Creationish Vs Evolutionism? BE POLITE!

[agile_1]

answer #1 - I decided it doesn't matter since I think that when we die it's lights out. Back to the dust bin to recycle the parts.


answer #2 - We all are born, live and die. It's the stuff in between that matters. What we think of the process is not going to influence it one whit - unless you discover a cure for cancer but that only postpones the inevitable.


I guess the real question then is, what drives the process? And if that is the real question, then I would say see answer #1.

 

[russde]

Voted for "Christian Evolution"

I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic grade school and high school and am still an active (if not 'good') Catholic. I have distinct memories of being taught evolution by both nuns and priests...they never seemed to give it a second thought and neither did I (this was in the 70's and 80's). I think the problem comes in with 'strict interpretation'. I have reconciled myself to the two theories living in harmony (insert tension relieving joke here _________) God created the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh...ever ask 'days?' if He created the universe and is therefore outside the earth what kind of days are we talking about?

Anyway...my own theory has always been that God created the world and 'tweaked' things along the way. Period. I don't see how demanding that He did this and planted evolutionary evidence to 'fool' people OR that there was absolutely no intelligent design involved are any more rational than my theory.

My advice: Find a theory to satisfy yourself and then move on, remember, it's all about FAITH, Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the desert by fostering doubt right? Well, you have to put this behind you as well.

Best,
Russel

 

[Ernie1980]

The process of evolution and natural selection that occurs on earth (both man made and in nature) do not discredit creation. If anything, in my mind, they emphasis it. If God created animals, and gave the "earth" power to let them adapt as needed, that is NOT the same as different types of animals evolving from each other. The species boundary cannot be overcome, so evolution occurs but within the same species.
I have gone round and round with this same topic within my family. The more research I have done, the more I realize that it could not just happen! There is too much complexity with interwoven and irreducible parts for me to accept that. I battled this with my college professors the entire time I was there, (yes, I went to college-I have a masters and double undergrad) and debate with my family now.
People draw their lines in the sand with this topic, it is difficult if not impossible to change an opinion on creation v evolution. I only ask one thing of evolutionists- how did life begin? The most simple living thing has 400 linked parts according to NASA. Scientists HAVE NOT created life in a lab, just unlinked chains of amino acids that are the "start" of life.
I am going to get wound up, so I will stop there
If anyone want to talk politely and scientifically about evolution, I will be happy to engage!

 

[tyr_shadowblade]

There is a lot that science has trouble explaining, but most of evolution and the history of the Earth seems to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. "Magic man dunnit" is in all of the world's religions, not just Christianity, but that requires faith that your belief is 100% correct and all the others are superstition.

I'm going to choose "other" and explain by saying "dunno."

 

[powernoodle]

My big questions are: What do you believe?

Its impossible to reduce it to an online post, but I'll try. :thumbup: For me this issue centers on the question of where the universe came from. There are 4 broad possibilities that the human mind can comprehend, and into which all theories must fall:

1 - the universe always existed
2- the universe never existed and we are imagining it
3- the universe created itself from nothing without a creator, or
4 - the universe was created by a Creator


Few people hold to the view that the universe always existed, in large measure because the laws of thermodynamics hold that a closed system always moves from order to disorder over time (absent external intervention), and that as such a universe that eternally existed would have burned itself out an eternity ago. Similarly, no one holds to the view that the universe does not exist and we are imagining it (somewhat like the movie The Matrix), as reason and personal experience mitigate against this possibility.

So most folks (who have an opinion) fall into the last 2 categories. That is to say, they hold that the universe does exist and that it could not have existed forever. This means that the universe had a beginning. The question then is reduced to one of plausibilities. That is to say, is it more likely that the universe created itself from nothing without a cause, or that it was created? To answer this question, consider if I showed you a basketball. You ask me where it came from, and I tell you that it created itself from nothing without a cause. You would know this not to be true, because every effect (the basketball) has to have a cause equal to or greater than itself (the basketball maker). Basketballs don't simply spring into existence without a creator. Yet the universe is so vastly greater and more complex than a basketball, and we know that if a basketball could not have created itself then the universe could not have created itself.

