thing in common, which you do not like.

They all are based on science alone. No god needed. They replace God with chance and time. You see it all can happen if you have the right amount of time, and enough lucky chances. Chance is the core battle cry of evolution, chance mutations, chance this chance that. Its all chance and speculation as there is no proof.

I'm fine with all the theories being connected, they should be if they are all about the same universe, but at the same time much of the overall validity of theories doesn't rest on how X got there to set up what the theory explains.

If it's all based on science, no God needed, and that is a problem for the faith, than the faith has a fundamental problem with the methodology of science. Science doesn't include God in anything (and at the same token it doesn't discount God, science just says it cannot be tested therefore it's essentially ignored) and works with what is testable, and if that is a problem (I suspect it is as I've seen several members here complain about the godlessness of scientific theory/model/hypothesis/law X more than once) than science should be seen (by whoever has a problem) as a godless philosophy/methodology that is at odds with Christianity. Either science is a valid methodology and you need to accept its silence on theological issues, or it isn't a valid way as it doesn't allow God, or even one foot in the doorway of the supernatural.

Chance is an integral part, but look at it this way. Each human has about 6 billion base pairs of DNA per cell (all your cells have the same DNA). Each human has about 100 mutations before they're born. There is about 6 billion people in the world today, which means that has been enough mutations just from the people living today to completely redo the DNA sequence about 100 times. Now obviously this hasn't happened and neither evolution nor population genetics would allow such to happen, but I think it demonstrates how many mutations there can be in a population from generation to generation. A more realistic way of looking at it would be to think of each human as an "experiment" with about 100 mutations, have any sizable population (say even 10,000) and after a few generations you're bound to get a beneficial mutation or two.

I'm pretty sure that this can be summed up as 'kinds don't evolve into other kinds', but can you be a bit more precise in the creationist issue?

I could not find the thread, I went through hundreds of pages on our original agreement on the term we decided fit.

I wasn't referring to any thread or previous conversation, sorry if it sounded like I was. My issue with the dogs thing is that it is very vague. A dog is a subspecies of wolf, so taking your statement literally would mean that demonstrating speciation would dispel your issue. However I know many creationists are fine with speciation, and you seem like the type to be of that persuasion. If that is the case, than it needs to be narrowed down otherwise it's open season on de facto moving the goal post until we can logically say that all life is of the same variety/kind.

Nope based in on what you said.

Is it not inevitable that when I drop a ball it will go to the floor? In the same respect, I think it was inevitable that the basic events happened the way they happened. Again, that might be too Newtonian for modern physics (I'm kinda like Einstein in this respect; God doesn't play dice, which God apparently does - damn you QM!), but I will contend that it is indeed inevitable to happen at least once as such already has happened. I honestly don't see a problem with this and accepting a creator God; God simply used natural principles to do His Will, as far as I know this idea was first truly championed by Newton himself, one of creationists favorite scientific figures.

I could not find the thread we first started debating, where you said that you did not belive the Genesis account, I looked but I distinctly remember you stating just that. I am only stating what you have said.

You stated that since I don't believe the Genesis account I must believe in a Godless processes that is at the whims of chance and everything lasted forever. That is a false dichotomy, not because of my stance on Genesis (I don't believe the account is literal) but because the alternative presented is not the only option.

Then why do you defend all aspects of evolutionary thought including biogenesis The big bang theory and the rest. You defend them all, and point to the logic and proofs of such things on many threads.

I at first thought you were only talking about biological evolution but you have proved that that is not the case.

You seem to be trying to make the two mesh faith in God and Godless evolution. I see you desperately trying to prove one without disproving the other.

It seems not to work.

I like to see myself as defending science, not evolution specifically or the whole cascade of evolutionary theories from multiple disciplines. As I've taken various courses in a hodgepodge of sciences in high school and college as well as did a little reading on my own, I've found that I agree with mainstream science and that includes accepting the big bang, cosmological and stellar evolution, some things about abiogenesis, biological evolution, plate tectonics, an old Earth and so on.

