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To: Doctor Stochastic
Perhaps the points you make are what is confusing me.

The evolutionist side of the debate points to day 4, the 6000 year age, Noah flood and such and concludes that the creationism side of the debate is falsified.

The creationist side of the debate points to ambiogenesis, probability, irreducible complexity and such and concludes that the evolution side of the debate is falsified.

It seems that if falsification is good for the goose it ought to be good for the gander.

As you know, I'm not a player in this debate because I see both sides are true (my own view of origins.)

591 posted on 09/04/2002 10:27:57 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
The evolutionist side of the debate points to day 4, the 6000 year age, Noah flood and such and concludes that the creationism side of the debate is falsified.

The problem with the above is that most Christians do not think of a 6,000 year age for the universe as what is meant in the Bible. Your reconciliation of the Bible with the scientific facts for example is one reason. So this attack does not work except for a small proportion of Christians and does not address their beliefs.

The creationist side of the debate points to ambiogenesis, probability, irreducible complexity and such and concludes that the evolution side of the debate is falsified.

The interesting thing is that evolutionists, almost since Darwin, have been 'revising' the 'how' of their theory. It seems each time they propose a new explanation of how evolution takes place it is refuted by science. Even the fossil record, and particularly the Cambrian explosion is a big problem. As is also the 'descent' of man. Both IMHO also refute evolution.

However, perhaps the greatest refutation of evolutionism is perhaps their insulting attitude towards opponents. They talk down to those who disagree with them as if they were complete fools. They call them ignorant because they dare believe in God. They ascribe to them a hatred for science and an ignorance of it. This is all very untrue and very unfair. There are many scientists who are good believing Christians and they see no problem between their profession and their religion. In fact, many think that their research reinforces their religious beliefs. If evolution were scientifically true, it would not use such tactics to substantiate its beliefs. It would do what real scientists do, lay out the scientific facts which back up their theory.

595 posted on 09/05/2002 5:56:59 AM PDT by gore3000
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To: Alamo-Girl
No, the abiogenesis isn't falsified; it's still an active field of research. At on time, it was believed that no organic material could be produced from inorganic. The prevailing idea of "vitalism" was that organic materials could only be made by living creatures. In 1828, Friedrich Wohler synthesized urea from inorganic chemicals. Later experiments showed that rather complex molecules can be produced with not much input. The existence of complex organic molecules in instellar space also shows that inorganic matter can give rise to organic molecules (assuming there aren't living beings in space.) This doesn't prove that abiogenesis is possible, only that several (formerly considered insurmountable) barriers are not really that high. Of course, abiogenesis is irrelevant to evolutionary theory. Evolution only deals with changes in the living.

Most of the probability arguments are simply meaningless. Hugh Ross has a web page illustrating the problem. He has a bunch of numbers (without explanation of origin) claiming to be probabilities of things happening then he multiplies them together. As these are not probabilities of independent events (if they are probabilities at all), they cannot be meaningfully multiplied. An incorrect probability model yields incorrect information.

"Irreducibla complexity" is just snake oil. Most of it boils down to either incorrect use of the term "complexity" or of specifying one method of construction of an object and ignoring other methods. The mathematical theory of complexity has to do with the length of the description needed to define an object. Randomly created objects are very complex but highly organized objects are not. Dembski in particular seems to switch between random=complex and organized=complex a lot in his writings.

No part of Creationism can be falsified; Creationism is logically indistinguishabe from Last Thursdaysim (the theory that the world was created Last Thursday, memories and all). One can easily show the non-existance of a world wide flood in historical times but if a Creator is invoked to create a flood, he could have erased the traces just as easily. Creationism is not science and would be irrelevant to scientific inquiry were the Creationists not trying to get the government involved in pushing their ideas as science. (I think the government should get out of the science business entirely. If the government is going to fund or teach science, the best current thinking must be supported or taught.)
598 posted on 09/05/2002 7:31:29 AM PDT by Doctor Stochastic
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