But Powernoodle, if the universe could not have existed forever or created itself, how could God have created himself or existed forever? Here's my thought process on that one. If I ask where the universe came from, you might say the big bang, and I would agree that there probably was a big bang. I then ask what caused the big bang, and one might answer by postulating that there was a "singularity" that caused the big bang. [A singularity is an infinitely dense, infinitely small point of space-time]. I then ask what caused the singularity, and if you could answer it (though no one can), then I would ask what caused that, and then what caused that. And what you end up with is an infinite regression of finite causes that never answers the question of a source cause. The only intellectually satisfying and plausible answer (in my view) is an uncaused first cause, which we call God.

But wait, Powernoodle, I don't believe in the supernatural. I would respond that if you believe in a singularity, you believe in the supernatural because by definition a singularity is "super" natural, i.e., outside, above or beyond the natural laws of physics.

So, for me, the most plausible (by far) solution to the original question of what caused the universe, is an uncaused first cause that we call God. The predominate contrary view holds that the universe created itself from nothing without a cause (though few will characterize it that directly because it sounds silly to say it out loud), and that the "stuff" that created itself from nothing without a cause then assembled itself into the marvelous and mind-boggling universe we see around us, and then assembled itself into ladybugs and human beings and rainbows. This latter view strains credulity to the breaking point. If a basketball cannot create itself, certainly the universe cannot do so.

I won't launch into the theory of evolution other than to note that it is wholly lacking in a factual basis. Darwin had an excuse, but in the intervening 150 years we have the benefit of anthropology and archeology which conclusively refute the premise that an earthworm can turn itself into an astronaut or that a whale can turn itself into a hippo. The fossil record is wholly void of transitional life forms, which would be not just plentiful but everywhere in an evolving universe. We do see proof of micro-evolution (viruses turning into stronger viruses, for example), but there is not a scintilla of evidence that a radish is the distant cousin of a weiner dog. That is to say, we see evidence of change within a species, but no evidence that one species turns itself into another species sua sponte. The complete lack of transitional forms in the fossil record is why noted anthropologist Stephen Gould invented (created!) the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which holds that "evolution" occurs in spurts, and so suddenly in geological terms, that it does not leave a fossil record. This too is imaginative, but not supported by science, the fossil record nor reason. Said Gould, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology...Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study."

I also find the evolutionary theory to be contrary to the the notion of a Creater God, as God cannot direct an undirected process just as He cannot do anything that is contrary to his nature (like make a square circle). Additionally, Darwin held that blacks - who he called savages - were more like monkeys than were caucasians (whom Darwin just happened to be), and that these inferior savage blacks would be exterminated by the superior white race. You don't hear that part of the evolutionary theory taught in public school, do you? Consider the sub title of Darwin's major thesis: "The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". Darwin's white race just happens to be the one he favored as superior and to be preserved. Contrast this with the biblical world view, which holds that we are all ontologically identical at the foot of the cross. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, as we are all one in Christ." - Galatians 3.

So, the physical world around me and the evidence it contains compel me to hold that the universe was created, and that the theory of macro evolution is not supported by science or reason.

 

[pialia]

The very term "transitional fossil" is essentially a misconception.

From Talkorigins.org:

The misconception about the lack of transitional fossils is perpetuated in part by a common way of thinking about categories. When people think about a category like "dog" or "ant," they often subconsciously believe that there is a well-defined boundary around the category, or that there is some eternal ideal form (for philosophers, the Platonic idea) which defines the category. This kind of thinking leads people to declare that Archaeopteryx is "100% bird," when it is clearly a mix of bird and reptile features (with more reptile than bird features, in fact). In truth, categories are man-made and artificial. Nature is not constrained to follow them, and it doesn't.

Some Creationists claim that the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium was proposed (by Eldredge and Gould) to explain gaps in the fossil record. Actually, it was proposed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, not their total absence, and to explain why speciation appears to happen relatively quickly in some cases, gradually in others, and not at all during some periods for some species. In no way does it deny that transitional sequences exist. In fact, both Gould and Eldredge are outspoken opponents of Creationism.

"But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy." - Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, May 1994



Yet once again, this is Gould discussing "Punctuated Equilibria." It is best, perhaps, simply to allow Gould to defend himself, as he did in his article "Evolution as Fact and Theory", originally published in 1981:

[T]ransitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common -- and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. [He then discusses two examples: therapsid intermediaries between reptiles and mammals, and the half-dozen human species - found as of 1981 - that appear in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features.]

Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am -- for I have become a major target of these practices.

