Path led from science to faith: The design is apparent to many

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | 12/27/03 | Bob DeWaay

[rhema]

I read with interest Gregory Korgeski's Dec. 13 counterpoint decrying creationism and fundamentalism. After learning that no "reputable" scientists endorse creationism, I learned that fundamentalists who take their sacred texts literally are dangerous to the well-being of society.

These arguments are self-serving in that they admit no evidence to the contrary. In Korgeski's thought, being a creationist makes you disreputable and being a fundamentalist makes you a likely menace to society.

I was raised in a church that taught that the Bible was mostly mythology, that there were no miracles, and that evolution was true. Seeing no need for religion, I left the church and took up the study of science.

As a chemical engineering student at Iowa State University I was required to study organic chemistry. I studied the complexity of molecules in the body that made life possible. That study convinced me that evolution was impossible and that life had to come from an intelligent designer.

The church led me away from belief in God and science led me to it. I became a Christian and began to study the Bible for myself. Now I am a "fundamentalist" preacher.

My fundamentalism means that as a Christian I am committed to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. These teachings are so rigorous that they show me my sins and failings. However, they offer forgiveness as a free gift of God's grace through what Christ did for me on the cross. But what about these "dangerous" fundamental teachings? Let me explain just a few of them to those who find us "fundamentalists" to be dangerous.

Jesus and his apostles taught us to not take revenge, but turn the other cheek when attacked (Matthew 5:39). Jesus taught his followers to pay their taxes (Matthew 22:17-21).

The apostle Paul taught all Christians to pray for their civil leaders, whoever they may be (1Timothy 2:1, 2). . . .

< snip >

Back to Korgeski's article -- I wonder, given the lack of any authoritative text, the lack of a supreme "law giver," and the lack of any rational explanation of how moral guidance "evolved" from random processes, how Korgeski can take it upon himself to give his readers moral guidance. At least we fundamentalists have a source of moral guidance outside of the fickle "self."

Bob DeWaay is pastor of Twin City Fellowship in Minneapolis.

[Biblical Concepts]

Nice Post. For my comments see http://www.a-zbiblicalconcepts.org/evolution.htm

[Ichneumon]

Actually, the complexity by mere human reason alone, should lead one to God since Supernatural design took place.

Um, okay -- why?

To point out just one of the gaping holes in your line of "reasoning", you have not ruled out the possibility that an unimaginably advanced alien civilization used their vast technology to create life on Earth for reasons of their own. So it's an unsupportable leap for you to go from "gee, life on Earth is gosh-darn complex", to "therefore only an all-powerful supernatural God could have done it". Your conclusion does not follow.

The evidence points one to God since it cannot be explained by evolution.

Sure it can. And the direction that all the evidence points is toward the conclusion that modern life *did* arise that way.

Yeah, evolutionists keep coming up with new "theories" but they don't pan out. There is always a new crop to take their place when even an evolutionist can no longer defend it. And on and on it goes.

What on earth are you talking about? Your description bears almost no resemblance to the history or current state of evolutionary science. What do you imagine has not "panned out"? I can't think of a single aspect of Darwin's original multifaceted description in his 1849 "On the Origin of Species" which has been invalidated, nor has any development of the theory since then been found to be faulty. There have certainly been modifications to some of the *details* of what we know about the *history* of life on Earth, as new evidence has been uncovered, but that's hardly the same as saying that the *theory* has required any major overhauls.

Are you sure you know the field well enough to properly critique it?

It's pride on not being wrong and thinking they know more than God that keeps them going - similar to the fall of Satan.

Ah, there you go again... Stop trying to be an amateur psychoanalyst, you're not very good at it.

You remind me of someone, who could it be... Hmm... Ah, I've got it: "Could it be... SATAN?!?"

I's no surprise our country at large and academia in particular rejects the Judeo Christian God in all forms.

"I's no surprise" that you don't understand why people might disagree with you.

[Ichneumon]

Some will always have "faith" in evolution even though it is not feasible.

...because...?

Me thinks it takes a HUGE leap of "faith" to buy into random chaos creating complexity that we still can't understand rather than God.