That is the science side of things, now as science doesn't say anything about God I'm free to believe or not believe as I see fit (coming from a purely scientific view). As a believer in God I have 3 basic options. I can forgo either science or God, or I can accept both; and as someone who has found truth in both I've decided to accept both. This isn't a scientific stance but a personal, metaphysical stance.

When on the topic of scientific theories and such I try not to bring God into the equation because God simply isn't part of the equation. To add God in will take us out of science, and while I find such topics interesting it isn't science and I see no reason to go there when talking about science unless someone brings it up (not to mention theological arguments of this magnitude are much less concrete than science, or that me talking about it would probably have little to no meaning seeing as how I and almost everyone else here differs on more concrete matters let alone more esoteric conversations). Another way to look at is that I see a thread about how evolution doesn't work and it is usually trying to use some sort of scientific argument against it. To go against what is said logically I need to address it scientifically which means I need to leave God at the door so to speak; whether God was involved in the process or not doesn't change what science has uncovered, only if we are willing to have an extra metaphysical layer of ideas about it that isn't related to scientific methodology.

Hi D-9

I'd like to make a few comments your post and highlight where I believe you're not perhaps seeing the full picture.

Science flowered in the West, due to the fact that the Christian worldview leads a person to believe in an orderly universe. We worship a God of order and it is this belief that drive the pioneers of science, people such as Tesla, Newton, etc. To say that science has nothing to do with religion complete ignores the history of science. There 's this misplaced fear that introducing religion thinking into the sphere of science will allow superstition and appeals to magic and miracles to take hold of science. This, I believe is an unfounded and perhaps deliberately inflated objection. It is precisely those pioneers of science, who believed in a creator and believed that they were following the thoughts of God, that eliminated the pagan superstitions that abounded before.

History proves that belief in a creator isn't a science stopper, but quite the contrary, science was born and raised in the Christian West.

I also think that you're confusing what science is, with what it ought to be. I totally agree that scientists should follow the evidence and that objectivity should rule, but the problem is this simply doesn't happen in reality. To say that science isn't concerned with debunking theism flies in the face of all the historical cases where precisely this happened. I think the latest example is Hawking's recent publication wherein he declares philosophy to be dead and God not needed.

In the 1920s you had J Harlan Bretz who was ridiculed for claiming the Channeled Scablands were produced by a flood.

Edwin Hubble admitted that redshifts are evidence for a privileged planet but that such an idea is unwelcome.

To say that science has no bias for- or against God is simply naive.

Lastly I think a fundamental question is the philosophical bias, not just within science itself, but in choosing science as the tool for investigating origins in the first place.

As I said in an earlier post there are various types of truths and there are various tools for finding a truth. I'm not going to use science to determine the beauty of a painting because science isn't the right tool for determining that kind of truth. Likewise I'm not going to use science to determine the value of a certain moral action, because science isn't the tool for that. The tool you choose greatly affects what you're looking for and also greatly demonstrates what you think you're looking for.

Therefore the very fact that the burden of explaining origins is loaded onto science's shoulders, shows the assumption that science is the tool that can answer these questions. Since science is only concerned with material, by that very fact betrays the strong philosophical bias toward materialism.

So in summary:

1. The idea that the practising science in the context of a supernatural creation, and taking that into account will somehow hamper science is false based on the history of science.

2. The idea that science is neutral where theism is only conceptually true, but in practise this is demonstrably false.

3. Science's allocation as only tool for explaining origins is a positive and deliberate philosophical choice in favour of materialism and against the divine.

Science is the testing of observation and empirical data against claims using carefully constructed procedures designed to eliminate human error and bias. Faith is belief something in spite of the evidence. That is why it is called 'Faith'.

Merriam Websters:

Faith (noun) - firm belief in something for which there is no proof

Just because the Catholic church patronized science for many years does not mean they are similar. At the core, they are two separate ideologies.