I count myself among the evolutionists who argue for a jerky, or episodic, rather than a smoothly gradual, pace of change. In 1972 my colleague Niles Eldredge and I developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We argued that two outstanding facts of the fossil record -- geologically "sudden" origin of new species and failure to change thereafter (stasis) -- reflect the predictions of evolutionary theory, not the imperfections of the fossil record. In most theories, small isolated populations are the source of new species, and the process of speciation takes thousands or tens of thousands of years. This amount of time, so long when measured against our lives, is a geological microsecond . . .

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.

- Gould, Stephen Jay 1983. "Evolution as Fact and Theory" in Hens Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., p. 258-260.

Gould, in this article and many more over the next twenty years, consistently and extensively explained his position and the evidence for evolution, including transitional forms found in the fossil record. The constant abuse of the body of Gould's life's work in the face of this is not merely dishonest, it is despicable.

I'd say there is a reason why an overwhelming majority of scientists (>99%) come out on one side of the matter, and it isn't ignorance. There would be no point in clinging to a hypotheses if it had no factual basis, they would be looking for a different way of explaining the phenomenon. The pursuit of knowledge should always take precedence over personal bias.

A few interesting reads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#pred4
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb98.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html

 

[JustAFleshWound]

Okay, here is my belief on creation. In a nut shell. I believe that God created in just the way that the Bible says. I also believe that the diversity of species we have now was not present until after the flood. After the flood we begin to see more species, as the now varying climates require them to adapt. This is an example of microevolution, which is an undisputed scientific fact, not Macroevolution which is an unproven hypothesis at best. Fun fact: Darwin said that if no legitimate transitional species were found, his theory should be thrown out! (I paraphrase)

 

[mwerner]

Funny... I've just finished writing a letter to one of the august Missouri legislators over his proposed bill to "teach the controversy" in public schools. That's creationist double-speak for getting creationism into the classroom through the back door....
I'm firmly on the side of science.
Big fan of Gould, Dawkins, Sagan; heavily read in the biological sciences (for a mere layman) and well familiar with the debate topics.

As noted, Darwinian Evolution does not address the origins of life. That would be "abiogenesis". Evolution only describes how organisms change over time as a result of mutational changes and external pressures.

The exact origin of life on Earth is still unknown, but there are valuable clues and though the event may have been very rare, at the same time most think essentially inevitable.
The basic building blocks exist in nature, after all, and the early Earth was a wonderful environment; a planet-wide stew of chemical reactions.

As to the origins of "everything"..... We can trace our universe's history back to the original singularity, the poorly-named "Big Bang". We understand the processes that followed that original expansion of the infinitely-hot and infinitely-dense primordial energy to allow the condensation of subatomic particles to atoms to first-generation stars to 2nd and 3rd generation stars with complex chemical elements and rocky planets (like ours) and so forth.

No one has a clue as to where that initial outburst of energy came from or what caused it or what was "before" that (physicists of one camp would maintain there is no "before")...
We don't know if our universe is just one of many or even an infinity of same.... The "cosmic foam" idea posits that there is an infinity of universes, each a bubble in the "foam").

So, to much of that we must simply and honestly say... We don't know.
With the qualification..."Yet."
I always caution that we've only been using the scientific method to observe the universe for a few hundred years. Yet, look how far we've come! We are now able to actually image extra-solar planets. Something that would have been thought impossible just a short time ago.
We understand that there is much more "out there" than we can presently observe, in the realm of "dark matter" and "dark energy".
So I always say... Give us time.

And aside from that... I would say that with all we have learned and observed, we have not one shred of evidence to indicate that our universe was "designed" or that anything other than natural processes at work in it's formation.

 

[cj65]

I will bite. I have not read this thread except for the OP.

I am a young earth Christian. I believe the world is under 8,000 yrs. old. I used to research this quite a bit, but really cannot convince anyone. I believe that carbon dating is flawed and not proof of "millions of years."

There are no transitional evolutionary evidence. Look at the Celeocanth prehistoric fish, that is still the same as it was current day.

I hope this thread can be done civilly.

I am not blindly faithful but close, if there is some conclusive evidence of an old earth, or of evolution, I am willing to look into it. Right now, life is way too busy for me to be searching this. I am struggling to make it to church on Sunday, and want to get better at that.

 

[cj65]

Okay, here is my belief on creation. In a nut shell. I believe that God created in just that the Bible says. I also believe that the diversity of species we have now was not present until after the flood. After the flood we begin to see more species, as the now varying climates require them to adapt. This is an example of microevolution, which is an undisputed scientific fact, not Macroevolution which is an unproven hypothesis at best. Fun fact: Darwin said that if no legitimate transitional species were found, his theory should be thrown out! (I paraphrase)

I could not have said it better.