It doesn't take "a HUGE leap of 'faith'" to realize that evolution can create great complexity, it takes understanding -- understanding of the processes, evidence, statistical effects, mathematical relationships, and so on.

And God is an infinitely greater camel to swallow.

[Finalapproach29er]

Can't believe the Red star printed this.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

No scoffer, in the end, you are the Camel that will be swallowed.

You had better pray that you truely will simply cease to exist. That would be your only hope when your life comes to it's end.

And all the knowlege that your small ego posesses will pale in the empty vacuum of the nothingness that you worship......

[WackyKat]

No scoffer, in the end, you are the Camel that will be swallowed. You had better pray that you truely will simply cease to exist. That would be your only hope when your life comes to it's end. And all the knowlege that your small ego posesses will pale in the empty vacuum of the nothingness that you worship......,

And what if you're mistaken, and are worshipping the wrong god?

Whatever your religion is, most people in the world don't share it and think you are the one who is doomed

What makes you so special and sure you're right?

[NMR Guy]

Just as a point of reference, I have multiple degrees in chemistry, work for a large biotech, and I am wholly unconvinced by evolutionary theory. I am not the only one.

99+% of scientists in the field of biology accept evolution as the explanation for how modern life came to be.

I assure you that's not true.

[Ichneumon]

It's been my experience that chemists in general are pretty skeptical of the claims of the hard-core evolutionists. They make a good case when talking about the big picture but do a lot of hand-waving when it comes to the details.

If you think it's just "a lot of hand-waving when it comes to the details", then you clearly haven't been following the literature. Start spending some time in any well-stocked library browsing the dozens of journals which deal specifically with this topic, such as The Journal of Molecular Evolution:

I'm comfortable with the idea of, say, chimps and gorillas evolving from a common ancestor but the notion that complicated mechanisms such as blood clotting and vision "just happened" is a real stretch on the molecular level.

Odd you should say that, since the evolution of the blood clotting mechanism is pretty well understood now, and its "paper trail" has been extracted from cross-species DNA studies of the relevant genes.

See for example The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Clotting, or The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation as viewed from a comparison of puffer fish and sea squirt genomes. Excerpt from the latter paper:

It is thought that 50–100 million years separate the appearances of urochordates (which include the sea squirt) and vertebrates. During that time the machinery for thrombin-catalyzed fibrin formation had to be concocted by gene duplication and the shuffling about of key modular domains. The relative times of duplicative events can be estimated by various means, the most obvious being the presence or absence of a gene in earlier diverging organisms, although it must be kept in mind that lineages may lose genes. Another way to gauge events is from the relative positions of various gene products on phylogenetic trees, earlier branching implying earlier appearance. In this regard, (pro)thrombin invariably appears lower on the phylogenetic trees than do the other vitamin K-dependent factors (Fig. 2).

The order of events can also be inferred by considering the most parsimonious route to assembling the various clusters of peripheral domains. Nine of the proteases under discussion can be accounted for by six domain-swapping events (Fig. 5). Indeed, the presence of a multiple-kringle protease in the sea squirt genome provides a reasonable model for a step-by-step parallel evolution of the clotting and lysis systems. It should be noted that a serine protease with only one kringle has been found in the ascidian Herdmania momus (36). Although numerous scenarios have been offered in the past about how modular exchange was involved in generating these schemes (refs. 4, 12, and 37–41, inter alia), the new genomic data now provide a realistic set of starting materials.

Also, Evolution of enzyme cascades from embryonic development to blood coagulation:

Recent delineation of the serine protease cascade controlling dorsal-ventral patterning during Drosophila embryogenesis allows this cascade to be compared with those controlling clotting and complement in vertebrates and invertebrates. The identification of discrete markers of serine protease evolution has made it possible to reconstruct the probable chronology of enzyme evolution and to gain new insights into functional linkages among the cascades. Here, it is proposed that a single ancestral developmental/immunity cascade gave rise to the protostome and deuterostome developmental, clotting and complement cascades. Extensive similarities suggest that these cascades were built by adding enzymes from the bottom of the cascade up and from similar macromolecular building blocks.

That was the abstract. An excerpt from the text:

The downstream protease of the vertebrate clotting cascade (Fig. 1d), thrombin, belongs to the same lineage as complement factors C1r and C1s. The upstream and middle proteases of the clotting cascade (factors VII, IX and X) belong to the most modern lineage, that of horseshoe crab clotting factor C. Therefore, the lineage of thrombin is parental to that of the upstream and middle proteases of the clotting cascade (Table 1) and distinguishes it from the other vitamin-K-dependent clotting proteases (factors VII, IX and X, and protein C). This conclusion agrees with sequence and species comparisons implying that thrombin was the ancestral blood-clotting protein [11]. It also suggests that vertebrate blood clotting emerged as a by-product of innate immunity, because the entire functional core of vertebrate clotting shares ancestry with complement proteases.

And if that's not enough, you could check these out:

Banyai, L., Varadi, A. and Patthy, L. (1983). “Common evolutionary origin of the fibrin-binding structures of fibronectin and tissue-type plasminogen activator.” FEBS Letters, 163(1): 37-41. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6685059&dopt=Abstract

Bazan, J. F. (1990). “Structural design and molecular evolution of a cytokine receptor superfamily.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 87(18): 6934-6938. Link: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=2169613

Blake, C. C. F., Harlos, K. and Holland, S. K. (1987). “Exon and Domain Evolution in the Proenzymes of Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology: The Evolution of Catalytic Function, LII: 925-932. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3454300&dopt=Abstract

Crabtree, G. R. (1986). “The Molecular Genetics of Fibrinogen.” Journal of Cellular Biochemistry Supplement(10 PART A): 229.  

Crabtree, G. R., Comeau, C. M., Fowlkes, D. M., Fornace, A. J., Jr., Malley, J. D. and Kant, J. A. (1985). “Evolution and structure of the fibrinogen genes: Random insertion on introns or selective loss?” Journal of Molecular Biology, 185(1): 1-20.  

Di Cera, E., Dang, Q. D. and Ayala, Y. M. (1997). “Molecular mechanisms of thrombin function.” Cell Mol Life Sci, 53(9): 701-730.  

Doolittle, R. F. (1985). “More homologies among the vertebrate plasma proteins.” Biosci Rep, 5(10-11): 877-884. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3938299&dopt=Abstract

Doolittle, R. F. (1990). “The Structure and Evolution of Vertebrate Fibrinogen A Comparison of the Lamprey and Mammalian Proteins,” in ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY: FIBRINOGEN, THROMBOSIS, COAGULATION, AND FIBRINOLYSIS. C. Y. Liu and Chien, S. New York, Plenum Press. 281. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2102616&dopt=Abstract

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “A detailed consideration of a principal domain of vertebrate fibrinogen and its relatives.” Protein Science, 1(12): 1563-1577. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1304888&dopt=Abstract

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “Early Evolution of the Vertebrate Fibrinogen Molecule.” Biophysical Journal, 61(2 PART 2): A410.  

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “Early Evolution of the Vertebrate Fibrinogen Molecule.” FASEB Journal, 6(1): A410.  

Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “Stein and Moore Award address. Reconstructing history with amino acid sequences.” Protein Science, 1(2): 191-200. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1339026&dopt=Abstract

*Doolittle, R. F. (1993). “The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation - a Case of Yin and Yang.” Thrombosis and Haemostasis, V70(N1): 24-28. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8236110&dopt=Abstract

Doolittle, R. F. and Feng, D. F. (1987). “Reconstructing the Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation from a Consideration of the Amino Acid Sequences of Clotting Proteins.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology: The Evolution of Catalytic Function, LII: 869-874. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3483343&dopt=Abstract

Doolittle, R. F., G., Spraggon and J., Everse S. (1997). “Evolution of vertebrate fibrin formation and the process of its dissolution.” Ciba Found Symp, 212: 4-17; discussion 17-23. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9524761&dopt=Abstract

Doolittle, R. F. and Riley, M. (1990). “The amino-terminal sequence of lobster fibrinogen reveals common ancestry with vitellogenins.” Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 167(1): 16-19. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2310387&dopt=Abstract

Edgington, T. S., Curtiss, L. K. and Plow, E. F. (1985). “A linkage between the hemostatic and immune systems embodied in the fibrinolytic release of lymphocyte suppressive peptides.” Journal of Immunology, 134(1): 471-477.  