 

[jaymack9100]

I believe that our universe, planet and man has evolved over billions of years, but I also believe that God was involved and responsible for everything. Our lives and this world is just too amazing to have evolved just by chance.

 

[SCMike]

I have a degree in biology, and I believe the Biblical account of creation. That doesn't mean I don't believe in evolution. I believe that God created life to adapt and change. We cannot fully understand the nature of God. An infinite God cannot be grasped by a finite mind. We can't fully understand a God who lives outside the four dimensions of His creation. Everything we have ever known and experienced exists inside those four dimensions. It's why we have such a hard time with questions such as: "Where did God come from?" We ask this because, in our experience, everything has a beginning and an end. Our perspective is fully limited by the physical dimensions of creation, including time. But God exists outside His created universe. He is beyond those dimensions, which He created. I don't think we can fully understand the act of His creation. The Biblical account of creation is His summary that we can understand. The Bible gives us no promise that it tells us everything. In fact, it tells us that there is much more that we don't know - and in fact, don't have the capability to know, at least not in this life. I have no problem thinking that evolution was involved in creation somehow.

 

[Modifier]

I am not christian nor atheist (muslim).
Regarding evolution, i found people on internet talking about it as a fact, so i made this to put what i found relevant.
http://evolutionfactormyth.blogspot.com/
The problem:
Fallacy of equivocation:

Evolutionists use undeniable examples of 'change over time' (variation) to prove 'the idea that all life has descended from a single common ancestor over millions of years via a net gain in new genetic information' (microbe-like-to-man evolution).

This inexcusable logic is called equivocation or the bait-and-switch fallacy, and occurs when someone changes the definition of a word halfway through an argument.
The supposed Evidence for Evolution is full of examples of 'change over time' as evidence for microbes-to-man evolution.

When an evolutionist claims that evolution is a fact, as almost all do, ask him what he means by the word 'evolution' and what facts he has to support this. No doubt 'evolution' will mean 'change over time' and the facts supporting it are simply examples of change over time, such as bacterial resistance (an example which everyone entirely agree with).

 

[Alvaro Candanedo]

As a physician, I can't believe in anything but evolution, in the sense that there is a corpus of scientific, proven facts that contradicts all the creationist theories. Wheter someone believes in God or not, that is a personal decision and it has to do with faith, not science.

 

[Modifier]

As a physician, I can't believe in anything but evolution, in the sense that there is a corpus of scientific, proven facts that contradicts all the creationist theories.

Can you explain (examples) ?

 

[Insipid Moniker]

Just a few quick points, nothing comprehensive.

Quantum particles appear from nothing with no discernible cause, a singularity event would be a quantum particle so why is it coming from nothing any less likely than it being created? Not exactly solid evidence of god.

Abiogenesis is the current prevailing theory about the origins of life. An Earth that was very hot in it's infancy would have massively reduced the time required for uncatalyzed bonding of amino acids, so basically heat + ingredients = life. If scientists not yet reproducing this in a lab is why you don't believe it, that's fine, I don't believe in god as scientists have been unable to get him to produce life from nothing in a lab either.

As far as transitional forms go, there are plenty. Feathered, winged dinosaurs like microraptor are probably the best known, but all species are essentially transitional forms. If there is pressure to change, change will happen. Well, that or extinction. Without that pressure the best any mutation can be considered is neutral and will probably be bred right back out in the larger population.

 

[T. Erdelyi]

I was raised Roman Catholic, was an alter boy and went to Catholic school from 2nd to 10th so I was force fed creationism, now I'm an armchair Episcopalian and 50+ years old so I believe in evolution but if ya boil it down to its essence I believe there is a higher power that started this roller coaster ride of evolution and creation.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/shoe-slideshow/20130308-tmsho130308-gif-photo-060426855.html

 

[Modifier]

I was raised Roman Catholic, was an alter boy and went to Catholic school from 2nd to 10th so I was force fed creationism, now I'm an armchair Episcopalian and 50+ years old so I believe in evolution but if ya boil it down to its essence I believe there is a higher power that started this roller coaster ride of evolution and creation.

Good reason

 

[Gollnick]

It was once an accepted scientific fact that the sun orbits the earth. And this is so obviously true. Look up and you will see it! Each morning, the sun rises in the east. It moves over the course of the day over our heads. And then it sets in the west in the evening. Today, we can use our telephone to call someone on the other side of the earth and they will confirm that as the sun sets for us, it is rising for them. So we know that as we sleep overnight, the sun continues in its orbit around the other side of the earth so that it will rise again in the east for us. The sun clearly and obviously orbits the earth. That was accepted scientific fact for about 500 years. It even had a name: the Ptolemaic Universe.

But then a man named Galileo Galilie built a new tool, a telescope. With his new tool, he was able to see things that didn't fit it to the Ptolemaic Universe. Very quickly, in a flurry of new discovery and new thought made possible by this new tool, the Ptolemaic model, this then-central-pilar of science and philosophy crumbled. The five-century reign of the Ptolemy and his science came to a sudden end.

There are many examples like this where the discovery of a new tool, a new way to gather facts, has quickly whisked away a long-accepted and well-established pilar.

Ptolemy's universe held sway for almost 500 years. Generations of scientists were born under it, learned it as established and accepted fact, based their life's work on it, taught it to their children and students and even to their grandchildren, and died believing it. No learned person questioned it. And yet it was wrong for every minute of those five hundred years.

There are many examples in the history of science that are very much like this where the discovery of a new tool, a new way to gather facts, has quickly whisked away a long-accepted and well-established pilar. There is an old adage about history: those who do not study it are destined to repeat it.

That this thing called evolution happens in nature all around us all the time is undeniable. The "evolution" of antibiotic-resistance in bacteria is an obvious example. We can cause it through selective-breeding in which we play the role of natural-selection and play it with especially-high-efficiency. We can select wheat to create a new strain with shorter, stronger stalks to resist wind damage. The is the opposite of what nature would select; nature prefers the taller plant that grows above the weeds around it and gets more sun light. But what we see and cause is very low-level differentiation. Shorter or taller wheat is still basically wheat. We can and have similarly selectively bred bacteria (today, we just use genetic manipulation, but that is not an evolutionary mechanism and, in fact, if anything, tends to support a creationist or "intelligent design" explaination of diversity as, instead of assuming the role of selection we take in the role of creator/designer). But when we are done, what we're left with is a new bacteria. We have never selectively-bred a bacteria and ended up with a multi-celled organism, much less an animal. And we have never seen that happen in nature either.

This is why evolution is a theory. And it is a theory that has a lot of weakness and holes in it. There are countless examples in nature of intricately-complex biological systems and structures that defy evolution and natural selection because they are composed of multiple interoperating parts none of which would, by itself, be an advantage but would, in fact, be a significant disadvantage.

Look no further than the common spider which weaves its web. To do so, it needs a gland that produces an amazing substance that science has only recently been able to understand and duplicate. It also needs a bladder to store that substance and to store it in exactly the right way so that it remains liquid. But that liquid is useless without an intricate and amazing organ that excretes that liquid in exactly the right way to cause it to form into a solid strand. Even all of that is of little value without the knowledge to use it and to weave a web. So this complex system has four major components. No one of those four components is useful without the others. And one of them would be a disadvantage by itself. Any two of the four are useless and an even bigger disadvantage. Even any three of the four are not useful. You need the whole four-part system. So how did that evolve? And why is it apparently not still evolving today?

There are just too many of this sort of question. Those who believe general evolution whisk these questions away with references to "missing links." "It's a big planet and we just haven't yet found the evidence of those intermediate steps. We just haven't dug in the right place yet. But the missing evidence will eventually be found; I'm sure of it." So your surety, your confidence, becomes the missing -- one could say "unseen" -- evidence. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. And so your confidence in the existence of these "missing links" and, therefore, in this unproven idea called the Theory of General Evolution becomes a form of faith. The adherents if it don't like to be accused of faith, but what other word is there for believing in something which is largely unproven?

In mathematics, one point says very little. Two points define a line. With three, you can start to make a curve. That bacteria exist says very little. That, with selection, we can change a characteristic of a bacteria allows us to draw a line, but not much more. To leap off of that line and predict that the bacteria can become complex animals is drawing a radical curve with only a few points. It's what statistics calls "extrapolation."

So what does a scientist say when asked about the origin of the diversity we see in life? Well, what he says is this: we don't know. The hallmark of a scientist is to say, "I don't know. We don't know."

We often look to science for knowledge and truth. But the truth is that science doesn't know everything. And when you extrapolate way beyond what is known, that becomes faith.