Ghidalia, W., Vendrely, R., Montmory, C., Coirault, Y., Samama, M., Lucet, B., Bellay, A. M. and Vergoz, D. (1989). “Overall study of the in vitro plasma clotting system in an invertebrate, Liocarcinus puber (Crustacea Decapoda): Considerations on the structure of the Crustacea plasma fibrinogen in relation to evolution.” Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, 53(2): 197-205.  

Hervio, L. S., Coombs, G. S., Bergstrom, R. C., Trivedi, K., Corey, D. R. and Madison, E. L. (2000). “Negative selectivity and the evolution of protease cascades: the specificity of plasmin for peptide and protein substrates.” Chemistry & Biology, V7(N6): 443-452.  

Hewett-Emmett, D., Czelusniak, J. and Goodman, M. (1981). “The evolutionary relationship of the enzymes involved in blood coagulation and hemostasis.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 370(20): 511-527.  

Holland, S. K., Harlos, K. and Blake, C. C. F. (1987). “Deriving the generic structure of the fibronectin type II domain from the prothrombin Kringle 1 crystal structure.” EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) Journal, 6(7): 1875-1880.  

Jordan, R. E. (1983). “Antithrombin in vertebrate species: conservation of the heparin-dependent anticoagulant mechanism.” Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 227(2): 587-595.  

Kant, J. A., Fornace, A. J., Jr., Saxe, D., Simon, M. J., McBride, O. W. and Crabtree, G. R. (1985). “Evolution and organization of the fibrinogen locus on chromosome 4: Gene duplication accompanied by transposition and inversion.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 82(8): 2344-2348.  

Kornblihtt, A. R., Pesce, C. G., Alonso, C. R., Cramer, P., Srebrow, A., Werbajh, S. and Muro, A. F. (1996). “The fibronectin gene as a model for splicing and transcription studies.” FASEB Journal, 10(2): 248-257.  

Laki, K. (1972). “Our ancient heritage in blood clotting and some of its consequences.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 202(4): 297-307.  

Neurath, H. (1984). “Evolution of proteolytic enzymes.” Science, 224(4647): 350-357. Link: http://www.jstor.org/journals/00368075.html

Neurath, H. (1986). “The Versatility of Proteolytic Enzymes.” Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, 32(1): 35-50.  

Neurath, H. (1986). “The Versatility of Proteolytic Enzymes.” Journal of Cellular Biochemistry Supplement(10 PART A): 229.  

Oldberg, A. and Ruoslahti, E. (1986). “Evolution of the fibronectin gene: Exon structure of cell attachment domain.” Journal of Biological Chemistry, 261(5): 2113-2116.  

Opal, S. M. (2000). “Phylogenetic and functional relationships between coagulation and the innate immune response.” Critical Care Medicine, V28(N9 SUPPS): S77-S80.  

Pan, Y. and Doolittle, R. F. (1991). “Distribution of Introns in Lamprey Fibrinogen Genes.” Journal of Cellular Biochemistry Supplement(15 PART D): 75.  

Pan, Y. and Doolittle, R. F. (1992). “cDNA sequence of a second fibrinogen alpha chain in lamprey: an archetypal version alignable with full-length beta and gamma chains.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 89(6): 2066-2070. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1549566&dopt=Abstract

Patthy, L. (1985). “Evolution of the Proteases of Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis by Assembly from Modules.” Cell, 41(3): 657-664. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3891096&dopt=Abstract

Patthy, L. (1990). “Evolution of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis.” Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis, 1(2): 153-166. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2130927&dopt=Abstract

Patthy, L. (1990). “Evolutionary Assembly of Blood Coagulation Proteins.” Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis, 16(3): 245-259. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2237446&dopt=Abstract

Patthy, L. (1999). “Genome evolution and the evolution of exon-shuffling—a review.” Gene, 238(1): 103-114. Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10570989&dopt=Abstract

Roberts, Lewis R., Nichols, Lanita A. and Holland, Lene J. (1995). “CDNA and amino-acid sequences and organization of the gene encoding the B-beta subunit of fibrinogen from Xenopus laevis.” Gene (Amsterdam), 160(2): 223-228.  

Sosnoski, D. M., Emanuel, B. S., Hawkins, A. L., Van Tuinen, P., Ledbetter, D. H., Nussbaum, R. L., Kaos, F. T., Schwartz, E., Phillips, D. and et al. (1988). “Chromosomal localization of the genes for the vitronectin and fibronectin receptors .alpha. subunits and for platelet glycoproteins IIb and IIIa.” Journal of Clinical Investigation, 81(6): 1993-1998.  

Wang, Y. Z., Patterson, J., Gray, J. E., Yu, C., Cottrell, B. A., Shimizu, A., Graham, D., Riley, M. and Doolittle, R. F. (1989). “Complete sequence of the lamprey fibrinogen .alpha. chain.” Biochemistry, 28(25): 9801-9806.  

Xu, X. and Doolittle, R. F. (1990). “Presence of a vertebrate fibrinogen-like sequence in an echinoderm.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 87(6): 2097-2101. Link: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=2315305

Zhang, Y. L., Hervio, L., Strandberg, L. and Madison, E. L. (1999). “Distinct contributions of residue 192 to the specificity of coagulation and fibrinolytic serine proteases.” Journal of Biological Chemistry, V274(N11): 7153-7156. Link: http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/full/274/11/7153

Zimmermann, E. (1983). “[The evolution of the coagulation system from primitive defense mechanisms].” Behring Institute Mitteilungen, 82(73): 1-12.  

And so on...

Similarly, there's a lot known about the evolutionary pathway of the vertebrate eye. And I'm not sure what you mean about the "complicated mechanisms" at the "molecular level" of the eye, since light-sensitive nerves are pretty straightforward, and a known variation on the chemistry of pre-existing non-photosensitive nerves. The rest of the eye is actually pretty simple on a molecular level.

Finally, I hope you understand that when you say "just happened", that that's an extremely poor description of what actually takes place when evolution is occurring.

[jennyp]

Hi, Ich! Here's something new you might find relevant for the 14C article you're working on.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Those are all merely opinions based upon raw theory. In the few short years that mankind has developed this belief; Somehow, you have come to understand that all things in the Universe were the result of a singular, random chaotic event?

After which, all laws, elements, and forces follow strict patterns or rules, there emerges this great Universal order that holds it all together? Yet, ironicly, Evolution preaches just the opposite.

Your mass volumes of other peoples' opinions that share the same belief system, still do not make it valid, other than the fact that you unknowingly share a fragmented religion, that bases it's doctrine upon utter futility.

[Ichneumon]

[99+% of scientists in the field of biology accept evolution as the explanation for how modern life came to be.]

I assure you that's not true.

I assure you that my wife, Morgan Fairchild, disagrees with you.

[rimshot]

I can't at the moment locate the citation for that (I read it several months ago), but here's something in the ballpark:

"By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science..."
-- Newsweek , 6/29/87, Page 23

By that measure, support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms is a whopping 0.14% (99.86% opposed).

I've got firmer stats at hand on beliefs among scientists in general (not just biology-related), which as I stated earlier is around 90% accepting of evolution.

11/97 Gallup poll of scientists:

Q1: God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.
5%

Q2: Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation.
40%

Q3: Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process.
55%

Or from Ohio scientists give opinions on intelligent design versus evolution:

Most all of Ohio's science professors (92 percent) thought "Ohio high school students should be tested on their understanding of the basic principles of the theory of evolution in order to graduate." Scientist responded negatively (90percent) to the testing about the knowledge of "intelligent design" as a requirement to graduate.

[...] the vast majority (93 percent) of science professors said they were not aware of "any scientifically valid evidence or an alternative scientific theory that challenges the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution."

[...]

Nine out of 10 scientists (91 percent) felt the concept of intelligent design was unscientific and the same number responded that it was a religious view

Ninety percent of the responding scientists stated that they felt no scientific evidence supports intelligent design, while 2 percent were unsure

Some 84 percent felt acceptance of the evolution theory was "consistent with believing in God"

And here are dozens of Statements from Scientific and Scholarly Organizations concerning evolution. For example:

"The fossil record of vertebrates unequivocally supports the hypothesis that vertebrates have evolved through time, from their first records in the early Paleozoic Era about 500 million years ago to the great diversity we see in the world today. The hypothesis has been strengthened by so many independent observations of fossil sequences that it has come to be regarded as a confirmed fact, as certain as the drift of continents through time or the lawful operation of gravity."
[...]
Evolution is fundamental to the teaching of good biology and geology, and the vertebrate fossil record is an excellent set of examples of the patterns and processes of evolution through time. We therefore urge the teaching of evolution as the only possible reflection of our science. Any attempt to compromise the patterns and processes of evolution in science education, to treat them as less than robust explanations, or to admit "alternative" explanations not relying upon sound evolutionary observations and theory, misrepresents the state of our science and does a disservice to the public. Textbooks and other instructional materials should not indulge in such misrepresentation, educators should shun such materials for classroom use, and teachers should not be harassed or impeded from teaching vertebrate evolution as it is understood by its practitioners. The record of vertebrate evolution is exciting, inspirational, instructive, and enjoyable, and it is our view that everyone should have the opportunity and the privilege to understand it as paleontologists do."
-- SOCIETY OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY (1994)

[Ichneumon]

Those are all merely opinions based upon raw theory.

Wow, I'm amazed that you managed to look up and read all those papers in only 40 minutes. I mean, how else could you actually make an informed judgment on whether or not they could be dismissed so out of hand as you have?

In the few short years that mankind has developed this belief; Somehow, you have come to understand that all things in the Universe were the result of a singular, random chaotic event?

No. Next time please try to address what I've actually written instead of what you fantasize I might have said.

After which, all laws, elements, and forces follow strict patterns or rules, there emerges this great Universal order that holds it all together?

See above.

Yet, ironicly, Evolution preaches just the opposite.

No it doesn't, but thanks for playing.

Your mass volumes of other peoples' opinions that share the same belief system, still do not make it valid, other than the fact that you unknowingly share a fragmented religion, that bases it's doctrine upon utter futility.

Um... Okay.

[Viking2002]

Gregory Korgeski is another heathen who should be locked away in a cage.

[Prime Choice]

Yeah, evolutionists keep coming up with new "theories" but they don't pan out.

That's the whole point of scientific theory: to propose an explanation by which quantifiable and consistently-reproducible scientific predictions may be made. Once the theory is proposed, then comes the long and arduous testing by which the theory is either supported or discounted.

Contrary to the popular notion, all of science is theory. Even the much-vaunted "law of gravity" (and other misnamed "laws" of science) is nothing more than a theory which can be readily abandoned if a better theory is proposed with stronger evidence to support it.

I personally don't understand why some people think that faith and science are in competition. It isn't that way at all. Science can only tell us the 'what' and the 'how' of things. Only our faith in the Almighty can answer the 'why.' In concert, faith should neither detract from science, nor vice-versa. If anything, they complement one another quite well.

[non-anonymous]

Thank you for a most reasonable point of view. :)

On one hand, I think creationists need to consider the correctness of their Genesis interpretation; God created the universe, but perhaps it's not right to assume we know how, when, and how fast. On the other hand, science-minded folks need to realize that while reason and empiricism do lead to truth, they don't lead to ALL truths.

For the creationists, start with asking whether the literal interpretation is the true historical perspective; for the evolutionists, Godel's incompleteness theorem is an interesting place to start.

[Ahban]

Those papers show how the rules of science change for evolution. The standard for evolutionary "proof" seems to be "if I can propose a method by which something conceptually MIGHT have happened, then you must believe that it DID happen, or else you are an ignorant, Bible-thumping fundamentalist looney."

This lasts until further experiment disproves the hypothesis, at which point they fail away and concoct a new hypothesis, which guys like yourself somehow seem certain of.

That is not the standard for any other branch of science. You have to show how it happening, not merely construct an often untestable hypothesis of how it MIGHT have happened.

Also, do you think you have ever committed a sin (I freely but shamefully confess that I sin dailey).

[aquawrench]

You want some good science supporting creationism?
www.reasons.org

[RaceBannon]

evolution requires more faith to believe than Creation.

[ikka]

What do you have concerning the development of the Krebs cycle?

[BibChr]

Great clip!